Search: Symposium on the Functional Approach to the Law of Occupation
23 Apr Students, Junior Faculty, and Human Rights Scholars are Delicate Flowers
Human Rights Law, NYU Law places its imprimatur not on what Mr. Koh thinks, but rather on what he did. Given Mr. Koh’s role in crafting and defending what objectively amounts to an illegal and inhumane program of extrajudicial assassinations and potential war crimes, we find his presence at NYU Law and, in particular, as a professor of International Human Rights Law, to be unacceptable. Sincerely, The Undersigned [1] N.Y.U. Law Public Interest Law Center, http://www.law.nyu.edu/publicinterestlawcenter [2] N.Y.U. Law, “Harold Koh will visit NYU Law in 2014-15 academic year,” http://www.law.nyu.edu/news/Harold-Koh-Distinguished-Scholar-in-Residence...31 Mar Justice Kennedy and the Law of Treaties
fundamental tenet of contract law. But perhaps far more consequential for understanding human rights vis-à-vis treaties is to examine the origins of both in natural law principles and values, an historical narrative too often obscured with the entrenchment of positivism in international law scholarship. It is with natural law that we find the first moral support and jurisprudential sanction for the notion of natural rights (all the way back to the Stoics), and it is the Lockean approach to inalienable rights related to this tradition that was of course appropriated...03 Apr The Operation of the Modern Lex Mercatoria: The Hierarchy of Norms
also surfaces in foreign investment law. In the lex mercatoria we may further find (as in foreign investment law), however, that the law, in as far as we have it, is still insufficiently complete or underdeveloped at the transnational level. When no clear transnational legal regime emerges, we are therefore still relegated to a domestic law as the default rule, in private law found on the basis of the ordinary conflict rules. To me that is fully acceptable and makes for a complete system for those who still think in...12 Aug The dark heart of war crimes
...I am explaining to you. Just a few weeks ago, the UN met to come to an agreement on the definition of terrorism to be applied in international law. No such law exists. There are laws on terrorism of assorted varieties from nation-state to nation-state, but there is no universal law binding the global community. Just to give you an example of how marginal international law is, the fact that the UN couldn't come to an agreement on even defining what terrorism is less than one month ago should tell...06 Jun Targeted Killing in US Counterterrorism Strategy and Law
...ones. I am less interested in what international law says in the age of terror attacks than what it should say." And here all you're doing is displaying your profound ignorance of history and absolute contempt for the law -- and not just international law, but the law of the United States. New-age Nazis, every last one of you. !!! "Article 51 of the UN Charter recognizes the right of each nation to self-defense. Surely that right applies to attacks against terrorist organizations as well as other nations." Surely not....04 Aug Emerging Voices: The Contribution of International Criminal Tribunals and Courts to the Development and Promotion of International Human Rights Law
extensively during the twentieth century. The three disciplines of international humanitarian law, international criminal law and international human rights law share this aim. However, the International Criminal Court is the only enforcing body for any of the three forms of law. The reliance of international human rights law and international humanitarian law on a domestic court for enforcement can be problematic, particularly in situations such as the examples mentioned above, where the State has little or no control over the non-state actor. It could be argued that international criminal law...17 Nov Back to Basics: The Reawakening of Natural Law
theorists to accept the role of natural law theory in grounding domestic legal authority and the higher norms of domestic law. His book may free international lawyers, too. In addition, the post-modernists have challenged us to move beyond the fetters of materialism and the application of Enlightenment scientific method even to our ideational constructs such as law. This is not to say it is all natural law. In my view, natural law explanations account for some essential aspects of law but natural law theory from Aquinas forward has always recognized...25 Jul Natural Law, Positivism, and The Antelope
leave all relevant parties dissatisfied and mutually suspicious of the motives at play. This is not to say our laws don't often express moral values, of course they do, it's simply to say that there remains, functionally speaking, a distinction between law and morality and the legitimacy of the former cannot await the clarity and consistency we expect from moral theory (or, put differently, legal legitimacy in this case lacks the luxury of leisurely moral justification, however otherwise desirable and illuminating such justification may prove to be). Natural law once...17 Sep Scottish Independence Insta-Symposium: International Law Should Matter–Thoughts on the Proposed Scottish Secession
of view may never be asked. However, international law as a body of law governing inter-state relations should matter, because international law may be called upon in order to reserve an inter-state dispute over a secessionist issue. Moreover, multiple international treaties and other rules exist on the subject-matter of statehood, state formation, and self-determination, which are all related to secession and may need to be analyzed in order to resolve a secessionist claim. Finally, international law contains norms relating to the respect of any state’s territorial integrity; it seems logical...