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Full-Text Articles in Law

Beyond The Battlefield, Beyond Al Qaeda: The Destabilizing Legal Architecture Of Counterterrorism, Robert M. Chesney Nov 2013

Beyond The Battlefield, Beyond Al Qaeda: The Destabilizing Legal Architecture Of Counterterrorism, Robert M. Chesney

Michigan Law Review

By the end of the first post-9/11 decade, the legal architecture associated with the U.S. government’s use of military detention and lethal force in the counterterrorism setting had come to seem relatively stable, supported by a remarkable degree of cross-branch and cross-party consensus (manifested by legislation, judicial decisions, and consistency of policy across two very different presidential administrations). That stability is certain to collapse during the second post-9/11 decade, however, thanks to the rapid erosion of two factors that have played a critical role in generating the recent appearance of consensus: the existence of an undisputed armed conflict in Afghanistan, …


Humanity And National Security: The Law Of Mass Atrocity Response Operations, Keith A. Petty Jun 2013

Humanity And National Security: The Law Of Mass Atrocity Response Operations, Keith A. Petty

Michigan Journal of International Law

Among the greatest threats to global security is the slaughter of civilians. This is due to the inconsistent reaction of the international community to genocide and other atrocity crimes. Whether it was the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in Turkey in 1915 or Rwandan Tutsis in 1994, mass murderers act with impunity when there is not a forceful response. Contrast these situations to Vietnam’s intervention in Cambodia in 1978 that put an end to the Khmer Rouge’s nightmarish killing fields, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) intervention in Kosovo in 1999 that protected ethnic Albanians from Serb …


A Time For Presidential Power? War Time And The Constrained Executive, David Levine Apr 2013

A Time For Presidential Power? War Time And The Constrained Executive, David Levine

Michigan Law Review

Between 2002 and 2008 I served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Air Force. Though I had been deployed overseas several times, my primary place of duty was in the United States. When I landed at Baghdad International Airport in June 2006, however, several things immediately changed for me as a result of military regulations. I had to carry my sidearm and dog tags at all times. I could not eat anywhere other than a U.S. military installation. I could not drink alcohol. My pay was a bit higher. Personally, I was more vigilant, more aware of my surroundings. …


All Other Breaches: State Practice And The Geneva Conventions’ Nebulous Class Of Less Discussed Prohibitions, Jesse Medlong Jan 2013

All Other Breaches: State Practice And The Geneva Conventions’ Nebulous Class Of Less Discussed Prohibitions, Jesse Medlong

Michigan Journal of International Law

With respect to the protections afforded by the Geneva Conventions, a great deal of ink has been spilled in recent years over the two-tiered system of tribunals employed by the United States in its prosecution of enemy combatants in the “war on terror.” Less discussed, though, is the wholly separate two-tiered system for sorting violators of the Geneva Conventions that emerges from the very text of those agreements. This stratification is a function of the Conventions’ distinction between those who commit “grave breaches” and those who merely commit “acts contrary to the provisions of the present convention” or “all other …


Targeting And The Concept Of Intent, Jens David Ohlin Jan 2013

Targeting And The Concept Of Intent, Jens David Ohlin

Michigan Journal of International Law

International law generally prohibits military forces from intentionally targeting civilians; this is the principle of distinction. In contrast, unintended collateral damage is permissible unless the anticipated civilian deaths outweigh the expected military advantage of the strike; this is the principle of proportionality. These cardinal targeting rules of international humanitarian law are generally assumed by military lawyers to be relatively well-settled. However, recent international tribunals applying this law in a string of little-noticed decisions have completely upended this understanding. Armed with criminal law principles from their own domestic systems — often civil law jurisdictions — prosecutors, judges and even scholars have …


Gender And New Wars, Christine M. Chinkin, Mary Kaldor Jan 2013

Gender And New Wars, Christine M. Chinkin, Mary Kaldor

Articles

War plays an important role in the construction of gender, or the social roles of men and women. This article analyzes the gendered experience of what Kaldor calls "new wars." It shows that new wars are largely fought by men in the name of a political identity that usually has a significant gender dimension. They use tactics that involve deliberate attacks on civilians, including systematic rape as a weapon of war, and are financed by predatory economic activities that tend to affect women more than men. The article describes the ways in which laws relating to gendered violence have been …