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International Law

Vanderbilt University Law School

Journal

2014

Articles 1 - 14 of 14

Full-Text Articles in Law

Immunity Games: How The State Department Has Provided Courts With A Post-Samantar Framework For Determining Foreign Official Immunity, Erica E. Smith Mar 2014

Immunity Games: How The State Department Has Provided Courts With A Post-Samantar Framework For Determining Foreign Official Immunity, Erica E. Smith

Vanderbilt Law Review

In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled in Samantar v. Yousuf that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act ("FSIA") does not govern the application or determination of foreign official immunity.' Instead, the Court found that the immunity of foreign officials was "properly governed by the common law."2 While the Court failed to explicitly define these common-law principles, it did note that the State Department would play a role in individual official immunity determinations.3 In the years since, the State Department has done just that. Through officially submitted Suggestions of Immunity and Statements of Interest, the State Department has rejuvenated its standards for …

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Soy Dominicano - The Status Of Haitian Descendants Born In The Dominican Republic And Measures To Protect Their Right To A Nationality, Monique A. Hannam Jan 2014

Soy Dominicano - The Status Of Haitian Descendants Born In The Dominican Republic And Measures To Protect Their Right To A Nationality, Monique A. Hannam

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

On September 25, 2013, the Constitutional Tribunal of the Dominican Republic retroactively interpreted the Dominican Constitution to deny Dominican citizenship to children born to irregular migrants in Dominican territory since 1929. The tribunal's decision disproportionately affects approximately two hundred thousand persons of Haitian descent. In general, states have the right to determine their nationality criteria. However, the Dominican Republic violated international law by arbitrarily and discriminatorily depriving the Haitian descendants of their Dominican nationality and by increasing the incidence of statelessness. The international community should intervene urgently and decisively on behalf of the Haitian descendants. This Note proposes specific ways …

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Function And Dysfunction In Post-Conflict Justice Networks And Communities, Elena Baylis Jan 2014

Function And Dysfunction In Post-Conflict Justice Networks And Communities, Elena Baylis

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The field of post-conflict justice includes many well-known international criminal law and rule of law initiatives, from the International Criminal Court to legal reform programs in Afghanistan and Iraq. Less visible, but nonetheless vital to the field, are the international staff (known as internationals) who carry out these transitional justice enterprises, and the networks and communities of practice that connect them to each other. By sharing information, collaborating on joint action, and debating proposed legal rules within their networks and communities, internationals help to develop and implement the core norms and practices of post-conflict justice. These modes of collaboration are …

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The Special Tribunal For Lebanon: A Defense Perspective, Charles C. Jalloh Jan 2014

The Special Tribunal For Lebanon: A Defense Perspective, Charles C. Jalloh

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article analyzes the absence of organs tasked with guaranteeing the rights of the defense in international criminal law. It explains the historical origins of the problem, tracing it back to the genesis of modern prosecutions at the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal. It then explains how the organizational charts of the UN courts for the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone omitted the defense and essentially treated it as a second class citizen before the eyes of the law. This sets the stage for the author to show why the creation of the first full-fledged defense organ in international criminal …

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Judging Leaders Who Facilitate Crimes By A Foreign Army: International Courts Differ On A Novel Legal Issue, Mugambi Jouet Jan 2014

Judging Leaders Who Facilitate Crimes By A Foreign Army: International Courts Differ On A Novel Legal Issue, Mugambi Jouet

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In one of the most significant cases in the history of international criminal law, Prosecutor v. Perisic, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) effectively addressed an issue of first impression: may a military or political leader be convicted for knowingly facilitating crimes by another state's army? The influential tribunal answered this question in the negative--knowledge that the recipients of military assistance are perpetrating crimes is essentially irrelevant absent evidence that the facilitator specifically intended that crimes occur. The ICTY Appeals Chamber thus acquitted Serbian General Momilo Peridid, who had been convicted at trial of knowingly aiding and …

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Determining International Responsibility Under The New Extra-Eu Investment Agreements: What Foreign Investors In The Eu Should Know, Freya Baetens, Gerard Kreijen, Andrea Varga Jan 2014

Determining International Responsibility Under The New Extra-Eu Investment Agreements: What Foreign Investors In The Eu Should Know, Freya Baetens, Gerard Kreijen, Andrea Varga

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The EU's newly acquired competence over foreign investment poses largely unprecedented legal challenges: the Union's unique structure and functioning are bound to raise questions about the traditional format of international investor-State arbitration. Anticipating these challenges, the European Commission has proposed a Regulation on managing the financial responsibility that arises out of such arbitrations; a revised version of this proposal was adopted by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. After outlining the contemporary international investment regime, as well as the relevant aspects of the EU legal system, this Article scrutinizes three problematic issues under international law that …

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Manifest Illegality And The Icc Superior Orders Defense: "Schuldtheorie" Mistake Of Law Doctrine As An Article 33(1)(C)Panacea, Lydia Ansermet Jan 2014

Manifest Illegality And The Icc Superior Orders Defense: "Schuldtheorie" Mistake Of Law Doctrine As An Article 33(1)(C)Panacea, Lydia Ansermet

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

While the Anglo-American and international legal systems adhere to the rule that "a mistake of the law excuses no one," German Schuldtheorie mistake of law doctrine provides for a mistake of law excuse if a defendant's mistaken belief in the lawfulness of his conduct was unavoidable. In a distinct but increasingly overlapping area of law, domestic and international legal systems provide defenses for subordinates acting in obedience to superior orders. At the international level, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court allows defendants charged with war crimes to invoke the defense of superior orders if the command obeyed was …

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Will The New Icao-Beijing Instruments Build A Chinese Wall For International Aviation Security?, Alejandro Piera, Michael Gill Jan 2014

Will The New Icao-Beijing Instruments Build A Chinese Wall For International Aviation Security?, Alejandro Piera, Michael Gill

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The last 6 years have seen an unprecedented level of activity in the field of international aviation law, with the adoption of three new conventions and one new protocol. This is a testament to ICAO's leadership role and its ongoing relevance, particularly in the field of aviation security. The tragic events of 9/11 highlighted some weaknesses in the international law regime and were the impetus behind the nine-year process that led to the adoption of the 2010 Beijing Convention and Protocol. This Article reviews the historical background to the new treaties, including the journey taken through the ICAO process. It …

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Amnesty Or Accountability: The Fate Of High-Ranking Child Soldiers In Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army, Stella Yarbrough Jan 2014

Amnesty Or Accountability: The Fate Of High-Ranking Child Soldiers In Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army, Stella Yarbrough

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In May 2013, Uganda surprisingly resurrected its amnesty provision for two more years after having let it lapse only a year earlier. Uganda's vacillation likely represents its competing desires to grant amnesty to low-level actors in the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and to end impunity for decades of gross human rights violations in accordance with international criminal law. However, instead of crafting an amnesty provision that would satisfy both of these needs, Uganda reinstated the same "blanket" amnesty, or all-inclusive pardon, found in the Amnesty Act of Uganda (2000) (Act). As a result, high-level LRA actors like Thomas Kwoyelo and …

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In Memoriam: Professor Harold G. Maier, Journal Editor Jan 2014

In Memoriam: Professor Harold G. Maier, Journal Editor

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Professor Harold Maier founded the student-edited Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law in 1967 and served as its faculty adviser until his retirement in 2005. He was appointed the David Daniels Allen Distinguished Professor of Law in 1988. He was a co-author of Public International Law in a Nutshell (with Thomas Buergenthal, West Publishing) and dozens of journal articles and book chapters, some written in German, which he spoke fluently. Hired in 1965 to develop Vanderbilt's international law program, Maier sought to establish a program to train students interested in an international legal practice and to enable scholarship in international legal …

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Gimme Shelter: International Political Asylum In The Information Age, Jacob Stafford Jan 2014

Gimme Shelter: International Political Asylum In The Information Age, Jacob Stafford

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

On June 5, 2013, an article in the Guardian revealed highly classified information about surveillance operations being performed by the United States National Security Administration (NSA). The source of this information was a former NSA contractor named Edward Snowden. After arriving in Moscow on June 23, Snowden spent the next forty days in the transit area of Sheremetyevo International Airport in a bizarre state of geopolitical purgatory. Eventually, Russia granted Snowden temporary asylum for one year, followed by a three-year residency permit. This Note uses Snowden's circumstance to consider the current state of international political asylum within the context of …

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Climate Change, Forests, And International Law: Redd's Descent Into Irrelevance, Annecoos Wiersema Jan 2014

Climate Change, Forests, And International Law: Redd's Descent Into Irrelevance, Annecoos Wiersema

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Forestry activities account for over 17 percent of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Since 2005, parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change have been negotiating a mechanism known as REDD--Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation--to provide an incentive for developing countries to reduce carbon emissions and limit deforestation at the same time. When REDD was first proposed, many commentators argued this mechanism would not only mitigate climate change but also provide biodiversity and forests with the hard international law regime that had so far been missing. These commentators appeared to hope REDD would develop into this kind of …

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Blackwater's New Battlefield: Toward A Regulatory Regime In The United States For Privately Armed Contractors Operating At Sea, Sean P. Mahard Jan 2014

Blackwater's New Battlefield: Toward A Regulatory Regime In The United States For Privately Armed Contractors Operating At Sea, Sean P. Mahard

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Piracy has reemerged with a vengeance in the twenty-first century. Although it is confined primarily to the horn of Africa, piracy poses a significant problem to commercial shipping companies that need to traverse the Gulf of Aden for business. In response to modern-day piracy, shipowners have begun to employ privately armed contractors for protection. Countries and international organizations have recently developed regulations to address this growth in private maritime security. This Note analyzes both international and domestic regulatory regimes for privately armed contractors with a specific focus on the United States and Norway. This Note concludes that current U.S. regulations …

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The United Nations Water Courses Convention On The Dawn Of Entry Into Force, Ryan B. Stoa Jan 2014

The United Nations Water Courses Convention On The Dawn Of Entry Into Force, Ryan B. Stoa

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (Watercourses Convention) entered into force in August 2014. Despite overwhelming support when signed in 1997, the ratification process has been slow. As a binding treaty, the Watercourses Convention provides hope that its provisions will articulate legal principles of transboundary water management capable of promoting cooperation and regional agreements. Despite entry into force, however, global support for the Watercourses Convention is weak, concurrent efforts to develop treaty regimes governing water resources create competition for resources and may obscure understandings of international water law, and the foundational principles …

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