Virginia Journal of International Law On-Line Symposium

The Virginia Journal of International Law will continue its partnership with Opinio Juris this week with an online symposium featuring three articles recently published in VJIL Vol. 48-4. Discussion on Tuesday will focus on the constitutional history of American empire at the turn of the twentieth century. In her article, “They say I am not an American…”: The Noncitizen National and the Law of American Empire, Christina Duffy Burnett (Columbia) revisits the historical events surrounding the Supreme Court’s decision in Gonzales v. Williams (1904), which relegated Puerto Ricans to an ambiguous status between alienage and citizenship. Challenging mainstream historical critiques which focus on the ways in which the United States unilaterally imposed its own law abroad and influenced other legal traditions, Professor Burnett analyzes the events surrounding the Gonzalez decision to argue that the civic and political leaders of the colonial periphery brought a transnational perspective to the debate over law and American empire and transformed U.S. law in the process. Professor Mae Ngai (Columbia) and Sam Erman (University of Michigan) will be the respondents.

KJ