Law Commons^™

Framing The Responsibility To Protect Doctrine As A Means Of Legal And Moral Intervention With Universal Jurisdiction Legal Obligations Of The Responsibility To Protect Doctrine And Universal Civil Jurisdiction In The Syrian Civil War Crisis, David Satnarine

David Satnarine

No abstract provided.

After Atrocity: Optimizing Un Action Toward Accountability For Human Rights Abuses, Steven R. Ratner

Michigan Journal of International Law

It is a great honor for me to be here to deliver the John Humphrey Lecture. Humphrey led one of those lives within the UN that shaped what the organization has become today—as one of the first generation of UN civil servants, he was to human rights what Ralph Bunche was to peacekeeping, or Brian Urquhart to UN mediation. To read his diaries, so beautifully edited by John Hobbins, is to see a world that has in many ways vanished, a nearly entirely male club, mostly of Westerners, that hammered out new treaties and mechanisms over fine wine and cigars …

Contracting Stability: The Potential Use Of Private Military Contractors As A United Nations Rapid Reaction Force, Jared Genser

Jared Genser

In June 2015, the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations established by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and chaired by former East Timor President José Ramos-Horta, published its comprehensive review of UN Peacekeeping Operations. The Panel observed that it takes an average of six months from when a peacekeeping mission is authorized by the United Nations Security Council to when it is deployed. It further explained that although rapid and effective deployment comes at a cost, responding more quickly saves lives and can avoid a larger, more costly response later. In asking the Secretary-General to develop options for a new …

Old Poison In New Bottles: Trafficking And The Extinction Of Respect, Winston P. Nagan, Alvaro De Medeiros

Winston P Nagan

The new form of slavery comes by that relatively innocuous title, “trafficking.” Trafficking is an illustration of the dynamic character of the social and antisocial forces that conspire to undermine the idea of human dignity in the world community. The forms of crime are in fact dynamic. Frequently the institutional forces behind crime have capital, lethal functionaries, technology, and a capacity to advance criminal interests, both within states and across state lines. To the extent that crime itself is dynamic it must as well be acknowledged that human rights violations in general also have a dynamic character. In short, when …

"First, Do No Harm": Human Rights And Efforts To Combat Climate Change, Naomi Roht-Arriaza

Naomi Roht-Arriaza

No abstract provided.

United Nations Peacekeeping Operations And Security And Reconstruction, Muna Ndulo

Akron Law Review

This Article is in part based on a memorial lecture delivered by Muna Ndulo at The University of Akron School of Law in honor of the late Justice Tawia Modibo Ocran...In August 2000, a famous UN report, the Brahimi Report, acknowledged the shortcomings of the UN peacekeeping efforts and recommended wide-ranging reforms aimed at strengthening the operations and making them more effective. Since then there have been numerous other reports aimed at implementing reforms to strengthen UN PKOs...This Article builds on that report and discusses the broad challenges facing UN peacekeeping missions today and the role of the UN PKOs …

End Sexual Exploitation By Peacekeepers, Lauren Carasik

Media Presence

No abstract provided.

State Actors, Humanitarian Intervention And International Law: Reopening Pandora's Box, H. Scott Fairley

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Internal Colonialism And Humanitarian Intervention, M. Sornarajah

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Conscientious Objection To Military Service: A Report To The United Nations Division Of Human Rights, Jonathan M. Engram

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

A Message Of Hope, Dean Rusk

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Human Rights And Internal Conflicts: Some Aspects Of The United Nations Approach, Thomas Mccarthy

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

“Ya Me Canse”: How The Iguala Mass Kidnapping Demonstrates Mexico’S Continued Failure To Adhere To Its International Human Rights Obligations, Justin A. Behravesh

Justin A. Behravesh

This article addresses the recent kidnapping and disappearance of forty-three college students from Iguala, Mexico (the “Iguala Mass Kidnapping”), under the lens of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (the “Convention”). While Mexico’s reporting documents on its compliance with the Convention paint a positive picture of how that country is adhering to Convention, any notion that the country was in compliance with the Convention was completely shattered through the Iguala Mass Kidnapping. The article concludes that the actions of state officials during the Iguala Mass Kidnapping violated articles one, six, and twenty-three of the …

From Commitment To Compliance: Enforceability Of Remedial Orders Of African Human Rights Bodies, Roger-Claude Liwanga

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Over the last seven decades, there has been a global proliferation of international and regional human rights tribunals. But with no coercive power to enforce their judgments, these international tribunals rely either on the good faith of the State parties or on the political process for the implementation of their remedial orders. This nonjudicial approach to enforcement has showed its limits, as most State parties are noncompliant with international judgments to the detriment of human rights victims. This article recommends a new approach involving the judicialization of the post-adjudicative stage of international proceedings as an avenue to increase the enforceability …

The Right To No: The Crime Of Marital Rape, Women's Human Rights, And International Law, Melanie Randall, Vasanthi Venkatesh

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

More than half of the world’s countries do not explicitly criminalize sexual assault in marriage. While sexual assault in general is criminalized in these countries, sexual assault perpetrated by a spouse is entirely legal. The human rights violations inhere in acts of violence against women are now well recognized. Yet somehow marital rape is a particular form of gendered violence that has escaped both criminal law sanctions and human rights approbation in a great number of the world’s nations.

This silence in the law creates legal impunity for men who sexually assault or rape the women who are their wives …

Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite: The United Nations Declaration Of The Rights Of Indigenous Peoples Fails To Protect Hopi Katsinam From The Auction Block In France, Samantha K. Nikic

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) compels member states to take action in order to protect the rights of the world’s 370 million indigenous peoples, including the right to their cultural property. Notwithstanding the UNDRIP’s robust set of protections, its status as a nonbinding piece of international law remains its ultimate and most fatal flaw. France was an enthusiastic supporter of the UNDRIP at ratification, but has effectively abandoned their position. French auction houses and courts have allowed for sales of Native American sacred property to proceed despite the objections of the Hopi Tribe. In …

The Post-Postcolonial Woman Or Child, Diane Marie Amann

Scholarly Works

This essay is based on remarks given as Distinguished Discussant for the 16th annual Grotius Lecture at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law/Biennial Conference of the International Law Association. The essay examines the international law status of women, on the one hand, and children, on the other, through the contemporary lens of the post-postcolonial world and the historical lens of Hugo Grotius and the colonialist era. In so doing, the essay responds to the principal Grotius Lecture, "Women and Children: The Cutting Edge of International Law," which was delivered by Radhika Coomarswamy, NYU Global Professor …

Frames And Consensus Formation In International Relations: The Case Of Trafficking In Persons, Volha Charnysh, Paulette Lloyd, Beth A. Simmons

All Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the process of consensus formation by the international community regarding how to confront the problem of trafficking in persons. We analyze the corpus of United Nations General Assembly Third Committee resolutions to show that: (1) consensus around the issue of how to confront trafficking in persons has increased over time; and (2) the formation of this consensus depends upon how the issue is framed. We test our argument by examining the characteristics of resolutions’ sponsors and discursive framing concepts such as crime, human rights, and the strength of enforcement language. We conclude that the consensus-formation process in …

White Paper: Options For A Treaty On Business And Human Rights, Anita Ramasastry, Douglass Cassell

Articles

The United Nations Human Rights Council decided in June 2014 to establish an Intergovernmental Working Group to “elaborate an international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises.” The first meeting of the Working Group took take place in Geneva in July 2015. The Council did not further specify what sort of instrument should be drafted. The Center for Human Rights of the American Bar Association and the Law Society of England and Wales asked the present authors to prepare a “White Paper” on possible options for a treaty …

Corporate Social Responsibility Versus Business And Human Rights: Bridging The Gap Between Responsibility And Accountability, Anita Ramasastry

Articles

This article explores the evolution of business and human rights (BHR) from a lawyer’s perspective and examines how it is contextually and conceptually different from corporate social responsibility (CSR) in its aims and ambitions. While CSR emphasizes responsible behavior, BHR focuses on a more delineated commitment in the area of human rights. BHR is, in part, a response to CSR and its perceived failure. This has led to a gap with two disciplines or strands of discourse that are diverging rather than converging. This article explores how the quest for accountability shapes a very different narrative for BHR, which takes …