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International Humanitarian Law Commons™

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University of Michigan Law School

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Articles 31 - 60 of 66

Full-Text Articles in International Humanitarian Law

Detention Debates, Deborah N. Pearlstein Jan 2012

Detention Debates, Deborah N. Pearlstein

Michigan Law Review

Since the United States began detaining people in efforts it has characterized, with greater and lesser accuracy, as part of global counterterrorism operations, U.S. detention programs have spawned more than 200 different lawsuits producing 6 Supreme Court decisions, 4 major pieces of legislation, at least 7 executive orders across 2 presidential administrations, more than 100 books, 231 law review articles (counting only those with the word "Guantanamo" in the title), dozens of reports by nongovernmental organizations, and countless news and analysis articles from media outlets in and out of the mainstream. For those in the academic and policy communities who …


Between Minimum And Optimum World Public Order: An Ethical Path For The Future, Steven Ratner Jan 2011

Between Minimum And Optimum World Public Order: An Ethical Path For The Future, Steven Ratner

Book Chapters

Among the most significant contributions of policy-oriented jurisprudence to our understanding of international legal process is its identification of minimum and optimum world public order as the overarching goals of international law. Minimum public order in its essence refers to the global state of affairs with limited recourse to unauthorized violence to solve disputes, while optimum public order is synonymous with a world in which human dignity is maximally protected. These two concepts, augmented by other pairings now second-nature to us (for example, authority and control, and myth system and operational code), have also permeated—in the latter case, germinated in—the …


An Emerging Norm - Determining The Meaning And Legal Status Of The Responsibility To Protect, Jonah Eaton Jan 2011

An Emerging Norm - Determining The Meaning And Legal Status Of The Responsibility To Protect, Jonah Eaton

Michigan Journal of International Law

The responsibility to protect, from its recent nativity in the 2001 report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), is the latest round in an old debate pitting the principle of nonintervention in the internal affairs of states against allowing such intervention to prevent gross and systematic violations of human rights. Advocates for the concept see it as an important new commitment by the international community, injecting new meaning into the tragically threadbare promise to never again allow mass atrocities to occur unchallenged. ICISS offered the concept of responsibility to protect as a new way to confront …


Challenging Monohumanism: An Argument For Changing The Way We Think About Intercountry Adoption, Shani King Jan 2009

Challenging Monohumanism: An Argument For Changing The Way We Think About Intercountry Adoption, Shani King

Michigan Journal of International Law

In Part I, this Article provides a brief history of ICA. In Part II, using a post-colonialist theoretical framework, the work of legal scholars from the past twenty years on the subject of ICA is explored. This analysis exposes the centrality of MonoHumanism to our discourse on ICA. In Part III, this Article illustrates how our discourse regarding intercountry adoption contributes to our violating the rights of children (and families) as they are defined in the CRC. Lastly, in Part IV, this Article explores how this argument fits into the current and somewhat polarized debate on ICA and how the …


War Tales And War Trials, Patricia M. Wald Apr 2008

War Tales And War Trials, Patricia M. Wald

Michigan Law Review

In this foreword, I will compare my experiences as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and the work of war crimes tribunals generally, with a few of the recurrent themes in epic tales of war. Books and trials strive to educate and to persuade their audiences of the barbarity of war and its antipathy to the most fundamental norms of a humane society.3 War crimes tribunals began with Nuremberg and have proliferated in the past fifteen years. These tribunals were established to try and to punish individuals for violations of international humanitarian law ("IHL")-the so-called …


Deconstructing International Criminal Law, Kevin Jon Heller Apr 2008

Deconstructing International Criminal Law, Kevin Jon Heller

Michigan Law Review

After nearly fifty years of post-Nuremberg hibernation, international criminal tribunals have returned to the world stage with a vengeance. The Security Council created the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia ("ICTY") in 1993 and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda ("ICTR") in 1994. Hybrid domestic-international tribunals have been established in Sierra Leone (2000), East Timor (2000), Kosovo (2000), Cambodia (2003), Bosnia (2005), and Lebanon (2007). And, of course, the international community's dream of a permanent tribunal was finally realized in 2002, when the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court ("ICC") entered into force. This unprecedented proliferation of international …


Ieepa's Override Authority: Potential For A Violation Of The Geneva Conventions' Right To Access For Humanitarian Organizations?, Jennifer R. White Aug 2006

Ieepa's Override Authority: Potential For A Violation Of The Geneva Conventions' Right To Access For Humanitarian Organizations?, Jennifer R. White

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that, should the President exercise his override authority to prohibit or restrict the donation of humanitarian articles during an armed conflict involving the United States, the resulting prohibition or restriction would cause the United States to violate its obligations under the Conventions. This Note does not assert that the United States should not have the ability to put in place controls to prevent terrorists from benefiting from donations of funds and other humanitarian items; instead, it asserts that domestic law must tread as lightly and narrowly as possible where a widely accepted multilateral treaty exists and that …


Is Poetry A War Crime? Reckoning For Radovan Karadzic The Poet-Warrior, Jay Surdukowski Jan 2005

Is Poetry A War Crime? Reckoning For Radovan Karadzic The Poet-Warrior, Jay Surdukowski

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Note will suggest that the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) can use Karadzic's texts and affectations to warrior poetry in the pretrial brief and in admitted evidence, if and when Karadzic ultimately appears for trial. The violent nationalism of radio broadcasts, political journals, speeches, interviews, and manifestos have been fair game for the Office of the Prosecutor to make their cases in the last decade in both the Yugoslavia and Rwanda Tribunals. Why should poetry, perhaps the most powerful maker of myth and in the Yugoslavia context, a great mover …


From Dyad To Triad: Reconceptualizing The Lawyer-Client Relationship For Litigation In Regional Human Rights Commissions, Melissa E. Crow Jan 2005

From Dyad To Triad: Reconceptualizing The Lawyer-Client Relationship For Litigation In Regional Human Rights Commissions, Melissa E. Crow

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article analyzes the standing requirements for NGO petitions to the Inter-American and African Commissions and explores the ways which they may undermine the legitimacy and effectiveness of each of these for a, especially in the context of litigation on behalf of groups. The author evaluates various proposals for addressing these problems based on princeiples of class action and client-centered lawyering and concludes that they are inadequate.


Is Unilateral Humanitarian Intervention Compatible With The U.N. Charter?, Petr Valek Jan 2005

Is Unilateral Humanitarian Intervention Compatible With The U.N. Charter?, Petr Valek

Michigan Journal of International Law

The main topic of this Note is the compatibility of unilateral humanitarian intervention with Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter (the Charter). Through its interpretation, the author will attempt to discover whether the Grotian idea of unilateral humanitarian intervention can survive in the environment of contemporary international law without its "just war appendix." This Note will separate this idea from its "just war justification" and approach the question of the compatibility of such intervention with the Charter as a legal positivist. In the interpretation of Article 2(4) of the Charter, this Note will try to avoid moral principles. Instead, it …


Review Of Human Rights: Between Idealism And Realism, Steven R. Ratner Jan 2005

Review Of Human Rights: Between Idealism And Realism, Steven R. Ratner

Reviews

For centuries, moral philosophers have regarded ethics and justice in the international plane as part of their domain. The move from the personal to the societal or national to the global seems effortless. In recent years, philosophers in ethics have devoted considerable attention to the ethical significance of nationality and patriotism, asking whether an impartial morality permits better treatment of an individual’s co-nationals; while those in politics have revisited issues of international justice through, for instance, works on human rights and just war theory. These two bodies of work both address what constitutes a just world and what role the …


The Use Of Human Rights Discourse To Secure Women's Interests: Critical Analysis Of The Implications, Renu Mandhane Jan 2004

The Use Of Human Rights Discourse To Secure Women's Interests: Critical Analysis Of The Implications, Renu Mandhane

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This article highlights the significant theoretical constraints of universalism, the tendency of human rights advocates to ignore the underlying cause of rights violations, as well as problems associated with the concept of and informal hierarchy between rights. The article suggests that there are certain circumstances in which INGOs that rely primarily on human rights language in their advocacy efforts may wish to supplement their analysis with explicit reference to feminist legal theory in order to more effectively secure women's interests globally. These ideas will be developed with ongoing reference to the recent and successful campaign initiated by Nepali women to …


The Exclusion Of Hiv-Positive Immigrants Under The Nicaraguan Adjustment And Central American Relief Act And The Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act, Statutory Interpretation, Communicable Disease, Public Health, Legislative Intent, Shayna S. Cook Nov 2000

The Exclusion Of Hiv-Positive Immigrants Under The Nicaraguan Adjustment And Central American Relief Act And The Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act, Statutory Interpretation, Communicable Disease, Public Health, Legislative Intent, Shayna S. Cook

Michigan Law Review

The United States has turned away immigrants infected with the human immunodeficiency virus ("HIV") under the public health exclusion of the Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA") since the mid-1980's. Since Congress codified the HIV exclusion in 1993, any alien applying for an immigrant or nonimmigrant visa, adjustment of status to lawful permanent resident, or refugee status must first have a blood test for HIV. The HIV exclusion is not absolute, however. Each HIV-positive alien can apply for one of two waivers of the HIV exclusion that are available in the INA. When an alien applies for immigrant or permanent resident …


War Crimes And The Limits Of Legalism, Gary Jonathan Bass May 1999

War Crimes And The Limits Of Legalism, Gary Jonathan Bass

Michigan Law Review

In April 1945, Sir John Simon, Britain's Lord Chancellor, drew up a memorandum that was the last gasp in the diplomatic struggle against Nuremberg. Under American pressure, and despite British objections, the Allies were poised to agree to put the Axis leadership on trial for war crimes. In the kind of magnificent understatement that the British government could sometimes inadvertently achieve, it was entitled "The Argument for Summary Process against Hitler & Co." The memorandum was a series of arguments to be used by the British delegation at the San Francisco conference in a last-ditch effort to win over the …


The International Legal Implications Of "Non-Lethal" Weapons, David P. Fidler Jan 1999

The International Legal Implications Of "Non-Lethal" Weapons, David P. Fidler

Michigan Journal of International Law

In this Article, the author attempts a comprehensive international legal analysis of "non-lethal" weapons to raise awareness about how many international legal issues they create and about the complexity of analyzing the international legality of the development and use of these weapons. In short, the emergence of "non-lethal" weapons does not rescue international law from its crisis in connection with controlling war. Indeed, in some respects, the coming of "non-lethal" weapons threatens to deepen that crisis in new and disturbing ways.


The Fractured Soul Of The Dayton Peace Agreement: A Legal Analysis, Fionnuala Ni Aolain Jan 1998

The Fractured Soul Of The Dayton Peace Agreement: A Legal Analysis, Fionnuala Ni Aolain

Michigan Journal of International Law

This essay examines the substantial bilateral relationships between the domestic and international legal systems that have had enormous effects on the perception and efficacy of the local legal order. In particular, it charts the effect of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia on local legal culture and the potential for greater liaison and support between local and international legal entities. This essay also notes the extent to which overlapping and confused mandates by a myriad of international organizations, many of which exercise legal functions, have been unresponsive to or dismissive of localized capacity.


Reappraising Policy Objections To Humanitarian Intervention, Dino Kritsiotis Jan 1998

Reappraising Policy Objections To Humanitarian Intervention, Dino Kritsiotis

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article's purpose is not to search for particular conclusions as to the substantive merit or the present legal status of the right of humanitarian intervention as defined and in view of this seeming tension between recent practice and established principle. Its governing concern, rather, lies with: fundamental principles of analysis and method; the formal sources of public international law consulted in the examination of the validity of humanitarian intervention; how normative determinations are reached in the first place; and the techniques which are adopted in navigating our course to these ends.


Jurisprudence Of The Committee On The Rights Of The Child: A Guide For Research And Analysis, Cynthia Price Cohen, Susan Kilbourne Jan 1998

Jurisprudence Of The Committee On The Rights Of The Child: A Guide For Research And Analysis, Cynthia Price Cohen, Susan Kilbourne

Michigan Journal of International Law

The purpose of this article and the attached tables is to give child rights advocates and scholars: 1) a bird's-eye view of the Convention and its implementation mechanism; 2) an introduction to the jurisprudence that is being developed as governments begin to put the Convention into effect; and 3) a guide to assist in research and analysis of the developing jurisprudence of the Committee on the Rights of the Child.


Making International Refugee Law Relevant Again: A Proposal For Collectivized And Solution-Oriented Protection, James C. Hathaway, R. Alexander Neve Jan 1997

Making International Refugee Law Relevant Again: A Proposal For Collectivized And Solution-Oriented Protection, James C. Hathaway, R. Alexander Neve

Articles

International refugee law is in crisis. Even as armed conflict and human rights abuse continue to force individuals and groups to flee their home countries, many governments are withdrawing from the legal duty to provide refugees with the protection they require. While governments proclaim a willingness to assist refugees as a matter of political discretion or humanitarian goodwill, they appear committed to a pattern of defensive strategies designed to avoid international legal responsibility toward involuntary migrants. Some see this shift away from a legal paradigm of refugee protection as a source for enhanced operational flexibility in the face of changed …


Collective Humanitarian Intervention, Fernando R. Tesón Jan 1996

Collective Humanitarian Intervention, Fernando R. Tesón

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article discusses collective intervention authorized by the Security Council, with a special emphasis on the concept of exclusive domestic jurisdiction. Part I first examines the different meanings of the notoriously ambiguous word "intervention." Because the legitimacy of collective intervention will depend in part on whether or not the matter falls within the domestic jurisdiction of the target state, Part II will then discuss contemporary views of domestic jurisdiction. Finally, Parts III and IV discuss collective humanitarian intervention under the principles of the U.N. Charter and examine the practice of the Security Council since the end of the Cold War. …


The Complexities Of Humanitarian Intervention: A New World Order Challenge, Richard Falk Jan 1996

The Complexities Of Humanitarian Intervention: A New World Order Challenge, Richard Falk

Michigan Journal of International Law

The interplay between juridical support for norms of non-intervention and the actualities of interventionary diplomacy is an integral feature of a world of sovereign, yet unequal, states pursuing diverse goals. Pointing in one direction is the juridical stress on sovereignty, reinforced by spatial notions of territorial supremacy within fixed boundaries, which provides the doctrinal underpinnings of non-interventionism. Pointing in the other direction is the effort to project power and influence beyond territorial sovereignty, virtually a definition of what distinguishes a great power from an ordinary state, which creates the geopolitical pressures that result in intervention in the internal and external …


The Politics Of Collective Security, Anne Orford Jan 1996

The Politics Of Collective Security, Anne Orford

Michigan Journal of International Law

Part I argues that conventional international legal analyses about Security Council actions do not consider the gender-differentiated effects of those actions. The universality of male interests is taken for granted by international lawyers. The first level of analysis thus involves adding women in; that is, considering the consequences that Security Council actions have had for women in Kuwait, Iraq, Cambodia, Somalia, Mozambique, Bosnia, and the United States. I argue that many women are in fact rendered less secure by actions authorized by the Security Council in the name of collective security. As a result, women must have a voice in …


The Grave Breaches System And The Armed Conflict In The Former Yugoslavia, Oren Gross Jan 1995

The Grave Breaches System And The Armed Conflict In The Former Yugoslavia, Oren Gross

Michigan Journal of International Law

The system of grave breaches, established in the Conventions, is the focal point of the enforcement mechanism of international humanitarian law in general and of the Conventions in particular. It is therefore surprising that very little has been written to date about this system. This article is intended to fill that gap by discussing the repression -the prohibition, prosecution, and adjudication - of grave breaches of the Conventions. The article's main purpose is to chart and map the basic contours of the terrain of an area which despite its vast significance has not been adequately and systematically explored. It is …


The Concept Of Humanitarian Intervention Revisited, Yogesh K. Tyagi Jan 1995

The Concept Of Humanitarian Intervention Revisited, Yogesh K. Tyagi

Michigan Journal of International Law

Every case of humanitarian intervention gives rise to mixed feelings of hope and despair. Hope comes from the involvement of the international community, and despair comes from the fact that the state system is still too weak to meet its basic responsibility, namely, the protection of human dignity. Influenced by these mixed feelings, the present article attempts a new look at the concept of humanitarian intervention. In Part I, it examines the concept of humanitarian intervention. Part II analyzes the principal aspects of humanitarian intervention: the reasons for the intervention, the character of the target state, and the status of …


Lip Service To The Laws Of War: Humanitarian Law And United Nations Armed Forces, Richard D. Glick Jan 1995

Lip Service To The Laws Of War: Humanitarian Law And United Nations Armed Forces, Richard D. Glick

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article concludes that the United Nations is bound by the rules of customary international humanitarian law, and occupies a horizontal relationship with the other subjects of IHL that it engages in armed conflict. When U.N. armed forces engage in armed conflict, the Organization qualifies as a "party to armed conflict" within the meaning of IHL, and U.N. troops also fall within the IHL definition of "combatants," rendering the Organization subject to IHL obligations. Continuing U.N. arguments to the contrary either deprive IHL definitions of their determinacy or regress to a claim of undeserved special status for Charter norms and …


As-Salāmu `Alaykum? Humanitarian Law In Islamic Jurisprudence, Karima Bennoune Jan 1994

As-Salāmu `Alaykum? Humanitarian Law In Islamic Jurisprudence, Karima Bennoune

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Note examines Islamic legal doctrine in the field of humanitarian law and considers the historical contributions made by Islamic law to contemporary international humanitarian law. The goal of this Note is neither to unfairly attack nor to apologize for Islamic law, but rather to attempt an honest appraisal of Islamic humanitarian precepts, with an awareness of the way in which Islam has often been stereotyped as hostile and bloodthirsty in Western discourse. The intent is two-fold: First, to establish that scholars of modern international humanitarian law have often ignored its historical roots in Islamic law and second, to examine …


A Memorial For Bosnia: Framework Of Legal Arguments Concerning The Lawfulness Of The Maintenance Of The United Nations Security Council's Arms Embargo On Bosnia And Herzegovina, Craig Scott, Abid Qureshi, Jasminka Kalajdzic, Francis Chang, Paul Michell, Peter Copeland Jan 1994

A Memorial For Bosnia: Framework Of Legal Arguments Concerning The Lawfulness Of The Maintenance Of The United Nations Security Council's Arms Embargo On Bosnia And Herzegovina, Craig Scott, Abid Qureshi, Jasminka Kalajdzic, Francis Chang, Paul Michell, Peter Copeland

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Memorial seeks to present a framework of legal arguments with respect to the validity and legal effects of an arms embargo imposed by United Nations Security Council Resolution 713 in September 1991 on the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Yugoslavia), before its dissolution, and since treated as being in force with respect to the new states that have succeeded Yugoslavia. More particularly, the Memorial addresses the legality of maintaining (or, at least, having maintained during the crucial time period) the arms embargo in force, either de jure or de facto, against the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia) …


The Haitian Refugee Crisis: A Quest For Human Rights, Thomas David Jones Jan 1993

The Haitian Refugee Crisis: A Quest For Human Rights, Thomas David Jones

Michigan Journal of International Law

On June 14, 1993, the Vienna Conference on Human Rights, sponsored by the United Nations, commenced its opening session mired in controversy over the validity of a universal human rights doctrine. Many Third World or developing nations contended that Western norms of justice and fairness were not applicable to their societies. Thus, the developing nations articulated a culture-bound or relativistic concept of fundamental human rights. The developing nations' particularistic position was championed by such nations as China, Iran, Cuba, and Vietnam, signatories to the Bangkok Declaration of 1993. The Bangkok Declaration provides, inter alia, that though human rights are …


The Pull Of The Mainstream, Martti Koskenniemi May 1990

The Pull Of The Mainstream, Martti Koskenniemi

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Human Rights and Humanitarian Norms as Customary Law by Theodor Meron


Humanitarian Intervention, Daniel Wolf Jan 1988

Humanitarian Intervention, Daniel Wolf

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article argues that humanitarian intervention to prevent the mass slaughter by a state of its own citizens is not only a morally but a legally justifiable act under current norms of international law. The first section of the article discusses the traditional international legal rules concerning the doctrine of humanitarian intervention and their relevance to contemporary law. The second section analyzes the effect of the advent of the United Nations Charter on the legality of humanitarian intervention. Drawing on state practice and the opinion of the international legal community, the third section argues that the emergence of a post-Charter …