Among the more controversial provisions of the Restatement of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States (Revised), are the sections dealing with the act of state doctrine in Tentative Draft No. 4. Section 428 provides: “Subject to §429, courts in the United States will refrain from examining the validity of an act of a foreign state taken in its sovereign capacity within the state’s own territory.” This provision, of course, is based on the Supreme Court decision in Sabbatino. The Court there stated, “the Judicial Branch will not examine the validity of a taking of property within its own territory by a foreign sovereign government” even if it is alleged that the taking is contrary to international law.

However deep and acrimonious are most contemporary political controversies, the merits of the federal system of government are recognized by adherents of widely different political doctrines and practices. In the most different conditions federalism has established itself as a useful principle for welding together into one political body groups and regions of great diversity. Neither geography nor linguistic, racial or religious differences have proved insurmountable obstacles to political unity. The federal system of government, in dividing powers between one central government and a number of local governments, allows for that diversity in unity which is so attractive a goal for human activities.

Insurrections and civil wars in Spanish territories during the past century have uniformly been productive of international complications and problems of international law. The present disturbance in Spain has been no exception to the rule. It is not strange perhaps that these crises have had such results considering the strategic locations and economic values of the Spanish domains, the maritime frontiers, the sizable merchant marine and navy, and the passionate and reckless manner in which arms have always been employed.

In an article published concurrently in the Journal of International Economic Law, I reach many of the same conclusions as Simon Batifort and J. Benton Heath regarding the use of most favored nation (MFN) clauses to import substantive provisions from other treaties. However, although our conclusions are similar, our reasoning differs in several important respects. In my view, the reasons why MFN clauses cannot be used to import treaty provisions have more to do with the nature of these clauses than their specific text. MFN clauses are primary rules that require performing a comparison and determining whether there is a breach of the provision, and this produces legal effects that run against any attempt at importation. In addition, it is not possible or desirable to interpret MFN clauses in isolation from general international law. Stephan Schill is also correct that Batifort and Heath cannot disclaim the normative implications of their effort to shift the debate over MFN clauses. But Schill confuses the legal effects of MFN clauses with a policy consideration (multilateralization) and misreads the interpretative background that must be considered when applying MFN clauses. Schill also mistakes multilateralization via arbitral interpretations of MFN clauses for true multilateralism, which is the product of states working together in multilateral fora. That distinction matters, too, for Schill's solution might provoke a state-led backlash that will undermine the very multilateralism he seeks to promote.

Constitutional courts in Latin America have used judicial review to enhance the relevance of international law in recent years. Some scholars even speak of a growing “constitutionalization of international law” in the region. But these domestic courts can also act as gatekeepers that blunt or entirely deflect the domestic impact of international law. This essay explores three recent episodes in which constitutional courts joined or led efforts to escape treaty obligations: the Venezuelan Supreme Court's judgment urging the Chávez Administration to denounce the American Convention of Human Rights on constitutional grounds, which Chavez then did in 2012 (a court-inspired treaty exit); the Colombian executive's 2013 petition to have Colombia's acceptance of the International Court of Justice's (ICJ's) jurisdiction under the Pact of Bogotá declared unconstitutional (a court-legitimated treaty exit); and the Dominican Republic (DR) Constitutional Tribunal's 2014 judgment holding that the DR's acceptance of the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) had been unconstitutional (a court-led treaty exit).

I am pleased to provide a brief response to the comments in the pages of this Journal on my note on self-defense principles and to welcome those comments, as well as others, as contributing to the kind of debate that publication of the principles hoped to achieve. I do not agree with much that has been said but am pleased that the public debate has been joined.

A backlash against the post-Cold War order of liberal globalization has taken hold in the rich North Atlantic countries. Concerns about wages, working conditions, and economic opportunity are central to the critique of international trade agreements of the last three decades. While labor rights have progressively been included in trade agreements, they have done little to reshape workers’ well-being and workplace conditions. The new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) may signal a pivot to a new model requiring reforms of domestic labor law and other issues important to workers. However, there is much more to be done to rebalance the power between capital and labor in trade agreements. In addition, for the United States and other rich countries, reform at home may be equally important.

A common exercise for international lawyers faced with a new global environmental problem consists in undertaking a review of the applicable law. Environmental principles generally feature extensively in such studies: their open-textured nature is recognized to facilitate a fluid adaptation of international law as new risks become apparent. Among these principles is the foundational prevention principle, which is based on the rationale that environmental damage is best avoided rather than repaired. Since its international recognition in the 1972 Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment, the prevention principle has gained an influential place in the work of environmental lawyers. While it is readily assumed that the principle is able to guide state responses to the plastics crisis, its exact functions and legal implications in this context remain underexplored. The purpose of this essay is to shed light on the different roles that the prevention principle can play in response to the proliferation of harmful plastics.

The Supreme Court’s ruling in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. disfavors American corporations. While largely unshackling foreign corporations from the risk of being haled before an American court to answer for human rights abuses abroad, the decision keeps American corporations constrained by human rights law. This inconsistency exists because application of the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), as announced in Kiobel, turns on whether a corporation’s actions “touch and concern” the United States. American corporations are simply far more likely to satisfy that standard than foreign corporations.

These things also require their material forms, their easily recognizable visible symbols, their homes. . . . [With the Peace Palace,] international justice between nations has moved into a splendid home. The proud building is standing now, visible, and tangible: Temple, symbol and workplace. At least the spirit of peace is no longer homeless.