Law Commons^™

"Authoritarian International Law" In Action? Tribal Politics In The Human Rights Council, Yu-Jie Chen

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The international human rights regime, a product of post- war liberalism, is increasingly falling under the shadow of authoritarian countries that try to influence the regime in favor of their illiberal agendas. This Article uses the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) as a prism to examine the changing dynamics among leading authoritarian and democratic actors as they contend to shape global human rights norms and institutions. This Article argues that China, the most resourceful authoritarian party-state, is engaging in what can be understood as tribal international politics, forming coalitions with authoritarian governments and developing countries that have different state …

International Human Rights Law: An Unexpected Threat To Peace, Ingrid Wuerth

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

It is a great honor to deliver this lecture in honor of the late Dean Robert F. Boden. I am grateful to all of you for attending. My topic tonight is international law and peace among nations. It may seem a poor fit for a lecture honoring Dean Boden. I did not know him, but I have read that Dean Boden was passionately dedicated to teaching law students about the actual day-to-day practice of law. He believed that law schools should be focused on that sort of professional training—not on policy questions or preparing students to be “architects of society,” …

International Law In The Post-Human Rights Era, Ingrid Wuerth

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

International law is in a period of transition. After World War II, but especially since the 1980s, human rights expanded to almost every corner of international law. In doing so, they changed core features of international law itself, including the definition of sovereignty and the sources of international legal rules. But what might be termed the golden-age of international human rights law is over, at least for now. Whether measured in terms of the increasing number of authoritarian governments, the decline in international human rights enforcement architecture such as the Responsibility to Protect and the Alien Tort Statute, the growing …

The Crisis Of International Law, Rafael Domingo

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article delves into the reasons for the current crisis in the traditional international law system, considering how the system developed through the centuries in order to respond to the needs and circumstances of past historical epochs, as well as how the system is no longer capable of meeting the unique developments and needs of life in the Third Millennium. The Article considers the fundamental problems of a state-based system of international law that--rather than focusing on the prime actor and focus of the law, the human person, and his inherent dignity--concentrates on and gives enormous power to the artificial …

Comparative Models Of Reporting Mechanisms On The Status Of Trafficking In Human Beings, Mohamed Y. Mattar

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

A comprehensive approach to combating trafficking in human beings requires precise knowledge of the scope of the problem and constant evaluation of government responses. Reporting on the status of human trafficking achieves both goals. This Article is designed to examine the various human trafficking reporting mechanisms, including reports that states are required to submit to the United Nations as well as national reports whereby governments engage in a process of self-assessment. Comparative models from Europe and the United States will be examined. The Article analyzes reports released by interministerial task forces as well as congressional hearings held on progress made …

Women's Rights In International Law, Valerle A. Dormady

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Note contains a detailed review of state responses to the Platform for Action produced at the United Nations' Fourth World Conference on Women. The Author finds that this consensus was reached on most of the proposals outlined in the Platform for Action. Certain proposals, however, regarding reproductive and Inheritance issues, were subject to a great deal of dispute during the drafting of the Platform for Action, and many countries ultimately registered reservations as to these proposals. While the news reports of the Fourth World Conference on Women focused on the lobbying activities of both Islamic countries and Catholic countries, …

The United Nations Truth Commission For El Salvador, Thomas Buergenthal

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

From 1992 to 1993, the author served as one of three Commissioners of the United Nations Commission on the Truth for El Salvador. In this Article, the author describes the process the Commission followed in its investigation of acts of violence that occurred in El Salvador between 1980 and 1991. The Article explores how the Commissioners interpreted and applied their mandate, as well as the problems they encountered in gathering information for the Commission's report. The author relates how the Commission arrived at the important decision to include in its report the names of individuals found to have been responsible …

Human Rights In The World Court, Stephen M. Schwebel

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In this Article, Judge Schwebel reviews the cases of the International Court of Justice and its predecessor, the Permanent Court of International Justice, that have substantial human rights implications. He observes that, while the World Court is not a human rights court in the contemporary sense of that term, since standing in contentious cases is limited to States, it nevertheless has constructively dealt with a number of important issues of human rights, as in its early holding that individuals may be the direct beneficiaries of treaty rights.

The Court has played a notable role in promoting the protection of human …

The Approach Of The Helsinki Declaration To Human Rights, Antonio Cassese

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The purpose of this paper is to outline briefly the basic attitude toward human rights evidenced in the Helsinki Declaration. By way of introduction, I shall describe summarily how perceptions of human rights have evolved in the United Nations since the adoption of the Charter in 1945. It is in this context that the novelty of the Helsinki exercise can be viewed and assessed.

There are many ways of analyzing and appraising United Nations action in the field of human rights over the years. This complex phenomenon can be divided into various stages, according to prevailing political philosophy. Three phases …

The International Legal Significance Of The Human Rights Provisions Of The Helsinki Final Act, Alexandre C. Kiss, Mary F. Dominick

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

It may be submitted that the Helsinki Final Act is not a treaty, nor is it similar to resolutions of international organizations. In light of the language used in the text and the signatories' public expressions of intent, the human rights provisions must be deemed to have the same legal nature as the other provisions. The document as a whole falls within a special category of international legal instruments not anticipated by traditional definitions of the sources of international law--that is, non-binding, but directive texts which produce limited legal effects. Its foundation is agreement on a common objective: detente. Its …

Books Received, Journal Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Books Received

AFRICAN GOALS AND DIPLOMATIC STRATEGIES IN THE UNITED NATIONS By Moses E. Akpan

North Quincy, Mass.: Christopher Publishing House, 1976. Pp. 165. $9.95.

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BASIC PROBLEMS OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY

Edited by P.D. Dagtoglou

Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975. Pp. xvii, 286, $18.00.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY ON TAXATION OF FOREIGN OPERATIONS AND FOREIGNERS: 1968-1975

By Elisabeth Owens & Gretchen Hovemeyer

Cambridge, Mass.: International Tax Program, Harvard Law School,1976. Pp. xiii, 107. $7.50.

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THE CONSTITUTION AND THE CONDUCT OF FOREIGN POLICY

Edited by Francis 0. Wilcox and Richard A. Frank

New York: Praeger Publishers, 1976. Pp. xiv, 145. $12.50.

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Book Notes, C. H. H., K. D. K.

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Until the Nuremburg Tribunal, international thought concerning human rights conformed to the idea that the guarantor of these rights was the national sovereign. With the birth of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the need for international guarantees of human rights within a state was formally recognized; that individuals have certain inalienable human rights is a proposition which few nations will dispute today. Furthermore, despite wide ideological differences, most states have found it possible to agree on the scope and consequences of man's fundamental freedoms.