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Zero-Option Defendants: United States V. Mclellan And The Judiciary's Role In Protecting The Right To Compulsory Process, Wisdom U. Onwuchekwa-Banogu

JCLC Online

How does one obtain evidence located outside the United States for a criminal trial? For prosecutors, the answer is an exclusive treaty process: Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLATs). Defendants, on the other hand, may only use an unpredictable, ineffective, non-treaty process: letters rogatory. The result is a selective advantage for law enforcement at the expense of the defendant. Though this imbalance necessarily raises Sixth Amendment Compulsory Process Clause concerns, MLATs have remained largely undisturbed because defendants still have some form of process, albeit a lesser one. But what happens when the letters rogatory process is also closed off to the …

Debt And Dependence: Foreign Interference In Haiti And The Importance Of Non-State Actor Accountability, Sandra Wisner, Brian Concannon

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

Colonialist policies and lending practices by foreign states and non-state actors have led to serious and wide-spread violations of Haitian individuals’ fundamental human rights. In particular, a series of loan conditions imposed by international financial institutions and their members states left Haiti vulnerable to increased food insecurity and a severely diminished social sector. This paper proposes that the imposition of such loan conditions constitutes a violation of foreign actors’ obligations under international law respecting economic, social, cultural, and political rights, as well as their extra-territorial obligations (ETOs) to take joint and separate action to promote and respect human rights beyond …

Human Rights, Trans Rights, Prisoners’ Rights: An International Comparison, Tom Butcher

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

In this Note, I conduct an international comparison of the state of trans prisoners’ rights to explore how different national legal contexts impact the likelihood of achieving further liberation through appeals to human rights ideals. I examine the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, India, Argentina, and Costa Rica and show the degree to which a human rights framework has been successful thus far in advancing trans prisoners’ rights. My analysis also indicates that the degree to which a human rights framework is likely to be successful in the future varies greatly between countries. In countries that are hesitant …

Dusting Off The Law Books: Recognizing Gender Persecution In Conflicts And Atrocities, Lisa Davis

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

War-time abuses against women, girls, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer (LGBTIQ), non-binary and gender non-conforming persons are not new. They are as old as human history, appearing in modern international criminal law records as far back as World War II (WWII). In conflicts across the globe, from Iraq to Colombia, armed actors have perpetrated gender-based crimes amounting to persecution in an effort to reinforce oppressive, discriminatory gender narratives. Rarely documented when they happen, perpetrators are hardly ever held accountable for these crimes. As a result, the crimes are often excluded from consideration by international and domestic tribunals, and in …

Remedies For Human Rights Violations: A Reform Proposal For Addressing Victims Of Criminal Proceedings In Ethiopia, Abdi Jibril Ali

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

Navigating The Moral Minefields Of Human Rights Advocacy In The Global South, Sandra L. Babcock

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

Transferring Away Human Rights: Using Human Rights To Address Corporate Transfer Mispricing, Monica Iyer

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

An estimated sixty percent of international trade happens within multinational enterprises. Transfer pricing occurs when one part of a firm sets a price in order to sell to another division in another country. When these prices are deliberately set at something other than market rate in order to minimize the firm’s tax liability, this is known as transfer mispricing, or abusive transfer pricing. These practices account for an enormous portion of global illicit financial flows. This paper will consider transfer mispricing as a violation of human rights, and will look at the ways in which various human rights instruments and …

Without Unnecessary Delay: Using Army Regulation 190–8 To Curtail Extended Detention At Sea, Meghan Claire Hammond

Northwestern University Law Review

This Note analyzes instances of U.S. detention of suspected terrorists while at sea as an alternative to Guantánamo, and how this at-sea detention fits in the interplay of U.S. statutory law, procedural law, and applicable international law. Of particular interest is the dual use of military and civilian legal regimes to create a procedural-protection-free zone on board U.S. warships during a detainee’s transfer from their place of capture to the U.S. court system. The Note concludes that U.S. Army Regulation 190–8 contains language of which the purpose and intent may be analogized to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure requirements …

The Transformation Of South African Private Law After Twenty Years Of Democracy, Christopher J. Roederer

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

In The Transformation of South African Private Law after Ten Years of Democracy, 37 Colum. Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 447 (2006), I evaluated the role of private law in consolidating South Africa’s constitutional democracy. There, I traced the negative effects of apartheid from public law to private law, and then to the law of delict, South Africa’s counterpart to tort law. I demonstrated that the law of delict failed to develop under apartheid and that the values animating the law of delict under apartheid were inconsistent with the values and aspirations of South Africa’s democratic transformation. By the end of …

The Legal Status Of Employees Of Private Military/Security Companies Participating In U.N. Peacekeeping Operations, Mohamad Ghazi Janaby

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

A Constitution At A Crossroads: A Conversation With The Chief Justice Of The Constitutional Court Of South Africa, Drew F. Cohen

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

Mental Retardation And The Death Penalty: The Need For An International Standard Defining Mental Retardation, Allison Freedman

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

A Janus Look At International Criminal Justice, Diane Marie Amann

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

Provisional Release At The Icty: Rights Of The Accused And The Debate That Amended A Rule, Raphael Sznajder

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

Superior Responsibility, Inferior Sentencing: Sentencing Practice At The International Criminal Tribunals, Christine Bishai

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

Delegating Investigations: Lessons To Be Learned From The Lubanga Judgment, Caroline Buisman

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

Atrocity Crimes Litigation Year-In-Review Conference 2011, Phil Sandick

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

Atrocity Crimes Litigaton: Year-In-Review (2011) Conference Abridged Transcript, David Scheffer

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

Stl In The Year 2011: Atrocity Crime Litigation Review For The Year 2011, Kelsey Green, Michael Novak

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

International Ngos, The Arab Upheaval, And Human Rights: Examining Ngo Resource Allocation, Gerald M. Steinberg

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

Speechlessness And Trauma: Why The International Criminal Court Needs A Public Interviewing Guide, Philip A. Sandick

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

"A Guantanamo On The Sea": The Difficulties Of Prosecuting Pirates And Terrorists, Eugene Kontorovich

Faculty Working Papers

As a surge in pirate attacks in the seas around the Horn of Africa threatens to seriously damage international trade, the nations of the world have refused to enforce international law against these criminals. The dozens of nations patrolling the Gulf of Aden have ample legal authority to detain and prosecute pirates. Yet the United States and other navies have, as a matter of policy, been releasing apprehended pirates because of the difficulty of detaining or successfully prosecuting them. These fears are not unwarranted. As this Essay shows, while on the one hand international law requires all nations to fight …

An Empirical Examination Of Universal Jurisdiction For Piracy, Eugene Kontorovich, Steven Art

Faculty Working Papers

This Essay presents the first systematic empirical study of the incidence of universal jurisdiction prosecutions over an international crime. Using data on the number of piracies committed in a twelve year period (1998-2009) obtained from international agencies and maritime industry groups, we determine the percentage of acts of piracy where nations prosecuted under universal jurisdiction we determine the percentage of these cases where nations exercised UJ. Studies of the worldwide use of UJ over other crimes simply count how often UJ has been exercised, but do not attempt to determine the rate of prosecution.

We find that of all clearly …

Human Rights As Part Of Customary International Law:A Plea For Change Of Paradigms, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

The question for us international lawyers is how, and how much of, public sentiment for human rights has been transformed into binding international law.

The "Define And Punish" Clause And The Limit Of Universal Jurisdiction, Eugene Kontorovich

Faculty Working Papers

This Article examines whether the "Define and Punish" clause of the Constitution empowers Congress to criminalize foreign conduct unconnected to the United States. Answering this question requires exploring the Constitution's "Piracies and Felonies" provision. While it is hard to believe this can still be said of any constitutional provision, no previous work has examined the scope of the "Piracies and Felonies" powers. Yet the importance of this inquiry is more than academic. Despite its obscurity, the Piracies and Felonies power is the purported Art. I basis for a statute currently in force, which represents Congress's most aggressive use of universal …

Beyond The Article I Horizon: Congress’S Enumerated Powers And Universal Jurisdiction Over Drug Crimes, Eugene Kontorovich

Faculty Working Papers

This paper explores the Article I limits faced by Congress in exercising universal jurisdiction (UJ) – that is, regulating extraterritorial conduct by foreigners with no affect on or connection the U.S. While UJ is becoming increasingly popular in Europe for the punishment of human rights offenses, Congress's primary use of UJ today is under the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act. This obscure law allows the U.S. to punish for violating U.S. drug laws foreign defendants on foreign vessels in international waters. The MDLEA's UJ provisions raise fundamental questions about the source and extent of Congress's constitutional power to regulate purely …

Courting Genocide: The Unintended Effects Of Humanitarian Intervention, Jide Nzelibe

Faculty Working Papers

Invoking memories and imagery from the Holocaust and other German atrocities during World War II, many contemporary commentators and politicians believe that the international community has an affirmative obligation to deter and incapacitate perpetrators of humanitarian atrocities. Today, the received wisdom is that a legalistic approach, which combines humanitarian interventions with international criminal prosecutions targeting perpetrators, will help realize the post-World War II vision of making atrocities a crime of the past. This Article argues, in contrast, that humanitarian interventions are often likely to create unintended, and sometimes perverse, incentives among both the victims and perpetrators of atrocities. The problem …

Switzerland & The International Trade In Art & Antiquities, Michele Kunitz

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Recently, Switzerland has proposed a law that would significantly tighten its regulation of the antiquities trade. The draft law seeks to comport Swiss law with the broad goals of international conventions on the protection and transfer of cultural property. However, given Switzerland's past reluctance to curtail the illicit trade in antiquities, it remains unclear whether this measure will pass or if passed, whether the law would be adequately enforced. The primary aim of this Comment is to detail the history of international law as it pertains to cultural property and draw attention to the Swiss role in fostering the illicit …

Foreword: The Rocky Road Toward The Rule Of Law In China: 1979-2000, James Hugo Friend

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

This Twentieth Anniversary Issue of JILB again has a symposium on law in China entitled China Revisited: Examining the Rule of Law After Twenty Years." The impetus for the 2000 China Symposium is the unprecedented integration of China into the world economic community, evidenced by China's imminent entry into the World Trade Organization ("WTO").2 The road to China's integration into the WTO was paved by the U. S. Senate's recent vote, "the most significant advance in U.S.-China relations since President Nixon's 1972 visit,'13 which grants China permanent normalized trade relations without annual Congressional review. Although the Senate approval was expected, …

Peace Vs. Accountability In Bosnia, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

Hovering over the peace negotiations in progress in former Yugoslavia is the international community's determination to bring to trial as war criminals those political and military leaders responsible for atrocities in Bosnia. The question clearly presented is that, however desirable the idea of war crimes accountability might appear in the abstract, pursuing the goal of a war crimes tribunal may simply result in prolonging a war of civilian atrocities. Is it not conceivable that, in return for securing a peace treaty, the UN officials may have extended some assurance to the leaders in former Yugoslavia that, one way or another, …