Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

International Humanitarian Law Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Michigan Law Review

Articles 1 - 10 of 10

Full-Text Articles in International Humanitarian Law

Justice Without Power: Yemen And The Global Legal System, Amulya Vadapalli Mar 2023

Justice Without Power: Yemen And The Global Legal System, Amulya Vadapalli

Michigan Law Review

The war in Yemen has remained the world’s worst humanitarian crisis since 2015, and yet it is shockingly invisible. The global legal system fails to offer a clear avenue through which the Yemeni people can hold the state actors responsible for their harm accountable. This Note analyzes international legal mechanisms for vindicating war crimes and human rights abuses perpetrated in Yemen. Through the lens of Yemen’s humanitarian crisis, it highlights gaps in the global legal structure, proposes alternative accountability processes, and uses a variety of sources—including interviews with practitioners and Arabic language legal scholarship—to explicate a victim-centered transitional justice process …

Go to article

Detention Debates, Deborah N. Pearlstein Jan 2012

Detention Debates, Deborah N. Pearlstein

Michigan Law Review

Since the United States began detaining people in efforts it has characterized, with greater and lesser accuracy, as part of global counterterrorism operations, U.S. detention programs have spawned more than 200 different lawsuits producing 6 Supreme Court decisions, 4 major pieces of legislation, at least 7 executive orders across 2 presidential administrations, more than 100 books, 231 law review articles (counting only those with the word "Guantanamo" in the title), dozens of reports by nongovernmental organizations, and countless news and analysis articles from media outlets in and out of the mainstream. For those in the academic and policy communities who …

Go to article

Deconstructing International Criminal Law, Kevin Jon Heller Apr 2008

Deconstructing International Criminal Law, Kevin Jon Heller

Michigan Law Review

After nearly fifty years of post-Nuremberg hibernation, international criminal tribunals have returned to the world stage with a vengeance. The Security Council created the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia ("ICTY") in 1993 and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda ("ICTR") in 1994. Hybrid domestic-international tribunals have been established in Sierra Leone (2000), East Timor (2000), Kosovo (2000), Cambodia (2003), Bosnia (2005), and Lebanon (2007). And, of course, the international community's dream of a permanent tribunal was finally realized in 2002, when the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court ("ICC") entered into force. This unprecedented proliferation of international …

Go to article

War Tales And War Trials, Patricia M. Wald Apr 2008

War Tales And War Trials, Patricia M. Wald

Michigan Law Review

In this foreword, I will compare my experiences as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and the work of war crimes tribunals generally, with a few of the recurrent themes in epic tales of war. Books and trials strive to educate and to persuade their audiences of the barbarity of war and its antipathy to the most fundamental norms of a humane society.3 War crimes tribunals began with Nuremberg and have proliferated in the past fifteen years. These tribunals were established to try and to punish individuals for violations of international humanitarian law ("IHL")-the so-called …

Go to article

Ieepa's Override Authority: Potential For A Violation Of The Geneva Conventions' Right To Access For Humanitarian Organizations?, Jennifer R. White Aug 2006

Ieepa's Override Authority: Potential For A Violation Of The Geneva Conventions' Right To Access For Humanitarian Organizations?, Jennifer R. White

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that, should the President exercise his override authority to prohibit or restrict the donation of humanitarian articles during an armed conflict involving the United States, the resulting prohibition or restriction would cause the United States to violate its obligations under the Conventions. This Note does not assert that the United States should not have the ability to put in place controls to prevent terrorists from benefiting from donations of funds and other humanitarian items; instead, it asserts that domestic law must tread as lightly and narrowly as possible where a widely accepted multilateral treaty exists and that …

Go to article

The Exclusion Of Hiv-Positive Immigrants Under The Nicaraguan Adjustment And Central American Relief Act And The Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act, Statutory Interpretation, Communicable Disease, Public Health, Legislative Intent, Shayna S. Cook Nov 2000

The Exclusion Of Hiv-Positive Immigrants Under The Nicaraguan Adjustment And Central American Relief Act And The Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act, Statutory Interpretation, Communicable Disease, Public Health, Legislative Intent, Shayna S. Cook

Michigan Law Review

The United States has turned away immigrants infected with the human immunodeficiency virus ("HIV") under the public health exclusion of the Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA") since the mid-1980's. Since Congress codified the HIV exclusion in 1993, any alien applying for an immigrant or nonimmigrant visa, adjustment of status to lawful permanent resident, or refugee status must first have a blood test for HIV. The HIV exclusion is not absolute, however. Each HIV-positive alien can apply for one of two waivers of the HIV exclusion that are available in the INA. When an alien applies for immigrant or permanent resident …

Go to article

War Crimes And The Limits Of Legalism, Gary Jonathan Bass May 1999

War Crimes And The Limits Of Legalism, Gary Jonathan Bass

Michigan Law Review

In April 1945, Sir John Simon, Britain's Lord Chancellor, drew up a memorandum that was the last gasp in the diplomatic struggle against Nuremberg. Under American pressure, and despite British objections, the Allies were poised to agree to put the Axis leadership on trial for war crimes. In the kind of magnificent understatement that the British government could sometimes inadvertently achieve, it was entitled "The Argument for Summary Process against Hitler & Co." The memorandum was a series of arguments to be used by the British delegation at the San Francisco conference in a last-ditch effort to win over the …

Go to article

The Pull Of The Mainstream, Martti Koskenniemi May 1990

The Pull Of The Mainstream, Martti Koskenniemi

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Human Rights and Humanitarian Norms as Customary Law by Theodor Meron

Go to article

Punishment For War Crimes: Duty--Or Discretion?, Michigan Law Review Jun 1971

Punishment For War Crimes: Duty--Or Discretion?, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

In 1968, a movie called The Graduate received wide critical acclaim for characterizing the malaise of youthful America. For many, the scene most representative of contemporary irrelevance took place during the protagonist's homecoming party, at which a businessman, with grave and repetitive insistence, encouraged the recent college graduate to enter the plastics industry. In a CBS-TV news interview on November 24, 1969, Paul D. Meadlo revealed his participation in an incident in Vietnam that has captured the horrified attention of the nation. Meadlo, twenty-three years old, is a machine operator in a Terre Haute, Indiana plastics factory.

Go to article

Crimes Against Humanity And The Principle Of Nonextradition Of Political Offenders, Manuel R. Garcia-Mora Apr 1964

Crimes Against Humanity And The Principle Of Nonextradition Of Political Offenders, Manuel R. Garcia-Mora

Michigan Law Review

It is thus the purpose of this article to discuss the nature of crimes against humanity in an effort to determine whether they can be classified as political offenses. It is hoped that from the uncertainty and confusion which appear to underlie the practice of the State, some useful legal principles may be extracted.

Go to article