International Humanitarian Law Commons^™

Reframing The Dei Case, Veronica Root Martinez

Seattle University Law Review

Corporate firms have long expressed their support for the idea that their organizations should become more demographically diverse while creating a culture that is inclusive of all members of the firm. These firms have traditionally, however, not been successful at improving demographic diversity and true inclusion within the upper echelons of their organizations. The status quo seemed unlikely to move, but expectations for corporate firms were upended after the #MeToo Movement of 2017 and 2018, which was followed by corporate support of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement in 2020. These two social movements, while distinct in many ways, forced firms to rethink …

Women In Shareholder Activism, Sarah C. Haan

Seattle University Law Review

Even a cursory review of the history of American environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) shareholder activism reveals the presence of women leaders. This Article sketches some of this history and interrogates the role of women in the shareholder activism movement. That movement typically has involved claims by minority shareholders to corporate power; activists are nearly always on the margins of power, though minority shareholders may, collectively, represent a majority interest. This Article ascribes women’s leadership in shareholder activism to their longstanding position as outsiders to corporate organization. Women’s participation in shaping corporate policy—even from the margins—has provided women with …

#Metoo And The Corporation In Popular Culture, Brenda Cossman

Seattle University Law Review

#MeToo’s initial virtual explosion in the fall of 2017 was very much about Hollywood, with famous actresses speaking out against famous producers, media moguls and celebrities, exposing the ubiquity of sexual harassment and sexual violence in and around the entertainment industry. Since then, #MeToo has made its way into Hollywood representations without much irony. Films and television shows have explicitly taken up the #MeToo themes, exploring issues of sexual harassment and violence and its afterlives. Many television shows, from the relaunched version of Murphy Brown to Brooklyn Nine-Nine to The Good Fight have incorporated #MeToo themes into episodes exploring the …

Woke Capital Revisited, Jennifer S. Fan

Seattle University Law Review

Inclusive corporate leadership is now at the forefront of discussions related to corporate governance. Two corporate theories help to explain the rise in prominence of diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”) efforts in corporate leadership. First, an expanded definition of corporate purpose which elevated the idea of the importance of stakeholders, contributed to the momentum from business and legal quarters for broader corporate inclusion. Second, the increasing publicness of corporations—the social expectation of how large, typically public corporations should act given their position of power—also led to corporations becoming more active in the DEI space. It is against this backdrop that …

Army Commander’S Role—The Judge, Jury, & Prosecutor For The Article 15, Anthony Godwin

Seattle University Law Review

Service members in the armed forces are bound by a different set of rules when compared to other U.S. citizens. Some of the normal safeguards and protections that civilians enjoy are much more restrictive for military service members, and this is generally for a good reason. Such restrictions are partly due to the complex demands and needs of the United States military. Congress and the President have entrusted military commanders with special powers that enable them to handle minor violations of law without needing to go through a full judicial proceeding. Non-judicial punishments (NJP), also known as Article 15s, are …

A Synthesis Of The Science And Law Relating To Eyewitness Misidentifications And Recommendations For How Police And Courts Can Reduce Wrongful Convictions Based On Them, Henry F. Fradella

Seattle University Law Review

The empirical literature on perception and memory consistently demonstrates the pitfalls of eyewitness identifications. Exoneration data lend external validity to these studies. With the goal of informing law enforcement officers, prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys, judges, and judicial law clerks about what they can do to reduce wrongful convictions based on misidentifications, this Article presents a synthesis of the scientific knowledge relevant to how perception and memory affect the (un)reliability of eyewitness identifications. The Article situates that body of knowledge within the context of leading case law. The Article then summarizes the most current recommendations for how law enforcement personnel should—and …

Report Of The International Commission Of Human Rights Experts On Ethiopia, Mohamed Chande Othman, Steven Ratner, Radhika Coomaraswamy

Other Publications

In the present report, submitted pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 51/27, the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia provides an overview of the human rights situation in Ethiopia. It identifies grave and systematic violations of international law and crimes committed in Tigray, as well as in Amhara, Afar and Oromia. Violations include mass killings, rape, starvation, forced displacement and arbitrary detention. The conflict in Tigray has not ended, with Eritrean troops and Amhara militias engaging in ongoing violations. Past and current violations and abuses in the four regions mentioned above demand further investigation. The Government of Ethiopia …

Unsettling Human Rights Clinical Pedagogy And Practice In Settler Colonial Contexts, Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum, Caroline Bishop Laporte

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

In settler colonial contexts, law and educational institutions operate as structures of oppression, extraction, erasure, disempowerment, and continuing violence against colonized peoples. Consequently, clinical legal advocacy often can reinforce coloniality—the logic that perpetuates structural violence against individuals and groups resisting colonization and struggling for survival as peoples. Critical legal theory, including Third World Approaches to International Law (“TWAIL”), has long exposed colonial laws and practices that entrench discriminatory, racialized power structures and prevent transformative international human rights advocacy. Understanding and responding to these critiques can assist in decolonizing international human rights clinical law teaching and practice but is insufficient in …

Restraining The Heartless: Erosion Of Corporate Liability Under The Alien Tort Statute And The Path Forward For Victims Seeking Redress, Alexa M. Duffy

American University Law Review

The Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”) is a U.S. federal law dating back to 1789 that allows non-U.S. citizens to file civil lawsuits in federal courts against individuals or entities for alleged international law violations. While originally interpreted to address piracy and the safeguarding of foreign diplomats, the ATS gained new relevance in the late twentieth century when it was used to hold individuals and corporations accountable for human rights abuses committed abroad, making it a critical tool in seeking justice for human rights violations.

This Comment argues that there is no longer a realistic federal forum for ATS suits against …

Legal Cooperation Issues On Sea Level Rise, Maria Teresa Infante

American University Law Review

This is a very timely event. Although there have been several cases in which experts—both academics and governments—discuss the connection between sea-level rise and the legal framework, this event is important because it will bring to the forefront the fact that the practice in the Americas and the Caribbean should be analyzed when discussing this pressing topic. This is a very important initiative; I encourage the Inter-American system and the juridical committee to tackle this issue. I hope it will be in connection with the work that is being conducted by the International Law Commission itself.

Ukraine's Push To Prosecute Aggression: Implications For Immunity Ratione Personae And The Crime Of Aggression, Rebecca Hamilton

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Russia’s aggression against Ukraine dates back to its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s southern peninsula, Crimea. It was Russia’s brazen full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, however, that captured global attention and put the crime of aggression – the resort to war in violation of the UN Charter3 – in the spotlight.

Anti-Carceral Human Rights Advocacy, Chi Adanna Mgbako, Nate Johnson, Vivienne Bang Brown, Megan Cheah, Kimya Zahedi

Faculty Scholarship

The theory of carceral abolition entered the mainstream during the 2020 global protests for Black lives. Abolition calls for divestment from carceral institutions like police and prisons in favor of the expansion of social and economic programs that ensure public safety and nurture community well-being. Although there is little scholarship explicitly linking abolition to international human rights, there are scholars and advocates who implicitly echo abolitionist theories by critiquing the international human rights regime's overreliance on criminal law. These critics argue that relying on carceral institutions to address impunity for human rights abuses and promote gender justice does little to …