Contemporary International Law ♦ Article

International Law and the Rise of Populism

Contemporary legal scholarship seeks to diagnose populist antagonism towards national and international law and warn about the challenges it poses to the cooperation needed to respond to global threats. What this scholarship overlooks, however, is the role that major shifts in international legal normativity and conceptions of global governance have themselves played in incubating the conditions for the rise of populism.

PETER G. DANCHIN, JEREMY FARRALL, JOLYON FORD, SHRUTI RANA & IMOGEN SAUNDERS

International Conflict and War♦ Article

War’s Rustic Code of Honor

With armed conflict raging all around, international law generally, and the law of war specifically, has come under renewed scrutiny. Do we live in a rules-based international order, and does law regulate and constrain battlefield behavior? Previous explorations of this controversy have used empirical analysis or jurisprudential investigations. But an illuminating answer to this question may come from an unlikely source—the world of opera. Drawing inspiration from the Italian opera Cavalleria Rusticana, a melodrama about a rural village gripped by seduction, betrayal, and a fatal duel, this Article argues that war is governed by a rustic code of honor, based on norms that are often described as chivalry.

JENS DAVID OHLIN

International Criminal Law ♦ Article

Complementarity and the Normative Structure of International Criminal Law

This Article offers a novel normative justification for complementarity, the principle that governs the basic institutional structure of international criminal law. Under complementarity, the International Criminal Court (and foreign states acting under universal jurisdiction) must initially defer to a state with jurisdiction over the case, stepping in only if the state fails to prosecute. Despite consensus on its importance, scholars have failed to offer a coherent normative justification for the principle of complementarity, raising questions about the legitimacy of the underlying structure of the field.

RYAN LISS

International Arbitration ♦ Note

Calvo, Correísmo, and Consent: The Causes and Consequences of Ecuador’s On-again, Off-again Relationship with ISDS

Ecuador has been the first country to ratify the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States (ICSID Convention, originally ratified in 1966), subsequently denounce the ICSID Convention (which took effect in 2010), and then ratify it again (in 2021).

ZACH ZAMOFF

Volume 65 ♦ Issue 2 ♦ March 2025

International Arbitration ♦ Article

Challenging and Enforcing International Arbitral Awards in U.S. Federal Courts: An Empirical Study

One of the primary reasons why transnational actors prefer international arbitration over international litigation is that they anticipate that those international arbitral awards not voluntarily complied with are highly enforceable in national courts.

CHRISTOPHER R. DRAHOZAL, DONALD EARL CHILDRESS III, JACK J. COE, JR & CATHERINE A. ROGERS

Democracy♦ Article

The Regulation of Foreign Funding of Nonprofits in a Democracy

Governments around the world have increasingly regulated nonprofits’ access to foreign funding. These regulations, which often take the form of registration requirements, are justified as needed to protect a country’s politics from undue foreign influence.

NICK ROBINSON

International Relations ♦ Essay

Territoriality and Admiralty

The concept of territoriality does not appear to fit very well with the limits on state power in admiralty. Territoriality refers to land while admiralty concerns itself with the sea. Limitations on state power on land require adaptation and modification to apply at sea.

GEORGE RUTHERGLEN

International Human Rights Law ♦ Note

Nailing Down the Issue: How Japan’s 2023 Symbolic Reforms Fall Short and How the Japanese Government Can and Should Protect the LGBT Community Through Proactive Lawmaking

2023 appeared to be a historic year for LGBT rights in Japan. The Japanese legislature passed its first law acknowledging the need for understanding of the LGBT community, and the Supreme Court issued two rulings in favor of transgender plaintiffs’ rights. However, upon a closer look, all of this supposed progress is purely symbolic.

CARA SZELES

Domestic Application of International Law ♦ Note

The Brazilian Clean Energy Transition Under WTO Subsidies Law

The public is calling for an energy transition as the consequences of climate change grow increasingly difficult to mitigate. Many states are determined to use government incentives to achieve this transition.

GENEVIEVE MCCARTHY

Volume 65 ♦ Issue 1 ♦ September 2024