The authors wish to thank Larry Helfer and the participants in the Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Colloquium, Feb. 2005, for their comments and feedback, and Nus Choudhry for invaluable research assistance. 1. This approach is closely linked to the monist view of international law. Monists argue that international law and domestic law are part of the same system, in which international law is hierarchically prior to domestic law. Dualists, in contrast, claim that international and domestic law are part of two distinct systems and that domestic law is generally prior to international law. See generally J. G. Starke, Monism and Dualism in the Theory of International Law, 17 Brit. Y.B. Int'l L. 66 (1936). While both of these theories provide important linkages between international law and domestic law, for adherents of either approach the functions and institutions of international law remain largely at the international level. See generally id. 2. See Mavromatis Palestine Concessions (Greece v. Gr. Brit.), 1924 P.C.I.J. (ser. A) No. 2, at 12 (Aug. 30). Yet the decision of a state to espouse its citizen's claim is one of domestic politics-the state has no obligation to do so. International law does, however, regulate the right of the state to espouse an individual claim, limiting such rights to cases of "close connection," usually in the form of "real and effective nationality" between the state and the citizen.

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