International Law Commons^™

Ccsi Submission To Un Special Rapporteur On Extreme Poverty Re: United States Country Visit, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Professor Philip Alston, will conduct a country visit to the United States in December 2017. In response to his call for input, CCSI sent a submission focused the United States’ role in the international investment regime, and the United States’ international investment agreements (IIAs), noting that the IIAs to which the US is a party raise tensions, and can potentially create conflicts, with the US’s human rights obligations, including those that apply extraterritorially, and exacerbate conditions of poverty, extreme poverty and inequality.

At The Intersection Of Land Grievances And Legal Liability: The Need To Reconsider Contract Rights And Expectations At The Supranational Level, Kaitlin Y. Cordes, Lise Johnson, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

This Article explores how host governments’ legal obligations can affect or constrain their ability to address “land grievances,” which are defined as concerns raised by local individuals or communities in response to negative impacts of land-based investments. Obligations under international investment law, international human rights law, and investor-state contracts can be in tension or can directly conflict with one another, creating complexity for governments seeking to respond to land grievances. To explore the legal considerations that governments must navigate in this context, this Article considers several options that governments could pursue to respond to land grievances. In all of the …

The Legacy Of British Rule On Lgbt Rights In Jamaica And The Cayman Islands, Zachary Stewart

Master's Theses

This thesis explores the relationship between British colonial influence and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) rights in the Caribbean. Comparing the Cayman Islands, a British Overseas Territory, and Jamaica, an independent former colony of the United Kingdom, the situation for LGBT people is evaluated. While Jamaica has serious abuses and a concerning situation for the human rights of LGBT people, the Cayman Islands’ LGBT community’s position is far less concerning. Owing to its continued connection to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Cayman Islands’ LGBT rights situation is much less dire. Through British influence via …

International Law In The Post-Human Rights Era, Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

International law is in a period of transition. After World War II, but especially since the 1980s, human rights expanded to almost every corner of international law. In doing so, they changed core features of international law itself, including the definition of sovereignty and the sources of international legal rules. But what might be termed the golden-age of international human rights law is over, at least for now. Whether measured in terms of the increasing number of authoritarian governments, the decline in international human rights enforcement architecture such as the Responsibility to Protect and the Alien Tort Statute, the growing …

Trade Strategies Of The Tpp-11 Countries: Asian Regionalism In Turbulent Times, Pasha L. Hsieh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The US withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Pacific Partnership (TPP) in January 2017 hasprompted the remaining countries to pursue alternative trade strategies. Australia andJapan have pushed for effectuating the TPP without US participation. The currentefforts focus on seeking consensus on the scope of suspensions over the originalagreement. The TPP-11 countries expect to reach an agreement in principle during theAsia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in November 2017. Critical factors that willinfluence the TPP also include negotiations for the 16-country RegionalComprehensive Economic Partnership and China’s new trade initiatives. Hence, EUpolicy on trade and investment agreements with the Asia-Pacific ought to consider thechanging dynamics of …

Trade Strategies Of The Tpp-11 Countries: Asian Regionalism In Turbulent Times, Pasha L. Hsieh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The US withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Pacific Partnership (TPP) in January 2017 hasprompted the remaining countries to pursue alternative trade strategies. Australia andJapan have pushed for effectuating the TPP without US participation. The currentefforts focus on seeking consensus on the scope of suspensions over the originalagreement. The TPP-11 countries expect to reach an agreement in principle during theAsia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in November 2017. Critical factors that willinfluence the TPP also include negotiations for the 16-country RegionalComprehensive Economic Partnership and China’s new trade initiatives. Hence, EUpolicy on trade and investment agreements with the Asia-Pacific ought to consider thechanging dynamics of …

With Access And Justice For All, Sagit Mor

Cardozo Law Review

The article explores the intersection of the "right to access" and "access to justice," particularly for persons with disabilities, emphasizing how these concepts interact across various legal and social dimensions. It argues that the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) provides a comprehensive framework for addressing these issues, focusing on legal capacity, physical accessibility, and effective participation in legal proceedings. The analysis highlights the need to move beyond formal barriers to justice and address deeper structural and ideological challenges, including biased legal norms and the exclusion of disabled individuals from lawmaking processes. Ultimately, the article advocates for …

Due Process Abroad, Nathan Chapman

Scholarly Works

Defining the scope of the Constitution’s application outside U.S. territory is more important than ever. This month the Supreme Court will hear oral argument about whether the Constitution applies when a U.S. officer shoots a Mexican child across the border. Meanwhile the federal courts are scrambling to evaluate the constitutionality of an Executive Order that, among other things, deprives immigrants of their right to reenter the United States. Yet the extraterritorial reach of the Due Process Clause — the broadest constitutional limit on the government’s authority to deprive persons of “life, liberty, and property” — remains obscure. Up to now, …

The Corporate Face Of The Alien Tort Claims Act: How An Old Statute Mandates A New Understanding Of Global Interdependence, Lorelle Londis

Maine Law Review

In the past thirty-five years, international human rights lawyers and, more recently, international environmental lawyers, have been invoking the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) as a tool to prosecute human rights abuses committed abroad by transnational corporations (TNs) in U.S. federal courts. The ATCA provides: “The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” Although plaintiffs' lawyers have experienced some success in the human rights context, most claims of environmental abuses have failed. In all these …

Individual, Not Collective: Justifying The Resort To Force Against Members Of Non-State Armed Groups, Anthony Dworkin

International Law Studies

This article proposes an alternative to the conventional way of deciding when a State may target or detain members of an armed group. Instead of asking whether there is an armed conflict between the State and the group, this article argues that we should look at the State’s justification for the use of force against the group or its members. In a non-international context, this justification is rooted in human rights law. For this reason, the authorization for the resort to force operates on an individual basis, and the State is only justified in using force against individual members of …

Frank M. Coffin Lecture On Law And Public Service: The Future Of International Criminal Justice, Richard J. Goldstone

Maine Law Review

The Thirteenth Annual Frank M. Coffin Lecture on Law and Public Service was held in the fall of 2004. Justice Richard J. Goldstone, former Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and pioneer for international justice and human rights, delivered the lecture. Established in 1992, the lecture honors Judge Frank M. Coffin, Senior Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, an inspiration, mentor, and friend to the University of Maine School of Law.

Reforming Prison Policy To Improve Women-Specific Health And Sanitary Care Conditions Of Prisons In Ethiopia, Behailu T. Weldeyohannes

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

There And Back Again? Police Reforms Through The Prism Of The Recruitment Decisions In The High Court And The Court Of Appeal, Festus M. Kinoti

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Concerning French International Law Manuels: A Critical Review Of The Principal French Textbooks In Public International Law, Alix Toublanc

Maine Law Review

The perspectives of French lawyers concerning international law and international institutions are formed largely by the basic course in public international law that they took as law students. Students in the course attend formal lectures by the professor (cours magistraux) and often supplementary section meetings, or tutorials, with instructors (travaux diriges), as well as read all or part of a basic textbook (manuel) in public international law and other assigned materials. One way to gain insight into the fundamental ways of thinking about international law of French lawyers and law-trained officials is to take a close look at the manuels …

Contrasting Perspectives And Preemptive Strike: The United States, France, And The War On Terror, Sophie Clavier

Maine Law Review

A few years ago, Samuel P. Huntington's article in Foreign Affairs, "The Clash of Civilizations?" described a "West vs. the Rest" conflict leading to the assumption of an essentially unified Western civilization settling "[g]lobal political and security issues ... effectively ... by a directorate of the United States, Britain and France" and centered around common core values "using international institutions, military power and economic resources to run the world in ways that will . . . protect Western interests . . . .” Against the West, the specter of disorder and fundamentalism was looming and would precipitate conflicts. This widely …

Collective Security And The International Enforcement Of International Law: French And American Perspectives, Ana Peyró Llopis

Maine Law Review

Is the American perspective on the enforcement of international law compatible with the French perspective? For American legal scholars, the term enforcement is sometimes used as the equivalent of the following French notions: mise en oeuvre, application, and also coercition. The American term enforcement appears to be used in situations where the French prefer legal terms that are closer to the connotation of implementation rather than that of enforcement. What are the consequences of the use of such different terms? Is there, behind the use of different language, with different meanings and approaches, a different perspective on the enforcement of …

Unilateral And Multilateral Preventive Self-Defense, Stéphanie Bellier

Maine Law Review

The governing principle of the collective security system created by the United Nations Charter in 19451 is the rule prohibiting the use of force in Article 2(4), which provides that "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purpose of the United Nations." This rule prohibiting the use of force was considered revolutionary at the time because it transformed into international law ideas which had for centuries, if not millennia, preoccupied the minds of people …

Exorbitant Jurisdiction, Kevin M. Clermont, John R.B. Palmer

Maine Law Review

Exorbitant territorial jurisdiction in civil cases comprises those classes of jurisdiction, although exercised validly under a country's rules, that nonetheless are unfair to the defendant because of a lack of significant connection between the sovereign and either the parties or the dispute. The United States, France, and most of the rest of the world exercise a good deal of exorbitant jurisdiction so defined. In the United States, an emphasis on power derived from territoriality has led to jurisdictional restraint in some respects, but has also allowed general jurisdiction based solely on transient physical presence, the attachment of property, or extensive …

Application Of Treaties And Decisions Of International Tribunals In The United States And France: Reflections On Recent Practice, Martin A. Rogoff

Maine Law Review

In recent years, with the growth of international treaty law and the increasing role of international tribunals, questions involving the application of conventional international law and the decisions of international tribunals by national courts have assumed great practical importance. This is not only because such questions are arising with increasing frequency, but also because the way in which they are handled by domestic courts has a lot do with the efficacy of international law. As a practical matter, the rules of conventional international law and the decisions of international tribunals, if applied or effectuated by domestic courts, may very well …

Commentary: Convergences And Divergences: The United States And France In Multilateral Diplomacy, André Lewin

Maine Law Review

Despite the divergences that have regularly separated the United States and France, or at the very least their officials-who unfortunately influence public opinion as well-there are, in my opinion, more similarities than differences than one would believe between these two countries' approaches to international relations. They both feel that they have a calling to defend the advancement of universal values in the world in order to further humanity along the road of peace, democracy, happiness, and justice. The United States, which can be considered a relatively new country, values respect for human rights, free enterprise, equal opportunity for everyone, individual …

France, Europe, The United States, Abdelkhaleq Berramdane

Maine Law Review

Fascination and rejection have always characterized Franco-American relations, like an old couple who are not able to forgive: for France, the battle of Yorktown where Lafayette and Rochambeau contributed to the independence of the former British colonies; for the United States, American participation, twice, in the liberation of France. Neither one willing to credit its salvation to the other. A tumultuous relationship very much resembling the rocky history of the Statue of Liberty ("Liberty Enlightening the World"), offered by a still fragile Republic to a distant sister, who only begrudgingly offered it a pedestal. For centuries French literature has been …

Thought Versus Action: The Influence Of Legal Tradition On French And American Approaches To International Law, Dana Zartner Falstrom

Maine Law Review

In the months leading up to the U.S. intervention in Iraq in March 2003, the dialogue between the United States and France on the appropriate course of action to take in response to Iraq's report on its weapons of mass destruction revealed differences between these traditional allies as to the options available under international law. These differences did not center on the goals of any proposed action-both sides in fact agreed upon the goals, which were to ensure there were no weapons of mass destruction; to prevent an increase in terrorist activity; and to address the continuing violations of international …

French And American Perspectives On International Law: Legal Cultures And International Law, Emmanuelle Jouannet

Maine Law Review

I want to begin my consideration of French and American perspectives on international law by addressing more generally the question of the relationship between legal culture and international law in order to broadly contextualize the descriptions of French and American perspectives on international law that are the subject of this Article. I would like to stress at the outset that it seems to me that there does not exist any global or cosmopolitan vision of international law, but, on the contrary, an inevitable multiplicity of particular national, regional, individual, and institutional visions. This is so because the actors in the …

A New Future? The Catholic Church, Grassroots Justice, And Accountability, Regina Menachery Paulose

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Between the 1970s and 1980s, Guatemalans, particularly the indigenous populations, were targets of a state-sponsored genocide. Several years after the genocide, Catholic Bishop Juan Gerardi of Guatemala City took the lead in creating the Recovery of Historical Memory Project which was an independent investigation into the events of the genocide. Gerardi was murdered before the report was made public. This paper will briefly discuss Gerardi’s work and his contribution to local justice in Guatemala. The author will then explore what contributions the Catholic Church could make in creating similar fact-finding missions. Could a grassroots mechanism such as the one Gerardi …

Invisible Women: Syrian Victims Of Gender-Based Violence As A Particular Social Group In U.S. Asylum Law, Sarah Dávila-Ruhaak

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In the midst of the worst humanitarian crisis of our time, in Syria, we have seen extreme suffering by millions who have been summarily executed, tortured, imprisoned, raped, starved, and bombed with chemical weapons. Specifically, we have seen that women have been the target of gender-based violence in the conflict by and with the acquiescence of the Assad regime forces and by opposition groups.

Women have been human shields; hostages for the bargaining of prisoner release; and victims of sexual violence and exploitation, forced marriage, and other forms of violence such as honor killings.

This gender-based violence has rendered women …

Gender, Displacement And Transitional Justice, Sinead Mcgrath

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In the past fifteen years, there has been huge emphasis on the need for gendered mechanisms dealing with both forced migration and peacebuilding. The UN landmark resolution on Women, Peace and Security (S/RES/1325) and the gender-mainstreaming of the 1951 Refugee Convention have urged all actors to increase the participation of women in peacebuilding and their protection in instances of displacement. An underdeveloped link between these issues has not been addressed by the academic community, particularly when looking at societies in transition and the relationship of displaced women to international migration organisations in the context of transitional justice. This study aims …

Mass Displacement Of Destitute People: A Trigger For Non-Refoulement Protection?, Bernardo De Souza Dantas Fico, Leticia Machado Haertel

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This paper focuses on two problems around the mass displacement of people in extreme poverty: the characterization of such people as refugees and the application of the non-refoulement principle to mass displacements.

Extreme poverty is causal to grave human rights violations such as deprivation of water, of food, and of an adequate standard of living. These circumstances may reach a degree in which life in a country is unbearable — forcing people to move in order to enhance their likelihood of survival.

The classic understanding of the non-refoulement obligation, as enshrined in the 1951 Refugee Convention, forbids states from returning …

The Socialization Of Human Rights As An Inroad To Protect Sacred Space, Leonard Hammer

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Serious problems exist for cultural heritage protection, and these problems are even more serious when accounting for the protection of sacred space and holy places. The lack of effectiveness of the majority of existing international norms and institutions will be reviewed in this paper, which shall then turn to potential sources for entrenching protection of scared space within states.

The paper shall rely on the human right to freedom of religion or belief as the basis for upholding sacred space given an emerging broader understanding of the right within the human rights framework.

The paper shall principally focus on the …

Factors Affecting Domestic Refugee Policy Development: An Analysis Of South Korea’S Case, Yun Ju Kang

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Asia is no exception to the global refugee crisis. The number of asylum-seekers in Asian countries has escalated very quickly in recent years. In the United States, President Trump's recent executive orders suspended refugee admissions, and hostile immigration policy sparked the controversy about refugees.

The rising number of refugees and migrants from the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia created political conflicts inside the European countries. The refugee issue has emerged as a global problem.

How is the world dealing with these refugee situations? What are the common barriers in designing humanistic refugee policy, and what is the best way …

Faith-Based Approaches To Asylum: New Appeals To Accountability? Using Faith-Based Principles As Soft Law, Jinan Bastaki

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Can a faith-based approach encourage states to provide greater protection for those seeking refuge and asylum? In response to the fleeing of Syrian refugees to Turkey, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated numerous times that the Turkish were the anṣār — an Arabic word loosely translated as ‘supporters’ or ‘champions’ — of the Syrian refugees, making the reference to the people of the city of Medina who offered refuge and a home to Prophet Muhammad and his followers fleeing the persecution of Mecca.

The reference to the anṣār of Muhammad gives the impression that Turkey’s act of welcoming …