The American Branch of the International Law Association will again hold its annual International Law Weekend in New York, featuring numerous panels, a distinguished keynote speaker, receptions, and the Branch’s annual meeting. International Law Weekend 2008 will take place on October 16-18, 2008, at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. The Weekend’s overall...
Amidst all the focus on last week's decision in Medellin, most readers missed another important decision rendered by the Supreme Court that will have a significant impact on international law. The case of Hall Street v. Mattel concerns the ability of contractual parties to fashion judicial review of domestic and international arbitration awards. As a general rule, the...
There have been several interesting blog posts about Washington & Lee's controversial new program of 3L experiential learning. (See Concurring Opinion posts here and here and Brian Leiter's post here). None of these posts have touched on how such a move will impact elective courses like international law. I strongly suspect that with a traditional 1L curriculum...
[William Dodge is a law professor at UC Hastings] I’ve not seen anyone comment yet on what I thought was one of the more notable aspects of Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion, its application of Justice Jackson’s Youngstown analysis. The question is how to read congressional silence. Although I am greatly oversimplifying, Jackson seemed to read Congress’s failure to authorize what the...
There is much one could say about Medellín, but I want to focus on the meta-question of what this decision portends for the future of international courts and tribunals. While the domestic effect of ICJ decisions is now cast into serious doubt (at least in terms of direct enforcement), I think there is far more reason to be hopeful...
We are delighted to announce that Professor David Fontana will be joining us this week as a guest blogger. David teaches at George Washington University and is an expert on comparative constitutional law. He wrote one of the early leading articles on the subject before it became such a hot topic. His scholarly interests also focus on...
I very much like Oona Hathaway's article. I think the most helpful part of your article is how you challenge the commonplace notion that there are obvious substantive differences between Article II treaties and Congressional-Executive Agreements (CEAs). Tables 1 and 2 grouping Article II treaties and CEAs by subject matter are priceless on that score. I have one...
As expected, during today's Supreme Court oral argument in District of Columbia v. Heller there was no discussion whatsoever of comparative analysis of gun control laws in other countries or comparative death rates. To the extent there was any discussion of foreign authority, it was all about English history as an interpretive device for understanding the Second Amendment....
The final group of amicus briefs I would like to highlight compares the firearm death rates in different countries to argue for and against gun control. An amicus brief by the American Academy of Pediatrics, et. al. offers an interesting comparative analysis of the firearm death rates in the Untied States and other democratic nations. The firearms death rate in...
Two of the more interesting amicus briefs in District of Columbia v. Heller argue, in effect, that we need the right to bear arms in order to protect the citizenry from the possibility of government tyranny and genocide. Here is an excerpt from an amicus brief by a group called Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO). Throughout history,...
As we all know, this week the Court will hear what is arguably the most important case of the year, District of Columbia v. Heller. In Heller, the District of Columbia has presented comparative analysis of the practice of other countries in support of its gun control restrictions. Not surprisingly, this has led to several amicus briefs responding...
The Eleventh Circuit recently rendered one of the most unusual cases involving international child abduction I have ever read. In Pielage v. McConnell, the question centers on whether a state court order constitutes a wrongful retention within the meaning of the Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (HCCAICA). The Eleventh Circuit ruled that since the...
