scholarly journals Treaty Self-Execution as “Foreign” Foreign Relations Law

Author(s):  
Duncan B. Hollis ◽  
Carlos M. Vázquez

This chapter considers how a state’s approach to foreign relations problems may have an external origin, or what we call “foreign” foreign relations law (FFRL). Using the distinction between self-executing and non-self-executing treaties as a case study, we find close parallels between manifestations of this distinction in various states and how it evolved in the United States, where the distinction was first articulated. The chapter explores whether these parallels reflect the distinction’s transplantation from one legal system to another or the organic development of similar doctrines to address similar problems within the states involved. The chapter then addresses the utility of differentiating the exogenous/endogenous origins of particular foreign relations doctrines. We argue that consideration of a doctrine’s exogenous origins raises questions that can deepen and develop the nascent field of comparative foreign relations law. Why do states accept (or reject) FFRL? How does FFRL enter a state’s system? Who is doing the transporting? What happens to FFRL in its new site(s)—i.e., how static or dynamic does the concept prove in different settings? Further research on such questions may, in turn, set the table for more normative questions such as when states should seek (or resist) the importation of foreign relations law.

1975 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 290-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodor Meron

The object of this article is to examine and evaluate the Fishermen's Protective Act, as reflecting the legal strategy of the United States in one particular area of its foreign relations law of importance to both the law of the sea and the law of international claims.


Author(s):  
Martin S. Flaherty

Foreign relations under the US Constitution starts with the paradox, also seen in domestic matters, of relatively scant text providing guidance for the exercise of vast power. Founding understandings, structural inference, and ongoing constitutional custom and precedent have filled in much, though hardly all, of the framework over the course of two hundred years. As a result, two basic questions frame the relationship between the Constitution and US foreign policy: (1) which parts of the US government, alone or in combination, properly exercise authority in the making of foreign policy; and (2) once made, what is the status of the nation’s international legal obligations in the US domestic legal system. The making of American foreign policy is framed by the Constitution’s commitment to separation of powers. Congress, the president, and the courts are all allocated discrete yet significant foreign affairs authority. Determining the exact borders and overlaps in areas such as the use of military force, emergency measures, and treaty termination continues to generate controversy. The status of international law in the US legal system in the first instance turns on whether resulting obligations derive from agreements or custom. The United States enters into international agreements in three ways: treaties, congressional-executive agreements, and sole executive agreements. Complex doctrine deals with the domestic applicability of treaties in particular. US courts primarily apply customary international law in two basic ways. They can exercise a version of their common lawmaking authority to fashion rules of decision based on international custom. They also apply customary international law when incorporated into domestic law by statute.


2020 ◽  
pp. 303-318
Author(s):  
Austen Parrish

This chapter explores how the Fourth Restatement of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States charts a new, unexpected path in the area of adjudicatory jurisdiction. The Fourth Restatement breaks with common understandings to find that personal jurisdiction is not a concern of international law. It indicates that “with the significant exception of various forms of immunity, modern customary international law generally does not impose limits on jurisdiction to adjudicate.” The Fourth Restatement’s discussion of adjudicatory jurisdiction also appears to premise its conclusion on two unorthodox approaches to international law. First, it implies that fundamental structural limits of the international legal system can disappear unless states are vigilant in protesting illegal activity of other states. However, states are not required to persistently protest illegal activity, and it is far from clear that the absence of protests can nullify long-standing principles of sovereignty. Second, the Restatement appears to assume that states have unfettered authority absent a limiting customary rule. Yet international legal practice has not traditionally addressed jurisdictional questions that way.


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Scheibelhofer

This paper focuses on gendered mobilities of highly skilled researchers working abroad. It is based on an empirical qualitative study that explored the mobility aspirations of Austrian scientists who were working in the United States at the time they were interviewed. Supported by a case study, the paper demonstrates how a qualitative research strategy including graphic drawings sketched by the interviewed persons can help us gain a better understanding of the gendered importance of social relations for the future mobility aspirations of scientists working abroad.


2015 ◽  
Vol 36-37 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-183
Author(s):  
Paul Taylor

John Rae, a Scottish antiquarian collector and spirit merchant, played a highly prominent role in the local natural history societies and exhibitions of nineteenth-century Aberdeen. While he modestly described his collection of archaeological lithics and other artefacts, principally drawn from Aberdeenshire but including some items from as far afield as the United States, as a mere ‘routh o’ auld nick-nackets' (abundance of old knick-knacks), a contemporary singled it out as ‘the best known in private hands' (Daily Free Press 4/5/91). After Rae's death, Glasgow Museums, National Museums Scotland, the University of Aberdeen Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, as well as numerous individual private collectors, purchased items from the collection. Making use of historical and archive materials to explore the individual biography of Rae and his collection, this article examines how Rae's collecting and other antiquarian activities represent and mirror wider developments in both the ‘amateur’ antiquarianism carried out by Rae and his fellow collectors for reasons of self-improvement and moral education, and the ‘professional’ antiquarianism of the museums which purchased his artefacts. Considered in its wider nineteenth-century context, this is a representative case study of the early development of archaeology in the wider intellectual, scientific and social context of the era.


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