Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response

rule of law is required in the first place. I will not revisit the thin/thick (or formal/substantive) debates here, but would align myself with Raz’s argument that a “thin” conception does not relegate one to the arbitrary exercise of power in a rule by law state. At the domestic level, this battle is played out when McCorquodale deploys Tom Bingham’s stirring response to Raz — though it is a response essentially based on a definitional shift that the rule of law means the rule of good law (pp.283-284). At the...

[Rachel Brewster is an Assistant Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.] This post is part of the Virginia Journal of International Law Symposium, Volume 52, Issues 1 and 2. Other posts in this series can be found in the related posts below. I have the pleasure of commenting on Gregory Shaffer and Joel Trachtman’s innovative and important article, “Interpretation and Institutional Choice at the WTO,” recently published in the Virginia Journal of International Law. The authors present an analytical framework for assessing the interpretative choices made by treaty drafters...

law of armed conflict for those less familiar with this branch of international law. I want to focus on the book’s discussion of human enhancement. Broadly speaking, enhancement involves biomedical interventions to improve some human capability beyond what is necessary to achieve or sustain health. Or, as it is sometimes succinctly put, enhancement makes people better than well. Even in the specialised military context, enhancement encompasses a range of technologies, which this book covers in three separate chapters, written by three different authors. The first, Chapter 7 by Ioana Maria...

Robert Howse is the Lloyd C. Nelson Professor of International Law at New York University School of Law. Joanna Langille is a 2011 graduate of New York University Law School.] This post is part of the Yale Journal of International Law Volume 37, Issue 2 symposium. Other posts in this series can be found in the related posts below. Our article examines the extent to which countries can use animal welfare concerns to justify placing restrictions on international trade, under the law of the World Trade Organization (WTO). We argue...

terms of the four objectives of a rule of law: to uphold legal order and stability; to provide equality of application of law; to enable access to justice for human rights; and to settle disputes before an independent legal body. I explain in the article that these objectives can be found in the international system. I include access to justice for human rights deliberately, because a rule of law without this justice element is a rule by laws and not a rule of law. The protection of human rights should...

[Christopher A. Whytock is a Professor of Law and Political Science, University of California, Irvine, School of Law.] This post is part of the HILJ Online Symposium: Volumes 54(2) & 55(1). Other posts in this series can be found in the related posts below. In Ending Judgment Arbitrage, Professor Shill claims that non-U.S. plaintiffs “routinely” practice a three-step strategy called “judgment arbitrage”: (1) selection of a foreign country to litigate the merits and obtain a favorable judgment; (2) selection of a “receptive” U.S. state to obtain judicial recognition of the...

[Nico Krisch, Professor of International Law, Hertie School of Governance; currently Visiting Professor of Law, Harvard Law School.] This post is part of the Leiden Journal of International Law Vol 25-2 symposium. Other posts in this series can be found in the related posts below. Tom de Boer’s review of my recent book, Beyond Constitutionalism: The Pluralist Structure of Postnational Law, presents not only a careful analysis, but also a direct challenge to its normative thrust. This gives me an opportunity to defend and clarify my views, and I am...

[Richard Gardiner is a Visiting Professor at University College London, Faculty of Laws] The article which this symposium addresses is important, timely, and elegant. It is an important study because it examines one of the most common misunderstandings about the VCLT provisions on the role of preparatory work in treaty interpretation. It lays to rest the mistaken idea that an interpreter may only consider preparatory work if interpretation of a treaty provision by applying the general rule reveals ambiguity or obscurity, or leads to a result which is manifestly absurd...

[Leila Nadya Sadat is the James Carr Professor of International Criminal Law and the Director of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at the Washington University School of Law. sadat@wustl.edu. This essay was initially prepared at the request of FIU Law Review for its micro-symposium on The Legal Legacy of the Special Court for Sierra Leone by Charles C. Jalloh (Cambridge, 2020). An edited and footnoted version is forthcoming in Volume 15.1 of the law review in spring 2021.] Head of State immunity: Chapter 8 sets out the legal...

...that there is common ground between both prosecution and defence perspectives. Please don’t miss James A. Goldston’s post in the symposium at Justice in Conflict: Choosing the Next ICC Prosecutor—Lessons from the Past.] The public release of the names of several candidates vying for the position of ICC Prosecutor has triggered a significant amount of speculation and comment as to their suitability for what is arguably the most high-profile prosecutorial appointment in the world. This post will focus on the abstract qualities that should define this role, rather than the specific...

[William A. Schabas is a Professor of international law at Middlesex University London and Professor of international criminal law and human rights at Leiden University. This essay was initially prepared at the request of FIU Law Review for its micro-symposium on The Legal Legacy of the Special Court for Sierra Leone by Charles C. Jalloh (Cambridge, 2020). An edited and footnoted version is forthcoming in Volume 15.1 of the law review in spring 2021.] For much of the first four decades of its history as an independent State, Sierra Leone was in a situation of great...

...These different bridging mechanisms will be better or worse suited to different international law projects and questions. What the conversation at the November symposium demonstrates though is that figuring out how to relate these projects is something best achieved through active dialogue between the scholars pursuing them. I’m grateful to have been able to start this conversation with the scholars in this book project, all of whom are at the cutting edge using these methodologies and look forward to continuing it with both them and the readers of Opinio Juris....