SOSA and the Retail Incorporation of International Law

Ernest A. Young

Responding to Curtis A. Bradley, Jack L. Goldsmith, and David H. Moore, Sosa, Customary International Law, and the Continuing Relevance of Erie, 120 Harv. L. Rev. 869 (2007)

Since its release in 2004, Justice Souter’s majority opinion in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain has become something of a Rorschach blot, in which each of the contending sides in the debate over the domestic status of customary international law (CIL) sees what it was predisposed to see anyway. Neither the thoughtful article by Professors Curtis Bradley, Jack Goldsmith, and David Moore, nor this comment upon that article, is any exception to that tendency: we, too, read Sosa as vindicating our previously expressed positions on this debate. That is an embarrassing situation for scholars all round, and it counsels caution in interpreting what the Court actually did and said in Sosa. But the willingness of all sides to claim victory doesn’t mean that nobody, in fact, won. I think that CIL revisionists like Professors Bradley, Goldsmith, and Moore (with whom I consider myself at least a fellow traveler) have the better claim on Sosa. In this brief comment, I hope to explain why.

120 Harv. L. Rev. F. 28 (2007) | DOWNLOAD PDF

Should Antitrust Condemn Tying Arrangements that Increase Price Without Restraining Competition?

Steven Semeraro :: In his article Tying, Bundled Discounts, and the Death of the Single Monopoly Profit Theory, Professor Einer Elhauge attempted to demonstrate that tying, the practice whereby a firm conditions the sale of one product on the customer’s agreement to purchase another, always harms consumers. He determined that antitrust law should prohibit tying even when that tying did not restrain competition in the tied product’s market. In this response, Professor Steven Semeraro argues that this form of tying actually benefits consumers in the long term. READ MORE

Disappearing Neighbors

David D. Troutt :: In his article Mobile Capital, Local Economic Regulation, and the Democratic City, Professor Richard C. Schragger explored the consequences of local governments’ attempts to entice — and then exploit — mobile capital. He concluded that cities possess, but must not abuse, the power to assert democratic control over capital flow. In this response, Professor David D. Troutt argues that current foreclosure crisis demonstrates the weakness of cities in relation to mobile capital. READ MORE

Freeing Employee Choice: The Case For Secrecy in Union Organizing and Voting

Cynthia Estlund :: In his article Enabling Employee Choice, Professor Benjamin Sachs provided a nuanced analysis of what is wrong both with current law and with the leading reform proposal. In this response, Professor Cynthia Estlund argues that Professor Sachs’s reform proposal is likely to set the terms for future scholarly analysis and for serious public debate over the role of law in union organizing regardless of the fate of labor law reform in the current Congress. READ MORE

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