Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response
12 Mar Cheng Book Roundtable: When Should International Law Do More than Work?
...when we shouldn’t. In those cases, we should find a way to do the right thing without undermining the overall international legal system, which has an inherent moral value in maintaining minimum world order. If this account of Professor Cheng’s policy-oriented theory is accurate, then one might think he is simply updating the New Haven School for the 21st Century. But this (far from small) accomplishment is only one part of his book. What makes WILW so unusual is that it attempts to apply its framework to an astonishingly wide...16 Feb The Modern Doctrine(s) of Non-Self-Executing Treaties
[John Coyle is an Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law. This is the sixth post in our symposium this week on treaty supremacy.] In his wonderful new book, The Death of Treaty Supremacy, David Sloss provides a highly readable and immaculately researched account of treaty supremacy doctrine. Although the book offers original insights into a great many topics—including the process of invisible constitutional change—I found its detailed taxonomy of the various versions of the doctrine of non-self-executing treaties to be particularly compelling. Whereas previous scholars...10 Dec Interview: Martti Koskenniemi on International Law and the Rise of the Far-Right
...the things that my readers already know are true. But above all, I am just writing a history of international law (laughs). Is your new book a response to your oeuvre? Is it a continuation of how you were thinking before? We are the narrators of our lives but not the final authorities on them. Other people narrate our lives differently, and maybe with more insight. I am older than I was with those previous books, and old men write history (all laugh). But the first book was a really...11 Sep Jennifer Daskal Reviews Michael Scharf and Paul Williams’ Book on the Office of Legal Adviser
Our esteemed guest blogger Michael Scharf and my Washington College of Law colleague Paul Williams brought out a very interesting volume from Cambridge UP last year, Shaping Foreign Policy in Times of Crisis: The Role of International Law and the State Department Legal Adviser. Over at Lawfare, Jennifer Daskal, friend to many of us from her days at Human Rights Watch and the last couple of years at the Justice Department, and currently a Georgetown fellow, reviews the book. (PS: And congratulations to Jen on her new baby, now a...
12 Dec Symposium: On Territoriality, Power, and Influence–A Review of John Heieck’s A Duty to Prevent Genocide: Due Diligence Obligations Among the P5
[Mohamed S. Helal is an Assistant Professor of Law, Moritz College of Law & Faculty Affiliate, Mershon Center for International Security Studies – The Ohio State University.] Introduction Dr. John Heieck’s A Duty to Prevent Genocide: Due Diligence Obligations Among the P5 is a lucid, well-argued, and extensively researched book. It is essential reading for academics and practitioners who have an interest in various areas of Public International Law, including jus ad bellum, international criminal law, and state responsibility. The core argument of this book is that all states are...
14 Feb Symposium on Rewriting Histories of the Use of Force: Of Rules and Exceptions in Jus ad Bellum
...however, these doctrines were expressions or applications of the broader concept of self-preservation, which Verdebout admits, was recognized as a fundamental right of states. To Verdebout, this confirms the core claim of the book, which is that pre-1914 international law was not indifferent towards the question of the use of force. For instance, on pages 204-205, Verdebout notes that in all the cases of intervention surveyed in her book, the use of force was “presented as sanctions of law – i.e., as the exercise of the right of self-preservation.” This,...17 May Book Discussion “Outsourcing War and Peace”: Too Much Jurisdiction? – Contractor Liability After Brehm and Ali
[Steve Vladeck is Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Scholarship at American University Washington College of Law.] This is the third day in our discussion of Professor Dickinson’s book Outsourcing War and Peace: Preserving Public Values in a World of Privatized Foreign Affairs. Links to the related posts can be found below. One needn’t look far for proof that the issues raised by Laura Dickinson’s Outsourcing War and Peace with regard to the absence of liability for military contractors are at the forefront of contemporary law and policy. If...08 Jun The UN’s Alphabet Soup of Entities
...the Economic and Social Fields (H/T to the inimitable Hayes Brown and his UN blog.) I haven’t been blogging much on account of some family stuff, but … this is why You Need to Read My Book, Living With the UN: American Responsibilities and International Order. Among other things, the book recommends that the US simply skip all the UN conference roadshows and urge instead that their matters be taken up in the course of ordinary business. (I’ve posted the first three chapters as a sample up at SSRN, here.)...03 Oct Book Symposium Investment Law: Comments on Mary E. Footer’s Chapter
...This could also directly or indirectly influence the conceptualisation and reasoning of these experts when faced with trade matters. The trade and investment debate is most challenging and this book offers a remarkable collection of relevant essays on several dimensions of this complex relationship. There are so many difficult legal issues that need to be explored and better understood and some go to the heart of each system. For example, what is the relationship between the fundamental MFN provision of the WTO GATS and benefits included fundamentally bilateral investment treaties?...18 Jun Berman Book Discussion: Paul Berman on Global Legal Pluralism
[Paul Schiff Berman is Dean and Robert Kramer Research Professor at George Washington University Law School.] Thanks to Peter and all the other bloggers for providing an opportunity to explore the ideas in my recent book, Global Legal Pluralism. I start from the premise that we live in a world of legal pluralism, where a single act or actor is potentially regulated by multiple legal or quasi-legal regimes imposed by state, substate, transnational, supranational, and nonstate communities. Yet law often operates based on a convenient fiction that nation-states exist in...