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Parameters Spring 2024, Usawc Press

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

From The Editor In Chief, Antulio J. Echevarria Ii

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

Welcome to the Spring 2024 issue of Parameters. Readers will note a few differences in the formatting for this issue: we are now using endnotes instead of footnotes to facilitate switching from pdf to html via Adobe's Liquid App; also, readers will be able to click on each endnote number to view the full endnote and then switch back to the text to resume reading. Please drop us a note to let us know how you like the changes. More are coming!

Cuban Embargo: An Insufficient Measure To Encourage Us Foreign Policy Interests, Esme Jm Prowse

Major Papers

This major paper examines the Cuban embargo as an ineffective hard power policy and explores the potential of soft, hard, and smart power as alternative approaches to resolve the failures of the 60-year-old blockade. The paper analyzes the historical context and rationale behind the embargo and assesses its impact on Cuban-American relations, regional stability, and U.S. national interests. The study argues that the embargo has failed to achieve its intended goals and has instead perpetuated a cycle of hostility, isolation, and human rights abuses. By drawing on the theoretical frameworks of soft, hard, and smart power, the paper presents policy …

Contemporary Practice Of The United States Relating To International Law, Kristina Daugirdas, Julian Davis Mortenson

Articles

In this section: Congress Enacts Sanctions Legislation Targeting Russia • United States and Qatar Sign Memorandum of Understanding over Terrorism Financing • Trump Reverses Certain Steps Toward Normalizing Relations with Cuba • United States Announces Plans to Withdraw from Paris Agreement on Climate Change • President Trump Issues Trade-Related Executive Orders and Memoranda • United States, Russia, and Jordan Sign Limited Ceasefire for Syria • Trump Administration Recertifies Iranian Compliance with JCPOA Notwithstanding Increasing Concern with Iranian Behavior

Foreign Terrorist Fighters In Syria: Challenges Of The “Sending” State, Marten Zwanenburg

International Law Studies

This article discusses domestic measures taken by the Netherlands to combat the phenomenon of foreign terrorist fighters, predominantly in the context of the Syrian conflict. It discusses criminal prosecution, asset freezes, deprivation of nationality and revocation of travel documents. The author concludes that in each of these fields, there is a close relationship between international law and national law.

Terrorist Sanctions: The Clash In Us And Eu Approaches, Peter Margulies

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

President Obama's Legacy: The Iran Nuclear Agreement?, Milena Sterio

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Iran, the United States, and several world super-powers signed a historic nuclear agreement over the summer of 2015. The Agreement is a comprehensive plan of action, with an unprecedented level of minutia and detail regarding Iran’s commitment to curb its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of United Nations-imposed sanctions against Iran. This Agreement, if it is successfully implemented, may represent President Obama’s most significant foreign policy achievement and may become the most important element of President Obama's legacy.

This article examines the Iran Nuclear Agreement by focusing on the events that led to the imposition of sanctions against …

Iran Sanctions Relief: Status & Prospects, Perry S. Bechky

Perry S. Bechky

This talk, given to a European trade association, describes the sanctions relief given by the US Government to Iran as part of the nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). It places this sanctions relief in historical context and flags the significance of ongoing sanctions for both US and non-US businesses. Finally, it urges businesses doing or contemplating business with Iran to anticipate, manage, and allocate risks. (Powerpoint slides)

Pre-Crime Restraints: The Explosion Of Targeted, Non-Custodial Prevention, Jennifer Daskal

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This Article exposes the ways in which noncustodial pre-crime restraints have proliferated over the past decade, focusing in particular on three notable examples — terrorism-related financial sanctions, the No Fly List, and the array of residential, employment, and related restrictions imposed on sex offenders. Because such restraints do not involve physical incapacitation, they are rarely deemed to infringe core liberty interests. Because they are preventive, not punitive, criminal law procedural protections do not apply. They have exploded largely unchecked — subject to little more than bare rationality review and negligible procedural protections — and without any coherent theory as to …

Overview And Operation Of U.S. Financial Sanctions, Including The Example Of Iran, Barry E. Carter, Ryan Farha

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Financial sanctions are increasingly being used in the mix of international economic sanctions being employed by the United Nations, regional entities, and individual countries, including the United States. These financial sanctions have become more focused and effective as the tools and techniques have improved significantly for tracing and identifying the financial transactions of terrorists, weapons proliferators, human rights violators, drug cartels, and others. These sanctions can not only freeze financial assets and prohibit or limit financial transactions, but they also impede trade by making it difficult to pay for the export or import of goods and services.

In spite of …

Security Council Resolution 1887 And The Quest For Nuclear Disarmament, Usman Ahmed, Raghav Thapar

Michigan Journal of International Law

Nuclear weapons pose an increased international threat to security in the modem era. Cheap transportation and the opening of national borders for trade have made it easy for nuclear materials to cross national boundaries. Informal networks have sprouted up, facilitating the proliferation and exchange of nuclear materials and the technology required to turn those materials into weapons. Advances in technology have made it easier to enrich uranium, instilling concerns of increased nuclear weapons proliferation. These changes in technology, the development of informal nuclear networks, and lax security in safeguarding weapons by states such as Russia and Pakistan have fueled global …

In Search Of Justice: Increasing The Risk Of Business With State Sponsors Of Terror, Gabriel C. Lajeunesse

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

If the aims of tort law are deterrence, compensation, and provision of equitable distribution of risks, U.S. anti-terrorism laws have been margin-ally effective at best. Though Congress has passed legislation providing causes of action to U.S. victims of terrorism, compensation of victims is often difficult and terrorists are rarely deterred. Attempts to provide such recourse include the Antiterrorism Act of 1991 ("ATA"), the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), and the Flatow Amendment to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act ("FSIA"). These attempts, however, are not enough.

Averting Catastrophe: Why The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Is Losing Its Deterrence Capacity And How To Restore It, Orde F. Kittrie

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article analyzes from a legal perspective the responses of the international community, and especially the Security Council, to the examples of nuclear proliferation outlined in this Article and the impact of those responses on the vitality of the nuclear nonproliferation regime. In doing so, the Article identifies and focuses on two key, interrelated themes. The first theme is the effect on these responses of the NPT's remarkably weak mechanisms for detecting violations of NPT obligations. The second theme is the frequent strong reluctance of the international community, including the Security Council, to impose serious sanctions for proliferation activity when …

Sending The Bureaucracy To War, Elena Baylis, David Zaring

Articles

Administrative law has been transformed after 9/11, much to its detriment. Since then, the government has mobilized almost every part of the civil bureaucracy to fight terrorism, including agencies that have no obvious expertise in that task. The vast majority of these bureaucratic initiatives suffer from predictable, persistent, and probably intractable problems - problems that contemporary legal scholars tend to ignore, even though they are central to the work of the writers who created and framed the discipline of administrative law.

We analyze these problems through a survey of four administrative initiatives that exemplify the project of sending bureaucrats to …

The United Nations Security Council's Quest For Effectiveness, Emilio J. Cárdenas

Michigan Journal of International Law

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, on New York's World Trade Center Towers and Washington's Pentagon, instantly refocused the United Nations' attention on the issue of international terrorism. The Security Council (Council) responded immediately: first, on September 12, 2001, with an unequivocal condemnation of the attacks, contained in Resolution 1368 (2001), and second, on September 28, 2001, with the enactment of Resolution 1373 (2001), which, under Chapter VII of the Charter, mandated that all Member States take specific actions to combat international terrorism. Terrorism was rightly understood to be "a threat to international peace and security."

Clear And Present Danger: Enforcing The International Ban On Biological And Chemical Weapons Through Sanctions, Use Of Force, And Criminalization, Michael P. Scharf

Michigan Journal of International Law

Currently there are two means of enforcing the international prohibition of chemical and biological weapons. First, the international community can induce compliance through imposition of sanctions, such as trade embargoes, freezing of assets and diplomatic isolation. Second, when sanctions fail, States can individually or collectively respond to the threat of chemical or biological weapons by using military force. After exploring the potential strengths and weaknesses of these approaches, this article examines the desirability of supplementing them with a third approach based on the criminal prosecution of persons responsible for the production, stockpiling, transfer, or use of chemical and biological weapons.

Legal Restraints On Security Council Military Enforcement Action, Judith G. Gardam

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article considers an issue that, given its importance for the protection of combatants and civilians in armed conflict, has not attracted the attention it warrants: namely, the extent to which legal restraints derived from the ius in bello and the ius ad bellum apply to the Security Council when it is taking military enforcement action under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. Although a position not free from controversy, the recent practice of the Security Council in "authorizing" States to use force to restore international peace and security is treated as military enforcement action under Chapter VII of …