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Southern Methodist University

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Series

2014

IHL

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

Civil Liberties And The Indefinite Detention Of U.S. Citizens, Chris Jenks Jan 2014

Civil Liberties And The Indefinite Detention Of U.S. Citizens, Chris Jenks

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Section 1021 of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act provides for the indefinite detention of individuals deemed to be part of or substantially supportive of al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces in hostilities against the United States or its coalition allies. Yet the Congress which drafted Section 1021 doesn’t know what its operative terms mean and the Executive Branch simultaneously claims the provisions are problematic yet meaningless and signs them into law. The result is uncertainty over the Executive Branch’s armed conflict detention authority, not on distant battlefields, but here in the United States. This article focuses on three …


Moral Touchstone, Not General Deterrence: The Role Of International Criminal Justice In Fostering Compliance With International Humanitarian Law, Chris Jenks Jan 2014

Moral Touchstone, Not General Deterrence: The Role Of International Criminal Justice In Fostering Compliance With International Humanitarian Law, Chris Jenks

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This article contends that international criminal justice provides minimal general deterrence of future violations of international humanitarian law (IHL). Arguments that international courts and tribunals deter future violations – and that such deterrence is a primary objective – assume an internally inconsistent burden that the processes cannot bear, in essence setting international criminal justice up for failure. Moreover, the inherently limited number of proceedings, the length of time required, the dense opinions generated, the relatively light sentences and the robust confinement conditions all erode whatever limited general deterrence international criminal justice might otherwise provide. Bluntly stated, thousands of pages of …