Professor Brilmayer Publishes Book on International Claims Commissions

Professor of International Law Lea Brilmayer’s latest book provides a comprehensive review and analysis of the workings and mechanics of claims commissions to assess their success and predict their utility in the future.

International Claims Commissions: Righting Wrongs after Conflict (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) is co-authored by Richmond School of Law professor Chiara Giorgetti ’02 LLM, ’09 JSD and Lorraine Charlton.

International claims commissions have, over the last few decades, appeared as the only option for states or international institutions to make mass claims. Despite their failings, these commissions have established themselves as important and permanent fixtures in international adjudication. The authors examine the legal framework of an international claims commission and the basic elements of its processing procedure, as well as explore the difficulties and challenges associated with operating costs, remedies, and compliance with judgments.

International claims commissions are created ad hoc to consider large numbers of complex legal claims resulting from an international upheaval, making them important international dispute resolution mechanisms. By focusing in large part on the examples set by the United Nations Claims Commissions, the Iran U.S. Claims Tribunal, and the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission, the authors assess the reasons to establish a claims commission by discussing their legal and operating structures, issues related to evidence and costs, and the challenges and successes of creating them. The book concludes with a detailed analysis of lessons learned to guide policy makers in the creation of future claims commissions.

International Claims Commissions is a practical resource that will appeal to international law academics, counsel and judges in international courts and tribunals, policy makers in international organizations and foreign ministries, and diplomats.

Commenting on the book, Professor of International Law at Yale Law School W. Michael Reisman ’64 LLM ’65 JSD writes that “[the authors] offer important recommendations to ensure that an interstate arrangement that is supposed to provide post-conflict justice for the ‘collateral’ victims does not degenerate into a continuation of war by other means.”

At Yale Law School, Professor Brilmayer teaches contracts and conflict of laws and international courts and tribunals as well as seminars on the laws of war and on African current affairs.