Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response
20 Apr Symposium on International Conflict and Security Law: A Research Handbook – Use of Force, Veto Use at the UN Security Council, and the Crime of Aggression
...it had become imperative to prevent aggressive war (use of force) through the rule of law.While not all that is contained in the chapter is new (some of the same territory is covered, for example, in Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro’s book, The Internationalists ), the background is central to understanding the use of force regime in the Charter and the book would be incomplete without it. The chapter additionally examines some open questions—what one might call “grey areas”—in the Charter regime and customary international law, particularly related to the...02 Dec Slowing Down “The Justice Cascade”
My general view is that critical book reviews are much more interesting than positive ones (unless it is of my own book, that is). And so I read with great interest George Mason Law Professor Jeremy Rabkin’s takedown of Kathryn Sikkink’s new book “The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions are Changing World Politics.” The Sikkink book argues, through an empirical study, that human rights prosecutions are having an important effect on changing international politics. Rabkin’s criticism of the Sikkink “Justice Cascade” thesis, especially her choice of data and her...17 Oct Book Discussion Informal International Lawmaking: Legality and Normativity
[Tai-Heng Cheng is the international disputes partner of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP in New York. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of his firm or its clients.] Congratulations are due to the authors of Informal International Lawmaking, and especially to the editors, Professors Pauwelyn, Wesssel and Wouters, for their keen observations and appraisals of the global decisionmaking processes as they operate today. Opinio Juris has assigned me the task of commentating on the legal and normative nature of international decisionmaking processes that the authors...18 Oct Book Discussion Informal International Lawmaking: Accountability and Domestic Implementation of IN-LAW
[Jan Wouters is Professor of International Law and International Organizations, Jean Monnet Chair Ad Personam EU and Global Governance, and Director of the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies and Institute for International Law at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven).] Once we conclude that IN-LAW is not devoid of impact and cannot be ignored as a normative process, the question of the accountability of the involved actors, processes, and output may be raised. This question is addressed in Part IV. Eyal Benvenisti (Chapter 13) ‒ one of...07 Apr Book Symposium: The Rise of Interpretive Communities in Treaty Interpretation
...Law’s Main Challenges” in D Armstrong (ed), Routledge Handbook of International Law (Routledge 2009) at 404. Schachter’s “invisible college” of international lawyers seems to have largely disappeared and has been replaced by a patchwork quilt of specialized international lawyers. Diverse interpretive communities have come to play an increasingly important role in treaty interpretation. This development raises concerns about the unity of international law, not just in relation to its interpretive methods, but also in relation the system as a whole. The challenge going forward is how to achieve a reasonable...08 Apr Book Symposium: Accounting for Difference in Treaty Interpretation over Time
[Julian Arato is an Associate-in-Law at Columbia Law School.] Interpretation in International Law is something of an iconoclastic volume, from its critical ethos to its provocative structure around the metaphor of the game. The object of its revisionism, above all, is an apparently stagnant formalism that seems too prevalent in the theory and practice of interpretation in international law today. Symbolic of this antiquated formalism – for the editors and for many of the contributors – are the rules of interpretation embedded in the Vienna Convention on the...28 Jul Don’t Let the Legal Policy Tail Wag the Foreign Policy Dog
I will join the chorus of praise for this terrific book. But I want to add briefly to Peter’s critique of Ben’s premise that the current threat from transnational terrorism has us in a “long war,” by looking at what this means for broader foreign policy – one that encompasses, but it is not driven by, domestic legal policy. The book correctly, and refreshingly, recognizes two important points: (1) that addressing the threat of terrorism requires approaches that encompass domestic law enforcement and regulation as well as applications of armed...25 Feb Will Anyone Publish Saif Gaddafi’s Book on Civil Society?
...to publish the two extraordinary books Saif wrote on civil society and democratic reform in the developing world, will presumably now cancel publication. Barber is probably correct in predicting that Oxford will back down from publication. But is that necessarily the right decision? The junior Gaddafi’s study sounds pretty useful to anyone interested in nonstate actors. It’s not every academic study that has The Monitor Group on board crunching the data! Although Oxford could no longer count on a large bulk sale, it would surely sell better than average for...