Teaching International Law

The Government Attorneys Interest Group of the American Society of International Law invites you to attend a continuing legal education course featuring practicing international lawyers in a variety of positions within the U.S. government. The panel will discuss the role that international law plays in the day-to-day practice of attorneys not only in the U.S. State and Defense departments, but also in legal offices outside of the most commonly understood "international" agencies.

At its founding in 1899, the Permanent Court of Arbitration was an innovation and stood unique in the field of international dispute resolution. Today a crowded field of international institutions raises questions about the continued viability and particular role for the PCA.

Customary international law is now coming up in a variety of contexts in U.S. courts, including civil suits under the Alien Tort Statute, the review of military commission proceedings in the "war on terror," and criminal prosecution of piracy. Is customary international law a form of federal law, as claimed by the Restatement (Third) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States? How does its status in the U.S. legal system compare with the status of treaties? Even if it is not directly applicable as U.S.

ASIL, in cosponsorship with its Lieber Society on the Law of Armed Conflict, will host a discussion of the United States's decade-long experience with military commission proceedings against detainees held at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, featuring Jess Bravin, an award-winning Wall Street Journal reporter and author of The Terror Courts: Rough Justice at Guantanamo Bay. Bravin will summarize the findings in his book, which draws on more than a decade of first-hand reporting at Guantanamo and extensive interviews with insiders in the commission process.

This course is the last installment of three programs in a series cosponsored by the American Society of International Law in partnership with the United Nations Association of the National Capital Area’s International Law Committee to address the issue of the use of force. When is it permissible? What is the role of the UN and how can it be carried out?

Interview with Ben Ferenzc

This discussion examines the concept of accelerated formation of customary international law and its application to humanitarian intervention and to drone strikes against terrorists. It features George Washington University Law School Professor Sean Murphy, a member of the UN International Law Commission, and Case Western Reserve University School of Law Professor Michael Scharf, author of the new book Customary International Law in Times of Fundamental Change: Recognizing Grotian Moments published by ASIL Publisher Partner Cambridge University Press.