Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response
27 Jun Linos Book Symposium: Comments by Harlan Cohen
right that democratic diffusion may be better suited to achieving economic and social rights than to right clear-cut violations of civil and political ones. But that simply suggests choosing other mechanisms, whether state-to-state compliance or domestic courts. One of the strengths of the book is its ability to rise above disciplinary and ideological battles and boundaries. As should be clear from prior comments, the book is hard to categorize. Is it a book about comparative law, international law, or domestic law? Is Linos a proponent of rationalism, constructivism, or liberal...
19 Aug Symposium on Informers Up Close: Informers in a Rearview Mirror – Impressions and Parallels from Drumbl and Holá’s Book
of trust. Parting Words Superbly researched and beautifully crafted, Drumbl and Holá’s book is a major event in the critical transitional justice scholarship. It must be widely read and will be unmissable for every transitional justice scholar and policy-maker. The book brushes against the grain of comfortable, reductive narratives which hold sway in most transitional societies, retelling secret service collaborators as a few ‘rotten apples’ to be excised from the healthy body of an otherwise innocent nation (the ‘evil traitors’ versus ‘heroic resisters’ binary). Drumbl and Holá deliver a nuanced...19 Jun Berman Book Discussion: Beyond the Boundaries of Berman’s Global Legal Pluralism
brilliant and eloquent weaving of Berman’s various scholarly threads. While the book concludes in part that law is “messy,” the book’s argument is quite neat, tight, and logical. Berman addresses and redresses the dominant critiques lobbed at his work over the years, showcases agility with interdisciplinary research, and demonstrates the value of legal scholarship that does not end with heavy-handed prescriptions. Like all books of this breadth, there is room for critique. Instead, in this post, I offer some broader thoughts on ways to push Berman’s outstanding work beyond its...14 May NYU JILP Symposium: Response to the Commentary on Property Rights, Labor Rights and Democratization
have been about challenging injustices on a number of fronts, and historically so, to counteract the still persistent idea that they are comparatively passive or anti-legal. I look forward to the publication of Professor Pils book on human rights lawyers in China [Eva Pils, CHINA’S HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYERS: ADVOCACY AND RESISTANCE (forthcoming, 2014)], and also heartily recommend Rachel Stern’s recent book on Chinese environmental activism. [Rachel Stern, ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM IN CHINA: A STUDY OF POLITICAL AMBIVALENCE (2013).] Further, Professor Pil’s citation of recent crack-downs on any form of Chinese activism...16 Mar Cheng Book Roundtable: When Should a Court Not Decide (A Response to Professor Brown)
I thank Professor Brown for his further application of the justificatory theory to the ICJ’s advisory opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, another incident not covered in my book. I am glad he finds the justificatory theory useful in explaining the Court’s decision. As Professor Ku mentioned earlier this week, one test of the value of a theory is how well it explains the subject matter of the theory. Professor Brown also rightly points out that the Court caused some difficulties in the Nuclear...03 Sep Strategic Visions in Responding to Terror, and ‘Meta-Methodology’
I want to join the rest of Opinio Juris in welcoming Tom; I have read Confronting Global Terrorsm and American Neo-Conservatism with great interest and am looking forward to commenting on it. As befits someone who, on some definitions anyway, probably counts as a neo-con, I have some disagreements with the book – starting, unsurprisingly, with the definition of neoconservative and what it means (or meant). Before getting there, however, I want to start by praising what I think is a great strength of Tom’s book – and that is...
17 Mar Hamster in a Wheel: International Law, Crisis, Exceptionalism, Whataboutery, Speaking Truth to Power, and Sociopathic, Racist Gaslighting
...of double standards and the different treatment of seemingly like situations. Nor is it the case that all those others who do this are doing so to justify Russia’s actions. Some are asking ‘what about’, not to justify Russia’s actions, but actually, the reverse – to say, in the context of an assumption that what Russia is doing is wrong, to ask why, when violations of international law of the same or a similar nature happen elsewhere, there is not the same response- a response they would welcome – by...