Law Commons^™

Human Shields, Homicides, And House Fires: How A Domestic Law Analogy Can Guide International Law Regarding Human Shield Tactics In Armed Conflict, Douglas H. Fischer

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Finding International Law: Rethinking The Doctrine Of Sources, Harlan G. Cohen

Scholarly Works

The doctrine of sources has served international law well over the past century, providing structure and coherence during a time when international law was expanding rapidly and dramatically. But the doctrine's explanatory power is increasingly being challenged. Current doctrine tells us that treaties are international law; empirical evidence, however, suggest that treaties are poor predictors of state practice. The expansion of the international community, the rise of human rights, developments in international legal theory, and the international system's need to adapt to changing circumstances, have all also put pressure on the reified role of "treaty" in identifying rules of international …

Us Policy On Small Arms Transfers: A Human Rights Perspective, Susan Waltz

Human Rights & Human Welfare

From Somalia and Afghanistan to Bosnia, Haiti, Colombia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Congo, small arms and light weapons were a common feature of the human rights calamities of the 1990’s.

© Susan Waltz. All rights reserved.*

*A shorter version of this paper is published as “U.S. Small Arms Policy: Having It Both Ways,” in the Summer 2007 issue of World Policy Journal.

This paper may be freely circulated in electronic or hard copy provided it is not modified in any way, the rights of the author not infringed, and the paper is not quoted or cited without express permission …

Eric K. Leonard On Atrocity, Punishment, And International Law By Mark A. Drumbl. New York, Cambridge University Press, 2007. 316 Pp., Eric K. Leonard

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law by Mark A. Drumbl. New York, Cambridge University Press, 2007. 316 pp.

Standard Setting In Human Rights: Critique And Prognosis, Makau Wa Mutua

Journal Articles

This article interrogates the processes and politics of standard setting in human rights. It traces the history of the human rights project and critically explores how the norms of the human rights movement have been created. This article looks at how those norms are made, who makes them, and why. It focuses attention on the deficits of the international order, and how that order - which is defined by multiple asymmetries - determines the norms and the purposes they serve. It identifies areas for further norm development and concludes that norm-creating processes must be inclusive and participatory to garner legitimacy …

Can International Law Survive The 21st Century - Yes: With Patience, Persistence, And A Peek At The Past, Dana Zartner Falstrom

San Diego International Law Journal

With the end of the Cold War-the principal international political framework that shaped the international system since the end of WWII-an increasing number of global tensions have arisen which have brought to the fore questions about the ability of existing international law to provide a guiding framework for state behavior. Debates over the limits of state sovereignty, the appropriateness of humanitarian intervention, the justness of pre-emptive war, the definition of self-defense, the legality of replacing a government in the interests of your ideals, and how to deal with terrorism have dominated discussions around the world. Moreover, these discussions have caused …

Philosopher Kings And International Tax: A New Approach To Tax Havens, Tax Flight, And International Tax Cooperation, Steven Dean

Faculty Scholarship

Tax flight treaties could help to solve the $50 billion-a-year problem that tax flight (the evasion of income taxes through the use of offshore tax havens) poses for the United States. Tax flight treaties would offer tax havens a substantial portion of the increased tax revenues that they could generate by providing the United States with the enforcement assistance it needs. Those payments, potentially representing as much as half of the added tax revenue produced by tax flight treaties (and in all probability an amount that is greater than any GDP gains attributable to eliminating waste and other economic distortions …

Americans And The Quest For An Ethical International Law, Mark Weston Janis

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Communications Theory And World Public Order: The Anthropomorphic, Jurisprudential Foundations Of International Human Rights, Winston P. Nagan, Craig Hammer

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article seeks to integrate different strains of knowledge and enlightenment from contradictory and often contentious jurisprudential perspectives. Our approach is to use elements of modern jurisprudence as tools and markers for a more adequate description and intellectual justification of the foundations of modern human rights law. This focus integrates existing literature that surveys law-making outside the context of the State, including the law of non-State groups, such as Jewish Law and Gypsy Law. It also examines the relevance of communications theory to law generated (in a functional sense) by individual interaction on a face-to-face basis (which Professor Harold Lasswell …

Revisiting The Doctrine Of Intergenerational Equity In Global Environmental Governance, Lynda M. Collins

Dalhousie Law Journal

In the absence of binding international enforcement mechanisms, global environmental governance must rely on a legal framework that has widespread normative force around the world. In addition, such a framework should be sufficiently detailed and pragmatic to allow for effective implementation, should achieve the goal of environmental protection, and should be reasonable in terms of the level of sacrifice expected of the present generation, particularly in the developing world. Itis arguedthat the comprehensive doctrine ofintergenerational equity is an effective and appropriate legal framework for global environmental governance. The doctrine ofintergenerational equityposits thepresent generation of humans as simultaneously beneficiaries of the …

Judicial Review And The War On Terror, John C. Yoo

ExpressO

This article examines the role of the federal courts in the war on terrorism, and contrasts the different judicial roles in reviewing decisions about the conduct of war abroad and within the United States. It explains that judicial refusal to adjudicate questions concerning the initiation and conduct of the war abroad is consistent with a narrow view of judicial review and the political question doctrine. Because the Constitution allocates different war powers to the President and Congress, allowing them to shape warmaking through the interaction of these powers, there is no single, constitutionally-required process for making war that requires judicial …

Culture, Sovereignty, And Hollywood: Unesco And The Future Of Trade In Cultural Products, Christopher M. Bruner

ExpressO

On October 20, 2005, the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) adopted a treaty – by a vote of 148-2, with 4 abstentions – that legitimates domestic legal measures aimed at the protection of local producers of "cultural activities, goods and services." Opposed by the United States and Israel, the Convention represents a major diplomatic victory for Canada and France – its principal proponents – and a major blow to Hollywood and the United States, audiovisual products being among America's most lucrative exports. Both Canada and France, like many countries around the world, have …

Babes With Arms: International Law And Child Soldiers, Timothy Webster

Faculty Publications

This article examines advances in preventing children from participating in armed conflict. It references international human rights treaties, UN Security Council resolutions and jurisprudence from international courts to chart the course by which recruiting child soldiers became an international crime. At the same time, it calls on UN bodies – and the states that comprise them – to implement some of the many resolutions and veiled threats leveled at various groups and militias that use child soldiers.

Meeting Basic Survival Needs Of The World's Least Healthy People: Toward A Framework Convention On Global Health, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Lectures and Appearances

This article searches for solutions to the most perplexing problems in global health - problems so important that they affect the fate of millions of people, with economic, political, and security ramifications for the world's population. There are a variety of solutions scholars propose to improve global health and close the yawning health gap between rich and poor: global health is in the national interests of the major State powers; States owe an ethical duty to act; or international legal norms require effective action. However, arguments based on national interest, ethics, or international law have logical weaknesses. The coincidence of …

From A Civil Libertarian To A Sanitarian: “A Life Of Learning”, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Lectures and Appearances

I left Harvard 15 years ago to come to Georgetown University, formed in the year of our Constitution and established by an Act of Congress. More than Oxford or Harvard, Georgetown embodied my highest ideals of using world-class scholarship to serve the needs of the most disadvantaged. The Jesuit mission of social justice, which permeates our scholarship and teaching, has deep meaning to me. And the Jesuit ideal of “the human being fully alive,” resonates with my view of the salient importance of human health and wellbeing. The ideals of equity and human fulfilment are embodied in the inscription on …

Reviewing Charlotte Ku And Harold Jacobson (Eds.), Democratic Accountability And The Use Of Force In International Law, Russell A. Miller

Scholarly Articles

None available.

India-Pakistan Relations: Legalization And Agreement Design, Sandeep Gopalan

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article examines agreements between India and Pakistan to determine if there are design features that played a part in their success or failure. The analysis draws on insights from scholarship at the intersection of international relations theory and international law. The Article attempts to show that India and Pakistan share attributes that are particularly well suited for a positive correlation between increased legalization and compliance, that the law plays a role in norm strengthening, and that legalizing agreements between the two states can create compliance constituencies that act as constraining influences on governments.

The Turn To Ethics: Disinvestment From Multinational Corporations For Human Rights Violations - The Case Of Norway's Sovereign Wealth Fund, Simon Chesterman

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Judicial Review And United States Supreme Court Citations To Foreign And International Law, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

Recent decisions by the United States Supreme Court and extracurricular discussions between some of the Justices have fueled a debate regarding whether and when it is appropriate for the Court to make reference to foreign law in cases involving the interpretation and application of the United States Constitution. This debate has, to some extent, paralleled the argument over whether the Constitution is best interpreted by looking at the intent of the original drafters - an originalist approach - or by considering it to be a "living" document that must be interpreted to take account of contemporary realities. This article considers …

Existing Legal Mechanism To Address Oceanic Impacts From Climate Change , Lucy Wiggins

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

A Domestic Right Of Return: Race, Rights, And Residency In New Orleans In The Aftermath Of Hurricane Katrina, Lolita Buckner Inniss

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This article begins with a critical account of what occurred in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This critique serves as the backdrop for a discussion of whether there are international laws or norms that give poor, black Katrina victims the right to return to and resettle in New Orleans. In framing this discussion, this article first briefly explores some of the housing deprivations suffered by Katrina survivors that have led to widespread displacement and dispossession. The article then discusses two of the chief barriers to the return of poor blacks to New Orleans: the broad perception of a race-crime nexus …

Sending The Self-Execution Doctrine To The Executioner, Aya Gruber

Publications

No abstract provided.

A Domestic Right Of Return?: Race, Rights, And Residency In New Orleans In The Aftermath Of Hurricane Katrina, Lolita Buckner Inniss

Publications

This article begins with a critical account of what occurred in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This critique serves as the backdrop for a discussion of whether there are international laws or norms that give poor, black Katrina victims the right to return to and resettle in New Orleans. In framing this discussion, this article first briefly explores some of the housing deprivations suffered by Katrina survivors that have led to widespread displacement and dispossession. The article then discusses two of the chief barriers to the return of poor blacks to New Orleans: the broad perception of a race-crime nexus …

Indigenous Law And Its Contribution To Global Pluralism, James Anaya

Publications

No abstract provided.

International Delegations And Administrative Law, Kristina Daugirdas

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Whose Public, Whose Order? Imperium, Region, And Normative Friction, Christopher J. Borgen

Faculty Publications

Theories of international law and politics are a product of their times. They focus on the issues of the day (or of the immediate past) and their assumptions are often the assumptions of the society in which they were born. Perhaps that it is why so many international relations scholars were surprised by the end of the Cold War: Their theories were so informed by bipolarity that they were unable to see the actual changes that would transform the state system. As international relations scholars are re-assessing their theories in a post-Cold War world, lawyers may do the same concerning …

The Myopia Of U.S. V. Martinelli: Extraterritorial Jurisdiction In The 21st Century, Christopher L. Blakesley

Scholarly Works

Beginning in January 1999 and continuing through January 2000, a U.S. soldier began frequenting an off-post Internet cafe in Darmstadt, Germany, called the Netzwork Café. There he would download images of child pornography and search Internet websites, logging onto Internet chat rooms in order to communicate with individuals willing to send him images of naked children and children engaged in sex acts.

Specialist Martinelli was eventually caught and charged with various violations of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A for knowingly mailing, transporting or shipping child pornography in interstate or foreign commerce (by computer); knowingly receiving child pornography that had been mailed, …

Destructive Ambiguity: Enemy Nationals And The Legal Enabling Of Ethnic Conflict In The Middle East, Michael Kagan

Scholarly Works

In the course of the Middle East conflict since 1948, both the Arab states and Israel have tended to take harsh measures against civilians based on their national, ethnic, and religious origins. This practice has been partially legitimized by a norm in international law that permits states to infringe the liberty and property interests of enemy nationals during armed conflict. Middle Eastern governments have misused the logic behind this theoretically exceptional rule to justify far-reaching measures that undermine the “principle of distinction” between civilians and combatants and erode the principle of non-discrimination that lies at the center of human rights …

The Future Of International Law: Members' Reception And Plenary Panel, Georgetown University Law Center – Remarks By Lori Damrosch, Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

It is a privilege to follow Judge Owada and to take up the challenge offered by the theme statement of this panel: to assess trends that we perceive to be shifting the future of international law, while also interrogating claims of their newness. Perhaps everything that we think of as new has some resonance with the past.

Attaining Optimal Deterrence At Sea: A Legal And Strategic Theory For Naval Anti-Piracy Operations, Michael Bahar

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

On January 21, 2006, a guided missile destroyer accomplished the U.S. Navy's first capture of suspected pirates in recent memory. As the Staff Judge Advocate for the NASSAU Strike Group, the Author advised the seizure, led the onboard investigation, oversaw the shipboard detentions, and testified at the trial in Kenya.

Drawing upon this experience, the Author constructs a comprehensive legal and strategic theory for piracy, defining the legal status of pirates and deriving the due process rights that should be afforded them.

The Article also analyzes the evolution of customary and positive international law to demonstrate that, contrary to conventional …