Law Commons^™

Targeting Killings Outside The Traditional Battlefield: The Legality Of Targeted Attacks On Transnational Armed Terrorists., Marti Sleister

Marti Sleister

This paper asks whether traditional laws can evolve to protect citizens in the face of targeted killings on transnational-armed groups. The resolution analyzes how the current war methods fail to fit into the old mold of war; suggests what modifications could be made; and briefly discusses the fate of the laws of war should changes not occur. First, this paper will discuss the legal treaties defining and controlling the current laws of war, specifically, the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols. Second, this paper will analyze how International Human Rights Law (IHRL) applies, particularly in light of the limitations of …

Indigenus Peoples' Rights At The Intersection Of Human Rights And Intellectual Property Rights, Chidi Oguamanam

Chidi Oguamanam

Exploration of the interface between human rights (HRs) and intellectual property rights (IPRs) is a venture still at a gestational stage. One of the major challenges of that initiative is how to map indigenous peoples’ rights into the discourse. Indigenous peoples’ rights pose significant challenges to both HRs and IPRs jurisprudence. Not only is there a clarity gap over indigenous peoples’ rights in the international bill of rights. Indigenous people’s rights are analogous misfits to any head of conventional HRs as well as conventional IPRs. Overall, indigenous people’s rights are a source of irritation to both HRs and IPRs. The …

Direct Participation In Hostilities From Cyberspace, Collin Allan

Collin Allan

As demonstrated by the cyber attacks against Georgia in 2008 and the cyber attacks against Aramco in 2012, civilians are increasing their participation in armed conflicts through cyber attacks. In 2009, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) published a document on how to determine when a civilian’s participation in armed conflict reaches the necessary level to render him or her targetable by one of the parties to the conflict. The Tallinn Manual was published this year to provide legal guidance in cyber situations. While professionals have written in this area previously, it is the first time that experts …

Sovereign Investing And Corporate Governance: Evidence And Policy, Paul Rose

Paul Rose

Discussions of corporate governance often focus solely on the attractiveness of firms to investors, but it is also true that firms seek out preferred investors. What, then, are the characteristics of an attractive investor? With nearly $6 trillion in assets, sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are increasingly important players in equity markets in the United States and abroad, and possess characteristics that firms prize: deep pockets, long-term (and for some, theoretically infinite) investment horizons, and potential network benefits that many other shareholders cannot offer. However, despite their economic power, their reach, and their general desirability as investors, SWFs are almost entirely …

Speech Along The Atrocity Spectrum, Gregory S. Gordon

Gregory S. Gordon

In the abstract, speech may have much intrinsic value with its power to facilitate democracy, self-actualization, and good will. But, in certain contexts, it can also be quite deleterious, spawning division, ignorance, and hatred. Within the crucible of atrocity, speech may be similarly Janus-faced. Its power to prevent mass violence is indubitable. But its capacity for enabling mass violence is similarly unquestionable. So the issue arises: when and how may speech work for good or ill in relation to atrocity? This Article grapples with that question. And, in doing so, it finds that the relationship between speech and atrocity should …

Investment Dispute Resolution Under The Transpacific Partnership Agreement: Prelude To A Slippery Slope?, Leon E. Trakman Professor

Leon E Trakman Dean

Intense debate is currently brewing over the multistate negotiation of the Transpacific Partnership Agreement [TPPA], led by the United States. The TPPA will be the largest trade and investment agreement after the European Union, with trillions of investment dollars at stake. However, there is little understanding of the complex issues involved in regulating inbound and outbound investment. The negotiating of the TPPA is shrouded in both mystery and dissension among negotiating countries. NGOs, investor and legal interest groups heatedly debate how the TPPA ought to regulate international investment. However this dissension is resolved, it will have enormous economic, political and …

Consent And Self-Determination In Human Rights Lawmaking, Vijay Padmanabhan

Vijay M Padmanabhan

A range of actors have advocated and implemented changes in how international human rights law is made and interpreted to reduce a State’s control over the content of its human rights obligations. Such efforts are premised on the view that State consent is an impediment to development of human rights. This article argues, however, that State consent is essential to the protection of the human right of self-determination, a right which guarantees people collective control over their political, economic, social and cultural development. Thus, efforts to expand international human rights without State consent themselves infringe upon a human right.

Because …

The International Law Jurisprudence Of Thurgood Marshall, Craig L. Jackson

Craig L. Jackson

International law conjures up images of large firm lawyers jetting from one glamorous international location to another making deals for an international multilateral corporation. Or one’s thoughts may tend toward civil servants working for their country’s foreign ministry or for an international organization negotiating treaties that stop wars or arguing fine points of public international law before an international tribunal in The Hague or Strasbourg, or some similar place not named Pompano Beach, Florida,[1] Houston, Texas,[2] St. Louis, Missouri,[3] Norman, Oklahoma,[4] Topeka, Kansas[5] even New York City. But the latter areall places where Thurgood Marshall …

The Structure Of Law-Of-War Perfidy, Sean Watts

Sean Watts

The structural role of law-of-war perfidy is widely unappreciated and misunderstood. More than a prohibition of underhanded or dishonorable conduct, the prohibition of perfidy is an essential buttress to the law of war as a medium of exchange between combatants – a guarantee of minimum respect and trust between belligerents even in the turmoil of war. Indeed, it may be difficult to conceive of an operative or effective war convention at all without guarantees against and protections from perfidy. Through the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the prohibition of perfidy matured from a broad, customary notion of chivalry and honorable …

International Money Laundering: The Need For Icc Investigative And Adjudicative Jurisdiction, Michael R. Anderson

Michael Anderson

Money laundering is one of the most pressing issues in the realm of international financial crimes. One of the biggest issues involved in international money laundering is the problem of adjudication. There is no international organization that currently hears these sorts of claims, forcing nations to adjudicate these crimes on their own, often without adequate resources to effectively investigate and enforce their money laundering statutes.

This article argues that, in order to more effectively prevent and adjudicate international money laundering offenses, the International Criminal Court should adopt an international money laundering statute designating these activities as a crime within the …

International Trade And Investment Law And Carbon Management Technologies, Shi-Ling Hsu, Nigel Bankes, Anatole Boute, Sarah Mccalla, Steve Charnovitz, Liz Whitsitt, Nicholas Rivers

Shi-Ling Hsu

Reducing emissions of greenhouse gases will require the development of carbon management technologies that are not currently available or that are not currently cost-effective. While market mechanisms such as carbon pricing must play a central role in stimulating the development of these technologies, governmental policy aimed at fostering carbon management technologies and lowering their costs must also play a part. Both types of policies will form part of an optimal greenhouse gas control portfolio.

This article develops a framework of international trade and investment law insofar as they may affect carbon management technologies. While it is commonly perceived that international …

Maintaining The Wto's Supremacy In The International Trade Order: A Proposal To Refine And Revise The Role Of The Trade Policy Review Mechanism, Julien Chaisse

Julien Chaisse

In light of the stagnating World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations, this article argues that WTO should not only focus on the development of new rules or the resolution of disputes, but should also develop ‘soft law’ on the basis of informal mechanisms as the successful experiences of the International Competition Network or the International Monetary Fund demonstrate. In this respect, WTO should extend and refine the role of its Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM) in order to be able to address essential issues of contemporary economic concerns and, hence, remain at the centre of global governance. This article explains how …

Reclassifying "Terrorists" As Victims: Integrating Terrorism Analysis Into The Particular Social Group Framework Of Asylum, Emily Naser-Hall

Emily Naser-Hall

After the September 11th terrorist attacks at the hands of al-Qaeda operatives who slipped through the cracks of the US immigration system, immigration and asylum law became increasingly focused on ensuring that potential terrorists are not allowed into the United States. The USA PATRIOT Act and its subsequent legislation created what has become an unyielding bar to admission for any individual who is a member of a terrorist organization or who has committed terrorist activities. While the terrorism bar developed in response to real or perceived threats to US national security and has recently regained public light with the trial …

Sovereign Policy Flexibility For Social Protection: Managing Regulatory Risk In International Investment Agreements, Dr. Diane A. Desierto

Dr. Diane A Desierto

This Article focuses on the design of regulatory risk in international investment agreements (IIAs), and its counterpart treatment in investment arbitral practices. It demonstrates that the uneven conception and treatment of regulatory risk in investment arbitrations stands to threaten the basic premise of regulatory predictability in IIA design. IIAs do not intend to entrench static or hermetically sealed regulatory frameworks, but rather, are designed to enable States Parties to the IIA as well as investors (as third-party beneficiaries of the IIA), to mutually, fairly, and transparently predict and estimate the economic returns and risks of investment. Thus, while the substantive …

Waging War Against The World: The Need To Move From War Crimes To Environmental Crimes, Mark A. Drumbl

Mark A. Drumbl

The international community has been more hesitant in accounting for the environmental consequences of war. All that the international community has been able to negotiate is scattered collateral references in a variety of treaties and conventions. One immediate task will be to consolidate these references into a single document or treaty. A more daunting task, of which this easy shall provide a brief overview, is to develop a mechanism to ensure compliance with these standards, to deter deviation therefrom, and to allocate responsibility for wrongdoing. More specifically, this essay considers the ability of the International Criminal Court to perform such …

Northern Economic Obligation, Southern Moral Entitlement, And International Environmental Governance, Mark A. Drumbl

Mark A. Drumbl

Not available.

Poverty, Wealth, And Obligation In International Environmental Law, Mark A. Drumbl

Mark A. Drumbl

Developing nations are demonstrating some success in basing their participation in international environmental governance upon commitments by developed nations to provide financial resources and technology transfer. In recent years, these commitments have achieved textual status with a number of multilateral agreements. Part II of this Article identifies and documents treaty-based examples of this swap of resources in exchange for participation, with particular focus on the areas of climate change, biodiversity use/conservation, and ozone protection. This Article suggests that this swap represents a dynamic and emerging relationship between the North and the South that can best be described as a "shared …

Law And Atrocity: Settling Accounts In Rwanda, Mark A. Drumbl

Mark A. Drumbl

Ten years ago, genocide ravaged the tiny African nation of Rwanda. In the wake of this violence, Rwanda has struggled to reconstruct, rebuild, and reconcile. Law-in particular, criminal trials for alleged perpetrators of genocide- has figured prominently among various policy mechanisms in postgenocide Rwanda. Criminal trials for Rwandan genocidaires' aspire to achieve several goals. These include exacting retribution, promoting reconciliation, deterring future violence, expressing victims' outrage, maintaining peace, and cultivating a culture of human rights.2 In this Lecture, I examine the extent to which these trials attain these multiple, often competing, and largely overwhelming goals. Part I begins by setting …

International Law Colloquia, Spring 2006 Series, Roger Alford, Laura Dickinson, Mark Drumbl, Karen Knop, Diane Orentlicher, Brad Roth, Edward Swaine

Mark A. Drumbl

Spring 2006 Presenters: February 10: Laura A. Dickinson (University of Connecticut School of Law), Democracy and Trust February 17: Mark A. Drumbl (Washington and Lee University School of Law), Atrocity and Punishment February 24: Karen Knop (University of Toronto Faculty of Law), Enemies and Outlaws: War and the Public/Private Citizen March 3: Brad R. Roth (Wayne State University Department of Political Science), State Sovereignty, International Legality, and Moral Disagreement April 7: Diane Orentlicher (American University Washington College of Law), Whose Justice? Reconciling Universal Jurisdiction with Democratic Principles April 14: Roger P. Alford (Pepperdine University School of Law), Foreign Relations as …

The Expressive Value Of Prosecuting And Punishing Terrorists: Hamdan, The Geneva Conventions, And International Criminal Law, Mark A. Drumbl

Mark A. Drumbl

In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the military commissions that had been proposed by the Executive to prosecute a small number of detainees captured in the 'war on terror' could not proceed. In response to the Hamdan decision, Congress enacted a new military commission structure in the 2006 Military Commissions Act (MCA), which President Bush signed on October 17, 2006. The MCA establishes military commissions for aliens classified as unlawful enemy combatants. It lists the crimes chargeable by such commissions. The MCA also amends domestic legislation - for example, the War Crimes Act - initially …

Looking Up, Down And Across: The Icty's Place In The International Legal Order, Mark A. Drumbl

Mark A. Drumbl

Not available.

Victimhood In Our Neighborhood: Terrorist Crime, Taliban Guilt, And The Asymmetries Of The International Legal Order, Mark A. Drumbl

Mark A. Drumbl

This Article posits that the September 11 attacks constitute nonisolated warlike attacks undertaken against a sovereign state by individuals from other states operating through a non-state actor with some command and political structure. This means that the attacks contain elements common to both armed attacks and criminal attacks. The international community largely has characterized the attacks as armed attacks. This characterization evokes a legal basis for the use of force initiated by the United States and United Kingdom against Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. Notwithstanding the successes of the military campaign and the need for containment of terrorist activity, this …

Environmental Supra-Nationalism, Mark A. Drumbl

Mark A. Drumbl

No abstract provided.

Pluralizing International Criminal Justice, Mark A. Drumbl

Mark A. Drumbl

This Review Essay of Philippe Sands' (ed.) From Nuremberg to the Hague (2003) explores a number of controversial aspects of the theory and praxis of international criminal law. The Review Essay traces the extant heuristic of international criminal justice institutions to Nuremberg and posits that the Nuremberg experience suggests the need for modesty about what criminal justice actually can accomplish in the wake of mass atrocity. It also explores the place of one person's guilt among organic crime, the reality that international criminal law may gloss over criminogenic conditions in its pursuit of individualized accountability, the possibility of group sanction …

Are You A Terrorist Or An American?:An Analysis Of Immigration Lawpost 9/11: Introduction, Mark A. Drumbl

Mark A. Drumbl

No abstract provided.

Collective Violence And Individual Punishment: The Criminality Of Mass Atrocity, Mark A. Drumbl

Mark A. Drumbl

There is a recent proliferation of courts and tribunals to prosecute perpetrators of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The zenith of this institution-building is the permanent International Criminal Court, which came into force in 2002. Each of these new institutions rests on the foundational premise that it is appropriate to treat the perpetrator of mass atrocity in the same manner that domestic criminal law treats the common criminal. The modalities and rationales of international criminal law are directly borrowed from the domestic criminal law of those states that dominate the international order. In this Article, I challenge this …

Guantanamo, Rasul, And The Twilight Of Law, Mark A. Drumbl

Mark A. Drumbl

In Rasul v. Bush, the Supreme Court held that U.S. district courts have jurisdiction to consider challenges to the legality of the detention of foreign nationals captured abroad in connection with hostilities and incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay. In this paper, I explore what has happened since the Rasul decision: most notably, the introduction of combatant status review tribunals as a response to Rasul and the challenges that have been filed thereto and adjudicated in the federal courts (Khalid, In re Guantanamo Detainee Cases); the charges brought against certain detainees by military commissions and challenges to these commissions filed in the …

International Institutions And The Resource Curse, Patrick J. Keenan

Patrick J. Keenan

Many countries that are richly endowed with natural resources have failed to turn that resource wealth into sustained development. In many places, a small coterie of elites have become rich while most citizens see little benefit from their country’s vast resource wealth. The principal cause of this problem, often called the resource curse, is weak domestic institutions that permit leaders to enrich themselves and ignore the development needs of the country. From this, most scholars and policymakers have concluded that the way to fix the resource curse is to reform domestic institutions. This Article challenges the conventional wisdom and argues …

Reclassifying "Terrorists" As Victims: Integrating Terrorism Analysis Into The Particular Social Group Framework Of Asylum, Emily Naser-Hall

Emily Naser-Hall

No abstract provided.

Treaty Double Jeopardy: The Oecd Anti-Bribery Convention And The Fcpa, Michael P. Van Alstine

Michael P. Van Alstine

This article explores the possibility of "double jeopardy" protection arising from an international treaty. In specific, it examines whether, either as a matter of general principle or from the treaty's express provisions, the OECD Convention on Combatting Bribery of Foreign Public Officials protects a defendant from multiple or successive prosecutions under our domestic Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.