Law Commons^™

The Need To Refocus The U.S. Government's Post-9/11 Counter-Terrorist Financing Strategy Directed At Al Qaeda To Target The Funding Of Isis, Jimmy Gurule

Journal Articles

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ("ISIS") is the most deadly and well-funded foreign terrorist organization in the world. There are estimates that ISIS has an annual budget of over $2 billion to finance its goal of establishing a caliphate, or Islamic state, governed by its twisted version of Islamic law.1 Flush with funds, the terror group has acquired and controls large swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq, and the threat it poses extends to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Lebanon, and beyond. 2 While depriving ISIS of funding is a central component of the United States …

Adhering To Law And Values Against Terrorism, Mary Ellen O'Connell

Journal Articles

The thesis of this article was inspired by the remarks of John O. Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, at Harvard Law School on September 16, 2011. Brennan said: “I've developed a profound appreciation for the role that our values, especially the rule of law, play in keeping our country safe. It's an appreciation, of course, understood by President Obama.... That is what I want to talk about this evening—how we have strengthened, and continue to strengthen, our national security by adhering to our values and our laws.”

Brennan's position is backed up by considerable data …

The Self-Judging Wto Security Exception, Roger P. Alford

Journal Articles

This Article analyzes the WTO security exception, with a particular focus on State practice. In the absence of any GATT or WTO jurisprudence, State practice affords the best vehicle to understand the meaning of Article XXI. In the few instances when invocation of the security exception has been challenged, State practice suggests that the security exception is not judicially reviewable.

A critical question emerges from this analysis of State practice. If a Member State can avoid WTO obligations through a self-judging security exception, what is to prevent bad faith invocations? The WTO regime includes a number of devices to address …

The Choice Of Law Against Terrorism, Mary Ellen O'Connell

Journal Articles

The Obama administration has continued to apply the wartime paradigm first developed by the Bush administration after 9/11 to respond to terrorism. In cases of trials before military commissions, indefinite detention, and targeted killing, the U.S. has continued to claim wartime privileges even with respect to persons and situations far from any battlefield. This article argues that both administrations have made a basic error in the choice of law. Wartime privileges may be claimed when armed conflict conditions prevail as defined by international law. These privileges are not triggered by declarations or policy preferences.

International Human Rights Law And Security Detention, Douglass Cassel

Journal Articles

This article analyzes the grounds, procedures, and conditions required by International Human Rights Law for preventive detention of suspected terrorists as threats to security. Such detention is generally permitted, provided it is based on grounds and procedures previously established by law; is not arbitrary, discriminatory, or disproportionate; is publicly registered and subject to fair and effective judicial review; and the detainee is not mistreated and is compensated for any unlawful detention. In Europe, however, preventive detention for security purposes is generally not permitted. If allowed at all, it is permitted only when a State in time of national emergency formally …

The Memory Gap In Surveillance Law, Patricia L. Bellia

Journal Articles

U.S. information privacy laws contain a memory gap: they regulate the collection and disclosure of certain kinds of information, but they say little about its retention. This memory gap has ever-increasing significance for the structure of government surveillance law. Under current doctrine, the Fourth Amendment generally requires government agents to meet high standards before directly and prospectively gathering a target's communications. The law takes a dramatically different approach to indirect, surveillance-like activities, such as the compelled production of communications from a third party, even when those activities yield the same information as, or more information than, direct surveillance activities. Because …

Liberty, Judicial Review, And The Rule Of Law At Guantanamo: A Battle Half Won, Doug Cassell

Journal Articles

In Boumediene v. Bush, 128 S. Ct. 2229 (2008), five members of the Supreme Court held that foreign prisoners at Guantanamo enjoy the constitutional privilege of habeas corpus; that their imprisonment had lasted too long for the Court to await completion of statutory review by lower courts of military tribunal findings that the prisoners were "enemy combatants"; and that the statutory judicial review was too deficient to substitute for the Great Writ.

Four Justices vigorously dissented. On the surface they differed on the history of the reach of the common law writ of habeas corpus, and on the procedural …

Defending Human Rights In The "War" Against Terror, Douglass Cassel

Journal Articles

Safeguarding human rights in our "war" against terrorism is both the right and the smart thing to do. It is right because human rights embody our fundamental values as Americans and as Christians. Our Constitution stands for freedom; our Creator teaches us to respect the God-given dignity of each human soul. Christians are called to cherish human dignity, not only of innocents, and not only of captives in war whose status as combatant or civilian may be uncertain, but also of cardinal sinners, the terrorists themselves. Christ Jesus teaches us to hate the sin, but somehow to bring ourselves to …

Legislative Responses To Terrorism: A View From Britain, Geoffrey Bennett

Journal Articles

There is nothing new in the United Kingdom about either the threat of terrorism or a legal response to it. For almost one hundred and fifty years, the troubled spectre of Irish politics has haunted mainland Britain and produced a variety of reactions, some worth noting and others richly deserving oblivion. In surveying the legislation it is important to bear in mind that the events of September 11, 2001 did not immediately bring about any dramatic change in the legislation directed to anti-terrorism. Most of it was already there. Having said that, the events of 9/11 have certainly had an …

The "Lone Wolf" Amendment And The Future Of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Law, Patricia E. Simone, Patricia L. Bellia

Journal Articles

In December 2004, Congress adopted an important change to the statutory framework authorizing domestic surveillance of foreign powers and their agents, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The change, directly prompted by the events of September 11, 2001, makes it easier for the government to conduct surveillance of so-called lone wolf terrorists - that is, terrorists who act in sympathy with the aims of an international terrorist group but not on its behalf, or terrorists whose link to an international terrorist group cannot be demonstrated.

Although the logic of the lone wolf amendment at first seems quite compelling, the amendment …

The Legal Case Against The Global War On Terror, Mary Ellen O'Connell

Journal Articles

In the first confusing days after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, President George W. Bush declared a war on terror. Many of us heard this declaration as stirring rhetoric to rally the nation. We understood it as a declaration that the President would direct a strong response against those responsible. We had heard this sort of rhetoric before when the nation faced powerful challenges-from illegal drugs and chronic poverty. Many of us understood President Bush's declaration of war to refer once again to the determined, persistent struggle to overcome a social blight-this time terrorism. We did …

To Kill Or Capture Suspects In The Global War On Terror, Mary Ellen O'Connell

Journal Articles

Presents a speech by law professor Mary Ellen O'Connell, delivered at the Case Western Reserve School of Law's War Crimes Research Symposium, February 28, 2003. Legal implications of pursuing terror suspects using military action by the U.S. government; Components of armed conflict; Analysis of the United States' involvement in the internal armed conflict in the Philippines.

God Bless America, John J. Coughlin

Journal Articles

On the morning of September 11, 2001, the friars at St. Francis of Assisi Church on West 31st Street in Manhattan had just prayed matins, the ancient morning prayer of the Catholic Church. Afterwards, Fr. Mychael Judge, O.F.M., and his brother Franciscans were enjoying the simple pleasure of their first cup of coffee of the day in the peace of Friary's Refectory. Directly across the street from the Church, an ominous all-alarm bell began to sound in the firehouse, while Fr. Mychael's fire department beeper went off. As he had done so many times previously, the Chaplain to the New …

American Exceptionalism And The International Law Of Self-Defense, Mary Ellen O'Connell

Journal Articles

Following the September 11th attacks in the United States (U.S.), one could make a case for America's use of force in Afghanistan as a lawful exercise of the right of self-defense. But the proposals to invade Iraq following September 11th cannot be so defended. Those proposals did not concern defending the basic security of the U.S. in the sense that basic security defense is currently understood in the international community. They concerned, rather, defense of a more expansive concept of security, a concept wherein the U.S. need not tolerate antagonistic regimes with the potential to harm U.S. interests. The invasion …

Terrorism, Territorial Sovereignty, And The Forcible Apprehension Of International Criminals Abroad, Jimmy Gurule

Journal Articles

Examines current international law governing use of force extraterritorially; in light of the Alvarez-Machain case in which a Mexican national suspected of murder was forcibly extradited to stand trial in the US.

A Proposed Electronic Surveillance Control Act, G. Robert Blakey, James A. Hancock

Journal Articles

The purpose of this article is not to enter into the still active debate on the propriety of electronic surveillance, nor is it to reexamine the policy arguments for and against court order electronic surveillance legislation. Debate needs to be brought down to specifics. Mr. Justice Holmes had a favorite admonition, "[T]hink things instead of words." It is our purpose, therefore, to give to that debate a concrete proposal." Our proposal is a statute that is intended to serve as a starting point for meaningful dialogue; it is not meant to be the final word in the debate.