Law Commons^™

Untangling Belligerency From Neutrality In The Conflict With Al-Qaeda, Rebecca Ingber

Faculty Scholarship

The legal architecture for the conflict with al-Qaeda and the Taliban has been the subject of extensive scrutiny through two presidential administrations, a decade of litigation, and multiple acts of Congress. All three branches of the federal government have to date defined the framework as one of armed conflict, and have looked to the laws of war as support for expansive authorities concerning the use of force, including detention. Yet the laws of war do not merely contemplate broad state authority; they also provide critical and non-derogable constraints on that authority. Nevertheless considerable debate rages on with respect to whether …

Veterans Benefits In 2010: A New Dialogue Between The Supreme Court And The Federal Circuit, Paul Gugliuzza

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court rarely grants certiorari in a veterans benefits case. Congress gave the Federal Circuit exclusive jurisdiction over veterans appeals in 1988 but, until 2009, the Supreme Court had reviewed only two Federal Circuit veterans decisions. In the 2010 Term, however, the Court decided its second veterans case in less than two years. Although patent lawyers are familiar with a trend of increasing Supreme Court interest in the Federal Circuit’s work, little attention has been paid to the similar, albeit incipient, trend that may be emerging in the field of veterans law.

In this contribution to the annual Federal …

When Men Are Harmed: Feminism, Queer Theory, And Torture At Abu Ghraib, Aziza Ahmed

Faculty Scholarship

In this Article I explore the assertions of "anti-imperialist" feminist scholars who critique "imperial feminism" for its support of the war on terror (WOT). I bring into this analysis the proposition by queer theorists that feminist reliance on male/ female subordination has the potential to not only obscure harm in times of war but also to perpetuate it. As a case study, I focus on the Abu Ghraib prison photos that depict, in part, female soldiers torturing male Iraqi prisoners. In conducting this analysis, I reveal the analytical limitations of dominance and cultural feminists, particularly with regard to male harm …