In a suit brought by Bosnian nationals against Radovan Karadzic, die U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that, under the Alien Tort Claims Act, a U.S. district court may exercise jurisdiction over a nonstate actor accused of committing genocide or war crimes in violation of international law. Relying on various international agreements, including the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and common Article 3 of the four Geneva Conventions, the court found that, under modern international law, genocide and war crimes are universally condemned regardless of whether the perpetrator is die agent of a state or an independent, nonstate actor. However, the court declined to extend its holding beyond these two categories of international law violations, finding that no similar consensus exists widi respect to more commonplace violations such as torture and summary execution; the current state of international law with respect to these acts concerns state actors only, according to die court.

During its eighth regular session, the General Assembly of the United Nations considered “that it is desirable for the maintenance and development of peaceful relations between States that the principles of international law governing State responsibility be codified.” To this end, the Assembly requested the International Law Commission to undertake the codification of these principles. The Tenth Inter-American Conference, held in Caracas March 1–28, 1954, adopted a similar resolution.

On July 28, 1994, the United States voted at the United Nations General Assembly in favor of a resolution endorsing the new Agreement that essentially amends the deep seabed regime (Part XI) of the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea and calls on states to ratify the Convention. Shortly thereafter, it signed the new Agreement. Plans call for the Convention to be submitted to the Senate for its advice and consent to ratification in October 1994 and for hearings to be held during the next Congress in the spring of 1995. By signing the Agreement, the United States will provisionally apply the deep seabed regime, as amended, until the United States becomes a party to the Convention or decides not to do so. In this paper I examine whether such provisional application is appropriate under the U.S. system of government.

The memorandum of understanding (MOU) is a well-accepted type of legal instrument in international law and practice. Indeed, it was recognized as such by the British expert Lord McNair, who, in his classic work on the law of treaties, identified the MOU as “an informal but nevertheless legal agreement” between two or more parties.

While Western imperialism played a crucial role in the creation of modern international law, it is ever more important to analyze the engagements of non-Western imperialist powers with the field so as to comprehend the changing global patterns of legalized violence and expansionism. In this Essay, we analyze Russia's international legal arguments in support of its use of force against Ukraine through the lens of inter-imperial rivalry. In so doing, we call for strict scrutiny of the deployments of jus ad bellum equally by all imperial powers.

Public international law and comparative law have so far been regarded as largely distinct fields, with little to no overlap between them. The degree of separation between the two disciplines is rendered in particularly stark relief by the absence in practice or scholarship of any real inquiry into the relationship between comparative law on the one hand and customary international law and general principles of international law on the other. Some eminent international lawyers go so far as to claim that it would be both unnecessary and unrealistic to have recourse to comparative law in the context of the identification of customary international law and general principles of law, pointing to the case law of the Permanent Court of International Justice and the International Court of Justice, which, according to them, “show[s] a clear disinclination towards the use of the comparative method.”

The video opens with a man—now known to be Commander Al-Werfalli of the elite Libyan Special Forces team al Saiqa—throwing a quick glance over his shoulder as a black SUV rolls off camera. Cradling a gun, he saunters towards three men kneeling on a sidewalk, hands bound behind their backs, faces turned toward the wall. He raises the gun in his left hand. Without pausing, he walks methodically down the row, a bullet punctuating every other step. The men slump forward as they fall. Werfalli's first hint of emotion is visible only when he unloads multiple bullets into the final body.

Despite the increasing significance of customary law in the delimitation of sea boundaries between states, the principles that evolved during the three centuries prior to World War II have generally been ignored. Although a comprehensive study in this field is needed, the studies that exist begin either with the Truman Proclamation of 1945 or the discussions of the International Law Commission in the early 1950’s. The Commission itself declared that there was no law on the matter and attempted to legislate rules in the interest of the progressive development of international law. This hasty and ambitious attempt left a gap between the conventional law and customary law, which later resulted in many disputes.

This case, instituted by the United States on November 29, 1979, by means of a unilateral Application under Article 40 of the Statute of the Court and Article 38 of the Rules of Court, relates to the takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran and the American Consulates in Tabriz and Shiraz and the detention as hostages of some 50 Americans by so-called militants. According to one doctrine of the justiciability of disputes, it would be difficult to imagine a more tension-laden and therefore non-justiciable dispute, considering that, as contended by the United States both in the Application and the Request of November 29, 1979, for the indication of provisional measures under Article 41 of the Court’s Statute and Articles 73 and 74 of the Rules of Court, the Iranian Government was involved in the takeover and continues to be involved in the detention of the hostages. The circumstances, which in the view of the United States required the indication of provisional measures, were summarized by the Court in paragraph 34 of its Order of December 15, 1979, as follows:

1. (i) On 4 November 1979, in the course of a demonstration outside the United States Embassy compound in Tehran, demonstrators attacked the Embassy premises; no Iranian security forces intervened or were sent to relieve the situation, despite repeated calls for help from the Embassy to the Iranian authorities. Ultimately the whole of the Embassy premises was invaded. The Embassy personnel, including consular and non-American staff, and visitors who were present in the Embassy at the time were seized. Shortly afterwards, according to the United States Government, its consulates in Tabriz and Shiraz, which had been attacked earlier in 1979, were also seized, without any action being taken to prevent it;

2. (ii) Since that time, the premises of the United States Embassy in Tehran, and of the consulates in Tabriz and Shiraz, have remained in the hands of the persons who seized them. These persons have ransacked the archives and documents both of the diplomatic mission and of its consular section. The Embassy personnel and other persons seized at the time of the attack have been held hostage with the exception of 13 persons released on 18 and 20 November 1979. Those holding the hostages have refused to release them, save on condition of the fulfilment by the United States of various demands regarded by it as unacceptable. The hostages are stated to have frequently been bound, blindfolded, and subjected to severe discomfort, complete isolation and threats that they would be put on trial or even put to death. The United States Government affirms that it has reason to believe that some of them may have been transferred to other places of confinement;

3. (iii) The Government of the United States considers that not merely has the Iranian Government failed to prevent the events described above, but also that there is clear evidence of its complicity in, and approval of, those events;

4. (iv) The persons held hostage in the premises of the United States Embassy in Tehran include, according to the information furnished to the Court by the Agent of the United States, at least 28 persons having the status, duly recognized by the Government of Iran, of “member of the diplomatic staff” within the meaning of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961; at least 20 persons having the status, similarly recognized, of “members of the administrative and technical staff’ within the meaning of that Convention; and two other persons of United States nationality not possessing either diplomatic or consular status. Of the persons with the status of member of the diplomatic staff, four are members of the Consular Section of the Embassy;

5. (v) In addition to the persons held hostage in the premises of the Tehran Embassy, the United States Charge d’Affaires in Iran and two other United States diplomatic agents are detained in the premises of the Iranian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, in circumstances which the Government of the United States has not been able to make entirely clear, but which apparently involve restriction of their freedom of movement, and a threat to their inviolability as diplomats.

The Board of Liquidation of the League of Nations closed its accounts as of July 31, 1947, completing the dissolution of the institution established by the Covenant which had been effect since January 10, 1920. The dissolution itself—the cessation of all activities except for liquidation purposes—had been in effect since April 19, 1946, the day following the adjournment of the 21st ordinary session of the Assembly.

In Paraguay v. United States, the International Court of Justice entered the following Order: The Court “[i]ndicates the following provisional measures: The United States should take all measures at its disposal to ensure that Angel Francisco Breard is not executed pending the final decision in these proceedings, and should inform the Court of all the measures which it has taken in implementation of this Order.”

It is widely agreed that Professor McDougal's impressive intellectual achievements can be traced, in part, to his efforts to expand the use of concepts and conclusions from the social sciences in the analysis of legal issues, especially in the realm of international law. Nevertheless, his concern with the links between the development of a policy-oriented jurisprudence on the one hand and the use of findings from the social sciences in legal analysis on the other has often led to confusion among his supporters and his opponents alike. Accordingly, my purpose in this essay is to examine critically this element of McDougal's thinking1 in the hopes of reaching a clearer understanding both of McDougal's contributions to the study of international law and of the relationship between legal analysis and the social sciences in general.2

The last eighteen months have witnessed very significant changes in the interpretation and application of the doctrine of sovereign immunity by the English Courts. These changes are important not only as matters of historical and practical interest, but because they address many of the fundamental policy questions in a manner that has been unnecessary in U.S. practice because of the way in which the Tate Letter has channelled the development of the law along certain set patterns.