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The Geneva Conventions At 75: An Argument That New Legal Authority Is Needed To Fill Critical Gaps, Sandra Hodgkinson

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

For seventy-five years, the Geneva Conventions have served as the gold standard of treatment for military forces that take part in hostilities. However, modern developments on the battlefield, including the rise of non-state actors in today’s conflicts, have exposed gaps in the Geneva Conventions that require new legal authority. States should pursue avenues to fill these gaps with binding new legal authority, as well as continue the development of customary international law, and soft-law projects. (Abstract from author.)

New Treaty Law On Autonomous Weapons? An Opportunity To Reframe The Discourse, Laurie R. Blank

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

Calls for a new treaty for autonomous weapons—or for any other new technology—stem from a concern at the most basic level: the concern that LOAC’s existing treaties are not sufficient to fulfill their core purposes of protecting civilians and other vulnerable persons and regulating the conduct of hostilities. Could treaties drafted in 1949—when air power was new and space a distant dream, when the first operational computer ran its first program and navigation relied on the compass and sextant—be sufficient for the complexities and challenges of the electromagnetic spectrum, artificial intelligence, quantum mechanics, machine learning, cyber, anti-satellite weapons, and other …

Table Of Contents, Loyola University Chicago International Law Review

Loyola University Chicago International Law Review

No abstract provided.

An International Law Of The Emotions, Emily Kidd White

All Papers

Talk of the emotional or affective turn in international law is relatively recent though it tracks and echoes several other critical methods movements, including the turn to history, in the study of international law and, so too, a two-decade long wave of law and emotions research in several domestic legal systems. The affective turn in international law in several instances aims to critique a post-Cold War optimism that held out the promise that a rules and reason-based international order would work to abate war, and secure peace, prosperity and efficient capital flows. As outlined by the editors of this volume …

Countries As Laboratories: Reflections On Sierra Leone’S Amended Anti-Human Trafficking Law, Andrea L. Dennis

Scholarly Works

Sierra Leone’s improved anti-trafficking laws align with global norms, but enforcement remains weak due to socio-economic realities and Western deterrence mismatches, limiting effective prosecution despite recent legislative reforms.

Crimes Against Humanity And Customary International Law, Leila Nadya Sadat

Scholarship@WashULaw

A draft text of a treaty on the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity was finally sent to negotiations by the U.N. General Assembly on December 4, 2024, after six long years of advocacy by States and civil society. Questions remain, however, with regard to how crimes against humanity will be defined in the new treaty. On the one hand, some States have embraced a definition of crimes against humanity that tracks Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (“ICC”). Other States have rejected Article 7 as the basis for the new treaty, but theirs …

Police Brutality As Democide In The United States: The Supreme Court’S Acquiescence To Police-Civilian Violence, Jillian Fantuzzi

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

"Never again" is a power phrase used by survivors, observers, scholars, and descendants of survivors when reflecting on the mass casualties of innocent civilians resulting from government methods, like Nazism, ethnic cleansing, communism, and genocide, to exterminate groups deemed different or less than. Many blame dictatorial regimes for these mass atrocities, making democracy appear as a sound solution due to its attractive system ofchecks and balances. However, where the government agents responsible for mass killings of unarmed civilians remain unchecked by the judiciary, the product is not democracy but "democide." This unchecked power serves as a method of persecution of …

Fairness Writ Large Or Small In International Criminal Justice, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

For this symposium, I was not assigned to talk about Megan [Fairlie]’s work per se, and so I initially planned to discuss something completely different. In the end, however, I came back to Megan’s work because I believe her scholarship provides a new way of thinking about the entrenched challenges currently facing our collective field of study: international criminal law and procedure.

As we all know, Megan was an accomplished comparativist, and her area of expertise was criminal procedure. Even more particularly, Megan specialized in the criminal procedure of the still relatively new international criminal courts and tribunals. She focused …

Worker Protection Or Commercial Facilitation: The British Empire, Labor Governance And The Gradual Invisibilization Of Labor Coercion During The Age Of High Imperialism, Christopher Roberts, Michelle Ong

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

This article considers labor governance and coercive labor practices in the British Empire between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In particular, it focuses its attention on several major commissions of inquiry undertaken around the British Empire in the period, as well as reforms that took place alongside those inquiries. In part, the article concludes these reforms were motivated by protective purposes, demonstrating some degree of genuine concern with workers’ well-being. More significantly, however, it finds these reforms were motivated by British imperial desire to ensure stable labor supplies, enhance the legitimacy of the British Empire, and establish more …

Introduction: In Honor Of Professor Megan A. Fairlie, Antony Page

FIU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Provisional Release At International Criminal Courts And Tribunals – Lessons Learned?, Ava Schuster, Göran Sluiter

FIU Law Review

This article builds on Professor Meghan Fairlie’s earlier critique of pre-trial detention practices at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Fairlie identified significant shortcomings in safeguarding the right to liberty and the presumption of innocence of detainees, arguing that the Tribunal’s approach was inconsistent with international human rights law (IHRL). Fifteen years later, how has the International Criminal Court (ICC) addressed these concerns? While the Rome Statute introduces notable improvements, including an explicit commitment to IHRL, the Court’s practice still heavily favors detention over liberty. A key issue remains the ICC’s reliance on State cooperation for provisional …

Data Injustice In Global Justice, Asaf Lubin, Cherry Tang

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In May 2020, the United Nations Secretary-General unveiled a sweeping “Data Strategy for Action by Everyone, Everywhere,” seeking to unlock the UN’s “full data potential.” The International Criminal Court’s Office of the Prosecutor followed suit, declaring in 2023 its intent to acquire advanced cyber forensic tools so as to hold the “widest range of digital evidence globally.” Across international institutions, data-driven governance has become the norm, with humanitarian agencies and tribunals transforming into “data hubs and information clearinghouses.” This Article critiques the unfettered datafication of global justice by international courts and organizations. These entities have aggressively expanded their data-driven operations …

Inge Viermetz, Woman Acquitted At Nuremberg, Diane Marie Amann

FIU Law Review

Conventional narratives tend to represent the post-World War II international criminal proceedings as a men’s project, thus obscuring the many women who participated, as lawyers, journalists, analysts, interpreters, witnesses, and defendants. Indeed, two women stood trial before Nuremberg Military Tribunals. This article examines the case of the only woman found not-guilty: Inge Viermetz, who had been an administrator at Lebensborn, the Nazi SS adoption and placement agency. The article outlines the prosecution’s child-taking case against Viermetz, as well as her successful gendered self-portrayal as a conventionally feminine caregiver. With references to Professor Megan A. Fairlie, at whose memorial symposium it …

Beyond Policy: Overcoming Challenges In Prosecuting Gender Persecution At The International Criminal Court, Yvonne M. Dutton, Milena Sterio

FIU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Professor Megan A. Fairlie's Scholarship On The Relationship Between The United States And The International Criminal Court, Jennifer Trahan

FIU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Contested Criminalization, Steven Arrigg Koh

Faculty Scholarship

How does the U.S. government decide to deploy criminal justice abroad? From the Syrian civil war to the Israel-Gaza conflict, Russia-Ukraine War, and U.S.-China relations, criminal law sits at the heart of contemporary U.S. foreign relations. And yet legal scholarship has never precisely explained how the U.S. government deploys or supports criminal prosecutions abroad, often defaulting to simplistic labels of the United States as exceptionalist, carceral, or isolationist. This Article rectifies this by introducing a theory of contested criminalization, piercing the veil of U.S. government decisionmaking in its use of criminal law in foreign policy. According to this process, …

Challenging The Law, Steven Arrigg Koh

Faculty Scholarship

Frédéric Mégret’s engaging contribution, A Look Back at The Women’s Hague Peace Conference: What Contribution To International Law Today?, exposes a legal duality. On one hand, the legalist perspective: law is a closed system. From this perspective, law is objective, hard, universal, and bounded. On the other hand, the sociocultural perspective: law is a human practice. From this perspective, law is subjective, organic, particular, and porous. This Essay reads Mégret’s analysis of the 1915 International Congress of Women in The Hague as a “sociocultural challenge,” disrupting the legalist perspective on international law, war, and peace during World War I. …

Reviving The Genocide Convention’S Preventive Purpose, Yonah Diamond, John Packer

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

The contemporary discourse on genocide is dominated by international criminal law, designed to punish individuals after the fact. This article proposes a legal framework derived from Public International Law and the Genocide Convention’s original purpose to prevent genocide. We clarify the conceptual and practical differences between individual criminal responsibility for the crime of genocide and State responsibility for breaches of the Genocide Convention, including distinct standards of proof and indicia of intent. We propose correctives to prevailing errors. We argue for a more appropriate and flexible standard of proof for State breaches of the Genocide Convention. We further outline a …

Rethinking The Application Of Formal And Informal Justice Responses To Conflict Related Sexual Violence In Uganda, Josephine Ndagire

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Nearly sixteen (16) years since the "Agreement on Cessation of Hostilities Between the Government of the Republic of Uganda and Lord’s Resistance Army/Movement" (Juba Peace Agreement), accountability mechanisms envisaged therein have hardly provided meaningful redress, if at all, to victims of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV). The peace negotiations took place shortly after the ICC issued arrest warrants for top commanders of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) who insisted on being tried at home. In a bid to balance the demands of peace and justice, a local accountability mechanism was agreed. The mechanism would work parallel to traditional justice mechanisms in …

After Impunity: The Anti-Impunity Norm, The Colombian Special Jurisdiction For Peace, And The Future Of International Criminal Law, Max Pensky

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

The predominance of international criminal law as a frontline response to atrocity crimes prioritizes the countering of impunity as an overarching goal. A corresponding “anti-impunity norm” identifies the legal punishment of individual perpetrators as a core requirement in legal responses to atrocities. This anti-impunity norm – the requirement to prosecute and punish – is also a legal obligation for state parties to the International Criminal Court. But the anti-impunity norm equates impunity’s opposite – accountability – with the imposition of legal punishment. This narrow interpretation of impunity places limits on states’ ability to craft context-specific responses to atrocities while also …

Beyond Hierarchy: Investigating The Role Of Complex-Fluid Structures In The Accountability Of Criminal Organizations, María Manuela Márquez Velásquez, Rodrigo Moreno

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Globalization and technological development have led to quick transformations in criminal organizations, adapting to new forms/degrees of control and hierarchy. Existing legal frameworks governing responsibility for atrocity crimes have developed from the experiences of Western (center) countries and their understanding of traditional warfare structures. Thus, peripheral regions have been forced to employ doctrines with weak sociological basis. New and conventional local dynamics inside organizations and their consequential fluidity challenge the applicability of traditional modes of liability when seeking their members’ accountability.

This paper inquires about the suitability of two modes of liability under ICL –perpetration through an organization and superior …

Assembling Pieces Of Accountability For The Srebrenica Genocide, Annick Pijnenburg, Nataša Nedeski

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

The Srebrenica genocide has been the subject of multiple legal proceedings against various actors before different courts, at both the national and international level. Amongst others, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has sentenced various individual perpetrators, the International Court of Justice has ruled on the responsibility of the Serbian state, and Dutch courts have been asked to rule on the liability of the Dutch state and the United Nations. This raises the following question: to what extent have multiple adjudicatory mechanisms across legal regimes managed to deliver accountability for the Srebrenica genocide and what are the remaining …

Global Human Rights Sanctions: How Can They Contribute To Addressing Mass Atrocities?, Yifan Jia

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Global Human Rights Sanctions (GHRS) have been used in over 30 countries as a mechanism for imposing unilateral human rights sanctions on individual perpetrators. Despite the hundreds of specific sanctions that have been imposed globally, there remains a lack of understanding about how these measures function on gross human rights violations. This article seeks to explore how GHRS, as an emerging human rights mechanism, contributes to addressing mass atrocities. I categorize the functions of GHRS into two phases: post-atrocity and pre-atrocity. In the post-atrocity phase, I identify three primary objectives asserted by sanctioning states: punishing perpetrators, promoting behavioral change, and …

The Geopolitics Of Group Referrals To The International Criminal Court And Its Implications On The Court's Legitimacy And Credibility, Dr. Destaw A. Yigzaw

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Under the Rome Statute, situations are referred to the International Criminal Court (“ICC” or “Court”) either by a state party or the Security Council. In recent years, however, referrals from both sources have become difficult to come by. Instead, there is an evolving practice of referrals by a coalition of third states parties (“group referrals”). Yet, a group referral as a trigger mechanism does not have an explicit textual basis under the Rome Statute (“Statute” or “ICC Statute”). There is no rationale for it either, since a referral by a single state party is all that is needed to trigger …

No Conozco A Ninguna Miranda Y Quiero Mi Abogado: The Constitutional Inadequacies Of Translated “Miranda Cards” In Police Interrogations, Sean Werkheiser

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

This article explores the challenges and complexities surrounding the application of the Miranda warning in the United States and specifically addresses its impact on non– English–speaking immigrants. While many Americans are familiar with these rights, recent immigrants may not fully understand them, particularly if they come from countries that do not offer equivalent legal protections. This article performs a comparative analysis of the right to silence and counsel in Cuba, Haiti, and Colombia—three countries with the largest immigrant populations in Miami, FL. Furthermore, this article examines how Miami-Dade Police address the linguistic barriers inherent in translated “Miranda Cards,” and argues …

A Delicate Balance: Adopting The French Court Of Cassation's Dual Criminality Interpretation, Matthew Hosler

Et Cetera

This Note recommends potential language to be added to various States’ criminal codes to incorporate the French Court of Cassation’s interpretation of the Dual Criminality requirement for prosecutions under universal jurisdiction. This recommendation stems from research into the concept of universal jurisdiction, leading to the discovery of the May 2023 Court of Cassation’s decision that created a pathway for countries to have jurisdiction over specific international crimes despite the crime being committed in another country. Specifically, this Note details the history of universal jurisdiction and its dual criminality requirement from the 17th century to modern times. Next, the Note details …

Barbosa De Souza Et Al. V. Brazil, Cristina Tenorio

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

This case is about the murder of a young Black woman by a member of

the legislature of the State of Paraíba, in Brazil. Investigation and

prosecution of the murder were hindered by parliamentary immunity.

Eventually, the Court found Brazil in violation of several articles of the

American Convention and of the Convention of Convention of Belém do

Pará.

Protecting Students' Privacy: Expanding The Use Of Pseudonyms In Civil Litigation Concerning Sexual Assault At Colleges In The United States And Canada, Cassi Epstein

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

No abstract provided.

From Forced To Free Labor, Christopher M. Roberts

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

No abstract provided.

The Use Of Geospatial Imagery In Myanmar For Mass Atrocity Prevention, Elisenda Calvet-Martínez

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This paper aims to explore to what extent the usage of geospatial imagery can serve as a tool for atrocity prevention in a context of armed conflict and post-conflict. While most attention has been paid to the use of geospatial imagery to document mass atrocities for advocacy and accountability purposes, less attention has attracted the potential of this technology as a preventive tool. In the case of Myanmar, a special interest is on how to advance in the use of geospatial imagery to guarantee the safe return of the Rohingya refugees and how to prevent acts of genocide after the …