International Law Commons^™

Democratising Or Demonising The World Heritage Convention?, Natasha Affolder

All Faculty Publications

In recent disputes surrounding mining projects in and around World Heritage sites, the legitimacy of the World Heritage Convention regime has been attacked for a host of democratic failings. These accusations of 'democratic deficits' originate from both opponents and supporters of the Convention regime. They challenge the compatibility of international processes with national law and institutions, raise questions of accountability and transparency, and revisit tensions between state sovereignty and common heritage. This paper traces these perceptions of democratic shortcomings in the Convention regime to certain misunderstandings of the Convention, to failed participatory processes at the national level, and to the …

An Emerging International Criminal Law Tradition: Gaps In Applicable Law And Transnational Common Laws, Benjamin Perrin

All Faculty Publications

This thesis critically examines the origins and development of international criminal lave to identify the defining features of this emerging legal tradition. It critically evaluates the experimental approach taken in Article 21 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which attempts to codify an untested normative super-structure to guide this legal tradition. International criminal law is a hybrid tradition which seeks legitimacy and answers to difficult questions by drawing on other established legal traditions. Its development at the confluence of public international law, international humanitarian law, international human rights law and national criminal laws has resulted in gaps …

Judicial Review Of International Commercial Arbitral Awards By National Courts In The United States And India, Aparna D. Jujjavarapu

LLM Theses and Essays

Article V of the New York convention lays down the provisions under which the recognition and enforcement of an arbitral award may be refused. The United States and India are signatories to the Convention. Section 10(a) of the Federal Arbitration Act in the United States limits the scope of judicial review of the arbitral awards to a clear list of grounds of vacatur. The national courts of the United States have recognized several non-statutory grounds of which "manifest disregard of the law" as a standard of review is the focus in this thesis. In fact, the state of Georgia has …

Comfort Women: Human Rights Of Women From Then To Present, Jinyang Koh

LLM Theses and Essays

This paper discusses the human rights of women through the atrocities in the Japanese comfort system during World War II. Approximately 100,000 military sexual slaves, so-called "comfort women", were recruited coercively, raped and mostly killed under the control of the Japanese government and military. The stance of Japan which has denied any legal liability in this matter affects severely the retrogression of the human rights of women. In order to ameliorate the human right at both international and domestic levels ultimately, it is significant to observe the facts of the comfort women issue, to analyze the legal liabilities of the …

The Need For A Transnational Appellate Arbitral Review Body, Priya Sampath

LLM Theses and Essays

This thesis analyzes the necessity for the establishment of a transnational body of arbitral appeal. The paper also elaborates on how the establishment such a body will serve as a suitable replacement for judicial review and be an effective source of appeal in general. Also prescribed are suggestions based on which the appellate body may be conceived.

Ethiopia's Sovereign Right Of Access To The Sea Under International Law, Abebe T. Kahsay

LLM Theses and Essays

Since Eritrea’s secession from Ethiopia there has been continuous opposition by intellectuals and the opposition to the government’s policy of making Ethiopia a landlocked country. Some totally reject the secession, while others accept the independence as a "fait accompli" and voice concern over the lack of an outlet to the sea, and still others acknowledge the right of self-determination and secession of Eritrea but denounce the inconsistency of the application of the Transitional Charter regarding the Red Sea Afar and the Algiers Agreement for denying Ethiopia its legitimate right to access to the sea and allege that the government is …

International Legal Standards Governing The Use Of Child Soldiers, Dorcas B. Mulira

LLM Theses and Essays

This paper seeks to analyze the international laws governing the use of children in armedconflict. Despite the prohibition of the use of child soldiers in armed conflict in internationallaw, States and non-State actors continue to actively recruit, abduct, and directly use children,some as young as eight, in hostilities. International humanitarian law's limited scope prevents itfrom protecting the worldÕs most vulnerable children, child soldiers, while human rightsinstruments adopted to make up for these limitations lack enforcement mechanisms, thereforerendering the much-needed protection for child soldiers inadequate. As development ofinternational law concerning child soldiers progresses on paper, progress on the ground lagsbehind, thus …

Justice And Reconciliation On Trial: Gacaca Proceedings In Rwanda, Linda Carter

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

The Michigan Guidelines On Protection Elsewhere, Colloquium On Challenges In International Refugee Law

Other Publications

Refugees increasingly encounter laws and policies which provide that their protection needs will be considered or addressed somewhere other than in the territory of the state where they have sought, or intend to seek, protection. Such policies-including "country of first arrival," "safe third country," and extraterritorial processing rules and practices-raise both opportunities and challenges for international refugee law. They have the potential to respond to the Refugee Convention's concern "that the grant of asylum may place unduly heavy burdens on certain countries" by more fairly allocating protection responsibilities among states. But insistence that protection be provided elsewhere may also result …

Partially Odious Debts?, Omri Ben-Shahar, Mitu Gulati

Articles

The despotic ruler of a poor nation borrows extensively from foreign creditors. He spends some of those funds on building statues of himself, others on buying arms for his brutal secret police, and he places the remainder in his personal bank accounts in Switzerland. The longer the despot stays in power, the poorer the nation becomes. Although the secret police are able to keep prodemocracy protests subdued by force for many years, eventually there is a popular revolt. The despot flees the scene with a few billion dollars of his illgotten gains. The populist regime that replaces the despot now …

Tax Competition, Tax Arbitrage And The International Tax Regime, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

In the past ten years, I have argued repeatedly that a coherent international tax regime exists, embodied both in the tax treaty network and in domestic laws, and that it forms a significant part of international law (both treaty-based and customary). The practical implication is that countries are not free to adopt any international tax rules they please, but rather operate in the context of the regime, which changes in the same ways international law changes over time. Thus, unilateral action is possible, but is also restricted, and countries are generally reluctant to take unilateral actions that violate the basic …

Why Refugee Law Still Matters, James C. Hathaway

Articles

I am concerned that the singular importance of international refugee law is profoundly misunderstood. My more specific worry is that erroneous and competing claims by governments and the refugee advocacy community about the structure and purpose of refugee law threaten its continuing ability to play a truly unique human rights role at a time when no meaningful alternative is in sight.

Refugee Solution, Or Solutions To Refugeehood?, James C. Hathaway

Articles

This is the text of a lecture delivered by James C. Hathaway in London in October 2006 to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of Jesuit Refugee Service. The lecture was sponsored jointly by the Centre for the Study of Human Rights, London School of Economics; the Heythrop Institute for Religion, Ethics, and Public Life; and Jesuit Refugee Service (UK).

After Atrocity Examples From Africa: The Right To Education And The Role Of Law In Restoration, Recovery, And Accountability, Erika George

Faculty Scholarship

This article begins to consider these important questions through a discussion of the multiple models used to address, and redress massive human rights violations in South Africa, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone. I argue that lawyers and policy makers working to advance the rule of law must consider the role of law in transitional societies not only as a means of ensuring that perpetrators of grave human rights abuses are held accountable, but also as a foundation for the future. I submit that for the rule of law to take root, the conditions of a society must be fertile; and respect …

Moderator's Report: Legal Experts' Workshop On The Future Global Legal Order, Craig H. Allen

Articles

In late 2006, as part of its multifaceted effort to help the Chief of Naval Operations develop a new, contemporary maritime strategy for the nation, the Naval War College convened a “Delphi group” of experts—in this case, in international law—to provide the maritime strategy development team a candid assessment of the probable state of the global legal order in 2020. The workshop, chaired by Craig H. Allen, the Charles H. Stockton Professor of International Law, was held 31 October–1 November 2006 in the College’s Decision Support Center (equipped with an advanced World Wide Web–based group collaboration and decision-support system), in …

Joel R. Pruce On The Human Rights Reader: Major Political Essays, Speeches And Documents From Ancient Times To The Present (Second Edition), By Micheline R. Ishay. New York, Ny: Routledge, 2007. 592pp., Joel R. Pruce

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Human Rights Reader: Major Political Essays, Speeches and Documents from Ancient Times to the Present (Second Edition), by Micheline R. Ishay. New York, NY: Routledge, 2007. 592pp.

Freeing All God’S Children, Clifford Bob

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Freeing God’s Children: The Unlikely Alliance for Global Human Rights by Allen D. Hertzke. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004. 419pp.

“I’M Just Talking About The Law”: Guantánamo And The Lawyers, Marten Zwanenburg

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Guantánamo: The War on Human Rights by David Rose. New York: The New Press, 2004.

Noble Human Rights Defender Or International Band-Aid? On Contemporary Humanitarianism, Kurt Mills

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Humanitarians: The International Committee of the Red Cross by David P. Forsythe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Making Sense Of A Senseless War, J. Peter Pham

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

A Dirty War in West Africa: The RUF and the Destruction of Sierra Leone by Lansana Gberie. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2005.

and

Young Soldiers: Why They Choose to Fight by Rachel Brett and Irma Specht. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005.

The Ethics Of Torture, Rebecca Evans

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Torture: Does It Make Us Safer? Is It Ever OK? A Human Rights Perspective. Edited by Kenneth Roth and Mindy Worden. New York: The New Press, 2005. 201 pp.

Violations Of Human Rights During Military Operations In Chechnya, Federico Sperotto

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The case-law of the European Court of Human Rights concerning violations of human rights law during armed conflict has been extended after the first decisions on cases arose from violations, committed during the war in Chechnya between 1999 and 2000. In the words of the Court, at that time the situation called for exceptional measures, in order to regain control over the Republic and suppress an illegal armed insurgency. The Court has been ready to admit those measures, including the deployment of army units equipped with heavy combat weapons, military aviation and artillery, were necessary to counter the aggressiveness of …

Rehabilitation Or Revenge: Prosecuting Child Soldiers For Human Rights Violations, Nienke Grossman

All Faculty Scholarship

International law provides no explicit guidelines for whether or at what age child soldiers should be prosecuted for grave violations of international humanitarian and human rights law such as genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. This paper argues that the hundreds of thousands of children under age eighteen participating in armed conflicts around the globe should be treated primarily as victims, not perpetrators, of human rights violations and that international law may support this conclusion. In the case of children, the world community should choose rehabilitation and reintegration over criminal prosecution because of children's unique psychological and moral development, …

New Hope For Corporate Governance In China?, James V. Feinerman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

China's recent revisions to its Company Law and Securities Law have brought new attention to issues of corporate governance in Chinese companies and financial markets. Among the chief criticisms of the earlier laws - in both their provisions and application - were the lack of protection for minority shareholders, the paucity of independent directors, the absence of transparency and inadequate financial disclosure. The acknowledged need for greater congruence between Chinese law and practice and that of countries with more developed capital markets led to the proposal of amendments to China's legislation during the first half of this decade. This article …

Pursuing Accountability For Atrocities After Conflict: What Impact On Building The Rule Of Law?, Jane E. Stromseth

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In countries ravaged by widespread violence, the trauma does not end when the guns fall silent. On the contrary, atrocities have cast a long shadow in places such as the Balkans, where brutal massacres, mass rapes, and ethnic cleansing were regular features of war; in Rwanda, where a devastating genocide killed hundreds of thousands of people; and in Sierra Leone, where the civil war was marked by forced recruitment of child soldiers, rapes and murders, and the gruesome mutilation of civilians. In Afghanistan, Iraq, East Timor, and many other societies, severe abuses have also left deep pain and trauma in …

Book Review Of Can Might Make Rights? Building The Rule Of Law After Military Interventions, Lan Cao

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Judging Treaties, Lakshman Guruswamy

Publications

No abstract provided.

Indigenous Law And Its Contribution To Global Pluralism, James Anaya

Publications

No abstract provided.

Arbitration Of International Oil, Gas, And Energy Disputes In Latin America, Alexia Brunet, Juan Agustin Lentini

Publications

No abstract provided.

Sending The Self-Execution Doctrine To The Executioner, Aya Gruber

Publications

No abstract provided.