Comparative and Foreign Law Commons^™

Litigating Palestine Before International Courts And Tribunals: The Prospects Of Success And Perils Of Failure, Victor Kattan

UC Law SF International Law Review

This Article examines the claim that United Nations (UN) membership will improve Palestine's ability to have recourse to international courts and tribunals. With the exception of seeking an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) upon a referral from the UN General Assembly or as a result of a request from a specialized agency, Palestine must be a state in order to become a party to the ICJ in a contentious case and in order to accede to the Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Because admission to the UN is based on the assumption that the …

Reporters As Refugees: Applying United States Asylum Laws To Persecuted Journalists In Mexico, Katy Mann

UC Law SF International Law Review

In 2010, Jorge Luis Aguirre became the first known journalist from Mexico to receive asylum in the United States. Aguirre, like many of his colleagues, had received several threats to his life for reporting on the drug-related violence and government corruption in Mexico. In fact, since Felipe Calderon assumed the presidency in Mexico in December 2006, more than thirty journalists in the country have been murdered or have disappeared. Faced with the possibility of becoming the next casualty in the ongoing drug war, several Mexican journalists have fled to the United States to apply for asylum.

Although the United States …

The Nonjusticiability Of Palestine: Human Rights Litigation And The (Mis)Application Of The Political Question Doctrine, Gwynne Skinner

UC Law SF International Law Review

The Political Question Doctrine is a problematic and an often misused doctrine that prevents courts from fulfilling their Article III responsibilities. Nowhere is this misuse more prevalent than in human rights cases involving Palestine, and in particular, human rights cases alleging misconduct by the Israeli government or officials. This Article discusses in detail courts' decisions regarding the Political Question Doctrine raised in human rights litigation, and analyzes courts' decisions in such cases involving Palestine. It notes the stark difference in both outcome and analysis regarding cases against the PLO, Arab Bank, or others acting in Palestinian interests - all of …

A Modest Experiment In Pedagogy: Lessons On Comparative Constitutional Law, Thomas E. Baker

Faculty Publications

This article describes how the author integrated comparative and international law lessons into a first year course on U.S. Constitutional Law. This version of a paper originally submitted to the International Association of Law Schools Conference on Comparative Constitutional Law in 2009, has been enriched by adding citations and references to relevant papers of other conference participants. The article includes a review of the literature on teaching comparative constitutional law, basic pedagogical theory, a bibliography, some practical advice and a set of four lessons on the themes of judicial review, transnational interpretation, affirmative action and reproductive rights, complete with discussion …

Behind Closed Doors: Irb's And The Making Of Ethical Research, Xiaomeng Zhang

Law Librarian Scholarship

In the late 1700s, English physician Edward Jenner intentionally exposed his infant son to swinepox and an eight-year-old boy to cowpox in order to observe whether they would become immune to related smallpox, a disease. While modern history of human experimentation can be traced back to the eighteenth century, the topic did not engage significant public attention until 1946, when the Nuremberg trials disclosed horrific medical experiments carried out by Nazi scientists. Now, almost all research involving human subjects is subject to prior review and ongoing monitoring by institutional review boards, or IRBs. Behind Closed Doors: IRBs and the Making …

Comparative Aspects Of Piercing The Corporate Veil In The United States And Latin America, Dante Figueroa

Duquesne Law Review

No abstract provided.

Some Critical Thinking About A Human Rght To Water, Doug Donoho

ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law

Last year student members of the Inter-American Center for Human Rights organized a symposium focused on the incipient "international right to water."

A New Institutional Economics Perspective On Trademarks: Rebuilding Post Conflict Zones In Sierra Leone And Croatia, 11 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 745 (2012), Roya Ghafele, Benjamin Gibert

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

This paper evaluates the role of collective trademarks in enhancing the ability of tourism clusters to stimulate economic growth, local ownership and innovative governance. Illustrating how intellectual property (IP) law can be leveraged to achieve this, we offer a new economic rationale for trademarks in the context of tourism. Two post-conflict case studies of Sierra Leone and Croatia provide a crash test for this approach. By emphasizing the role of law, institutions and infrastructure in stimulating tourism in post-conflict zones, this paper echoes new institutional economics perspectives that highlight the impact of legal structure on development. Despite widespread acknowledgement of …

The Opaque Future Of Tax Information Sharing Between The United States And China: An Analysis Of Bank Secrecy Laws And The Likelihood Of Entrance Into A Tax Information Exchange Agreement, Emily Wang

UC Law SF International Law Review

Offshore tax evasion and barriers to tax information exchange between countries have been an increasing problem for tax authorities around the globe. Since the launch of the Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA) in 2002 by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United States and China have signed TIEAs with various other countries, but not with each other. This Note examines the possibility of China and the U.S. entering into a TIEA for the purpose of a better tax information exchange between the two countries.

This Note first explains the nature of offshore accounts tax evasion and the …

Applying The Doctrine Of Superior Responsibility To Corporate Officers: A Theory Of Individual Liability For International Human Rights Violations, Brian Seth Parker

UC Law SF International Law Review

With the Supreme Court set to hear Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petrol. Co., a principal means of seeking redress for corporate complicity in egregious international law violations under the Alien Tort Statute hangs in the balance. This Article examines the doctrine of superior responsibility, otherwise known as command responsibility, as a functional theory of liability in filling some of the gaps potentially left by Kiobel or by adding another arrow to the quiver if the Supreme Court refuses to grant corporations immunity. The doctrine of superior responsibility imposes liability on superiors when they knew or should have known about their …

Introduction To "Litigating Palestine: Can Courts Secure Palestinian Rights?", George Bisharat

UC Law SF International Law Review

This brief introduction outlines the premises of a conference entitled "Litigating Palestine: Can Courts Secure Palestinian Rights?" where two articles from this issue of the Hastings International and Comparative Law Review were first presented. The conference premises were: first, that Palestinians have human, civil, and collective national rights; second, that Israel has a lengthy and well-documented record of violating Palestinian rights; and third, that it is an empirical fact that a number of efforts have been launched to protect Palestinian rights in a number of court systems throughout the world. This being the case, it seems appropriate to evaluate these …

Transforming Accountability: A Proposal For Reconsidering How Human Rights Obligations Are Applied To Private Military Security Firms, Lauren Groth

UC Law SF International Law Review

This Article argues that there is an [a]ccountability gap within the legal frameworks that apply to private military security contractors (PMSCs) that has led to widespread impunity and human rights violations. Recent legal efforts to address the problem have been unsuccessful because they fail to consider and reflect the larger transformations taking place in international relations. This failure is, in essence, the [A]ccountability gap: international law no longer accurately reflects the nature of the realities it is meant to regulate, allowing those organizations which now hold power in global politics, yet are unrecognized by international law, to escape accountability. Thus, …

Face-Veil Bans And Anti-Mask Laws: State Interests And The Right To Cover The Face, Evan Darwin Winet

UC Law SF International Law Review

In the past decade, numerous nations have responded to the perceived threat of the Islamic face-veil (niqab) by taking steps to implement laws restricting the right to cover the face in public. France and Belgium have passed general bans. Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and several states of Australia have introduced similar measures. Syria, Egypt and Sweden have all passed laws banning face-veils in public schools. Many other nations and more local governments have considered anti-veil legislation or upheld the denial of basic services to citizens who cover their faces.

This Note begins with a historical approach to the practice …

International Surrogacy Contract Regulation: National Governments' And International Bodies' Misguided Quests To Prevent Exploitation, Emily Stehr

UC Law SF International Law Review

Over the past decade, a growing number pf American and European women have begun to travel to other countries, often developing countries, in search of surrogates. The surrogates are usually "gestational surrogates," meaning that the children to whom they give birth are conceived via in vitro fertilization. The children are thus genetically related to the commissioning parents, or to the commissioning men and third-party women who provide eggs, but not to the surrogate birth mothers. Uncertainty about the legality of such surrogacy contracts in the United States, and outright bans on the contracts in some European countries, fuel the "reproductive …

International Law And Limitations On The Exercise Of Extraterritorial Jurisdiction In U.S. Domestic Law, Dan E. Stigall

UC Law SF International Law Review

With the rise of transnational crime, domestic courts are increasingly called upon to make decisions, within the context of a national court and domestic legal system, which implicate international issues and the interests of other sovereign states. This Article explores the role of international law in U.S. law in the context of an area of law which marks the intersection between domestic law and international affairs: the exercise of extraterritorial jurisdiction. The analysis demonstrates the continued force of international law in the body of U.S. domestic law which governs this realm and highlights both the advantages and dangers attendant to …

Business Insolvency And The Irish Debt Crisis, 11 Rich. J. Global L. & Bus. 407 (2012), Paul B. Lewis

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

Among the volume of material written about the Irish debt crisis and its impact over the past few years, strikingly little has been written about the ability to save a financially distressed company under Irish law and whether corporate restructuring could have mitigated some of the financial damage to Irish companies, particularly those in the property and construction industries. There is a reason for this. The number of filings under the Examinership law - the rough equivalent of Chapter 11 in the United States - remained small and relatively constant during both the recent boom and the more immediate bust …

Desde Quisqueya Hacia Borinquena: Experience And Visibility Of Immigrant Dominican Women In Puerto Rico: Violence, Lucha And Hope In Their Own Voices, Sheila I. Velez Martinez

ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law

According to the United Nations, (U.N.) more than 1.5 million Dominicans have migrated from the Island of La Espatiola, most living in the United States.

The Training, Appointment, And Supervision Of Islamic Lawyers In The Federal Territories Of Malaysia, Amanda Whiting

Washington International Law Journal

Although much has been written about the place of Islam, as law and as religion, in Malaysia, considerably less attention has been paid to Islamic lawyers (“peguam syarie”). This article undertakes a preliminary examination of a topic that demands closer scrutiny, relying chiefly upon parliamentary acts, state enactments and the rules made pursuant to them, as well as in-depth oral history interviews with Islamic and secular lawyers that were recorded from May through August 2010. It describes the training and practice of Islamic lawyers in one jurisdiction of the federation of Malaysia—the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya …

The Training, Appointment, And Supervision Of Islamic Judges In Singapore, Muhammad Haniff Hassan, Sharifah Thuraiya Su'ad Ahmad Alhadshi

Washington International Law Journal

Syariah court judges and the decisions they make clearly have an effect on the interpretation and application of Islamic law in contemporary Muslim societies, and the educational background of those who staff these courts obviously informs the way they understand, interpret, and apply the law. To date, however, little research has been done on the educational processes by which Islamic court judges are trained to think about Islamic law. Likewise, the means by which Islamic court judges are appointed and regulated has received little scholarly attention. This article offers a descriptive overview of the training, work, and professional regulation of …

Sources Of Law, Sources Of Authority: The Failure Of The Philippines' Code Of Muslim Personal Laws, Gregory M. Chiarella

Washington International Law Journal

The Code of Muslim Personal Laws of the Philippines (“CMPL”) was established in 1977 as part of an effort to quell longstanding violence between Christians and Muslims in the predominantly Christian country. This codification of Islamic laws in the areas of marriage, divorce, and inheritance provided for a system of Shari‛a courts that would operate within the larger framework of the legal system of the Philippines. Three and a half decades later, the CMPL has had little effect. The Shari‛a courts are understaffed and underutilized, accounting for less than 0.1% of the caseload in the Philippines. The CMPL is plagued …