Comparative and Foreign Law Commons^™

Future-Proofing U.S. Laws For War Crimes Investigations In The Digital Era, Rebecca Hamilton

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Advances in information technology have irrevocably changed the nature of war crimes investigations. The pursuit of accountability for the most serious crimes of concern to the international community now invariably requires access to digital evidence. The global reach of platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter means that much of that digital evidence is held by U.S. social media companies, and access to it is subject to the U.S. Stored Communications Act.

This is the first Article to look at the legal landscape facing international investigators seeking access to digital evidence regarding genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression. It …

Introduction: Looking And Listening, Seeing And Hearing, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

This issue of the Temple Journal of International and Comparative Law hosts a symposium about Randle DeFalco's cutting-edge book, Invisible Atrocities: The Aesthetic Biases of International Criminal Justice. In it, DeFalco glances at glimpses of the metastasis of mass atrocity. He sees these metastatic processes-these movements-as simultaneously fast and slow. By fast, he refers to obvious and instantly horrific acts of physical violence. These are massacres, attacks, pogroms, and wanton destruction. But DeFalco also discerns that mass violence implicates slower movements and less directly causal harms: these are famine, starvation, corruption, impoverishment, mental anguish, and aid interference.' The movements …

Anonymous Hacktivism: Flying The Flag Of Feminist Ethics For The Ukraine It Army, Ellen Cornelius

Homeland Security Publications

No abstract provided.

Effectiveness Of The Existing International Humanitarian Law Provisions In Protecting The Natural Environment During Internal Armed Conflicts, Joharah M. Alkahtani

Dissertations & Theses

The environment is inherently at risk in any armed conflict and the natural environment is always a victim of wars. In order to properly protect the environment, the international community must explicitly recognize the civilian nature of the environment and bar all damages to it notwithstanding its extent, longevity and severity. The current study focuses on the environmental protection during armed conflicts. In World War I, parties employed the indiscriminate use of chemical weapons as a way of gaining military advantage over their enemies. The world responded by adopting the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and …

Undersea Cables: The Ultimate Geopolitical Chokepoint, Bert Chapman

FORCES Initiative: Strategy, Security, and Social Systems

This work provides historical and contemporary overviews of this critical geopolitical problem, describes the policy actors addressing this in the U.S. and selected other countries, and provides maps and information on many undersea cable work routes. These cables are chokepoints with one dictionary defining chokepoints as “a strategic narrow route providing passage through or to another region."

Armed Conflicts In Outer Space: Which Law Applies?, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

I. Introduction

II. Space Law versus the Law of Armed Conflict ... A. The Essentials of Space Law … B. Space Law and the Threat or Use of Force in Outer Space … C. The Essentials of the Law of Armed Conflict ... D. The Law of Armed Conflict and the Threat or Use of Force in Outer Space

III. Conflicts of Application: A Few Key Examples ... A. Unraveling the Prioritization Issue: The Lex Specialis and Lex Posterior Principles ... B. Unraveling the Prioritization Issue: The U.N. Charter and Treaty Interpretation ... C. Unraveling the Prioritization Issue: Pacta Sunt …

The Many Harms Of Forced Marriage: Insights For Law From Ethnography In Northern Uganda, Myriam S. Denov, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

Harnessing an interdisciplinary framework that merges elements of law and social science, this article aims to recast the crime of forced marriage, and thereby enhance accountability, in light of knowledge acquired through ethnographic fieldwork in northern Uganda. More specifically, we draw upon the perspectives and experiences of 20 men who were "bush husbands" in the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). These men were abducted by the LRA between the ages of 10 and 38 and spent between 6 and 24 years in captivity. During their time in the LRA, these men became ‘bush husbands’ with each man fathering between 1 and …

Structuring The Governance Of Space Activities Worldwide, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

I. Introduction

II. The Structure of Governance under International Space Law: The Problems

III. The Structure of Governance under International Space Law: The Solutions?

IV. Conclusion

Introduction

Outer space is widely considered to be something of a global commons, an international domain outside the jurisdiction of any country that “belongs to no state and is, in law, as such not subject to appropriation, though its resources are.” This is also reflected by key provisions of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, the most comprehensive convention on outer space and space activities, notably that “[o]uter space, including the moon and other celestial …

Space, Cyber, And Telecommunications Law: 2019-2020 Annual Report, Matt Schaefer, Justin Hurwitz, Jack M. Beard, Frans Von Der Dunk, Elsbeth Magilton

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

In assembling this Annual Report we appreciated the opportunity to review major accomplishments and growth of the Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law (SCTL) program during the 2019-2020 academic year. Of course, this was a year like no other as we responded to an unfolding global pandemic. We are proud of what we accomplished prior to that and of our response in the face of that sudden change. For readers unfamiliar with the program, the SCTL program was established in 2007 largely in response to interest by the U.S. Air Force in establishing a U.S. based program in space law to …

Scoping National Space Law: The True Meaning Of “National Activities In Outer Space” Of Article Vi Of The Outer Space Treaty, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

Article VI of the Outer Space Treaty, requiring “authorization and continuing supervision” of “national activities in outer space” including those of “nongovernmental entities,” has always been viewed as the primary international obligation driving the establishment of national space legislation for the purpose of addressing private sector space activities. As the Article itself did not provide any further guidance on precisely what categories of “national activities by nongovernmental entities” should thus be subjected to national space law and in particular to a national licensing regime, in academia generally three different interpretations soon came to be put forward on how to interpret …

Cyberattacks And The Constitution, Matthew C. Waxman

Faculty Scholarship

Contrary to popular view, cyberattacks alone are rarely exercises of constitutional war powers – and they might never be. They are often instead best understood as exercises of other powers pertaining to nonwar military, foreign affairs, intelligence, and foreign commerce, for example. Although this more fine-grained, fact-specific conception of cyberattacks leaves room for broad executive leeway in some contexts, it also contains a strong constitutional basis for legislative regulation of cyber operations.

War Powers: Congress, The President, And The Courts – A Model Casebook Section, Stephen M. Griffin, Matthew C. Waxman

Faculty Scholarship

This model casebook section is concerned with the constitutional law of war powers as developed by the executive and legislative branches, with a limited look at relevant statutes and federal court cases. It is intended for use in Constitutional Law I classes that cover separation of powers. It could also be used for courses in National Security Law or Foreign Relations Law, or for graduate courses in U.S. foreign policy. This is designed to be the reading for one to two classes, and it can supplement or replace standard casebook sections on war powers that are shorter and offer less …

Severing The Connection Between Sex Trafficking And U.S. Military Bases Overseas, Anna Belle Hoots

Articles & Chapters

The sex trafficking of women and girls by US. military men remains an issue plaguing US. military bases overseas. While the US. government has offered several solutions to combat this specific niche of sex trafficking, the legislation and policy put forth are insufficient to eradicate the problem. After assessing the intersection of sex trafficking and overseas US. military bases, this Note both discusses why and proposes how, through the use of Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs), all US. military bases abroad can and must commit to the prevention of this egregious human rights violation. Because SOFAs grant wide latitude to …

Book Review, Marcos Zunino, Justice Framed: A Genealogy Of Transitional Justice (2019), Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

Transitional justice initiatives, broadly speaking, respond to systematic human rights abuses. These initiatives take multiple shapes and forms. This means that the actual practice of transitional justice is diverse and organic. Transitional justice discourse, however, is aspirational, normative and selective. It is less heterogeneous and far more directive. Marcos Zunino’s eye-opening book, Justice Framed, is about gaps between narrative discourse and tangible practice. It is about the effects of discourse on practice. More pointedly, Justice Framed is about how discourse ‘surfaces’ certain kinds of practices of the past while sidelining and ignoring others. Hence, to come full circle, this book …

International Satellite Law, Frans Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

International satellite law can best be described as that subset of international space law that addresses the operations of satellites in orbit around the Earth. Excluding, therefore, topics such as manned space flight, suborbital space operations, and any activities beyond Earth orbits, this means addressing the use of satellites for telecommunications purposes, for Earth observation and remote sensing, and for positioning, timing, and navigation. These three major sectors of space activities are, in addition to jointly being subject to the body of international space law, each subject to their specific dedicated legal regime —international satellite communications law, international satellite remote …

The Regulation Of Space Tourism, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

Space tourism has to be regulated as a subset of private spaceflight activities, whereby humans are sent to outer space in a fundamentally private context. In addition to space law, air law would be relevant for addressing private spaceflight, but neither regime has at the international level regulated relevant activities to any appreciable extent. They provide little more than a set of guiding overarching principles. Much of the onus of future regulation will fall on the shoulders of individual states, most notably the United States. In the more distant future, this may result in a special international regime, using elements …

Legal Challenges In The Context Of The European Space Policy, Frans Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

Introduction

If institutionalism is about the extent to which institutions influence the political and legal realms, and (political) neoinstitutionalism in that respect stresses the extent to which decisions by political actors are framed by institutions, European space policy would present a very interesting example thereof.

It should be noted, however, that this contribution addresses the issue of European space policy from a predominantly legal vantage point, not that of political science, meaning that even such concepts as “policy” and “institution” are first and foremost being discussed in their legal connotation and context, read from the perspective of a lawyer. Such …

Techniques For Regulating Military Force, Monica Hakimi

Book Chapters

This chapter draws on the five chapters that follow—each of which describes the war powers in a single country—to identify and analyze some of the techniques for regulating this area of foreign affairs and then to reflect on the value of comparative research on it. Three basic techniques are: (1) to establish substantive standards on when the government may or may not use force, (2) to divide among different branches of government the authority to deploy the country’s armed forces, and (3) to subject such decisions to oversight or review. There is considerable variation, both across countries and over time …

¿De Quién Son La Luna Y Los Demás Cuerpos Celestes?, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

Probablemente esta sea la imagen más conocida de una bandera que se haya hecho nunca: Buzz Aldrin de pie junto a la primera bandera de EE UU clavada en la Luna. Pero para los que conocían la historia universal, también saltaron las alarmas. En la Tierra, hace menos de un siglo, clavar una bandera nacional en otra parte del mundo todavía equivalía a reclamar ese territorio. ¿Las barras y estrellas en la Luna significaron la creación de una colonia estadounidense?

Cuando la gente escucha por primera vez que soy un abogado que ejerce y enseña algo llamado «derecho espacial», la …

Who Owns The Moon? A Space Lawyer Answers, Frans Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

Most likely, this is the best-known picture of a flag ever taken: Buzz Aldrin standing next to the first U.S. flag planted on the Moon. For those who knew their world history, it also rang some alarm bells. Only less than a century ago, back on Earth, planting a national flag in another part of the world still amounted to claiming that territory for the fatherland. Did the Stars and Stripes on the moon signify the establishment of an American colony?

When people hear for the first time that I am a lawyer practicing and teaching something called “space law,” …

Private Property Rights And The Public Interest In Exploration Of Outer Space, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

The impending missions to exploit natural resources of celestial bodies may at some point start interfering with the scientific interests, including those of astrobiology, in these bodies. While the legal status of celestial bodies at the highest level is clear, uncertainty has arisen as to the extent private property rights over such objects or over their resources are legally acceptable, legally impossible, or potentially legal. This also provides for a considerable amount of uncertainty regarding how the legal framework could or may need to be changed to accommodate private interests. The article analyzes the two main international treaties relevant from …

Asteroid Mining: International And National Legal Aspects, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

1. Introduction; Asteroid Mining and the Law … 2. The International Legal Context for Asteroid Mining—The Outer Space Treaty … 3. The International Legal Context for Asteroid Mining—The Moon Agreement … 4. Back to the Outer Space Treaty: Interpreting the Nonappropriation Prohibition … 5. Unilateral Action: Title IV, U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act … 6. Concluding Remarks

Asteroid mining is one of the hot topics today not only within the space arena at large but also in the more specific domain of space law, comprising “every legal or regulatory regime having a significant impact, even if implicitly or indirectly, …

Some Remarks Further To "Outer Space And International Geography: Article Ii And The Shape Of Global Order" By P. J. Blount, Frans Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

Introduction ... The Key Role of Article II of the Outer Space Treaty ... Article II of the Outer Space Treaty and the Commercialization of Outer Space ... Space Mining: The Need for an Update of the Legal Framework ... Updating the Existing Legal Framework: Some Further Thoughts ... Concluding Remarks

The European Union And Space—Space For Competition?, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

From the inception of European integration, a regime trying to regulate and arrange competition as much as considered necessary for the benefit of society at large has been one of the core elements of the European Union’s legal order. While the European Union has over the past few decades become more and more involved in the European space effort, this has so far hardly given rise to fundamental application of this competition regime to space activities, even if space also in Europe increasingly has become commercialized and privatized. The current paper investigates the reasons and rationale for this special situation, …

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Their Use Of Satellite Services And (Space) Law, Frans Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

This chapter represents an effort to identify the components of international space law that apply to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). It argues that, while other national and international regimes of law apply to UAV activities, international space law is implicated only to the extent that UAV technology relies on satellite services for control and guidance purposes.

U.S. War Powers And The Potential Benefits Of Comparativism, Curtis A. Bradley

Faculty Scholarship

There is no issue of foreign relations law more important than the allocation of authority over the use of military force. This issue is especially important for the United States given the frequency with which it is involved in military activities abroad. Yet there is significant uncertainty and debate in the United States over this issue — in particular, over whether and to what extent military actions must be authorized by Congress. Because U.S. courts in the modern era have generally declined to review the legality of military actions, disputes over this issue have had to be resolved, as a …

A Comparative Approach To Counter-Terrorism Legislation And Legal Policy, Paul David Hill Jr

Senior Honors Theses

Since the 9/11 attacks, American legislation and legal policy in regards to classifying and processing captured terrorists has fallen short of being fully effective and lawful. Trial and error by the Bush and Obama administrations has uncovered two key lessons: (1) captured terrorists are not typical prisoners of war and thus their detainment must involve more legal scrutiny than the latter; and (2) captured terrorists are not ordinary criminals and thus the civilian criminal court system, due to constitutional constraints, is not capable of adequately trying every count of terrorism. Other nations, including France and Israel, approach this problem with …

Space Law And Gnss—A Look At The Legal Frameworks For “Outer Space”, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), obviously, make crucial use of satellites operating in an area commonly known as “outer space,” raising issues regarding which specific body of law might rule the operations of such satellite systems. Though the “horizontal” boundary between outer space and the underlying area of airspaces has never been authoritatively defined, it has generally been agreed that those two areas differ fundamentally as to the legal regimes ruling them, giving rise indeed to a specific body of “space law.”

The European Union And The Outer Space Treaty: Will The Twain Ever Meet?, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

In spite of the envisaged Brexit and other crises and problems currently threatening the European Union (EU), that half-way house between a group of cooperating states and a single quasi-federal union of states remains an important player in today’s world, also – at least from a bird’s eye view – in terms of outer space. Its member states Germany and France have the largest space budgets of all European states (discounting the Russian Federation as a European state), and the European flagship projects Galileo and Copernicus, with the European Commission on behalf of the Union in the driver’s seat, are …

The Second African National Space Law: The Nigerian Nasrda Act And The Draft Regulations On Licensing And Supervision, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

The number of countries with more or less comprehensive national space legislation addressing in particular the authorization and supervision of private space activities continues to grow, and several more countries are currently in the process of adding themselves to that list. One of the more recent and most interesting ones among them is Nigeria, as the second African country after South Africa and—after Brazil—the second leading spacefaring nation from the developing world, to draft, further to a fairly recently established succinct framework law, a set of regulations addressing precisely those issues.

The paper briefly recaps the underlying international obligations, in …