International Humanitarian Law Commons^™

The Reception Of International Human Rights Law In Charter Litigation: "Not A Box Of Chocolates" But You Still "Never Know What You're Gonna Get", Karinne Lantz

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This article explores the reception of international human rights law(IHRL)in Canada. Focusing on the Charter context, it demonstrates that how IHRL applies in Canada continues to lack clarity despite repeated (and recent) efforts by the Supreme Court of Canada to provide it. This article argues that this lack of clarity is an important matter for the Court to address, particularly as IHRL is increasingly being invoked before courts and other tribunals around the world. It argues that the Court should adopt a methodology that: (i) endorses the “Dickson Doctrine,”according to which the “minimum protection approach”is robustly applied for international human …

Cold Comfort: Japan’S “Comfort Women” Litigation Under Transnational Law, Timothy Webster

Faculty Scholarship

Transnational human rights litigation has emerged as a powerful tool to remediate state and corporate abuses. Courts, however, rarely evince the same enthusiasm for these lawsuits as practitioners, scholars, and activists. For the past thirty-five years, “comfort women,” or survivors of wartime sexual exploitation, have used transnational litigation to seek redress from the Japanese government. Yet they have lost nearly all their cases. This Article uses ten “comfort women” lawsuits from Japan to test the limits of transnational human rights litigation. While judges rarely found for the comfort women, their verdicts nonetheless advanced the redress issue by showing the illegality …

Leaning Into Absence: Lessons From Kony, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

This article begins with the confirmation of charges decisions undertaken by the International Criminal Court in the Kony case. These proceedings struggled with the reality of in absentia. This article addresses the high absentee rate among individuals against whom the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants and notes the stark presence of absence in the ICC’s work as well as within the enforcement of international criminal law at large. This article suggests that international criminal lawyers lean into the prevalence of absence and reboot predominant collective thinking. One path forward is to truly and warmly embrace transitional …

Cedaw's General Recommendation No. 37: A Sweeping Reconceptualization Of Women’S Rights In The Climate Crisis And A Tool To Assess State’S Compliance With Them, Ingrid Nifosi-Sutton

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

INTRODUCTION: Climate change is one of the most formidable challenges of our time that threatens our way of life and the very existence of humankind. While climate change has negative impacts on all persons, it affects women and girls disproportionately. During floods and severe storms fueled by climate change, for example, women are more likely to die than men because they lack access to essential information on how to survive in these emergencies. In certain regions of the world—such as Sub-Saharan Africa—women smallholder farmers are bearing the brunt of climate change because, in the aftermath of droughts, these women have …

Unsuccessful? Universal Human Rights And The United Nations: Russian Imperialism In Ukraine And The Post-Udhr International System, Sofiia Novytska

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Human universality has always stood as a controversial subject and remains politically contentious today. Following the humanitarian crisis of World War II, the international community was determined to protect the integrity and dignity of people worldwide by developing the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, universal human rights were not invented by the Declaration and were already conceptually established in global ancient thought, further evolved into Early Modern scholarship, and later paved the way for modern humanitarian frameworks. The UDHR was not universally well-received, and was criticized for its revolutionary legal character, postcolonial contestation, and practical ambiguity. The …

The Proportionality Trap: Why Death Tolls In War Need Not Add Up Equally, Thane Rosenbaum

Touro Law Review

Imagine a war without battlefields. There are no uniforms. Civilians and combatants are indistinguishable. Homes, schools, hospitals, and religious buildings are used as command and communication centers, and for the warehousing of weapons. Apartment rooftops are launching pads; the civilians who live inside . . . human shields. There are over 300 miles of reinforced tunnels, all outfitted with weapons and passageways for terrorists to take hostages and travel freely. Beyond Proportionality examines Israel’s battles against Hamas and Hezbollah under the laws of war and concludes that its war time conduct was based on military necessity and fought justly. The …

Rightly Dividing Jus Ad Bellum And Jus In Bello In The Israel/Hamas War, Jeffrey F. Addicott

Pace International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legal Issues Arising From The Military Use Of Ai-Supported Biometrics, Marten Zwanenburg

International Law Studies

Biometrics is increasingly used by armed forces for a variety of purposes, such as access control, the registration of detainees, and increasingly also targeting. The capabilities of biometric systems are considerably strengthened when they are enabled by artificial intelligence (AI). This article analyzes legal questions that are raised by the military use of such AI-supported biometrics. It argues that relevant legal frameworks are International Humanitarian Law, international human rights law, and the right to privacy in particular, as well as data protection law. The article finds that arguably, IHL may require the use of (AI-supported) biometrics in certain situations if …

Beyond Precedent: Sexual Violence As An Act Of Genocide In The International Criminal Tribunal For Rwanda, Ciara Kilroy

Peace and Conflict Studies

Wartime sexual violence (WSV) has been a characteristic of violent conflict throughout recorded history, yet has failed to illicit the same international attention and condemnation as other war crimes. WSV has also been a particularly pervasive method of destruction during genocide, in which women make up the majority of victims and are targeted for both their gender and group membership. However, sexual violence is not enumerated as a crime of genocide in the 1948 Genocide Convention. Despite its absence from the formal genocide convention, legal institutions have still attempted to hold perpetrators responsible for sexual violence during genocide. This paper …

Military Ai And The Specter Of The Limitless War, Yuval Shany, Yahli Shereshevsky

International Law Studies

Legal and extra-legal factors related to the development of international humanitarian law (IHL) support the exercise of strategic restraint during armed conflicts. We claim, however, that technological developments in the area of military artificial intelligence (AI) fundamentally do away with many of the technological constraints that limited the capacity of militaries to fully utilize the “license to kill” afforded to them by IHL. Such a violence-enhancing effect can become even more dramatic in cases where other restraining factors are less effective. The upshot of our analysis is that the implicit assumption that IHL would be applied in a context of …

The Criminal Responsibility Of Russia For War Crimes In The Russo-Ukrainian War, Nicolas R. Obabko

Honors Capstones

This Honors Capstone Thesis serves as an independent research study to verify the authenticity of allegations of Russian war crimes and violations of international humanitarian and criminal law in Russian conduct during the Russo-Ukrainian War. This research study primarily focuses on Russian war crimes and violations of international law that occurred after the beginning of the full-scale war on February 24, 2022, while acknowledging that allegations of similar violations have been occurring since 2014. This Honors Capstone Thesis uses international law sources such as the Geneva Conventions and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide …

Not So Firmly Settled: How The Inconsistent Jurisprudence Of The Firm Resettlement Bar Serves As A Tool For Asylum Seeker Exclusion, Caroline V. Garrido

Fordham Law Review

The firm resettlement bar to asylum, designed to limit protections to those without refuge elsewhere, has become a source of inconsistency, confusion, and exclusion in U.S. asylum law. Circuit courts have adopted two different approaches for determining whether an asylum seeker has firmly resettled in a third country. Despite the Board of Immigration Appeals’ attempt to unify these approaches through the introduction of a burden-shifting framework, courts remain divided, and there is no clear guidance on what constitutes firm resettlement. This Note argues that this lack of guidance has led to inconsistent court holdings and interpretations that conflict with the …

Israel's Blockade Of Gaza Was Legal; Withholding Humanitarian Aid, Not So Much, Menachem Z. Rosensaft

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

Last month, the International Court of Justice rebuked Israel in an advisory opinion for blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza during the course of the Israel-Hamas war there and emphasized that starvation of civilian populations as a method of warfare is prohibited under prevailing international humanitarian law. Predictably, Israel’s UN ambassador dismissed the advisory opinion as “shameful.”

Now that the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza is in the rearview mirror, it is important to assess the legal and moral aspects and ramifications of Israel’s two-year blockade of Gaza. Specifically, the question that needs to be asked, but that does not have a …

Request For An Advisory Opinion By The State Of Guatemala On Democracy And Its Protection Under The Inter-American Human Rights System: Expert Opinion, Notre Dame Law School Global Human Rights Clinic, Notre Dame Reparations Design And Compliance Lab, Diane A. Desierto, Francisco J. Urbina, Paolo G. Carozza, Anibal Perez-Liñan, Faisal Yamil Meneses, Nicolas Buitrago Rey, Ian Sheppard, Michelle Vasquez, Nick Polk, Carlos Chinchilla Mourra, Jose Cardona Sanchez, Pablo Proaño, Roselis Diaz De Freitas, Zolile Shude, Christian Mikala-Ofori, Rachel Cooper

Court Briefs

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Notre Dame Law School Global Human Rights Clinic (NDLS GHRC) In collaboration with Notre Dame Reparations Design and Compliance Lab (ND Reparations Lab)

The undersigned Professors, staff lawyers, and researchers of the NDLS GHRC and the ND Reparations Lab respectfully submit this Expert Opinion for this Honorable Court’s consideration. 

1. The State of Guatemala has requested this Honorable Court to interpret specific provisions of the American Convention on Human Rights (e.g., Preamble first paragraph, Article 1 obligation to respect rights, Article 5 right to humane treatment, Article 8 right to a fair trial, Article 9 freedom from ex …

Artificial Intelligence And The “Armed Attack” Threshold In International Law, Katie A. Johnston

International Law Studies

This article argues that the deployment of artificial intelligence, even in its strong fully autonomous form, does not have significant consequences for the application of the jus ad bellum framework, and in particular the armed attack threshold. As with all new weapons technologies, the deployment of artificial intelligence in the resort to force requires consideration of what “imminence” means in this context. However, artificial intelligence is fundamentally a means of making decisions to resort to force or contributing to the reasons for which such decisions are made by humans. Unlike the jus in bello, the jus ad bellum is …

Healing Through Acknowledgment: The Role Of Naturalistic Restorative Justice And Twentieth Century Genocide Recovery, Julia R. Swirbalus

The Graduate Review

This article defines and explores the application of restorative justice principles in the context of twentieth century genocide acknowledgments. The genocides used as case studies in this article include the Holocaust, Cambodian genocide, and Rwandan genocide. This article examines how survivors have utilized restorative practices to facilitate healing, the importance of historical site preservation, and governments acknowledging their wrongdoings. The importance of acknowledgment and making amends to facilitate healing is highlighted throughout the article. The findings underscore the complexity of applying restorative justice to genocide and the necessity of proper acknowledgment for true reconciliation and healing to occur. This article …

Child-Taking Justice And The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, Diane Marie Amann

Scholarly Works

The focus of this article is the 2022–2024 Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative undertaken the U.S. Executive Branch. The article chronicles this three-year process, which included sessions with survivors and their descendants, and which resulted in a two-volume report, in an apology by President Joe Biden, and in designation of a national memorial at one of the most notorious school sites. This article examines the initiative as an example of “child-taking justice”; that is, as a process of what is called “transitional justice”, done in an effort to redress the takings of children from their community, followed by efforts to …

Living Property, Joseph William Singer

Seattle University Law Review

The Supreme Court has increasingly defined property rights that are per se exempt from regulation in the absence of compensation, most recently in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid (2021) and Tyler v. Hennepin County (2023). The Court claims that it can identify property rights that are categorically protected from regulation by reference to history, tradition, and precedent. Yet this approach is oddly ahistorical; it is inconsistent with the fact that property law changed dramatically over U.S. history, as well as varying tremendously among the states. It is also inconsistent with the historical context of the Founding era. At that time, …

Table Of Contents

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

“A Plain Denial”: Reclaiming Equal Protection In American Juvenile Law, Addie C. Rolnick, David S. Tanenhaus, Justin Iverson, Danielle L. Silvestri

Seattle University Law Review

Juvenile courts are based on the premise that children are different from adults and should therefore be treated differently. Children may be treated more informally by courts, punished for different purposes, and brought before the court for different behaviors. Since In re Gault, the Supreme Court has been clear that there are limits to how different juvenile courts can be. Juveniles are entitled to many of the same procedural protections as adult criminal defendants, although the Court has preserved some procedural differences where it has determined that their benefit is outweighed by the need to preserve the informality, flexibility, …

Redefining Section 230 Immunity, Lucas Dini

Seattle University Law Review

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has provided broad immunity to online platforms for third-party content which was the foundation for the internet's growth. However, the rise in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to produce algorithms to curate content to users of online services has blurred the line between being a passive host of third party content and active editorial control. This Note examines the legal, policy, and constitutional implications of applying Section 230 immunity to platforms that use AI to curate and promote third-party content. This analysis argues that algorithmic promotion of third-party content constitutes a platform's …

Overcrowding The System: Rethinking Juvenile Justice In Washington State, Mckenna White

Seattle University Law Review

The recent crisis at Green Hill School highlights the detrimental consequences of severe overcrowding in Washington State’s Juvenile Rehabilitation system—a problem exacerbated by the implementation of the JR to 25 legislation. This Note argues that the juvenile rehabilitation system, which is currently struggling to manage a wide age range of offenders, necessitates a fundamental rethinking of juvenile justice practices. By examining neurological research indicating continued brain development into the mid-twenties, along with the high prevalence of trauma among justice-involved youth, this Note proposes the creation of a dedicated third system of care within the Department of Children, Youth, and Families …

Addressing The Root Of Housing Insecurity: Washington Should Divest From “Crime-Free” Housing Programs, Sarah Cerdena

Seattle University Law Review

Crime-Free Rental Housing Properties (CFRHPs) have proven to be an ineffective and inequitable approach to public safety. Often, tenants in these properties are evicted—at times, extrajudicially—as a result of conduct that does not rise to violations of their lease provisions, much less criminal behavior. By placing extraordinary power in the hands of local law enforcement to carry out these ordinances, CFRHPs predictably pose significant harm to Black and Latinx communities, survivors of domestic violence, disabled tenants, and low-income tenants generally. Recently, the Washington State Supreme Court grappled with the tensions arising between CFRHPs and the enforcement of Washington landlord-tenant law. …

Neurodiversity In The Courtroom: Expanding Jury Service Accessibility Beyond Physical Disability, Samantha L. Mabe

Seattle University Law Review

The Americans with Disabilities Act has required equal access to jury service for decades; however, efforts to accommodate jurors with disabilities have been slow to develop beyond some minor accommodations for physical disabilities. While neurodivergent people frequently struggle to navigate a world catered toward neurotypical people, jury service remains inaccessible for many neurodivergent people who need accommodations to attend trial and engage in jury deliberations. If courts and advocates do not consider how to develop accommodations to secure the service of neurodivergent jurors, they will miss out on the unique skillsets that neurodivergent people can bring to resolving disputes.

Disabled …

Classification Of The Armed Conflicts In The Near East, Marco Sassòli

International Law Studies

This article explores the proper classification of Israel’s current conflicts with Hamas and Hezbollah as international or non-international armed conflicts. It discusses the different possibilities of how the international humanitarian law of international or non-international armed conflict applies to those conflicts and whether and to what extent the international humanitarian law of military occupation applies to the conduct of Israel Defence Forces in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. It also explains why the proper classification of the conflicts still matters and is not only an intellectual exercise for scholars or students. While every conflict has its specifics, the article deals …

Digital Regulation And Development: A Global Micro And Macro Comparison, Katrin Kuhlmann

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Regulation of the digital economy is receiving increased attention both domestically and internationally, but too little scholarship exists assessing the degree to which these new rules effectively support economic, social, and sustainable development. This Article advances a micro-macro framework for assessing digital regulation and its development dimension, including digital inclusion and measures to address the digital divide, the protection of human rights, and the operationalization of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. In doing so, it incorporates a “micro international law” methodology to compare domestic legal design features and trace their diffusion into regional trade agreements and, in turn, into …

Security And Terrorism Vs Free Expression: Analytical Study On The European Court Of Human Rights, Mariam Adel Massoud

Theses and Dissertations

The 11 of September attacks provide a paradigm shift when it comes to protection of national security. It results in a trending vision that prioritized security over national security, which makes it essential to think about balancing national security with free expression as a pillar of democratization. This study focusses on how the balance between freedom of expression and national security interests is achieved. It studies the legal approached of the European court of human rights and its legal assessment to strike this balance. The findings of this analytical study asserts that in order for the ECtHR to achieve this …

Duck, Duck, Prisoner Abuse: Trump Presidency, Prison Labor, And The Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations Act (Rico), Maya Huffman

Immigration and Human Rights Law Review

The use of compulsory prison labor in American jails and prisons has reached alarming levels. Despite the Thirteenth Amendment’s purpose of abolishing slavery in the United States, slavery-like conditions persist under the guise of compulsory prison labor. The Thirteenth Amendment created an important caveat to the prohibition of slavery in the United States: involuntary servitude is permissible as a punishment for crime. Across the country, incarcerated individuals are forced against their will to engage in physical labor with sub-standard safety protocols, endure physically and mentally abusive superiors, and receive little to no pay. Despite domestic and international condemnation of the …

When Love Is Not Enough: The Muñoz Decision And The Erosion Of Family Unity In U.S. Immigration Law, Katerina Fernandez

Immigration and Human Rights Law Review

The Supreme Court’s decision in Department of State v. Muñoz marks a significant shift in U.S. immigration law, reinforcing the doctrine of consular non-reviewability and weakening long-standing protections for family unity. Historically, marriage and family have been recognized as fundamental rights; yet, Muñoz limits judicial oversight of visa denials, allowing for indefinite separations between U.S. citizens and their non-citizen spouses. This piece examines the ruling’s legal and human rights implications, its parallels to family separation policies, and its potential to justify future erosion of parental rights in immigration enforcement. It also examines possible legal avenues to challenge arbitrary family separations, …

Dispute Resolution: Why Ireland Works For International Business Law, Kukin Program For Conflict Resolution, Hon. Loretta A. Preska, Hon Justice David Barniville, Sarah Murphy, Matthew York, Simone K. Lelchuk

2025 Event Invitations

As international commerce becomes increasingly complex, the choice of forum and governing law is more critical than ever. This distinguished panel will explore how Ireland’s legal system - confidential and cost-effective and can provide businesses with efficient dispute resolution without lengthy court processes - offers a compelling and reliable jurisdiction for international dispute resolution.