International Law and Domestic Law

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The Honduran Crisis and the Turn to Constitutional Legitimism, Part I: The Place of Domestic Constitutional Orders in the International Legal Framework

September 23, 2009

Brad R. Roth

Who is the current President of Honduras? Far from the stuff of quiz shows, this question bears on the very foundations of international law. The international reaction to the June 28, 2009 ouster of President Manuel Zelaya, though superficially similar to earlier repudiations of coups, is in important respects unprecedented. Its implications have a profundity that few international actors – least of all, President Zelaya’s strongest international political allies – seem to have considered. A decade ago, I explored at length the question of Governmental Illegitimacy in International Law. The title was initially intended as a provocation, since the legitimacy of governments had ordinarily not been considered a proper object of international law. It had largely been taken as a given that a ruling apparatus exercising “effective control through internal processes” – whether or not formally “recognized” – would be acknowledged to have legal standing to assert rights, incur obligations, exercise powers, and confer immunities on behalf of the underlying sovereign entity that enjoyed membership in the international legal order.

Comment on Benvenisti & Downs’, ‘National Courts, Domestic Democracy, and the Evolution of International Law’

June 23, 2009

Alison MacDonald

Alison MacDonald is an English Barrister at Matrix Chambers and was a Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford from 1999 to 2006. She has acted as counsel before a range of international tribunals including the European Court of Human Rights, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea,…

US Appeals Court holds that Former Foreign Officials Entitled to Immunity in Civil Suit alleging War Crimes

May 3, 2009

Dapo Akande

The Second Circuit of the US Court of Appeals has recently (April 16, 09) held in Matar v. Dichter that the former head of the Israeli General Security Service is immune in a civil suit brought under the US Aliens Tort Claims Act (28 USC § 1350) alleging war crimes and extrajudicial killing. The suit relates to Dichter's participation…

US District Court Rules on Guantanamo Detention Standard

April 25, 2009

Marko Milanovic

A US District Court has just released the first judicial opinion on the detention standard applicable to detainees in Guantanamo (formerly known as 'enemy combatants'), subsequent to the filing of the Obama administration's brief that we have previously extensively discussed. Judge Walton's opinion shows a valiant effort to grapple with the applicable international humanitarian law. Regrettably, however, I…

Domestic Enforcement of Decisions of International Tribunals

March 27, 2009

Dapo Akande

I am at the American Society of International Law's Annual Meeting and attended a panel on the domestic enforcement of decisions of international tribunals. The panelists, which included distinguished presenters Professors Lori Fisler Damrosch of Columbia University and Andreas Paulus of Gottingen, spoke about the Medellin case of the US Supreme court, about the Kadi decision of the…

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The Julian Assange Affair: May the UK Terminate the Diplomatic Status of Ecuador’s Embassy? UPDATED

August 17, 2012

Dapo Akande

Ecuador has announced that it is granting asylum to Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder, who has taken refuge in the Ecuardor's embassy in London. Assange sought refuge in the Embassy after the UK Supreme Court ruled a few weeks ago that he may be extradited to Sweden where he is wanted for trial on allegation of committing…

UK Supreme Court Decides R (Smith) v SSD

June 30, 2010

Marko Milanovic

Today the UK Supreme Court decided R (Smith) v Secretary of State for Defence [2010] UKSC 29 (press summary), yet another fascinating addition to the unfolding saga on the extraterritorial application of human rights treaties. The plaintiff was the mother of a UK soldier stationed in Iraq who died there from a severe heatstroke. She demanded an inquiry…

Is there a place for sovereign immunity in the fight against terrorism? The US Supreme Court says ‘no’ in Bank Markazi v. Peterson

May 19, 2016

Victor Grandaubert

The US Supreme Court’s judgment of 20 April 2016 in the case of Bank Markazi, aka The Central Bank of Iran, Petitioner v. Deborah Peterson, et al. highlights the increasingly isolated nature of US practice on sovereign immunity. As well as addressing issues of constitutional law, the judgment is also significant from an international law perspective; the…

International Law in the Age of Trump

February 28, 2017

Monica Hakimi

In the second month of Donald Trump’s presidency, we still know little about his foreign policy agenda. He regularly said things during the campaign that suggested a radical departure from longstanding tenets of U.S. foreign policy. And during his first month in office, he caused more than his fair share of diplomatic offense and confusion.