Law Commons^™

Aggressor Status And Its Impact On International Criminal Law Case Selection, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

The laws of war apply equally to all parties to a conflict; thus, a party that violates international law by launching a war is granted the same international humanitarian law rights as a party that is required to defend against the illegal war. This doctrine—known as the equal application doctrine—has been sharply critiqued, particularly by philosophers, who claim the doctrine to be morally indefensible. Lawyers and legal academics, by contrast, defend the equal application doctrine because they reasonably fear that applying different rules to different warring parties will sharply reduce states’ willingness to comply with the international humanitarian law system …

Turning Sanctions Into Reparations: Lessons For Russia/Ukraine, Evan J. Criddle

Faculty Publications

Within the past year, members of Congress have introduced nearly a dozen bills to make Russia pay for its military aggression against Ukraine. This Essay argues that none of the bills are satisfactory because they would either violate international law or fail to deliver meaningful compensation to Ukraine. Instead, the Essay urges policymakers to use economic sanctions as leverage to compel Russia to make reparations through an international claims-settlement process.

Advances In Patent Rights Acquisition In International Patent Law, Sarah R. Wasserman Rajec

Faculty Publications

At this centennial event, we have been asked to reflect on the most consequential developments in international intellectual property law of the last 100 years, with an eye towards important future developments as well. This is no small task, given the proliferation of intellectual property-related treaties and the profound changes in business structures, manufacturing, and trade that the last century has seen. The rise of the multinational corporation has been fueled in part by changes to trade laws, and the inclusion of intellectual property in trade-related treaties has facilitated cross-border research and development, manufacturing, and distribution of goods subject to …

Transition-Denial And Structural Adjustment: Causation And Culpability In The Cuban Economy Culpability In The Cuban Economy, Jose Gabilondo

Faculty Publications

In 2020, Cuba implemented the Tarea Ordenamiento (Tarea), the most significant economic reform since the construction of the socialist economy after the Revolution. Signaling an eclectic brand of Cuban socialism, the Tarea clears away three decades of tried and failed economic doctrines, drawing a new fiscal border around state enterprises, nodding to market realities, and preparing the island for greater insertion into the world economy. While the political economy of post-Castro Cuba has changed in this way, the United States continues to subject the island to an unprecedented program of unilateral sanctions, universally condemned as a breach of human rights, …

Power Shift: The Return Of The Uniting For Peace Resolution, Michael P. Scharf

Faculty Publications

In 2022, the United States dusted off the 1950 Uniting for Peace Resolution in order to obtain General Assembly condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This was the first time in three decades that the Security Council and General Assembly had utilized the Uniting for Peace mechanism – a process designed to end-run a Security Council veto. Together with the General Assembly’s creation of the international investigative mechanism for Syria in 2016 over Russia’s objection, the use of the Uniting for Peace process to condemn Russia’s aggression represented a shift in power away from the Security Council and to …

Sanctions And Consequences: Third-State Impacts And The Development Of International Law In The Shadow Of Unilateral Sanctions On Russia, Avidan Cover

Faculty Publications

In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, NATO member states and their allies have imposed “unprecedented,” unilateral economic sanctions to hold Russia accountable, degrade its military capability, and limit its international financial access.1 From the outset, sanctioning states such as the United States have stated that they “designed these sanctions to maximize the long-term impact on Russia and to minimize the impact on [themselves and their] allies.”2 These sanctions on an economic power like Russia “have global economic effects far greater than anything seen before.”3 And there is concern that the unintended consequences of the sanctions will disproportionately harm developing …

Non-State Actors "Under Color Of Law": Closing A Gap In Protection Under The Convention Against Torture, Anna R. Welch, Sangyeob Kim

Faculty Publications

The world is experiencing a global restructuring that poses a serious threat to international efforts to prevent and protect against torture. The rise of powerful transnational non-state actors such as gangs, drug cartels, militias, and terrorist organizations is challenging states’ authority to control and govern torture committed within their territory.

In the United States, those seeking protection against deportation under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”) must establish a likelihood of torture at the instigation of or by consent or acquiescence of a public official acting in an official capacity or other person acting in an official capacity. However, what is …

Dissent And Legitimacy In International Criminal Law, Nancy Armoury Combs

Faculty Publications

Throughout history, dissenting opinions have been subject to soaring praise as well as vitriolic criticism. Although some commentators nominally acknowledge that the normative value of dissenting opinions necessarily varies depending on the unique context in which the relevant court operates, in fact, we see the same arguments advanced to support or oppose dissenting opinions, regardless of the court in which those opinions appear. Dissents are particularly prevalent in international criminal courts--those courts established to prosecute the worst crimes known to humankind: genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Although dissents in these courts have garnered little scholarly attention, the few …

The Unstoppable Spread Of English In The Global University, Rosemary C. Salomone

Faculty Publications

As English has spread across higher education worldwide, it has generated ongoing debate and a wealth of scholarship raising academic and national concerns, but with little, if any, pause or retreat on policies and practices. This article examines that puzzling disconnect within the broader framework of the rise of English as the dominant lingua franca, its historical grounding, its social and economic implications, and its diverse course within Europe and postcolonial countries.

The Impact Of Separate Opinions On International Criminal Law, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

Dissents have had a tumultuous history in national and international courts throughout the world. Initially reviled, dissents have come to be a well-accepted, even praiseworthy, component of the American judicial system, and they have traversed the same trajectory in other countries as well as in international courts and tribunals. Particularly noteworthy among international courts are those created to prosecute perpetrators of mass atrocities, such as genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. And nowhere are dissents more common than in these mass atrocity courts. Yet, as prevalent as these dissents are, they have received virtually no scholarly or practical attention. …

Rehabilitating Charge Bargaining, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

Nobody likes plea bargaining. Scholars worldwide have excoriated the practice, calling it coercive and unjust, among other pejorative adjectives. Despite its unpopularity, plea bargaining constitutes a central component of the American criminal justice system, and the United States has exported the practice to a host of countries worldwide. Indeed, plea bargaining has even appeared at international criminal tribunals, created to prosecute genocide and crimes against humanity--the gravest crimes known to humankind. Although all forms of plea bargaining are unpopular, commentators reserve their harshest criticism for charge bargaining because charge bargaining is said to distort the factual basis of the defendant's …

The Operation Of Supervisory Colleges In Eu Banking Supervision: A Case Study Of Soft Law Becoming Hard Law, Duncan E. Alford

Faculty Publications

In this paper, I consider the case of supervisory cooperation among bank regulators where voluntary cooperation (soft law) over a period of 50 years has become hard law (regulations and directives) within the European Union. Driven by major international bank failures or financial crises, international standards for prudential supervisory cooperation among bank regulators have steadily developed and become more precise and defined since the early 1970s.

Human Rights Reporting As Human Rights Governance, Margaret E. Mcguiness

Faculty Publications

Contrary to the view that the rejection of human rights treaty membership has left the United States outside the formal international human rights system, the United States has played a key role in international human rights governance through congressionally mandated human rights monitoring and reporting. Since the mid-1970s, congressional oversight of human rights diplomacy, which requires reporting on global human rights practices, has integrated international human rights law and norms into the execution of U.S. foreign policy. While the congressional human rights mandates have drifted from their original purpose to condition allocation of foreign aid, they have effectively embedded international …

Corporate Commitment To International Law, Jay Butler

Faculty Publications

Corporations are increasingly important actors in international law. But vital questions underlying this development have long gone unanswered: How and why do corporations commit to international law?

This article constructs a general account of business interaction with international legal obligation and suggests that a gateway to demystifying this persistent puzzle lies in corporate opinio juris.

Corporate opinio juris describes a company's subscription to a rule of international law, even though the company is not technically bound by that rule. This subscription functions as a kind of pledge that, once made, has sway over the company and its peers and symbiotically …

Domestic Violence By Proxy: A Framework For Considering A Child’S Return Under The 1980 Hague Convention On The Civil Aspects Of International Child Abduction’S Article 13(B) Grave Risk Of Harm Cases Post Monasky, Andrew Zashin

Faculty Publications

This article offers a new approach for analyzing the 13(b) grave risk of harm defense, specifically as it relates to victims of domestic violence and their children, that is both practical and clear, and rooted in principles that are grounded in American jurisprudence that will result in more consistent rulings. Part I of this article provides background to the text of the Hague Convention, including the purposes of the text, the systematic return of a child to his or her habitual residence, the Article 13(b) grave risk of harm exception, and the role of undertakings. In Part II, the facts …

The Case Against Prosecuting Refugees, Evan J. Criddle

Faculty Publications

Within the past several years, the U.S. Department of Justice has pledged to prosecute asylum-seekers who enter the United States outside an official port of entry without inspection. This practice has contributed to mass incarceration and family separation at the U.S.–Mexico border, and it has prevented bona fide refugees from accessing relief in immigration court. Yet, federal judges have taken refugee prosecution in stride, assuming that refugees, like other foreign migrants, are subject to the full force of American criminal justice if they skirt domestic border controls. This assumption is gravely mistaken.

This Article shows that Congress has not authorized …

Toolkit Or Tinderbox? When Legal Systems Interface Conflict, Christie S. Warren

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Global System Of Work, A Global System Of Regulation?: Crowdwork And Conflicts Of Law, Miriam A. Cherry

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The on-demand economy has truly gone global. Consider online platform TaskRabbit, a U.S.-based site for odd jobs. A high number of TaskRabbit’s users were seeking help with the construction of furniture they purchased at IKEA, and skilled carpenters started using the platform to find customers. Corporate management at Swedish company IKEA noticed the trend, and as a result acquired TaskRabbit in 2017. As a result, a Swedish company now owns a platform labor service in the United States and Britain, with plans to expand the TaskRabbit platform to twenty-seven more countries where IKEA currently owns brick and mortar stores. …

The Harmonization Myth In International Intellectual Property Law, Sarah R. Wasserman Rajec

Faculty Publications

There is a dominant narrative in international intellectual property ("IP") law of ever-increasing harmonization. This narrative has been deployed in ways descriptive, prescriptive, and instrumental: approximating the historical trend, providing justification, and establishing the path forward. Appeals to harmonization are attractive. They evoke a worldwide partnership and shared sacrifice to meet the goals of innovation and access to technology through certainty, efficiency, and increased competition through lowered trade barriers. Countries with strong IP protections consistently and successfully tout the importance of certainty and lower trade barriers when seeking new and stronger protections from countries with lower levels of protection. Yet …

Congressional Enforcement Of International Human Rights, Margaret E. Mcguiness

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

On October 2, 2018, Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist based in the United States, walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, where he was brutally murdered and dismembered by Saudi government agents. It was a brazen violation of the most fundamental, internationally recognized human rights, carried out by one close US ally in the territory of another close ally. The US intelligence community quickly determined that the Saudi government and its Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, were responsible for the killing. Members of Congress briefed by the intelligence community accepted that conclusion, and on October 10, 2018, a …

Misappropriation-Based Trademark Liability In Comparative Perspective, Jeremy N. Sheff

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The anti-misappropriation principle, at its core, is that it is wrongful and therefore actionable for a competitor to gain a commercial advantage from the efforts of another, even if that advantage does not directly harm the person whose efforts have been misappropriated. This principle appears to be a deep theoretical commitment of modern intellectual property law. And nowhere in intellectual property law is the anti-misappropriation impulse more directly implicated than in the context of conspicuous consumption.

As I have written about elsewhere, modern consumers engage in conspicuous consumption of branded goods to signal social affiliation and identity, and to …

Mandatory Multilateralism, Evan J. Criddle, Evan Fox-Decent

Faculty Publications

This Article challenges the conventional wisdom that states are always free to choose whether to participate in multilateral regimes. International law often mandates multilateralism to ensure that state laws and practices are compatible with sovereign equality and joint stewardship. The Article maps mandatory multilateralism's domain, defines its requirements, and examines its application to three controversies: the South China Sea dispute, the United States' withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement, and Bolivia's case against Chile in the International Court of Justice.

Unequal Enforcement Of The Law: Targeting Aggressors For Mass Atrocity Prosecutions, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

It is a central tenet of the laws of war that they apply equally to all parties to a conflict. For this reason, a party that illegally launches a war benefits from all the same rights as a party that must defend against the illegal aggression. Countless philosophers have shown that this so-called equal application doctrine is morally indefensible and that defenders should have more rights and fewer responsibilities than aggressors. The equal application doctrine retains the support of legal scholars, however, because they reasonably fear that applying different rules to different warring parties will substantially reduce overall compliance with …

The Rights Of Queer Children, Robyn Linde

Faculty Publications

The ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (crc) has long been hailed as a major event in the realisation of children’s human rights, combining the need for protection with a desire to grant agency through recognition of the evolving capacities of the child. Yet the idea of children’s agency as articulated in the crc excluded sexual identity and expression, and ushered in an incomplete emancipation for lgbtiq children; children who are gender non-conforming; and children whose sexual expression otherwise conflicts with heterosexuality – hereafter queer children. I argue that while the crc granted …

Corporations As Semi-States, Jay Butler

Faculty Publications

When Ebola came to West Africa in 2014, Liberia could not cope. The State’s already fragile public health infrastructure was largely ineffective in responding to the illness and preventing its spread. And, the World Health Organization’s support was slow and stilted. By contrast, Firestone, a tire company that operates a vast rubber plantation in Liberia and runs its own hospital for 80,000 employees, family dependents, and persons in neighboring localities, responded to the virus much more effectively.

This Article uses Firestone’s Ebola response as an entry point to study a phenomenon too frequently overlooked. Many for-profit firms that maintain operations …

Human Rights Movements In The Middle East: Global Norms And Regional Particularities, Catherine Baylin Duryea

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The Middle East is often portrayed as an outlier when it comes to human rights, but rights are an important part of the political, diplomatic, and social fabric of the region. This chapter summarises regional trends in human rights advocacy at both the international and domestic levels. Popular movements for independence, equality for women, and protections for workers have deep roots in the region. When the United Nations began to enshrine these values into law after World War II, representatives from the Middle East were at the centre of the debates. In the following two decades, human rights largely …

Precedent And Dialogue In Investment Treaty Arbitration, Richard C. Chen

Faculty Publications

Since the turn of the century, investment treaty arbitration (ITA) tribunals have begun citing past decisions with increasing frequency. They do so despite the absence of any formal doctrine of stare decisis and the presence of structural obstacles to the use of precedent in this context. Scholarship in this area has focused on explaining the rise of this de facto doctrine of precedent and evaluating the merits of the practice. Few have grappled with more practical questions about how precedent should operate in this unique sphere, but even a cursory examination of ITA decisions would reveal that some order and …

Law As Strategy: Thinking Below The State In Afghanistan, Charles H. Norchi

Faculty Publications

U.S.engagement in Afghanistan is inevitable, but there will be choices about strategy. In 1952, the U.S.Naval War College convened a lecture series devoted to strategy. On March 20, the lecturer was Harold D.Lasswell, an architect of the New Haven School of Jurisprudence. Lasswell observed, “The aim of strategy is to maximize the realization of the goal values of the body politic.” This article proposes that law is among the available strategic instruments to advance goal values common to the United States, Afghanistan,and the world community.

Investigative Delegations: Predictable Predicaments, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Reflections On The Christchurch Massacre: Incorporating A Critique Of Islamophobia And Twail, Cyra Akila Choudhury

Faculty Publications

On March 15, 2019 in Christchurch, New Zealand, a white supremacist entered a mosque full of worshippers and gunned down over 50 people. He was welcomed into the house of worship as Muslim immigrants and converts were about to start their Friday prayers. News of the attack spread quickly across the globe. Social media news feeds and online sources provided near-instantaneous updates. There were calls to prioritize the lives and stories of the victims and survivors. Although there were calls not to glorify or even humanize the shooter, people understandably professed interest in his writings and his motivation. Once it …