World Literatures in Temporal Perspective

In his article World Literatures in Temporal Perspective David Damrosch discusses the vexed problem of how to shape a literary history into definable and meaningful periods without simply projecting old Western patterns onto new ages and distant areas of the world. This problem becomes acute when one seeks to create a genuinely global literary history. Damrosch surveys some early periodizations according to patterns of infancy, growth, maturity, and decline, and discusses the often unrealized persistence of biblical and classical models in modern accounts of the literary histories of Egypt, Mesoamerica, and India

Medellin v. Dretke: Federalism and International Law

This is an edited version of a debate held at Columbia Law School on February 21, 2005

Politics Across Borders: Nonintervention and Nonforcible Influence over Domestic Affairs

It is time for a fresh look at the norm of nonintervention in domestic affairs, as applied to nonforcible efforts to influence another state\u27s internal politics. The existence of such a norm is widely proclaimed, and it is commonly assumed to be a legal obligation rather than a mere practice of comity or aspirational objective. For governments, scholars and international organs alike, the rule against interference in internal politics seems to be an article of faith; but despite the frequency of its incantation in international discourse, how the norm applies to nonforcible conduct is inadequately understood. This article considers the norm of nonintervention in relation to nonforcible support for political movements, political parties or political candidates in other states, focusing on two concrete problems of current concern. The first is transnational campaign funding: does a state violate international law when it sends money to influence a political contest in another state? The second is economic leverage applied for political purposes: does international law prohibit states from implementing policies affecting trade, aid or other economic relations, where their objective is to affect the outcome of another state\u27s internal political process

Richard N. Gardner (1927–2019)

Richard Gardner occupies a unique place in the history of United States diplomacy, in the teaching and practice of international law, in scholarship across a wide range of fields of interest to our discipline, and in the life of this Society. He was my valued colleague and mentor at Columbia University for many years, not just at the Law School, but also at the School of International and Public Affairs, where he nurtured and inspired generations of diplomats and policy experts to follow the call of public service. Having ascended the academic ladder to ever more dazzling heights — from Harvard (B.A.), to Yale (J.D. 1951), to Oxford (Rhodes Scholar and D. Phil. 1954) — he began teaching international law at Columbia in 1955, where he remained for six decades, through and beyond his retirement from teaching in 2012. He was the Henry L. Moses Professor of Law and International Organization at Columbia, teaching international law and a legendary seminar, “Legal Aspects of U.S. Foreign Economic Policy.

The Role of the United States Senate Concerning Self-Executing and Non-Self-Executing Treaties

This essay concerns a pattern in treaty actions of the U.S. Senate which tends to weaken the domestic legal effect of treaties. Under this pattern, the Senate qualifies its consent to U.S. ratification of the treaty with a declaration or other condition to the effect that the treaty shall be non-self-executing, or otherwise expresses its intention that the treaty shall not be used as a direct source of law in U.S. courts. Such qualifications, referred to hereinafter as non-self-executing declarations, give rise to important questions about the place of the affected treaties within the fabric of U.S. law, especially in light of Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, which provides that treaties of the United States shall be the supreme Law of the Land

Congress and the Executive: Who Calls the Shots for National Security? – Remarks by Lori Fisler Damrosch

Professor Firmage\u27s reaffirmation of the Framers\u27 conception of a President who would wait for congressional instructions appeals to traditional values of democratic control and congressional primacy that have deep roots in our national consciousness. But this model of presidential passivity has some of the same strengths and weaknesses as the advocacy of chastity to solve today\u27s problems of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease. The basic values may be sound, but when one moves from the assertion of those values to the identification of policy prescriptions, then it becomes clear that contemporary problems are too complex to be solved by simply returning to traditional values. Even though Professor Firmage made a strong case for reassertion of congressional prerogatives, the difficult questions facing the political system today need to be examined in their real-life complexities

Nationalism and Internationalism: The Wilsonian Legacy

No twentieth-century leader has had greater influence on the parallel development of both nationalism and internationalism than Woodrow Wilson. Wilson gave expression to the nationalist aspirations of peoples around the world, through is endorsement of the principle of self-determination. He also initiated the first institution that had as its objective the organization of the international community to apply concerted power in support of universal values. My task is to examine one contemporary problem – intervention – in the light of some of the themes implicit in the Wilsonian legacy. Among these themes will be the establishment (and now the invigoration) of collective organs for the achievement of community objectives; the engagement of the United States in those collective activities; the advancement of democracy through U.S. initiatives, whether alone or in combination with like-minded states; and the articulation of normative principles against which all the above activities could be measured

An Appreciation of Jonathan I. Charney

Jon Charney preceded me into the academic world by a dozen years and already had a well-established reputation in international law when I was a brand-new law teacher. At the time we met in 1984, Jon was tackling some of the most ambitious topics in the theory and practice of international law, and he reached out to others for collegial engagement on those subjects. From the mid-1980s, he and I worked together on three collaborative books and on many projects for the American Society of International Law and the American Journal of International Law. Among the themes that preoccupied Jon as his scholarship blossomed, I would like to single out two that are fundamental and pervasive. First, he asked the deepest questions about the creation of legal norms for a diverse and changing international community: can there be a genuinely universal international law?\u27 Is international law ultimately grounded on the consent of states, or could legal obligations take hold even if states have not consented to them? Second, he was concerned with the institutional framework in which international law is applied and international disputes are adjudicated: are international courts capable of ruling effectively on the kinds of disputes that litigants have sent them in the last few decades? Now that we have a veritable constellation of international tribunals, will their jurisprudence fit together for a coherent rather than fragmented international law? It is not necessary to be an international lawyer to understand that those questions are fundamental to the theory of international law, indeed to the nature of law itself. They epitomize the perennial challenge for our discipline: is international law really law ? Jon was committed to the nature of international law as law and to the value, even the virtue, of holding its sources and methods and its institutions to the most probing scrutiny

Plenary Session: The U.S. Constitution in its Third Century: Foreign Affairs – Remarks by Lori Fisler Damrosch

Our Moderator has asked us to look ahead into the Constitution\u27s third century and anticipate the emerging issues. I believe the changes in the field that I have selected, international organizations and institutions, are likely to be dramatic, perhaps more so than the more incremental changes in the areas being addressed by my copanelists. With all respect to our Moderator, I would like to take note of the rather modest treatment given to international organizations in the leading work on foreign affairs and the Constitution published by Louis Henkin in 1972. I hope he will forgive me if I suggest that his chapter on international organizations, which is already rather short, boils down to the following three propositions. First, international organizations are not doing anything very ambitious yet. Second, the United States can veto or otherwise block most decisions of international organizations. Third, in any event, the United States remains constitutionally free to disregard obligations imposed through international organizations, although we would have to accept the consequences of violating international law

A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy

Many readers of this Journal would readily identify the young boy in lederhosen, hands tightly clasped by his mother, who is in turn enfolded in the father\u27s embrace – all three smiling on what is perhaps the child\u27s third birthday – in the cover photograph of the American edition of the book under review. In this memoir he is Tommy, Tom, Tomek, or Tommyli; in later life he is known to us (and recognized worldwide) as Thomas Buergenthal, judge of the International Court of justice since 2000 and honorary president of the American Society of International Law from 2001 to 2009. We may have heard the essential points in his life story when he has been introduced at plenary sessions of our annual meetings – a child survivor of Auschwitz who came to this country as a young man, was educated at Bethany College in West Virginia, earned a law degree from New York University and a doctorate from Harvard, became a professor of international law and human rights activist, and has served on several of the most significant tribunals in the areas of international human rights law and general international law. He has taught and mentored generations of law students aspiring to careers in the fields in which he has made such a mark, who have drawn inspiration from the life he has lived and his unwavering optimism that the human condition can indeed be improved through law