International Law Commons^™

Cross-Border Targeted Killings: "Lawful But Awful"?, Rosa Brooks

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Since September 11, the United States has waged two very open wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. These two wars have killed nearly 7,000 U.S. military personnel and left some 50,000 American troops wounded; they have also left an unknown number of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers and civilians dead or wounded. But alongside these two costly and visible wars, the United States has also been waging what amounts to a third war.

This third war is a secret war, waged mostly by drone strikes, though it has also involved a smaller number of special operations raids. The author calls this third …

Things We Do With Presumptions: Reflections On Kiobel V. Royal Dutch Petroleum, Carlos Manuel Vázquez

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The author argues in part I that the presumption should be regarded as categorically inapplicable to statutes conferring jurisdiction on the federal courts. He argues further that the majority opinion in Kiobel supports the conclusion that the presumption is inapplicable to such statutes. It is clear from the Court’s opinion that it was not applying the presumption to determine the geographical scope of the ATS qua jurisdictional statute. It was instead applying the presumption to determine the geographical scope of the federal common law cause of action it had recognized in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain.

Even when the presumption against …

Humanitarian Intervention: Evolving Norms, Fragmenting Consensus (Remarks), Rosa Brooks

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Traditionally, the evolution of customary international law was understood as a gradual process: in some idealized model, we might see first a few states, and then a few more, implicitly agreeing to follow a practice, and then we would gradually begin to see additional states doing the same thing. We would also gradually accumulate evidence that these various states are acting in such a way because they consider themselves legally bound to do so. Then, over time, we’ll see more and more states following suit both in word and deed, until at some point we can say with a great …

The Trickle-Down War, Rosa Brooks

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The history of the European nation-state, wrote political sociologist Charles Tilly, is inextricably bound up with the history of warfare. To oversimplify Tilly’s nuanced and complex arguments, the story goes something like this: As power-holders (originally bandits and local strongmen) sought to expand their power, they needed capital to pay for weapons, soldiers and supplies. The need for capital and new recruits drove the creation of taxation systems and census mechanisms, and the need for more effective systems of taxation and recruitment necessitated better roads, better communications and better record keeping. This in turn enabled the creation of larger and …

Application Of The State Immunity Rule In The International Criminal Justice System: Problems Arising And A Critique Of Legal Response Mechanisms, Celestine Nchekwube Ezennia

LLM Theses

The state immunity rule was founded upon such sound rationales as respect for the sovereign equality of all states and non-interference with state functions. However, its application in the international criminal justice system produces numerous problems. These include impunity for violation of peremptory international legal norms (like the prohibitions on serious international crimes) and violation of human rights. It also undermines the individual accountability and justice administration missions of the system because it shields state officials from criminal responsibility and subjects their victims to injustice. The international community has adopted various legal mechanisms which attempt to respond to these problems …

Comeback Of Community-Based Forest Management: The Need To Revamp Strategies To Promote Decentralized Environmental Governance In India And Brazil, Naysa Ahuja

Florida A & M University Law Review

The governance of forests and their resources has always been a contentious issue. It has created a divide between developing and developed countries, as well as within them. With the increasing recognition of forests as valuable commodities in the global market, the management of forests in developing countries is becoming a matter of constant concern for ecologists, economists, and politicians.

Part I of this article provides an overview of the Participatory Forest Management (PFM) approach in the international context. Part II and III examine environmental governance in the forest sector of two rapidly emerging economies of the world, India and …

¡Peligro! Si Usted No Entiende La Etiqueta, Busque A Alguien Para Que Se La Explique A Usted En Detalle: The Need For International And Domestic Implementation Of Bilingual Pesticide Labeling To Enhance Protection Of Migrant Farmworkers In Florida, Vanessa Calcano Thomas

Florida A & M University Law Review

No abstract provided.

"Where Has Their Innocence Gone?" Addressing Child Sex Tourism, Cheryl Page

Journal Publications

If someone thinks that slavery is a thing of the past, they are simply unaware of what is going on around them. It is amazingly easy to “buy” a child. Given the incredible advances in technology and the pervasiveness of the Internet, one could obtain practically any product with a simple click of a mouse. While these technological advances have made life easier in many respects, it has also made it easier for sex predators to have access to buy and sell children. These children are exploited sexually just as easily as ordering a pizza. Children around the world are …

Move, Or Wait For The Flood And Die: Protection Of Environmentally Displaced Populations Through A New Relocation Law, Jessica Scott

Florida A & M University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Special Tribunal For Lebanon: A Defense Perspective, Charles C. Jalloh

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article analyzes the absence of organs tasked with guaranteeing the rights of the defense in international criminal law. It explains the historical origins of the problem, tracing it back to the genesis of modern prosecutions at the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal. It then explains how the organizational charts of the UN courts for the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone omitted the defense and essentially treated it as a second class citizen before the eyes of the law. This sets the stage for the author to show why the creation of the first full-fledged defense organ in international criminal …

Gimme Shelter: International Political Asylum In The Information Age, Jacob Stafford

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

On June 5, 2013, an article in the Guardian revealed highly classified information about surveillance operations being performed by the United States National Security Administration (NSA). The source of this information was a former NSA contractor named Edward Snowden. After arriving in Moscow on June 23, Snowden spent the next forty days in the transit area of Sheremetyevo International Airport in a bizarre state of geopolitical purgatory. Eventually, Russia granted Snowden temporary asylum for one year, followed by a three-year residency permit. This Note uses Snowden's circumstance to consider the current state of international political asylum within the context of …

Deciding To Intervene, Anna Spain

Publications

Decisions about intervention into today's armed conflicts are difficult, dangerous, and politically complicated. There are no safe choices. Amid the climate of urgency and uncertainty in which intervention decision-making occurs, international law serves as a guide by providing rules about the legality of intervention. These rules assert that, except for in cases of self-defense, choices about when and how to intervene are to be made by the United Nations Security Council. What the rules do not provide, however, is effective guidance for the political choices the Council makes, such as how to prioritize among competing norms. When, for example, should …

The Marrakesh Treaty For Visually Impaired Persons: Why A Treaty Was Preferable To Soft Law, Margot E. Kaminski, Shlomit Yanisky-Ravid

Publications

This paper addresses the debates leading up to the recently adopted international treaty on copyright exceptions for the visually impaired, the Marrakesh International Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled. This treaty was successfully adopted by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in June 2013.

Leading up to the negotiation of this instrument, multiple UN member states pushed for the instrument to be negotiated as soft law instead of a treaty. We argue that making this instrument soft law would have precluded its success. WIPO thus correctly chose to …

The Judge And The Drone, Justin Deystone

Publications

Among the most characteristic issues in modern jurisprudence is the distinction between adjudication and legislation. In the some accounts, a judge's role in deciding a particular controversy is highly constrained and limited to the application of preexisting law. Whereas legislation is inescapably political, adjudication requires at least some form of impersonal neutrality. In various ways over the past century, theorists have pressed this conventional account, complicating the conceptual underpinnings of the distinction between law-application and lawmaking. This Article contributes to this literature on the nature of adjudication through the resuscitation of a structuralist mode of legal interpretation. In the structuralist …

Is The Butter Battle Book’S Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo Banned? What Has International Law To Say About Weapons Of Mass Destruction?, Roger S. Clark

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Understanding The Limits Of The Foreign Trade Antitrust Improvement Act Using Tort Law Principles As A Guide, Rene H. Dubois

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Is The Truth In The Eyes Of The Beholder? The Perils And Benefits Of Empirical Research In International Investment, Chiara Giorgetti

Law Faculty Publications

Empirical research is the new hot trend in international law. An increasing number of publications include empirical data that aim at strengthening their author's argument. Indeed, empirical data are used to make an argument less fallible, as the author's conclusions are transformed from subjective to objectively proven by the empirical wrap. Professor Catherine Rogers' novel article, The Politics and Empirics of International Investment Arbitrators, highlights important limitations that empirical data may produce in international investment law research.a As such, it is a needed and important contribution to the understanding and development of this type of scholarship, and generally to the …

Governing For Health As The World Grows Older: Healthy Lifespans In Aging Societies, Lawrence O. Gostin, Anna Garsia

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

So much of global health governance focuses intensely on a brief moment in the human lifespan—from a safe birth to infant and child survival. Yet, with all the attention to this early window of life (infancy to age five), the opposite end of the life spectrum is comparatively neglected. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) do not mention a healthy lifespan or a healthy old age. This inadequate attention to the older years of the life appears to be a glaring omission given the universal challenges posed by aging societies. Aging is a demographic fact in almost all countries, but it …

The Connected Lawyer: The Evolving "Operating System" Of The Networked Professional, Patrick C. Brayer

Fordham International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Nuclear Weapons, Elephants, Israel And The World Court, James J. Friedberg

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

No abstract provided.

In The Name Of National Interest? Assessing The Shift Of Australian Foreign Policy Regarding West Papua During 2006, Jaymin Beck

Theses : Honours

The Australian government currently maintains a strong position against an independent West Papua. Despite claims of human rights abuses by the Indonesian Government in West Papua and the huge number of West Papuan refugees fleeing to Australian shores, the Australian Government continues to tighten foreign policy and migration laws to make it increasingly difficult for West Papuans to seek asylum in Australia and hope for an independent West Papua. When Australia’s humanitarian intervention in the Timor-Leste fight for independence in 1999 is considered, reasons why the Australian government maintains an anti-separatist position towards West Papua are unclear. Australia took a …

Children, Armed Conflict, And Genocide: Applying The Law Of Genocide To The Recruitment And Use Of Children In Armed Conflict, Jeffery R. Ray

Barry Law Review

This paper shows that the use of child soldiers in armed conflict has the potential to be considered as genocide. A brief background of genocide is presented prior to the analysis. Part I of the analysis will discuss three issues: first, the modern understanding of genocide and the substantive areas of law that govern it; second, the definition of “child” within the international arena as it relates to child soldiering; third, a discussion to determine if children can constitute a “group” in the context of the law of genocide.

Part II provides a discussion elaborating on Part I, then analyzes …

"Islamic Law" In Us Courts: Judicial Jihad Or Constitutional Imperative?, Faisal Kutty

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Function And Dysfunction In Post-Conflict Justice Networks And Communities, Elena Baylis

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The field of post-conflict justice includes many well-known international criminal law and rule of law initiatives, from the International Criminal Court to legal reform programs in Afghanistan and Iraq. Less visible, but nonetheless vital to the field, are the international staff (known as internationals) who carry out these transitional justice enterprises, and the networks and communities of practice that connect them to each other. By sharing information, collaborating on joint action, and debating proposed legal rules within their networks and communities, internationals help to develop and implement the core norms and practices of post-conflict justice. These modes of collaboration are …

Climate Change, Forests, And International Law: Redd's Descent Into Irrelevance, Annecoos Wiersema

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Forestry activities account for over 17 percent of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Since 2005, parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change have been negotiating a mechanism known as REDD--Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation--to provide an incentive for developing countries to reduce carbon emissions and limit deforestation at the same time. When REDD was first proposed, many commentators argued this mechanism would not only mitigate climate change but also provide biodiversity and forests with the hard international law regime that had so far been missing. These commentators appeared to hope REDD would develop into this kind of …

Will The New Icao-Beijing Instruments Build A Chinese Wall For International Aviation Security?, Alejandro Piera, Michael Gill

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The last 6 years have seen an unprecedented level of activity in the field of international aviation law, with the adoption of three new conventions and one new protocol. This is a testament to ICAO's leadership role and its ongoing relevance, particularly in the field of aviation security. The tragic events of 9/11 highlighted some weaknesses in the international law regime and were the impetus behind the nine-year process that led to the adoption of the 2010 Beijing Convention and Protocol. This Article reviews the historical background to the new treaties, including the journey taken through the ICAO process. It …

Ready, Set, Go To Federal Court: The Hague Child Abduction Treaty, Demystified, Jennifer Baum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction may sound intimidating, but is easily demystified. Since 1980, signatory nations have agreed that parents should not be permitted to forum shop among countries when it comes to custody of their children. The Hague Convention requires the prompt repatriation of children under 16 years of age who were wrongfully removed by a parent from the country in which they had been living, except in certain very limited circumstances (some of which are discussed in more detail, below). The Convention does not address or permit the alteration of custody …

Duck-Rabbits And Drones: Legal Indeterminacy In The War On Terror, Rosa Brooks

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In the days and weeks immediately following the 9/11 attacks, “the law” offered little to lawyers or policy-makers looking for guidance. Indeed, for many the events of 9/11 became the legal equivalent of a Rorschach test: depending on the observer, the 9/11 attacks were variously construed as criminal acts, acts of war, or something in between, thus fitting into (or triggering) any of several radically different legal regimes.

Divergent interpretations of the law are common, of course. Legal rules often contain an element of ambiguity, and the “facts” to which law must be applied can frequently be construed in multiple …

The Global Health Security Agenda In An Age Of Biosecurity, Lawrence O. Gostin, Alexandra Phelan

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Historically, the Oval Office has been a leader in global health assistance. From the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) under the Bush Administration, to the Global Health Initiative launched by President Obama in 2009. However, unlike PEPFAR and PMI, the Global Health Initiative met an untimely end with the launch of a bold new global health measure by the Obama Administration: the Global Health Security Agenda (GHS Agenda). The GHS Agenda aims to “accelerate progress toward a world safe and secure from infectious disease threats” through a US-led diplomatic collaboration with 30 …

Dialogues Of Transitional Justice: Keynote Speech, Ruti Teitel

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.