Law Commons^™

The Transformation Of The Laws Of War Into Humanitarian Law, Mark Antaki

Studio for Law and Culture

This study undertakes a genealogy of crimes against humanity. It inquires into key historical transformations that preceded the official birth of crimes against humanity in positive international law. The study brings to light changes in understandings of law, politics, and human being-together that accompany the articulation of crimes against humanity.

To speak of crimes against humanity is to speak the death of God. With the French Revolution, man displaces God as ground and measure of law and politics, leading to the articulation of crimes against humanity. The man who displaces God is “natural man,” a man who is naturally …

The Kosovo Crisis: A Dostoievskian Dialogue On International Law, Statecraft, And Soulcraft, Antonio F. Perez, Robert J. Delahunty

Scholarly Articles

The secession of Kosovo from Serbia in February 2008 represents a stage in the unfolding of a revolution of "constitutional" dimensions in International Law that began with NATO's 1999 intervention in Kosovo against Serbia. NATO's intervention called into question the authority and viability of U.N. Charter system for maintaining international peace. Likewise, the West's decision in 2008 to support Kosovo's secession from Serbia dealt a further blow to the central post-War legal rules and institutions for controlling and mitigating Great power rivalry. Russia's later support for South Ossetia's secession from Georgia demonstrated the potential that the Kosovo precedent has for …

Hearts And Minds And Laws: Legal Compliance And Diplomatic Persuasion, Christopher J. Borgen

Faculty Publications

This Essay considers the role of international legal argument in the war on terror and, in particular, in the attempts to justify the use of military force. Part I looks at challenges posed by the evolution of military conflict and how this affects diplomacy. In particular, I argue that a reputation for honoring one's treaty commitments and for legality, more generally, is an important part of fostering cooperation and undercutting the support of our adversaries. Part II focuses on how the Bush Administration moved between hostility to international law and attempts to rewrite the rules of international law concerning the …

United States Detention Operations In Afghanistan And The Law Of Armed Conflict, Matthew C. Waxman

Faculty Scholarship

Looking back on US and coalition detention operations in Afghanistan to date, three key issues stand out: one substantive, one procedural and one policy. The substantive matter – what are the minimum baseline treatment standards required as a matter of international law? – has clarified significantly during the course of operations there, largely as a result of the US Supreme Court’s holding in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. The procedural matter – what adjudicative processes does international law require for determining who may be detained? – eludes consensus and has become more controversial the longer the Afghan conflict continues. And the …