Digital Commons Network^™

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 …

Book Review. Russell, Charles, Sacred And Profane: Voice And Vision In Southern Self-Taught Art, Jo Farb Hernandez

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Of Trolls, Davids, Goliaths, And Kings: Narratives And Evidence In The Litigation Of High-Tech Patents, Colleen V. Chien

Faculty Publications

While each patent dispute is unique, most fit the profile of one of a limited number of patent litigation stories. A dispute between an independent inventor and a large company, for instance, is often cast in "David v. Goliath" terms. When two large companies fight over patents, in contrast, they are said to be playing the "sport of kings." Some corporations engage in "defensive patenting" in order to deter others from suing them. Patent licensing and enforcement entities who sue have been labeled "trolls." Finally, observers of the patent system call the use of patent litigation to impose or exploit …

A Rose By Any Other Name: Iconography And The Interpretation Of Isaiah 28:1-6, Rolf A. Jacobson

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

When God Hates: How Liberal Guilt Lets The New Right Get Away With Murder, Jose M. Gabilondo

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

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 …

Detecting Concealment Of Intent In Transportation Screening: A Proof Of Concept, Judee K. Burgoon, Douglas P. Twitchell, Matthew L. Jensen, Thomas O. Meservy, Mark Adkins, John Kruse, Amit V. Deokar, Gabriel Tsechpenakis, Shan Lu, Dimitris N. Metaxas, Jay F. Nunamaker Jr., Robert E. Younger

Faculty Publications

Transportation and border security systems have a common goal: to allow law-abiding people to pass through security and detain those people who intend to harm. Understanding how intention is concealed and how it might be detected should help in attaining this goal. In this paper, we introduce a multidisciplinary theoretical model of intent concealment along with three verbal and nonverbal automated methods for detecting intent: message feature mining, speech act profiling, and kinesic analysis. This paper also reviews a program of empirical research supporting this model, including several previously published studies and the results of a proof-of-concept study. These studies …

International Law In Crisis: A Qualitative Empirical Contribution To The Compliance Debate, Michael P. Scharf

Faculty Publications

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 21, Professors Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner published The Limits of International Law, a potentially revolutionary book that employs rational choice theory to argue that international law is really just “politics” and does not render a “compliance pull” on State decisionmakers. Critics have pointed out that Goldsmith and Posner’s identification of the role of international law in each of their case studies is largely conjectural, and that what is needed is qualitative empirical data that identifies the international law-based arguments that were actually made and the policy-makers’ responses to such …

Book Review: Index To Legal Citations And Abbreviations, 3rd Ed., Duncan E. Alford

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Hidden Legacy Of Holy Trinity Church: The Unique National Institution Canon, Anita S. Krishnakumar

Faculty Publications

This Article explores an underappreciated legacy of the Supreme Court's (in)famous decision in Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States. Although Holy Trinity has been much discussed in the academic literature and in judicial opinions, the discussion thus far has focused almost exclusively on the first half of the Court's opinion—which declares that the "spirit" of a statute should trump its "letter"—and relies on legislative history to help divine that spirit. Scholars and jurists have paid little, if any, attention to the opinion's lengthy second half. In that second half, the Court tells a detailed narrative about the country's …

Hearts And Minds And Laws: Legal Compliance And Diplomatic Persuasion, Christopher J. Borgen

Faculty Publications

This Essay considers the role of international legal argument in the war on terror and, in particular, in the attempts to justify the use of military force. Part I looks at challenges posed by the evolution of military conflict and how this affects diplomacy. In particular, I argue that a reputation for honoring one's treaty commitments and for legality, more generally, is an important part of fostering cooperation and undercutting the support of our adversaries. Part II focuses on how the Bush Administration moved between hostility to international law and attempts to rewrite the rules of international law concerning the …

Understanding Generalist Function, F. Matthew Mihelic

Faculty Publications

A major concern in dealing with multi-agent complex adaptive systems is the understanding of how such systems build order in the midst of an otherwise chaotic universe. The ordering principles of such systems that are found at the biological level can be applied to better understanding human organizations, and can also be used to develop or modify highly complex intelligent agent software systems for greater efficacy. This paper describes the theoretical mechanism of how huge multi-agent complex adaptive systems overcome the exponential increases in entropy that would otherwise cause system collapse, through the use of agents that function to maintain …

Obstacles On The Road To Gender Justice: The International Criminal Tribunal For Rwanda As Object Lesson, Beth Van Schaack

Faculty Publications

Although the substantive law concerned with gender violence is now well established, and the principle of legality can no longer serve as a barrier to prosecutions for gender violence, significant obstacles remain to ensuring a robust system of gender justice in international criminal law in the face of continued violations. These obstacles are less visible than defects in positive law because they emerge in the practice of international criminal law at crucial yet shrouded stages of the penal process: investigation, charging, pre-trial plea negotiations, trial preparation, theprovision of protective measures, and appeals. Most importantly, strong positive law is irrelevant where …

Sovereignty, Deference, And Deportation: Allocating And Enforcing Immigrants' Rights In The United States And Europe, Angela M. Banks

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Cultivating An Understanding Of U.S. Veterans: Our Honored Patients, Tausha Allen, Kent D. Blad, Jennifer Bloomfield, Rachel Dudley, Kelsie Egan, Ron S. Ulberg

Faculty Publications

As nursing students, we specifically chose to devote our time to learning how to better care for the veteran population. We worked with veterans as we traveled to Washington, D.C. and completed clinical experiences in Utah. These experiences greatly altered our perspective toward the armed forces and our appreciation for our nation’s freedom.

We Know No North, No South, No East, No West: Mormon Interpretations Of The Civil War, 1861-1865, Richard Bennett

Faculty Publications

While peace reigns in Utah, civil war, with all its horrors, prevails among those who earnestly desired to see the soil of these valleys crimsoned with the blood of the Saints, and, if we are mistaken in the signs of the times, before the conflict between the North and South shall have ended, all they unitedly desired to see meted out to the Mormons, will be poured out without measure upon those who have initiated the war of extermination, and are now carrying it on with all the energy they severally possess. So read the lead editorial in the Salt …

Finding The ‘World’ In Biblical Studies: God-Talk, Culture, And Hermeneutics In The Study (And Teaching) Of Faith, Gerald A. Klingbeil

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Conceptualizing Aggression, Noah Weisbord

Faculty Publications

The special working group tasked by the International Criminal Court’s Assembly of States Parties to define the supreme international crime, the crime of aggression, has produced a breakthrough draft definition.

This paper analyzes the key concepts that make up the emerging definition of the crime of aggression by developing and applying a future-oriented methodology that brings together scenario planning and grounded theory. It proposes modifications and interpretations of the constituent concepts of the crime of aggression intended to make the definition sociologically relevant today and in the foreseeable future.

Abraham In Arms: War And Gender In Colonial New England, Kyle F. Zelner

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Maximizing Warfighter Capability Using Surveyed Necessity Measurement: Application To The Usaf F-15c Fleet, John M. Colombi, David R. Jacques, Dennis D. Strouble

Faculty Publications

Within the Department of Defense, with changing missions to counter dynamic and asymmetrical threats, the acquisition workforce strives to maximize capability for joint warfighting. How acquisition professionals measure and select capability improvements for the nation’s weapon systems is a perpetual challenge, made even more complex with constrained defense budgets. This study identifies a method for determining which upgrades should be purchased (production) for which aircraft in the F- 15C fleet by optimizing a capability proxy measure. Each upgrade’s “necessity” for a given mission area was obtained by conducting a survey of over 250 experienced F-15C pilots. The solution presented in …

Micro Radio And The Internet: Dissent Network Formation In Media Based Collective Action, Ted Coopman

Faculty Publications

The movement to establish a grassroots community radio system in the U.S. in the 1990s coincided with the rise of the internet. The impact of internet on media based collective action highlighted shortcomings in existing theory. To address this, I develop a dissent network approach. Utilizing participant observation I apply my measures of consensus on system failure, relational density, process and resource sharing, and the centrality of digital networks to the case of micro radio.

The Battle Of Morgarten In 1315: An Essential Incident In The Founding Of The Swiss State, Albert Winkler

Faculty Publications

In 1315 Leopold I of the Habsburg family led an army invaded the early Swiss states of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden. Leopold’s army was typical feudal force and included many knights on horseback. The Swiss states were largely free peasants who were developing infantry tactics, and the conflict with the Habsburgs was in part a social conflict. In one of the most stunning and lopsided military victories in history, the Swiss overwhelmed and routed Leopold’s army at the Pass at Morgarten. Within days, the victorious Swiss states concluded the Pact of Brunnen which was a major step in cooperation between …

The Missouri Compromise And Its Aftermath: Slavery And The Meaning Of America, By Robert Pierce Forbes, Lacy K. Ford, Jr.

Faculty Publications

A review of The Missouri Compromise and Its Aftermath: Slavery and the Meaning of America, by Robert Pierce Forbes

Judicial Foreign Policy: Lessons From The 1790s, David Sloss

Faculty Publications

This Article demonstrates that the exclusive political control thesis is incompatible with the original understanding of the Founders. The Article does not defend originalism as a method of constitutional interpretation; it merely shows that the exclusive political control thesis is inconsistent with an originalist approach.

The Article examines the implementation of U.S. neutrality policy in the period from 1793 to 1797. Other scholars have analyzed the initial formulation of U.S. neutrality policy in 1793. Scholars who focus narrowly on the year 1793, when the United States first articulated its neutrality policy, have concluded that "the federal courts played a relatively …

Neighborhoods Healed Through Restorative Justice, Janine P. Geske, India Mccanse

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Reduced-Feedback Linear Precoding With Stable Performance For The Time-Varying Mimo Broadcast Channel, Michael A. Jensen, Adam L. Anderson, James R. Zeidler

Faculty Publications

This work explores the performance of a multiple-input multiple-output broadcast channel where both the transmitter and receivers have outdated channel knowledge due to node motion or other time-variations in the communication channel. A performance analysis based on measured channel responses reveals significant throughput degradation for optimal linear and nonlinear precoding strategies unless the channel state information (CSI) is frequently fed back to the transmitter. The paper then develops a linear beamforming precoding strategy based on channel distribution information in the form of a full spatial correlation matrix for each user. This algorithm is shown to provide highly stable communication, with …

The Crimes Of Terrorism, Beth Van Schaack, Ron Slye

Faculty Publications

This work is a chapter for a forthcoming book on The Essentials of International Criminal Law to be published by Aspen Publishers as part of its Essentials series. This chapter discusses the contested concept of terrorism under international law, with a focus on efforts to criminalize the phenomenon. In particular, it discusses the major obstacles to achieving an omnibus definition of the crime with a particular emphasis on the intersection of the prohibitions against terrorism and international humanitarian law. Additional chapters in the text address the history of ICL, the sources of ICL, the major international crimes and defenses, and …

The Legal Regulation Of War, Beth Van Schaack, Ron Slye

Faculty Publications

This work is a chapter for a forthcoming book on The Essentials of International Criminal Law to be published by Aspen Publishers as part of its Essentials series. This chapter weaves together the history and contemporary doctrines governing the jus ad bellum (addressing the legality of going to war) with the jus in bello (addressing the rules governing the means, methods, and tactics of warfare once a state of war exists). It then focuses on the penal implications of breaches of these two bodies of war SHOULD BE LAW NOT WAR with respect to the evolving definitions of war crimes …

The Sounds Of Silence: American Criminal Justice Policy In Election Year 2008, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

One of the striking features of the 2008 election cycle has been the absence of crime as a national political issue. Nobody has declared metaphorical war on any type of crime, run an ad about the depredations of a parolee, or even promised 100,000 cops. It may simply be that for a country embroiled in two nonmetaphorical foreign wars and deeply nervous about the state of the economy, crime is a second-order concern. It could be that the big drop in crime of all types throughout the 1990s has made the issue seem less pressing. Whatever the explanation, things are …

The "Middle Ground" Perspective On The Expropriation Of Indian Lands, Eric Kades

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.