Law of Nations, World of Empires: The Politics of Law’s Conceptual Frames

Under the United States Alien Tort Statute, which permits non-U.S. citizens to bring lawsuits in U.S. courts for human rights violations that are violations of the law of nations, plaintiffs have filed claims against multinational oil and gas corporations for the direct or complicit commission of such violations carried out by the government of the country in which the corporation operated. In addition to exercising jurisdiction over U.S. corporations, U.S. courts have exercised jurisdiction in cases involving non-U.S. defendants for alleged wrongful conduct against non-U.S. plaintiffs committed outside the U.S.The exercise of jurisdiction by U.S. courts over non-U.S. defendants for alleged wrongful conduct against non-U.S. plaintiffs committed outside of the U.S. raises serious questions as to the jurisdictional foundation on which the power of U.S. courts to adjudicate them rests. Defences that foreign defendants can raise against the exercise of jurisdiction by the U.S. courts are an objection to the extraterritorial assertion of jurisdiction, the act of state doctrine, the political question doctrine, forum non conveniens, and the principle of comity. These defences are bolstered by the support of the defendant’s home government and other governments.

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Acculturation Through the Middle Ages: The Islamic Law of Nations and its Place in the History of International Law

SSRN Electronic Journal ◽

10.2139/ssrn.1941775 ◽

2011 ◽

Author(s):

Jean Allain

Keyword(s):

International Law ◽

Middle Ages ◽

Islamic Law ◽

Law Of Nations ◽

History Of ◽

History Of International Law ◽

The Middle Ages

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Hobbes among the Classic Jurists

10.1093/oso/9780198817215.003.0005 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

David Boucher

Keyword(s):

International Relations ◽

International Law ◽

The State ◽

Law Of Nature ◽

Law Of Nations ◽

Complete Identification ◽

The Law ◽

The Individual ◽

Hedley Bull ◽

Hans Morgenthau

The classic foundational status that Hobbes has been afforded by contemporary international relations theorists is largely the work of Hans Morgenthau, Martin Wight, and Hedley Bull. They were not unaware that they were to some extent creating a convenient fiction, an emblematic realist, a shorthand for all of the features encapsulated in the term. The detachment of international law from the law of nature by nineteenth-century positivists opened Hobbes up, even among international jurists, to be portrayed as almost exclusively a mechanistic theorist of absolute state sovereignty. If we are to endow him with a foundational place at all it is not because he was an uncompromising realist equating might with right, on the analogy of the state of nature, but instead to his complete identification of natural law with the law of nations. It was simply a matter of subject that distinguished them, the individual and the state.

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A Union of Peoples

10.1093/oso/9780198854173.001.0001 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Pavlos Eleftheriadis

Keyword(s):

European Union ◽

International Law ◽

Political Theory ◽

Domestic Institutions ◽

Eu Law ◽

The European Union ◽

Rival Theory ◽

Law Of Nations ◽

Domestic Law ◽

The Eu

This book offers a legal and political theory of the European Union. Many political and legal philosophers compare the EU to a federal union. They believe that its basic laws should be subject to the standards of constitutional law. They thus find it lacking or incomplete. This book offers a rival theory. If one looks more closely at the treaties and the precedents of the European courts, one sees that the substance of EU law is international, not constitutional. Just like international law, it applies primarily to the relations between states. It binds domestic institutions directly only when the local constitutions allow it. The member states have democratically chosen to adapt their constitutional arrangements in order to share legislative and executive powers with their partners. The legal architecture of the European Union is thus best understood under a theory of dualism and not pluralism. According to this internationalist view, EU law is part of the law of nations and its distinction from domestic law is a matter of substance, not form. This arrangement is supported by a cosmopolitan theory of international justice, which we may call progressive internationalism. The EU is a union of democratic peoples, that freely organize their interdependence on the basis of principles of equality and reciprocity. Its central principles are not the principles of a constitution, but cosmopolitan principles of accountability, liberty, and fairness,

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Israel and Palestine: Assault on the Law of Nations

The Yale Law Journal ◽

10.2307/796005 ◽

1982 ◽

Vol 91 (8) ◽

pp. 1726 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Anthony D'Amato ◽

Julius Stone

Keyword(s):

Law Of Nations ◽

The Law

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Judge Bork’s Concept of the Law of Nations is Seriously Mistaken

The American Journal of International Law ◽

10.2307/2202665 ◽

1985 ◽

Vol 79 (1) ◽

pp. 92-105

Author(s):

Anthony D’Amato

Keyword(s):

District Of Columbia ◽

Palestine Liberation Organization ◽

Tel Aviv ◽

Court Of Appeals ◽

Law Of Nations ◽

Considerable Controversy ◽

The Law

A recent decision of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Tel-Oren v. Libyan Arab Republic, is sparking considerable controversy and will undoubtedly be examined at length in law journals. The events in issue occurred March 8, 1978, when 13 heavily armed members of the Palestine Liberation Organization left Lebanon for Israel under instructions to seize and hold Israeli civilians in ransom for the release of PLO members incarcerated in Israel. On the main highway between Haifa and Tel Aviv, they stopped and seized a civilian bus, a taxi, a passing car, and later a second civilian bus, taking the passengers hostage. While proceeding toward Tel Aviv with their hostages gathered in the first bus, the terrorists fired on and killed numerous occupants of passing cars as well as some of their own passengers. They also tortured some of their hostages. At a shoot-out with the police at a police barricade, the terrorists shot more of their hostages and then blew up the bus with grenades. As a result of the terrorists’ actions, 22 adults and 12 children were killed, and 63 adults and 14 children were seriously wounded.

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