Joseph McMillan;66950 wrote:
Excuse me, Nick, but on what do you base this?
Bush frequently ignored treaties. He lost the softwood lumber dispute before NAFTA several times. But we still haven’t returned a dime of the tariff money we illegally collected.
Then there were "signing statements."
The Obama administration will almost certainly get stuck in similar legal disputes. But it’s only been around for a month so none have happened yet.
Heck, every administration plays a little loose with human rights treaties. Amnesty International is always complaining about us ignoring treaty obligations to reduce the death penalty.
The courts really hate ordering either the Legislature or the Executive to do anything. So even in cases where it’s obvious to a retarded monkey that the President is full of crap—the softwood lumber dispute revolved around whether Canada having a lot of trees equalled Canada subsidizing the softwood lumber industry—he tends to get his way.
So in theory it’s entirely possible that Rutgers is violating a treaty by using the Dutch and British arms as quarterings. In practice the President hasn’t asked them to stop, therefore no Court would order them to change their arms.
Nick
xanderliptak;66960 wrote:
A college of the 13th century is not the legally defined institution of education it is today, and therefore had little need for arms to seal documents themselves. A college obtained repute from more the founder than the education given.
That is a very strange view of colleges in Oxford and Cambridge which were not only legally defined, but of international academic repute. They were also considerable landowners, so there would have been need for documentation.
James
Nick B II;66972 wrote:
Bush frequently ignored treaties. He lost the softwood lumber dispute before NAFTA several times. But we still haven’t returned a dime of the tariff money we illegally collected.
I don’t want to turn this into a political discussion, but you’re comparing apples and oranges. Yes, sovereign governments sometimes behave contrary to treaty obligations. That doesn’t make it legal, and this is not such a case. Rutgers is not a sovereign.
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Then there were "signing statements."
Find the signing statement that qualified US adherence to the treaties concerning IPR protection of other countries state symbols.
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Heck, every administration plays a little loose with human rights treaties. Amnesty International is always complaining about us ignoring treaty obligations to reduce the death penalty.
As far as I am aware, the United States is not party to any treaty barring the death penalty.
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The courts really hate ordering either the Legislature or the Executive to do anything.
Rutgers is not the federal executive branch. There is no political question here.
It’s all hypothetical, and even if the Netherlands government went to court over the issue Rutgers may well have a valid defense, but your argument that compliance with treaties is at the discretion of the president is unsound in both international and US constitutional law.
James Dempster;66973 wrote:
That is a very strange view of colleges in Oxford and Cambridge which were not only legally defined, but of international academic repute. They were also considerable landowners, so there would have been need for documentation.
James
I do not believe Oxford, having in it’s student body mostly those rejected from France and other European colleges, would have been considered of "international academic repute" given the low standing of England in these early centuries.
I am referring to the earliest arms of colleges before the idea of corporate arms was fully developed, long before Oxford was with the reputation it presently has. Also, a seal is required for documents, not arms.
So sharing the arms for a university or college with those of the donor could have been harmless these earliest years of heraldry. Sure, as the centuries continued, it became less confusing to have independant arms for the colleges. That, though, is a later date than from which the practice seems to have been adopted from.
Joseph McMillan;66982 wrote:
It’s all hypothetical, and even if the Netherlands government went to court over the issue Rutgers may well have a valid defense, but your argument that compliance with treaties is at the discretion of the president is unsound in both international and US constitutional law.
In principle yes.
But I’m not arguing principle. I’m arguing about practice.
And in practice the US Government complies with treaty obligations the way it wants to comply with those obligations. De facto that means the guy in charge (the President) has a lot of discretion.
If you’ve got counter-example I’m all ears. But AFAIK no court has ordered any American to change his behavior on the basis of international law without the President’s approval.
Nick
Joseph McMillan;66982 wrote:
[...]even if the Netherlands government went to court over the issue Rutgers [...].
Rather the Grand Ducal House of Luxembourg which still sports the undifferenced arms of Nassau. AFAIK the Oranje-Nassau House of the Netherlands does not, the State and House arms containing the difference once borrowed from the arms of the United Provinces.
Michael Y. Medvedev;67078 wrote:
Rather the Grand Ducal House of Luxembourg which still sports the undifferenced arms of Nassau. AFAIK the Oranje-Nassau House of the Netherlands does not, the State and House arms containing the difference once borrowed from the arms of the United Provinces.
Then it’s quite probable that no one could take action against Rutgers. There is an international convention that requires member states to protect state symbols against infringement, but not one that gives universal protection to family (dynastic) arms. The Rutgers first quarter does not appear in the Luxembourg state arms, and if the Netherlands royal arms is sufficiently differenced by the addition of the bundle of arrows representing the provinces, then there is arguably no duplication.
Still doesn’t make Rutgers’ choice of arms heraldically justifiable, of course.
Nick B II;67076 wrote:
In principle yes.
But I’m not arguing principle. I’m arguing about practice.
And in practice the US Government complies with treaty obligations the way it wants to comply with those obligations. De facto that means the guy in charge (the President) has a lot of discretion.
If you’ve got counter-example I’m all ears. But AFAIK no court has ordered any American to change his behavior on the basis of international law without the President’s approval.
Nick
With a half-hour’s worth of Googling:
Vaudable v. Montmartre, Inc., 193 N.Y.S.2d 332 (Sup. Ct. 1959)
ITAR-TASS Russian News Agency v. Russian Kurier, 153 F.3d 82 (2d Cir. 1998 )
Albert Furst von Thurn und Taxis v. Karl Prince von Thurn und Taxis, 2006 WL 2289847 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 8, 2006)
All involve non-US entities that won cases against American entities in US federal courts for infringement of intellectual property rights originating outside the US.
Does the Society offer courses in "nit-picking" and in "superior attitudes", or are they considered innate to the concept of "heraldry"?