Suchergebnisse

Are judges supposed to be objective? Citizens, scholars, and legal professionals commonly assume that subjectivity and objectivity are opposites, with the corollary that subjectivity is a vice and objectivity is a virtue. These assumptions underlie passionate debates over adherence to original intent and judicial activism. Douglas Edlin challenges these widely held assumptions by reorienting the entire discussion. Rather than analyze judging in terms of objectivity and truth, he argues that we should instead approach the role of a judge's individual perspective in terms of intersubjectivity and validity. Drawing upon Kantian aesthetic theory as well as case law, legal theory, and constitutional theory, Edlin develops a new conceptual framework for the respective roles of the individual judge and of the judiciary as an institution, as well as the relationship between them, as integral parts of the broader legal and political community.

This Article examines the development of the International Criminal Court, outlines the positions of and disagreements between Britain and the United States concerning the ICC, and analyzes the specific objections to the ICC raised by the United States. In this discussion, the Article argues that the contrasting positions of Britain and the United States toward the ICC can be understood in terms of each nation's differently configured perception of its own sovereign power. For various reasons, Britain's sovereignty is tested most acutely by its relationship with the European Union, while the United States feels its sovereignty encroached primarily by its relationship with the United Nations. Britain and the United States share a commitment to constitutionalism and this commitment has grounded Anglo-American support for international war crimes tribunals in the past. In the end, the ICC raises the question whether constitutionalism is a domestic or a universal conception.