Digital Commons Network^™

Protecting Cultural Heritage In Armed Conflict: Looking Back, Looking Forward, Patty Gerstenblith

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

The article argues that the destruction and looting of cultural property during armed conflicts, as exemplified by the 2003 Gulf War and its aftermath, highlight the urgent need for stronger enforcement of international legal frameworks, particularly the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. The failure of the United States to ratify this convention undermines global efforts to protect cultural heritage, despite the U.S. military already adhering to some of its principles through other legal frameworks. The article advocates for U.S. ratification of both the 1954 Hague Convention and its protocols to …

When Common Interests Are Not Common: Why The Global Basic Structure Should Be Democratic, Andreas Føllesdal

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The global constitution-the fundamental international norms and structures that serve constitutional functions-should include mechanisms of democratic contestation and accountability. This central claim of global constitutionalism faces three objections extrapolated from arguments made by Andrew Moravcsik and Giandomenico Majone in debates about the democratic deficit of the European Union (EU): the global constitution only regulates issues of low salience for citizens; democratic control is explicitly counter to the self-binding system that international regulations aim to achieve; and the EU's track record suggests that democratic control at the international level may be unnecessary to ensure congruence between voters' preferences and actual regulations. …

Targeted Killing In U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy And Law, Kenneth Anderson

Working Papers

Targeted killing, particularly through the use of missiles fired from Predator drone aircraft, has become an important, and internationally controversial, part of the US war against al Qaeda in Pakistan and other places. The Obama administration, both during the campaign and in its first months in office, has publicly embraced the strategy as a form of counterterrorism. This paper argues, however, that unless the Obama administration takes careful and assertive legal steps to protect it, targeted killing using remote platforms such as drone aircraft will take on greater strategic salience precisely as the Obama administration allows the legal space for …

Fighting For Human Rights: The Application Of Human Rights Treaties To United States' Military Operations, Patrick Walsh

Penn State International Law Review (1982 - 2011)

No abstract provided.

Rhetoric Without Results: United Nations Security Council Resolutions Concerning Rape During Armed Conflict, Rachel Schreck

Penn State International Law Review (1982 - 2011)

No abstract provided.

Case Posed: But Can The Prosecution Rest?, Charli Carpenter

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Julie Flint and Alex de Waal have published a damning article about the ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo which reads, by extension, as a trouncing of the entire institution. I’m not in the loop with the court’s day-to-day politics well enough to offer an informed counter-argument, so instead, by way of playing devil’s advocate, let me agree for argument’s sake with a number of the authors’ claims, hyperbolic and partisan though they sound at places, and then (again for argument’s sake), push back on the assumptions the authors make about the implications of those claims.

The Rise Of International Criminal Law: Intended And Unintended Consequences, Kenneth Anderson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

The rise of international criminal law has been one of the remarkable features of international law since 1990. One of the less-explored questions of international criminal law is its social effects, within the international community and the community of public international law, in other parts and activities of international law. In particular, what are the effects of the rise of international criminal law and its emerging system of tribunals on the rest of the laws of armed conflict? What are the effects upon apparently unrelated aspects of humanitarian and human rights law? What are the effects upon other large systems …

Cursing Cambodia, Charli Carpenter

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Joel Brinkley has written a heartbreaking piece in Foreign Affairs about Cambodian society thirty-five years after Pol Pot. We are presented with anecdote after anecdote about historical trauma, corruption, and poverty. It’s a depressing picture, and an important country case to have on the US’ foreign policy radar screen.

Atrocity Crimes Litigation: 2008 Year-In-Review, Beth Van Schaack

Faculty Publications

This survey of 2008's top developments in these international fora will focus on the law governing international crimes and applicable forms of responsibility. Several trends in the law are immediately apparent. The tribunals continue to delineate and clarify the interfaces between the various international crimes, particularly war crimes and crimes against humanity, which may be committed simultaneously or in parallel with each other. Several important cases went to judgment in 2008 that address war crimes drawn from the Hague tradition of international humanitarian law, and the international courts are demonstrating a greater facility for adjudicating highly technical aspects of this …

Towards A More Reasonable Approach To Free Will In Criminal Law, Stephen O'Hanlon

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

This paper questions criminal law's strong presumption of free will. Part I assesses the ways in which environment, nurture, and society influence human action. Part II briefly surveys studies from the fields of genetics and neuroscience which call into question strong assumptions of free will and suggest explanations for propensities toward criminal activity. Part III discusses other "causes" of criminal activity including addiction, economic deprivation, gender, and culture. In light of Parts I through III, Part IV assesses criminal responsibility and the legitimacy ofpunishment. Part V considers the possibility of determiningpropensity for criminal activity based on assessing causal factors and …

Homeland Security And Terrorism In Selected European States, Eric M. Deutcher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the United States, the responses to terrorism increased throughout the world. The face of Homeland Security is now heavily focused on the prevention, preparedness, response and recovery of terrorist attacks not only in the United States, but also amongst some of America's oldest allies. This thesis studies the level of change in homeland security strategy of European NATO members after the 9/11 attacks in the United States. The analysis of strategic components within each NATO member's homeland security strategy (history, laws, counterterrorism agencies and budget support) shows significant change. The international community's …

The International Review | 2009 Spring, Michael Rhee

The International Review Newsletter

Cyber warfare and international law: Unresolved issues

The world financial crisis: Time for a new global regulatory regime?

Legal issues in the closing of the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention facility

Hot pursuit: Legal or illegal under international law?

U.S. child custody disputes at home and abroad

Chinese South Africans are now “black”

A new system for making food health claims in the European Union

First arrest warrant issued for sitting head of state

A better way to seek child support payments

Better access to essential medicines for developing countries?

The conflict in Georgia: Recognizing separatist territories and international law

Continuing …

Applying Geneva Convention Principles To Guantánamo Bay, Kyndra Rotunda

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Proportional To Life, Emma Gilligan

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The Economist piece entitled “Proportional to what?” poses a dangerous question. The notion, as the article suggests, that proportionality in war is a “slippery idea” or that the facts are “nebulous” is the work of either an intentionally provocative or idly cynical author. Whatever the motivation for the words, it is precisely the dismissive tone embodied in such statements that has contributed to and defined the attitude more recently of larger states, like Israel and Russia, to issues of accountability for the death of civilians.

Proposal On A Research Institute For The Protection Of Cultural Property In The Event Of Armed Conflicts To The Ludwig Boltzmann Society (Austria), University Of Vienna, Austrian Society For The Protection Of Cultural Property

Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict

No abstract provided.

The U.N. Human Rights Council: Is Its Mandate Well-Designed?, Patrick J. Flood

ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law

This essay is about the design of the mandate of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which was hammered out after a year of negotiations within the General Assembly and then another year within the newly-created Council itself

National Security Courts: Star Chamber Or Specialized Justice?, Mark R. Shulman

ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law

In October 2008, the author moderated a panel discussion addressing the utility of establishing a new national security court system for administering the detention and trial of terrorist suspects.

"Legal Jihad": How Islamist Lawfare Tactics Are Targeting Free Speech, Brooke Goldstein, Aaron Eitan Meyer

ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law

Lawfare is usually defined as the use of the law as a weapon of war' or the pursuit of strategic aims through aggressive legal maneuvers.

The Universal Declaration And Developments In The Enforcement Of International Human Rights In Domestic Law, Michael P. Van Alstine

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

New Modes And Orders: Is A Jus Post Bellum Of Constitutional Transformation Possible Or Desirable?, Nahal Bhuta

International & Comparative Law Colloquium Papers

No abstract provided.

Bordering Capabilities Versus Borders: Implications For National Borders, Saskia Sassen

Michigan Journal of International Law

A core argument of this Essay is that the capability to make borderings has itself switched organizing logics: from institutionalizing the perimeter of a territory to multiplying transversal borderings cutting across that perimeter. This switch is partly linked to the types of scalar shifts in the operational space of a growing number of systems. To the more economic systems already mentioned above, let me add such diverse instances as the policing of the illegal drug trade, the war on terror, the judicial and political struggle to protect human rights, and the environmental effort to reorganize transnational economic sectors, including the …

The Use Of Force Against States That Might Have Weapons Of Mass Destruction, Matthew C. Waxman

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article argues that the most difficult future crises for which this legal debate is most consequential will not resemble those described by Prime Minister Thatcher or Director ElBaradei. Rather, in confronting potentially hostile and aggressive states believed to pose a WMD threat, decisionmakers contemplating the use of force will face an intelligence picture that is open to reasonable debate (contra Thatcher) and irresolvable to high levels of certainty (contra ElBaradei). This paper examines how competing legal approaches deal with this epistemic problem.

Sanctions And International Law (Keynote Address), W. Michael Reisman

Intercultural Human Rights Law Review

Keynote Address by W. Michael Reisman, Myres S. McDougal Professor of International Law at Yale Law School, for the 2008 Intercultural Human Rights Law Review Annual Symposium.

Empowerment Or Estrangement: Liberal Feminism's Visions Of The “Progress” Of Muslim Women, Cyra Akila Choudhury

Faculty Publications

This paper presents some thoughts on the progress of Muslim women towards gender justice. It argues that Liberal Legal feminism shares a common understanding of history and progress with those Liberal political theories that justified the British Empire. Because of this genealogy, Liberal feminism seeks to reform cultures and societies that do not comport with a particular Liberal teleology that forecloses the expression of alternative ideas of history, progress, and human flourishing. It further argues that Muslim women's organizations that partner with Northern organizations sometimes seek to fulfill Liberal expectations of victimhood at the hands of their culture. The consequence …

Protecting Cultural Property Through Provenance, Christopher D. Cutting

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment recommends that Congress take action to bring consistency to the treatment of cultural property in two ways. First, ownership disputes should be settled based on the quality of provenance between competing claimants, a system similar to land title registration. Provenance is the history of a piece of cultural property that shows where it came from and where it has been. Second, to ensure provenance is a complete guide to title all cultural objects, both illegally exported and stolen cultural property should receive the same treatment. Part II of this Comment discusses the history of cultural property regulation. Next, …

States Of War: Defensive Force Among Nations (Reviewing George P. Fletcher & Jens David Ohlin, Defending Humanity: When Force Is Justified And Why (2008)), Guyora Binder

Book Reviews

In "Defending Humanity: When Force is Justified and Why," George Fletcher and Jens Ohlin analogize international defensive force to individual self-defense. Based on this analogy, Fletcher and Ohlin justify a presumptive right on the part of every state to intervene against aggression, and a right of humanitarian intervention in support of national groups but not populations. They oppose reprisals, preemptive defense, and resistance to invading armies by irregular troops. This review essay argues that the relative weakness of the Security Council, the unequal power of states, and the contingency of international recognition on effective force all undermine the analogy between …

U.S. Policy Recommendation: Ottawa Convention On Anti-Personnel Landmines, Trevor Holbrook

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Not At All: Environmental Sustainability In The Supreme Court, James R. May, Kristen Hite

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Gender Strategy Is Not Luxury For International Courts Symposium: Prosecuting Sexual And Gender-Based Crimes Before International/Ized Criminal Courts, Patricia Viseur Sellers

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

The Law And The Host Of The Canterbury Tales, 43 J. Marshall L. Rev. 51 (2009), Frederick B. Jonassen

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.