This essay describes the emerging legal battleground between states engaged in transnational armed conflict and the role of third parties — courts, international institutions, NGOs, and civil society — in developing and enforcing the law. This legal conflict has led to the formation of two...

In this essay we draw upon the theoretical and empirical literatures on the evolution of court independence within modern democratic states to identify aspects of their political environments that have fostered judicial independence at the domestic level. We then extend that analysis to examine...

The debate over whether property is a limit on or the product of sovereignty envisages a tension between “the individual owner” and “the state.” But “the state” is not more than the aggregate of individuals who define theirs and others' property rights through the political process....

The negotiations over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) exemplify the efficacy and the consequences of fragmentation as a “divide and conquer” strategy. By choosing this negotiating strategy and by maintaining secrecy over the...

The ever-intensifying trends of global interdependence have created a complex reality in which decisions of sovereign states, like those of international courts, radiate far beyond their traditional confines, affecting the interests of a range of strangers (third-states, individuals,...

National courts are gradually abandoning their traditional policy of deference to their executive branches in the field of foreign policy and beginning more aggressively to engage in the interpretation and application of international law. This change has been precipitated by the recognition of...

During the course of the second half of the nineteenth century, the rules regulating the conduct of armies during hostilities were internationally codified for the first time. The conventional narrative attributes the codification of the laws of war to the campaign of civil society, especially...

Absent a clear case of an armed attack, the UN Charter severely restricts the ability of individual states to react to what they perceive as their national security risks, relegating such a task to the collective decision-making of the Security Council. Contemporary global security risks pose...

In the 1997 decision of the International Court of Justice in the dispute between Hungary and Slovakia regarding the uses of the Danube, Judge Weeramantry invoked ancient Asian traditions concerning the utilization of shared water resources to offer novel insights for the development of...