International Humanitarian Law Commons^™

Framing The Global Pact For The Environment: Why It’S Needed, What It Does, And How It Does It, Teresa Parejo Navajas, Nathan Lobel

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

We face a critical environmental crisis. Humanity consumes unsustainably; we use resources at a rate fifty percent faster than they are reproduced by the planet. The population is growing exponentially and climate change, the most important challenge of this century, is already wreaking havoc around the world. Despite numerous existing international environmental treaties, the Earth, and, therefore, human safety and prosperity, is in peril. According to a recent study by scientists from Stanford University and the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the ongoing “sixth mass extinction” threatens to cause an “assault on the foundations of human civilization.” In November 2017, …

Tying The Knot: An Interdisciplinary Approach To Understanding The Human Right To Adequate Nutrition, Jessica Fanzo, Kaitlin Y. Cordes, Elizabeth F. Fox, Anna Bulman

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Malnutrition is alarmingly prevalent, affecting one in three people worldwide. In this Article, we argue that a key reason the global community has been unsuccessful in combating malnutrition is a lack of clarity outside the field of nutrition regarding the true meaning of “nutrition.” In particular, this has limited the effectiveness of international human rights law as a mechanism for addressing malnutrition.

In this interdisciplinary Article, which draws from both the legal and nutrition fields, we unpack the meaning of nutrition and demonstrate that a standalone right to adequate nutrition does indeed exist in international human rights law as a …

New Documents Shed Light: Why Did Peacekeepers Withdraw During Rwanda’S 1994 Genocide?, Emily A. Willard

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Why did the international community decide to withdraw United Nations peacekeeping troops from Rwanda during the 1994 genocide? Analysis of newly released documents and results from an international conference with former U.N. and government officials sheds further light on our understanding of what took place leading up to and during the Rwandan genocide. This article focuses on two key moments: 1) the United States’ reluctance to support the peacekeeping mission from before its mandate began and prior to the killing of U.S. troops in Somalia in autumn 1993; and the United States’ central role pushing the United Nations Security Council …

Venezuela: A Uniquely Senian Insight Into A Human Rights Crisis, Andrea I. Scheer

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

For over twenty decades, Venezuelan political leaders have blatantly disregarded their citizens’ human rights, leading to the downfall of Venezuela’s economy and democratic institutions, including severe food and medicine shortages, as well as staggering inflation rates. As a result, Venezuela provides a unique affirmation of the Capabilities Approach introduced by Professor Amartya Sen, which focuses not only on the freedoms that individuals possess, but also on what individuals are capable of doing as possessors of these freedoms. This Note seeks to use Sen’s Capabilities Approach to understand the nature and scope of Venezuela’s multidimensional crisis, arguing that a Senian approach …

Ebola And War In The Democratic Republic Of Congo: Avoiding Failure And Thinking Ahead, Lawrence O. Gostin, Matthew M. Kavanagh, Elizabeth Cameron

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is exceptionally dangerous, occurring within active armed conflict and geopolitical volatility, including a million displaced persons. With 421 cases, 240 deaths, and the numbers increasing, this Ebola outbreak is the second deadliest in history. Recent spread to Butembo, home to 1.2 million people, raised concerns. The DRC, World Health Organization (WHO), and partners are leading a vigorous international response, yet despite deploying an experimental vaccine, cases doubled in October 2018 and many cases had unknown origin.

Uncontrolled Ebola outbreaks can expand quickly, as occurred in West Africa in 2014. Averting …

North Korea’S Nuclear Program And Negotiation: How Nuclear Negotiation During The Clinton Years Produced Lessons For Current International Relations, Brian Hilliker

Senior Honors Theses

North Korea’s road of survival began in the aftermath of World War II, when the United States and the Soviet Union sparred over rival ideologies. Ultimately, Korea split into a free south and an authoritarian north. Over seventy years later, North Korea remains a bastion of communism. Nuclear weaponry is a factor behind North Korea’s survival, and the history of their program can offer insight for American policy makers today. This paper offers a history of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program during the Clinton presidency, along with recommendations for present day policy makers. Without an understanding of history decision-makers tend …

International Humanitarian Law And The Targeting Of Data, Tim Mccormack

International Law Studies

The 2013 publication of the Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare confirmed the view of the majority of the international group of experts that data was not an object and therefore not subject to the rules of targeting during an armed conflict. Intuitively, a number of scholars reacted negatively to this view, and instead were drawn to the Tallinn Manual minority position that data did constitute an object. The significance of data, particularly personal data, is only increasing, and the purpose of the law of armed conflict is to reduce the deleterious impact of armed conflict …

Updates To The Uncitral Legislative Guide On Privately Financed Infrastructure Projects, Brooke Guven, Motoko Aizawa

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

CCSI, jointly with The Observatory for Sustainable Infrastructure, submitted comments to the UNCITRAL Secretariat regarding updates to the UNCITRAL Legislative Guide on Privately Financed Infrastructure Projects. CCSI’s comments focused on the need for an updated guide, which will now refer to Public Private Partnerships, to holistically and systematically incorporate considerations of: (1) sustainable development and the SDGs, (2) rebalancing of the public versus private nature of PPPs, (3) transparency, participation, accountability, and remedy, (4) empirical evidence-based assessments of contexts in which PPPs may be desirable, (5) objectives of investment and PPPs, (6) human rights, (7) labor, (8) climate change, …

We Are All Farkhunda: An Examination Of The Treatment Of Women Within Afghanistan's Formal Legal System, Ashley Lenderman

Indiana Journal of Constitutional Design

In this paper, I will examine three cases of violence against women that went through the Afghan formal legal system: the case of Farkhunda, the Paghman district gang rape case, and the case of Sahar Gul. In the first Part, I will discuss the formal legal system framework on which the cases are based. In the second Part, I will discuss the cases in detail. In the third Part, I will describe neo-liberal, reformist, and neo-fundamentalist approaches to interpretation of Islamic law, and I will then draw out pieces of the decisions from the three cases that closely match these …

Much Ado About Nothing?: Local Resistance And The Significance Of Sanctuary Laws, Alyssa Garcia

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment explores the current constitutional discourse of sanctuary laws and compares their various components. Part I provides background on the basic policy components of sanctuary laws and modern policies. Part II explores and compares the substantive legal and political value of sanctuary laws. This section will first assess the impact of sanctuary policies on existing immigration and constitutional law. In doing so, specific sanctuary jurisdictions involved in litigation, Seattle, San Francisco, and Chicago, and their likelihood of withstanding preemption under existing doctrine will be compared. The impact sanctuary laws may have on the Tenth Amendment will next be discussed. …

A Life Absolutely Bare? A Reflection On Resistance By Irregular Refugees Against Fingerprinting As State Biopolitical Control In The European Union, Ziang Zhou

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

In a legally transitory category, irregular refugees- experience a double precariousness. They risk their lives to travel across treacherous seas to Europe for a better life. However, upon the long-awaited embarkation on the European land, they are exposed once again to the precariousness of the asylum application. They are “powerless”, “with no rights” and “to be sacrificed” as Giorgio Agamben and Hannah Arendt suggested in their respective understanding of a “bare life”, la nuda vita. In light of the administrative difficulties in managing asylum application, the European Union introduced the “Dublin Agreement”, which stipulates mandatory biometric data collection for …

Moral Disarmament: Reviving A Legacy Of The Great War, James D. Fry, Saroj Nair

Michigan Journal of International Law

In short, this Article examines the concept of moral disarmament using a broad-spectrum definition of humanity rather than the traditional IHL perspective. Rather than referring to human rights that are impacted by armaments, this Article looks at methods through which human initiative can create a society that truly hungers for disarmament. In other words, this Article points out that the extent of change that society can bring about through education, intellectual cooperation, peace initiatives, international affairs awareness, and intercultural communication can be reflected in the economic growth, social growth, and development of states. The aim is to help the reader …

The Search For Protection For Stateless Refugees In The Middle East: Palestinians And Kurds In Lebanon And Jordan, Susan M. Akram

Faculty Scholarship

Most Arab countries have not ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention/1967 Protocol or the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons, and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness has no ratifications in the Middle East. While regional conventions dealing with refugees in the Arab world have been developed, they have been honoured primarily in the breach. Further, many Arab countries do not have domestic laws governing the status of refugees or stateless persons per se, but have applied ad hoc policies to the waves of refugees that have entered and stayed – some for decades – in …

Book Review: Prosecuting Corporations For Genocide, Sarah Federman

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Protecting Women's Rights? Prospects Under The Un Human Rights Treaty System: A Case Study On India 2005-2017, Deepali

LLM Theses

The establishment of the United Nations Treaty System was the fundamental step for the protection and enforcement of women’s rights. The system is designed to monitor the human rights standards in countries that have ratified the treaties, called state parties. However, the system is facing several challenges that have compromised its effective working for the protection and enforcement of women’s rights. The thesis seeks to explain the challenges to the effective working of the system, that is, why the system does not work as designed in protecting women’s rights against three specific issues: domestic violence, sexual trafficking, and reproductive rights. …

Weapons Review Obligation Under Customary International Law, Natalia Jevglevskaja

International Law Studies

Under Article 36 of the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, States are required to review new weapons for their compliance with international law. While recent discussions on the regulation of lethal autonomous weapons systems under the auspices of the UN Certain Conventional Weapons Convention increasingly emphasize the importance of national weapons review mechanisms, Article 36 is known to be implemented only by a handful of States. Some legal scholars have nonetheless argued that the Article 36 obligation has attained customary international law status. Remarkably, substantive analysis of State practice and opinio juris required to evidence that certain …

Policing Against The State: United Nations Policing As Violative Of Sovereignty, Alexandra R. Harrington

San Diego International Law Journal

It is the author's contention that both parties to the policing arrangement-be they individuals, states, or organizations-give up portions of their sovereignty in the creation and maintenance of the police and policed relationship where the police are not serving the state which theoretically guards the policed. Part II of this Article provides a discussion of legal concepts of state sovereignty in international law. Part III examines the role of police in U.N. peacekeeping missions from the first peacekeeping mission entailing policing operations in the 1960s through present day operations. This examination reveals a pattern in the growth and development of …

Alien Tort Cases Will Survive Supreme Court Trim, Write Commentators, Peter B. Rutledge, Michael Baker

Popular Media

For over four decades, the Alien Tort Statute has served as a central battleground in some of the country’s (and world’s) most significant international human rights litigation. Following a trend in its ATS jurisprudence that started with its opinion in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, the Supreme Court recently trimmed the statute’s scope yet further. In Jesner v. Arab Bank PLC, the Court held that suits arising under the ATS did not extend to claims against corporations (at least some of them, a nuance explained below). Once again, postdecisional commentary decried the demise of ATS suits and a blow, more generally, to …

Leveraging Regional Human Rights Mechanisms Against Universal Human Rights: The Oic Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission Study On Sexual Orientation, Robert C. Blitt

William & Mary Law Review Online

This article critically assesses a recent study on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) prepared by the Organization for Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC). The first two parts review the establishment of the IPHRC and the norms governing regional human rights mechanisms (RHRMs). Following this, the article demonstrates that the methodology and conclusions evidenced in the IPHRC’s SOGI study diametrically oppose substantive international human rights law, and furthermore undermine the intended purpose of RHRMs within the human rights system. The article concludes by recommending that human rights advocates and others clearly and publicly call out these …

Revisiting Belligerent Reprisals In The Age Of Cyber?

Marquette Law Review

None.

Outcome Report Of Roundtable On International Investment Regime And Access To Justice, Michelle Chan, Kanika Gupta, Jesse Coleman, Kaitlin Y. Cordes, Lise Johnson

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

On October 18, 2017, the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights and the CCSI co-hosted a one-day roundtable on the impacts of the international investment regime on access to justice for investment-affected individuals and communities.

Held at Columbia University in New York, the roundtable brought together 32 individuals from civil society organizations, communities affected by investments at the heart of investor-state claims, governments, academia, donor organizations, UN mandate holders, and other stakeholder groups. The roundtable provided an opportunity for participants to: (i) explore and assess the specific impacts of international investment agreements and investor-state dispute settlement on access …

Community-Investor Negotiation Guide 2: Negotiating Contracts With Investors, Sam Szoke-Burke, Rachael Knight, Kaitlin Y. Cordes, Tehtena Mebratu-Tsegaye, Marena Brinkhurst

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Deciding whether or not to allow an investor to use community lands and natural resources is one of the most important decisions a community can make. If an investment project is carried out in a respectful and inclusive way, it may help community members to achieve their development goals, which may include creating jobs and local economic opportunities. But investments come with risks. Investment projects may make the land that community members need for farming and other livelihood activities unavailable for some time. They may pollute local rivers, lakes, air, and soils, or block access to sacred areas or water …

Community-Investor Negotiation Guide 1: Preparing In Advance For Potential Investors, Rachael Knight, Kaitlin Y. Cordes, Sam Szoke-Burke, Tehtena Mebratu-Tsegaye, Marena Brinkhurst

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Deciding whether or not to allow an investor to use community lands and natural resources is one of the most important decisions a community can make. If an investment project is carried out in a respectful and inclusive way, it may help community members to achieve their development goals, which may include creating jobs and local economic opportunities. But investments come with risks. Investment projects may make the land that community members need for farming and other livelihood activities unavailable for some time. They may pollute local rivers, lakes, air, and soils, or block access to sacred areas or water …

Decriminalization Of Prostitution Policy: Amnesty International Punishes A Dissenting Member, Marcia R. Lieberman

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

In 2016, Marcia Lieberman, a local group coordinator for Amnesty International, USA, was expelled by the board of directors for speaking out publicly against the new Policy on the Decriminalization of Sex Work. Amnesty used a little-known rule that prohibits a member from publicly opposing a position that Amnesty has taken. Lieberman writes about her experience and her view that Amnesty violated its fundamental principle of protecting free speech to silence her dissent.

The Effect Of Globalization On The National Criminal Law Systems, Shirin Ahmadi Dastjerdi, Abbas Sheikholeslami, Haniyeh Hojabrosadati

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Globalization has influenced many human life scopes with a variety of tools, which the cyberspace playing the most role. Although both cyberspace and globalization have had many benefits to human life, both as a tool and as a process, they have been able to assist offenders to bring crime into the cyberspace without any trouble. Therefore, today criminologists discuss the globalized world of crime. Although, the processes of homogenization and globalization have been precious to human beings, should not be overlooked. In this article, the author has tried to explain the cybercrime in the age of globalization, with an emphasis …

Are Enhanced Warfighters Weapons, Means, Or Methods Of Warfare?, Rain Liivoja, Luke Chircop

International Law Studies

Advances in science and technology have made it possible to improve the physical and cognitive capabilities of warfighters by biomedical interventions, such as the administration of drugs, the implantation of devices, and the magnetic stimulation of the brain. These advances raise the question as to whether enhanced warfighters ought to be considered weapons, means of warfare, or methods of warfare, for the purposes of the law of armed conflict. An affirmative answer to this question would make human enhancement subject to various restrictions arising from the law of armed conflict as well as arms control law. This article disagrees with …

The Consideration Of Male Victims Of Sexual Violence As A Subset Of The Particular Social Group “Homosexual” In Adjudicating Asylum Claims, Christiana Desrosiers

Pace International Law Review

This Article analyzes the difficulties African male victims of sexual violence experience when seeking asylum in homophobic host countries and the lack of attention they receive from international and national governments and organizations. It concludes by recommending that male victims of sexual violence be able to seek asylum in host countries due to lack of medical care that they receive in their countries on account of imputed homosexual status.

Humanitarian Islam, Engy Abdelkader

Pace International Law Review

In the aftermath of mass shootings by violent extremists and amid increasing anti-Muslim prejudice and discrimination, many Muslim Americans have responded to these and other social, legal, and political developments with philanthropic initiatives inspired by orthodox Islamic teachings. This humanitarian impulse in Islam, which has shaped the religion since its founding, is relatively unknown to non-Muslim Americans. Humanitarian Islam is defined here in largely oppositional terms to so-called the “radical Islam.” In contrast to the violence, aggression, death, and destruction commonly associated with “radical Islam,” selfless volunteerism, benevolence, altruism, and charitable giving in service to others are characteristic of humanitarian …

Discriminatory Nationality Laws Must Be Eliminated In Order To Eradicate Statelessness, Neda Shaheen

DePaul Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Undocumented Crime Victims: Unheard, Unnumbered, And Unprotected, Pauline Portillo

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming