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Law Library Blog (March 2023): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Evolving Standards Of Irrelevancy?, Joanmarie Davoli

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Judicial Activism In Transnational Business And Human Rights Litigation, Hassan M. Ahmad

All Faculty Publications

This article explores a more expansive adjudicative role for domestic judiciaries in the U.S., U.K., and Canada in private law disputes that concern personal and environmental harm by multinational corporations that operate in the Global South. This expansive role may confront—although not necessarily upend—existing understandings around the separation of powers in common law jurisdictions. I canvass existing literature on judicial activism. Then, I detail legality gaps in the selected common law home states, which can be broken down into four categories: i) failed legislation; ii) deficient legislation; iii) judicial restraint; and iv) judicial deference.

I suggest three ways to actualize …

Lawyers Weekly Newsmaker Reception : November 20, 2019, Roger Williams University School Of Law, Michael M. Bowden

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

The Bemba Appeals Chamber Judgment: Impunity For Sexual And Gender-Based Crimes?, Susana Sacouto, Patricia Viseur Sellers

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

On June 8, 2018, a majority of the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) reversed the conviction of former military commander Jean-Pierre Bemba for the crimes against humanity of rape and murder and the war crimes of rape, murder, and pillaging committed by his troops in the Central African Republic (CAR) between October 2002, and March 2003. The decision was clearly a disappointment for the victims of the crimes committed by Bemba’s troops, who have been waiting for more than fifteen years for a measure of justice. Significantly, the acquittal also means that sixteen years after the Rome …

Regulation 55 And The Rights Of The Accused At The International Criminal Courts, Susana Sacouto, Katherine Cleary Thompson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Crashing The Misdemeanor System, Jenny M. Roberts

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

With “minor crimes” making up more than 75% of state criminal caseloads, the United States faces a misdemeanor crisis. Although mass incarceration continues to plague the nation, the current criminal justice system is faltering under the weight of misdemeanor processing.

Operating under the “broken windows theory,” which claims that public order law enforcement prevents more serious crime, the police send many petty offenses to criminal court. This is so even though the original authors of the theory noted that “[o]rdinarily, no judge or jury ever sees the persons caught up in a dispute over the appropriate level of neighborhood order” …

A Tort Statute, With Aliens And Pirates, Eugene Kontorovich

Faculty Working Papers

The pirates of the Caribbean are back. Not in another fantastical film but in the litigation over the reach of the Alien Tort Statute (ATS). For the first time since they dealt with the legal issues raised by a wave of maritime predation in the Caribbean in the early nineteenth century, Supreme Court justices are seriously discussing piracy. This crime has emerged as the test case for evaluating the major controversies about the reach of the statute -- namely, extraterritorial application and the existence of corporate liability. At oral argument in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Shell, justices of all persuasions …

The Evolving International Judiciary, Karen J. Alter

Faculty Working Papers

This article explains the rapid proliferation in international courts first in the post WWII and then the post Cold War era. It examines the larger international judicial complex, showing how developments in one region and domain affect developments in similar and distant regimes. Situating individual developments into their larger context, and showing how change occurs incrementally and slowly over time, allows one to see developments in economic, human rights and war crimes systems as part of a longer term evolutionary process of the creation of international judicial authority. Evolution is not the same as teleology; we see that some international …

The Global Spread Of European Style International Courts, Karen J. Alter

Faculty Working Papers

Europe created the model of embedded international courts (IC), where domestic judges work with international judges to interpret and apply international legal rules that are also part of national legal orders. This model has now diffused around the world. This article documents the spread of European-style ICs: there are now eleven operational copies of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), three copies of the European Court of Human Rights, and a handful of additional ICs that use Europe's embedded approach to international law. After documenting the spread of European-style ICs, the article then explains how two regions chose European style …

Introductory Note To The Supreme Court Of The United States: Noriega V. Pastrana, Kenneth Anderson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

International Human Rights At The Close Of The Twentieth Century, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

Speculates as to why the human-rights revolution is increasingly likely to dominate our foreign-policy attentions in the decades to come. Ventures some predictions, of particular interest perhaps to international lawyers, about where the cause of international human rights is heading.

Watch Your Language: A Review Of The Use Of Stigmatizing Language By Canadian Judges, Jocelyn Downie, Michelle Black

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Despite ongoing advances in understanding the causes and prevalence of mental health issues, stigmatizing language is still often directed at people who have mental illness. Such language is regularly used by parties, such as the media, who have great influence on public opinion and attitudes. Since the decisions from Canadian courtrooms can also have a strong impact on societal views, we asked whether judges use stigmatizing language in their decisions. To answer this question, we conducted a qualitative study by searching through modern Canadian case law using search terms that were indicative of stigmatizing language. We found that, although judges …

The European Court’S Political Power Across Time And Space, Karen Alter

Faculty Working Papers

This article extracts from Alter's larger body of work insights on how the political and social context shapes the ECJ's political power and influence. Part I considers how the political context facilitated the constitutionalization of the European legal system. Part II considers how the political context helps determine where and when the current ECJ influences European politics. Part III draws lessons from the ECJ's experience, speculating on how the European context in specific allowed the ECJ to become such an exceptional international court. Part IV lays out a research agenda to investigate the larger question of how social support shapes …

The United Nations, The European Union, And The King Of Sweden: Economic Sanctions And Individual Rights In A Plural World Order, Daniel Halberstam, Eric Stein

Articles

In the last decade, economic sanctions have become a major instrumentality of the UN Security Council in the struggle against terrorism and lawless violence endangering peace. It is not surprising that innocents would be ensnarled, along with culprits, in the nets of the so-called "smart" or "targeted" sanctions, which are directed against named individuals and groups (as opposed to delinquent States). In such rare cases, as the individual concerned searches for a legal remedy, significant issues of fundamental human rights may arise at the levels of the international, regional, and national legal orders. This essay explores these issues. After examining …

Taking Liberties: The Personal Jurisdiction Of Military Commissions, Madeline Morris

Faculty Scholarship

On September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda operatives attacked civilian and military targets on US territory, causing thousands of deaths and billions of dollars of economic loss. The next day, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1368 characterizing the attack by Al Qaeda as a "threat to international peace and security" and recognizing the right of states to use armed force in self defense.

Saddam Hussein's Trial In Iraq: Fairness, Legitimacy & Alternatives, A Legal Analysis, Christian Eckart

Cornell Law School J.D. Student Research Papers

The paper focuses on Saddam Hussein’s trial in front of the Iraqi High Criminal Court in Baghdad. After providing an overview of the facts surrounding the court’s installation, the applicable international law is identified and the fairness and legitimacy of the current proceedings are analyzed. The paper finishes by considering whether the trial should be relocated and addresses alternative venues that could have been chosen to prosecute Iraq’s ex-dictator.

Legal Approaches And The Contributions Of Case Law, Claudio Grossman

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Immunity Or Impunity The Potential Effect Of Prosecutions Of State Officials For Core International Crimes In States Like The United States That Are Not Parties To The Statute Of The International, Mark A. Summers

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Addressing The Scourge Of Human Trafficking: The Challenge Ahead, Roza Pati

Faculty Articles

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The Equality Paradise: Paradoxes Of The Law's Power To Advance Equality, Marcia L. Mccormick

All Faculty Scholarship

This paper, written for Texas Wesleyan Law School's Gloucester Conference, ¿Too Pure an Air: Law and the Quest for Freedom, Justice, and Equality,¿ is a brief exploration of a broader project. Every civil rights movement must struggle with how to allocate scarce resources to accomplish the broadest change possible. This paper compares the legal and political strategies of the Black rights movement and the women's rights movement in the United States, comparing both the strategy choices and the results. These two movement followed essentially the same strategies. Where they have attained success and where each has failed demonstrates the limits …

Inter-American System, Claudia Martin

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Inter-American System, Diego Rodriguez-Pinzon

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Inter-American System, Diego Rodriguez-Pinzon

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Inter-American System, Claudia Martin

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

From Gender Apartheid To Non-Sexism: The Pursuit Of Women's Rights In South Africa, Penelope Andrews

Articles & Chapters

This article discusses the quest for women's rights in South Africa and how the transition from apartheid to democracy led to a commitment to gender equality as incorporated in South Africa's transitional and final Constitutions. This paper refers to the organizational attempts by women prior to and during the constitutional drafting process to ensure that the new Constitution embodied the aspirations and reflected the struggles for women's rights by women activists in South Africa. This article is divided into six sections. Section Two describes the legacy of apartheid for all women in South Africa. This section shows how the laws …

The Problem Of Obtaining Evidence For International Criminal Courts, Jacob Katz Cogan

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

International criminal courts will be judged by their fairness to defendants as well as to victims. In a very practical way, such claims will hinge, inter alia, on the ability of prosecutors and defendants to have reasonable access to probative evidence. But international criminal courts depend on states to provide them with evidence or access to evidence. The obligation of states to cooperate with international criminal tribunals in the production of evidence was at issue in the recent decision of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Blaki case (1997). That judgment and the provisions of the …

Major Contemporary Issues In Extradition Law, Christopher L. Blakesley

Scholarly Works

In this piece Professor Blakesley provides remarks on high crimes in international law, and the ability to extradite state and high government officials for committing them.