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.

The Noble American Science of Imperial Relations and Its Laws of Race Development

2020 ◽  
pp. 3-42
Author(s):  
Robert Vitalis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
American Science ◽  
The Way

We now know that the ‘birth of the discipline’ of international relations in the United States is a story about empire. The foundations of early international relations theory are set in not just international law and historical sociology but evolutionary biology and racial anthropology. The problem is the way in which scholars today deal with the place of race in the thought of John Hobson, Paul Reinsch, and virtually all other social scientists of the era. The strand of thought that still resonates in our own time about empire, states, and the like is raised up and depicted as the scientific or theoretical core in the scholars’ work, while the strand that involves now archaic racial constructs is downgraded and treated instead as mere ‘language’, ‘metaphors’, and ‘prejudices’ of the era. To undo this error and recover in full the ideas of early international relations theorists it is necessary to bring the work of historians of conservative and reform Darwinism to bear on the first specialists and foundational texts in international relations.

scholarly journals Child Marriage and the Failure of International Law: a Comparison of American, Indian, and Canadian Domestic Policies

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-125
Author(s):  
Marcy J. Robles
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Indian ◽  
International Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Term Effect ◽  
Child Marriage ◽  
International Treaties ◽  
Long Term Effect ◽  
Health Complications

Summary What is child marriage? The recognized definition does not adequately encompass the experience of child marriage. Child marriage stems from many elements, including coercion, force, and economic deprivation. Furthermore, child marriages have a long-term effect on child spouses, ranging from psychological damage, to health complications, to education and personal limitations. This paper argues that current international treaties and agreements do not specifically or directly address the issue of child marriage. Of those that make an attempt to, fail as a result of lack of enforcement or too much deference to religion as an exception of child marriage prohibition. In comparing three countries – The United States, India, and Canada, it is clear that Canadian policies work best and should be implemented on a larger scale. Current U.S. policies do not fully combat the child marriage phenomena, and although it is ahead of India in this area, it still has a long way to go in terms of development.

1. First principles

2019 ◽  
pp. 6-24
Author(s):  
Andrew Preston
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
First Principles ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
New Nation ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Way

The United States began its existence as an act of foreign policy. It is no exaggeration to say that the nation owes its very existence to the successful pursuit of war and diplomacy. ‘First principles’ explains that over a period of forty years, from the outbreak of revolution in 1775 to the end of war with Britain in 1815, the founding generation established and consolidated a new nation by responding to a series of international challenges. Along the way, they established a set of first principles of foreign relations: namely, unilateralism, exceptionalism, and expansionism. These would shape Americans’ engagement with the wider world for centuries to come.

Letter to the Editors of the Symposium

1999 ◽  
Vol 93 (2) ◽  
pp. 351-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martti Koskenniemi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Critical Legal Studies ◽  
Academic Quality ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
The Way

As I started to think about how to respond to your kind invitation to participate in the symposium on method in international law, and what to write to the readers of the Journal, I soon noticed that it was impossible for me to think about my—or indeed anybody’s—“method” in the way suggested by the symposium format. This was only in part because I felt that your (and sometimes others’) classification of my work as representative of something called “critical legal studies” failed to make sense of large chunks of it whose labeling as “CLS” might seem an insult to those in the American legal academy who had organized themselves in the 1970s and early 1980s under that banner. You may, of course, have asked me to write about “CLS” in international law irrespectively of whether I was a true representative of its method (whatever that method might be). Perhaps I was only asked to explain how people generally identified as “critics” went about writing as they did. But I felt wholly unqualified to undertake such a task. Dozens of academic studies had been published on the structure, history and ideology of critical legal studies in the United States and elsewhere. Although that material is interesting, and often of high academic quality, little of it describes the work of people in our field sometimes associated with critical legal studies—but more commonly classed under the label of “new approaches to international law.“1 In fact, new writing in the field was so heterogeneous, self-reflective and sometimes outright ironic that the conventions of academic analysis about “method” would inevitably fail to articulate its reality.

scholarly journals The International Law Standard in Statutes of the United States

1951 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 732-740
Author(s):  
Robert R. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
National Legislation ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
International Obligations ◽  
Municipal Law ◽  
Domestic Jurisdiction ◽  
To Receive

The relation of municipal law to international law is properly a subject of inquiry by both practitioners and theoreticians. That all the questions which arise in this connection have not been settled will appear from continuing discussions concerning monism and dualism, the concept of domestic jurisdiction questions, and the doctrine of self-executing treaties. Cases of clear conflict between national law in the form of statutes and that which comprises international obligations tend to receive much publicity, and properly so. The extent to which there has been conformity of national legislation to customary international law and treaties seems to have received less attention. Techniques used to secure such conformity will appear to some extent from the manner in which statute-makers have by express provisions taken cognizance of the law of nations in written or unwritten form.

The Arms Traffic Conference of 1925

2020 ◽  
pp. 102-128
Author(s):  
Mary S. Barton
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Trade ◽  
The United States ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Biological Weapons ◽  
Chemical And Biological Weapons ◽  
Enforcement Mechanisms ◽  
National Legislatures ◽  
The Way ◽  
Peace Settlements

In May 1925, the League of Nations convened a Conference for the Supervision of the International Trade in Arms and Ammunition and in Implements of War in Geneva, Switzerland. Six weeks of negotiations resulted in a new Arms Traffic Convention (as well as the Geneva Protocol against the usage of chemical and biological weapons), which representatives from eighteen countries—including the United States, Britain, France, Italy, and Japan—signed on June 17. The United States led the way to that moment yet did not follow through on it afterward. The treaty, which lacked robust enforcement mechanisms, languished in national legislatures and never entered into force. Even so, it had a constructive legacy: the compilation and publication of statistics on gun-running. Intelligence based on open and closed sources collected for, and resulting from, the Arms Traffic Conference, indicated systematic violations of the European peace settlements and revealed a world awash in guns.

Neutrality Laws of the United States

1937 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 258-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Dumbauld
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Government ◽  
Foreign Government ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
Penal Law ◽  
Municipal Law ◽  
Joint State

The so-called “neutrality laws” of the United States are statutory provisions, a part of the penal law of the United States, and should be clearly distinguished from the obligations imposed upon the United States by interyt national law. They may be regarded as an instance of the enforcement of international law by municipal law in the United States, and originated in the endeavors of the administration of President Washington to discharge the duties owed by the American Government as a neutral nation during the war between England and France in 1793. They punish criminally the commission of acts forbidden by the law of nations. As was well said by the Joint State and Navy Neutrality Board in 1916, “The doer of the wrongful act is accountable only to the United States, while the United States is itself accountable to a foreign government for the commission of the act. In this respect the neutrality laws differ from ordinary penal statutes, because the prohibited acts affect the international relations of the United States in addition to any effect they may have upon domestic tranquillity and order.”

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.

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