Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response

[Professor Anthea Roberts of Australian National University is the author of numerous publications, including the topic of our joint symposium this week: Is International Law International? This is the first of several posts over the next two days on the argument in her book and reactions to it.] We are familiar with the question: Is international law law? In my new book, I ask instead: Is international law international? Not particularly, is my answer—at least, not in the way that it tends to be conceptualized by international law academics in...

[Jeffrey L. Dunoff is the Laura H. Carnell Professor of Law at Temple University Beasley School of Law and Mark A. Pollack is professor of Political Science and Jean Monnet Chair ad personam at Temple University] One of the most difficult choices in our book, and one of the most contentious discussions at two book workshops, was about how to approach the question of “theory.” Our approach was to identify four research traditions in IR that had been invoked productively by IL/IR scholars – namely, realism, institutionalism, liberalism, and constructivism...

[Mark A. Drumbl is the Class of 1975 Alumni Professor of Law and Director, Transnational Law Institute at Washington and Lee University.] Atrocity Speech Law is a hefty book. It is, as Professor Gordon himself describes it, a ‘tome’. Atrocity Speech Law is rigorous and ambitious: packed with information, breathtakingly detailed, brimming with integrity, and vivified by important themes of law reform. In contrast to the absurd invective it seeks to deter, Gregory’s arguments are measured and modulated, poised and principled. Although Gregory has invested so much in this book,...

Opinio Juris is pleased to be hosting over the next three days a discussion of Professor Kal Raustiala’s new book, “Does the Constitution Follow the Flag? The Evolution of Territoriality in American Law” (OUP 2009). Professor Raustiala is a professor of law at UCLA and also director of the UCLA Ronald W. Burkle Center for International Relations. He has written broadly in both international law and international relations, and this outstanding new book reflects his deep engagement in both fields: In this novel history of territoriality in American law and...

OJ’s friend and frequent interlocutor, Ben Wittes (of Lawfare blog, the Brookings Institution, and member of the Hoover Task Force on National Security and Law), has a new book out of Brookings Institution Press, Detention and Denial: The Case for Candor after Guantanamo. It has been out since late December, but I just got a chance to finish reading it. I’m a huge fan, which will surprise no one familiar with my thinking about Ben’s work as well as about Guantanamo policy. Detention policy fatigue has set in and positions...

...what legal regime, if any, is applicable to them. This, in turn, leads to the third connotation of “informal”: the sense, real or perceived, that it dispenses with or circumvents the formal strictures, controls and accountability mechanisms of formal law. This goes to the heart of IN-LAW: Even though it may be a more effective way of solving cross-border problems, is it, ultimately, an end-run on democracy (more on this by Jan in a third post)? Part I of the book offers conceptual approaches to IN-LAW from different perspectives: legal...

I want to join others in congratulating Kal on the publication of his outstanding book. I also want to thank the OJ contributors for inviting me to visit their territory. Issues of spatiality — place, geography, and territory — have been largely under-examined in legal scholarship. This book is an invaluable synthesis and examination of a critical aspect of legal spatiality. One of the most intriguing parts of the evolutionary path Kal charts is the consistently instrumental use of territory to further national goals. I think territorial instrumentalism, in all...

[Mark Weisburd is the Reef C. Ivey II Distinguished Professor of Law at UNC School of Law] Professor Curtis Bradley’s International Law in the U.S. Legal System is an important contribution to the discussion of a topic of considerable significance. Thorough in its coverage but accessible to readers with little familiarity with the subject, it is at once an excellent introduction (for someone with a legal background) to the issues it addresses and a useful compilation for those with some familiarity with the field. This contribution to the symposium addresses...

We’re delighted this week to host a discussion of Paul Schiff Berman’s “Global Legal Pluralism: A Jurisprudence of Law Beyond Borders” (Cambridge University Press). Paul is the Dean and Robert Kramer Research Professor of Law at George Washington University Law School. This is a rich and broadly argued book (Paul confesses to being a “lumper,” I think in the best sense). From the jacket: 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,...

...idea is never really examined in the earlier sections, which are structured as inquiries into top-down court-catalyzed influence. Given the high quality of De Vos’ writing and analysis, given the rigor of the case studies, and given the compelling conclusion of his book in which he reconceives international justice as a plural, multi-cited project with influence flowing in many directions, one looks forward to his next book. Perhaps that one could start with De Vos’ concluding insights and examine how courts, too, changes in response to interactions with other actors....

I am very grateful for the opportunity to discuss my book on EJIL: Talk! and Opinio Juris, as am I grateful to the commentators on both blogs for taking the time to read and discuss it. In this introductory post I’ll try to outline the book’s main arguments and themes and my approach generally in analysing a very complex topic. The book is divided into five chapters. The first, introductory chapter sets out the scope and purpose of the whole study. It defines the notion of the extraterritorial application of...

her book. As Jonathan Varat said yesterday, it’s hard to imagine that a book about the Supreme Court could be a page turner, but this one is. Indeed, right now it is one of the top fifty books for sale on Amazon. UPDATE: You can watch the Pepperdine book presentation here. It features Jan Crawford Greenburg and includes commentary about her book by Jesse Choper (Boalt Hall), Jonathan Varat (UCLA), Ken Starr (Pepperdine) and Doug Kmiec (Pepperdine). Her comment that President Bush will not get another Supreme Court appointment is...