International Law in the US Legal System

International Law in the U.S. Legal System provides a wide-ranging overview of how international law intersects with the domestic legal system of the United States. Curtis Bradley explains the structure of the U.S. legal system and the various separation of powers and federalism considerations implicated by this structure. Against this backdrop, he covers all of the principal forms of international law: treaties, executive agreements, decisions and orders of international institutions, customary international law, and jus cogens norms. He also explores a number of issues that are implicated by the intersection of U.S. law and international law, such as treaty withdrawal, foreign sovereign immunity, international human rights litigation, war powers, extradition, and extraterritoriality. The book highlights recent decisions and events relating to the topic, including various actions taken during the second Trump administration, while also taking into account relevant historical materials, including materials relating to the U.S. constitutional founding. Written by one of the most cited international law scholars in the United States, the book is a resource for lawyers, law students, legal scholars, government officials, and judges from around the world.

Curtis Bradley is the Allen M. Singer Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago Law School. He is the author or editor of a number of books, including Historical Gloss and Foreign Affairs: Constitutional Authority in Practice (2024), and The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Foreign Relations Law (2019). He has served as a co-Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of International Law and as a Reporter for the Restatement (Fourth) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States.