A Commentary on American Legal Scholarship Concerning the Admission of Migrants

The following essay will focus attention on American legal scholarship concerning the admission of migrants. This topic is instructive and practical because of its impact on both municipal and global law. An eminent international jurist observed that greater foresight by scholars twenty-five years ago could have averted many current problems of migration. Today, these problems arise from such sources as the population explosion, periodic droughts, the pull factor of opportunities in advanced economies, and massive political unrest in the Horn of Africa, Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, Central America, and elsewhere. Migrants are knocking at the gates of sovereignty, even crashing some of them down. Until recently, every fifth person in Somalia and every tenth person in Djibouti was a refugee. Even under less extreme circumstances, migration provokes sensitive issues in the domestic politics of recipient countries. International legal scholars need more than ever to respond creatively and systematically to the serious problems that result from the basic human need of migration. Unfortunately, American legal scholarship concerning the admission of migrants has two questionable tendencies. First, some writers assume that the state has a sovereign right to deny entry to any or all aliens. Second, there is a tendency to limit the status of refugees to victims of specific forms of governmental persecution. This Article explains these tendencies and suggests alternatives. Part I examines the international legal framework within which American legal scholarship can be of some help. Part II explores the tendencies of American legal scholars to assume that states may deny admission to all aliens and to view narrowly the definition of refugees. Part III posits a tentative explanation for these tendencies. Part IV concludes that international legal scholars can and should have a more significant role in shaping immigration policy

Legal Aspects of a United States Foreign Sports Policy

The father of the modern Olympic Games, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, envisaged international athletic exchange as the free trade of the future. No nation would regulate this trade to its political advantage. The Olympic Games, as well as other international political arenas, would be unpolluted by political currents. To a remarkable extent, considering the course of twentieth century history, these aspirations have been met. But athletic exchange, like other forms of human interaction, nevertheless remains exposed to sovereign intervention; a measure of politics is inevitable in any transnational activity, whether in the United Nations or a global convention of medieval musicologists. Effective management of any transnational human activity is, therefore, a matter of regulating rather than eliminating political intervention. Within the nation-state system, such regulation depends heavily upon harmonious laws and policies of participating governments. National sports laws and policies vary in scope and kind. Governmental support of athletic programs and exchange is all but universal, ranging from the employment by Scandinavian governments of cross-country skiing competitors and border guards to the massive programs of national aggrandizement exemplified by those of the People\u27s Republic of China and East Germany. The college-bonus system of support is used in the United States, and the cash-bonus and pervasive military service system is employed by the Soviet Union. Rule 26 of the Olympic Games, which governs the important question of amateur status, was recently reformed after years of controversy to respond to the trend away from rigid amateurism. Rewritten Rule 26, and more particularly its implementing by-laws, offers greater opportunity for governmental assistance to amateur Olympic aspirants. Such governmental support presupposes the efficacy of keeping the home folks happy while impressing one\u27s neighbors by setting a world record on some foreign athletic track. After all, the theory goes, athletic competition offers a relatively inexpensive and humane way of flexing the national muscles; presumably, athletic prowess serves the national interest

Review of Visa Denials by Consular Officers

United States consular officers stationed abroad exercise enormous discretion in deciding whether to grant or deny applications for visas by foreign citizens. The process for reviewing visa denials is exceptionally limited. Federal rules and regulations and consular practices do provide for internal review of visa denials, members of Congress and the media occasionally press for review of individual cases, and the Visa Office in the Department of State issues advisory opinions from time to time on matters of both fact and law. This process is, however, inadequate for several reasons. Time and budgetary constraints generally prevent consular officers from recording reviewable explanations for denials and from undertaking comprehensive internal review of denials. Other factors limiting internal review are the absence of any provision for attorney access to the process, the refusal of the Visa Office to disclose its opinions to applicants, and a dearth of objective standards and guidance for conducting internal review of denials. By relying on ambiguous and often antiquated authority, the State Department and the courts have prevented more formal administrative review within the Department and have narrowly restricted judicial review. In doing so, courts have rendered questionable interpretations of a provision for consular discretion in the Immigration and Nationality Act and have largely ignored both the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act and international law. The resulting nonreviewability of most visa denials is anachronistic and peculiar. Although the author\u27s field observations indicate that consular training and decision making are of a high quality, a more formal review process would be beneficial. The availability of administrative and judicial review of visa denials would encourage greater consistency and uniformity of decisions on visa applications and better serve the interests of fairness and legitimacy. This study concludes with two sets of recommendations. The first set is of a general nature whereas the second, more detailed set takes account of alternative levels of funding for improving the review process

A Comparison of Processes for Reforming Migration Laws in Transitional States: China, Kazakhstan, and Albania

This article will highlight the problems confronting China, Kazakhstan, and Albania as well as the divergent agencies and systems for drafting, enacting and otherwise reforming their migration laws. The institutional processes of reform are particularly noteworthy. A comparison of them among the three countries suggests dominance by political and cultural determinants, along with administrative and economic issues, in forming migration policy and law within modem legal systems. This insight helps explain the constraints on the efficacy of administrative tinkering in improving the migration laws of the United States and other countries

The Regulation of Transnational Sports Competition: Down from Mount Olympus

This article seeks first to identify the behavioral and organizational characteristics, and to clarify the shared goals of transnational sports competition. Against this background, the article will examine the formal characteristics of decision-making within the Olympic Movement, whose quadrennial Games provide the most highly developed for a for these events. Finally, four case studies are used to evaluate the Olympic organization\u27s performance--that is, the efficacy of relevant policies, rules and procedures that are available to decision-makers to achieve the shared goals of the organization. Several modest proposals are advanced. Aside from these, however, a comprehensive prescription of alternative policies, rules and procedures must await subsequent research