Law Commons^™

The International Trade Commission: Potential Bias, Hold-Up, And The Need For Reform, William Dolan

Duke Law & Technology Review

The International Trade Commission (ITC) is an alternate venue for holders of U.S. patents to pursue litigation against infringing products produced abroad and imported to the United States. Because the ITC may only grant injunctive relief, it has awarded injunctions in situations where there may have been better and more efficient remedies to the infringement available through litigation in federal district court. The increased likelihood of injunctive relief bolsters the position of patent holders against a wide range of producers in royalty negotiations and can harm the end consumers through a process known as "patent hold-up." There are currently sweeping …

Hope Over Experience?, Cath Collins

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Writing about US human rights policy from the outside is always a disconcerting experience. All bets are off, and all assumptions are turned on their head. Assumptions from the South looking North are that, rhetoric aside, US interests rarely if ever feature human rights protection and promotion in first place. What’s more, they have very frequently featured the opposite: dirty tricks, torture and rendition were sadly familiar to students of Latin American history long before Guantanamo. The Clinton years went some way towards reining in the more blatant contradictions of the 1980s, but they also set in train the easy …

Change We Can Believe In?, Katherine Hite

Human Rights & Human Welfare

We were warned to temper our high hopes for a bold new Obama era of human rights. After all, President Obama would have “a lot on his plate”: a serious economic crisis, high unemployment, over forty million people without health insurance, “two wars,” global volatility. But it’s very hard not to be dismayed by some of the continuities from the Bush to the Obama administration, as well as by some Janus-faced policy decisions with damning human rights implications. When it comes to US-Latin America relations, such decisions include: professing support for progressive immigration reform while expanding regressive anti-immigration measures; claiming …

From Inspiring Hope To Taking Action: Obama And Human Rights, Stephen James

Human Rights & Human Welfare

While President George H. Bush spoke of a new world order, and his “misunderestimated” son mangled the English language at countless press conferences, with Barack Obama the USA now has a talented orator as a president. There is a new word order. But does the new and skillful rhetoric match the reality when it comes to human rights?

The Statesman's Dilemma: Peace Or Justice? Or Neither?, Henry Krisch

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Just as I sat down to comment on President Obama and human rights, I glanced today's (November 19, 2009) The New York Times and found several opinion essays-careful in fact, thoughtful in tone, reasonable in argument-critical of Obama's approach during his recent visit to China toward Chinese human rights violations (mainly concerning Tibet but including also imprisoned lawyers, internet censorship, and persecution of Falun Gong.) The essayists considered various tactics for exerting American pressure on China regarding human rights. Common to all of them was a tone of rueful admiration for the political and diplomatic skill with which China fended …

Playing By The Rules: Combating Al Qaeda Within The Law Of War, David Glazier

William & Mary Law Review

Although the conflict formerly known as the “war on terror” is now in its eighth year, key legal issues governing the use of force and military detention remain largely unresolved. These questions survive the Bush administration, as the United States continues to launch aerial strikes against al Qaeda and President Obama has indicated his intention to continue the use of preventative detention and military trials even after Guantánamo is closed. Military victory is not possible, but good faith application of authority from the law of war can effectively complement traditional criminal law in combating the threat. Even if the Geneva …

The Hidden Costs Of Terror, Cath Collins

Human Rights & Human Welfare

In this month’s featured article, former Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006) gives a thoughtful and insightful account of how post-atrocity accounting and reconstruction feels ‘from the top’. What can an incoming head of state possibly do or say that will redress and repair the social and human costs of decades of violence? What about the centuries of injustice and inequality that fueled the flames? In fact Toledo did perhaps as much as he could, and more than many thought he would be able to, in recognising and beginning to address the ethnic, class, and institutional faultlines that tore Peru apart …

The Peruvian Precedent, Katherine Hite

Human Rights & Human Welfare

In the early days of September 2009, former Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) president Salomón Lerner received a series of sick anonymous messages: “We will do to you what we did to your dogs.” Lerner’s two pet dogs had been fatally poisoned. The poisoning and the death threats against Lerner joined other vicious retaliations, including continuous attacks on another powerful human rights symbol, Lika Mutal’s “The Eye that Cries,” a sculpture in Lima that mourns the tens of thousands of Peruvian victims of internal armed conflict. In a twisted way, the poisoning, death threats, and attacks show that Peruvian …

Developing A Private International Intellectual Property Law: The Demise Of Territoriality?, Graeme B. Dinwoodie

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

November Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

Healing the Past, Protecting the Future. By Alejandro Toledo. Americas Quarterly. July 13, 2009.

From Atrocities To Security: A Parable From Peru, Stephen James

Human Rights & Human Welfare

I have no expertise on the domestic politics of Peru, but I know that its often violent past shares much with its Latin American neighbours. Though not a practice confined to this region, I also know that events in the region have made notorious the chilling euphemism “disappearances.”

The Limits Of Executive Action For Human Rights, Henry Krisch

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Between 2001 and 2006 Alejandro Toledo served as President of Peru. He entered office committed to, in his words, “restoring the democratic institutions that had suffered from a steady deterioration during the previous decade,” (that is, during the rule of former President Alberto Fujimori). Moreover, he took up the task of providing Peruvian society with “a full accounting of the atrocities that had occurred in previous decades.” This personal commitment to re-establishing a functioning democracy based on the rule of law, a commitment based in part on his participation in the anti-Fujimori demonstrations, lead him to seek an honest accounting …

A Human Rights-Oriented Approach To Military Operations, Federico Sperotto

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Counterinsurgency is the dominant aspect of US operations in Afghanistan, and since ISAF—the NATO-led security and assistance force—has assumed growing security responsibility throughout the country, it is also a mission for the Europeans.1 The frame in which military operations are conducted is irregular warfare, a form of conflict which differs from conventional operations in two main aspects. First, it is warfare among and within the people. Second, it is warfare in which insurgents avoid a direct military confrontation, using instead unconventional methods and terrorist tactics.

© Federico Sperotto. All rights reserved.

This paper may be freely circulated in electronic or …

Repression And Punishment In North Korea: Survey Evidence Of Prison Camp Experiences, Stephan Haggard, Marcus Noland

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The penal system has played a central role in the North Korean government’s response to the country’s profound economic and social changes. Two refugee surveys—one conducted in China, one in South Korea—document its changing role. The regime disproportionately targets politically suspect groups, particularly those involved in market-oriented economic activities. Levels of violence and deprivation do not appear to differ substantially between the infamous political prison camps, penitentiaries for felons, and labor camps used to incarcerate individuals for misdemeanors, including economic crimes. Substantial numbers of those incarcerated report experiencing deprivation with respect to food as well as public executions and other …

A Few Drops Of Oil Will Not Be Enough, Stephen James

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn provide a rich description of the various kinds of violence, deprivation, depredation and exploitation that women experience on a vast scale in the developing world. They write of sex trafficking, acid attacks, “bride burning,” enslavement, spousal beatings, unequal healthcare (something the USA still struggles with), insufficient food, gendered abortions and infant and maternal mortality. They are right to identify the education of women and girls as part of the solution to the widespread “gendercide.” However, their approach focuses too much on the capacity, indeed the virtue or heroism, of individual women. It does not take …

V.11-1, 2009 Masthead

San Diego International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Foreword, E. Erin Robbins

San Diego International Law Journal

The eleventh issue of the San Diego International Law Journal is composed of articles examining the world's reaction to conflict and of ideas throughout the world can bring about major shifts in socio-political thought by challenging the status quo, often resulting in conflict within or among nations. As the world becomes a more interconnected society these international issues become more important within U.S. and International Jurisprudence. The authors within this issue explore the myriad of responses a nation may take when presented with a potential conflict.

The Gaza War Of 2009: Applying International Humanitarian Law To Israel And Hamas, Justus Reid Weiner, Avi Bell

San Diego International Law Journal

This Article explores the many international legal issues raised by the Palestinian-Israeli tension along Gaza's borders. It first examines legal issues raised by Palestinian conduct and then turns to legal issues raised by Israeli conduct. As will be demonstrated, criticisms of Israeli behavior ... lack any basis in international law. By contrast, Palestinian behaviors that are rarely criticized constitute severe violations of international law.

Constitutions, International Law, And The Settlement Function Of Law: A Schema For Further Reflection, Larry Alexander

San Diego International Law Journal

Imagine a community living in a defined geographical area. Its members generally believe that their actions should be guided by moral norms, and they generally comply with those norms as they understand them. And, from our external vantage point, we believe that they are indeed subject to moral norms and should comply with them, both in dealing with each other and with those outside their community....

Silencing The Silk Road: China's Language Policy In The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Aurora Elizabeth Bewicke

San Diego International Law Journal

As part of its push for mono-culturalism throughout China in general, and in the XUAR in particular, China's language policy is at the forefront of what some have labeled China's program of "cultural genocide." While most agree that this provocative terminology is overstated, China's language policy may well be at the root of various human rights violations. Part II of this article will describe the historical context and modern realities of China's language policy in the XUAR, which is compromised of both overt policies in the form of laws, regulations, and policy statements as well as more covert policies, which …

Copyright Or Trademark? Can One Boy Wizard Prevent Film Title Duplication?, Anna Phillips

San Diego International Law Journal

This Comment will examine the various approaches that India, the United Kingdom, and the United States take in dealing with film title disputes. Second, this Comment will discuss a case brought by Warner Brothers regrding a Harry Potter film title dispute in India and how the outcome of the case affects title infringement issues... Finally, this Comment will discuss a possible loophole in current trademark regulations regarding film titles that will support the argument that countries should use both copyright and trademark law to minimize the release of film titles that are similar or identical to those already on the …

Towards A New Transitional Justice Model: Assessing The Serbian Case, Roozbeh (Rudy) B. Baker

San Diego International Law Journal

This Article will survey the key episodes of transitional justice in various countries since the 1970s, and then apply the lessons gleaned to the transition of Serbia during the first five years following the deposition of authoritarian ruler Slobodan Milosevic in October 200, and the subsequent establishment of democratic rule...This article will show that the empirical evidence demonstrates that the outcome of the transitional justice process a country undertakes, upon its political stability, needs to be taken into account when fashioning said process.

An International Perspective On Battling The Bulge: Japan's Anti-Obesity Legislation And Its Potential Impact On Waistlines Around The World, Christin Lawler

San Diego International Law Journal

This Comment identifies six factors which my be analyzed to predict the outcome of Japan's new "Metabo" legislation: (1) the compelling need for anti-obesity legislation; (2) the broad authority vested in Japanese physicians and medical policymakers; (3) the Japanese cultural emphasis on harmony; (4) the structure of the Japanese Constitution; (5) the legislation's enforcement mechanisms; and (6) the costs of the program. This Comment predicts that although the cost of implementing the program could pose a serious impediment to initiating the anti-obesity campaign on a national scale, the new legislation is likely to succeed in decreasing Japanese obesity.

De-Cloaking Torture: Boumediene And The Military Commissions Act, Alan W. Clarke

San Diego International Law Journal

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) marked the high tide and endgame for hiding torture. It's unraveling did more to uncover the Bush administration's secret interrogation practices than did the political change in Washington. International and domestic backlash against the government's embrace of harsh interrogation techniques, frequently rising to the level of torture, also played a role. However, the Supreme Court's decisions ending in Boumediene v. Bush played the decisive role. Boumediene, and the Supreme Court decisions that led up to it, made inevitable that which politics had left contingent and reversible. It also provided legal and political cover.

Making Transfer Of Clean Technology Work: Lessons Of The Clean Development Mechanism, Mei Gechlik

San Diego International Law Journal

This Article takes a closer look at the case of China to fill the gap. It draws on numerous sources including Chinese laws and regulations, the country's policies on climate change, the country's technological capabilities and business environment, observations made by CDM specialists, and other studies of CDM projects. Such a comprehensive discussion, together with Dechezleprete et al.'s findings, will present a more complete picture of what actually drives the transfer of clean technologies to China and will, therefore, help design an effective post-Kyoto framework to facilitate international diffusion of clean technologies.

Death Is Different And A Refugee’S Right To Counsel, John R. Mills, Kristen M. Echemendia, Stephen Yale-Loehr

Cornell International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Mañana, Mañana: Trans-Cultural Perceptions Of Time And The Role Of Polychronism In Latin American Legal Systems, Audrey Pumariega

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reconciling Policy And Equity: The Ability Of The Internal Revenue Code To Resolve Disputes Regarding Nazi-Looted Art, Joseph F. Sawka

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

From Outrage To Action, Henry Krisch

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Kristof and WuDunn provide a vivid panoramic view of problems faced by women (primarily in the “developing” world), what has been done and what more could be done to help them achieve dignity and autonomy in their lives, and how vindication of their rights could contribute to the broader social development of their societies. In this they provide us with important insights into how human rights might be effectively proclaimed and successfully implemented. In reviewing their considerable contributions, I shall also suggest some limitations on both their analysis and their policy recommendations.

Violence In The House, Katherine Hite

Human Rights & Human Welfare

There was something particularly haunting in reading this Kristof and WuDunn piece during the week’s major US headlines: a girl in California had been imprisoned for eighteen years in the home of a man who kidnapped and raped her, fathered her children, and employed her in his small enterprise—a business card design and printing agency. Business clients interviewed for the story appeared completely taken aback. Clients had always found the now twenty-nine-year-old Jaycee Dugard “professional, polite, and responsive” as well as “creative and talented in her work.” Others expressed similar shock, recounting that Ms. Dugard “was always smiling.” Ms. Dugard’s …