A Law of the Future or A Law of the Past? Modern Tribunals and the International Law of Expropriation

1991 ◽  
Vol 85 (3) ◽  
pp. 474-505 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick M. Norton
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
The Past ◽  
United Nations General ◽  
Full Compensation ◽  
United Nations General Assembly

One precedent creates another. They soon accumulate and constitute law. What yesterday was fact, today is doctrine.Junius†Less than twenty years ago, a large majority of the United Nations General Assembly declared the customary international law of expropriation dead. Eighty-six governments supported a resolution holding that a state expropriating foreign property “is entitled to determine the amount of possible compensation and the mode of payment, and … any disputes which might arise should be settled in accordance with the national legislation of [that] State.” Scholars cited this and other General Assembly resolutions as evidence that international law no longer required full compensation for the expropriation of foreign property. This view had sufficient support to precipitate an acrimonious dispute in the preparation of the Restatement (Third) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States, which reaffirmed only in its later drafts the traditional “Hull formula.”

The Intent to Destroy Groups in the Genocide Convention: The Proposed U.S. Understanding

1984 ◽  
Vol 78 (2) ◽  
pp. 369-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence J. LeBlanc
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Genocide Convention ◽  
United Nations General ◽  
United Nations General Assembly ◽  
The United Nations

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the Genocide Convention) in December 1948. A representative of the United States signed the Convention, and President Truman later transmitted it to the Senate with a request that it give its advice and consent to ratification. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held hearings on the Convention in 1950. It has since held hearings on four occasions (1970, 1971, 1977 and 1981), and favorably reported the Convention to the Senate four times (1970, 1971, 1973 and 1976). However, the Senate has failed to act; a resolution of ratification was debated on the floor in 1973-1974, but it fell victim to a filibuster and the Convention remains in committee.

Developments in the law of genocide

2002 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 131-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Schabas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Khmer Rouge ◽  
The United States ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
The Past ◽  
United Nations General ◽  
Aboriginal Populations ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
United Nations General Assembly

Probably more has happened in the past five years to the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide than in the previous 50, that is, in the half-century following its adoption by the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948.Indeed, for the first five decades of its existence, the Convention was largely ignored by lawyers, viewed by most of them — as Georg Schwar-zenberger famously remarked — to be ‘unnecessary when applicable and inapplicable when necessary’. Over the years there had been attempts to apply the ‘g-word’ to a wide range of atrocities and gross violations of human rights, including those of China in Tibet, of Iraq against the Kurds, of the United States in Vietnam as well as towards its African-American and aboriginal populations, of Pakistan in Bangladesh, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and Israel in Lebanon. But in each of these cases, some interpretative flair was required in order to stretch the definition to fit the crimes, and the efforts were not always very convincing. In 1990 scholars Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn wrote that ‘the wording of the Convention is so restrictive that not one of the genocidal killings committed since its adoption is covered by it’.

The Soviet Union, the United States and International Security

1949 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph E. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Organization ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
International Peace ◽  
United Nations General ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
United Nations General Assembly

It is now three years since the United Nations General Assembly first convened in London, and over five years since the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and China announced at the first Moscow Conference their recognition of “the necessity of establishing at the earliest practicable date a general international organization … for the maintenance of international peace and security.”

The Nonproliferation Treaty: Its Negotiation and Prospects

1969 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 788-807 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. L. M. Burns
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
United Nations General ◽  
General Assembly Resolution ◽  
United Nations General Assembly

The Eighteen-Nation Committee on Disarmament (ENDC) devoted its major efforts from the endof July 1965 until April 1968 to negotiating the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, spending little time on other arms control measures in the sessions throughout this period. In May 1968 the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics jointly presented the draft treaty to the First (Political and Security) Committee of the United Nations General Assembly. After lengthy debate and acceptance of several amendments to meet the wishes of nonnuclear states the Treaty reached its final form on May 21, 1968, and was “commended” in General Assembly Resolution 2373 (XXII) of June 12, 1968.

scholarly journals The Requisite Rigour in the Identification of Customary International Law

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noora Arajärvi
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Special Rapporteur ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
United Nations General ◽  
United Nations General Assembly ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Law Commission

Over the last few decades, the methodology for the identification of customary international law (cil) has been changing. Both elements of cil – practice and opinio juris – have assumed novel and broader forms, as noted in the Reports of the Special Rapporteur of the International Law Commission (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016). This contribution discusses these Reports and the draft conclusions, and reaction by States in the Sixth Committee of the United Nations General Assembly (unga), highlighting the areas of consensus and contestation. This ties to the analysis of the main doctrinal positions, with special attention being given to the two elements of cil, and the role of the unga resolutions. The underlying motivation is to assess the real or perceived crisis of cil, and the author develops the broader argument maintaining that in order to retain unity within international law, the internal limits of cil must be carefully asserted.

Customary International Law and U.S. Judicial Power

2020 ◽  
pp. 251-264
Author(s):  
Thomas H. Lee
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Law ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Judicial Power ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
The Third

This chapter describes specific points of divergence between the Third and Fourth Restatements of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States regarding how U.S. courts should engage with customary international law. The Third Restatement, adopted in 1987, envisioned U.S. courts fluent in and engaged with international law, deploying a U.S. foreign relations jurisprudence in dialogue with international law and lawyers. Customary international law was a central feature of this vision because it was the prime pathway for human rights litigation in federal courts when U.S. treaty-based human-rights initiatives had stalled. Appearing thirty years later, the Fourth Restatement exhibits a fundamentally different orientation toward customary international law. Customary international law is no longer embraced as it was in the Third Restatement as an opportunity to play offense, to advance the international law of human rights. That vision inspired a reaction among some U.S. legal scholars who questioned the U.S. federal law status of customary international law and the legitimacy of U.S. judges advancing the customary international law of human rights. The Fourth Restatement seeks a middle ground by defending against this revision of customary international law’s status role in the United States, concerned that the revisionist view might encourage and provide cover for U.S. courts to dismiss cases and claims with foreign policy ramifications that they should be adjudicating. The approaches of the two Restatements, taken together, have contributed to the disengagement of U.S. judges from customary international law altogether, to the detriment of U.S. conduct of foreign policy and contrary to the original constitutional specification of the judicial power of the United States as reflected in Article III, the Judiciary Act of 1789 that established the federal courts, and early historical practice.

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