International Humanitarian Law Commons^™

Addressing The Accountability Void: War Crimes Against Persons With Disabilities, William I. Pons, Janet E. Lord, Professor Michael Stein

All Faculty Scholarship

Academics rarely raise the need to consider persons with disabilities when preventing,

investigating and prosecuting international humanitarian law (IHL) violations.

Worse still, no actual attempts have been made to include a disability perspective

into practical guidance and monitoring mechanisms. This article addresses that

void by laying out how existing yet unutilized IHL obligations can be leveraged to

repress and suppress disability-based IHL violations. In doing so, the article will

detail how fact-finding approaches, criminal investigative processes and reporting

methods for IHL violations can be inclusive of persons with disabilities and thus

more appropriately address the endemic under-representation of a disability …

Overcoming The Westphalian Notion Of "Absolute Sovereignty": The Venezuelan Case With The Inter-American Convention Of Human Rights, Gabriel Ortiz

Human Rights Brief

In 2012, Former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez withdrew from the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR or “the Convention”). He presented a letter issued by the Department of Foreign Affairs before the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS). The denunciation became effective in 2013. Thereafter, no one could petition before the Inter-American Commission or the Inter-American Court (IACHR) to hold Venezuela accountable for human rights violations. Meanwhile, between 2014 and 2019, the government’s armed groups have killed more than 19,000 people.

Romanian Government Will Implement Measures To Prevent Further Violations Of Rightsof People With Mental Health Conditions Or Disabilities In Accord With The Decision Of The European Court Of Human Rights, Tesa Hargis

Human Rights Brief

On June 21 and 22, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and Romania discussed reform measures based on various judgements delivered during the nine-year period between 2012 and 2021. At issue before the ECtHR’s Department for Execution of Judgments was insufficient legal protection, lack of medical and social care, deficiencies in the legal framework governing involuntary placement, inadequate management of psychiatric conditions of detainees, and overcrowding and poor conditions in Romanian mental health facilities.

The Peace Corps Is Failing To Keep Volunteers Safe, Marnie Leonard

Human Rights Brief

Nicole Jacobson, an American Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) in a Zambian village, was “far from home and feeling alone” when the father of the host family that the Peace Corps (“the agency”) placed her with sexually assaulted her. Jacobson reported the assault to Peace Corps staff, who told her it was a cultural misunderstanding and kept Jacobson at the site for more than a year before allowing her to leave in 2018. Unfortunately, Jacobson’s story is not unique. In fact, she is one of many Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) who have come forward in recent years to share stories …

Brazil’S Violence Against Indigenous Peoples, Andre Taylor

Human Rights Brief

Centuries of violence and displacement define the relationship between indigenous peoples and the successive governments of Brazil. As Brazil embarks on a massive expansion of its agribusiness and mining operations, the systemic denial of land rights and illegal economic activity on protected lands has threatened traditional ways of life practiced by indigenous peoples. The most aggressive policy taken by the Brazilian government has involved legitimizing land claims on unregistered ancestral indigenous lands for development, putting 37,800 square miles of territory at risk for exploitation by loggers, ranchers, and farmers.

Chocholáčv. Slovakia: Prisoners, Porn, & Morality In Human Rights, Amanda Lorenzo

Human Rights Brief

Chocholáč v. Slovakia asks whether Slovakia’s disciplinary actions against a prisoner in possession of concealed pornographic materials violated the European Convention of Human Rights (“the Convention”). Roman Chocholáč, a thirtythree-year-old currently serving a life sentence in Leopoldov prison was found possessing a “popular weekly magazine” with sexually-explicit pictures pasted inside. The State deemed the added material a threat to morality and prison staff confiscated it. On November 21, 2017, Chocholáč v. Slovakia was brought to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), presenting legal questions under Slovakia’s Criminal Code and Execution of Prison Sentences Act, as well as Articles 8 …

The Right To Assembly Should Extend Online In China, Gracie Kreth

Human Rights Brief

Peng Shuai, China’s star tennis player, logged onto the Chinese social media platform Weibo in November 2021 and posted a description of her relationship with Zhang Gaoli, a powerful Chinese leader and former Vice Premier of China. Shuai alleged in her post that after a consensual relationship with Gaoli, he sexually assaulted her. She described her feelings from the trauma and the suicidal thoughts that followed. Within minutes, the Chinese government scrubbed the post from the internet — but it was still quick to spread, battling the “Great Firewall.” Shuai’s profile essentially disappeared online; along with Shuai in the real …

The Disaster Chain: Counter-Mapping Global Value Chains, Peer Zumbansen

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Abstract: Prevailing accounts by consultancies and logistics scholars present global value chains [GVCs] as an expression of contemporary international economic integration and connectivity. As such, they are considered crucial to the pursuit of economic growth and prosperity. At the same time, GVCs are deemed susceptible to “disruptions” through natural catastrophes, restrictive trade policies or pandemics. Left out of the standard narratives, even in light of the experience of the global Coronavirus pandemic, is the actual, as such disruptive impact of global value chain capitalism on human and natural lives. Dominant depictions of global value chain governance treat labor, environment and …

Disaggregating Slavery And The Slave Trade, Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum

FIU Law Review

International law prohibits slavery and the slave trade as peremptory norms, customary international law prohibitions and crimes, humanitarian law prohibitions, and non-derogable human rights. Human rights bodies, however, focus on human trafficking, even when slavery and the slave trade—and not human trafficking—are enumerated within their mandates. International human rights law has conflated human trafficking with slavery and the slave trade. Consequently, human trafficking has subsumed the slave trade and, at times, slavery prohibitions, increasing perpetrator impunity for slavery and the slave trade abuses and denying full expressive justice to survivors. This Article disaggregates slavery from the slave trade and slavery …

Recognizing A Fundamental Right To A Clean Environment: Why The Juliana Court Got It Wrong And How To Address The Issue Moving Forward, Robert Kemper

FIU Law Review

As the existential threat of climate change becomes increasingly prevalent, U.S. plaintiffs, lawyers, and activists have begun seeking redress in federal courts arguing for recognition of a constitutional right to a clean environment. Recently, in Juliana v. United States, the Ninth Circuit explicitly recognized the grave threat of climate change for the health, well-being, and security of the American people and the nation as a whole. Additionally, the court found that the U.S. government has contributed to climate change through both inaction and policy decisions that promote the use of fossil fuels. The plaintiffs claimed that they had a constitutional …

Academy On Human Rights And Humanitarian Law Articles On Human Rights And States Of Emergency: Unexpected Crisis And New Challenges: Prologue, Claudio Grossman, Robert K. Goldman

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

We are pleased to write this prologue for the special issue of the American UniversityInternationalLaw Review featuring the winning papers from the 2021 Human Rights Essay Award, sponsored by the Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law of American University Washington College of Law.

Academy On Human Rights And Humanitarian Law Articles On Human Rights And States Of Emergency: Unexpected Crisis And New Challenges: Introduction, Claudia Martin, Diego Rodriguez-Pinzon

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

We are delighted to present this year's special issue of the American UniversityInternationalLaw Review and the Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, which includes two of the best essays in English and in Spanish recognized in the 2021 Human Rights Essay Award competition. It is satisfying to think that this competition allowed a number of participants an opportunity to expound their thoughts on so many important topics, regarding so many areas of the world. We hope these participants are able to use their articles as mechanisms for change.

Platform-Enabled Crimes: Pluralizing Accountability When Social Media Companies Enable Perpetrators To Commit Atrocities, Rebecca Hamilton

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Online intermediaries are omnipresent. Each day across the globe, the corporations running these platforms execute policies and practices that serve their profit model, typically by sustaining user engagement. Sometimes, these seemingly banal business activities enable principal perpetrators to commit crimes. Online intermediaries, however, are almost never held to account for their complicity in the resulting harms. This Article introduces the concept of platformenabled crimes into the legal literature to highlight the ways in which the ordinary business activities of online intermediaries enable the commission of crime. It then focuses on a subset of platform-enabled crimes—those in which a social media …

The Invasion Of Ukraine: A Gross Violation Of International Law, Claudio Grossman

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

In recent weeks, humanity has witnessed a war in Europe as a result of Russia’s unjustified invasion of Ukraine.

The Right To Privacy And Data Protection In Times Of Armed Conflict, Asaf Lubin, Russell Buchan

Books & Book Chapters by Maurer Faculty

Contemporary warfare yields a profound impact on the rights to privacy and data protection. Technological advances in the fields of electronic surveillance, predictive algorithms, big data analytics, user-generated evidence, artificial intelligence, cloud storage, facial recognition, and cryptography are redefining the scope, nature, and contours of military operations. Yet, international humanitarian law offers very few, if any, lex specialis rules for the lawful processing, analysis, dissemination, and retention of personal information. This edited anthology offers a pioneering account of the current and potential future application of digital rights in armed conflict.

In Part I Mary Ellen O’Connell, Tal Mimran and Yuval …

Book Review, Mary Ellen O'Connell

Journal Articles

Book review of Intervention in Civil Wars: Effectiveness, Legitimacy, and Human Rights by Chiara Redaelli. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2021.