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The Intenational Crimial Court (Icc) As A Mechanism For Global Justice And Rule Of Law, Paolo Davide Farah

Book Chapters

Throughout history, institutions have been the chosen platforms for governing and regulating society. However, in the twenty-first century, with unprecedented connectivity and interdependence, working toward multilateral solutions for global challenges, whether in climate change through the UNFCCC or in trade via the World Trade Organization, has become increasingly complex. This rise in complexity within the international landscape has not been met with proportional attention to cooperation, conflict resolution, and harmonizing human values.

It is relevant to highlight the intersection between the International Criminal Court (ICC) and broader questions within international humanitarian law, (IHL) its interconnections and intertwinement with International Criminal …

Globalization, State Sovereignty, And The Development Of International Criminal Law, Milena Sterio

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

"Today, virtually all nation-states have gradually become enmeshed in and functionally a part of a larger pattern of global transformations and global flows. Transnational networks and relations have developed across virtually all areas of human activity. Goods, capital, people, knowledge, communications, and weapons, as well as crime, pollutants, fashions and beliefs, rapidly move across territorial boundaries. Far from being a world of "discrete civilizations, "or simply an international society of states, it has become a fundamentally interconnected global order, marked by intense patterns of exchange as well as by clear patterns of power, hierarchy and unevenness."

"To speak of globalization …

The Ukraine Crisis And The Future Of International Courts And Tribunals, Milena Sterio

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The Ukraine crisis is an example of modern-day conflict which poses various accountability challenges and demonstrates that not a single existing prosecutorial mechanism is capable of achieving a full measure of accountability while fulfilling the different goals of international criminal justice. As discussed in this Article, the prosecution of a sufficient number of Russian perpetrators of atrocities, as well as of Russian leaders, conducted legitimately and effectively, will necessitate the utilization of almost all accountability models - Ukrainian courts, a war crime chamber, the ICC, as well as an ad hoc aggression tribunal. The Ukrainian crisis demonstrates that all international …

Transgender Erasure: Barriers Facing Transgender Refugees In Canada, Sean Rehaag, Alexandra Verman

All Papers

This paper explores the experiences of transgender refugee claimants in Canada’s refugee status determination system, using mixed methods: quantitative analysis of data obtained from the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB), reviews of published and unpublished decisions, country condition documentation packages and IRB guidelines, as well as interviews with refugee lawyers. Using these methods, we explore how credibility arises in transgender refugee claims, noting the impact of medicalization and country conditions materials on transgender claims, and drawing parallels between medical gatekeeping and credibility assessments in refugee claims. We identify potential explanations for low recorded numbers of transgender claims as rooted in …

Anti-Carceral Human Rights Advocacy, Chi Adanna Mgbako, Nate Johnson, Vivienne Bang Brown, Megan Cheah, Kimya Zahedi

Faculty Scholarship

The theory of carceral abolition entered the mainstream during the 2020 global protests for Black lives. Abolition calls for divestment from carceral institutions like police and prisons in favor of the expansion of social and economic programs that ensure public safety and nurture community well-being. Although there is little scholarship explicitly linking abolition to international human rights, there are scholars and advocates who implicitly echo abolitionist theories by critiquing the international human rights regime's overreliance on criminal law. These critics argue that relying on carceral institutions to address impunity for human rights abuses and promote gender justice does little to …

A Human Rights Approach To Climate-Induced Displacement: A Case Study In Central America And Colombia, Camila Bustos, Juliana Vélez-Echeverri

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The past decade was the warmest decade ever recorded. As climate impacts intensify, numbers of people displaced and in need of relocation increase. International law has yet to adapt to a changing climate and its implications for those most vulnerable. Experts still debate whether the existing refugee regime could provide a solution for those displaced by climate across international borders, while national governments continue to reckon with the domestic implications of internal displacement fueled by climate impacts. In this article, we apply a human rights lens to climate induced displacement, drawing from two case studies to highlight the human rights …

The War In Ukraine And The Legitimacy Of The International Criminal Court, Milena Sterio, Yvonne Dutton

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The news of the many atrocities being committed as the war in Ukraine rages on has prompted a chorus of calls seeking to hold perpetrators accountable. Heralded as a critical player is the International Criminal Court (the ICC or “Court”). Unlike in the past where states have decried requests to increase the Court’s budget or refused to cooperate with the Office of the Prosecutor’s (“OTP”) efforts to gather evidence or arrest suspects, states are generously donating funding and other resources to bolster the Court’s likelihood of bringing successful prosecutions.

This Article argues that the unique situation surrounding state support for …

The Who’S 75th Anniversary: Who At A Pivotal Moment In History, Lawrence O. Gostin, Danwood Mzikenge Chirwa, Helen Clark, Roojin Habibi, Björn Kümmel, Jemilah Mahmood, Benjamin Mason Meier, Winnie Mpanju-Shumbusho, K. Srinath Reddy, Attiya Waris, Miriam Were

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The World Health Organisation (WHO) was inaugurated in 1948 to bring the world together to ensure the highest attainable standard of health for all. Establishing health governance under the United Nations (UN), WHO was seen as the preeminent leader in public health, promoting a healthier world following the destruction of World War II and ensuring global solidarity to prevent disease and promote health. Its constitutional function would be ‘to act as the directing and coordinating authority on international health work’. Yet today, as the world commemorates WHO’s 75th anniversary, it faces a historic global health crisis, with governments presenting challenges …

Ukraine's Push To Prosecute Aggression: Implications For Immunity Ratione Personae And The Crime Of Aggression, Rebecca Hamilton

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Russia’s aggression against Ukraine dates back to its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s southern peninsula, Crimea. It was Russia’s brazen full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, however, that captured global attention and put the crime of aggression – the resort to war in violation of the UN Charter3 – in the spotlight.

Unsettling Human Rights Clinical Pedagogy And Practice In Settler Colonial Contexts, Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum, Caroline Bishop Laporte

Faculty Articles

In settler colonial contexts, law and educational institutions operate as structures of oppression, extraction, erasure, disempowerment, and continuing violence against colonized peoples. Consequently, clinical legal advocacy often can reinforce coloniality--the logic that perpetuates structural violence against individuals and groups resisting colonization and struggling for survival as peoples. Critical legal theory, including Third World Approaches to International Law (“TWAIL”), has long exposed colonial laws and practices that entrench discriminatory, racialized power structures and prevent transformative international human rights advocacy. Understanding and responding to these critiques can assist in decolonizing international human rights clinical law teaching and practice but is insufficient in …

Toward Recognizing An International Human Right To Claim Innocence, Brandon Garrett, Laurence R. Helfer, Jayne C. Huckerby, Mark Godsey, Luca Lupària

Judicature International

No abstract provided.

Comments On The International Criminal Court Office Of The Prosecutor's Draft Policy On The Crime Of Gender Persecution Under The Rome Statute, Milena Sterio

Law Faculty Reports and Comments

The Draft Policy promises to be a seminal contribution not only to the Office of the Prosecutor's (OTP) policy and practice and the International Criminal Court's (ICC) jurisprudence on gender persecution, but also to the development of international criminal law generally. Building on its prior work, including the 2014 Policy Paper, the OTP is well placed to develop policies and procedures that protect historically marginalized and oppressed groups, deliver justice that accurately reflects the depth and breadth of the gender persecution suffered, and shed light on a crime that has to date received only limited attention.

As it finalizes the …

Brief Of Human Rights And Labor Rights Organizations And Experts As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioners, Janie A. Chuang

Amicus Briefs

Since Congress first enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, it has expanded and strengthened it through successive reauthorizations. Congress has broadened the scope of the TVPRA in order to impose criminal and civil liability on individuals, corporations, and other legal persons who use, or knowingly benefit from ventures that use, forced labor, as well as those who aid and abet these practices. Through this legislation, Congress has bolstered efforts to hold traffickers accountable, opening the courthouse doors to victims of these egregious crimes.

The Ninth Circuit's decision below undermined the very statutory scheme Congress put in place to …

Free Yezidi Foundation Public Memo – Lafarge Case, Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum, Patricia Viseur Sellers

Faculty Online Publications

This memorandum supports the Free Yezidi Foundation’s (FYF) filing in the Lafarge Case concerning allegations of complicity in crimes against humanity, including genocide. The Lafarge Corporation continuously operated its factory and, moreover, financially contributed to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (IS, ISIS, Daesh) between 2013 and 2014, inclusive of the period between 3 August 2014 and 19 September 2014. During those weeks, and represented in a timeline annexed to this memorandum, international and French media, international organizations, and governments extensively reported on and condemned IS acts committed against the Yezidi population that could constitute crimes against humanity under …

Regional Immigration Enforcement, Fatma Marouf

Faculty Scholarship

Regional disparities in immigration enforcement have existed for decades, yet they remain largely overlooked in immigration law scholarship. This Article theorizes that bottom-up pressure from states and localities, combined with top-down pressures and policies established by the President, produce these regional disparities. The Article then provides an empirical analysis demonstrating enormous variations in how Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s twenty-four field offices engage in federal enforcement around the United States. By analyzing data related to detainers, arrests, removals, and detention across these field offices, the Article demonstrates substantial differences between field offices located in sanctuary and anti-sanctuary regions, as well as …

Book Review Of ‘Women, Peace And Security And International Law’, Christine Chinkin, Cambridge University Press, Akhila Basalalli

Articles

The social neutrality and gender disregard of mainstream international law have motivated the pioneering works of Christine Chinkin in addressing the gender disparity, for instance, the book ‘The Boundaries of International Law: A Feminist Analysis’ co-authored with Hilary Charlesworth. The book ‘Women, Peace and Security and International Law’ by Chinkin is an updated and detailed version of the lecture delivered in the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law in October 2016 as a part of the Lauterpacht lecture series. It was subsequently published by Cambridge Publishers in 2022.

What Nations Owe Each Other Before The Next Pandemic, Lawrence O. Gostin, Kevin A. Klock, Sam F. Halabi, Katie Gottschalk, Katherine Ginsbach, Kashish Aneja

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

On December 1, 2021, the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution establishing an Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) to determine the content and form of a new pandemic agreement. A portion of the public has advocated for a non-binding agreement while others stress that nationalism should be prevented, with steps taken to monitor and enforce national compliance. The INB has needed to grapple with how the principle of national sovereignty, and the accompanying principle of non-interference, will be addressed with respect to the agreement’s content and form, including obligations to share data, resources, and personnel, and to relinquish control over certain …

The Federal Global Migration And Quarantine Network: A Report From The National Academies Of Sciences, Engineering, And Medicine, Lawrence O. Gostin, Georges C. Benjamin, Tequam Worku

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The COVID-19 pandemic thrust the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Global Migration and Quarantine (DGMQ) into the epicenter of the national response. DGMQ is charged with preventing the importation of infectious diseases at land and sea borders and the spread of those diseases within the US. For more than 50 years, the agency’s comprehensive quarantine system, its regulatory powers, and scientific guidance has placed DGMQ at the forefront of emergency response. CDC requested the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) to assess the performance of the DGMQ during the COVID-19 pandemic, covering 5 …

A New Architecture For Global Health Emergency Preparedness And Response—The Imperative Of Equity, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Even before COVID-19 emerged in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, the prevailing global narrative was inequity—in health, income, race, and socioeconomic status. COVID-19 amplified all these inequities. Early in the pandemic, low-income countries were left without key medical resources, such as diagnostic tests, personal protective equipment, and ventilators. By 2021, inequitable vaccine distribution captured global attention and outrage. This year, high-income countries have bought the lion’s share of Paxlovid, a highly effective antiviral treatment. Vaccine inequities remain with only 16% of people in low-income countries having received at least 1 vaccine dose vs 80% of people across high-income countries. This …

At Long Last, Who Member States Agree To Fix Its Financing Problem, Alexandra Finch, Kevin A. Klock, Eric A. Friedman, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Those who deeply care about improving the health and well-being of all people no matter their personal circumstances have long argued that sustainably financing the World Health Organization is a cornerstone imperative—and for good reason. WHO is the only institution with the mandate and legitimacy to sit at the center of the global health architecture and bring together all stakeholders to coordinate and execute all-of-humanity approaches. Now after decades of inaction, WHO's member states have agreed to substantially improve the agency’s financing model, giving it greater flexibility and enhanced capacity to fulfill its mandate as the world’s health champion. What …

Memoria, Verdad Y Justicia: Situacion Y Perspectivas Etudes: Premiere Partie: Justice Transitionnelle Et Reconciliation, Juan Mendez

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

La evolucion de los principios de justicia transicional en el Derecho Internacional de los Derechos Humanos debe verse con un enfoque juridico que ponga de manifiesto la frondosa jurisprudencia que se ha poducido en respuesta a las trabas y obstAculos en diversos paises para la realizacibn de la justicia. Esto es especialmente cierto en America Latina, donde el sistenma interamericano de proteccion ha establecido con firmeza varias de estas obLigaciones internacionales del Estado. Pern no se trata de reglas aplicables solamente en el mbito interamericano, sino que se irproducen de diversas formas en otros sistemas regionales y tambidn en la …

Financing The Future Of Who, Lawrence O. Gostin, Kevin A. Klock, Helen Clark, Fatimatou Zahra Diop, Dayanath Jayasuriya, Jemilah Mahmood, Attiya Waris

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

WHO's resources have consistently lagged behind its constitutional mandate. There is a deep misalignment between what governments and the public expect WHO to do and what the organisation is resourced to do. WHO is challenged by low levels of political will to increase its financing, strained government treasuries, and a battle over control of priorities. WHO's Executive Board has charged the Working Group on Sustainable Financing with identifying a viable plan for sustainable financing before the World Health Assembly in May. There is no time to lose. WHO's resourcing strategy must match its mission with assured financial support from member …

Non-State Actors "Under Color Of Law": Closing A Gap In Protection Under The Convention Against Torture, Anna R. Welch, Sangyeob Kim

Faculty Publications

The world is experiencing a global restructuring that poses a serious threat to international efforts to prevent and protect against torture. The rise of powerful transnational non-state actors such as gangs, drug cartels, militias, and terrorist organizations is challenging states’ authority to control and govern torture committed within their territory.

In the United States, those seeking protection against deportation under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”) must establish a likelihood of torture at the instigation of or by consent or acquiescence of a public official acting in an official capacity or other person acting in an official capacity. However, what is …

Disaggregating Slavery And The Slave Trade, Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum

Faculty Articles

International law prohibits slavery and the slave trade as peremptory norms, customary international law prohibitions and crimes, humanitarian law prohibitions, and non-derogable human rights. Human rights bodies, however, focus on human trafficking, even when slavery and the slave trade—and not human trafficking—are enumerated within their mandates. International human rights law has conflated human trafficking with slavery and the slave trade. Consequently, human trafficking has subsumed the slave trade and, at times, slavery prohibitions, increasing perpetrator impunity for slavery and the slave trade abuses and denying full expressive justice to survivors.

This Article disaggregates slavery from the slave trade and slavery …

Reimagining Sovereignty To Protect Migrants, Pooja R. Dadhania

Faculty Scholarship

The concept of sovereignty in international law allows states to exclude and expel most categories of migrants, subject only to very narrow exceptions from international human rights and refugee law. Inverting the state sovereignty paradigm traditionally used to exclude migrants, this Essay reimagines sovereignty to protect migrants by drawing on the international law doctrine of state responsibility. The doctrine of state responsibility requires states to remedy the consequences of their actions in violation of international law. States that violate the sovereignty of other states, more specifically their territorial integrity or political independence, and thereby cause forced migration should have an …

Louis Henkin Memorial Lecture University Of Miami Law School, Juan Mendez

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

I am deeply honored to be invited to deliver this year's version of a lecture series honoring Professor Louis Henkin whose contributions to the development of international law-and very specifically to international human rights law - are and very long will continue to be remembered. I am also a bit overwhelmed as I notice that the organizers have put me in the company of wonderful colleagues and masters of this field, several of them my friends and persons whose work I admire. It is also especially gratifying for me to have the occasion of renewing contact with the Henkin family …

Transnational Migrant Deterrence, Anita Sinha

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The governance of global migration increasingly relies on what critical migration scholarship refers to as externalized control. Externalization encompasses limiting human mobility through the imposition of migration control measures by transit states, as well as by states that are geographically proximate to destination states. Destination states are at a minimum complicit in the creation and operation of these externalized migration control systems. To capture this phenomenon, this Article offers a reconceptualization of externalization as transnational migration deterrence. The objective ofthis nomenclature is to provide a framework that highlights the role of destination states, to build a lexicon of accountability for …

Law School News: Sanctions On Russia: Imperfect But Necessary 03-02-2022, Gregory W. Bowman

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Legal Primer: Respecting The Human Rights Of Communities In Wind And Solar Project Deployment, Sarah Dolton-Zborowski, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

As a companion to the Business Guide, the Legal Risk Primer is geared towards general counsels and corporate legal teams, as well as internal and external stakeholders. It provides an overview of the wide range of potential legal risks for wind and solar energy companies associated with community-related adverse human rights impacts. The legal risks outlined arise from home and host government laws, community litigators, financiers, and power purchase agreements.

Together, these two resources support wind and solar energy companies – as well as external stakeholders seeking to influence companies, including investors, civil society organizations, and project-affected communities – …

Business Guide: Respecting The Human Rights Of Communities In Wind And Solar Project Deployment, Sarah Dolton-Zborowski, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Companies involved in commercial wind and solar projects are facing heightened scrutiny of their human rights performance. This Business Guide provides companies with information and strategies to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for adverse human rights impacts that they cause, contribute to, or are directly linked to through their operations, products, or services by virtue of their business relationships. It may also be useful for investors, business partners, government actors, civil society organizations, communities, and other stakeholders.

Drawing on the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights, the Guide provides practical recommendations, with over 40 examples from peer companies …