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The Translation of Common Sense: A Response to Verdier and Voeten

Part of: Pierre-Hugues Verdier and Erik Voeten, “Precedent, Compliance, and Change in Customary International Law: An Explanatory Theory”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Alejandro Lorite Escorihuela
Alejandro Lorite Escorihuela*
Affiliation:
University of Quebec in Montreal
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Abstract

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Type
Symposium: Pierre-Hugues Verdier and Erik Voeten, “Precedent, Compliance, and Change in Customary International Law: An Explanatory Theory”
Information
AJIL Unbound , Volume 108 , 2014 , pp. 250 - 256
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 2014

References

1 Verdier, Pierre-Hugues & Voeten, Erik, Precedent, Compliance, and Change in Customary International Law: An Explanatory Theory, 108 AJIL 389, 390 (2014)Google Scholar.

2 Id. at 389.

3 Id. at 390.

4 Jessup, Philip C., The Reality of International Law, 18 Foreign Aff. 244 (1940)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 S.S. “Lotus” (Fr. v. Turk.), Judgment, 1927 P.C.I.J. (ser. A) No. 10, at 18 (Sept. 7).

6 Goldsmith, Jack L. & Posner, Eric A., A Theory of Customary International Law, 66 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1113 (1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Jack L. Goldsmith & Eric A. Posner, The Limits of International Law (2005).

8 Among others, see Norman, George & Trachtman, Joel P., The Customary International Law Game, 99 AJIL 541, 553 (2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (“The present article refines and extends an emerging rationalist understanding of CIL. Pioneering work in this field-notably that of Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner has begun to articulate such a rationalist theory.”); Trachtman, Joel P., The Economic Structure of International Law 91 (2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (repeating that claim in a more general context); Guzman, Andrew T., The Promise of International Law, 92 Virg. L. Rev. 533, 563 (2006)Google Scholar (“The Limits of International Law and its authors are pioneers in the effort to move the study of international law away from its doctrinal past toward a new methodology much more grounded in social science. This movement is underway and all evidence is that it will succeed.”); Swaine, Edward T., Restoring (And Risking) Interest in International Law, 100 AJIL 259, 264 (2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (book review) (“Criticisms aside, [The Limits of International Law] largely succeeds in its ambition of sketching a leading, perhaps the leading, theory explaining and predicting state behaviors connected with all international law. This is a signal accomplishment.”).

9 Berman, Paul Schiff, Seeing Beyond the Limits of International Law, 84 Tex. L. Rev. 1265 (2006)Google Scholar.

10 Bradley, Curtis A. & Goldsmith, Jack L., Customary International Law: A Critique of the Modern Position, 110 Harv. L. Rev. 815 (1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Goldsmith, Jack L. and Posner, Eric A., Response: The New International Law Scholarship, 34 GA. J. Int’l & Comp. L. 463 (2006)Google Scholar.

12 Trachtman, supra note 8, at 73.

13 Id. at 19, 114 (first noting the logical difficulties of basing law on self-interest if we want to maintain the autonomy of both, and then suggesting that customary law may be considered endogenous to states in the aggregate and exogenous to states taken individually).

14 Guzman, supra note 8, at 192 (“The way I have defined CIL . . . blurs the line between legal rules and ‘mere’ norms—at least as compared to traditional definitions under which there is a sharp distinction between that which is CIL and that which is not.”).

15 Verdier & Voeten, supra note 1, at 410.

16 Memorandum from Jay S. Bybee, Assistant Attorney General, to Alberto Gonzalez, White House Counsel, Authority of the President Under Domestic and International Law To Use Military Force Against Iraq, Oct. 23, 2002, 26 Opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel 143 (2012).

17 Delahunty, Robert J. & Yoo, John C., The “Bush doctrine”: Can Preventive War Be Justified?, 32 Harv. J. L. & Pub. Pol’y 843 (2009)Google Scholar.

18 Press Release: President Bush Delivers Graduation Speech at West Point, White House, Office of the Press Secretary (June 2002).

19 The White House, The National Security Strategy of the United States of America (Sept. 2002).

20 President George W. Bush, Address on the Conflict with Iraq (Mar. 17 2003).

21 Id.

22 The White House, The National Security Strategy of the United States of America (Mar. 2006).

23 Department of Defense, Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for the 21st Century Defense (Jan. 2012).

24 Yoo, John, Using Force, 71 U. Chi. L. Rev. 729 (2004)Google Scholar.

25 Posner, Eric A. & Sykes, Alan O., Optimal War and Jus Ad Bellum, 93 Geo. L. J. 993 (2005)Google Scholar.

26 Posner, Eric A. & Yoo, John C., Judicial Independence in International Tribunals, 93 Calif. L. Rev. 1 (2005)Google Scholar.

27 Verdier & Voeten, supra note 1, at 409.

28 Id. at 412 (footnotes omitted).

29 Air Service Agreement of 27 March 1946 (U.S. v. Fr.) Dec. 9 1978, 18 RIAA 415, 443 (1978). Also, Reservations to the Genocide Convention, Advisory Opinion, 1951 ICJ REP. 15, 24 (May 28) (States determine for themselves what the object and purpose of a specific treaty really is).

30 The Paquete Habana, 175 U.S. 677 (1900).

31 Legality of the Use or Threat of Nuclear Weapons, Advisory Opinion, 1996 ICJ REP. 226, 254 (July 8) (noting that the practice of deterrence by nuclear states was sufficient to show a lack of common opinio juris regarding the prohibition of nuclear weapons).

Also, obviously, North Sea Continental Shelf cases, (Ger. v. Den./Ger. v. Neth.), 1969 ICJ REP. 3, 43 (Feb. 20) (noting that very widespread practice including that of specially affected states compensates for a short timespan.).

32 Verdier & Voeten, supra note 1, at 414.

33 Id. at 414.

34 Id. at 415.

35 Draft Memorandum from Assistant Attorney General, Jack Goldsmith, to Alberto Gonzales, Regarding the Permissibility of Relocating Certain “Protected Persons” from Occupied Iraq (Mar. 19, 2004). See Scott Horton, Court of Appeal Orders Release of Bagram Prisoner, The Harper’s Blog (Dec. 19, 2011).