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Custom, General Principles And The Great Architect Cassese, Mary Fan

Articles

Major advances in international criminal law and procedure rose on the trusses of judicially elucidated sources of international law—custom and general principles. These sources depend on the crucial art of derivation advanced by the architect of modern international criminal justice, President Antonio Cassese. What has transformed international criminal justice into flourishing law able to address changing configurations of violence is the development of the art of finding law in the dark and wilds of murky unwritten norms. [para] President Cassese pioneered paths through a perilous bog. "[T]he law lives in persons," and to understand the law one must study the …

Our Men In Honduras: Losing Control Of The War On Drugs, Lauren Carasik

Media Presence

No abstract provided.

Women And Girls Fleeing Conflict: Gender And The Interpretation And Application Of The 1951 Refugee Convention, Valerie Oosterveld

Law Publications

No abstract provided.

Proportionality In Counterinsurgency: A Relational Theory, Evan J. Criddle

Faculty Publications

At a time when the United States has undertaken high-stakes counterinsurgency campaigns in at least three countries (Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan) while offering support to insurgents in a fourth (Libya), it is striking that the international legal standards governing the use of force in counterinsurgency remain unsettled and deeply controversial. Some authorities have endorsed norms from international humanitarian law as lex specialis, while others have emphasized international human rights as minimum standards of care for counterinsurgency operations. This Article addresses the growing friction between international human rights and humanitarian law in counterinsurgency by developing a relational theory of the use …

Anthropologists, Spooks, And The Boys Who Went To War, Rowan Cahill

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

I became aware of the rudiments of this story during the 1970s and 1980s in my various associations with the former Seamen’s Union of Australia (which amalgamated with the Waterside Workers' Federation in 1993 to form the Maritime Union of Australia), and the now defunct Communist Party of Australia. It was in these environments I first heard about, and met former members of, a strange Pacific War outfit and its links with Sydney (Australia), the US Army Small Ships Section. The legacy and memory of this outfit remained on the Sydney waterfront as part of a cultural memory, while forgotten …

High Court Was Wrong To Stop 'War Crimes' Extradition, Gregory L. Rose

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

In 2005, the Australian government and ALP opposition stated their firm principled position on war criminals: extradite or prosecute. War criminals are not welcome to live freely in Australia. As the High Court has recently blocked a war crimes extradition, it has left the government with a difficult potential prosecution.

Hungary had requested the Commonwealth government to extradite Charles Zentai to stand trial for a war crime committed in 1944. Allegedly, while a member of the Hungarian Royal Armed Forces, Zentai recognised Peter Balazs, an 18-year old-youth, as a Jew who was out on the street without wearing the yellow …

Book Review Of Empowering Our Military Conscience: Transforming Just War Theory And Military Moral Education, Christopher Rahman

Faculty of Law - Papers (Archive)

Empowering Our Military Conscience seeks to accomplish two goals. First, it highlights new and often critical perspectives on just war theory. Second, it attempts to discern more practical lessons for both trainee and practising military professionals by assessing the ethical standards of the profession of arms via the lens of just war theorising, and by establishing the implications for Professional Military Ethics Education (PMEE). Divided into three parts, the first addresses jus ad bellum (the propriety of resorting to war), the second jus in bello (just conduct within war) and the third jus ante bellum, particularly the moral conditioning of …

Beyond War: Bin Laden, Escobar, And The Justification Of Targeted Killing, Luis E. Chiesa, Alexander K.A. Greenawalt

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Using the May 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden as a case study, this Article contributes to the debate on targeted killing in two distinct ways, each of which has the result of downplaying the centrality of international humanitarian law (IHL) as the decisive source of justification for targeted killings.

First, we argue that the IHL rules governing the killing of combatants in wartime should be understood to apply more strictly in cases involving the targeting of single individuals, particularly when the targeting occurs against nonparadigmatic combatants outside the traditional battlefield. As applied to the bin Laden killing, we argue …

The “Ethical” Surplus Of The War On Illegal Immigration, Francis J. Mootz Iii, Leticia M. Saucedo

Scholarly Works

The Aristotelian philosopher, Gene Garver, suggests that rhetorical claims have an "ethical surplus" that extends beyond the specific claim being advanced at the moment. This follows from the fact that rhetoric includes not only logos, but also pathos and ethos. We adopt the thesis of "ethical surplus," but in a negative context. The "war on illegal immigration" has generated an ethical surplus that leads its promoters beyond the specific claim of securing borders against unlawful entry. After demonstrating that there is an express rhetoric of "war" used in connection with Arizona's adoption of recent anti-immigrant legislation, we explore …

The Law Of Nations As Constitutional Law, Bradford R. Clark, Anthony J. Bellia Jr.

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Courts and scholars continue to debate the status of customary international law in U.S. courts, but have paid insufficient attention to the role that such law plays in interpreting and upholding several specific provisions of the Constitution. The modern position argues that courts should treat customary international law as federal common law. The revisionist position contends that customary international law applies only to the extent that positive federal or state law has adopted it. Neither approach adequately takes account of the Constitution’s allocation of powers to the federal political branches in Articles I and II or the effect of these …

The Intersection Of Law And Ethics In Cyberwar: Some Reflections, Charles J. Dunlap Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

The purpose of this short essay is to reflect upon a few issues that illustrate how legal and ethical issues intersect in the cyber realm. Such an intersection should not be especially surprising., Historian Geoffrey Best insists, “[I]t must never be forgotten that the law of war, wherever it began at all, began mainly as a matter of religion and ethics . . . “It began in ethics” Best says “and it has kept one foot in ethics ever since.” Understanding that relationship is vital to appreciating the full scope of the responsibilities of a cyber-warrior in the 21st century.

Do We Need New Regulations In International Humanitarian Law? One American’S Perspective, Charles J. Dunlap Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Law Of Nations As Constitutional Law, Anthony J. Bellia, Bradford R. Clark

Journal Articles

Courts and scholars continue to debate the status of customary international law in U.S. courts, but have paid insufficient attention to the role that such law plays in interpreting and upholding several specific provisions of the Constitution. The modern position argues that courts should treat customary international law as federal common law. The revisionist position contends that customary international law applies only to the extent that positive federal or state law has adopted it. Neither approach adequately takes account of the Constitution’s allocation of powers to the federal political branches in Articles I and II or the effect of these …