Search: Symposium on the Functional Approach to the Law of Occupation
03 Feb Medellín, the Alien Tort Statute, and the Domestic Status of International Law
...law governing the extraterritorial conduct at issue? Stated differently, if a case involves extraterritorial conduct and effects, and parties other than the U.S. government or a U.S. national (e.g. Filartiga), is any domestic law even potentially applicable as such? Clearly, U.S. courts can apply foreign law as the law governing extraterritorial conduct without "domesticating" the foreign rule of decision. In such cases, the conflict of laws rule is domestic, but the foreign law rule of decision that it requires to be applied is not. It is, as they say, "discovered"...
07 Jul Customary International Law Symposium: Making Sense of Law as Practice (Or: Why Custom Doesn’t Crystallize)
[Jutta Brunnée is University Professor and Metcalf Chair in Environmental Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Toronto.] With her provocative new article Making Sense of Customary Law, Monica Hakimi challenges doctrinalists as well as theorists of international law to engage in a sophisticated conversation about a classical problem: how do we know when customary international law (CIL) exists as “a general practice accepted as law”? Monica argues that “orthodox” accounts of custom are overly concerned with identifying stable primary rules (i.e. rules regulating behavior) and, to...11 Dec Top International Law Journal Or Mid-Level Mainline Journal?
Washington & Lee Law School’s “Most Cited Legal Periodical List” there is now objective data to assist in making such choices. According to that website these are the top ten international law journals in terms of citations (excluding Tulane Law Review which I don’t count as a true international law journal), together with their overall rank among all law journals: 1. American Journal of International Law (#18)2. Virginia Journal of International Law (#54)3. Fordham International Law Journal (#61)4. American Journal of Comparative Law (#69)5. American University International Law Review (#75)6....26 Oct The Mary Ellen O’Connell and Benjamin Wittes Debate on Targeted Killing and Drone Warfare
well. The Obama administration has reasons given its preferred domestic law lens of the AUMF for relying on the first. There is nothing wicked or bad faith about that; the international law views are plausible and offered in good faith, and if it sees one as meshing better with its domestic law views, that is fine, too. But notice how different this approach to “international law” – regardless of whether one agrees with the specific legal judgments being made, the general approach is the traditional one of the State Department...
02 Sep Soft Law: How to Improve Its Democratic Legitimacy While Ensuring Effective Governmental Action in Foreign Affairs
regarded as a source of international law and there is no obligation to implement them (hence ‘soft’). Accordingly, it is necessary to distinguish between soft law and ‘top level’ (international law) and ‘bottom level’ rules (pure political declarations of intent, benchmarking and best practices) as a means of shaping international relations. From Switzerland’s perspective, soft law pose several challenges (as duly noted in a recent roundtable on soft law held at the Council of Europe). While allowing a faster response to global issues, soft law instruments are more susceptible to...23 Jun Let’s Call Killing al-Awlaki What It Still Is — Murder
because international law entitles only the members of a state’s regular armed forces to participate in hostilities, the CIA had no authority under international law to use armed force against al-Awlaki. The CIA is not part of the US’s regular armed forces. There is, of course, an obvious response to that objection: namely, that the availability of the PAJ depends on domestic US law, not on international law, so it is irrelevant whether the CIA had the right under international law to used armed force against al-Awlaki. Because AQAP was...23 May Pledging American Exceptionalism: US Supreme Court Justice Gorsuch on International Law
law provisions in contracts. But that is typically a question of foreign law, not international law. Certainly, both are non-American law. Yet the two of them raise distinct questions, particularly given that the United States contributes to the formation of international law, is bound by international law, and has hooks in its Constitution for looking to international law. As for when Gorsuch says that treaties sometimes require you to look at international law … I feel like telling him that, actually, treaties are international law. I have been critical elsewhere...19 Nov Chertoff on International Law
can help these persons understand that international law is OUR law and they as well as us are to comply with that law. Thus, when Chertoff as head of the Criminal Division of Justice gave advice and comfort to torturers in other government agencies by agreeing that if certain harsh interrogation techniques were used then the Criminal Division would not prosecute he should understand that as a matter of domestic (war crimes) and international law that was wrong. But the domestic law doctrine of prosecutorial discretion which might be of...19 Apr Charming Betsy in the Ninth Circuit
that “the customs and usages” of the nations of the world, as revealed in these and other sources, form customary international law entitling them to higher wages. This claim fails because customary international law is not a source of judicially enforceable private rights in the absence of a statute conferring jurisdiction over such claims. See Princz v. Federal Republic of Germany, 26 F.3d 1166, 1174 n. 1 (D.C.Cir.1994) (“While it is true that ‘international law is part of our law,’ it is also our law that a federal court is...13 Apr Catherine Powell at HuffPo on Koh and Customary International Law
Catherine Powell has an essay at Huffington Post responding to those criticizing Harold Koh for his views on customary international law. She writes: Harold Koh’s position that customary international law is a form of federal common law reflects the conventional view since the founding of the nation. For over 200 years, Congress, the courts, and the Executive Branch have recognized that each branch has authority to observe customary international law (or, the law of nations) as part of federal law. Such customary norms include basic rules governing international business transactions,...