The War Powers Resolution (WPR) has led a beleaguered existence.  Since its enactment in 1973, it has been labeled ineffectual and useless.  This Note proves, however, that to review presidential unilateral uses of force since 1973 is to find a spirit of compliance with the WPR, as these uses of force have been characterized by their brevity and their lack of spilled U.S. blood.  While minor departures from the WPR’s black-letter requirements are conceded, none of these uses

On February 17, 2008, Kosovo declared independence. As of March 6, 2009, fifty-six states have recognized Kosovo’s independence, while a number of states maintain that Kosovo’s declaration of independence is illegal. There is no specific resolution calling for nonrecognition, yet whether an obligation of nonrecognition stems from UN Security Council Resolution 1244 is a highly disputed issue. Resolution 1244 established an international territorial administration, affirmed

The secession of Kosovo from Serbia in February 2008 represents a stage in the unfolding of a revolution of “constitutional” dimensions in international law that began with NATO’s 1999 intervention in Kosovo.  NATO’s intervention called into question the authority and viability of the UN Charter system for maintaining international peace.  Likewise, the West’s decision in 2008 to support Kosovo’s secession from Serbia dealt another blow to the post-War legal rules and institu

For a body committed to the rule of law in theory, the applicability of the rule of law to the United Nations in practice remains oddly unclear.  This Article will not consider the personal responsibility of UN officials, who generally enjoy personal or functional immunity from legal process in the territories where they work. Rather the focus of this Article is on the quasi-constitutional question of the liability of the organization itself.  As the United Nations has assume

State sovereignty has long held a revered post in international law, but it received a blow in the aftermath of World War II, when the world realized the full extent of atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis on their own citizens.  In the postwar period, the idea that individuals possessed rights independent of their own states gained a foothold in world discussions, and a proliferation of human rights treaties guaranteeing fundamental rights followed.  These rights were, for th

Too often states have invoked territorial integrity and nonintervention in defending abuses perpetrated against peoples within their borders. This practice must be stopped by embracing a robust remedial right to secession. Remedial secession takes place when an oppressed people creates an independent state by seceding from a state that denies its right to self-determination. It has been speculatively posited as an “extreme circumstances” possibility, but remedies to denials o