The D.C. Circuit last month issued an interesting decision in Belhas v. Ya'alon on a possible jus cogens exception to the FSIA. The case presented the possibility that a government official committing jus cogens violations cannot be acting within his official capacity. The court rejected the argument. Here is the key excerpt of the majority and concurring...
When I teach Foreign Relations, the first order of business for the class is to identify every provision of the U.S. Constitution that makes some explicit reference to foreign relations. (Of course this is somewhat artificial, as there are many provisions of the Constitution that affect foreign relations even though they make no explicit mention of foreign relations.) ...
Who could have thought a tax case could be so ...
It takes little courage to be a blogger in the United States. Perhaps professional reputation is at risk if things go badly, but there is little more to fear than that. Sure, every intellectual community has its village idiot, and the blogosphere is one of the easiest places to find people who crave attention and lack discretion. ...
The Pew Research Center just published a fascinating new poll on the future of immigration in the United States. Here are a few of the key results: If current trends continue, the population of the United States will rise to 438 million in 2050, from 296 million in 2005, and 82% of the increase will be due to immigrants arriving...
Let me just offer a quick additional reflection on the question of whether rational choice theory may help explain the conundrum of why states sign human rights treaties. The easiest explanation is when the human rights commitment is bundled together with other provisions in a treaty, and the cost of making the human rights commitment is offset by other benefits derived...
Guzman’s book is an extremely useful addition to the literature, offering a rational choice explanation for compliance with international law. I think his three Rs of compliance (retaliation, reciprocity, and reputation) accurately reflect the best arguments for why states comply with international law. But as I was reading the book I was struck by the fact that none of the...
The final section of God and Gold addresses the question of why Anglo-Saxon optimism has so often been wrong, and what three centuries of Anglo-Saxon success means for world history. Much of this section focuses on American misapprehension of liberal capitalist democracy. While Americans think of it as a way to promote social peace and stability, they fail...
One of the key arguments in that latter half of Mead’s book is that Anglo-Americans are particularly given to visions of history working itself out toward some greater purpose. Mead believes that Anglo-Americans are distinctly oriented toward utopian visions of fixing human affairs. Of course, there are ample examples to support naïve and idealistic American dreams of a...
Mead’s discussion of the Anglo-American Protestant work ethic ventures into the fascinating subject of the sociology of religion. I am by no means an expert in this area, but I once was a student of the subject and I do have some reflections on his discussion of the societal benefits of the Anglo-American Protestant work ethic. His thesis...
Part Four of Gold and Gold builds upon the previous sections to discuss what Mead calls the golden meme of Anglo-American history and politics. The English-speaking world has adopted a dominant paradigm representing a deeply rooted vision of how the world works. The idea that the world is built (or guided by God) in such a way that...
Part Three of God and Gold focuses on the question of how the Anglo-Saxons were able to put together the economic and military resources that enabled them to defeat their enemies and build a global order. Mead argues that the decisive factor in the success of the English-speaking world was that they came from a culture that was uniquely...
