Yale Journal of International Law, Vol. 33-1: Opinio Juris Online Symposium

The Yale Journal of International Law is pleased to inaugurate its partnership with Opinio Juris in this first online symposium. This week’s symposium will feature three articles recently published in Vol. 33-1 of YJIL, available here.

Our discussion today will focus on the controversies that have arisen over attempts by states to regulate their citizens’ wearing and display of religious symbols. In his article, Suspect Symbols: Value Pluralism as a Theory of Religious Freedom in International Law, Peter Danchin (U. Maryland) looks to cases from France, Turkey, Germany and America, in an attempt to determine whether there is a coherent notion of religious freedom in international law and, if not, why not? He advances his own, novel theory, rooted in the discourse of value pluralism. Professor Karima Bennoune (Rutgers) will be the respondent.

On Tuesday, Odette Lienau (Harvard) will discuss Who is the “Sovereign” in Sovereign Debt?: Reinterpreting a Rule-of-Law Framework from the Early Twentieth Century. In her article, Lienau, a Ph.D.-candidate in Government, blends legal interpretation and political science analysis to propose a third way of conceptualizing and evaluating issues of sovereign debt, beyond the dominant dichotomy between the “statist” and “popular” approaches. Her intermediate or “rule of law” framework emerges from an innovative reinterpretation of a landmark opinion by William Howard Taft. Professors Arthur Mark Weisburd (UNC) and Tai-Heng Cheng (New York Law School) will be the respondents.

The symposium will conclude on Wednesday with a discussion of The Minimum Core of Economic and Social Rights: A Concept in Search of Content, by Katharine G. Young (Harvard). In her article, Young, an S.J.D. candidate, explores what she terms the “indeterminate” landscape of economic and social rights in an attempt to conceptualize a minimum core. Professor Mohsen al Attar (U. Auckland) will respond.

We encourage you to join in the online discussion this week. Throughout the symposium, we hope that you will visit our website to read full copies of the articles and to continue the scholarly conversation.