"Three years ago I could never have dreamed that we would be selling our tomatoes directly to the restaurants in Manila," said Johnny Rola. Just a few years ago the poor farmers in this mountain village in northern Philippines had little hope. They would grow a few staple crops and sell it at the local farmers market. They were...
“It is widely thought that the rapid growth of the international human rights regime has profoundly influenced the practice of written constitutionalism at the national level,” writes David Law and Mila Versteeg in their brilliant article recently published in the NYU Law Review. But is there empirical support for such an assumption? Much to my surprise, their answer is a...
I have just posted on SSRN my latest article published in the Ohio State Law Journal. Through the lens of the broken windows theory of community policing, the Article examines the connection between corruption and other social goods in society, as well as the relationship between U.S. enforcement efforts and those of other OECD countries. It is incredible how much empirical...
There is an interesting discussion by Stephen Walt over at Foreign Policy on why academic writing is so bad. It is a subject academics are reluctant to discuss, yet there is no doubt that much of what passes as legal scholarship is dull, disagreeable, undigestable. Here's Walt's take: The first problem is that many academics (and especially younger...
With the publication by the Journal of Legal Education’s recent “Fiction Issue,” and the London Review of International Law announcing that they will include poetry with the goal of expanding and enriching the international legal conversation, I thought this poem was particularly timely. It is written by an anonymous friend for those who have suffered from human trafficking...
In doing research on Aung San Suu Kyi, I recently came across this wonderful discussion from 2005 on the role of the intellectual in society. It comes in the form of a dialogue with Alan Clements in his book, The Voice of Hope: Aung San Suu Kyi: Conversations with Alan Clements. Clements: I brought with me a...
I have posted on SSRN my latest article, "Ancillary Discovery to Prove Denial of Justice" just published in the Virginia Journal of International Law. It analyzes Section 1782 discovery proceedings in the context of BIT arbitration and argues that there is now uniform agreement among federal courts that investment arbitration panels are "international tribunals" within the meaning of Section...
Secretary of State John Kerry made a few opening remarks (video here) yesterday at the State Department that are worth quoting. "So here’s the big question before the country and the world and the State Department after the last eight years: Can a man actually run the State Department? (Laughter) I don’t know. (Applause) As the saying goes, I...
As we wait with bated breath for the Supreme Court's decision in Kiobel, it is worth remembering that there are viable alternatives to ATS litigation. That was particularly evident last week when The Hague District Court in the case of Akpan/Royal Dutch Shell. Here's the Judicial Press Release (translated by Pieter Bekker): Four Nigerian farmers and fishermen, together with...
After reviewing the comments from my last post expressing general dissatisfaction with the chart showing the legal systems of the world, I decided to do a little more research to find a more accurate chart. Fortunately, those efforts paid off in spades, with a series of wonderful charts produced by the University of Ottawa. As you can see,...
In case you ever wanted a snapshot of the legal systems of the world, this handy chart is worth a look. If you follow the link you can get a brief explanation of the legal system of each country, including the historical roots. The orange is common law, the blue civil law, the green mixed, and the red...
My friend and colleague David Caron, C. William Maxeiner Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, has been named the new Dean at the Dickson Poon School of Law at King's College London. The press release is here. I have known David Caron for over twenty years and always thought he would make an excellent Dean or...
