This issue completes the seventh year of publication of the UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs (JILFA). We continue to focus on recent developments in international law and their implications for international relations. Recent world events have led to renewed questioning of the legitimacy and relevance of basic features of the international legal system. Thus it should be no surprise that each of the three articles in this issue addresses a topic of fundamental significance to the theory and future development of international law and foreign policy. Available online at HeinOnline, Westlaw, or LexisNexis.
Reinscribing Subalternity: International Financial Institutions, Development, and Women’s Marginality, by Nandini Gunewardena. 7 UCLA J. Int’l L. & Foreign Aff. 201.
Nandini Gunewardena’s article, Reinscribing Subalternity: International Financial Institutions, Development, and Women’s Marginality, questions the wisdom of the structural adjustment programs propounded by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Drawing on a wealth of statistical evidence, she argues that many such programs have a devastating impact on the health and livelihood of low-income women, perpetuating their marginalization and thus “reinscribing” the subalternity of women. This article was adapted from a presentation at JILFA’s March 2002 Symposium, “The Right to Development: Changing Roles of International Financial Institutions in the 21st Century.”
Human Rights, Globalization and the Rule of Law: Friends, Foes or Family?, by David Kinley. 7 UCLA J. Int’l L. & Foreign Aff. 239.
David Kinley’s article Human Rights, Globalization and the Rule of Law: Friends, Foes or Family? questions the practical importance of a basic tenet of the international system: the notion of the rule of law itself. He wrestles with reconciling the traditional and theoretical role of the rule of law with the reality of globalization of corporate enterprise and the growing universality of human rights norms. The article concludes that while the rule of law plays a necessary and important role in the development of human rights standards, its impact has not been as great as might be supposed. True protection of these rights, he argues, depends largely upon understanding and addressing social and political forces.
Changing the Premise of International Legal Remedies: The Unfounded Adoption of Assurances and Guarantees of Non-Repetition, by Scott M. Sullivan. 7 UCLA J. Int’l L. & Foreign Aff. 265.
In Changing the Premise of International Legal Remedies: The Unfounded Adoption of Assurances and Guarantees of Non-Repetition, Scott Sullivan critiques the International Court of Justice’s recent LaGrand decision relating to the U.S. death penalty. He argues that the Court’s sudden pronouncement of its power to issue assurances and guarantees of non-repetition as an injunctive remedy was illegitimate and not founded in any treaty or in customary international law.
COMMENT: “Killing Kids Who Kill” – An International Perspective on the Juvenile Death Penalty in the United States, by Rachel J. Avery. 7 UCLA J. Int’l L. & Foreign Aff. 303.
This comment examines the issue of the juvenile death penalty, as practiced in the United States, from an international law viewpoint. It examines the validity (or invalidity) of the United States’ reservations to international treaties, and the idea of a prohibition on the juvenile death penalty as a jus cogens norm of international law. The conclusion reached is that in continuing to execute juvenile offenders, the U.S. breaches its obligations to the international community.
COMMENT: International Merger Control Convergence: Resolving Multijurisdictional Review Problems, by Dane Holbrook. 7 UCLA J. Int’l L. & Foreign Aff. 345.
This comment evaluates several options for harmonizing international merger review policies. The comment concludes that a plurilateral framework, which first addresses procedural harmonization and gradually subsumes substantive harmonization, best synchronizes the needs of both merging parties and international antitrust authorities.
Available online at HeinOnline, Westlaw, or LexisNexis.
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