Jacob Katz Cogan

Representation and Power in International Organization: The Operational Constitution and Its Critics

In 2005, when James Wolfensohn announced that he would not seek a third term as president of the World Bank, few doubted that another United States national, the choice of the U.S. president, would take his place. Each of the previous eight presidents of the bank had been an American, dating back to the international financial institutions establishment in 1946,and despite private and public grousing by some over the Bush administrations eventual choice of Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz as Wolfensohns successor, the appointment was never truly in jeopardy. When the banks executive directors met to elect a new president, the vote was a foregone conclusion—not because the United States holds a majority of votes itself (it does not), but because a longstanding informal agreement between the United States and the banks western European stakeholders prescribed that outcome.

The Look within: Property, Capacity, and Suffrage in Nineteenth-Century America

Wishing to see the trajectory of American history as progressive and democratic, historians have ignored the complexities of suffrage expansion in the nineteenth century - especially the interrelation of exclusion and inclusion. This Note looks at the trajectory of suffrage reform from the late eighteenth century to the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment and argues that reformers were obsessed with the inner qualities of persons. Whereas the eighteenth century had located a persons capacity for political participation externally (in material things, such as property), the nineteenth century found these qualities internally (in innate and heritable traits, such as intelligence). Both enfranchisement and disenfranchisement reflected this change of perspective, this look within.

The 2011 Judicial activity of the International Court of Justice

The International Court of Justice rendered four judgments in 2011: on April 1, a ruling on the respondent’s preliminary objections in Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Georgia v. Russian Federation), upholding one objection and finding that the Court had no jurisdiction to entertain the application; on May 4, two rulings on Costa Rica’s and Honduras’s applications for permission to intervene in Territorial and Maritime Dispute (Nicaragua v. Colombia), rejecting both; and on December 5, a final decision on jurisdiction, admissibility, and the merits in Application of the Interim Accord of 13 September 1995 (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia v. Greece), finding for the applicant. The Court also issued three orders in incidental proceedings: on March 8, one on Costa Rica’s request for the indication of provisional measures in Certain Activities Carried Out by Nicaragua in the Border Area (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua); on July 4, one on Greece’s application for permission to intervene as a nonparty in Jurisdictional Immunities of the State (Germany v. Italy); and on July 18, one on Cambodia’s request for the indication of provisional measures in Request for Interpretation of the Judgment of 15 June 1962 in the Case Concerning the Temple of Preah Vihear (Cambodia v. Thailand) (Cambodia v. Thailand). The Court indicated provisional measures in response to both requests, and granted Greece permission to intervene.

Certain Activities Carried Out by Nicaragua in the Border Area (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua); Construction of a Road in Costa Rica Along the San Juan River (Nicaragua v. Costa Rica)

International Court of Justice decisions on competing claims to part of the border area and on due diligence regarding transboundary environmental harm

The Changing Form of the International Law Commission's Work

Two elements of the International Law Commission’s (ILC) procedure receive relatively little attention: its decision on the final form of its work and its recommendation to the UN General Assembly (GA) on what action the Assembly should take on its completed text. Though infrequently considered (at least in comparison to the substantive drafts it produces), this packaging is significant, as it frames how the Commission’s work will be conceptualized and evaluated upon completion. While the ILC Statute provides the Commission with flexibility in choosing the form and the action that it recommends to the GA, the Commission does not work in a vacuum. Because the impact of the Commission’s work depends on how that work is received (and because the ILC wants its work to be well-received), its decision to produce a certain type of text reflects its assessment of who its clients are and what legal products they desire. In other words, the Commission’s supply is a function of what it perceives as the demand. As this chapter will explain, the form of the ILC’s work is changing, reflecting larger trends in international lawmaking.