Abstract
No doubt we are today trolling murky waters in matters involving the intersection of the domestic constitutional order and the global system. By way of evidence for the proposition, foreign relations law must now be counted among the hottest topics in the legal academy. The top law reviews in recent years have included many contributions in the area; indeed, one might venture that there have been more articles on foreign relations law subjects in the past five years than in the preceding twenty-five. Issues relating to the treaty power, the status of international law in our constitutional order, the role of the courts in resolving foreign relations controversies, and the role of the states on the international scene-all and more have been the subject of heated debate. This interest can't simply be explained in terms of Curtis Bradley, Jack Goldsmith, and others taking advantage of a ripe opportunity for some revisionist scholarship-although their energy in reexamining the canon of foreign relations law is certainly an important part of the story. One must, I think, also attribute the renewed interest in foreign relations law to the possible transformation of the international system and the advent of globalization. Foreign relations law is definitionally concerned with the intersection of the domestic and the international; it cannot be fully comprehended as an endogenous system. Its study must account for the global context to which it relates. And that presents a missing element in foreign relations law scholarship in general, most of which makes only passing reference to recent changes on the world scene. [CONT]
Recommended Citation
Spiro, Peter J.
(2001)
"Contextual Determinism and Foreign Relations Federalism,"
Chicago Journal of International Law:
Vol. 2:
No.
2, Article 9.
Available at:
https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cjil/vol2/iss2/9