John Noyes - International Law Stories

By

JOHN E. NOYES

Professor of Law
California Western School of Law

LAURA A. DICKINSON

Professor of Law
University of Connecticut School of Law

MARK W. JANIS

William F. Starr Professor of Law
University of Connecticut School of Law

Cover Design: Keith Stout

Photo Credit: The Representatives of Foreign Powers Coming to Salute the Republic as a Sign of Peace, 1907 (oil on canvas) by Rousseau, Henri J.F. (Le Douanier) (18441910)

Musee Picasso, Paris, France/Lauros/Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library

Nationality/copyright status: French/out of copyright

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ISBN 9781599410869

International Law Stories explores the personal, social, political, and historical foundations of thirteen classic international law cases. The authors of our essayslaw school deans and professors, international court judges, and government lawyersbring these stories to life, telling tales helpful, we hope, for those well-acquainted with the cases, as well as for those new to the field. One short book cannot address all the important cases in the vast arena of international law, but these essays provide a rich and lucid understanding of modern international law.

International Law Stories has three parts. Part I, Nuremberg and Its Progeny, begins with the story about the judgment of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, by Judge Theodor Meron of the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and Jean Galbraith. Following are three chapters on cases from other courts, each building on Nuremberg : Filrtiga from a U.S. federal court, by Dean Harold Koh of Yale Law School; Velsquez Rodrguez from the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights, by Dean Claudio Grossman of American Universitys Washington College of Law; and Soering from the European Court of Human Rights, by David Seymour, the Legal Adviser to the U.K. Home Office, and Jennifer Tooze, also of the Home Office. These four cases, all of which concern the human rights or humanitarian law obligations of states, feature the individual as a central actor in international law.

Part II, International Law: The Domestic Impact, also has four chapters, each of them looking at how the U.S. legal system has treated the complex interplay among international law, constitutional law, and domestic politics and culture. Professor Carlos Vzquez of the Georgetown University Law Center explores Foster & Elam and Percheman ; Professor William Dodge of the University of Californias Hastings College of Law considers The Paquete Habana ; Professor Mark Janis of the University of Connecticut School of Law writes about Missouri v. Holland ; and Professor Oona Hathaway of Yale Law School presents Hamdan .

Finally, Part III, International Law: Interstate Conflicts, contains five chapters showing how international law and process have addressed controversies over the use of force, the development of international institutions, the treatment accorded citizens of one country who are accused of crimes in another, and the treatment of detainees in the war on terror. The chapters in Part III include: Caroline , by Professor John Noyes of California Western School of Law; Reparation for Injuries , by Emory University Law Professor David Bederman; Nicaragua , by Professor Mary Ellen OConnell of Notre Dame Law School; LaGrand , by Judge Bruno Simma of the International Court of Justice and Carsten Hoppe; and Abu Ghraib, by Professor Laura Dickinson of the University of Connecticut School of Law.

This Introduction continues with three short essays by the editors of International Law Stories , providing perspective on the contents of this volume. The first, by Mark Janis, discusses what makes an international law case a classic. John Noyes, in the second introductory essay, explores the wide variety of fora that interpret and apply international law. Third, Laura Dickinson reflects on the efficacy of international law in our cases.

What makes an international law case a classic? How have we decided what to include as classic international law cases for International Law Stories ? We can think of at least three tests to determine classic status. The first is reliance: Is the case one on which international lawyers rely? Do international lawyers make steady reference to the case in subsequent practice? The second test is transformation: Has the case changed international law? Have international lawyers come to think about and to do their discipline differently because of the case? And third is expectation: Is the case one that international lawyers are expected to know? Could one be counted a real international lawyer if one was not familiar with the case?

Since all tests of classic status involve opinion, we acknowledge that it will be much harder to agree upon classic cases in international law than upon cases in a subject matter drawn from a single legal system, like that of the United States. Plainly, there will always be a greater degree of intellectual, social, and professional coherence among lawyers from a single country about a domestic legal field like U.S. constitutional law, property law, or tort law, than there will be among lawyers from almost two hundred different countries about international law, a fundamentally shared legal field. So, to be honest, we must admit that deciding what cases to include in International Law Stories is colored by the fact that we three editors are all American, all educated at U.S. law schools (though one was first educated at an English law school), all members of a bar of a state of the United States, and all professors at U.S. law schools. Moreover, we perceive our principal audience to be students, though not necessarily American, taking courses in U.S. law schools or undergraduate and graduate schools, or U.S. lawyers, judges, and academics. Hence, our choice of classic international law cases has, and is meant to have, a distinctly American flavor. As international lawyers, of course, we are by trade and emotion keenly sympathetic with foreign audiences; we hope that our choice of cases will also reach out to foreign students, lawyers, judges, and academics.