International Law Commons^™

Sacred Spheres: Religious Autonomy As An International Human Right, Diana V. Thomson, Kayla A. Toney

Catholic University Law Review

How should courts resolve thorny human rights disputes that arise within religious groups? According to an emerging international consensus, they shouldn’t. When a case involves sensitive internal decisions by a religious organization, such as choosing who is qualified to teach the faith, courts are increasingly taking a hands-off approach. This global consensus has formed across international treaties, tribunals, and domestic courts in European and American nations. Every major human rights instrument and many international and domestic courts recognize that religious freedom must extend to religious communities, especially houses of worship and schools where believers gather to practice their faith and …

The Global Practice Of Systematic Enforced Disappearances Of Children In International Law: Strategies For Preventing Future Occurrences And Solving Past Cases, Jeremy J. Sarkin, Elisenda Calvet Martinez

Catholic University Law Review

The aim of this article is to first investigate and understand the widespread and systematic practice of enforced disappearances against children around the world, with a key purpose being to show that it is a regular occurrence. The article reviews the systematic disappearances of children in their historical context, beginning from the Second World War. A variety of country examples –some historical and some contemporary –are discussed to indicate the widespread nature of the practice. The variety of cases is used to understand why states participate in such practices and why children specifically are targeted as victims of enforced disappearances. …

The Rise Of 5g Technology: How Internet Privacy And Protection Of Personal Data Is A Must In An Evolving Digital Landscape, Justin Rabine

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

The Application Of The Right To Be Forgotten In The Machine Learning Context: From The Perspective Of European Laws, Zeyu Zhao

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

The right to be forgotten has been evolving for decades along with the progress of different statutes and cases and, finally, independently enacted by the General Data Protection Regulation, making it widely applied across Europe. However, the related provisions in the regulation fail to enable machine learning systems to realistically forget the personal information which is stored and processed therein.

This failure is not only because existing European rules do not stipulate standard codes of conduct and corresponding responsibilities for the parties involved, but they also cannot accommodate themselves to the new environment of machine learning, where specific information can …

Innovative Thinking: Modernizing Outer Space Governance, Diane M. Janosek

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

Space security is essential to global safety and prosperity. International treaties should modernize and reflect the world’s innovation in space and governance needs. One must look back to 1967 for the inaugural “Outer Space Treaty,” the first and only binding multilateral agreement for peaceful space use and exploration. In 50 years, technologies and space capabilities have evolved; an updated global treaty and agreement should be developed and evaluated. Both China and Russia have demonstrated their capability to degrade and/or destroy adversaries’ satellites in space. Space wars are no longer a hypothetical. The future once discussed and anxiously anticipated after Sputnik …

Comparative Perspectives Of Adult Content Filtering: Legal Challenges And Implications, Adam Szafranski, Piotr Szwedo And Malgorzata Klein

Catholic University Law Review

The internet is virtually ubiquitous and is becoming more accessible to young people all over the world. Along with the many benefits it brings, the internet poses serious risks to the human rights of its most vulnerable users, viz. children. The United Kingdom, Poland and the U.S. State of Utah have already started to mitigate this risk through a variety of regulatory mechanisms. A priori, both self-regulation and hard law can satisfy international requirements on freedom of services and freedom of expression, but each requires careful scrutiny. Neither self-regulation nor soft law appear to be sufficient. It would seem, …

The Human Rights Movement And The Prevention Of Evil: The Need To Look Inward As Well As Out, Jeffrey A. Brauch

Catholic University Law Review

The modern human rights movement began as a response to great evil perpetrated by individuals and nations against others during and preceding World War II. The movement has been dedicated to protecting the rights of individuals by confronting evil and holding nations accountable should efforts to prevent it fail.

This article contends that while the human rights movement is good at confronting evil “out there,” it has failed in important ways to recognize flaws within itself. In particular, it displays a hubris that shows itself in two ways. First, the movement has embraced a utopian expansion of rights to be …

International Comity And The Non-State Actor, Microsoft: Why Law Enforcement Access To Data Stored Abroad Act (Leads Act) Promotes International Comity, Sabah Siddiqui

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

Currently large email service providers, such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are refusing to comply with warrants issued under the Secured Communications Act (“SCA”) because in many instances, the requested information may be stored in servers located abroad. In the dismissed Supreme Court case, In re Warrant to Search a Certain E-Mail Account Controlled & Maintained by Microsoft Corporation, the Supreme Court should have addressed whether an internet service provider must comply with a warrant issued under the SCA when the requested information is stored in a foreign country and whether enforcement of these warrants would be an impermissible …

Democracy Clauses In The Americas: The Challenge Of Venezuela’S Withdrawal From The Oas, Antonio F. Perez

Scholarly Articles

In light of Venezuela’s unprecedented notice of its intention to withdraw from the Organization of American States, this essay by a former member of the Juridical Committee of the OAS explores the range of discretion available to the OAS and its Member States in interpreting and applying the OAS’s unique provision for withdrawal. Presenting the first extensive analysis of this provision of the OAS Charter, the essay argues that the withdrawal clause can plausibly be interpreted to require Venezuela to fulfill all its obligations under the OAS Charter, including its obligations to respect democracy, before its unprecedented withdrawal can take …

Implications For The Future Of Global Data Security And Privacy: The Territorial Application Of The Stored Communications Act And The Microsoft Case, Russell Hsiao

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Removing The Distraction Of Delay, Jill E. Family

Catholic University Law Review

Immigration adjudication is in an awkward position. There is an intricate system to adjudicate immigration removal (deportation) cases, but that system is hindered by restrictions, and the constant threat of further restrictions, that reflect distaste for providing process to foreign nationals facing removal. There is a push and pull phenomenon, with immigration adjudication stretched uncomfortably in between two forces. On the one side, there is a push to apply common notions of due process to immigration removal cases, to push that the same concepts of procedural justice should apply in immigration cases as they would in any other context. On …

The Kosovo Crisis: A Dostoievskian Dialogue On International Law, Statecraft, And Soulcraft, Antonio F. Perez, Robert J. Delahunty

Scholarly Articles

The secession of Kosovo from Serbia in February 2008 represents a stage in the unfolding of a revolution of "constitutional" dimensions in International Law that began with NATO's 1999 intervention in Kosovo against Serbia. NATO's intervention called into question the authority and viability of U.N. Charter system for maintaining international peace. Likewise, the West's decision in 2008 to support Kosovo's secession from Serbia dealt a further blow to the central post-War legal rules and institutions for controlling and mitigating Great power rivalry. Russia's later support for South Ossetia's secession from Georgia demonstrated the potential that the Kosovo precedent has for …

Mara’Abe V. Prime Minister Of Israel, Geoffrey R. Watson

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Legal Frameworks For Economic Transition In Iraq – Occupation Under The Law Of War Vs. Global Governance Under The Law Of Peace, Antonio F. Perez

Scholarly Articles

After over a decade as the ruling conventional wisdom under the rubric of the so-called Washington Consensus, the prospect of reconstruction and development through fiscal austerity, privatization and liberalization of markets is under considerable attack today from many quarters. One common theme of these challenges-to what has been received wisdom-focuses not on the technical characteristics of development, but rather its connection to political development.

The ‘Wall’ Decisions In Legal And Political Context, Geoffrey R. Watson

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

The Perils Of Pinochet: Problems For Transnational Justice And A Supranational Governance Solution, Antonio F. Perez

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Sovereignty, Freedom, And Civil Society: Toward A New Jerusalem, Antonio F. Perez

Scholarly Articles

Jerusalem has become a symbol of the world's past. In one sense, of course, it is holy ground to three of the world's great historical religions. The very identity of Muslims, Christians, and Jews are bound up in stories in which the city of Jerusalem plays a large, and sometimes central, role. But Jerusalem is also a symbol of the past in a much different way. Much like today's system of states, the debate concerning sovereignty over Jerusalem is a prisoner of the history of international law-a history that has been told in the language of absolute and undivided sovereignty …

Offenders Abroad: The Case For Nationality-Based Criminal Jurisdiction, Geoffrey R. Watson

Scholarly Articles

When a host state does not prosecute a U.S. national who commits a violent crime abroad, the United States does not exercise jurisdiction. Should the United States eschew nationality jurisdiction, when it may provide the only basis for prosecution? Part II of this article traces the evolution of nationalitybased criminal jurisdiction in U.S. law and asserts that the United States has in fact embraced such jurisdiction in the past, usually to ensure that U.S. offenders abroad were tried by U.S. courts rather than foreign tribunals. Part III examines the current U.S. jurisdictional scheme, which relies on foreign states to prosecute …