Military, War, and Peace Commons^™

When Terrorists Govern: Protecting Civilians In Conflicts With State-Building Armed Groups, Mara R. Revkin

Faculty Scholarship

Many existing U.S. counter-terrorism policies, including those governing targeting and detention, rely on an empirical assumption that terrorist groups are primarily military organizations. This assumption may be appropriate in the case of al-Qaeda, but it fails to describe terrorist groups that engage not only in warfare but also in governance and state-building such as the Islamic State, a self-declared “caliphate” that—at the height of its expansion in 2014—claimed sovereignty over an estimated 34,000 square miles and 10 million civilians. This Article identifies a category of “state-building” terrorist groups that can be distinguished by the following characteristics: (1) the presence of …

The Peace Vs. Justice Puzzle And The Syrian Crisis, Paul R. Williams, Lisa K. Dicker, C. Danae Paterson

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Those involved in peace negotiations often face the dilemma of balancing demands for justice with the imperative of stopping the conflict as quickly as possible. There are abiding ethical and moral debates surrounding this tension between peace and justice. In Syria—where the death toll has exceeded 470,000, 11 million have been displaced, and there are over 14,000 documented cases of death by torture—the peace versus justice puzzle is a living dilemma with which those involved in the peace process grapple with on a daily basis.

Is it morally permissible to allow conflict (and the attendant human suffering) to continue, …

Prosecuting The War On Terror In The Trump Administration: The Trump Doctrine: Is There Really A New Sheriff In Town, Jeffrey F. Addicott

Faculty Articles

After one full year in office, it is time to examine the actions taken by the Trump Administration in light of its legal and policy structures for dealing with the War on Terror and the companion problem of radical Islamic terrorism-both the domestic and international threat. In this context, two general concepts bear examination. First, is there a significant change in the Trump Administration from the policies of the Bush and Obama Administrations vis a vis prosecuting the War on Terror and dealing with domestic jihadists? Second, has the Trump strategic vision and attendant actions contributed in any significant way …

The Internationalists: How A Radical Plan To Outlaw War Remade The World, Mary Ellen O'Connell

Journal Articles

Mary Ellen O'Connell researches and writes in the areas of international law and the use of force and international legal theory. She provides a thorough review of The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World, Oona A. Hathaway and Scott J. Shapiro (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2017), wherein the authors investigate the investigate the history, nature, and impact of the international legal prohibition on the use of force, focusing on the Kellogg-Briand Pact.

Why Federal Courts Apply The Law Of Nations Even Though It Is Not The Supreme Law Of The Land, Anthony J. Bellia Jr., Bradford R. Clark

Journal Articles

We are grateful to the judges and scholars who participated in this Symposium examining our book, The Law of Nations and the United States Constitution. One of our goals in writing this book was to reinvigorate and advance the debate over the role of customary international law in U.S. courts. The papers in this Symposium advance this debate by deepening understandings of how the Constitution interacts with customary international law. Our goal in this Article is to address two questions raised by this Symposium that go to the heart of the status of the law of nations under the Constitution. …

Limitless Discretion In The Wars On Drugs And Terror, Wadie E. Said

University of Colorado Law Review

The wars on terror and drugs have been defined, largely, by what they lack: a readily identifiable opponent, a clear end goal, a timeline, and geographical boundaries. Based on that understanding, this Article discusses the increasingly expansive discretion of American authorities to prosecute individuals where the wars on terror and drugs intersect. Through laws such as the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act, the ban on providing material support to foreign terrorist organizations, and the narco-terrorism statute, the United States exercises a kind of universal jurisdiction to pursue anyone, anywhere it believes its laws are being violated. Wielding the power of …

Book Review, Anna Spain Bradley

Publications

No abstract provided.