International Law Commons^™

War/Crimes And The Limits Of The Doctrine Of Sources, Steven R. Ratner

Book Chapters

International humanitarian law (IHL) and international criminal law (ICL) are the product of lawmaking processes that are not captured in the black-letter doctrine of sources under which Article 38 of the ICJ Statute is the rule of recognition for international law. Despite efforts by certain institutional players and scholars to place these two regimes squarely within Article 38, both remain distinct in terms of how actors determine whether a purported rule is a legal rule. These distinctions constitute a challenge to the idea of a unified rule of recognition and argue instead for looking for indicators (not rules) about a …

Is The Eccc’S Supreme Court Chamber’S Conception Of A Common Criminal Plan In The Case 002/01 Appeal Judgment Supported By Customary International Law? Specifically Addressing The Arguments Surrounding The Supreme Court Chamber’S Rejection Of The Existence Of Jce3 And Whether Post World War Ii Jurisprudence Establishes The Existence Of Jce3 In Customary International Law., Jordan Elizabeth Dinsmore

War Crimes Memoranda

No abstract provided.

Under International Law, Must A Ship On The High Seas Fly The Flag Of A State In Order To A Void Being A Stateless Vessel? Is A Flag Painted On Either Side Of The Ship Sufficient To Identify It?, Barry Hart Dubner, Mary Carmen Arias

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Competent Hunger Strikers: Applying The Lessons From Northern Ireland To The Force-Feeding In Guantanamo, Sara Cloon

Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy

The United States allows force-feeding of prisoners, regardless of their state of mind or mental health because they deem preservation of life as paramount. In the United Kingdom, a prisoner who is of a sound mind “can be allowed to starve himself to death.”1 This difference is due to the balance between the importance of preservation of life and of the right to self-determination and autonomy in medical decisions. My note will first briefly explore the history of force-feeding prisoners who are protesting for political purposes in both countries, and the relevant cases and statues that led up to the …

What Investigative Resources Does The International Criminal Court Need To Succeed?: A Gravity-Based Approach, 16 Wash. U. Global Stud. L. Rev. 1 (2017), Stuart Ford

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

There is an ongoing debate about what resources the International Criminal Court (ICC) needs to be successful. On one side of this debate are many of the Court’s largest funders, including France, Germany, Britain, Italy, and Japan. They have repeatedly opposed efforts to increase the Court’s resources even as its workload has increased dramatically in recent years. On the other side of the debate is the Court itself and many of the Court’s supporters within civil society. They have taken the position that it is underfunded and does not have sufficient resources to succeed. This debate has persisted for years …

A Matter Of Policy: United States Application Of The Law Of Armed Conflict, Chris Jenks

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

To what extent does the law of armed conflict (LOAC) apply to the United States military fighting in armed conflicts? Though the question seems straightforward enough, the answer is anything but. This article explains, in general, why the answer is imprecise and unsatisfying as applied to the most prevalent type of contemporary armed conflict, non-international. More specifically, this article argues that the U.S. government's primary response of claiming to apply LOAC as a matter of policy when and where that law wouldn't otherwise apply is superficially persuasive but not substantively responsive.

Plea Bargaining And International Criminal Justice, Jenia I. Turner

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Over the last two decades, plea bargaining has spread beyond the countries where it originated — the United States and other common law jurisdictions — and has become a global phenomenon. Plea bargaining is spreading rapidly to civil law countries that previously viewed the practice with skepticism. And it has now arrived at international criminal courts.

While domestic plea bargaining is often limited to non-violent crimes, the international courts allow sentence negotiations for even the most heinous offenses, including genocide and crimes against humanity. Its use remains highly controversial, and debates about plea bargaining in international courts continue in court …

The Gathering Swarm: The Path To Increasingly Autonomous Weapons Systems, Chris Jenks

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Unbeknownst to many, Lethal Autonomous Weapons (LAWS) have existed for decades, but they have largely been defensive and anti-material. However, as increasingly advanced defensive LAWS, such as complex swarming systems, become more prominent, states will assuredly develop ways to counter, including offensive LAWS. Certainly, the near-term developmental focus of such systems will be on operational environments in which there are relatively low risk of injury or death to civilians or untoward incidents in general, but it is a matter of when, not if, these systems will be widely used in direct combat situations. As such, LAWS are a frequent topic …

The European Monetary Union: A Hard Test For The Rule Of Law Within The Eu Legal System, Francesco Munari

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Why The State?, Joseph Raz

Faculty Scholarship

I offer two questions for the price of one: Why do so many jurisprudential theories focus on the state? And what is it about the State that gives it a special place in our social arrangements? I do not mean these to address all aspects of states. They are questions about the law or legal systems of states.

We have to be open to a negative answer to the second question, thus being critical of jurisprudential theories that focus more or less exclusively on the state. That need not deny that states have their own legal systems. It could merely …

The Globalization Of Entrepreneurial Litigation: Law, Culture, And Incentives, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

The fiftieth anniversary of Rule 23’s adoption in 1966 provides an opportunity to consider how legal change occurs. Law, culture, and incentives all play a role. But which dominates? The adoption of Rule 23 preceded a significant surge in the use of the class action, and some areas of litigation came to depend on Rule 23’s availability (e.g., securities litigation, antitrust litigation, and, for a time, mass torts litigation). Perhaps even more importantly, Rule 23 spurred the growth of the plaintiff’s bar, enabling small firms with a handful of lawyers to develop into major institutional firms of one hundred or …

Freedom Of Information Beyond The Freedom Of Information Act, David Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) allows any person to request any agency record for any reason. This model has been copied worldwide and celebrated as a structural necessity in a real democracy. Yet in practice, this Article argues, FOIA embodies a distinctively “reactionary” form of transparency. FOIA is reactionary in a straightforward, procedural sense in that disclosure responds to ad hoc demands for information. Partly because of this very feature, FOIA can also be seen as reactionary in a more substantive, political sense insofar as it saps regulatory capacity; distributes government goods in an inegalitarian fashion; and contributes …

Cyber Strategy & Policy: International Law Dimensions, Matthew C. Waxman

Faculty Scholarship

Important international law questions for formulating cyber strategy and policy include whether and when a cyber-attack amounts to an “act of war,” or, more precisely, an “armed attack” triggering a right of self-defense, and how the international legal principle of “sovereignty” could apply to cyber activities. International law in this area is not settled. There is, however, ample room within existing international law to support a strong cyber strategy, including a powerful deterrent. The answers to many international law questions discussed below depend on specific, case-by-case facts, and are likely to be highly contested for a long time to come. …

Debating Autonomous Weapon Systems, Their Ethics, And Their Regulation Under International Law, Kenneth Anderson, Matthew C. Waxman

Faculty Scholarship

An international public debate over the law and ethics of autonomous weapon systems (AWS) has been underway since 2012, with those urging legal regulation of AWS under existing principles and requirements of the international law of armed conflict, on the one side, in argument with opponents who favor, instead, a preemptive international treaty ban on all such weapons, on the other. This Chapter provides an introduction to this international debate, offering the main arguments on each side. These include disputes over defining an AWS, the morality and law of automated targeting and target selection by machine, and the interaction of …

How Should The E.U. Respond To Brexit And Trump?: The Lessons From Trade Wars, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

The U.K.’s decision to exit the E.U. (popularly known as “Brexit”) sets the stage for a potential retaliatory trade war. Similarly, the aggressive nationalism of U.S. President Donald Trump does also. In both cases, game theory suggests how such a conflict might be resolved. This paper first examines three standard game theory models – the Chicken Game, the Prisoner’s Dilemma, and the Stag-Hunt Game – and then turns to the strong incentives for rent-seeking by special interests and considers how rent-seeking likely affects how these games might play out. Although the conventional wisdom expects that the U.K. will suffer retaliation …

Trade Agreements, Regulatory Sovereignty And Democratic Legitimacy, Bernard Hoekman, Charles F. Sabel

Faculty Scholarship

Governments increasingly are seeking to use bilateral and regional trade agreements to reduce the cost-increasing effects of differences in product market regulation. They also pursue regulatory cooperation independent of trade agreements. It is important to understand what is being done through bilateral or plurilateral mechanisms to address regulatory differences, and to identify what, if any, role trade agreements can play in supporting international regulatory cooperation. This paper reflects on experience to date in regulatory cooperation and the provisions of recent trade agreements involving advanced economies that have included regulatory cooperation. We argue for a re-thinking by trade officials of the …

Extended Collective Licenses In International Treaty Perspective: Issues And Statutory Implementation, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

National legislation establishing extended collective licenses (ECLs) “authoriz[es] a collective organization to license all works within a category, such as literary works, for particular, limited uses, regardless of whether copyright owners belong to the organization or not. The collective then negotiates agreements with user groups, and the terms of those agreements are binding upon all copyright owners by operation of law.” Albeit authorized under national laws, collective coverage of non-members’ works may pose issues of compatibility with international norms. For example, if non-members must opt-out in order to preserve the individual management of their rights, is the opt-out a “formality” …

Constructing An International Community, Monica Hakimi

Faculty Scholarship

What unites states and other global actors around a shared governance project? How does the group — what I will call an “international community” — coalesce and stay engaged in the enterprise? A frequent assumption is that an international community is cemented by its members’ commonalities and depleted by their intractable disagreements. This article critiques that assumption and presents, as an alternative, a theory that accounts for the combined integration and discord that actually characterize most global governance associations. I argue that conflict, especially conflict that manifests in law, is not necessarily corrosive to an international community. To the contrary, …

From Territorial To Monetary Sovereignty, Katharina Pistor

Faculty Scholarship

State sovereignty is closely intertwined with, but not limited to, control over territory and people. It has long been recognized that control over monetary affairs is a critical part of genuine sovereignty. In this Article, I go a step further and argue that the relevance and importance of territorial versus monetary sovereignty has shifted in favor of the latter. This shift goes hand in hand with the rise of credit-based financial systems. Such systems depend, in the last instance, on backstopping by an entity with control over its own money supply and no binding survival constraints. Only states with monetary …

Citizenship Overreach, Peter J. Spiro

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article examines international law limitations on the ascription of citizenship and national self-definition. The United States is exceptionally generous in its extension of citizenship. Alone among the major developed states, it extends citizenship to almost all persons in its territory at the moment of birth. This birthright citizenship is constitutionally protected under the Fourteenth Amendment. At the same time that it is generous at the front end, U.S. citizenship is sticky at the back. Termination of citizenship on the individual’s part can involve substantial fees. Expatriation is contingent on tax compliance and, in some cases, will implicate the recognition …

A Global Perspective On Citizenship-Based Taxation, Allison Christians

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article contends that, with regard to individuals who reside permanently outside of the United States, the global assistance sought under FATCA to enforce U.S. income taxation solely on the basis of citizenship violates international law. It argues that insisting upon foreign cooperation with the FATCA regime, under threat of serious economic penalties, is inconsistent with universally accepted norms regarding appropriate limits to the state’s jurisdiction to tax, while also being normatively unjustified. Accordingly, FATCA should be rejected by all other nation states to the extent it imposes any obligations with respect to individuals who permanently reside outside of, and …

The Karadžić Genocide Conviction: Inferences, Intent, And The Necessity To Redefine Genocide, Milena Sterio

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This Article first discusses and analyzes the Genocide Convention and its strict definition of genocide and the "intent" requirement. It then focuses on the evolution of this definition in light of the recent Karadžić case. This Article demonstrates that in modern-day conflicts, the finding of genocidal intent may be an impossible task for the prosecution and that the ICTY Trial Chamber’s method of inferring intent based on knowledge and other indirect factors may be the only way that prosecutors will be able to obtain future genocide convictions. This Article then discusses a possible re-drafting and re-conceptualizing of the genocide definition …

Individual Criminal Responsibility For The Destruction Of Religious And Historic Buildings: The Al Mahdi Case, Milena Sterio

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi, also known as Abou Tourab, was a member of the radical Islamic group Ansar Eddine, serving as one of four commanders during its brutal occupation of Timbuktu in 2012. The International Criminal Court (ICC) indicted Al Mahdi on several charges of war crimes for intentional attacks against ten religious and historic buildings and monuments. All the buildings that Al Mahdi was charged with attacking had been under UNESCO protection and most had been listed as world heritage sites.

The case against Al Mahdi at the ICC unfolded relatively quickly and efficiently, from the official Malian …

Judges As Diplomats In Advancing The Rule Of Law: A Conversation With President Koen Lenaerts And Justice Stephen Breyer, Koen Lenaerts, Stephen Breyer

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ip Enforcement Under The Tpp: Civil And Administrative Procedures And Remedies, Provisional Measures In Tpp (Articles 18.71–18.76), J. Janewa Osei-Tutu

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

No abstract provided.

Talking Foreign Policy: Art, Diplomacy And Accountability, Milena Sterio, Mark Ellis, Shannon French, Bill Schabas, Paul R. Williams, Michael P. Scharf

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Talking Foreign Policy is a one-hour radio program, hosted by Case Western Reserve University School of Law Co-Dean Michael Scharf, in which experts discuss the salient foreign policy issues of the day. Dean Scharf created Talking Foreign Policy to break down complex foreign policy topics that are prominent in the day-to-day news cycles yet difficult to understand.

This broadcast featured:

• Paul R. Williams, President and cofounder of the Public International Law & Policy Group, who has advised parties to treaty negotiations around the world
• Mark Ellis, Executive Director of the International Bar Association
• Bill Schabas, a professor at Middlesex University …

Year In Review Lecture, Milena Sterio

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

No abstract provided.

Who Runs The Internet?, Anupam Chander

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

There is no single answer to the question of who runs the Internet. Is it the United States, often seen as the hegemon of the Internet, home to so many of the world’s leading Internet enterprises? Is it China, which erects a “Great Firewall” to assert control over the portion of the Internet available in China? Is it the European Union, which extends its power globally through its data protection regime, designating countries as “adequate” or (implicitly) “inadequate” to receive its data? Is it ICANN, the California not-for-profit organization that controls how Internet addresses are allocated? Is it the World …

Forward To The Global Center Symposium On Crimes Without Borders: In Search Of Internatinal Justice, Linda E. Carter

University of the Pacific Law Review

No abstract provided.

Keynote Speaker Wrestling Tyrants: Do We Need An International Criminal Justice System?, Christopher L. Blakesley

University of the Pacific Law Review

No abstract provided.