Assessing Maritime Piracy in American Law: A Century-old Punishment for an Evolving Crime

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 755-777
Author(s):  
M. Bob Kao
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Life Imprisonment ◽  
Maritime Piracy ◽  
National Courts ◽  
American Law ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
In The Beginning

AbstractThe rise of Somali piracy in the beginning of the 21st century led to a swift response by the international community. Suspects were arrested by naval forces in the high seas exercising universal jurisdiction. As there is no international tribunal for maritime piracy, the suspects were prosecuted in national courts using domestic laws. The United States prosecuted a handful of cases using its piracy statute passed in 1909, which incorporates international law but prescribes mandatory life imprisonment for those convicted. Although the definition of the crime of piracy in the United States evolves along with developments in international law, the punishment is an outlier that deviates from global norms. This article argues that the punishment for piracy in the United States must also evolve with international practice because a changing definition of a crime coupled with a fixed punishment may lead to rule of law violations and other undesirable results.

International Law and Administrative Insulation: A Comparison of Refugee Status Determination Regimes in the United States, Canada, and Australia

2012 ◽  
Vol 37 (04) ◽  
pp. 933-968 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Hamlin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
Control Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Border Control ◽  
Refugee Status ◽  
Common Definition ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Political Interference ◽  
Definition Of

International law provides nations with a common definition of a refugee, yet the processes by which countries determine who should be granted refugee status look strikingly different, even across nations with many institutional, cultural, geographical, and political similarities. This article compares the refugee status determination regimes of three popular asylum seeker destinations—the United States, Canada, and Australia. Despite these nations' similar border control policies, asylum seekers crossing their borders access three very different systems. These differences have less to do with political debates over admission and border control policy than with the level of insulation the administrative decision-making agency enjoys from political interference and judicial review. Bureaucratic justice is conceptualized and organized differently in different states, and so states vary in how they draw the line between refugee and nonrefugee.

The Psychosis of Permanent War

2014 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-51
Author(s):  
Chris Hedges
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
New York Times ◽  
The United States ◽  
Pulitzer Prize ◽  
Jewish State ◽  
The Rule Of Law

In this no-holds-barred essay, former New York Times Middle East correspondent and Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Chris Hedges examines how the United States’ staunch support provides Israel with impunity to visit mayhem on a population which it subjugates and holds captive. Notwithstanding occasional and momentary criticism, the official U.S. cheerleading stance is not only an embarrassing spectacle, Hedges argues, it is also a violation of international law, and an illustration of the disfiguring and poisonous effect of the psychosis of permanent war characteristic of both countries. The author goes on to conclude that the reality of its actions against the Palestinians, both current and historical, exposes the fiction that Israel stands for the rule of law and human rights, and gives the lie to the myth of the Jewish state and that of its sponsor, the United States.

scholarly journals The New Dilemmas of Rule of Law Assistance

2018 ◽  
Vol 112 ◽  
pp. 259-263
Author(s):  
Veronica L. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
September 11 ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Definition Of

As we meet in 2018, it is nearly thirty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989; seventeen years have passed since the terrorist attacks in the United States of September 11, 2001; and it is nearly fifteen years since the United Nations promulgated its definition of rule of law in 2004.

scholarly journals Expropriations of Private Property for Economic ‘Development’ in the United States: Re-Thinking the Titling and Rule of Law Solutions to Land Grabs in the Global South

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Frances Thomson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Private Property ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global South ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
For Profit ◽  
The Us ◽  
Definition Of

Mainstream discourses tend to treat land dispossession as a ‘developing’ country problem that arises due to weak/corrupt legal systems and inadequate property institutions. This article unsettles such discourses by examining expropriations for economic ‘development’ in the United States —a country typically deemed to have strong property institutions and a strong rule of law. Drawing on various examples, I propose that expropriation in the us is neither rigorously conditional nor particularly exceptional. While most ‘takings’ laws are supposed to restrict the State’s power, this restriction hinges on the definition of public use, purpose, necessity, or interest. And in many countries, including the us, these concepts are now defined broadly and vaguely so as to include private for-profit projects. Ultimately, the contents, interpretation, and application of the law are subject to social and political struggles; this point is habitually overlooked in the rule of law ‘solutions’ to land grabbing—. For these reasons, titling/registration programs and policies aimed at strengthening the rule of law, even if successful, are likely to transform rather than ‘solve’ dispossession in the global South.

Relative Authority of International Law and National Law in the United States

1925 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 315-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pitman B. Potter
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Proper Solution ◽  
International Treaties ◽  
National Courts ◽  
Municipal Law ◽  
To Come ◽  
National Legislatures ◽  
The Way

The relations existing in the various states of the world, and particularly in the various states of Europe and America, between international law and municipal law, or, as it might better be called, national law, have been made the subject of several studies in recent years. In view of the probable necessity for many years yet to come of relying for the development and application of international law upon national legislatures, courts, and executive or administrative officials, in the absence of any adequate system of international legislatures, courts, and executive officials, this borderland between international law and national law deserves the most thorough attention. But the attention given to the way in which international law is enforced by national courts, the way in which international treaties are supplemented by national statutes, and to other similar phases of the general subject, has led to some neglect of the central question in the problem, or, at least, has not afforded an adequate answer to that question. It is the purpose of this paper to state this question as it has arisen in cases tried in American courts, to attempt to find the proper solution for it, and to compare that solution with ruling case law on the point in the United States.

Jurisdiction, State Immunity, and Judgments in the Restatement (Fourth) of US Foreign Relations Law

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-135
Author(s):  
William S Dodge
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Frequency ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
State Immunity ◽  
American Law ◽  
The Law ◽  
Domestic Law

Abstract In 2018, the American Law Institute published the Restatement (Fourth) of Foreign Relations Law, which restates the law of the United States governing jurisdiction, state immunity, and judgments. These issues arise with great frequency in international cases brought in US courts, including cases involving Chinese parties. This article provides an overview of many of the key provisions of the Restatement (Fourth). The article describes the Restatement (Fourth)’s treatment of the customary international law of jurisdiction, as well the rules of US domestic law based on international comity that US courts apply when deciding international cases.

Citizenship and Allegiance in Constitutional and International Law

1907 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 914-929 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. W. Willoughby
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
American Citizen ◽  
The Status ◽  
American Law ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Right

The recent report on Citizenship of the United States, Expatriation, and Protection Abroad, together with the work of Mr. Van Dyne on Citizenship of the United States, and the invaluable Digest of International Law, by Prof. John Bassett Moore, render easily accessible and readily comprehensible the principles of the American law with reference to the status of our citizens and of aliens for the time being within our territorial limits. At the same time, however, these publications make more evident the fact that, in many instances, the conflicting claims of two or more states upon the same individual are settled rather by mutual concessions than upon principle; that legal and political rights are asserted, but with an understanding, more or less explicit, that under given circumstances they will not be exercised. Thus, by a legislative act, legally binding upon our executive and judicial officers, we have declared the right of the individual to expatriate himself to be an absolute and indefeasible one, and that the naturalized American citizen is to have the same rights and is to receive the same protection as the native-born citizen, whether or not the state of original allegiance consents to the expatriation thus involved. In practice, this law, thus formally declared, has never been rigidly enforced, for the very good reason that to attempt to do so would lead to constant and serious international difficulties.

Alejandro Álvarez's Latin American Law: A Question of Identity

2006 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 931-956 ◽  
Author(s):  
JORGE L. ESQUIROL
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
American Law ◽  
History Of ◽  
Seminal Article

This essay focuses on Alejandro Álvarez's seminal article, ‘Latin America and International Law’, published in 1909 in the American Journal of International Law. Offering and in-depth analysis of the text, it foregrounds the strategic meaning of Álvarez's work in the light of the international politics of his day. It posits that, more than simply a diplomatic history of Latin American particularity, Álvarez presents the case for a different hemispheric international order, based on an ‘American international law’ extending to the United States. He draws primarily an Latin American Precedents – based on historical and stituational commonalities – to argue for a common public law. He then grafts an idiosyncratic interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine as the United States' main contribution to this common law, as well as the fact of US sponsorship of various Americas-wide conferences resulting in the ratification of regional treaties. Notably, and this is one of the main points of this is one of the main points of this essay, Álvarez elevates certain Latin American states as leaders in regional international law and capable agents of its enforcement across the hemisphere. In short, this essay advances the claim that Álvarez's project of pan-American law in effect entreats the United States to share its hegemony and wield its power in the region jointly with Latin America's ‘better-constituted’ states.

International and Civil Law in the United States

2018 ◽  
pp. 246-276
Author(s):  
John B. Nann ◽  
Morris L. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
American Law ◽  
General Principles Of Law

This chapter discusses sources of information about international law and civil law in the United States. In beginning to look at U.S. practice in international law, a researcher needs to consider the sources of the law. The most important sources that may impose requirements or restrictions are treaties, which are agreements entered into between states. When approaching treaty research, researchers must consider three major steps. First, they must identify and locate the treaty; second, they must determine whether the treaty is “in force” and against whom; and third, they must consider how the terms of the treaty will be interpreted. In addition to treaties, the main sources of international law included in the Statute of the International Court of Justice are customary law, general principles of law, judicial decisions, and the writings of scholars or other publicists. The chapter then considers the place civil law had in the historical development of American law.

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