Digital Commons Network^™

The Post-Ongwen Case Period And The Reconciliation Process In Northern Uganda: Local Communities As A Site Of Knowledge, Christelle Molima Bameka

Scholarly Articles

By providing victims with more space in the Ongwen case, the International Criminal Court (icc) has significantly contributed to the healing of the trauma and community reconciliation in northern Uganda. That said, this court has also raised issues that could affect local efforts to achieve peace, namely the positioning of victims of child soldiers vis-à-vis criminal child soldiers. Drawing on qualitative data collected through focus group discussions with some community members from locations under investigation by the icc, this sociolegal study examines the victims’ narratives about child soldiers and the different ideas of human rights that emerge. Then, it explores …

Exploring The African Regional Human Rights Standards As The Basis For An Enabling Environment For Self-Managed Abortion, Lucia Berro Pizzarossa, Michelle Maziwisa, Ebenezer Durojaye

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Self-managed abortion holds great promise to save lives and promote reproductive autonomy, particularly in Africa. Indeed, the African region records very high numbers of unsafe abortions, and the burden of abortion-related mortality is the highest globally. Abortion remains generally criminalized in violation of numerous internationally and regionally recognized human rights standards. The advent of abortion medicines and the increased grassroots energy geared towards curbing the harms of unsafe abortion evince medical abortion holds great promise for revolutionizing people’s access to high-quality reproductive care. This study discusses regional human rights frameworks, policy, case law, and a few representative domestic legislative frameworks …

The Low-Hanging Fruit: Health, Rights, And The Commission, Bright Nkrumah

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

The year 2022 marked the 35th anniversary of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. As it is a custom in many communities, when one reaches this milestone, it is an opportune time to introspect and reflect on the successes and challenges encountered in one’s journey. It is this template that the paper adopts to measure the prospects and setbacks of the African Commission in the advancement of the right to health. The Article argues that while the body remains the poster child of the continent’s human rights architecture, its inability to clearly articulate how states ought to advance …

The Internet, Personal Jurisdiction, And Daos, Matthew R. Mcguire

Washington and Lee Law Review

Global connectivity is at an all-time high, and sovereign state law has not fully caught up with the technological innovations enabling that connectivity. TCP/IP—the communications protocol allowing computers on different networks to speak with each other—wasn’t adopted by ARPANET and the Defense Data Network until January 1983. That’s only forty years ago. And the World Wide Web wasn’t released to the general public until August 1991, less than thirty-five years ago. The first Bitcoin block was mined on January 3, 2009, less than fifteen years ago.

Legal doctrine doesn’t develop that fast, especially in legal systems heavily based around judicial …

Pandemic As Transboundary Harm: Lessons From The Trail Smelter Arbitration, Russell A. Miller

Scholarly Articles

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused incalculable harm around the world. The fact that this immense harm can be traced back to a localized outbreak in or near Wuhan, China, raises questions about the responsibility China might bear for the pandemic under public international law. Famously applied in the seminal Trail Smelter Arbitration (1938/1941), the Transboundary Harm Principle provides that no state can use or allow the use of its territory in a manner that causes significant harm in the territory of other states. This article does not intend to tap into the unseemly, xenophobic spirit that animates much of the …

International Law In The Boardroom, Kishanthi Parella

Scholarly Articles

Conventional wisdom expects that international law will proceed through a “state pathway” before regulating corporations: it binds national governments that then bind corporations. But recent corporate practices confound this story. American corporations complied with international laws even when the state pathway broke down. This unexpected compliance leads to three questions: How did corporations comply? Why did they do so? Who enforced international law? These questions are important for two reasons. First, many international laws depend on corporate cooperation in order to succeed. Second, the state pathway is not robust, then or now. It is therefore vital to identify alternatives to …

Is A Duty To Pay Tax Inherent In Affirmations Of Human Rights?, Jonathan M. Barrett

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 (the Universal Declaration), as the preeminent statement of human rights, informs numerous cognate covenants and declarations of rights, and charters of rights included in national constitutions. Unlike the rights declarations of the Enlightenment, the Universal Declaration affirms broad welfare rights, in addition to civil and political rights. No right or set of rights is superior to another; they are indivisible, interdependent and interrelated.

Declarations of rights may also include duties. The Organization of American States’ American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man 1948 (“the American Declaration”), for example, includes …

(G)Local Intersectionality, Martha F. Davis

Washington and Lee Law Review

Intersectionality theory has been slow to take root as a legal norm at the national level, even as scholars embrace it as a potent analytical tool. Yet, in recent years, intersectionality has entered law and policy practices through an unexpected portal: namely, local governments’ adoption of international norms. A growing number of local governments around the world explicitly incorporate intersectionality into their law and practice as part of implementing international antidiscrimination norms from human rights instruments like the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of …

Foreword: Centering Intersectionality In Human Rights Discourse, Johanna Bond

Washington and Lee Law Review

In the last decade, intersectionality theory has gained traction as a lens through which to analyze international human rights issues. Intersectionality theory is the notion that multiple systems of oppression intersect in peoples’ lives and are mutually constitutive, meaning that when, for example, race and gender intersect, the experience of discrimination goes beyond the formulaic addition of race discrimination and gender discrimination to produce a unique, intersectional experience of discrimination. The understanding that intersecting systems of oppression affect different groups differently is central to intersectionality theory. As such, the theory invites us to think about inter-group differences (i.e., differences between …

Comment: Understanding Xenophobia As Intersectional Discrimination, Shreya Atrey

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Comment examines the nature of xenophobia and why it seems to fall through the cracks of international human rights law, especially as a form of racial discrimination under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. It considers an understanding of xenophobia as a sui generis case of intersectional discrimination because it has to do with racial grounds but also perhaps other grounds (such as nationality, religion, language, culture, and class), which makes it difficult to disentangle the basis of xenophobic discrimination as based on strictly racial grounds alone.

Rurality As An Intersecting Axis Of Inequality In The Work Of The U.N. Treaty Bodies, Amanda Lyons

Washington and Lee Law Review

Rurality intersects with other identities, power dynamics, and structural inequalities—including those related to gender, race, disability, and age—to create unique patterns of human rights deprivations, violations, and challenges in rural spaces. Therefore, accurately assessing human rights and duties in rural spaces requires attention to the dynamics of rurality in a particular context, the unique nature of diverse rural identities and livelihoods, the systemic forces operating in and on those spaces, and the intersections with other forms of structural discrimination and inequality.

Although much of the work of the U.N. treaty bodies has in fact addressed human rights situations in rural …

The Visualities And Aesthetics Of Prosecuting Aged Defendants, Mark Drumbl, Caroline Fournet

Scholarly Articles

The prosecution—whether domestic or international—of international crimes and atrocities may implicate extremely aged defendants. Much has been written about the legalisms that inhere (or not) in trying these barely alive individuals. Very little however has been written about the aesthetics the barely alive encrust into the architecture of courtrooms, the optics these defendants suffuse into the trial process, and the expressive value of punishing them. This is what we seek to do in this project.

Refugees Under Duress: International Law And The Serious Nonpolitical Crime Bar, David Baluarte

Scholarly Articles

Congress intended that the serious nonpolitical crime bar under United States asylum law have the same meaning and scope as the 1F(b) Refugee Convention exclusion clause. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that it was the intent of Congress to not only replicate the language of the provisions of the Refugee Convention in United States law, but to incorporate the full extent of the meaning of such language and bring the United States into compliance with its treaty obligations. Accordingly, when Congress reproduced exactly the language of the Article 1F(b) exclusion clause in the INA, it intended for that provision …

A New Narrative Of Statelessness, David Baluarte

Scholarly Articles

Statelessness: A Modern History by Dr. Mira Siegelberg offers a meticulous reconstruction of the varied contributions of artists, scholars, and policy makers to the understanding of statelessness in the years between the First and Second World Wars. Siegelberg situates statelessness in some of the most prominent debates about international law and relations in modern history, most notably whether the individual is an appropriate subject of international law and whether a political order beyond the confines of the nation-state is desirable.

Submission Of Amicus Curiae Observations In The Case Of The Prosecutor V. Dominic Ongwen, Erin Baines, Kamari M. Clarke, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

The important questions laid out by the Appeals Chamber in this case highlight the need for the proper delineation and interplay between mental illness and criminal responsibility under international law. Specifically, this case represents a watershed moment for the Appeals Chamber to set a framework for adjudicating mental illness in the context of collectivized child abuse and trauma. This is especially true for former child soldiers who occupy both a victim and alleged perpetrator status.

"A Hussy Who Rode On Horseback In Sexy Underwear In Front Of The Prisoners": The Trials Of Buchenwald’S Ilse Koch, Mark A. Drumbl, Solange Mouthaan

Scholarly Articles

Ilse Koch’s trials for her role in atrocities at the Nazi Buchenwald concentration camp served as visual spectacles and primed her portrayal in media and public spaces. Koch’s conduct was credibly rumored to be one of frequent affairs, simultaneous lovers, and the sexual humiliation of prisoners. The gendered construction of her sexual identity played a distortive role in her intersections with law and with post-conflict Germany. Koch’s trials revealed two different dynamics. Koch’s actions were refracted through a patriarchal lens which spectacularized female violence and served as an optical space to (re)establish appropriate feminine mores. Feminist critiques of Koch’s trials …

Weaving A Broader Tapestry, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

This essay was initially prepared at the request of FIU Law Review for its micro-symposium on The Legal Legacy of the Special Court for Sierra Leone by Charles C. Jalloh (Cambridge, 2020).

Charles Jalloh delivers a comprehensive and authoritative survey of the legacy—in law—of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL). Through compendious research and considerable personal experience, Jalloh tracks the SCSL’s jurisprudential contributions and legal footprints upon a number of doctrinal areas: child soldiering, forced marriage, immunities, personal jurisdiction, and amnesties. Jalloh also examines the SCSL’s interface with Sierra Leone’s truth commission. Indeed, the SCSL is among the few …

Investors As International Law Intermediaries: Using Shareholder Proposals To Enforce Human Rights, Kishanthi Parella

Scholarly Articles

One of the biggest challenges with international law remains its enforcement. This challenge grows when it comes to enforcing international law norms against corporations and other business organizations. The United Nations Guiding Principles recognizes the “corporate responsibility to respect human rights,” which includes human rights due diligence practices that are adequate for “assessing actual and potential human rights impacts, integrating and acting upon the findings, tracking responses, and communicating how impacts are addressed.” Unfortunately, many corporations around the world are failing to implement adequate human rights due diligence practices in their supply chains. This inattention leads to significant harms for …

Hearing On The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, Coronavirus, And Addressing China’S Culpability Before The Senate Committee On The Judiciary, Russell A. Miller

Scholarly Articles

There are a number of theories about the Chinese government’s acts or omissions concerning the emergence and world-wide spread of the coronavirus that may be the proximate cause of actionable transboundary harm. All of these theories start with the incontestable fact that the coronavirus outbreak originated in China. One theory is concerned with the conduct of the Chinese government after the health crisis emerged. This “ex post” theory alleges a broad range of acts and omissions that helped transform a local outbreak into a global pandemic. There is room for this theory under the Transboundary Harm Principle. But the “ex …

To Protect Freedom Of Expression, Why Not Steal Victory From The Jaws Of Defeat?, Evelyn Mary Aswad

Washington and Lee Law Review

Global social media platforms are grappling with whether to align their corporate speech codes with international human rights law. Facebook’s June 2019 report that summarized worldwide feedback about its proposed independent oversight board for content moderation noted a split in stakeholder opinions on this topic. The UN’s top expert on freedom of expression as well as many civil society members recommended that Facebook anchor its content moderation in the international human rights law regime. Others expressed concern that this legal regime would not be sufficiently protective of speech and contained inconsistencies that create problems for content moderation.

Those concerns were …

Personal Jurisdiction And National Sovereignty, Ray Worthy Campbell

Washington and Lee Law Review

State sovereignty, once seemingly sidelined in personal jurisdiction analysis, has returned with a vengeance. Driven by the idea that states must not offend rival states in their jurisdictional reach, some justices have looked for specific targeting of individual states as individual states by the defendant in order to justify an assertion of personal jurisdiction. To allow cases to proceed based on national targeting alone, they argue, would diminish the sovereignty of any state that the defendant had specifically targeted.

This Article looks for the first time at how this emphasis on state sovereignty limits national sovereignty, especially where alien defendants …

Children In Armed Conflict, In The Oxford Handbook Of Children’S Rights Law (Jonathan Todres & Shani M. King Eds., 2020), Mark A. Drumbl

Books and Chapters

This chapter addresses a particularly vulnerable population of children, namely, children associated with armed forces or armed groups. These children are colloquially known as child soldiers. This chapter begins by surveying the prevalence of child soldiering globally. It then sets out the considerable amount of international law that addresses children in armed conflict, in particular, the law that allocates responsibility for child soldiering and the law that sets out the responsibility of child soldiers for their conduct. The chapter identifies significant gaps between the law and the securing of positive outcomes for former child soldiers, notably when it comes to …

Fifty States, But No Room For The Stateless, In Atlas Of The Stateless: Facts And Figures About Exclusion And Displacement (Ulrike Lauerhass Et Al. Eds, 2020), David C. Baluarte

Books and Chapters

“Give me your tired, your poor / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...” says a plaque on the Statue of Liberty in New York. Since its founding, the United States has welcomed immigrants and has granted them citizenship. Their children born on American soil automatically become US nationals. The current US administration is trying to overturn this proud tradition.

Memorializing Dissent: Justice Pal In Tokyo, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

Memorials and monuments are envisioned as positive ways to honor victims of atrocity. Such displays are taken as intrinsically benign, respectful, and in accord with the arc of justice. Is this correlation axiomatic, however? Art, after all, may be a vehicle for multiple normativities, contested experiences, and variable veracities. Hence, in order to really speak about the relationships between the aesthetic and international criminal law, one must consider the full range of initiatives—whether pop-up ventures, alleyway graffiti, impromptu ceremonies, street art, and grassroots public histories—prompted by international criminal trials. Courts may be able to stage their own outreach, to be …

Post-Genocide Justice In Rwanda, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

The Rwandan genocide triggered a vast number of criminal and quasi-criminal prosecutions. Rwanda therefore constitutes an example of a robust and rapid implementation of criminal accountability for atrocity. Rwanda, moreover, departed from other countries – such as South Africa – by eschewing a truth and reconciliation process as part of a transitional justice process. This chapter unpacks three levels of judicialization that promoted criminal responsibility for atrocity in Rwanda: the ICTR, specialized chambers of national courts, and gacaca proceedings. The ICTR indicted roughly 90 individuals, the national courts convicted in the area of 10,000 defendants (with some proceedings remaining ongoing), …

Protecting Stateless Refugees In The United States, David Baluarte

Scholarly Articles

This article proposes a more complete and nuanced consideration of statelessness in asylum adjudication procedures in the United States and the possibility of reopening previously denied asylum claims for this purpose. The article proceeds in four parts, beginning with a discussion of statelessness in the United States. Next, the article describes the international protection frameworks for both refugees and stateless persons and identifies important points of intersection between these frameworks. Then the article argues that discriminatory denationalization that renders a person stateless triggers refugee protection, thereby making victims of such deprivation eligible for asylum in the United States. The article …

Family In The Balance: Barton V. Barr And The Systematic Violation Of The Right To Family Life In U.S. Immigration Enforcement, David Baluarte

Scholarly Articles

The United States systematically violates the international human right to family life in its system of removal of noncitizens. Cancellation of removal provides a means for noncitizens to challenge their removal based on family ties in the United States, but Congress has placed draconian limits on the discretion of immigration courts to cancel removal where noncitizens have committed certain crimes. The recently issued U.S. Supreme Court decision in Barton v. Barr illustrates the troubling trend of affording less discretion for immigration courts to balance family life in removal decisions that involve underlying criminal conduct. At issue was the “stop-time rule” …

Hard And Soft Law Preferences In Business And Human Rights, Kishanthi Parella

Scholarly Articles

States and non-state actors, such as business organizations and NGOs, have varying preferences among regulatory options in business and human rights. Some actors prefer soft law governance while others advocate for legally binding solutions at the national and international levels. In this essay, I explore some of the factors that may explain why state and non-state actors hold these diverse preferences. I conclude that while some of these preferences may be attributable to the unique advantages of soft lawor hard law, other preferences likely depend on the effects produced by the interaction of both types of law within the broader …

Is It Time For Global Justice? International Human Rights And Wrongs In The 21st Century, Christopher J. Whelan

Scholarly Articles

Human rights are controversial, yet the question posed in this Article – “is it time for Global Justice?” – begs several, critical, questions which must be addressed first. If humans disagree on which rights should be universal; if human rights are “little more than thistledown, springing up at random and blowing away as time’s whirligig spins,” then how on earth can there be international human rights?

If The Shoe Fits: Rethinking Minimum Contacts And The Fsia Commercial Activity Exception, Jacqueline M. Fitch

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

The question explored in this Note is whether, under the direct effect clause of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act commercial activities exception, a foreign sovereign must have minimum contacts with the United States in order for a U.S. court to assert personal jurisdiction over the entity. Examining personal jurisdiction over foreign states under the direct effect clause requires exploring the interaction between constitutional law and principles of international law. The minimum contacts analysis highlights the tension between applying constitutional due process protection to a foreign state, while simultaneously asserting jurisdiction over its commercial activities. Denying jurisdiction over a foreign sovereign …