In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response

13 Feb

In How International Law Works I grapple with the question of how states make the trade-off among the various features of agreements, including hard and soft law. I am not sure I agree that Kal’s empirical puzzle actually exists, but let’s assume it does and see why that might be so. A very similar question is discussed in the book – why are dispute resolution procedures almost never used in soft law agreements? The argument in the book (pp. 157-161) is very close to what follows. One possible explanation for...
13.02.08 | |

06 Apr

...background, the aim of this blog is to highlight the necessity of ensuring the consistency of public health policies taken as part of the global responses to the COVID-19 pandemic with human rights law and standards. As outlined in a prescient 2019 Lancet Commission report – The legal determinants of health: harnessing the power of law for global health and sustainable development – the law, and a firm commitment to the rule of law, play a critical role in the pursuit of global health with justice. Ultimately, scientifically sound, evidence-based,...
06.04.20 | |

14 Apr

Many thanks to Professor Cheffins for his thoughtful response, in which he highlights an important challenge in evaluating the degree of shareholder-centrism in differing corporate governance systems—the difficulty of quantifying the impact of varying legal strategies for protecting shareholders’ interests. In this reply to the issues raised by Professor Cheffins, I distinguish various metrics of shareholder-centrism and consider the degree to which they are amenable to straightforward cross-border comparison. Professor Cheffins agrees that U.K. shareholders possess greater governance rights than U.S. shareholders do, but rightly observes that rules of civil...
14.04.10 | |

08 Mar

...the title, given the conclusions of the article). Jens has been hard at work, and has just posted to SSRN a response to Ryan, a short, fifteen page paper responding directly to Ryan’s paper as well as taking up some of the issues raised by CBJJ. Here is the abstract (graf break added) to Jens’s paper, The Capture-Kill Debate, at SSRN. Highly recommended (as we Proud Followers of Larry Solum say): In a recent essay, Ryan Goodman offers a vigorous defense of the duty to capture under the law of...
08.03.13 | |

10 Jan

...to the ongoing investigations in Kenya, Tanzania and the United States to apprehend the perpetrators of these cowardly criminal acts and to bring them swiftly to justice.” But I doubt that “justice” necessarily equates to gunship attacks. And, given that the U.S. explanation seems keyed to the 1998 attacks, I wonder whether that precludes the United States from relying on any later U.N. Security Council resolutions that might have broader language with respect to authorizing the use of force to combat terrorism. And what of self-defense? Certainly, the United States...
10.01.07 | |

27 Jan

[Dr. Oliver Gerstenberg is Reader in Law at the University of Leeds. Dr. Gerstenberg is one of the leading scholars in this field.] Would the European Court of Justice (ECJ), as Vlad Perju suggests, benefit from a “discursive turn” (338); brought about by “allow[ing] its members to enter separate opinions” (309); in an effort to “politicize” EU law (327)—with the long-term objective of “enhanc[ing] the citizenry’s sense of a shared political identity” (329)? Consider some background: The ECJ is primarily an economic court. Yet its role has changed dramatically. Drawing...
27.01.09 | |

04 Nov

if viewed as a general normative framework for evaluating state responses to mass atrocity. I nevertheless reluctantly endorse Moreno-Ocampo’s insistence on traditional prosecutions for the accused because I am skeptical of the ICC’s ability to safeguard its legitimacy while making the kinds of judgments that Mark’s approach demands. In other words, my position hinges on distinguishing the specific institutional setting of the ICC from a general normative framework for transitional justice. To elaborate on the source of my unease, I proceed from the realization that legal responses to mass atrocity...
04.11.09 | |

18 May

Jean d’Aspremont’s supremely kind comments on my article require little response other than an expression of appreciation. Jean’s knowledge in this field is second to none, and the differences in our perceptions of these topics are minute. But it is, perhaps, worth clarifying my position on the recognition of coup regimes and the question of a democratic entitlement in international law.   There is no question that the international order has departed from the strict anti-interventionism that underlies what I have termed ‘the effective control doctrine’. Coups against ‘freely and...
18.05.11 | |

03 Jan

Seth has finished his very successful tenure as a guest-blogger here at Opinio Juris and his legacy goes on. One of his posts on the potential for universal human rights deeply intrigued a colleague of mine at Hofstra, Bernard Jacobs, a professor of constitutional law and a classics scholar. His thoughtful and interesting response to Seth’s post is below: I read with interest Professor Weinberger’s piece marveling at the possibility of conflict between International Human Rights and ‘local practice, custom and tradition in the developing worlds.’ Since I live in...
03.01.06 | |

14 Nov

[Spencer Zifcak is Allan Myers Professor of Law and Director of the Institute of Legal Studies at the Australian Catholic University.] This post is part of the MJIL vol13(1) Symposium. Other posts in this series can be found in the related posts below. I begin this response by acknowledging the two commentators. Ramesh Thakur and Tom Weiss are, together with Gareth Evans, the pre-eminent writers in the field — as well as each having played formative role in the creation of the Responsibility to Protect (‘R2P’) doctrine in the first...
14.11.12 | |

21 Jun

...Authority (ISA) regulations, and effectively veto ISA financial plans with which the United States disagrees. U.S. acceptance of the LOS Convention would also help assure certainty and stability with respect to the extended continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles from baselines. In response to my earlier post Mr. Groves focused on continental shelf resources, and my comment today explores continental shelf issues. When we consider oil and gas activities on the continental shelf, it is important to distinguish between, on the one hand, continental shelf boundary delimitations between neighboring states...
21.06.12 | |

06 Jul

...the 1903 Royal Commission on Alien Immigration and the Alien’s Act 1905. The book contains the most detailed legal analysis of the 1915-6 Hussein-McMahon correspondence, as well as the Balfour Declaration, and takes a closer look at the travaux préparatoires that formed the British Mandate of Palestine. It places the violent reaction of the Palestine Arabs to mass Jewish immigration in the context of Zionism, highlighting the findings of several British commissions of inquiry which recommended that Britain abandon its policy. The book also revisits the controversies over the question...
06.07.11 | |