Law Commons^™

Protecting Free Speech In Social Media: A Pathway To Self-Determination In International Law, Sydney Marie Harley

Emory International Law Review Recent Developments

With the growth of Internet and social media usage, state regulatory action to surveil and censor citizens is running rampant. As the principle of self-determination stands, minority populations are typically bearing the brunt of these attacks, receiving little protection under domestic and international law. Self-determination within international law must be restructured into a definitive pathway that includes protecting the freedom of speech to encourage discourse and tolerance between the State and its minority populations. This article proposes a solution that could fill the gap in international law formed by insufficient domestic rule in States that neglect to protect these populations …

Collective Data Rights And Their Possible Abuse, Asaf Lubin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Did Russian Cyber Interference In The 2016 Election Violate International Law?, Jens David Ohlin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

When it was revealed that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election by hacking into the email system of the Democratic National Committee and releasing its emails, international lawyers were divided over whether the cyber-attack violated international law. President Obama seemingly went out of his way to describe the attack as a mere violation of “established international norms of behavior,” though some international lawyers were more willing to describe the cyber-attack as a violation of international law. However, identifying the exact legal norm that was contravened turns out to be harder than it might otherwise appear. To …

Agenda: Indigenous Water Justice Symposium, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment

Indigenous Water Justice Symposium (June 6)

Indigenous peoples throughout the world face diverse and often formidable challenges of what might be termed “water justice.” On one hand, these challenges involve issues of distributional justice that concern Indigenous communities’ relative abilities to access and use water for self-determined purposes. On the other hand, issues of procedural justice are frequently associated with water allocation and management, encompassing fundamental matters like representation within governance entities and participation in decision-making processes. Yet another realm of water justice in which disputes are commonplace relates to the persistence of, and respect afforded to, Indigenous communities’ cultural traditions and values surrounding water—more specifically, …

Self-Determination And Secession Under International Law: Nagorno-Karabakh, Milena Sterio

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The principle of self-determination grants minority groups defined as “peoples” the right to auto-determine their political future. This principle, while stemming back to post-World War I ideologies, has guided decolonisation and has served as the theoretical underpinning of former colonies’ independence quests. In the more recent decades, however, questions have surfaced regarding this principle’s applicability in the non-decolonisation paradigm: can secessionist movements rely on the principle of self-determination to justify their independence demands? Or, does the principle of self-determination in the non-decolonisation paradigm only bestow a right to internal autonomy on secessionist entities, while obligating them to remain within the …

Self-Determination And Secession Under International Law: The New Framework, Milena Sterio

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This Article argues toward the necessity to develop a new international law framework on secession. The development of such a normative framework is necessary in order to address various secessionist situations around the globe and to replace the resolution of secessionist struggles through politics of the Great Powers with true legal norms.

This Article first analyzes several examples of successful and failed secessions in recent history. Next it focuses on existing international law on the subject matter of secession and concludes that existing norms are insufficient and indefinite. Finally, it develops a new proposed framework on secession, which attempts to …

Earned Sovereignty Revisited: Creating A Strategic Framework For Managing Self-Determination Based Conflicts, Paul Williams, Carlie Armstrong, Abigail Avoryie

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

There are over seventy active self-determination movements around the globe, and this trend seems far from dissipating. Many of these self-determination movements generate sovereignty-based conflicts characterized by extreme violence on the part of both the parent state and the sub-state entity, and by the potential for regional and international instability.

In order to successfully resolve the persistent and growing number of violent and non-violent sovereignty-based conflicts, this article calls for the international community to develop a strategic framework to guide resolution of these conflicts. Currently, no comprehensive strategic framework for managing self-determination exists. The status quo promotes a nebulous approach …

Indigenous Peoples’ Right Of Free Prior Informed Consent With Respect To Indigenous Lands, Territories And Resources (June 28, 2010), Indian Law Resource Center

Free, Prior and Informed Consent: Pathways for a New Millennium (November 1)

3 pages.

"June 28, 2010"

Free, Prior And Informed Consent: Ilo 169 And Undrip, Kelsey Peterson

Free, Prior and Informed Consent: Pathways for a New Millennium (November 1)

2 pages.

"Kelsey Peterson, American Indian Law Program Fellow, University of Colorado Law School Class of 2015"

Humanity Bounded And Unbounded: The Regulation Of External Self-Determination Under International Law, Robert Howse, Ruti G. Teitel

Articles & Chapters

One of the most complex and uncertain areas of international legal doctrine is how should international law deal with the aspiration of a people to achieve self-determination through the establishment of a new state and the related claim to a specific territory over which statehood is to be exercised. Recently, when the General Assembly of the United Nations referred to the International Court of Justice the question of the legality of the declaration of independence by Kosovar Albanians, the Court was given an opportunity to clarify and develop the law on external self-determination. Instead, the Court answered extremely narrowly, confining …

The Human Rights Of Indigenous Peoples: United Nations Developments, S. James Anaya

Publications

No abstract provided.

Misplaced Boldness: The Avoidance Of Substance In The International Court Of Justice's Kosovo Opinion, Timothy W. Waters

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The International Court of Justice's Kosovo Advisory Opinion is a masterpiece of avoidance. The Court has lived to run another day, and one can only admire the judges' skill in arriving at the vacant place between difficult and clashing conclusions of substance. Still, in the wake of the Opinion, questions inevitably arise: Of what use is this document? Has it advanced a project of justice, or of law? The Opinion has done something, though not, perhaps, what it purports to do. To understand it, we must engage this cautious, crimped document in its full context-or rather, we must understand the …

The Rights Of Palestinian Refugees And Territorial Solutions In Historic Palestine, Susan M. Akram

Faculty Scholarship

The chapter addresses the territorial implications of the rights of Palestinian refugees in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as measured under international law. The chapter focuses on the central issues, addressing the questions: how do rights of return, property restitution and compensation affect the claims to state territory? Concerning self-determination in the territory of former Palestine, which people are entitled to self-determination -- Palestinians, the Jewish people, Israeli Jews, or Israelis? And over which territory are the 'people' entitled to exercise their self-determination. The main legal principles and sources that provide the framework to address these questions are set out and examined.

A Tale Of Two States: Territoriality And Minority Rights In Kosovo And Georgia, Milena Sterio

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article argues that territoriality and minority rights can work in tandem, because most secessionist claims by minority groups involve claims to territory. Thus, territoriality and minority rights are both about land, and the relevant inquiry should be whether to alter the status quo, at the expense of a mother State's territory and in order to accommodate minority rights. This paper seeks to answer this difficult question in the context of recent secessionist struggles in Kosovo and in Georgia. Part 2 discusses the principle of territorial integrity under international law, before turning to a discussion of minority rights, and in …

On The Right To External Self-Determination: "Selfistans," Secession, And The Great Powers' Rule, Milena Sterio

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This Article discusses, in Part II, the notion of self-determination, its history, and its recent applications. In Part III, this Article describes how the theory of self-determination is linked to other international law concepts, such as statehood, recognition, sovereignty, and intervention. Part IV focuses on several case studies to illustrate the discrepancy of results attached to the self-determination struggles by different peoples.

This Article describes the self-determination quests of East Timor, Kosovo, Chechnya, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia, and will show that while the first two entities achieved external self-determination, the latter three did not. Finally, Part V of this Article …

The Constitutionality Of Decolonization By Associated Statehood: Puerto Rico's Legal Status Reconsidered, Robert D. Sloane, Gary S. Lawson

Faculty Scholarship

International and constitutional law arguably collide in the legal arrangement between the United States and Puerto Rico. As a matter of international law, it is unclear that this arrangement conforms to customary international and treaty obligations. As a matter of national law, it is unclear that the Constitution permits an arrangement between Puerto Rico and the United States—short of separation (independence as a State) or integration (admission to the Union as a state)—that could conform to these international obligations. In particular, the Appointments Clause and the Constitution’s voting provisions may well be in tension with contemporary international law relative to …

Indian Givers: What Indigenous Peoples Have Contributed To International Human Rights Law, S. James Anaya

Publications

No abstract provided.

Land Feuds And Their Solutions: Finding International Law Beyond The Tribunal Chamber, Steven R. Ratner

Articles

The resolution of conflicting claims to land has long stood at the heart of the project of international law. Indeed, the encounter between the order envisaged by advocates of the law of nations and what Georges Scelle called the" obsession with territory" has been a defining struggle for our field, demonstrating to some its promise and to others its futility. Much, perhaps even most, legal scholarship on this subject over the last century has focused on adjudication by ad hoc tribunals or standing courts, in which jurists have derived and invoked hallowed principles that enabled them to draw lines-across mountains, …

Self-Determination In International Mediation: Some Preliminary Reflections , Jacqueline Nolan-Haley

Faculty Scholarship

Few concepts have generated as much discussion in the post-war international legal system as that of “self-determination.” Scholars debate the proper identity of the "selves" endowed with this right, its boundaries, and its normative relevance. When the focus turns to mediation, the discussion becomes murky because the concept of self-determination has both procedural and substantive components, and is noticeably different in the private and public sectors. The generic concept of self-determination relates to ideas of democratic governance and the Enlightenment belief that legitimate government depends upon the consent of the governed. As adapted to private mediation theory, the right of …

Contemplating Failure And Creating Alternatives In The Balkans: Bosnia's Peoples, Democracy And The Shape Of Self-Determination, Timothy W. Waters

Articles by Maurer Faculty

A decade after Dayton, Bosnia is a fictive, failed state held together by outsiders' weapons and outsiders' will. All parties recognize that Bosnia's current constitutional dispensation is dysfunctional and are calling for change, but how should the international community respond? In deciding, we should recognize that we may owe Bosnians much, but we owe Bosnia nothing.

This Article argues that traditional self-determination doctrine is unable to justify either further claims for secession from Bosnia or Bosnia's own original secession. It examines the processes used by the international community to frame the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the recognition process for Bosnia, …

Environmentalism, Human Rights And Indigenous Peoples: A Tale Of Converging And Diverging Interests, S. James Anaya

Publications

No abstract provided.

Indeterminate Claims: New Challenges To Self-Determination Doctrine In Yugoslavia, Timothy W. Waters

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Serbia has two autonomous provinces, with nearly identical constitutional and political claims: heavily Albanian Kosovo and ethnically diverse but Serb-majority Vojvodina. One is headed towards some form of internationally recognized independence; the other almost certainly is not, even though calls for its autonomy have been mounting. What makes the difference?

This article examines what the reasons for these different outcomes show about the changing content of self-determination in an environment of persistent ethnic claims. The defining characteristic of self-determination today is its indeterminacy, which allows policymakers to pursue a broader range of policies than was possible in the era of …

Reconstructing Self-Determination: The Role Of Critical Theory In The Positivist International Law Paradigm, Ediberto Román

Faculty Publications

This article (or conference transcription) discuses the role that critical race theory may have on what, will be called, self-determination movements. It commences with the introduction of four speakers Taygab Muhmud, Seigfried Weissner, Julie Mertus and Donna Coker, discussing various forms of self-determination movements of indigenous people, the neocolonial plight of the people of South Asia and a comparative analysis of Eastern Europeans. The article then undertakes an innovative critical analysis of the acceptance of the liberal international law doctrine of self-determination. In particular, it will critique the purportedly universal norm of self-determination in order to expose and explain its …

The Northern Ireland Peace Agreement: Evolving The Principle Of Self-Determination, Paul Williams, Sabrineh Ardalan

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Central to this article is the evolution of the nature of the principle of self-determination. The main focus will be on the examination of a recent instance of state practice — the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement. In particular, the way in which the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement has given effect to the primary elements of self-determination, including democratic self-government, the protection of human rights, and the protection of minority rights will be discussed.

Indigenous Peoples And International Law Issues, S. James Anaya

Publications

No abstract provided.

Recent Publications: Puerto Rico, Christina D. Ponsa-Kraus

Faculty Scholarship

Ask yourself why you are reading a review of a book about a colony called Puerto Rico in a journal on international law. Isn't Puerto Rico a self-governing Commonwealth? Isn't it part of the United States? If you decide to buy the book, ask yourself where in the bookstore you should look for it. In the international relations section? The U.S. history section? A turn-of-the-century Supreme Court case analyzing the status of Puerto Rico (and other territories "acquired" by the United States in 1901) may provide some guidance: Puerto Rico is "foreign in a domestic sense."' Perhaps the bookstore has …

The Tragedy Of Hong Kong, Richard Klein

Scholarly Works

While the world watched the fireworks and celebrations occurring in Hong Kong on July 1, 1997, a far sadder event was, in fact, unfolding. The people of Hong Kong, most of whom had originally fled from China -- the country which was now taking over -- have simply never experienced the basic human right of self-determination. Rule was shifting from a colonial power which had denied the people of Hong Kong their basic human rights for virtually all of its 155-year administration, to a country which, immediately upon assuming sovereignty, made it clear that democracy would remain but a dream.

A Note On The Right Of Secession As A Human Right, Christian N. Okeke

Publications

No abstract provided.

Nationalism And Internationalism: The Wilsonian Legacy, Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

No twentieth-century leader has had greater influence on the parallel development of both nationalism and internationalism than Woodrow Wilson. Wilson gave expression to the nationalist aspirations of peoples around the world, through is endorsement of the principle of self-determination. He also initiated the first institution that had as its objective the organization of the international community to apply concerted power in support of universal values. My task is to examine one contemporary problem – intervention – in the light of some of the themes implicit in the Wilsonian legacy. Among these themes will be the establishment (and now the invigoration) …

The Case For Self-Determination, Guyora Binder

Journal Articles

This lecture offers an analysis and defense of the right of self-determination of peoples. The argument begins by analyzing self-determination into its universalist and nationalist components. The universalist component of self-determination is satisfied wherever institutions of government are majoritarian. The nationalist component of self-determination is satisfied to the extent that institutions of government are identified with particular communities. The universalist compoent is now widely recognized as an authoritative principle of international law. The nationalist component remains controversial, particularly outside of the particular context of the dismantling of European colonial empires. The lecture proceeds to defend the nationalist component by attacking …