International Humanitarian Law Commons^™

Following A Sigmoid Progression: Some Jurisprudential And Pragmatic Considerations Regarding Territorial Acquisition Among Nation-States, John C. Duncan, Jr.

Journal Publications

This article analyzes methods and doctrines used by States to acquire territories. The role of the United Nations in resolving disputes between nations and the inhabitants directly affected by the disputes is also addressed, including the jurisdictional, jurisprudential, and practical considerations of territorial acquisition. Finally, traditional territorial acquisition doctrines are applied to extraterrestrial and outer space acquisition. As Western civilization etched out territories and borders across its known world, international norms of diplomatic behavior appeared in the form of customs. These customs eventually grew into codifications, which in turn grew into the elaborate international system enjoyed and protested today. Laws …

Child Soldiers And Clicktivism: Justice, Myths, And Prevention, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

The Kony 2012 campaign, conducted under the auspices of an American advocacy group, Invisible Children, highlighted – somewhat belatedly – the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), its leadership, and its many victims in northern Uganda, notably child soldiers. Deeper questions lurk, however, amid the breezy media flurry. How does Kony 2012 inform our understanding of child soldiers? How does it sculpt international efforts to prevent child soldiering?

Omar Khadr: Domestic And International Litigation Strategies For A Child In Armed Conflict Held At Guantanamo, Richard J. Wilson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This essay explores the intersections and tensions between international human rights law and international humanitarian law as those two doctrinal areas played out in the concrete situation of Omar Khadr, a Canadian child detainee at Guantanamo Bay. Particular focus is given to how issues regarding his youth were addressed by the many tribunals involved: in the multiple venues of courts in the United States and Canada, and in international human rights bodies. The issues on Omar’s youth span many contexts, raising judicial questions regarding the legality of his detention, his treatment and separation from adults while detained, jurisdiction to prosecute …

Which Law Governs During Armed Conflict? The Relationship Between International Humanitarian Law And Human Rights Law, Rebecca Crootof, Oona A. Hathaway, Philip Levitz, Haley Nix, William Perdue, Chelsea Purvis, Julia Spiegel

Law Faculty Publications

On May 31, 2010, in the early hours of the morning, Israeli Defense Forces boarded and occupied a flotilla of six vessels seventy-two nautical miles from the coast of Gaza. The flotilla carried food and other supplies to Gaza, which was under a naval blockade. During the incident, nine passengers were killed and several others wounded. In the aftermath, a key question that emerged was what body of law applied to the incident? Was it subject to human rights law, international humanitarian law, or some mix of the two?

This same question has been at the heart of ongoing debates …

The Law Of Occupation And Un Administration Of Territory: Mandatory, Desirable, Or Irrelevant?, Steven R. Ratner

Other Publications

Governments and international organizations as well as academic commentators have remarked upon the similarities and differences between occupation of territory by States and administration of territory by the United Nations. Although formal administration of territory by the United Nations has been limited to a small number of cases, the possibility of future revival of this practice warrants consideration of the relevance of the law of occupation (hereafter LO) to this phenomenon. This paper attempts to sketch out the major issues in an attempt to guide the experts in their discussion.

Politics And Prosecutions, From Katherine Fite To Fatou Bensouda, Diane Marie Amann

Scholarly Works

Based on the Katherine B. Fite Lecture delivered at the 5th Annual International Humanitarian Law Dialogs in Chautauqua, New York, this essay examines the role that politics has played in the evolution of international criminal justice. It first establishes the frame of the lecture series and its relation to IntLawGrrls blog, a cosponsor of the IHL Dialogs. It then discusses the career of the series' namesake, Katherine B. Fite, a State Department lawyer who helped draft the Charter of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg and who was, in her own words, a "political observer" of the proceedings. The essay …

Could This Train Make It Through: The Law And Strategy Of The Gold Train Case, Charles Tiefer, Jonathan W. Cuneo, Annie Reiner

All Faculty Scholarship

In 1944-45, the Nazis seized personal belongings of the Hungarian Jewish population and dispatched some of the most valuable of them on a train. The United States Army took control of this "Gold Train" and gave reassurances that it would keep the valuables safe. However, the items were plundered by individual soldiers, including officers, and diverted to various uses. After decades of dormancy, a Presidential Commission exposed the facts, but the government still did not right the wrong — until there was litigation.

The "Gold Train" case (Rosner v. United States) represents a measure of justice for the victimized community …

Developing The Substantive Best Interests Of Child Migrants: A Call For Action, Andrew I. Schoenholtz

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Article attempts to accomplish two goals. First, it provides an overview of what is known and unknown about international child migrants. While this Conference will focus to some degree on child migrants in the United States, this Article shows how significant this phenomenon is around the world. Therefore, this Article provides data and points out the research gaps surrounding this issue.

Equally significant is the lack of legal and policy tools available for governments to respond well and in accordance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child ("CRC") to the children themselves. First, informed by social science …

To Break Free From Tyranny And Oppression, Evan M. Brewer

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Too often states have invoked territorial integrity and nonintervention in defending abuses perpetrated against peoples within their borders. This practice must be stopped by embracing a robust remedial right to secession. Remedial secession takes place when an oppressed people creates an independent state by seceding from a state that denies its right to self-determination. It has been speculatively posited as an "extreme circumstances" possibility, but remedies to denials of the right to self-determination have not been clearly determined beyond the decolonization context. In the post-colonial era, international law has recognized the importance of fundamental human rights to such a great …

Imagining The Homeland From Afar: Community And Peoplehood In The Age Of The Diaspora, Adeno Addis

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Diasporas--understood as groups of individuals or communities who carry an image of a homeland that is separate from the host land in which they reside--have always been with us. As long as there have been large movements of people across boundaries, be it voluntary or involuntary, there have been diasporas. The image of the homeland that diasporas carry could be real (an existing country) or imagined (a future country). In whatever way diasporas imagine the homeland, they have often attempted to act as if they belong to "we the people" of the homeland. They imagine themselves to be "outside the …

Victim Participation At The International Criminal Court And The Extraordinary Chambers In The Courts Of Cambodia: A Feminist Project?, Susana Sacouto

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

INTRODUCTION: Over the last couple of decades, and particularly since 1998, incredible advances have been made in the effort to end impunity for sexual and gender-based violence committed in the context of war, mass violence, or repression. Before this, crimes committed exclusively or disproportionately against women and girls during conflict or periods of mass violence were either largely ignored, or at most, treated as secondary to other crimes. However, evidence of the large-scale and systematic use of rape in conflicts over the last two decades helped create unprecedented levels of awareness of sexual violence as a method of war and …

International Humanitarian Law Of Armed Conflict: A Critical Annotated Bibliography For Collection Development, Madeline Cohen

Publications and Research

This article is an annotated bibliography of selected monographs published from 2001 through 2012 in the fields of International Humanitarian Law of Armed Conflict (Laws of War) and International Human Rights Law. The aim is to provide a collection development guide for librarians and scholars in this area of international law. Key topics that are covered are: Internal conflicts, asymmetric warfare, laws of war, humanitarian intervention, treatment of insurgents, non-international armed conflict, targeted killings, terrorism, drones, robotics.

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 …