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Criminal Law

Pace University

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International Law

Articles 1 - 6 of 6

Full-Text Articles in Law

Duress, Demanding Heroism And Proportionality: The Erdemovic Case And Beyond, Luis E. Chiesa Jan 2008

Duress, Demanding Heroism And Proportionality: The Erdemovic Case And Beyond, Luis E. Chiesa

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article discusses the Erdemovic case in order toexamine whether duress should be a defense to a crime against humanity. Although the Article contends that the arguments in favor of permitting the defendant to claim duress weaken as the seriousness of the offense charged increases, the Article also argues that the duress defense should usually succeed if it can be proved that the actor could not have prevented the threatened harm by refusing to capitulate to the coercion. After balancing the competing considerations, the Author concludes that the defendant in Erdemovic should have been able to claim duress as a …


Justice Without Politics: Prosecutorial Discretion And The International Criminal Court, Alexander K.A. Greenawalt Jan 2007

Justice Without Politics: Prosecutorial Discretion And The International Criminal Court, Alexander K.A. Greenawalt

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The ICC Prosecutor's own charging policies should be prepared to give way to the judgments of legitimate political actors in times of political transition when actual arrests are more likely and competing justice proposals pose a more troubling challenge to the ICC's authority. In that scenario, I argue that the Prosecutor should encourage legitimate political actors to reach policy decisions that will command deference by the ICC. Such deference could take one or both of the following forms: (1) explicit deference to political actors, principally the U.N. Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, and (2) implied …


The Act Requirement As A Basic Concept Of Criminal Law, Luis E. Chiesa Jan 2007

The Act Requirement As A Basic Concept Of Criminal Law, Luis E. Chiesa

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


The Death Penalty--An Obstacle To The "War On Terrorism"?, Thomas Michael Mcdonnell Jan 2004

The Death Penalty--An Obstacle To The "War On Terrorism"?, Thomas Michael Mcdonnell

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

September 11 seared our collective memory perhaps even more vividly than December 7, 1941, and has evoked a natural demand both for retribution and for measures to keep us safe. Given the existing statutory and judicial authority for capital punishment, the U.S. Government has to confront the issue whether to seek the death penalty against those who are linked to the suicide attacks or to the organization that sponsored them or both. Meting out the death penalty to international terrorists involves difficult moral, legal, and policy questions. The September 11 crimes were not only domestic crimes, but also international ones. …


Rethinking Genocidal Intent: The Case For A Knowledge-Based Interpretation, Alexander K.A. Greenawalt Jan 1999

Rethinking Genocidal Intent: The Case For A Knowledge-Based Interpretation, Alexander K.A. Greenawalt

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

From its initial codification in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide to its most recent inclusion in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the international crime of genocide has been defined as involving an "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such." The predominant interpetation of this language views genocide as a crime of "specific" or "special" intent, in which the perpetrator deliberately seeks the whole or partial destruction of a protected group. This Note pursues an alternate approach. Relying on both the history of …


Defensively Invoking Treaties In American Courts--Jurisdictional Challenges Under The U.N. Drug Trafficking Convention By Foreign Defendants Kidnapped Abroad By U.S. Agents, Thomas Michael Mcdonnell Jan 1996

Defensively Invoking Treaties In American Courts--Jurisdictional Challenges Under The U.N. Drug Trafficking Convention By Foreign Defendants Kidnapped Abroad By U.S. Agents, Thomas Michael Mcdonnell

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article unravels the non-self-executing treaty doctrine, examines the invocation of a treaty as a defense to governmental action, and develops a test for when an individual (rather than a government) may assert a treaty defensively in state or federal courts. Lastly, this Article applies this test to state-sponsored kidnapping and the U.N. Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. The parties to this treaty, which was sponsored by the United States, barred one country's law enforcement agents from operating without permission on another country's soil and rejected a provision requiring a country to extradite its own …