Digital Commons Network^™

‘The Messaging Effect’: Eliciting Credible Historical Evidence From Victims Of Mass Crimes, Mahdev Mohan

2008 Asian Business & Rule of Law initiative

No abstract provided.

Human “Wrongs”?: The U.S. Takes An Unpopular Stance In Opposing A Strong International Criminal Court, Gaining Unlikely Allies In The Process, Tomas A. Kuehn

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Substance And Method In The Year 2000, Akhil Reed Amar

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

"They Are Destroying Our Futures": Sexual Violence Against Girls In Zambia's Schools, Women And Law In Southern Africa Trust-Zambia, Cornell Law School. Avon Global Center For Women And Justice, Cornell Law School. International Human Rights Clinic

Avon Global Center for Women and Justice and Dorothea S. Clarke Program in Feminist Jurisprudence

This report examines the problem of sexual violence against girls in Zambian schools. In Zambia, many girls are raped, sexually abused, harassed, and assaulted by teachers and male classmates. They are also subjected to sexual harassment and attack while travelling to and from school. Such abuse is a devastating and often overlooked manifestation of the gender-based violence that occurs in numerous settings in Zambia and other countries throughout the world.

This report explores these issues from an international human rights perspective, drawing upon extensive desk research and interviews with 105 schoolgirls and many other stakeholders in Zambia’s Lusaka Province. The …

From Oblivion To Memory: A Blueprint For The Amnesty, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

This Review Essay examines Mark Freeman’s thoughtful book, Necessary Evils: Amnesties and the Search for Justice. One of the book’s core arguments is that amnesties from criminal prosecution, however unpalatable to liberal legalist sensibilities, should not be entirely purged from the toolbox of post-conflict transitions. Although advancing this argument, Freeman also struggles with it, and ultimately builds a very restrained and heavily technocratic defense of the amnesty. This Review Essay weighs this argument, among others, on its own terms and also within the context of recent events that post-date the book’s publication. The result is a vibrant exposition of …

International Ngos, The Arab Upheaval, And Human Rights: Examining Ngo Resource Allocation, Gerald M. Steinberg

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

Speechlessness And Trauma: Why The International Criminal Court Needs A Public Interviewing Guide, Philip A. Sandick

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

“The Rtop And Responsibility While Protecting: The Secretary-General’S Timely And Decisive Report On Timely And Decisive Responses”, James Pattison

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The United Nations Secretary-General's report on pillar three of the responsibility to protect (RtoP), "Responsibility to Protect: Timely and Decisive Response," is the most interesting, timely, and decisive of his four reports thus far on the RtoP. To start with, the subject matter of pillar three – the international community's potentially coercive responses to humanitarian crises, including humanitarian intervention – is the most controversial part of the RtoP doctrine and the area that has attracted the most criticism from skeptics. Previous reports, such as Implementing the Responsibility to Protect(2009), gave pillar three, and humanitarian intervention in particular, fairly short shrift, …

The Bush Administration And The Office Of Legal Counsel (Olc) Torture Memos: A Content Analysis Of The Response Of The Academic Legal Community, Arthur H. Garrison

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

The article critically examines the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) torture memos authored by John Yoo and Jay Bybee in 2002, which were intended to justify interrogation techniques such as waterboarding post-9/11. These memos have been widely criticized for undermining human rights and international law, and for compromising the OLC's role in providing impartial legal advice. The memos' perceived advocacy for White House policies rather than objective analysis led to ethical breaches and procedural shortcomings, ultimately resulting in their withdrawal. The article emphasizes the crucial role of ethical standards and independence in legal institutions to prevent such abuses and maintain …

Paradox In Preventing And Promoting Torture: Marginalising 'Harm' For The Sake Of Global Ordering: Reflections On A Decade Of Risk/Security Globalisation, Mark Findlay

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The ultimate result of globalisation is that as the world setting is compressed there is an intensification of consciousness towards global interests, such as selective ordering, running parallel with strongly influential autonomous interests of the nation state and regional concerns. However, as risk and security disproportionately motivate globalisation, dominant nation state interests (which are at the heart of what operationalises global hegemony) become the prevailing measure of global ordering. Attitudes to ‘harm’ converge around these sectarian interests from the local to the global. As such, the need to torture, it is logically and even ‘legally’ argued, to better ensure domestic …

Continuing Combat At Home: How Judges And Attorneys Can Improve Their Handling Of Combat Veterans With Ptsd In Criminal Courts, Jeffrey Lewis Wieand Jr.

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Profiling And Immigration, Aaron Haas

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Finding Safe Harbor: Protection, Prosecution, And State Strategies To Address Prostituted Minors, Darren Geist

Legislation and Policy Brief

The common policy of treating sexually exploited minors as criminals represents a fundamental failing of the justice system. Prostituted minors should not be treated as delinquents requiring discipline but rather as severely traumatized and abused victims requiring specialized services and counseling. Yet, in most states, prostituted minors are re-traumatized through arrest, prosecution, and detention instead of receiving specialized services. Besides being unjust, this policy is counter-productive. Arresting, prosecuting, and detaining minors hinders law enforcement efforts to go after the real criminals – the pimps and the johns, and misses an important opportunity to rescue minors from a system of commercial …

International Human Rights Law And Social Movements: States' Resistance And Civil Society's Insistence, Kiyoteru Tsutsui, Claire Whitlinger, Alwyn Lim

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This review examines recent scholarship on the rise of international human rights law and proposes that social movements have played critical roles both in elevating the standards of human rights in international law and in leveraging these standards into better local practices. Institutionalization of universal human rights principles began in the immediate post–World War II period, in which civil society actors worked with powerful states to establish human rights as a key guiding principle of the international community and to ensure the actors' continuing participation in international human rights institutions. The subsequent decades saw various hurdles arise in international politics, …

The Public Defender As Anti-Trafficking Advocate, An Unlikely Role: How Current New York City Arrest And Prosecution Policies Systematically Criminalize Victims Of Sex Trafficking, Kate Mogulescu

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Racial Disparities In Sentencing In The U.S. And Georgia, Kamal Rattray, Nicole Lee

Georgia Journal of Public Policy

Incarceration represents the ultimate use of coercive power, and in the state of Georgia, that power is being disproportionately levied upon people of color, particularly African Americans.1 According to 2011 statistics from the Georgia Department of Corrections, the total prison population statewide was approximately 53,341 inmates. The majority of that number were Blacks (33,069 inmates), followed by Whites (17,752 inmates), Hispanics (2,306 inmates) and other ethnic groups.

Gender-Specific Prison Reform: Addressing Human Rights Violations Against Women In Russia's Prisons, Courtney M. Skiles

Washington International Law Journal

Russia currently incarcerates women in conditions that amount to human rights violations. Women incarcerated in Russia’s prisons experience not only oppression and abuse common to all those incarcerated in Russia, but also gender-specific harms. While Russia has signed on to many pivotal human rights treaties, it also has a long history of mass incarceration of its people. Today, the prison conditions for women in Russia reveal a need for reform. Reformers are challenged by a powerful State that has not prioritized the type of reform necessary to eliminate further harms done to incarcerated women. To ensure the rights of women …

Is The Prosecution Of War Crimes Just And Effective? Rethinking The Lessons From Sociology And Psychology, Ziv Bohrer

Michigan Journal of International Law

Should perpetrators of genocide, violent acts against civilians during war, or other massive violations of core human rights be punished? International criminal law (ICL) answers this question affirmatively, asserting that the punishment of such atrocities is just and that their effective prosecution can (and should) contribute to the prevention of such future acts. Moreover, an increasing attempt has been made in the international and domestic arenas to act in accordance with these assertions of ICL through the prosecution of war crimes. During the last two decades the role of ICL has become gradually more significant, and the fall of the …

Blacklisted: The Constitutionality Of The Federal System For Publishing Reports Of "Bad" Doctors In The National Practitioner Data Bank, Katharine A. Van Tassel

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Beyond War: Bin Laden, Escobar, And The Justification Of Targeted Killing, Luis E. Chiesa, Alexander K. A. Greenawalt

Washington and Lee Law Review

Using the May 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden as a case study, this Article contributes to the debate on targeted killing in two distinct ways, each of which has the result of downplaying the centrality of international humanitarian law (IHL) as the decisive source of justification for targeted killings. First, we argue that the IHL rules governing the killing of combatants in wartime should be understood to apply more strictly in cases involving the targeting of single individuals, particularly when the targeting occurs against nonparadigmatic combatants outside the traditional battlefield. As applied to the bin Laden killing, we argue …

"By Some Other Means": Considering The Executive's Role In Fostering Subnational Human Rights Compliance, Risa E. Kaufman

Cardozo Law Review

The broad realization of human rights domestically requires strong partnership among all levels of government. Indeed, international and domestic law support an important role for state and local governments in implementing the United States's human rights treaty commitments, with the federal government retaining ultimate responsibility. While the federal government's responsibility is clear, its options for fostering and facilitating subnational compliance have not been fully explicated. The United States's human rights treaty ratification practices and recent Supreme Court jurisprudence primarily constrain the executive's ability to compel state and local compliance without congressional authorization. In the absence of such congressional action, the …

Saving Their Own Souls: How Rluipa Failed To Deliver On Its Promises, Sarah Gerwig-Moore

Legislation and Policy Brief

In the summer of 2001, as a graduate student in law and theology, I began work on a master’s thesis that examined the predicament of men of faith on San Quentin’s Condemned Row. I was working in the California Appellate Project—mostly assisting with direct appeals and state habeas petitions on behalf of men under a death sentence—when a colleague guided me into theological conversations with some of our clients. On Condemned Row, they waited—up to five years to be assigned a court-appointed appellate attorney, on judges’ rulings, and to find whether the legal system would ultimately exact the penalty it …

The Icc Prosecutor V. President Medema: Simulated Proceedings Before The International Criminal Court , Pieter H. F. Bekker, David Stoelting

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

On July 18, 2000, as part of the Annual Meeting of the American Bar Association, an all star cast of American and English lawyers gathered in the Common Room of the Law Society of England and Wales in London to simulate oral argument before the International Criminal Court ("ICC"). The fictitious proceedings involved a head of state, President Luis Medema, charged with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The prosecutors and defense counsel engaged in lively oral argument before the Trial Chamber in the context of three critical issues: (1) jurisdiction of the ICC over citizens of non-state parties; …

The Paradox Of Impartiality: A Critical Defense Of The International Criminal Tribunal For Rwanda, Daniel Koosed

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

S-Comm: Shattering Communities, Hannah Weinstein

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

The note argues that the Secure Communities program, initiated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2008, operates unlawfully under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and raises significant constitutional concerns. By bypassing notice-and-comment requirements and failing to address public concerns, the program has led to racial profiling, pretextual arrests, and widespread detention of noncriminal individuals, undermining its stated goals and eroding community trust in law enforcement. The analysis calls for immediate cessation of the program and congressional funding due to its legal violations and harmful consequences.

Madness Alone Punishes The Madman: The Search For Moral Dignity In The Court's Competency Doctrine As Applied In Capital Cases, J. Amy Dillard

All Faculty Scholarship

The purposes of the competency doctrine are to guarantee reliability in criminal prosecutions, to ensure that only those defendants who can appreciate punishment are subject to it, and to maintain moral dignity, both actual and apparent, in criminal proceedings. No matter his crime, the “madman” should not be forced to stand trial. Historically, courts viewed questions of competency as a binary choice, finding the defendant either competent or incompetent to stand trial. However, in Edwards v. Indiana, the Supreme Court conceded that it views competency on a spectrum and offered a new category of competency — borderline-competent. The Court held …

Humanitarian Law In Action Within Africa, Jennifer Moore

Faculty Book Display Case

In Humanitarian Law in Action within Africa, Jennifer Moore studies the role and application of humanitarian law by focusing on African countries that are emerging from civil wars. Moore offers an overview of international law, including its essential vocabulary, and describes four particular subfields of international law: international humanitarian law, international human rights law, international criminal law, and international refugee law. After setting forth this overview, Moore considers practical mechanisms to implement international humanitarian law, focusing specifically on the experiences of Uganda, Sierra Leone, and Burundi. Through the case studies of these countries, Moore describes transitional justice's fundamental components: …

Can Social Science Defeat A Legal Fiction? Challenging Unlawful Stops Under The Fourth Amendment, Josephine Ross

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Sham Of The Moral Court? Testimony Sold As The Spoils Of War, Mark Findlay, Sylvia Ngane

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This paper analyses the critical influences on witness-based truth-telling for judicial decision-making in the international criminal tribunals. The judicial fixation on witness testimony reflects the weight and legitimacy given to personal testimony before international courts. This weight must be balanced by the awareness that a witness may provide false testimony intentionally, or may be coaxed by third parties to provide such testimony, as has been evidenced recently before the ICC. If witness testimony is tainted then its capacity to endorse the truth-finding function of the court is compromised. As a consequence the ability to assert that the tribunal is a …

Negotiating And Mediating Peace In Africa , Nancy Erbe, Chinedu Bob Ezeh, Daniel Karanja, Neba Monifor, George Mubanga, Ndi Richard Tanto

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Last year, a law review solicited my thoughts about, in their words, pushing the envelope with social justice and negotiating peace in a world dominated by power and violence. Taking their language literally, one must ask how to effectively address contemporary obstacles to ensure that the message and, most importantly, the means of justice are truly delivered to those in need. One answer-which may seem obvious to readers but is actually much too rare in practice-is to work with, empower, and support the conflict work of the community members themselves. This article introduces the plans of five African professionals, demonstrating …