International Law Commons^™

Prosecutorial Discretion In The Investigation And Prosecution Of Massive Human Rights Violations: Lessons From The Argentine Experience, Mariano Gaitan

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Three C'S Of Jurisdiction Over Human Rights Claims In U.S. Courts, Chimène I. Keitner

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

The legal aftermath of the Holocaust continues to unfold in U.S. courts. Most recently, the Seventh Circuit dismissed claims against the Hungarian national railway and Hungarian national bank for World War II-era crimes against Hungarian Jews on the grounds that the plaintiffs had not exhausted available local remedies in Hungary or provided a “legally compelling” reason for not doing so. More broadly, heated debates about the role of U.S. courts in enforcing international human rights law have not abated since the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., which restricted but did not eliminate federal …

Mapping The Interface Between Human Rights And Intellectual Property, Laurence R. Helfer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Brief For Foreign And Comparative Law Experts Harold Hongju Koh Et Al. As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioners, Harold Hongju Koh, Thomas Buergenthal, Sarah H. Cleveland, Laurence R. Helfer, Ryan Goodman, Sujit Choudhry

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Standard Of Global Justice, Steven R. Ratner

Book Chapters

This chapter presents the standard of justice that is used in this book to appraise international law. That standard is based on two core principles, or what the book calls pillars—the promotion of international and intrastate peace, on the one hand, and respect for the basic human rights of all individuals, on the other. The justice of international norms is determined by the extent to which they lead to a state of affairs involving peace and human rights, with some room for deontological considerations in limited situations. The chapter defends the choice of these two pillars. It elaborates on the …

Producing Better Mileage: Advancing The Design And Usefulness Of Hybrid Vehicles For Social Business Ventures, John E. Tyler, Evan Absher, Kathleen Garman, Anthony J. Luppino

Faculty Works

Since 2008 approximately half of the states in the U.S. have enacted statutes permitting “hybrid” business forms that blend aspects of traditional for-profit ventures with characteristics normally associated with traditional non-profit entities. This article analyzes theoretical, academic, practical, legal, and regulatory questions regarding the extent to which the existing hybrids are suited to achieving social purposes objectives, including in comparison to modified traditional forms of business organization. Finding the current fleet of hybrids an innovative, useful start, but with need to evolve, this article proposes statutory language (set forth in a detailed appendix, and summarized in the article text), and …

Climate Change And Human Rights: How? Where? When?, Basil E. Ugochukwu

Osgoode Legal Studies Research Paper Series

Climate change poses a threat to several internationally recognized human rights, including the rights to food, a livelihood, health, a healthy environment, access to water and the rights to work and to cultural life. Actions taken to mitigate and adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change have to be centred on human rights. In negotiations for a binding international climate change instrument, nation states have been called upon to fully respect human rights in all climate-related actions. As important as this demand is, there is also the need to describe and plan how human rights can be integrated into …

Plenary Energy, Carla F. Fredericks

Publications

An incompatible relationship exists between the federal trust responsibility over Indian tribes and tribal sovereignty, the conflicting nature of which has been exacerbated by numerous judicial confirmations of the unbridled congressional plenary power over all tribal affairs. Nowhere is there more conflict between the trust responsibility and sovereignty than within the context of mineral resource development on tribal lands. The evolution of the regulatory framework of Indian mineral development can be viewed as a continuum, with maximum trust obligation and minimum tribal sovereignty on one extreme, and an inversion of these two variables on the other. There currently exists pending …

The Rules And The Reality Of Petition Procedures In The Inter-American Human Rights System, Dinah Shelton

Notre Dame Journal of International & Comparative Law

In this Essay, Professor Dinah Shelton draws on her personal experience as a member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to discuss the underlying causes of a "crisis of commitment" to the Inter-American system of human rights. Shelton traces the roots of this crisis in large part to the Inter-American petition procedures. Giving an in-depth account of the structure of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the details of the petition procedures, Shelton explores the issues of legitimacy, transparency, effectiveness, and efficiency raised by various aspects of the petitioning process, and discusses the various ways in which these …

The Relationship Between Inter-American Jurisdiction And States (National Systems): Some Pertinent Questions, Sergio GarcíA RamíRez

Notre Dame Journal of International & Comparative Law

In this Article, Judge Sergio García Ramírez of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights explores the complex and often vexing relationship between the Inter-American Human Rights system and the domestic human rights protections within the system's member states. García Ramírez identifies a number of challenges to implementing human rights protections in Latin America, many of which are rooted in a history of authoritarianism in the twentieth century and the nascent nature of the region's democratic institutions. Yet he sees solutions in the role of the Inter-American Court in the region. García Ramírez highlights the Court's role in interpreting international human …

Las Madres De Plaza De Mayo, Then And Now: A Comparative Analysis Of Its Fractured Factions And Lasting Sybolism In Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sondra Anton

Undergraduate Research Symposium Posters

I conducted research on three different factions of the original Madres de Plaza de Mayo cause in Buenos Aires, Argentina: Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo, Madres de Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora, and Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo. Through interviews and archival research, I have completed a comparison of the three groups. I have concluded that although their original cause of demanding the whereabouts of their disappeared children united them, they are now deeply fragmented among one another due to their differing opinions of how to achieve justice in post-Dirty War Argentina. Furthermore, it is interesting to note the …

Memo To The Obama Administration On The U.S. National Action Plan On Responsible Business Conduct, Kaitlin Y. Cordes, Lisa E. Sachs

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In January 2015, CCSI sent a memo to President Obama to provide input on the U.S. National Action Plan on responsible business conduct. The memo applauded the U.S. Government’s decision to develop a National Action Plan consistent with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, noting that responsible and rights-respecting outward investment can support sustainable development in host countries, and that the U.S. Government has an important role to play in promoting responsible business operations. The memo urged the government to explore in particular how the National Action Plan can address …

The New Refugees And The Old Treaty: Persecutors And Persecuted In The Twenty-First Century, Andrew I. Schoenholtz

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

When the fledgling U.N. negotiated a treat to protect refugees after the Second World War, member states focused on Europe as well as on events causing forced migration that occurred prior to 1951. No one imagined that cross-border escape from persecution would become a global phenomenon and remain one more than sixty years later, or that this human rights treaty would be needed in the twenty-first century. In fact, as increased numbers of asylum seekers from developing countries reached the most developed regions of the world during the last thirty years, critics have questioned the merits of this treaty and …

Human Rights Thinking And The Laws Of War, David Luban

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In a significant early case, the ICTY commented: “The essence of the whole corpus of international humanitarian law as well as human rights law lies in the protection of the human dignity of every person…. The general principle of respect for human dignity is . . . the very raison d'être of international humanitarian law and human rights law.”

Is it true that international humanitarian law and international human rights law share the same “essence,” and that essence is the general principle of respect for human dignity? Is it true that, in the words of Charles Beitz, humanitarian law is …

The Dangers Of Children's Rights' Discourse In The Political Arena: The Issue Of Religious Male Circumcision As A Test Case, Rhona Schuz

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The ever increasing use of children's rights discourse in national, regional and international political institutions can perhaps be seen as a sign of the success of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child ("CRC'), and of the internalization of the concept that children are independent rights holders, the ideological basis of the doctrine of children's rights. Nevertheless, there is evidence that some advocates of children's rights in the political arena are taking an over-simplistic, uni-dimensional approach to children's rights which results in misrepresentation of the true interests of children. This risk is well illustrated by the recent …

Report Of The Special Rapporteur On The Rights Of Indigenous Peoples On The Situation Of Indigenous Peoples In The United States Of America, S. James Anaya

Publications

No abstract provided.

Report Of The Special Rapporteur On The Rights Of Indigenous Peoples On The Situation Of Maori People In New Zealand, S. James Anaya

Publications

No abstract provided.

Trafficking In Law: Cause Lawyer, Bureaucratic State And Rights Of Human Trafficking Victims In Thailand, Frank W. Munger

Articles & Chapters

In this case study of a young, Thai “cause lawyer”, advocacy for human rights is considered in context. The most important elements of that context are the path of development of Thai political and legal institutions, globalisation of law, and the networks of relationships that penetrate the state. The case study shows that human rights advocacy by NGO lawyers can adapt creatively to unpromising conditions under which courts provide little access or oversight. At the same time, the case study raises profound questions about the ultimate independence of cause lawyers when the state must be made a partner in order …

Predictive Due Process And The International Criminal Court, Samuel C. Birnbaum

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The International Criminal Court (ICC) operates under a regime of complementarity: a domestic state prosecution of a defendant charged before the ICC bars the Court from hearing the case unless the state is unable or unwilling to prosecute the accused. For years, scholars have debated the role of due process considerations in complementarity. Can a state that has failed to provide the accused with adequate due process protections nonetheless bar a parallel ICC prosecution? One popular view, first expressed by Professor Kevin Jon Heller, holds that due process considerations do not factor into complementarity and the ICC could be forced …

Beyond Known Worlds: Climate Change Governance By Arbitral Tribunals?, Valentina Vadi

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Can economic development and the fight against climate change be integrated successfully? What role, if any, does international investment law play in global climate governance? Can foreign direct investments (FDI) be tools in the struggle against climate change? What types of claims have foreign investors brought with regard to climate change--related regulatory measures before investment treaty arbitral tribunals? This Article examines the specific question as to whether foreign direct investments can mitigate and/or aggravate climate change. The interplay between climate change and foreign direct investments is largely underexplored and in need of systematization. To map this nexus, this Article proceeds …

Arendt On The Crime Of Crimes, David Luban

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Genocide–-the intentional destruction of groups “as such”–-is sometimes called the “crime of crimes,” but explaining what makes it the crime of crimes is no easy task. Why are groups important over and above the individuals who make them up? Hannah Arendt tried to explain the uniqueness of genocide, but the claim of this paper is that she failed. The claim is simple, but the reasons cut deep.

Genocide, in Arendt’s view, “is an attack upon human diversity as such.” So far so good; but it is hard to square with Arendt’s highly individualistic conception of human diversity, which in her …

Particularized Social Groups And Categorical Imperatives In Refugee Law: State Failures To Recognize Gender And The Legal Reception Of Gender Persecution Claims In Canada, The United Kingdom, And The United States, Melanie Randall

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Reducing The Price Of Peace: The Human Rights Responsibilities Of Third-Party Facilitators, Michal Saliternik

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Peace agreements can bring about serious injustices. For example, they may establish oppressive regimes, provide for the transfer of populations, or allocate natural resources in an inequitable manner. This Article argues that third-party facilitators--states and international organizations that act as mediators, donors, or peacekeepers--should have a responsibility to prevent such injustices. While the primary duty to ensure the justice of peace agreements resides with the governments that negotiate and sign them, directing regulation efforts only at those governments may prove insufficient in protecting human rights under the politically constrained circumstances of peacemaking. It is therefore necessary to complement the primary …

Report Of The Special Rapporteur On The Rights Of Indigenous Peoples On The Situation Of Indigenous Peoples In Canada, S. James Anaya

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Post-Postcolonial Woman Or Child, Diane Marie Amann

Scholarly Works

This essay is based on remarks given as Distinguished Discussant for the 16th annual Grotius Lecture at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law/Biennial Conference of the International Law Association. The essay examines the international law status of women, on the one hand, and children, on the other, through the contemporary lens of the post-postcolonial world and the historical lens of Hugo Grotius and the colonialist era. In so doing, the essay responds to the principal Grotius Lecture, "Women and Children: The Cutting Edge of International Law," which was delivered by Radhika Coomarswamy, NYU Global Professor …

From Commitment To Compliance: Enforceability Of Remedial Orders Of African Human Rights Bodies, Roger-Claude Liwanga

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Over the last seven decades, there has been a global proliferation of international and regional human rights tribunals. But with no coercive power to enforce their judgments, these international tribunals rely either on the good faith of the State parties or on the political process for the implementation of their remedial orders. This nonjudicial approach to enforcement has showed its limits, as most State parties are noncompliant with international judgments to the detriment of human rights victims. This article recommends a new approach involving the judicialization of the post-adjudicative stage of international proceedings as an avenue to increase the enforceability …

Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite: The United Nations Declaration Of The Rights Of Indigenous Peoples Fails To Protect Hopi Katsinam From The Auction Block In France, Samantha K. Nikic

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) compels member states to take action in order to protect the rights of the world’s 370 million indigenous peoples, including the right to their cultural property. Notwithstanding the UNDRIP’s robust set of protections, its status as a nonbinding piece of international law remains its ultimate and most fatal flaw. France was an enthusiastic supporter of the UNDRIP at ratification, but has effectively abandoned their position. French auction houses and courts have allowed for sales of Native American sacred property to proceed despite the objections of the Hopi Tribe. In …

The Right To No: The Crime Of Marital Rape, Women's Human Rights, And International Law, Melanie Randall, Vasanthi Venkatesh

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

More than half of the world’s countries do not explicitly criminalize sexual assault in marriage. While sexual assault in general is criminalized in these countries, sexual assault perpetrated by a spouse is entirely legal. The human rights violations inhere in acts of violence against women are now well recognized. Yet somehow marital rape is a particular form of gendered violence that has escaped both criminal law sanctions and human rights approbation in a great number of the world’s nations.

This silence in the law creates legal impunity for men who sexually assault or rape the women who are their wives …

The Anglo-Latin Divide And The Future Of The Inter-American System Of Human Rights, Paolo G. Carozza

Journal Articles

A former President of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Paolo Carozza draws on his personal experience to identify and propose solutions for a key flaw in the Inter-American Human Rights System: the division between English-language member states and states with Latin-based languages. Terming this division "The Anglo-Latin Divide," Carozza traces the division not only to linguistic difference, but also to differences in legal traditions. He explains how the differences between Anglo tradition of common law and the Latin tradition of civil law manifest in both substantive and procedural divides within the Inter-American Human Rights system, including in sensitive areas …

Standing For Human Rights Abroad, Evan J. Criddle

Faculty Publications

When may states impose coercive measures such as asset freezes, trade embargos, and investment restrictions to protect the human rights of foreign nationals abroad? Drawing inspiration from Hugo Grotius’s guardianship account of humanitarian intervention, this Article offers a new theory of states’ standing to enforce human rights abroad: under some circumstances, international law authorizes states to impose countermeasures as fiduciary representatives, asserting the human rights of oppressed foreign peoples for the benefit of those peoples. The fiduciary theory explains why all states may use countermeasures to vindicate the human rights of foreign nationals abroad despite the fact that they do …