Letter from the Government

July 15, 1982 Articles Editor Nova Law Review 3100 S.W. 9th Avenue Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33315 You have written to both Secretary Weinberger and me inviting us to comment in your law review on the issues raised in Professor Arthur Miller\u27s article Nuclear Weapons and Constitutional Law. This letter is in response to both invitations. We appreciate very much the opportunity thus provided

Recent Developments in Social Welfare Law and the Doctrine of Separation of Powers

Symposium: Separation of Power

Recent Developments in Social Welfare Law and the Doctrine of Separation of Powers

Symposium: Separation of Power

The Law of Armed Conflict After 9/11: Some Salient Features

Perhaps more than any other body of international law, jus in bello-the law of armed conflict-faces inherent and extraordinary stresses and challenges. It is, of course, a law that goes directly to our own conceptions of right and wrong, to the moral choices we make to constrain ourselves, our friends, and our enemies in wartime, and to real questions of life and death. The law of armed conflict reflects moral principles, but more than that, it is binding law

A View From the Top: American Perspectives on International Law After the Cold War

In the early years of the last century, the United States was among the leading states promoting the development of legal regimes and institutions to bring about the peaceful resolution of disputes between nations. Our later failure to join the League of Nations reflected the reluctance of many of our citizens, then as now, to allow decisions about our vital national interests to be made by any but our own elected leaders. Later still, however, in the years following World War II, the United States exerted its influence to negotiate treaties to create international obligations and set up institutions to manage international relations on an unprecedented scale. These efforts reflected confidence that international agreements and dispute resolution mechanisms could promote our interests in many fields and that the risk that they would be politicized to our disadvantage was low. Certainly, our policy of promoting the rule of law in international affairs was often portrayed as a willingness to relinquish the capacity to decide matters for ourselves as they came up and to abide by the results of systems in which we had a voice but not control, in return for other states doing the same

Self-Defense and the Oil Platforms Decision

On November 6, 2003, the International Court of Justice issued its decision in Case Concerning Oil Platforms (Islamic Republic of Iran v. United States of America).\u27 In this case, Iran claimed that the United States had breached the freedom of commerce provision in the 1955 Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations and Consular Rights between the two countries by taking military action against Iranian offshore oil platforms in 1987 and 1988. The Court properly rejected this claim, finding that the U.S. actions against the oil platforms did not disrupt commerce between the territories of Iran and the United States