The Case for International Law Schools and an International Legal Profession

Abstract

IN most parts of the world, we have come to regard law as definitionally linked either with territory (divided by the boundaries of nation States) or with nationality (based on citizenship or residence). Historically, these notions have not always been prevalent; quite the contrary. Yet they are cornerstones in the very structure of modern societies. Government, the exclusive jurisdiction of courts and enforcement mechanisms are at once the cause of these conceptions and their tangible outward manifestation. Public international law alone, which lacks such means of power, has succeeded in remaining a universal legal system; at least that is true of some pure elements of it. It is banal to observe that the peoples and countries of the world are economically interdependent. But recent history has taught us, and the news media remind us daily, that we now depend on each other to such a degree that significant disruptions in the flows of money, transport, commodities, manufactured products and technology will endanger our survival and create upheavals even in the most stable societies. Confronted by these new and important dimensions of matters which are the stock-in-trade of the international lawyer, it is only natural for him to pose certain fundamental questions: Do the basic concepts of laws confined to territory or nationality (the latter illustrated prominently by the application of long-arm statutes) and exclusive national jurisdictions in fact apply ? Are the international financial and commercial transactions, all of which also necessarily are international legal transactions, properly designed to overcome the obvious impediments of multiple, rival legal systems ? Are the changes which have occurred in real life such that a reform of the law, and a re-orientation of our legal precepts, are called for ? It is with considerable trepidation that I have formulated in such sweeping terms the broad issues, some aspects of which I intend to discuss here. I am deeply conscious of addressing a uniquely qualified and distinguished readership whose members design and document many of these international legal transactions and resolve a number of