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Search: Symposium on the Functional Approach to the Law of Occupation

01 Dec

does not inspire confidence for the future of constitutional comparativism. Unlike in Makwanyane, the Court all but ignored comparative law and severely discounted the importance of international law. It recognized that while there is no international law support for gay marriage, neither does international law expressly prohibit it. “[W]hile it is true that international law expressly protects heterosexual marriage, it is not true that it does so in a way that necessarily excludes equal recognition being given now or in the future to the right of same-sex couples…” (para. 105)....
01.12.05 | |

02 May

...exception of genocide. The case is not in doubt, and what is at stake is the honor, institutional integrity, and public safety of the United States. These people must be prosecuted and punished for their crimes. If we are truly a nation of laws, not men, then the LAW must take it's course and render impartial justice. And I'm having a real hard time understanding why so many lawyers like Roger Alford, Julian Ku, and Ken Anderson think that enforcing or obeying our laws is such a bad idea. Except...
02.05.09 | |

15 Mar

[Charles C. Jalloh is a Professor of Law at Florida International University. He previously served as a legal adviser in the Special Court for Sierra Leone and is founder of the Center for International Law and Policy in Africa based in Freetown. His related works include, as editor, The Sierra Leone Special Court and Its Legacy: The Impact for Africa and International Criminal Law (Cambridge, 2015). This essay was initially prepared at the request of FIU Law Review for its micro-symposium on The Legal Legacy of the Special Court for Sierra Leone by Charles C. Jalloh...
15.03.21 | |

12 Aug

...recognition of the right to development, etc.). By reconciling international human rights law and international economic law, the AfCFTA would take a human-centered approach that seeks, ab initio, to avoid the marginalization and exclusion that appears to be a consequence of privileging markets over people. Three possibilities are explored below. International Economic Law Subsumes Human Rights The AfCFTA Agreement’s Preamble recognizes “free movement of persons, capital, goods and services” as well as “the importance of … democracy, human rights, gender equality and the rule of law, for the development of...
12.08.19 | |

10 Oct

as we now must admit, is that international law and appeal to Western sensibilities will not stop the genocide. The ICJ, the ICC, and the entire infrastructure of international law were never designed to protect the colonized or the oppressed. As Mohsen al Attar aptly describes, we must scrutinize the role international law plays not just as a flawed system, but as ‘a system designed to fail the colonized’.  The ‘Iron Wall’ of Western Academia  The response of universities to protests, encampments, and direct action was to mimic Jabotensky’s Iron...
10.10.24 | |

11 Mar

...judicial application of international law is anti-democratic. From the perspective of Ely’s theory, it is the constitutionalization of American law, not the internationalization of American law, that is anti-democratic. Moreover, if courts apply international law intelligently, judicial reliance on international law can provide a partial solution to the problem of excessive reliance on constitutional law. No doubt, the approach I am suggesting here – using international law as an alternative to constitutional adjudication – sounds radical to modern lawyers. But this proposal would not have seemed radical to the Founding...
11.03.07 | |

01 Nov

candidate for this year’s ILC elections. Focus on Professor Phoebe Okowa Professor Phoebe Okowa is a venerable Professor of Public International Law at Queen Mary University of London, with over 25 years of experience in advocacy, consultancy and academia particularly in the area of Public International Law. Her work in the field cuts across national and international levels focusing on public international law, private international law, international environmental law, international criminal law and international humanitarian law. The Kenyan government has presented the distinguished Professor as their nominee to the International...
01.11.21 | |

16 Sep

Law Making, Interpretation, Compliance, and Global Legal Structure,” recounts some basic lessons about international law from realist and hybrid approaches that employ realist elements. Realism is powerful for explaining international law making, constraints on judicial interpretation of it, and compliance– which are the microfoundations of realism’s insights about the global structure of international law. The effect of structural change on international law is exemplified by a realist history of international law since the Second World War. The concluding section suggests the importance of realism for advancing the science and art...
16.09.13 | |

22 Apr

argument about a change from a contract to rule-of-law conception of international law is in direct contrast to law and economics scholars, some of whom would prefer that international law remain a voluntary agreement between governments. I also dismiss the idea that national constitutions serve as a fundamental barrier to following international law, arguing that understandings about the meaning of the constitutional words on paper shift over time (p. 293-4). I argue that “[w]here states and judges do not want to draw on international law, they invoke national legal barriers...
22.04.14 | |

08 May

...ante la Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nacion,” ¶ 4.) 3) If there is no right to abortion under international law – the Amnesty position circa 2005 – what then is the source of such obligations which Amnesty was touting after its 2007 policy switch? Did what was commonly understood to be the basis of obligations in international law change so radically in two years? 4) As I think Prof. Ku would agree, there are generally two sources of international obligations– treaty law, and customary international law. Principally, a...
08.05.09 | |

14 Mar

[Michael D. Ramsey is Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law] I join the other symposium participants in congratulating Curtis Bradley on a thoughtful, insightful and balanced treatment of an important topic. This post briefly addresses his discussion of international law and war powers in the U.S. legal system (principally, Chapter 10 of the book) while noting some areas of agreement and disagreement. Bradley’s central message here is that international law plays a role in shaping U.S. war powers, but “[m]uch of the interpretation and...
14.03.13 | |

14 Apr

own part, and I’m afraid this will be contentious – what is correctly described as a stunning lack of common sense says something broader about this edifice of public international law. Viz., that if it is a system of law, then it is a system of law whose systemic outcome turns out to be transnational political disorder. I have suggested elsewhere that the ideology of transnational law is important for the Obama administration (following on Eric Posner’s remarks) primarily as a mechanism for moving US law internal to the United...
14.04.09 | |