Digital Commons Network^™

Toward An International Criminal Procedure: Due Process Aspirations And Limitations, Gregory S. Gordon

ExpressO

The breathtaking growth of international criminal law over the past decade has resulted in the prosecution of Balkan and Rwandan mass murderers, the development of a substantial body of atrocity law jurisprudence and the creation of a permanent International Criminal Court with jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The growth of international criminal procedure, unfortunately, has not kept pace. Among its shortcomings, critics have pointed to lengthy pre-trial detention without a real possibility of provisional release, the use of affidavits and transcripts instead of live witnesses at trial, the absence of juries, and the right of prosecutorial …

Human Rights Begin At Home: A Policy Analysis Of Litigating International Human Rights In U.S. State Courts, Anna Maria Gabrielidis

Buffalo Human Rights Law Review

No abstract provided.

The U.S. View Of The Convention On The Rights Of The Child - Time For Reconsideration, Jonathan Todres, Howard Davidson

Faculty Publications By Year

No abstract provided.

The Crimmigration Crisis: Immigrants, Crime, & Sovereign Power, Juliet P. Stumpf

ExpressO

This article provides a fresh theoretical perspective on the most important development in immigration law today: the convergence of immigration and criminal law. Although the connection between immigration and criminal law, or “crimmigration law,” is now the subject of national debate, scholarship in this area is in a fledgling state. This article begins to fill that void. It proposes a unifying theory – membership theory – for why these two areas of law recently have become so connected, and why that convergence is troubling. Membership theory restricts individual rights and privileges to those who are members of a social contract …

Impotence Of Being Earnest: Status Of The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules For The Treatment Of Prisoners In Europe And The United States, Sara A. Rodriguez

ExpressO

The Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners were approved with the most earnest of good intentions at the First United Nations Crime Congress in 1955, in an attempt to establish “what is generally accepted as being good principle and practice in the treatment of prisoners and the management of institutions.” In spite of their noble purpose, implementation of these rules has been somewhat of a disappointment. Europe has adopted the Standard Minimum Rules wholesale. The United States, by contrast, has declined to adopt a set of standards patterned after the Standard Minimum Rules, relying instead on pre-existing correctional …

Calling The United States' Bluff: How Sovereign Immunity Undermines The United States' Claim To An Effective Domestic Human Rights System, Denise L. Gilman

ExpressO

This article challenges the claims made by the United States that the civil rights system in this country adequately protects human rights, making it unnecessary for the United States to take on additional international human rights commitments. Specifically, the article uses international human rights law and comparative law to analyze the broad sovereign immunity doctrines that protect government actors in the United States from suits for damages even where constitutional violations are in play.

Domestic Violence And Legal Reforms In Nigeria: Prospects And Challenges, Itoro Eze-Anaba

ExpressO

The article focuses on the challenges for women’s rights activists attempting to provide a better legal regime for victims of domestic violence in Nigeria. It is my desire to provide a resource material on the issue of domestic violence for activists, policy makers, legislators and law reformers who are engaged in providing a better legal framework for the protection and promotion of women’s rights in a developing country like Nigeria. Having worked extensively on this issue, the article documents my experience on law reform advocacy in Nigeria.

Analysis Of Certain Aspects Of The “Long-Term Legal Strategy Project For Preserving Security And Democratic Freedoms In The War On Terrorism” Report In Light Of Customary International Law, Michael P. Hatchell

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Establishing A Precedent In Uganda: The Legitimacy Of National Amnesties Under The Icc, Robin B. Murphy

ExpressO

After 14 years of unconscionable wrath against local civilians, including enforced recruitment of thousands of child soldiers, the rebel group The Lord’s Resistance Army (“LRA”) was offered amnesty by the Ugandan government in 2000. However, as the conflict continued unabated, the Ugandan government, for the first time in the history of the Court, referred its case to the International Criminal Court (“ICC”). The ICC Prosecutor announced the beginning of an investigation and issued warrants for seven top LRA officers in October of 2005. The potential ICC prosecution raises many questions about the jurisdiction of the new court, including whether the …

Rules Are Made To Be Broken: How The Process Of Expedited Removal Fails Asylum Seekers, Michele R. Pistone, John J. Hoeffner Esq.

Working Paper Series

Immigration inspectors are authorized to deport persons who arrive at U.S. ports without valid travel documents. This process, which usually occurs within 48 hours and does not allow for judicial review, is called expedited removal. This article begins by summarizing the findings of the few studies allowed access to the process. The authors extrapolate from the studies to demonstrate that thousands of genuine asylum seekers have erroneously been deported via expedited removal. The greatest cause of erroneous deportation is a failure by the agency responsible for the process, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), to follow its own rules. The heart …

The Iraqi High Criminal Court: Controversy And Contributions, Michael A. Newton

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The Iraqi High Criminal Court established to prosecute Saddam Hussein and other leading Ba’athists is one of the most visible of the current efforts to establish criminal accountability for violations of international norms. Juxtaposed against other tribunals, the High Criminal Court has provoked worldwide debate over its processes and its prospects for returning societal stability founded on respect for human rights and the rule of law to Iraq. This article explores in detail the legal basis for the formation of the High Criminal Court under the law of occupation. It addresses the relationship between the Iraqi model of prosecuting crimes …

The International Criminal Tribunal For Rwanda: A Paper Umbrella In The Rain? Initial Pitfalls And Brighter Prospects, Jackson N. Maogoto

ExpressO

The tragedy which befell Rwanda in 1994 deserves a special place in the bloodstained pages of history. The Rwandan genocide merits distinction primarily because of its shocking efficiency, its scale and its proportional dimensions among the victim population. The Security Council's resolution establishing the ICTR articulates a set of decisions, assumptions, wishes, and objectives. Primarily, the States that voted in favour of the creation of the ICTR indicated that the root of the problem was individual violations of international criminal law. Only one State that voted for the resolution did not equate ipso facto ICTR actions with justice. That State …

Sovereignty In Transition: Human Rights And International Justice, Jackson N. Maogoto

ExpressO

Sovereign excesses in the twentieth century resulted in the murder of approximately 170,000,000 persons by their sovereign. This statistic, a potent testimony of sovereign excesses through gross and systematic human rights violations firmly places human rights and humanitarian problems on the international plane. This reality (identified and articulated in the Report of the Secretary General’s High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change) firmly places human rights problems on the international plane and mandates a fundamental rethinking about the basis of sovereignty’s political and associational organization in the new millennium. This Article has as its modest aim an examination and analysis …

Christiane Wilke On Global Justice Or Global Revenge? International Criminal Justice At The Crossroads By Hans Köchler. New York: Springer, 2003., Christiane Wilke

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Global Justice or Global Revenge? International Criminal Justice at the Crossroads by Hans Köchler. New York: Springer, 2003.

Civil Liberties V National Security In Times Of Crisis: The Past Use Of Internment Without Trial In The United States And The United Kingdom And The Lessons For The Ongoing 'War On Terror.' , Richard D. Donald

ExpressO

History teaches that, in time of crisis, we have often sacrificed fundamental freedoms unnecessarily. The Executive and Legislative Branches, reflecting public opinion formed in the heat of the moment, frequently have overestimated the need to restrict civil liberties. This has been especially true in regards to internment without trial. Neither novel nor normal, internment is an emergency measure which has regularly been employed in times of national crisis. Through an examination of two historical models this project aims to identify some the difficulties associated with the application of a policy of internment. Given it’s ongoing use around the world in …

Appeasing The International Conscience Or Providing Post-Conflict Justice: Expanding The Khmer Rouge Tribunal’S Restorative Role, Nema Milaninia

ExpressO

Three decades after the Cambodian civil war, the leaders of the Khmer Rouge will finally be brought before an internationalized domestic tribunal. While the majority of those most responsible have died off or received immunity for their conduct, the Khmer Rouge Tribunal has the historic possibility of reaffirming the importance of international criminal justice and providing an historical narrative of the crimes committed and victims created.

This commentary evaluates the importance of restoration in transitional justice and the importance victims and witnesses play in post-conflict justice. This article will argue that previous post-conflict remedies required a balance of restorative and …

The Anomaly Of Guantanamo: Two Innocent Men Caught In A Devastating Legal Limbo, Lauren S. Elfant

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Incapacitation Through Maiming: Chemical Castration, The Eighth Amendment, And The Denial Of Human Dignity, John F. Stinneford

UF Law Faculty Publications

This year marks the tenth anniversary of California's enactment of the nation's first chemical castration law. This law requires certain sex offenders to receive, as part of their punishment, long-term pharmacological treatment involving massive doses of a synthetic female hormone called medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA). MPA treatment is described as chemical castration because it mimics the effect of surgical castration by eliminating almost all testosterone from the offender's system. The intended effect of MPA treatment is to alter brain and body function by reducing the brain's exposure to testosterone, thus depriving offenders of most (or all) capacity to experience sexual desire …

In The Best Interest Of The Child, Ellen L. Buckwalter

ExpressO

Each year more than 200,000 children in the United States are abducted by family members. When a child is abducted across international borders, the difficulties are compounded. Since the late 1970s, The Department of State’s Office of Children’s Issues has been contacted in approximately 16,000 cases involving children who were either abducted from the United States or prevented from returning to the U.S. by one of their parents.

The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (“the Convention”) adopted on October 24, 1980, reflects a worldwide concern about the harmful effects that parental kidnapping has on children …

Must We Trade Rights For Security? The Choice Between Smart, Harsh, Or Proportionate Security Strategies In Canada And Britain, Kent Roach

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Something's Happening Here: Children And Human Rights Jurisprudence In Two International Courts, Bernardine Dohrn

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Refugee Security And The Organizational Logic Of Legal Mandates, Mariano-Florentino Cuellar

ExpressO

While the refugee protection system is one of international law’s most recognizable features, it routinely places massive numbers of refugees in camps in the developing world, where they face chronic threats to their physical security from crime and disorder, coercion, and military attacks. Yet key actors responsible for refugee protection, including host states, advanced industrialized countries, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), generally have failed to prioritize refugee security. This article asks: (1) Why? (2) What have been the consequences? (3) And what do these answers reveal about how organizations carry out legal mandates in complicated political …

Torture: Considering A Framework For Limiting Use, Scott J. Goldberg

ExpressO

Abu Graib, Guantanamo, the War on Terror—the debate over the use of torture is still very much alive in the world today. The debate can be divided into two questions: (1) whether there should be an actual absolute ban where torture is never allowed either ethically or legally, and (2) if torture should be allowed under certain circumstances what form of regulation is best able to ensure that it is used only in those most limited circumstances. Currently, there is an absolute ban in place, yet world leaders, applying a case-by-case utilitarian approach, in fact permit the use of torture …

Gender-Based War Crimes: Incidence And Effectiveness Of International Criminal Prosecution, Andrea R. Phelps

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Modern Day Slavery In Our Own Backyard, Ellen L. Buckwalter, Maria Perinetti, Susan L. Pollet, Meredith S. Salvaggio

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Superstition-Based Injustice In Africa And The United States: The Use Of Provocation As A Defense For Killing Witches And Homosexuals, Jennifer Dumin

ExpressO

This Article examines two different instances where strong cultural and religious beliefs suggest that an individual is justified in taking another’s life. Focusing primarily on South Africa and the United States, it argues that the rationale used to defend those who kill suspected witches and those who kill suspected homosexuals is the same – merely because a criminal holds a belief that the victim is evil, the criminal is somehow entitled to a lesser punishment. In the United States, those who readily recognize the absurdity of the witchcraft defense may have some difficulty in recognizing the same level of absurdity …

Whose Law Is It Anyway? The Cultural Legitimacy Of International Human Rights In The United States, Elizabeth M. Bruch

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Privatization Of Corrections: A Violation Of U.S. Domestic Law, International Human Rights, And Good Sense, Ira P. Robbins

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Analyzing Prison Sex: Reconciling Self-Expression With Safety, Brenda V. Smith

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

When Human Rights Are Swept Away, Stephen Wermiel, Jerome Reide

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.