This article has a simple hypothesis: Selectivity in international law increases as international relations become more symmetrical. Conversely, international law becomes more universal as asymmetry grows. This relation holds true during the modern period. Its existence in turn supports the...

The old understanding of international law as something created solely by and for sovereigns is defunct. Today the production and enforcement of international law increasingly depends on private actors, not traditional political authorities. As with other public services that we used to take for...

This paper explores the dynamics of international judicial interactions in civil cases. It proposes a positive model of court-on-court encounters based on contract theory. It argues that this model provides a superior account of these interactions compared to the prevailing account. The dialogue...

This paper draws on strategic trade theory to explore the conditions under which different national competition law systems can compete. I assume that each state seeks to maximize a weighted sum of producer and consumer welfare within its territory, the weighting in turn reflecting public choice...

This chapter considers the larger patterns found in legal norms derived from U.S. engagement with international institutions during the modern period. It first outlines a conceptual framework for assessing engagement. It draws on the “two-level game” concept proposed by Robert Putnam as a...

This article, written for a symposium on Bond v. United States, connects the law and economics of contract interpretation to the Supreme Court’s modern practice of creating statutory interpretive presumptions. The paper compares information-forcing defaults, both majoritarian and penal, to...

This essay, a chapter in a book on international investment law and comparative public law forthcoming from Oxford University Press, reviews the applicability of international investment law to tax administration and enforcement. It begins with a review of the principles of international...

Assessing the legitimacy of any legal system is hard, but especially if the system in question is the volatile and contested field of international law. Recognizing limits of space and my capabilities, I reframe the task for this chapter. Rather than defending or attacking the legitimacy of...

This amicus brief urges the Supreme Court to grant the petition for certiorari to address the question whether a court may abstain on a case-by-case basis from applying federal antitrust law on grounds of international comity. First, the brief argues that the Second Circuit’s prescriptive...