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Washington International Law Journal

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Rights-Based Boundaries Of Unilateral Sanctions, Seyed Mohsen Rowhani May 2023

Rights-Based Boundaries Of Unilateral Sanctions, Seyed Mohsen Rowhani

Washington International Law Journal

This Article serves as a model for sender states to consider when designing and implementing unilateral sanctions and also provides a framework for targeted states to challenge the legality of sanctions. In this context, the Article investigates several multilateral treaties, including the United Nations (“UN”) Charter and its principles of nonintervention and sovereignty and its rights-based boundaries. The Article also investigates other rights-based treaties to determine if their member states may have any extraterritorial obligations to promote human rights beyond their borders. In addition, the Article analyses International Court of Justice (“ICJ”) rulings in cases where one party claims that …


Substantial Presence In Covid: Rethinking Relief Under Internal Tax Laws For A Changing World, Kate Moyer May 2023

Substantial Presence In Covid: Rethinking Relief Under Internal Tax Laws For A Changing World, Kate Moyer

Washington International Law Journal

At the onset of Covid in early 2020, the world shut down, and people everywhere found themselves stuck in new places and unable to travel. Aside from the logistical nightmares and anxiety, forced lockdowns created different tax implications. Depending on the length of a stay, individuals may be subject to a country's internal tax code, triggering double taxation or taxation on income not previously taxed. As a result, countries implemented different relief policies exempting certain days from the calculation of these tests. Reports have been done to examine general policies with Covid-19, but there is a gap in closely examining …


Foreword, Jacob Walker May 2023

Foreword, Jacob Walker

Washington International Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Contents Mar 2023

Contents

Washington International Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Contents Dec 2022

Contents

Washington International Law Journal

No abstract provided.


The Mutual Legal Assistance Regime In Afghanistan: Assessing Compliance With International Law And Exposing Loopholes (2001-2021), Abdul M. Hazim Dec 2022

The Mutual Legal Assistance Regime In Afghanistan: Assessing Compliance With International Law And Exposing Loopholes (2001-2021), Abdul M. Hazim

Washington International Law Journal

To constrain transnational crime effectively and strengthen mutual legal assistance mechanisms among member states, the United Nations adopted four Suppression Conventions: the Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988, the 1999 UN International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, the 2003 UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, and the 2005 UN Convention against Corruption. Ratified globally, these conventions contain many similar or identical mutual legal assistance obligations and non-mandatory measures with which state parties either must or should comply. Afghanistan is a state party to all four UN Suppression Conventions.

This article …


Dangers Of Protectionism In Free Trade, Jacob Walker Dec 2022

Dangers Of Protectionism In Free Trade, Jacob Walker

Washington International Law Journal

The recent establishment of large mega-free trade agreements has led to the potential for the rapid economic development of nations through the inclusion of provisions that lower tariff rates on goods crossing borders. Some countries, such as India, have shied away from these agreements in favor of protectionist strategies, which has led to inconsistencies in treaty negotiations and economic decline. India used protectionist strategies as part of its domestic plan, which has led it to withdraw from free trade agreements and weakened its regional partnerships. This comment examines the Foreign Direct Investment flowing into India before and after its withdrawal …


Foreword, Jacob Walker Dec 2022

Foreword, Jacob Walker

Washington International Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Inclusion Of Visually Impaired And Deaf Students In Kenya: A Call For Action, Edwin O. Abuya, Jane W. Githinji Dec 2022

Inclusion Of Visually Impaired And Deaf Students In Kenya: A Call For Action, Edwin O. Abuya, Jane W. Githinji

Washington International Law Journal

Drawing on field data, this Article reviews the experiences of visually impaired and deaf students (VIDS) in select universities in Kenya. The paper argues that, unlike able bodied students, these learners face discrimination in these institutions. The Article focuses on three spaces where VIDS are excluded: the admission process, the learning, and the examination environments. To counter the unfair treatment, the paper proposes three solutions that VIDS and stakeholders should consider. These are consistent with legal requirements on access to education by VIDS. Firstly, course instructors should be robustly engaged with. Further, universities should provide adequate and timely information should …


The Right To Remain, Timothy E. Lynch Jun 2022

The Right To Remain, Timothy E. Lynch

Washington International Law Journal

Article 12.4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states, “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country.” Citizens clearly enjoy Article 12.4 rights, but this article demonstrates that this right reaches beyond the citizenry. Using customary methods of treaty interpretation, including reference to the ICCPR’s preparatory works and the jurisprudence of the Human Rights Committee, this article demonstrates that Article 12.4 also forbids States from deporting long-term resident noncitizens—both documented and undocumented—except under the rarest circumstances. As a result, the ICCPR right to remain in one’s own country is a …


Well-Known Signs: Models Of Disability In Early Modern Islamic Law And Current American, European, And Pakistani Jurisprudence, Elicia Shotland Jun 2022

Well-Known Signs: Models Of Disability In Early Modern Islamic Law And Current American, European, And Pakistani Jurisprudence, Elicia Shotland

Washington International Law Journal

Current American, European, and Pakistani legal structures are often insufficient to ensure rights of disabled people, particularly rights of equal access to courts and to act as a witness in court. As the disability rights movement gains ground, judges and legislation drafters are struggling to shift modes of jurisprudence from a medical model that conceptualized disability as a permanent physical affliction to the social model, which locates disability in an individual’s relation to their built and social environments. A review of historical records concerning deaf and hard of hearing participants in legal processes from the Ottoman Empire shows that the …


Treaty Law To Signal To Outsiders: The Case Of The Treaty On The Prohibition Of Nuclear Weapons, Tobias Vestner Jun 2022

Treaty Law To Signal To Outsiders: The Case Of The Treaty On The Prohibition Of Nuclear Weapons, Tobias Vestner

Washington International Law Journal

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) comprehensively and unequivocally prohibits nuclear weapons. The treaty was created to foster and diffuse norms against nuclear weapons, thereby stigmatizing and delegitimizing nuclear weapons and deterrence. The TPNW’s nature as formal treaty under international law suggests, however, that the TPNW primarily serves signaling to states which have not adhered to the treaty, in particular nuclear weapon states. This article develops how treaty law enables signaling to outsiders. Treaty law notably offers visibility, screens between “insiders” and “outsiders,” communicates substance, and provides credibility to the signal. In line with treaty law’s finality …


Hong Kong, China, And The Disruption Of Antitrust, Emanuela Lecchi Jun 2022

Hong Kong, China, And The Disruption Of Antitrust, Emanuela Lecchi

Washington International Law Journal

Under the “One Country, Two Systems” rule, Hong Kong and China maintain different legal systems. This dichotomy also applies in the antitrust context. China adopted its Anti-Monopoly Law in 2007, while Hong Kong waited until 2012 to introduce its Competition Ordinance (and another three years to fully implement it). This article compares the antitrust laws of these two jurisdictions and their enforcement in light of a turning point: the disruption caused by Big Tech. Interestingly, while the competition laws of Hong Kong and China are substantively similar to each other and to legal precedent in other jurisdictions, Hong Kong has …


Brignoni-Ponce And The Establishment Of Race-Based Immigration Enforcement, Isabel Skilton May 2022

Brignoni-Ponce And The Establishment Of Race-Based Immigration Enforcement, Isabel Skilton

Washington International Law Journal

United States v. Brignoni-Ponce solidified the racist enforcement of United States immigration laws by allowing “Mexican appearance” to be a factor forming reasonable suspicion in a roving patrol. The United States Supreme Court rationalized race-based immigration enforcement by relying on erroneous immigration demographics and a misconstrued notion of serving the public interest. This comment demonstrates that the rationales provided by the Supreme Court are illogical, discriminatory, and harmful to communities of color. This comment analyzes the impacts of race-based discrimination and provides alternatives which may cabin the impact of Brignoni-Ponce. Aside from overruling Brignoni-Ponce in its entirety, a probable cause …


Nowhere To Go: A Regional Human Rights-Based Approach To Climate Displacee Protection In Southeast Asia, Evan M. Fitzgerald, Gregory G. Toth Apr 2022

Nowhere To Go: A Regional Human Rights-Based Approach To Climate Displacee Protection In Southeast Asia, Evan M. Fitzgerald, Gregory G. Toth

Washington International Law Journal

An influx of climate-driven, cross-border migration has begun in Southeast Asia, but these peoples are not considered refugees. They are at best economic migrants, and at worse stateless persons. They are displaced because of human-driven environmental decline, with limited protections due to the lack of an internationally accepted definition of their status: there is no agreed upon definition of what constitutes a person displaced by climate change. As such, there are no legal frameworks that accurately speak to the realities of this growing problem. Worse, there is limited understanding that the confluence of these omissions will lead to disastrous effects …


No Refuge For The Sick: How The Eu's Health-Based Non-Refoulement Standard Compounds The Exclusionary Nature Of International Refugee Law, Cassandra Baker Apr 2022

No Refuge For The Sick: How The Eu's Health-Based Non-Refoulement Standard Compounds The Exclusionary Nature Of International Refugee Law, Cassandra Baker

Washington International Law Journal

The COVID-19 pandemic poses grave threats to the life and health of asylum seekers in Europe. Many potential asylees are forced to reside in cramped, unsanitary facilities and do not have adequate access to medical treatment. On top of these dangers, many are likely to be denied asylum due to the stringency of international refugee law and European Union (“EU”) asylum procedures. As a result, a number of these asylum seekers will turn to Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides broader non-refoulement protections. However, even Article 3, as currently interpreted by the European Court of …


Refoulement As Pandemic Policy, Haiyun Damon-Feng Apr 2022

Refoulement As Pandemic Policy, Haiyun Damon-Feng

Washington International Law Journal

COVID-19 restrictions on access to asylum likely violate non-refoulement obligations under international and federal law, and while they are extreme, they are not unique. There is a small but growing body of scholarly literature that rightly argues that such policies are pretextual covers used to enact restrictive immigration policy goals, but these arguments generally arise from an ahistorical perspective. This article positions restrictive COVID immigration policies in a broader historical context and argues that the United States has a long history of weaponizing fear of disease and contagion from migrants to justify restrictive immigration policies. The article offers a historical …


The Bar Exam’S Contribution To Systemic Inequalities In Access To Justice Around The World, Nicci Arete Mar 2021

The Bar Exam’S Contribution To Systemic Inequalities In Access To Justice Around The World, Nicci Arete

Washington International Law Journal

Existing literature does not give adequate attention to if and how the bar exam impacts the legal profession’s goals. Bar exam proponents say that the test separates competent candidates from incompetent ones, protecting the public from falling victim to inadequate legal services. But what constitutes a competent attorney? What are the goals of the profession? As legal systems become more complex and their impact on people’s lives all- encompassing, the ideal of improving access to justice—equitable and fair justice—is increasingly the target for justice systems across the globe. Addressing access to justice cannot be done without acknowledging the disparate barriers …


Reckoning: A Dialogue About Racism, Antiracists, And Business & Human Rights, Erika George, Jena Martin, Tara Van Ho Mar 2021

Reckoning: A Dialogue About Racism, Antiracists, And Business & Human Rights, Erika George, Jena Martin, Tara Van Ho

Washington International Law Journal

Video of George Floyd’s death sparked global demonstrations and prompted individuals, communities and institutions to grapple with their own roles in embedding and perpetuating racist structures. The raison d’être of Business and Human Rights (BHR) is to tackle structural corporate impediments to the universal realization of human rights. Yet, racism, one of the most obvious of such barriers, has been a blind spot for BHR. While the field has contended with gender inequality, there have only been tokenistic nods to intersectional harms caused by business activities. The failure to address racism seriously undermines both the promise of BHR generally and …


Race And Representation: The Legislative Council In Hong Kong During The Reign Of Queen Victoria, Dongsheng Zang Mar 2021

Race And Representation: The Legislative Council In Hong Kong During The Reign Of Queen Victoria, Dongsheng Zang

Washington International Law Journal

Black Americans need not be told that racism is not accidental, nor is it marginal in their lives. The rest of the American society does. In fact, race is a foundational consideration in the development of democracy in Anglo- American history. This article attempts to demonstrate, through colonial history of Hong Kong, how white supremacy played a central role in shaping the British colonial policy during the nineteenth century—the reign of Queen Victoria. Hong Kong was ceded to the British Empire when two ideas in Victorian England were competing to dominate its colonial policy: one was anti-slavery, and the other …


Criminalization Is Not The Only Way: Guatemala’S Law Against Femicide And Other Forms Of Violence Against Women And The Rates Of Femicide In Guatemala, Sydney Bay Mar 2021

Criminalization Is Not The Only Way: Guatemala’S Law Against Femicide And Other Forms Of Violence Against Women And The Rates Of Femicide In Guatemala, Sydney Bay

Washington International Law Journal

Femicide in Guatemala has not decreased over the past twelve years, despite government efforts to curb the practice. In 2008, Guatemala passed the Law Against Femicide and Other Forms of Violence Against Women, which defined and criminalized femicide. The Law also created regulatory agencies and courts focused on stopping femicide and other forms of violence against women in the country, including physical, sexual, emotional, and economic violence. But because the government lacks resources and it has received resistance from the agencies’ local levels, femicide and the violence against women has not diminished. Additionally, recent Supreme Court cases have weakened aspects …


American Judicial Rejectionism And The Domestic Court’S Undermining Of International Human Rights Law And Policy After Human Right Violations Have Occurred In The State, Jessika L. Gonzalez Mar 2021

American Judicial Rejectionism And The Domestic Court’S Undermining Of International Human Rights Law And Policy After Human Right Violations Have Occurred In The State, Jessika L. Gonzalez

Washington International Law Journal

Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd’s executions ignited protests across the world. These protests raised debate over the United States Supreme Court’s creation of qualified immunity for police misconduct. This in turn creates an appropriate opportunity to stop and take stock of United States law surrounding protections and immunities afforded to law enforcement officials, relative to international law and policy on law enforcement accountability and oversight. In doing so, this article uncovers how the American judiciary carries out a new form of American rejectionism powered by its use of qualified immunity doctrine, which in practice, results in a lack …


Corporate Complicity In International Criminal Law: Potential Responsibility Of European Arms Dealers For Crimes Committed In Yemen, Marina Aksenova Mar 2021

Corporate Complicity In International Criminal Law: Potential Responsibility Of European Arms Dealers For Crimes Committed In Yemen, Marina Aksenova

Washington International Law Journal

This article examines the question of corporate complicity within the framework of international criminal law and, more specifically, at the International Criminal Court (ICC). It does so by referencing a communication to the ICC filed by several non-governmental organizations, inviting the prosecutor to examine potential criminal responsibility of several European corporate officials who are knowingly supplying weapons to the United Arab Emirates/Saudi-led coalition currently engaged in a military offensive in Yemen. This submission raises an important legal question of whether the ICC’s Rome Statute provides for the possibility to hold corporate officials accountable in cases of complicity in gross human …


Enforcing U.S. Foreign Policy By Imposing Unilateral Secondary Sanctions: Is Might Right In Public International Law?, Patrick C.R. Terry Dec 2020

Enforcing U.S. Foreign Policy By Imposing Unilateral Secondary Sanctions: Is Might Right In Public International Law?, Patrick C.R. Terry

Washington International Law Journal

Following the United States’ unilateral withdrawal from the agreement between the five permanent UN Security Council members, the European Union, Germany, and Iran, that intends to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, the United States has re-imposed and tightened its sanctions against Iran. The United States’ renunciation of the agreement, despite the agreement’s UN Security Council approval and verified Iranian compliance, arguably violated international law. Nevertheless, the United States is attempting to compel the other state parties (and others) to follow its policy on Iran by threatening those states’ companies and business executives with economic or even criminal sanctions to …


Guns-For-Hire: Chinese Mercenaries On The 21st Century Silk Road, Carl H. Peterson Iv Dec 2020

Guns-For-Hire: Chinese Mercenaries On The 21st Century Silk Road, Carl H. Peterson Iv

Washington International Law Journal

There has been an increased global use of private military contractors (PMCs) since the large-scale American use of them in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This has included an increase in Russian and now Chinese PMCs. As China continues to develop its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), it is likely that the world will see an increase in the number of Chinese PMCs used to protect these projects. In this event it is important to bring Chinese PMCs into the PMC industry’s most effective private regulatory bodies, as these bodies are often more effective at ensuring ethical PMC conduct …


Two Decades Of Laws And Practice Around Screen Scraping In The Common Law World And Its Open Banking Watershed Moment, Han-Wei Liu Dec 2020

Two Decades Of Laws And Practice Around Screen Scraping In The Common Law World And Its Open Banking Watershed Moment, Han-Wei Liu

Washington International Law Journal

Screen scraping—a technique using an agent to collect, parse, and organize data from the web in an automated manner—has found countless applications over the past two decades. It is now employed everywhere, from targeted advertising, price aggregation, budgeting apps, website preservation, academic research, and journalism, to name a few. However, this tool has raised enormous controversy in the age of big data. This article takes a comparative law approach to explore two sets of analytical issues in three common law jurisdictions, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. As the first step, this article maps out the trajectory of …


The "People's Total War On Covid-19": Urban Pandemic Management Through (Non-)Law In Wuhan, China, Philipp Renninger Dec 2020

The "People's Total War On Covid-19": Urban Pandemic Management Through (Non-)Law In Wuhan, China, Philipp Renninger

Washington International Law Journal

Although COVID-19 was first detected in the People’s Republic of China, the pandemic now appears contained there. Western and Chinese media attribute this apparent success to the central level of the Chinese state and the Communist Party. However, this article reveals that local entities provided critical contributions to China’s COVID-19 management, particularly in the pandemic’s first epicenter: Wuhan city in Hubei province. Chinese cities like Wuhan can fight public health emergencies through legal and nonlegal instruments. Although Wuhan had prepared for possible pandemics, its existing plans, institutions, and warning systems initially failed against COVID-19. The city did not contain the …


Legal Complications Of Repatriation At The British Museum, Hannah R. Godwin Dec 2020

Legal Complications Of Repatriation At The British Museum, Hannah R. Godwin

Washington International Law Journal

The British Museum has been the target of criticism around the world for its failure to repatriate controversial cultural property to their respective countries of origin. In 1753, a private collector left his collection to Great Britain if it agreed to build a public museum and designate a Board of Trustees whose duty was to protect the collection for the public. Statutorily incorporating the collector’s intent, Parliament passed legislation binding the Board of Trustees to abide by certain principles, including preserving the collection and prohibiting disposal of objects, except in very few circumstances. As such, the Museum is administrated through …


Ride-Hailing Drivers As Autonomous Independent Contractors: Let Them Bargain!, Ronald C. Brown Jun 2020

Ride-Hailing Drivers As Autonomous Independent Contractors: Let Them Bargain!, Ronald C. Brown

Washington International Law Journal

“Autonomous” workers include most gig-platform drivers, like those working globally for Uber and Lyft, who are usually classified as independent contractors and are ineligible for labor protections and benefits. The “new economy” and its business model, with its fissurization and increased use of contingent and outsourced workers hired as independent contractors, provide employers flexibility and lower costs by shifting labor costs to the workers. Many of these workers operate more as employees rather than genuine independent contractors or self-employed entrepreneurs, causing lost employee labor benefits and costing the government billions of lost tax dollars. Legal attempts continue to classify these …


Cross-Border Data Flows, The Gdpr, And Data Governance, W. Gregory Voss Jun 2020

Cross-Border Data Flows, The Gdpr, And Data Governance, W. Gregory Voss

Washington International Law Journal

Today, cross-border data flows are an important component of international trade and an element of digital service models. However, they are impeded by restrictions on cross-border personal data transfers and data localization legislation. This Article focuses primarily on these complexities and on the impact of the new European Union (“EU”) legislation on personal data protection—the GDPR. First, this Article introduces its discussion of these flows by placing them in their economic and geopolitical setting, including a discussion of the results of a lack of international harmonization of law in the area. In this framework, rule overlap and rival standards are …