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

now in its third year, presents an excellent opportunity to learn from a wide range of expert international teaching staff in one of the world’s capitals of international law. The course is structured around three themes, one for each of the three weeks of the program: international economic law, international law and civil society, and international law and politics. Each theme is explored through a week-long “Foundations Course” and three to five “Snapshot Courses” on topics such as the creation of states, WTO law and neoliberalism, internet law, law without...

teaching and scholarship on international law. Now, there’s already plenty of general advice written on the process for folks interested in law teaching (see here for one blog’s contributions to the genre). I’d suggest much of it holds true as well for those interested in teaching international law. What may be less apparent to international-oriented candidates, however, is the scope of the competition they face. In this year’s FAR there were 880 candidates, of whom 155 (or 17.6%) declared a primary interest in teaching international law, international organizations, international business...

By this time, you might be wondering what is the purpose of all this? Why am I taking you through a tour of US constitutional law and historical methodology in a blog dedicated to international law? Well, for starters (and as evidenced by its recent “turn”) international law has many connections to history. It is a system of rules dating back centuries (though we will touch more upon this in a bit!). And, just like all law, it is bound to encounter inter-temporal problems, i.e. problems of applying the law...

Transnational Law 9 The American Journal of Comparative Law 10 Michigan Journal of International Law 11 Chicago Journal of International Law (2000-) 12 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 13 European Journal of International Law (United Kingdom) 14 New York University Journal of International Law and Politics 15 Brooklyn Journal of International Law 16 The International Lawyer 17 University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Economic Law 18 Cornell International Law Journal 19 Texas International Law Journal 20 George Washington International Law Review 21 Berkeley Journal of International Law 21 Indiana Journal...

authority to adopt any interpretation that departs from other countries’ understanding of customary law. Indeed, some might even say that Congress cannot ever depart from customary law as well. But I seriously doubt this is correct as a matter of U.S. law. And I think it is fair to say that there is no academic consensus on this question, and that there is at least some jurisprudence pointing the other way. So I would be curious if John has any views on this domestic law debate? Is the executive branch...

and instructed the government to apply the ruling retroactively, going back to 1929. International human rights groups strongly condemned the decision as racist and xenophobic and argued it would render hundreds of thousands of people stateless. The Caribbean Community (CARICOM), an international organization made up of 15 Caribbean states, also denounced the ruling and suspended the Dominican Republic’s application for membership. The new citizenship law, Law 169-14, was passed this spring in response to the international backlash against the Supreme Court decision. Law 169-14 establishes a regime to restore the...

Mary Ellen O’Connell (whose recent book The Power and the Purpose of International Law was the subject of one of our book discussions) has a post at Balkinization called “Who’s Afraid of International Law?” that considers the fear-mongering by some in the media concerning international law. After briefly discussing the views of the Founders, she writes: So why does Glen Beck seem to fear international law? Why is he and decrying strong international lawyers in America’s top international law jobs? As with so many things we fear, the critics seem...

I could not endorse the idea that a judge (as a previous blog had put it) should seek to “updat[e]” the law, or that lawyers should “mainstream” in the law causes they hold dear. The decision on whether and how a state should mitigate climate change, in my view, belongs to democratic governments. Insofar as the law requires states or other actors to mitigate climate change, lawyers must merely uphold it; insofar the law does not, lawyers cannot act against it. This view prompted strong reactions on social media —...

That’s an argument that my colleague and friend, Craig Green, here at Temple is making with his work, Repressing Erie’s Myth, which will appear in the California Law Review next year (you can download a copy of it in draft form here). For years, the conventional wisdom suggested that customary international law operated as part of U.S. federal common law, or as Justice Gray put it in the Paquette Habana, “International law is part of our law, and must be ascertained and administered by the courts of justice of appropriate...

Florida’s legislature has just passed a bill that is an interesting variation on the wave of other foreign law bans that have been enacted in U.S. states. Florida’s new law would ban the use of foreign law in Florida state courts if that law “contravenes the strong public policy” of Florida or if the “law is unjust or unreasonable.” It also limits the use of foreign law in choice of law provisions in contracts or forum selection clauses under the same “strong public policy” standard. In fact, Florida’s law is...

that international law necessarily controls the scope of a public authority justification in domestic law. If that were true, a state could never sanction any act in its domestic law that would violate applicable international law. We both know that is not the case (except in perfectly monist domestic legal systems), although doing so creates international legal responsibility for the international law violation. This is not to say that any such domestic legal authority has international or transnational effect. Those who commit acts sanctioned by their state's domestic law but...

of analysis of the international law of statehood and sovereignty. James Crawford, The International Law Commission’s Articles on State Responsibility: Introduction, Text and Commentaries (Cambridge 2002). This should have been on the original list back in 2005. A key reference to an important project in international law. Report of the Study Group of the International Law Commission on Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties Arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law (.pdf) (13 April 2006) UN Doc A/CN.4/L.682 and the accompanying Analytical Study (.pdf). Much the this post is...