International Law Commons^™

Between Shut It Off And Keep It On: The Legality Of Internet Shutdowns Under International Law, Yohannes Eneyew Ayalew

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Internet shutdowns are on the surge across the globe, at least four dozen states-imposed internet shutdowns in 2024 alone, in armed conflicts and other situations. In some states where an authoritarian propensity or “digital sovereignty” reigns, internet shutdowns are being imposed to control political narratives during the conduct of hostilities. These states justify their actions using a “shut it off” argument, claiming that the internet is a luxury and further asserting that access to the internet may be overridden by national security or other justifications. On the other hand, there are states that advance open access to the

Internet shutdowns …

The Ever-Expanding Horizon Of Directors’ And Officers’ Duties: An Analysis Of Recent Developments In The United States And Australia, Zehra G. Kavame Eroglu, Isa Alade

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

When two Boeing 737 Max aircraft crashed within five months of each other, resulting in the deaths of 346 people, shareholders filed a suit against the directors for breach of duties. The Delaware Court of Chancery noted that while safety was “essential and mission critical” to Boeing’s business, there was no board committee assigned the specific task of overseeing airplane safety. Turning to Australia, Storm Financial’s collapse caused many clients, most of whom were retirees or nearing retirement, to suffer massive financial losses. With little or no prospect of rebuilding their financial position, these clients lost their investments, their homes …

Lawfare’S New Frontier: International Commercial Arbitration In The Shadow Of Sanctions, Sophie Yue Zhao, Han-Wei Liu

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article examines how international commercial arbitration is being reshaped by economic statecraft through the lens of lawfare—the strategic use of law as a substitute for traditional coercive tools. Building on Orde Kittrie’s framework, it identifies two modalities of State-driven lawfare affecting arbitration. Instrumental lawfare operates where domestic legal measures displace arbitral authority, exemplified by Russia’s assertion of exclusive jurisdiction over sanctions-related disputes. Compliance-leverage lawfare, by contrast, does not bar arbitration outright but raises the costs and risks of participation, evident in restrictions on legal services and banking access that complicate representation and payment in arbitral proceedings. Beyond State action, …

Improving Case Management For Refugee Child Brides, Harper Kelly Esterle

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

A significant number of forcibly displaced persons throughout the world are not only children, but children who are married. When these married minor refugees arrive in host countries, they are often met with concern, judgment, or a critical lack of understanding or regulated procedure for handling their immigration cases. Children are often forcibly separated from their partners and thus isolated from the only family they came with, or they are forced to undergo an extensive judicial review process that, by the time it is resolved, is no longer relevant as the married minors at issue have since reached the age …

Institutionalizing Protection Of Climate Migrants Through A Global Framework Convention On Climate-Induced Migration, Caroline Spencer

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Climate change poses an urgent global challenge, threatening to internally displace 216 million people across six regions by 2050. While it is difficult to predict the extent of crossborder migration, there is no question that climate change will drive cross-border migration. Human rights law and international climate change law require states to protect climate migrants’ human rights; however, the current international framework is inadequate and exhibits a significant protection gap. States possess an obligation under both international human rights law and climate change law to pursue adaptation measures that protect and restore affected human rights, including ensuring protection against refoulement. …

Monopolizing The Harvest: Corporate Influence And Regulatory Gaps In Global Seed Governance, Mia Mahmudur Rahim

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

No abstract provided.

Voyage Of Injustice: The Socioeconomic Exploitation In The Cruise Industry, Tarissa L. Peterson

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Crypto-Asset Regulation Under Wto Law, Ines Willemyns

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

No abstract provided.

A Dose Of Accountability: Fixing Treaty Enforcement To Combat State Complicity In Transnational Illicit Fentanyl Trafficking, Caitlin Sharma

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The international fentanyl crisis underscores significant gaps in treaty enforcement, particularly with state accountability for drug manufacturing and export practices leading to illicit fentanyl trafficking. Despite preventive measures established by United Nations drug conventions, legal loopholes in these provisions impede meaningful cooperation between state parties. This Note uses key countries, including the United States, Canada, Mexico, China, and India, as case studies in both producing and receiving fentanyl and its precursors. It evaluates current proposals to mitigate the crisis, such as enhanced international cooperation and the potential expansion of the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction. However, these solutions remain insufficient due …

Uncharted Waters: Barriers To Ocean Carbon Removal In The High Seas Under Unclos And The Bbnj, Connor Stevens

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

No abstract provided.

Transforming The World With Reparations, Ingrid Wuerth Brunk, Monica Hakimi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This special issue of the American Journal of International Law—devoted entirely to reparations in international law—offers a range of perspectives on reparations for large-scale harms relating to colonialism, slavery, industrialization, and transboundary pollution. As the symposium authors describe, the gap between the reparations that justice might demand and the ones that international law provides is enormous. The international law for reparations does not come close to remedying such harms and is not poised to do so anytime soon.

States-In-Waiting: A Counternarrative Of Global Decolonization, Sannoy Das

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

How should we, international lawyers, especially with an interest in history, apprehend the experience of, and the horizon of expectation that opened up with, the dissolution of European empires in the decades following the end of World War II? We know that during these decades a Eurocentric international order marked by alien rule and the denial of statehood to large swathes of the world's population was nominally transformed into one marked by sovereign equality. Triumphalist accounts of progress would yoke this transformation to the realization of other good things such as human rights, and economic development.But more commonly today, we …

Fragmentation In Global Climate Governance: What Lessons From Covid-19?, Sivan Shlomo Agnon

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

No abstract provided.

The Scientific Border: Dna Testing For Family Reunification, Alexa Greco

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

No abstract provided.

Closing The Asylum Gender Gap: Why "Afghan Women" Is A Compelling Particular Social Group, Mackenzie Heinrichs

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

No abstract provided.

The International Copyright System And Development: The Role Of The World Intellectual Property Organization, Faith O. Majekolagbe

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

No abstract provided.

Cross-Border Cyber Operations: Targeting Healthcare As Unlawful Intervention In The Affairs Of States, Priya Urs

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

No abstract provided.

Ultra-Slow Responses To The Ultra-Fast Fashion Problem: Combatting Forced Labor In The Global Apparel Industry With Due Diligence And Customs Regulations, Cameron Watts

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

No abstract provided.

The Prohibition Of Annexations And The Foundations Of Modern International Law, Ingrid W. Brunk, Monica Hakimi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The international legal norm that prohibits forcible annexations of territory is foundational to modern international law. It lies at the core of three projects that have been central to the enterprise: (1) to settle title to territory as the basis for establishing state authority; (2) to regulate the use of force across settled borders; and (3) to provide for people within settled borders collectively to determine their own fates. Prohibiting forcible annexations is integral to each of these projects independently, and by tying them together, has had a transformative effect on the legal system as a whole. However, its significance …

Blinded By The Light: Resolving The Conflict Between Satellite Megaconstellations And Astronomy, David A. Koplow

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The sudden emergence of large constellations of small satellites in low altitude orbits represents one of the most dramatic contemporary innovations in outer space. Promising low-cost, low-latency global communications and spectacular capacities for remote sensing of the Earth, these satellites will soon number in the tens of thousands, sponsored by diverse corporations and countries around the world. But this proliferation of spacecraft comes at a steep cost in unavoidable interference with ground-based astronomy: as the satellites overfly the observatories, they block the views of remote objects and phenomena, leaving obliterating white streaks on the collected imagery, and obscuring access to …

Environmental Justice As Environmental Human Rights, John H. Knox, Nicole Tronolone

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

For many years, the environmental justice movement in the United States and the evolution of international human rights law concerning the environment have pursued parallel but separate paths, only occasionally noting that they share common concerns. This Article seeks to build a stronger bridge between them, in three ways.

First, it presents the most detailed restatement of environmental human rights law yet published. International human rights bodies have developed a robust environmental jurisprudence setting out concrete obligations on States, including procedural obligations to provide public access to environmental information, decision-making, and remedies, substantive obligations to adopt and enforce effective environmental …

A Global Crypto Code Of Conduct: Crafting An Internationally Centralized Regulatory Body For A Decentralized Asset, Mary Kavaloski

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The advent of Bitcoin in 2009 presented a previously unfathomable possibility for the future of currency and monetary transactions. Now, cryptocurrency is ubiquitous; it is increasingly seizing media headlines, novel swathes of investors, institutional bank involvement, and most importantly of all, the attention of government regulators. Yet governments around the globe have failed to adequately keep up with the pace of cryptocurrency's evolution, particularly because of their lack of expertise in this unprecedented area. This Note discusses how cryptocurrency's truly global footprint warrants a partnership between national regulators and industry actors at the international level. Specifically, by exploring the approaches …

Addressing Unlawful Cyber Operations In Armed Conflict Through Human Rights Bodies Instead Of The International Criminal Court, Zachary R. Orr

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Although the ICC-or other similarly-situated international criminal tribunals-could soon see the first cyber war crime prosecution, two glaring issues persist. First, the universe of conduct that could give rise to such a prosecution is limited. Second, heavy reliance on the war crimes framework fails to provide a forum for redress of many harms caused by other unlawful cyber operations in armed conflict. The fragmented nature of international law and its enforcement mechanisms requires solutions that harness the full range of the integrated architecture of the international system. Cyber operations might soon feature at the ICC, but only a fraction of …

Temporary Protection For Ukrainians In The European Union: Why Now And When Again?, Maryellen Fullerton

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In 2022, the Russian invasion of Ukraine produced an unprecedented wave of temporary immigration protections throughout the European Union (EU). Within the first few months of the war in Ukraine, over 4 million displaced individuals had registered for temporary protection. EU States distant from Ukraine sheltered hundreds of thousands of displaced families, while Poland and other EU States that border Ukraine sheltered more than 2 million. This groundswell response marked a striking departure from just seven years earlier, when the EU Commission and EU Council failed to use readily available laws to provide a temporary protection program for Syrians displaced …

Justifying Aggression: Russia's 2020 Constitutional Amendments And The Invasion Of Ukraine, Robert C. Blitt

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Beyond the alluring promise of an enhanced social safety net for Russian citizens, President Vladimir Putin's constitutional amendments of 2020 betrayed a distinct preoccupation with fortifying Russia's international standing and crafting a new national identity. By Putin's own account, these amendments were necessary to steel the country against the malevolent action of international conspirators committed to Russia's downfall. As this Article posits, these specific constitutional changes systematically entrenched an exceptionalist vision of Russian sovereignty and a civilizational identity that left the country constitutionally untethered from international norms and institutions, saturated in religious fervor and visions of imperial glory, and poised …

Combatting A Crisis Of Global Food Protectionism Sparked By The War In Ukraine, Daniel C.K. Chow, Ian M. Sheldon

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The world is currently gripped in a food crisis of historic proportions that is threatening tens of millions of people in the poorest countries of the world with famine and starvation. Sparked by the war in Ukraine, this crisis is being made worse by nations imposing export restrictions on food in a misguided attempt to curb soaring domestic food prices. Export restrictions are "beggar-thy-neighbor" policies that prevent increases in domestic food prices but at the expense of raising world prices, exacerbating the crisis. Although nations have turned to the World Trade Organization (WTO) for help in removing these export restrictions, …

China's National Security Review Of Foreign Investment: A Comparison With The United States, Robin Hui Huang

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This paper critically examines China's national security review regime of foreign investment and compares it with that of the United States. Over the years, China has gradually established a comprehensive legal framework for national security review of foreign investment. Recent efforts were made to refine the public enforcement mechanism of the review in tandem with a new "pre-establishment national treatment plus negative list" system under the 2020 Foreign Investment Law. The United States also enacted the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018 to enhance its national security review regime. By analyzing the law and practices of China and …

The Identifiability Problem In Transnational Privacy Regulation, Xiaowei Yu

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Commercial surveillance pervasively compromises data privacy by tracking consumers without meaningful consent or knowledge, yet there is no consensus on when data privacy laws should intervene. The crux lies in the standard of identifiability, which functions as the threshold trigger for when regulation is permissible. Ascertaining the identifiability of information is therefore critical to consumers, companies, and regulators, who must understand, comply with, and implement data privacy laws. As this Article shows, the world's key privacy jurisdictions the European Union, United States, and China-continue to struggle in similar ways with inadequately defining and inconsistently applying the concept of identifiability. This …

The Enforceability Of Private Property And Contract Rights Against A Successor State In International Law, Daniel Costelloe

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

When one state replaces another in sovereignty over territory, several legal issues arise. One pressing issue that has fallen into neglect in scholarship concerns the enforceability of certain private rights, specifically property and contract rights, against the successor state. These include, for example, state contracts, concessions, or land grants by the government. This article examines the conceptual bases that have been invoked to explain the survival of such rights against a successor state. Even if such rights survive as a matter of customary international law, none of these theories acquired rights, subrogation, the continuity of the predecessor state's legal system …

Establishing Control Order Regimes: The International Human Rights Law Implications For Pre-Conviction And Post-Release Control Orders, Natalie Garcia

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Control orders are restrictive measures placed on individuals that pose an identified threat to public safety as a component of domestic counterterrorism policy. Control orders and their compliance with International Human Rights Law have been the subject of extensive litigation within the European Court of Human Rights and domestic states courts. Controlling provisions are applied in either the pre- conviction or the post-release stage of a state's criminal procedure. Pre- conviction control orders face significant criticism for the potential conflicts with due process protections of the right to a fair trial and the broader right of liberty. This Note describes …