International Humanitarian Law Commons^™

Why China Should Unsign The International Covenant On Civil And Political Rights, Margaret K. Lewis

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In March 2019, the United Nations Human Rights Council finalized its periodic review of China's human rights record just as human rights in China were under intensified attack. As during prior reviews, China was criticized for its human rights practices. And, once again, China was urged to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which China signed over twenty years ago. It is time to reevaluate this approach.

This Article argues that the international community should change tack and instead call on China to remove its signature from this foundational human rights treaty. While this would be …

Looking To The Future: The Scope, Value And Operationalization Of International Human Rights Law, Lorna Mcgregor

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The international human rights system of which international human rights law (IHRL) is a part has been critiqued for being ineffective, too legal, insufficiently self-critical, and elitist, with some claiming that it self-generates some of the challenges it faces. This Article challenges this presentation of IHRL and in doing so, sets out three priorities for its future development. These are first, that it should continue to engage in critical analysis of how IHRL can effectively respond to the complex and multifactorial challenges it faces. Second, rather than refrain from developing due to critiques of over expansion, IHRL should prioritize the …

"Human Rights, Responsibilities, And Democracy," Comments On Tasioulas And Moyn Papers: "Symposium On The Future Of International Human Rights Law", Kathryn Sikkink

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

It is a pleasure and a challenge to comment on these two very different Articles, "Saving Human Rights from Human Rights Law," by John Tasioulas, and 'On Human Rights and Majority Politics: Felix Frankfurter's Democratic Theory," by Samuel Moyn. Both are rich, complex, and thought-provoking. To the degree they share any common dimension, it would be their skepticism toward human rights law, and in particular toward the judicialization of human rights law. But the skepticism comes from quite different directions and from their different disciplines. In the case of Tasioulas's paper, the skepticism derives from his belief that legal human …

Countering Nationalist Oligarchy, Ganesh Sitaraman

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The challenge we face today is not one of authoritarianism, as so many seem inclined to believe, but of nationalist oligarchy. This form of government feeds populism to the people, delivers special privileges to the rich and well-connected, and rigs politics to sustain its regime.

Nationalist oligarchy is an existential threat to American democracy. The countries already under its thrall steal technology and use economic power as political leverage. Some of them are actively trying to undermine democracy, through cyber attacks, hacking, and social media disinformation. And they spread bribery and corruption around the world—deepening inequality and threatening to turn …

Transitional Justice In Housing Injustice: The Case Of Housing Rights Violations Within Settler Democracies, Manal Totry-Jubran

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The right to housing is recognized by international human rights treaties as an integral part of the right to an adequate standard of living. Many states have ratified these treaties and incorporated protection of some aspects of housing rights into their constitutions and domestic legislation. Other states have not enacted any legislation in recognition of housing rights, but they provide judicial remedies for violations of rights. Despite that, domestic and international reports indicate that housing rights are constantly being violated in countries across the world at different levels.

This Article focuses on housing rights violations within "settler democracies." Such countries …

Whither And Whether With The Formative Aim Thesis, Gopal Sreenivasan

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

According to John Tasioulas, the formative aim of international human rights law is to give effect to moral human rights (insofar as it is appropriate for international law to do so, through the technique of assigning a uniform set of individual legal rights to all humans). In cases of pure human rights inflation, an international legal human right fails to give effect to any moral human right. Tasioulas regards international legal human rights that fit this criterion as morally unjustified. This Article scrutinises various bases on which the inference underlying his conclusion might be validated and argues that none of …

Proportionality Under International Humanitarian Law: The "Reasonable Military Commander" Standard And Reverberating Effects, Ian Henderson, Kate Reece

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The principle of proportionality protects civilians and civilian objects against expected incidental harm from an attack that is excessive to the military advantage anticipated from the attack. However, despite its status as a fundamental norm of international humanitarian law (IHL), key terms are not defined in relevant treaties nor do they benefit from critical judicial explanation. This has caused challenges for both academics and military commanders alike in explaining and applying the test for proportionality.

The Article expands upon two points that were raised and generated interesting discussion at The Second Israel Defense Forces International Conference on the Law of …

Challenges In The Interpretation And Application Of The Principle Of Distinction During Ground Operations In Urban Areas, Colonel Noam Neuman

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article focuses on the tension between the often-referred-to articulation of the principle of distinction, as reflected in Additional Protocol I, and four practices that have been continuously employed in ground operations by most if not all of the world's militaries: masking, firing warning shots, breaching structures, and maneuvering with heavy machinery. These practices may very well result in incidental harm to civilians or incidental damage to civilian objects, yet they are either directed at an object that is not necessarily a military objective or they are not directed at any object or person at all. In light of the …

Ebola Does Not Fall From The Sky: Structural Violence & International Responsibility, Matiangai Sirleaf

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article challenges the conventional understanding that international crises are limited to instances of direct physical violence. Instead, it argues that the disproportionate distribution of infectious diseases like Ebola is a form of structural violence that warrants international intervention. In the field of global public health, structural violence is a concept used to describe health inequities and to draw attention to the differential risks for infection in the Global South, and among those already infected, for adverse consequences including death, injury, and illness. This Article clarifies how the concept of structural violence can be operationalized in law. It illustrates the …

Reframing The Proportionality Principle, Michael A. Newton

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Proportionality functions as one of the most important legal constraints applicable to the conduct of hostilities. In that context, this short essay discusses the commonly encountered misapplications of Cicero's classic sentiment that "salus populwe supremus est lex...silent enim leges inter armes." Rather than serving as a necessary basis for a positive articulation of lawful force as an exception to the norm, jus in bello proportionality delineates the outer boundaries of the commander's appropriate discretion. The mere invocation of jus in bello proportionality cannot become an effective extension of asymmetric combat power by artificially crippling combatant capabilities. This essay ends by …

Enemy-Controlled Battlespace": The Contemporary Meaning And Purpose Of Additional Protocol I'S Article 44(3) Exception, Kubo Macak, Michael N. Schmitt

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The contemporary propensity for, and risk of, armed conflict taking place among the civilian population has cast a new light on several long-standing challenges to the application of international humanitarian law (IHL). One is the determination of combatant status and, more specifically, the question of when the requirement for the combatants to distinguish themselves from the civilian population may exceptionally be relaxed. In addressing this question, the Article re-examines Additional Protocol I's Article 44(3) and adopts an interpretation thereof that better comports with its object and purpose than those previously prevalent. After exposing the limitations of relying solely on drafting …

Indiscriminate Attacks And The Past, Present, And Future Of The Rules/Standards And Objective/Subjective Debates In International Humanitarian Law, Stephen Townley

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Civil society, the United Nations, and others are subjecting the conduct of hostilities to increasing scrutiny. But they often lack access to internal targeting data and therefore frequently render legal judgments based on the effects of attacks or assertions that particular weapons or methods of combat are inherently unlawful. This Article analyzes the historical development of key provisions of international humanitarian law (IHL) within the framework of two perennial legal debates--that between rules and standards and that between objective and subjective tests. It argues that while targeting provisions have generally reflected a balance between those two dyads, the jurisprudence of …

Hunt Or Be Hunted, Jeremiah Cioffi

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Bulgaria is the geographic and political center of the European migrant crisis, which has the Bulgarian citizenry uneasy about its security. Bulgaria's societal disdain for Middle Eastern migrants stems from hundreds of years of subjugation and non-Muslim Bulgarians' second-class citizenship under the Ottoman Empire. Roving bands of civilian migrant hunters have begun taking the law into their own hands by capturing migrants and turning them over to the Bulgarian authorities for deportation. This Note discusses the illegality of such migrant hunting under Bulgarian domestic law. It then discusses how the impunity enjoyed by migrant hunters is an abdication of Bulgarian …

Contorting Common Article 3, Michael A. Newton

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This short Essay describes the circularity of support between the ICRC and the Pre-Trial Chambers of the ICC. Its successive sections describe the problematic potential of extending the substantive coverage of Common Article 3 to encompass members of the same armed group who commit criminal acts against one another.' In particular, the Revised Commentary fails to address the due process ramifications of an enlarged Common Article 3, even as the development of the text documented by the readily available negotiating record warrants an alternative understanding. Lastly, the ICRC position could indicate a radical shift in the very design of the …

Refugee Reception And Perception: Us Detention Camps And German Welcome Centers, Karla M. Mckanders, Valeria Gomez

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The reception of refugees and asylum seekers has emerged as one of the most critical contemporary global issues. In 2015, the world experienced the most forced migrants since World War II. This essay compares the treatment of asylum seekers at reception in United States and Germany through each countries’ freedom and restriction of movement laws. This comparative analysis is based on Professor Karla McKanders’ December 2015 exploratory trip to Germany to learn more about the processing refugees in the midst of Germany accepting unprecedented numbers of refugees; and attorney Valeria Gomez’s December 2015 volunteer experience in the South Texas Family …

Politics By Other Means: The Battle Over The Classification Of Asymmetrical Conflicts, Yahli Shereshevsky

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Transnational armed conflicts between states and non-state armed groups have emerged as a defining characteristic of twenty-first century warfare. Humanitarian actors tend to classify such conflicts (e.g., between the United States and ISIL) as non-international armed conflicts rather than international armed conflict. This classification is subject to considerable debate; yet both sides present their views as the inevitable result of the interpretation of the relevant International Humanitarian Law (IHL) treaty articles.

This Article demonstrates that the classification of transnational armed conflicts as non-international armed conflicts does not merely concern the application of the relevant laws, but represents a fundamental shift …

Protecting Cultural Heritage As A Means For International Peace, Security And Stability, Mark V. Vlasic, Helga Turku

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Cultural aggression has become a strategy to obtain an advantage during war. In a deliberate and methodical pattern extremists have not only damaged and destroyed historical sites in Iraq and Syria, but they have also looted antiquities to raise money for their terrorist activities. In addition to degrading the victims' identities, such acts decrease the wealth of knowledge of the world as a whole. By examining various treaties and case law on cultural property, this Article highlights the importance of holding these perpetrators accountable. Furthermore, the protection of cultural property in war zones should be an element in the whole …

Illegally Evading Attribution? Russia's Use Of Unmarked Troops In Crimea And International Humanitarian Law, Ines Gillich

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The Crimean Crisis of February and March 2014 poses several questions to International Law. This Article explores one of them: Does the use of unmarked troops, soldiers in uniforms but without nationality insignia, in Crimea violate principles of International Humanitarian Law (IHL)?

This Article first provides a brief summary of Crimea's history and the facts of the 2014 Crimean Crisis. It will be argued that IHL is applicable to the events in Crimea in February and March 2014 since the unmarked soldiers are attributable to Russia--either as Russian nationals or through Russia's exercise of control over them--and that there was …

Undocumented Migrants And The Failures Of Universal Individualism, Jaya Ramji-Nogales

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In recent years, advocates and scholars have made increasing efforts to situate undocumented migrants within the human rights framework. Few have examined international human rights law closely enough to discover just how limited it is in its protections of the undocumented. This Article takes that failure as a starting point to launch a critique of the universal individualist project that characterizes the current human rights system. It then catalogues in detail the protections available to undocumented migrants in international human rights law, which are far fewer than often assumed. The Article demonstrates through a close analysis of relevant law that …

Multiple Nationality And Refugees, Jon Bauer

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Persons with more than one nationality ("multiple nationals") who flee persecution in their home country may have compelling reasons to seek asylum elsewhere rather than go to a second country of nationality where they have no ties or face serious hardships. The 1951 U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, however, expressly makes them ineligible for refugee status unless they have a well-founded fear of being persecuted in all their countries of nationality. The U.S. Refugee Act omits this exclusionary language but nonetheless has been read by immigration agencies as if it incorporated the Convention's approach. This Article challenges …

Legal Phantoms In Cyberspace: The Problematic Status Of Information As A Weapon And A Target Under International Humanitarian Law, Jack M. Beard

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Reports of state-sponsored harmful cyber intrusions abound. The prevailing view among academics holds that if the effects or consequences of such intrusions are sufficiently damaging, international humanitarian law (IHL) should generally govern them--and recourse to armed force may also be justified against states responsible for these actions under the jus ad bellum. This Article argues, however, that there are serious problems and perils in relying on analogies with physical armed force to extend these legal regimes to most events in cyberspace. Armed conflict models applied to the use of information as a weapon and a target are instead likely to …

Separation Anxiety? Rethinking The Role Of Morality In International Human Rights Lawmaking, Vijay M. Padmanabhan

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The conventional accounts of international law do a poor job accounting for human rights. International legal positivists generally argue that there is a strict separation of law and morality, with no role for moral obligation in the validation of law. But human rights practice reveals many situations in which it appears that morality is validating legal obligation. Process theorists recognize an intrinsic role for the values underlying international law in understanding its commands. But they embrace a vision of law as dialogue that fails to protect the right to self-determination that is a core value of human rights.

This Article …

Demanding Accountability Where Accountability Is Due: A Functional Necessity Approach To Diplomatic Immunity Under The Vienna Convention, Nina M. Bergmar

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Note addresses the inability of domestic workers to seek redress for exploitation by diplomat employers. In examining the legal quagmire facing these workers, this Note highlights a departure by courts from the functional necessity theory underlying the Vienna Convention. Courts now rely wholly on the U.S. State Department's interpretation of the scope of diplomatic immunity, communicated through "Statements of Interest." The significant deference given to such statements has had dire consequences for exploited victims. Under a functional necessity approach, domestic workers are able to demand redress, as exploitation is a private act--i.e., not in furtherance of the diplomatic mission--undertaken …

Managing The "Republic Of Ngos": Accountability And Legitimation Problems Facing The Un Cluster System, J. Benton Heath

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article critically assesses the crucial but troubled system for the coordination of international humanitarian assistance--the UN "cluster approach." Regardless of whether the cluster approach actually helps in disaster response, it exercises substantial power over affected populations by assigning competences and leadership roles. The built-in mechanisms for controlling this power are unworkable because they ultimately fail to resolve the tension between humanitarian organizations' autonomy and the need for coordination. This Article identifies the emergence of an alternative model of accountability, based on mutual monitoring and peer review. Drawing on theories of network governance and experimentalism, this Article teases out the …

Anatomy Of An Uprising: Women, Democracy, And The Moroccan Feminist Spring, Karla M. Mckanders

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

During the Arab Spring, Moroccan men and women first took to the streets on February 20, 2011 to demand governmental reforms. Their movement became known as the Mouvement du 20-Février. In a series of protests, Moroccans called for democratic change, lower food prices, freedom for Islamist prisoners, and rights for the Berber people. Initially, King Mohammad VI attempted to suppress the movement. When this approach did not succeed, in a televised speech, the King agreed to reform the government. In June 2011, the constitutional committee proposed changes that would reduce the King’s absolute powers, implement democratic reforms, and create a …

Hate Speech And Persecution: A Contextual Approach, Gregory S. Gordon

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Scholarly work on atrocity-speech law has focused almost exclusively on incitement to genocide. But case law has established liability for a different speech offense: persecution as a crime against humanity (CAH). The lack of scholarship regarding this crime is puzzling given a split between the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on the issue of whether hate speech alone can serve as an actus reus for CAH-persecution. This Article fills the gap in the literature by analyzing the split between the two tribunals and concluding that hate speech alone may be the …

Optimal Asylum, Shalini B. Ray

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The U.S. asylum system is noble but flawed. Scholars have long recognized that asylum is a "scarce" political resource, but U.S. law persists in distributing access to asylum based on an asylum seeker's ability to circumvent migration controls rather than the strength of the asylum seeker's claim for protection. To apply for asylum, an asylum seeker must either arrange to be smuggled into the United States or lie to the consulate while abroad to obtain a nonimmigrant visa. Nonimmigrant visa requirements effectively filter the pool of asylum applicants according to wealth, educational attainment, and intent not to remain in the …

Losing The Forest For The Trees: Syria, Law, And The Pragmatics Of Conflict Recognition, Laurie R. Blank, Geoffrey S. Corn

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The situation in Syria has the potential to become a pivotal moment in the development of the law of armed conflict (LOAC). The ongoing brutality serves as a reminder of the importance of extending international humanitarian regulation into the realm of non-international armed hostilities; however, the very chaos those hostilities produce reveals critical fault lines in the current approach to determining the existence of an armed conflict. The international community's year-long reluctance to characterize the situation in Syria as an armed conflict highlights a clear disparity between the object and purpose of the LOAC and the increasingly formalistic interpretation of …

To Break Free From Tyranny And Oppression, Evan M. Brewer

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Too often states have invoked territorial integrity and nonintervention in defending abuses perpetrated against peoples within their borders. This practice must be stopped by embracing a robust remedial right to secession. Remedial secession takes place when an oppressed people creates an independent state by seceding from a state that denies its right to self-determination. It has been speculatively posited as an "extreme circumstances" possibility, but remedies to denials of the right to self-determination have not been clearly determined beyond the decolonization context. In the post-colonial era, international law has recognized the importance of fundamental human rights to such a great …

Imagining The Homeland From Afar: Community And Peoplehood In The Age Of The Diaspora, Adeno Addis

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Diasporas--understood as groups of individuals or communities who carry an image of a homeland that is separate from the host land in which they reside--have always been with us. As long as there have been large movements of people across boundaries, be it voluntary or involuntary, there have been diasporas. The image of the homeland that diasporas carry could be real (an existing country) or imagined (a future country). In whatever way diasporas imagine the homeland, they have often attempted to act as if they belong to "we the people" of the homeland. They imagine themselves to be "outside the …