Law Commons^™

Eastern And Southern Ukraine's Right To Secede And Join The Russian Federation: A Secessionist Manifesto, John Ja Burke

John JA Burke

This article aims to answer a multi-faceted question: do the people occupying the region of Eastern and Southern Ukraine have the right to secede from Ukraine and merge with the Russian Federation? It also evaluates the legal status of the economic sanctions imposed upon the Russian Federation for its alleged interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine.

Public International Law provides no definitive answer to the first question, although “conventional wisdom” denies a right of secession. The denial turns primarily on two United Nations General Assembly Resolutions: (1) the UN General Assembly Declaration on Decolonisation, and (2) the UN General …

The Importance Of Realizing 'Other Rights' To Prevent Sex Trafficking, Jonathan Todres

Jonathan Todres

International law has long prohibited sex trafficking. The current international legal framework on sex trafficking sets forth a three-pronged approach to anti-trafficking efforts: (1) criminalization of acts of trafficking, (2) trafficking prevention programs, and (3) aid for victims of trafficking. To date, efforts undertaken by various countries have focused primarily on the first component, with comparatively minimal resources being allocated to prevention or victim assistance programs. Those countries that have initiated prevention measures tend to adopt a narrow view of "prevention programs" – focusing on activities such as public awareness campaigns warning of the penalties associated with such crimes or …

Labor Rights And Free Trade; Social Development Parallel To Economic Development, Hassan Razavi

Hassan Razavi

The trade-based distributional policies have reinforced the issue of social standards in societies and the encroachment of free trade on other international standards particularly the labor standards has linked this matter with the issue of comparative advantage, thus opening the door for claims which are not made in good faith. This research studies the linkage of free trade and social standards under the WTO umbrella and based on justice theories, develop a framework in which the claims for both the protection of human rights and economic growth could be met by developing the idea of parallelism within the current regime …

The Evolution Of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act; Changing Interpretations Of The Dmca And Future Implications For Copyright Holders, Hillary A. Henderson

Hillary A Henderson

Copyright law rewards an artificial monopoly to individual authors for their creations. This reward is based on the belief that, by granting authors the exclusive right to reproduce their works, they receive an incentive and means to create, which in turn advances the welfare of the general public by “promoting the progress of science and useful arts.” Copyright protection subsists . . . in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or …

Surveillance, Speech Suppression And Degradation Of The Rule Of Law In The “Post-Democracy Electronic State”, David Barnhizer

David Barnhizer

None of us can claim the quality of original insight achieved by Alexis de Tocqueville in his early 19th Century classic Democracy in America in his observation that the “soft” repression of democracy was unlike that in any other political form. It is impossible to deny that we in the US, the United Kingdom and Western Europe are experiencing just such a “gentle” drift of the kind that Tocqueville describes, losing our democratic integrity amid an increasingly “pretend” democracy. He explained: “[T]he supreme power [of government] then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society …