International Law Commons^™

The Syrian Crisis And The Principle Of Non-Refoulement, Mike Sanderson

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Arctic Climate Change And U.S. Accession To The United Nations Convention On The Law Of The Sea, Raul (Pete) Pedrozo

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Belligerent Targeting And The Invalidity Of A Least Harmful Means Rule, Geoffrey S. Corn, Laurie R. Blank, Chris Jenks, Eric Talbot Jensen

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

The Plight Of Kenyan Domestic Workers In Gulf Countries, Caroline Muthoni Gikuru

Master's Theses

Kenya’s economy remains the regional leader within the East African Community (EAC) and among East African countries at large. However, political instability such as the 2007 post-election violence and the region’s social and political instability trickling into Kenya, have negatively affected the country’s economic growth. To bridge the economic gap, Kenyan women are seeking employment in the domestic service sector in the Gulf Countries, with Saudi Arabia being the most popular destination. At their destination countries, some domestic workers are subjected to various forms of abuse by their employers, leaving the worker without recourse due to the lack of legal …

Re-Visiting Homosexuality In Cameroon: Effective Advocacy On The Path From Homophobia To Dignity And Equality, Jean Cedric Ndzomo

Master's Theses

Cameroon, one of the countries in the world that continues to criminalize homosexuality, has been on the news recently due to the torture and murder of young journalist and gay activist, Eric Ohena. This paper examines the discrimination faced by the LGBTI community in Cameroon by exploring the origins of homophobic violence, the role played by Cameroon's legal system, and the struggles of LGBTI Cameroonians in their fight for a better life. The analysis includes a review of the work by scholars on colonialism and sexuality in Africa, and questions the roots of violence and abuse against the LGBTI community …

Continued Oversight Of U.S. Government Surveillance Authorities : Hearing Before The S. Committee On The Judiciary, 113th Cong., December 11, 2013 (Statement By Professor Carrie F. Cordero, Geo. U. L. Center), Carrie F. Cordero

Testimony Before Congress

My views are informed by this up-front perspective regarding how the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, and later the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, vastly improved the Intelligence Community’s ability to protect the nation from another attack on the scale of September 11th. More recently, I have had the added benefit of having spent the past three years outside of government to reflect, and to engage with the academic community, and to some extent the public, regarding some of the issues this Committee is considering today.

Friendship Treaties ≠ Judgment Treaties, John F. Coyle

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

It is hornbook law that the United States is not currently a party to any treaty governing the enforcement of foreign judgments. At least, it was hornbook law until 1993. In that year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit adopted a novel interpretation of a provision in a bilateral treaty of friendship, commerce, and navigation ("FCN treaty") between the United States and Greece that transformed the treaty into a de facto judgments treaty. Two years later, in 1995, the Third Circuit adopted the same interpretation of an identical clause in the United States-Korea FCN treaty. Each of …

Ineffective, Opaque, And Undemocratic: The Ious Of—Too Much—International Law And Why A Bit Of Skepticism Is Warranted, James Allan

San Diego Law Review

In this Article I want to give you an outsider’s view of international law, or at least this outsider’s view. And by outsider I mean someone who is usually interested in legal philosophy and constitutional law and who may well be thought to lack standing to offer the sort of views and criticisms that are to come.... The structure of this Article will be simple. I will criticize certain aspects of international law, especially rights-related international law, under the three headings you see in the title to this Article. However, I am going to take those headings and critiques in …

The Limits Of Custom In Constitutional And International Law, Michael D. Ramsey

San Diego Law Review

This Article does not contend that arguments for extension of custom are illegitimate. Instead, it makes two more limited claims. First, there is an important difference between arguments from pure custom and arguments for the extension of custom, with the latter being more properly called common law arguments. Second, the legitimacy of common law arguments in some fields, especially constitutional law and international law, is substantially more problematic than the legitimacy of arguments from pure custom. The Article develops as follows. Part II sets out in greater detail the proposed distinction between arguments from pure custom and arguments for extension …

Shame, Memory, And The Unspeakable: The International Criminal Court As Damnatio Memoriae, Michael Blake

San Diego Law Review

The first [part] will discuss two ways of looking at the court and why the conventional justifications of punishment might not be adequate to justify what the court is doing. The second will examine the issue of the politically unspeakable and argue that the court’s mandate might indeed be the responsibility of making certain ideas and persons politically shameful. The final Part will try to give some justification for the claim that this mandate might give rise to a justification for the court’s existence. On the account I provide here, even if the court could not be justified with reference …

Punishing Our Own Rascals: Great Britain, The United States, And The Right To Search During The Era Of Slave Trade Suppression, Mark T. Haggard

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the relationship between the United States and Great Britain during the era of slave trade suppression in the nineteenth century. Two ideals of international relations came into conflict when Great Britain’s humanitarian drive to rid the world of the international slave trade ran headlong into the United States’ claims to sovereignty under the Law of Nations. Under international maritime law a ship is the sovereign territory of the nation under whose flag it sails; the forcible boarding of a ship is tantamount to an invasion of the country itself. Britain sought to circumvent this rule in the …

Articulating Moral Bases For Regional Responses To Deforestation And Climate Change: Africa, Amelia Chizwala Peterson

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

Deforestation and desertification, archenemies of efforts to maintain forests as sinks for greenhouse gas emissions, are marching on unabated in Africa, where 90 percent of forests were lost in West Africa over the last century alone. Wangari Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement, whose work to restore some of Kenya’s decimated forests predates the connections made by the climate science community between deforestation and climate change, wrote:

Today we are faced with a challenge that calls for a shift in our thinking, so that humanity stops threatening its lifesupport system. We are called to assist the Earth to heal …

"Soaring" Gas Prices: Policy Considerations For The European Union Emissions Trading System And Aviation, Kaylin Gaal

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Natural Law As Part Of International Law: The Case Of The Armenian Genocide, Fernando R. Tesón

San Diego Law Review

In this Article I argue that some norms are part of international law even if they have never been created by treaty or custom. Because such norms have never been posited, they are natural law norms, and my thesis is that these natural law norms are as much part of international law as the posited norms. By this I mean that these norms should figure in any catalog of what international law prescribes or permits.

Mission Creep Or A Search For Relevance: The East African Court Of Justice’S Human Rights Strategy, James Gathii

Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law

No abstract provided.

Evaluating Flexibility In International Patent Law, Sarah R. Wasserman Rajec

Faculty Publications

Global patent law has raced toward harmonization over the past decades. Countries with vastly different industries, values, and levels of development now offer robust patent rights with similar contours through membership in the World Trade Organization and consequent adoption of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (“TRIPS”). However, patent law is still far from harmonized among countries or static within countries. Jurisdictions tailor their patent laws to accommodate differences between industries, unforeseen inefficiencies, and diverse views of the costs and benefits associated with offering patent rights to stimulate innovation. Prior scholarly work consists of either doctrinal analyses …

Symposium - The U.S.-Iranian Relationship And The Future Of International Order

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

No abstract provided.

Safecom, Ltd. V. Raviv, Yoram Danziger, Zvi Zylbertal, Elyakim Rubinstein

Translated Opinions

Facts: An appeal against the Haifa District Court's judgment dismissing the Appellants' claim against the Respondent for the infringement of its copyright in technical drawings. At trial, the Appellants argued that drawings used by the Respondent for the registration of a patent in the USA for a voltage backup system for cable systems (a product that competes with a product of the first Appellant (hereinafter referred to as "Safecom") infringe Safecom's copyright in the drawings of its products. There is no dispute that there was a previous business relationship between the Respondent and the Appellants, and the Respondent had access …

2012-13 Jlia Masthead

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

No abstract provided.

Protecting Shareholders From Themselves: How The United Kingdom’S 2011 Takeover Code Amendments Hit Their Mark, Matthew Peetz

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

Kraft’s takeover of Cadbury in 2011 caused considerable uproar in the United Kingdom. The political outcry caused significant amendments to the United Kingdom’s regulatory framework over mergers and acquisitions, the so-called, Takeover Code. These changes to the Takeover Code were made to help relieve pressure on target companies during takeover situations, and to correct the imbalance of power in favor of bidding companies that the political community had perceived during the Kraft-Cadbury takeover. After the changes were made, but before they were implemented, the business community expressed concern that these added regulations would be detrimental to the M&A market as …

The Case Of Christmas Island: How International Law Affects The Australian-Malaysian Refugee Deal, Ria Pereira

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

In July 2011, Australia and Malaysia entered into an arrangement in which Australian asylum seekers would be removed to neighboring Malaysia to have their asylum claims processed. Following widespread criticism in the media, Australia’s High Court ruled that such a deal violated Australia’s refuges protection laws. While this ruling should have put an end to the deal, Australia’s Immigration Minister indicated that the agreement might nevertheless be feasible. Policy makers proposed amending Australian domestic immigration laws to allow the deal to go forward unencumbered. A bill to amend Australia’s Migration Act was subsequently introduced. As it currently stands, Australian law …

The Cost Of Fear: An Analysis Of Sex Offender Registration, Community Notification, And Civil Commitment Laws In The United States And The United Kingdom, Kate Hynes

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

Sex offenders are often seen as a notorious group in both the United States and the United Kingdom. The public opinion of the masses has often found its way into the laws which restrict the privacy and freedoms of many sex offenders. This comment will examine the often divergent trends in lawmaking and judicial authority in both countries in regard to sex offender registration, community notification, and civil commitment. Further, the comment will study the lasting effects on the sex offender population and potential civil rights implications.

How Precipitous A Decline? U.S.-Iranian Relations And The Transition From American Primacy, Hillary Mann Leverett

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

This essay is grounded in two basic propositions. The first is that the greatest strategic challenge facing the United States is extricating its foreign policy from a well-worn but deeply counterproductive quest for hegemonic dominance in critical areas of the world, especially the Middle East. The second is that Washington’s handling of its relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran constitutes a crucial test of America’s capacity to put its foreign policy on a more productive and realistic trajectory. Since the Islamic Republic’s founding in 1979, Washington has refused to understand and accept the basic model underlying its political order—the …

The Prohibition On The Use Of Force For Arms Control: The Case Of Iran’S Nuclear Program, Mary Ellen O'Connell, Reyam El Molla

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

International law does not permit the use of military force against Iran to attempt to end its nuclear program. The resort to military force in international relations is covered first and foremost by Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter. Article 2(4) is a general prohibition on resort to force that includes resort to military force for arms control, including nuclear weapons control. The Charter has two express but limited exceptions to the ban on military force. A state that is the victim of a significant armed attack may use force in necessary and proportional self-defense; the United Nations Security …

Caroline Revisited: An Imagined Exchange Between John Kerry And Mohammad Javad Zarif, James W. Houck

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

In 1837, sailors of Great Britain's Royal Navy sank the American ship the Caroline over Niagra Falls. Great Britain justified the incident the preemptive strike as an act of self-defense. Diplomats of the two nations negotiated a legal framework to guide future preemptive uses of force. In the face of twenty-first century nuclear weapons, however, the Caroline framework seems outdated and impractical. To date, Iran continues to develop their nuclear program, while refusing international inspectors full access to their centrifuges. The United States is committed to keeping a nuclear weapon out of Iran's hands. The United States and Iran …

Iran's Nuclear Program And International Law, Daniel H. Joyner

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

In this article, Professor Daniel Joyner analyzes the legal arguments on both sides of the Iran nuclear issue. The article address what the sides regard as the relevant sources of international nuclear law, and their respective interpretations of these sources law. Professor Joyner argues that Iran’s case illustrates warped and incorrect legal interpretations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and other sources of law, and a prejudicial and inconsistent application of the law by the West and by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The article posits that this warped interpretation of NPT obligations has led to a bleak future for the …

Npt: A Pillar Of Global Governance, Richard Butler

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

The NPT is regarded as the cornerstone of nuclear arms control. It is the sole, widely agreed commitment in international law, to a world free of nuclear weapons. This fact and its operational mechanisms, establish NPT as a pillar of global governance. Any breakout from it, such as the development of nuclear weapons by Iran, a non-nuclear weapons state party to NPT, would jeopardize the future of the treaty and deeply harm the structure of contemporary global governance. If it chooses to do so, Iran cannot be prevented from taking such action by threatening it with the use of force, …

The Iranian Nuclear Issue, The End Of The American Century, And The Future Of International Order, Flynt L. Leverett

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

How the U.S.-Iranian competition for influence in the Middle East plays out will have profound consequences not just for the Middle East, but also for the legal frameworks, rules-based regimes, and mechanisms of global governance that shape international order in the 21^st century. This is particularly true with regard to U.S.-Iranian disagreements over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear activities. Strategic competition between America and Iran and its implications for international order play out against a backdrop of the progressive diminution of U.S. leadership in world affairs. Relative decline challenges the United States to share the prerogatives of global governance, especially …

Foreword, Amy C. Gaudion

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

No abstract provided.

Exhausted? Video Game Companies And The Battle Against Allowing The Resale Of Software Licenses, Alice J. Won

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.