Legal Effect of World War II on Treaties of the United States

Legal Effect of World War II on Treaties of the United States
Author: Stuart Hull MacIntyre
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9401192650

This study consists of an empirical examination of the legal effect of war on treaties to which the United States and one or more enemy states were parties at the outbreak of World War II. Doctrine is regarded as of secondary importance to this study and is therefore treated summarily. Some attention is devoted to historical aspects of the problem to lend perspective to the developments of World War II. The basic plan of this work is simple. After definitions have been established for "war" and "treaties," certain assumptions implicit in this study are discussed. Next, relevant doctrinal questions are considered. This is followed by an analysis of American practice concerning the legal effect of war on treaties of the United States from the early part of the 19th century down to World War II. The main part of the study, in which the treaties are arranged according to subject matter, carries the discussion down to the provisions in the peace treaties which relate to revival of prewar agreements. The chapter on the peace treaty provisions concludes with consideration of the special situation arising from the absence of a final peace treaty with Germany. Conclusions are then drawn from the experience of the United States. The literature of international law is filled with opinions on the effect of war on treaties, but only rarely have the authors stopped to analyze the practice of states methodically.

The United States and International Law

The United States and International Law
Author: Lucrecia García Iommi
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 365
Release: 2022-07-26
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0472055410

Why U.S. support for international law is so inconsistent

The International Law of Occupation

The International Law of Occupation
Author: Eyal Benvenisti
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2012-02-23
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0191639575

The law of occupation imposes two types of obligations on an army that seizes control of enemy land during armed conflict: obligations to respect and protect the inhabitants and their rights, and an obligation to respect the sovereign rights of the ousted government. In theory, the occupant is expected to establish an effective and impartial administration, to carefully balance its own interests against those of the inhabitants and their government, and to negotiate the occupation's early termination in a peace treaty. Although these expectations have been proven to be too high for most occupants, they nevertheless serve as yardsticks that measure the level of compliance of the occupants with international law. This thoroughly revised edition of the 1993 book traces the evolution of the law of occupation from its inception during the 18th century until today. It offers an assessment of the law by focusing on state practice of the various occupants and reactions thereto, and on the governing legal texts and judicial decisions. The underlying thought that informs and structures the book suggests that this body of laws has been shaped by changing conceptions about war and sovereignty, by the growing attention to human rights and the right to self-determination, as well as by changes in the balance of power among states. Because the law of occupation indirectly protects the sovereign, occupation law can be seen as the mirror-image of the law on sovereignty. Shifting perceptions on sovereign authority are therefore bound to be reflected also in the law of occupation, and vice-versa.

The Oxford Guide to Treaties

The Oxford Guide to Treaties
Author: Duncan B. Hollis
Publisher:
Total Pages: 897
Release: 2020
Genre: Law
ISBN: 019884834X

This guide is an authoritative reference point for anyone interested in the creation or interpretation of treaties and other forms of international agreement. It covers the rules and practices surrounding their making, interpretation, and operation, and uses hundreds of real examples to illustrate different approaches treaty-makers can take.

The Effects of Armed Conflict on Investment Treaties

The Effects of Armed Conflict on Investment Treaties
Author: Tobias Ackermann
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2022-08-25
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1009207830

The book explores the effects of armed conflict and international humanitarian law on the interpretation and application of investment treaties.

Sovereignty & the Responsibility to Protect

Sovereignty & the Responsibility to Protect
Author: Luke Glanville
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2013-12-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 022607708X

In 2011, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1973, authorizing its member states to take measures to protect Libyan civilians from Muammar Gadhafi’s forces. In invoking the “responsibility to protect,” the resolution draws on the principle that sovereign states are responsible and accountable to the international community for the protection of their populations and that the international community can act to protect populations when national authorities fail to do so. The idea that sovereignty includes the responsibility to protect is often seen as a departure from the classic definition, but it actually has deep historical roots. In Sovereignty and the Responsibility to Protect, Luke Glanville argues that this responsibility extends back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and that states have since been accountable for this responsibility to God, the people, and the international community. Over time, the right to national self-governance came to take priority over the protection of individual liberties, but the noninterventionist understanding of sovereignty was only firmly established in the twentieth century, and it remained for only a few decades before it was challenged by renewed claims that sovereigns are responsible for protection. Glanville traces the relationship between sovereignty and responsibility from the early modern period to the present day, and offers a new history with profound implications for the present.

The Death of Treaty Supremacy

The Death of Treaty Supremacy
Author: David Sloss
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 473
Release: 2016
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0199364028

This book provides the first detailed history of the Constitution's treaty supremacy rule. It describes a process of invisible constitutional change. The treaty supremacy rule was a bedrock principle of constitutional law for more than 150 years. It provided that treaties are supreme over state law and that courts have a constitutional duty to apply treaties that conflict with state laws. The rule ensured that state governments did not violate U.S. treaty obligations without authorization from the federal political branches. In 1945, the United States ratified the UN Charter, which obligates nations to promote human rights “for all without distinction as to race.” In 1950, a California court applied the Charter’s human rights provisions along with the traditional supremacy rule to invalidate a state law that discriminated against Japanese nationals. The implications were shocking: the decision implied that the United States had abrogated Jim Crow laws throughout the South by ratifying the UN Charter. Conservatives reacted by lobbying for a constitutional amendment, known as the Bricker Amendment, to abolish the treaty supremacy rule. The amendment never passed, but Bricker's supporters achieved their goals through de facto constitutional change. Before 1945, the treaty supremacy rule was a mandatory constitutional rule that applied to all treaties. The de facto Bricker Amendment converted the rule into an optional rule that applies only to “self-executing” treaties. Under the modern rule, state governments are allowed to violate national treaty obligations — including international human rights obligations — that are embodied in “non-self-executing” treaties.

The Internationalists

The Internationalists
Author: Oona A. Hathaway
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 632
Release: 2017-09-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 150110988X

“An original book…about individuals who used ideas to change the world” (The New Yorker)—the fascinating exploration into the creation and history of the Paris Peace Pact, an often overlooked but transformative treaty that laid the foundation for the international system we live under today. In 1928, the leaders of the world assembled in Paris to outlaw war. Within the year, the treaty signed that day, known as the Peace Pact, had been ratified by nearly every state in the world. War, for the first time in history, had become illegal. But within a decade of its signing, each state that had gathered in Paris to renounce war was at war. And in the century that followed, the Peace Pact was dismissed as an act of folly and an unmistakable failure. This book argues that the Peace Pact ushered in a sustained march toward peace that lasts to this day. A “thought-provoking and comprehensively researched book” (The Wall Street Journal), The Internationalists tells the story of the Peace Pact through a fascinating and diverse array of lawyers, politicians, and intellectuals. It reveals the centuries-long struggle of ideas over the role of war in a just world order. It details the brutal world of conflict the Peace Pact helped extinguish, and the subsequent era where tariffs and sanctions take the place of tanks and gunships. The Internationalists is “indispensable” (The Washington Post). Accessible and gripping, this book will change the way we view the history of the twentieth century—and how we must work together to protect the global order the internationalists fought to make possible. “A fascinating and challenging book, which raises gravely important issues for the present…Given the state of the world, The Internationalists has come along at the right moment” (The Financial Times).

The Powers of War and Peace

The Powers of War and Peace
Author: John Yoo
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 379
Release: 2008-09-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0226960331

Since the September 11 attacks on the United States, the Bush administration has come under fire for its methods of combating terrorism. Waging war against al Qaeda has proven to be a legal quagmire, with critics claiming that the administration's response in Afghanistan and Iraq is unconstitutional. The war on terror—and, in a larger sense, the administration's decision to withdraw from the ABM Treaty and the Kyoto accords—has many wondering whether the constitutional framework for making foreign affairs decisions has been discarded by the present administration. John Yoo, formerly a lawyer in the Department of Justice, here makes the case for a completely new approach to understanding what the Constitution says about foreign affairs, particularly the powers of war and peace. Looking to American history, Yoo points out that from Truman and Korea to Clinton's intervention in Kosovo, American presidents have had to act decisively on the world stage without a declaration of war. They are able to do so, Yoo argues, because the Constitution grants the president, Congress, and the courts very different powers, requiring them to negotiate the country's foreign policy. Yoo roots his controversial analysis in a brilliant reconstruction of the original understanding of the foreign affairs power and supplements it with arguments based on constitutional text, structure, and history. Accessibly blending historical arguments with current policy debates, The Powers of War and Peace will no doubt be hotly debated. And while the questions it addresses are as old and fundamental as the Constitution itself, America's response to the September 11 attacks has renewed them with even greater force and urgency. “Can the president of the United States do whatever he likes in wartime without oversight from Congress or the courts? This year, the issue came to a head as the Bush administration struggled to maintain its aggressive approach to the detention and interrogation of suspected enemy combatants in the war on terrorism. But this was also the year that the administration’s claims about presidential supremacy received their most sustained intellectual defense [in] The Powers of War and Peace.”—Jeffrey Rosen, New York Times “Yoo’s theory promotes frank discussion of the national interest and makes it harder for politicians to parade policy conflicts as constitutional crises. Most important, Yoo’s approach offers a way to renew our political system’s democratic vigor.”—David B. Rivkin Jr. and Carlos Ramos-Mrosovsky, National Review