International Humanitarian Law Commons^™

The Feminicide Epidemic In Brazil: An Analysis Considering The Convention Of Belém Do Pará And The Rome Statute, Suzana Coelho Da Silva

Human Rights Brief

Gender-based violence against women is an issue little discussed both in academia and in various sectors of society. Men in positions of power block any attempts by women to be observed in places of influence and visibility, reflecting a patriarchal society that sees women as inferior, fragile beings incapable of exercising functions that requires intelligence, strength, and rationality.

Upholding The Absolute Prohibition Of Torture: Afchpr On Detention In Tanzania, Aly Orvis

Human Rights Brief

On September 3, 2024, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (AfCHPR) rendered its decision in Habyalimana Augustino and Muburu Abdulkarim v. United Republic of Tanzania. The case involved two Burundian nationals who, as refugees in Tanzania, were implicated in a murder-for-hire scheme. This scheme was allegedly orchestrated by Mama Mboya—the wife of a high ranking commanding officer who suspected the victim of having an affair with her husband. Convicted in 2007, the applicants were sentenced to death by hanging. In their petition to the AfCHPR, they argued that they had been subjected to torture and inhumane conditions at …

How Pretrial Detention Deprives A Child’S Access To Education: The Convention On The Rights Of The Child And The Juvenile Justice Reform Act, Abby Groetsch

Human Rights Brief

Although the United States (“U.S.”) has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which specifically outlines the rights of juvenile defendants, the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments provides implicit rights for children accused of criminal acts. In 1967, the Supreme Court decided In re Gault, definitively establishing that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applied to juvenile defendants. The Supreme Court has also stated that children should be treated differently than adults, outlining different sentencing requirements for crimes committed while a person is under the age of eighteen.

Humanitarian Interventions On The Crossroads Of Legality And Legitimacy, Asya Gasparyan

Human Rights Brief

In an era marked by persistent geopolitical conflicts and recurring human rights crises, the discourse surrounding humanitarian interventions (“HI”) and the role of the United Nations in this complex arena is of paramount importance. The pressing need to address mass atrocities, including ethnic conflicts and political unrest, highlights the legal and moral dilemmas associated with humanitarian interventions.

Foreword: The Geneva Conventions At 75: Need For Innovation, Michael P. Scharf, Annalie Buscarino

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

White Paper On The Need To Strengthen International Humanitarian Law To Address The Challenges Of 21st Century Warfare, Cleveland Experts Meeting

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

"On the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, thirty leading experts in the field of IHL from around the world gathered at Case Western Reserve University School of Law in Cleveland, Ohio, on September 26, 2024, to discuss whether there is a need to strengthen IHL to address the challenges of 21st century warfare, and how that could best be accomplished. The experts participated in three follow-up meetings over Zoom on October 31, November 7, and November 14, 2024. The participating experts are listed at the end of this document. The experts participated in their personal capacity; the views expressed …

Autonomous Weapons Systems And The Need To Update International Humanitarian Law?, Milena Sterio

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

This Article discusses whether the relevant rules of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), and in particular, the 1949 Geneva Conventions and their 1977 Additional Protocols should be updated in order to develop a clearer framework regarding the permissibility and legality of the use of Autonomous Weapon Systems (AWS) in armed conflict. This Article first discusses the existing Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols’ rules applicable to the use of all weapons, including AWS. Next, this Article discusses possible ways of reshaping and reconceptualizing IHL in order to adapt its current rules or to develop new rules that would better regulate the use …

The Geneva Conventions At 75: Need For Innovation (Keynote Address), John Bellinger

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Cyberbullying As A Contemporary Human Rights Violation Of Youth In Digital Media: A Study Of India, Brazil, And South Africa, Laura Ferla Tuma

American University International Law Review

The COVID-19 pandemic facilitated a technological migration not only among adults but also among children and adolescents. Digital media became the alternative for young individuals to maintain their activities, especially school-related ones. They shared virtual classrooms, used the internet for entertainment, and were forced to socialize exclusively in digital environments for months. Connected time increased, and the world witnessed a new phenomenon: hyperconnectivity.

Holding Out For Better Weather: Foreign Aid And The Principle Of Humanity In Armed Conflicts And Natural Disasters, Nicholas Schwartz

American University International Law Review

This Comment examines the doctrines of international humanitarian law and international disaster response law, two different sets of rules that govern the same situation: humanitarian concerns in the wake of a large-scale cataclysm. International humanitarian law is as old as history itself and has a stout body of law, both in terms of treaties and recognized customary international law. International disaster response law has only crystallized as a concept over the last two decades and is underdeveloped and largely unacknowledged.

Foreign aid, implored by the principle of humanity, is critical to assisting the plight of populations when a domestic government …

La Interculturalidad Como Estrategia Para Contribuir A La Igualdad Y No Discriminacion De Los Pueblos Originarios En El Derecho A La Educacion Superior: El Caso De Argentina, Julian Ariel Madrid Moreno

American University International Law Review

Argentina es un país que se ha comprometido a cumplir diferentes tratados internacionales de derechos humanos, sin embargo, desde hace muchos años, y con mayor intensidad en el presente, existe desigualdad y discriminación racial en la educación superior Argentina. En un reciente informe elaborado por la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Educación, la Ciencia y la Cultura (UNESCO) demuestra que el mencionado país no está garantizando ni fomentando herramientas suficientes para que los pueblos originarios puedan acceder a la educación superior de manera igualitaria y sin discriminación, menoscabando gravemente sus derechos fundamentales.

Talking Foreign Policy: "75th Anniversary Of The Geneva Conventions", Talking Foreign Policy (Radio)

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

"Michael Scharf: Welcome to “Talking Foreign Policy,” the quarterly radio show and podcast produced by Case Western Reserve University and Ideastream Public Media.2 I’m your host Michael Scharf, Dean of Case Western Reserve University School of Law.3 Today we’re going to be talking about the need to update the seventy-five-year-old Geneva Conventions on the Law of War in light of the twenty-first century developments related to autonomous weapons, cyber warfare, and space war, as well as responding to modern-day terrorist groups. I’ve assembled an allstar panel of experts for today’s conversation."

Bridging Movement Lawyering & International Human Rights Advocacy, Citlalli Ochoa

Scholarly Works

The human rights field is often criticized for its lack of enforcement and implementation, lawyering methodologies, and its roots in imperialism, exceptionalism, and Eurocentric values. In response to some of these critiques, human rights scholars and advocates have embraced more grassroots approaches that in many instances resemble the movement lawyering methodologies employed in social justice advocacy in the United States. In the same way that movement lawyers have centered impacted communities and engaged in long term, coordinated legal and political advocacy to achieve normative change, human rights advocates have used the international human rights framework to exert political pressure, facilitate …

But For Borders: The Protection Gap For Internally Displaced Persons, Anita Sinha

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Internal displacement, the phenomenon of people who are dislocated from their homes but remain within the border of their countries of origin, was once a forced migratory occurrence interchangeable with cross-border migration. This changed after the Second World War with the promulgation of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which was premised on an insistence on drawing a legal line in the sand based on which side of a border displacement transpires upon. Internally displaced persons (IDPs)-both in recent history and in the projected future-far outnumber people displaced across borders. Both rhetorical maneuverings and traditional international legal …

But For Borders: The Protection Gap For Internally Displaced Persons, Anita Sinha

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Internal displacement, encapsulating the phenomenon of people who are dislocated from their homes but remain within the border of their countries of origin, was once a forced migratory occurrence interchangeable with cross-border migration. This changed after the Second World War with the promulgation of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which was premised on an insistence of making a legal line in the sand based on which side of a border displacement ultimately transpires. Internally displaced persons (IDPs)—in recent history, presently, and in the projected future—far outpace the number of people displaced outside the border of their …

The Dangerous Rise Of Dual-Use Objects In War, Oona A. Hathaway, Azmat Khan, Mara R. Revkin

Faculty Scholarship

Each day, the news brings stories of military attacks on schools, hospitals, apartment buildings, electrical facilities, and other critical civilian infrastructure. The militaries attacking these objects often seek to justify the attacks by claiming that the civilian objects are being used by militants. Objects that are believed to have both military and civilian use are often referred to as “dual-use” objects. Even though the term has become common, international law does not recognize a “dual-use” object as a legally meaningful category. Rather, the postwar Geneva Conventions that lie at the core of modern international humanitarian law establish a bright line …

Geographies Of Trauma And Healing: Resistance, Resilience, ‘Ustawi Wa’, And The Lived Experiences Of African Women Refugees From The Ehagl Region In Canada, Rosemary Njeri Kimani-Dupuis Dr., Rosemary Kimani-Dupuis

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation explores the lived experiences of African women refugees from the East and Horn of Africa and Great Lakes (EHAGL) region resettled in Ontario, Canada, with particular focus on the complex intersections of trauma, resilience, and healing within global refugee governance. It asks: How do the gendered and spatial dynamics of refugee protection and Canadian settlement systems sustain structural violence against African women refugees, and how do their transnational experiences challenge and reshape dominant frameworks of care, well-being, and institutional response?

Through a multi-scalar analysis—macro (legal governance frameworks), meso (institutional actors), and micro (women’s narratives)—the study explores how trauma …

The Fundamental Right Of A Safe Place To Call Home: Why The United States Immigration System Needs To Reform Its Response To Humanitarian Crises, Mackenzie Biles

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

As part of its overall aim to identify how the United States can more proactively intervene in humanitarian crises, this article will examine the Department of Homeland Security’s role in securing the safe arrival of migrants into the United States and helping them to thrive thereafter, using the crisis in Afghanistan as a lens. Part I outlines the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and the events culminating in the 2021 military withdrawal, while seeking to remain mindful of this history’s complexity and nuance. Part II examines existing U.S. immigration mechanisms, with a focus on humanitarian parole, and critiques their inadequacy in …

French Foreign Policy And Its Tendencies While Approaching International Relations Through Multilateralism, Dipin Subedi

Master's Theses

This paper studies the pattern of French foreign policy with respect to one objective: whether through the means available – namely economic, diplomatic, and military – it adheres to the principle of achieving multilateral goals or not. The multilateral institutions that are used in this study as a ground for comparison are NATO, the E.U., and the U.N. all of whom hold France as their member. Nine different categories with distinct characteristics are created that contain one primary case study. Certain expectations on how France could deal with the nation in a particular case study is gathered through hints contained …

How Sovereign Wealth Investment May Fail To Enter The United States Sports Market: Investigating The Governance Restricting Sportswashing, Zachary J. Braverman

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

In recent years, the world of sports has been disrupted by foreign nations engaging in human rights violations, masking their wrongdoings through sport-related investments. This practice, referred to as “sportswashing,” has negative impacts on both the sports industry at large and the individual victims whose suffering is perpetuated. Currently, there is no direct legislation preventing foreign investors from taking over sports franchises in the United States. However, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the United Nations, and sports leagues’ private regulations, each provide means to resist sportswashing. This Note analyzes the problem of sportswashing, the existing framework …

The Geopolitics Of Group Referrals To The International Criminal Court And Its Implications On The Court's Legitimacy And Credibility, Dr. Destaw A. Yigzaw

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Under the Rome Statute, situations are referred to the International Criminal Court (“ICC” or “Court”) either by a state party or the Security Council. In recent years, however, referrals from both sources have become difficult to come by. Instead, there is an evolving practice of referrals by a coalition of third states parties (“group referrals”). Yet, a group referral as a trigger mechanism does not have an explicit textual basis under the Rome Statute (“Statute” or “ICC Statute”). There is no rationale for it either, since a referral by a single state party is all that is needed to trigger …

Sliding Into Safety: Why Formal United Nations Or United States Sanctions Or Action Would Help Major League Baseball Curb Human Smuggling And Trafficking Issues, Maxwell Russ

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Every year when the baseball season ends and the offseason begins, professional teams’ front offices go searching for the best available players. Often, incredibly talented baseball players can be found across the world and today, Major League Baseball (MLB) players come from across the globe. Yet, despite the global outreach of MLB, the process by which teams are allowed to search for, recruit, and sign foreign-born players remains largely unregulated by the league itself. For years, stories of players from foreign countries being subjected to shady and unethical practices have begun to surface. This dark side of baseball was even …

The Rise And Eventual Fall Of El Salvador’S Mano Dura, Margo Jarjoura

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Parts That Don’T Glitter: A Comparative Analysis Between Switzerland And The United States On The Regulations Of The Importation Of Gold And Its Effect On Human Rights In Gold Mining Countries, Amanda Gomez

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

This Note considers and compares rules and regulations Switzerland and the United States have placed on the trade and importation of gold. It explores the history of the gold trade which has led to its modern use and the negative implications that gold refining in Switzerland has on countries where gold may be illegally mined. Although some rules are in place in these gold mining countries, regulations upon the acceptance of gold may have an even greater impact on the gold supply chain and the human rights issues it affects. The United States and Swiss governments currently have some restrictions …

Violations Of Human Rights And Available Remedies Under International Law: The Case Of The United Arab Emirates (Uae), Cardozo Law Institute In Holocaust And Human Rights (Clihhr), Cardozo International Law Society (Cils)

2024–2025 Flyers

No abstract provided.

Empowering Ukraine’S First Legal Responders: Ukrainian-Us Collaboration And Clinics, Susan Felstiner, Davida Finger, Michelle Greenberg-Kobrin, Maria Tsypiashchuck

Articles

At the onset of the full-scale Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, U.S. law clinic professors worked alongside the leadership of the Association of Legal Clinics of Ukraine. The mutual objective was to support Ukrainian law professors and facilitate the continued legal education of their students, particularly the acquisition of skills typically taught in law clinics. Ultimately, the online partnership that developed focused on skills training and included seven Ukrainian law schools, faculty from over six U.S. law schools and one private law firm, and USAID Justice for All Activity in Ukraine. The overall goals of this collaboration were to …

Financial Footprint Of Human Trafficking, Cardozo International Law Society (Cils), Business Law Society, Barry Koch

2024–2025 Flyers

No abstract provided.

The International Law Of Siege And Starvation: The Case Of Gaza After October 7, 2023, R. Field

Buffalo Human Rights Law Review

This article will assess the legality of Israel’s current siege of Gaza under international humanitarian law (IHL) and domestic Israeli law. Since October 7, 2023, Israel has implemented a strict siege of Gaza, severely restricting the entry of food, water, fuel, and other humanitarian goods. The civilian population of Gaza now faces ongoing starvation. While sieges are not categorically banned in IHL, under customary IHL a besieging party may not refuse consent to the entry of sufficient humanitarian aid into the besieged area unless it has a valid, non-arbitrary reason to do so. The Israeli High Court of Justice has …

The Use Of Geospatial Imagery In Myanmar For Mass Atrocity Prevention, Elisenda Calvet-Martínez

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This paper aims to explore to what extent the usage of geospatial imagery can serve as a tool for atrocity prevention in a context of armed conflict and post-conflict. While most attention has been paid to the use of geospatial imagery to document mass atrocities for advocacy and accountability purposes, less attention has attracted the potential of this technology as a preventive tool. In the case of Myanmar, a special interest is on how to advance in the use of geospatial imagery to guarantee the safe return of the Rohingya refugees and how to prevent acts of genocide after the …

Humanitarian Parole To The United States: The Case Of A Gay Man Fleeing Afghanistan, Melanie Shapiro

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

This article will discuss my experience as an immigration attorney representing a gay man from Afghanistan fleeing the Taliban. First, it will give an overview of the Taliban’s role in Afghanistan and the Taliban takeover in August 2021. It will then discuss the treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals in Afghanistan. Next, the article will discuss how I became involved in representing individuals fleeing Afghanistan and the humanitarian parole process.