Human Rights Law Commons^™

Remaking The Pen Mightier Than The Sword: An Evaluation Of The Growing Need For The International Protection Of Journalists, Dylan Howard

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Kosovar Declaration Of Independence: "Botching The Balkans" Or Respecting International Law?, Milena Sterio

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

A Cautionary Tale: Examining The Use Of Military Tribunals By The United States In The Aftermath Of The September 11 Attacks In Light Of Peru's History Of Human Rights Abuses Resulting From Similar Measures, Jim Davis

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Rogue States, Weapons Of Mass Destruction, And Terrorism: Was Security Council Approval Necessary For The Invasion Of Iraq?, Jason Pedigo

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Vladimir Putin And The Rule Of Law In Russia, Jeffrey Kahn

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Letting The Cat Out Of The Bag: Providing A Civil Right Of Action For Torture Committed By U.S. Officials Abroad, An Obligation Of The Convention Against Torture?, Leland H. Kynes

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Defining The Battlefield In Contemporary Conflict And Counterterrorism: Understanding The Parameters Of The Zone Of Combat, Laurie R. Blank

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

"Disillusioned Words Like Bullets Bark": Incitement To Genocide, Music, And The Trial Of Simon Bikindi, Robert H. Snyder

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Spain's Expanded Universal Jurisdiction To Prosecute Human Rights Abuses In Latin America, China, And Beyond, Mugambi Jouet

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

A Break With The Past Or Justice In Pieces: Divergent Paths On The Question Of Amnesty In Argentina And Colombia, Douglas Jacobson

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Restrictions On Humanitarian Aid In Darfur: The Role Of The International Criminal Court, Mominah Usmani

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

When Skeletons Come Out Of The Closet: Implications Of The Bosnian Genocide Decision For Serbia's Eventual Eu Accession, Edina Slomic

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Identifying The Enemy In Counterterrorism Operations: A Comparison Of The Bush And Obama Administrations, Boaz Ganor

International Law Studies

Identifying the enemy plays a crucial role in providing the government with the authority needed to fight terrorism—from the authority to investigate threats to the authority to detain and use lethal force. The two administrations significantly differ in their understanding of the enemy, both at the organizational and individual levels. They also differ in their understanding of the boundaries of the battlefield. Ultimately, contrasting the policies adopted by the Bush and Obama administrations reveals that the early identification of the enemy by decision makers shaped the nature and scope of each administration’s counterterrorism strategies.

Presidential Powers Including Military Tribunals In The October 2005 Term, Erwin Chemerinsky

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

What Do Human Rights Lawyers Do: Examining Practice And Expertise In The Field, Elizabeth Bruch

Buffalo Human Rights Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Chaplaincy Exception In International Humanitarian Law: "American-Born Cleric" Anwar Awlaki And The Global War On Terror, K. Benson

Buffalo Human Rights Law Review

Anwar al-Awlaki, frequently described by the media as an "Ameri- can-born cleric," was the first American citizen to be targeted for extrajudicial assassination by the Obama administration as part of the Global War on Terror (GWOT). While there have been scholarly works considering the legality of his killing under domestic law, none have examined his status as a chaplain under International Humanita- rian Law (IHL), what this designation could mean for the legality of Anwar al-Alwaki's killing, or what his killing could mean for the GWOT in general. This paper provides a necessarily brief history of Al Qaeda in the …

Experiments In International Criminal Justice: Lessons From The Khmer Rouge Tribunal, John D. Ciorciari, Anne Heindel

Michigan Journal of International Law

Important experiments in international criminal justice have been taking place at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC or Court), a tribunal created by the United Nations and Cambodian Government to adjudicate some of the most egregious crimes of the Pol Pot era.2 The tribunal opened its doors in 2006, and although its work continues, its first seven years of operations provide an opportunity to evaluate its performance and judge the extent to which legal and institutional experiments at the ECCC have been successful to date. This Article will show that, in general, the ECCC’s most unique and …

Charting The Legal Geography Of Non-International Armed Conflict, Michael N. Schmitt

International Law Studies

This article examines the geographical reach of international humanitarian law (law of armed conflict), particularly during armed conflicts between States and non-State organized armed groups. The issue is operationally critical, since to the extent that IHL applies, practices which are lawful during armed conflicts, such as status-based targeting, may be employed. When IHL does not apply, human rights obligations shouldered by the State govern the conduct of its military operations. The article surveys the various approaches to the the legal geography of non-international armed conflict, arguing that an interpretation by which IHL is not geographically restricted is the most supportable.

Sexual Violence Directed Against Men And Boys In Armed Conflict Or Mass Atrocity: Addressing A Gendered Harm In International Criminal Tribunals, Valerie Oosterveld

Law Publications

No abstract provided.

Children, Armed Conflict, And Genocide: Applying The Law Of Genocide To The Recruitment And Use Of Children In Armed Conflict, Jeffery R. Ray

Barry Law Review

This paper shows that the use of child soldiers in armed conflict has the potential to be considered as genocide. A brief background of genocide is presented prior to the analysis. Part I of the analysis will discuss three issues: first, the modern understanding of genocide and the substantive areas of law that govern it; second, the definition of “child” within the international arena as it relates to child soldiering; third, a discussion to determine if children can constitute a “group” in the context of the law of genocide.

Part II provides a discussion elaborating on Part I, then analyzes …

Duck-Rabbits And Drones: Legal Indeterminacy In The War On Terror, Rosa Brooks

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In the days and weeks immediately following the 9/11 attacks, “the law” offered little to lawyers or policy-makers looking for guidance. Indeed, for many the events of 9/11 became the legal equivalent of a Rorschach test: depending on the observer, the 9/11 attacks were variously construed as criminal acts, acts of war, or something in between, thus fitting into (or triggering) any of several radically different legal regimes.

Divergent interpretations of the law are common, of course. Legal rules often contain an element of ambiguity, and the “facts” to which law must be applied can frequently be construed in multiple …

Using Force Against The "Weapons Of The Weak": Examining A Chemical-Biological Weapons Usage Criterion For Unilateral Humanitarian Intervention Under The Responsibility To Protect, Andrew M. Bell

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

The civil war in Syria has demonstrated the international community's inability to act to protect civilians caught in mass atrocities during cases of U.N. Security Council deadlock, with permanent member vetoes presenting a significant legal obstacle to international humanitarian intervention.

The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) construct, created in response to the NATO intervention in Kosovo, was originally designed to overcome such Security Council paralysis by transforming the debate from the "right" of states to intervene to the "responsibility" of the entire international community to protect civilians as well as open the door to legitimate unilateral humanitarian intervention in cases of …

From Villa Grimaldi To Guantánamo Bay: Remedying Human Rights Abuses In Chile And The United States, Nadia Shamsi

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

The article examines the effectiveness of transitional justice mechanisms in addressing human rights abuses, using Chile's experience under Augusto Pinochet as a model. It critiques the U.S. for failing to adopt similar approaches to accountability, particularly in addressing abuses at Guantanamo Bay and other detention centers. The analysis highlights the importance of combining truth commissions, criminal prosecutions, and reparations to achieve justice and promote democratic transition. It argues that the U.S. must align its domestic practices with the international human rights standards it promotes.

International Law And The Future Of Peace, Diane Marie Amann

Scholarly Works

These remarks, delivered at the April 4, 2013, luncheon of the American Society of International Law Women in International Law Interest Group, reflects on contributions of Jane Addams and other members of the early 20th C. peace movement as a means to explore law and practice related to the contemporary use of force and armed conflict.

The Law Of War And The Responsibility To Protect Civilians: A Reinterpretation, Thomas H. Lee

Faculty Scholarship

Two seemingly unrelated crises implicating the law of war and the responsibility to protect civilians have arisen in recent years. In 2013, the United States considered military intervention without United Nations (“U.N.”) Security Council preapproval in Syria after discovering that the government had exterminated its own people with chemical agents. In 2014, Russia sent troops into Crimea, a part of Ukraine, to protect ethnic Russians that Russia claimed were in danger after a political coup in the country. In both cases, the military acts contemplated or undertaken were of dubious legality, albeit under different rubrics. This Article aims to show …

Humanitarian Intervention: Evolving Norms, Fragmenting Consensus (Remarks), Rosa Brooks

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Traditionally, the evolution of customary international law was understood as a gradual process: in some idealized model, we might see first a few states, and then a few more, implicitly agreeing to follow a practice, and then we would gradually begin to see additional states doing the same thing. We would also gradually accumulate evidence that these various states are acting in such a way because they consider themselves legally bound to do so. Then, over time, we’ll see more and more states following suit both in word and deed, until at some point we can say with a great …

Adapting The Law Of Armed Conflict To Autonomous Weapon Systems, Kenneth Anderson, Daniel Reisner, Matthew Waxman

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

As increasingly automated – and in some cases fully autonomous – weapon systems enter the battlefield or become possible, it is important that international norms to regulate them head down a path that is coherent and practical. Contrary to the claims of some advocates, autonomous weapon systems are not inherently illegal or unethical. The technologies involved potentially hold promise for making armed conflict more discriminating and causing less harm on the battlefield. They do pose important challenges, however, with regard to law of armed conflict rules regulating the use of weapons. Those challenges demand international attention and special processes for …

The Voice Of Reason—Why Recent Judicial Interpretations Of The Antiterrorism And Effective Death Penalty Act’S Restrictions On Habeas Corpus Are Wrong, Judith L. Ritter

Seattle University Law Review

By filing a petition for a federal writ of habeas corpus, a prisoner initiates a legal proceeding collateral to the direct appeals process. Federal statutes set forth the procedure and parameters of habeas corpus review. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) first signed into law by President Clinton in 1996, included significant cut-backs in the availability of federal writs of habeas corpus. This was by congressional design. Yet, despite the dire predictions, for most of the first decade of AEDPA’s reign, the door to habeas relief remained open. More recently, however, the Supreme Court reinterpreted a key portion …

Ungoverned Spaces, Transnational Crime, And The Prohibition On Extraterritorial Enforcement Jurisdiction In International Law, Dan E. Stigall

Notre Dame Journal of International & Comparative Law

This Article explicates the international legal framework governing State action against transnational crime; it also explores the disparity in what international law permits military actors to do in situations of armed conflict versus what actions civilians may undertake in the course of extraterritorial law enforcement operations. This Article argues that the trend of militarization in the U.S. approach to transnational crime law is, in part, a function of this legal disparity and that this trend could be reversed a degree if international law recognized a greater degree of flexibility for certain limited categories of extraterritorial law enforcement actions by civilian …

Targeting And The Concept Of Intent, Jens David Ohlin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

International law generally prohibits military forces from intentionally targeting civilians; this is the principle of distinction. In contrast, unintended collateral damage is permissible unless the anticipated civilian deaths outweigh the expected military advantage of the strike; this is the principle of proportionality. These cardinal targeting rules of international humanitarian law are generally assumed by military lawyers to be relatively well settled. However, recent international tribunals applying this law in a string of little-noticed decisions have completely upended this understanding. Armed with criminal law principles from their own domestic systems, often civil law jurisdictions, prosecutors, judges and even scholars have progressively …