Law Commons^™

White Paper: Options For A Treaty On Business And Human Rights, Douglass Cassel, Anita Ramasastry

Journal Articles

The United Nations Human Rights Council decided in June 2014 to establish an Intergovernmental Working Group to “elaborate an international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises.” The first meeting of the Working Group will take place in Geneva in July 2015.

The Council did not further specify what sort of instrument should be drafted. The Center for Human Rights of the American Bar Association and the Law Society of England and Wales have asked the present authors to prepare a “White Paper” on possible options for a …

Perceptions And Reality: The Enforcement Of Foreign Arbitral Awards In China, Roger P. Alford, Julian G. Ku, Bei Xiao

Journal Articles

The Article begins in Part I by discussing the academic literature reviewing China's implementation of the New York Convention with re­spect to foreign arbitral awards. In Part II, the Article lays out the domes­tic legal framework in China for implementing foreign arbitral awards and reviews judicial decisions interpreting the New York Convention. In Part III, the Article reports on the results of its survey of practitioner perceptions and experiences with the Chinese system of enforcing arbitral awards. Finally, in Part IV, the article concludes with a possible explana­tion for continuing skeptical views of China's system of enforcing foreign arbitral awards.

The Law On Lethal Force Begins With The Right To Life, Mary Ellen O'Connell

Journal Articles

In August 2015, the UK government intentionally killed a criminal suspect and the bystanders with him using a drone-launched Hellfire missile in Syria. In doing so, the UK violated the right to life of all three men because the UK had no lawful basis for deploying military force in Syria. Even if it did, international humanitarian law, governing the conduct of armed conflict, prohibits assassination – the intentional killing of an individual for reasons other than advancing a legitimate military objective. In any actual cases of ambiguity, the legal presumption in international law is with peace and protection of the …

International Legal Protections For Migrants And Refugees: A Response To Father Brennan, Mary Ellen O'Connell

Journal Articles

Father Brennan’s Essay, “Human Rights and the National Interest: The Case Study of Asylum, Migration, and National Border Protection,” is a complex legal and ethical analysis of refugee law. This Commentary focuses on one aspect of the international law relevant to the Essay, namely, state obligations to migrants. Father Brennan’s main argument that migrants and refugees may be turned back, so long as the action respects human rights law, is consistent with the human right to life. Justly stopping migrants and refugees requires states to stop them before they enter either international waters or the state’s territorial waters. Further, Father …

Tax Treaties And The Taxation Of Services In The Absence Of Physical Presence, Michael Kirsch

Journal Articles

It is old news that modern technological developments have strained long‐standing international tax policies and principles. Tax treaties have attempted to keep pace by fitting these new developments within the existing framework. This brief article addresses one aspect of technological developments that can directly affect individual taxpayers—the increasing ability to deliver personal services electronically across borders, without the need for the service provider to have a physical presence in the “source” country. In particular, it focuses on recent developments with the U.N. Model, which may allow source‐based taxation of at least some types of services income even in the absence …