Constitutional Convergence and Customary International Law

Rebecca Crootof 

Independent
June 12, 2013

Harvard International Law Journal, Vol. 54, No. 195, 2013 
Abstract:      
In Getting to Rights: Treaty Ratification, Constitutional Convergence, and Human Rights Practice, Zachary Elkins, Tom Ginsburg, and Beth Simmons study the effects of post-World War II human rights texts on domestic constitutions and create a comprehensive data set detailing how each right’s popularity has evolved over time. This response focuses on the consequences of the authors’ data on rights convergence for customary international law theory, arguing that future scholars advocating that a right has obtained customary or jus cogens status will need to address whether that right appears in a majority of domestic constitutions and whether it has risen or declined in popularity.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 9

Keywords: convergence, customary international law, norms, jus cogens

Full text available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2278722