International Humanitarian Law Commons^™

Comment On Us Trade And Investment Agreements Submitted To Ustr, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Comments to USTR Re: Review of US Trade and Investment Agreements (July 17, 2017): CCSI, in response to the United States Trade Representative’s request for public comment to inform its performance review of US trade and investment agreements, submitted Comments that focused on the impact that investment protection provisions, enforceable through investor-state dispute settlement, have on rights-compliant, inclusive sustainable development within the United States and abroad.

The Future Of U.S. Detention Under International Law: Workshop Report, International Committee Of The Red Cross (Icrc), Harvard Law School Program On International Law And Armed Conflict (Hls Pilac), Stockton Center For The Study Of International Law (U.S. Naval War College)

International Law Studies

The International Committee of the Red Cross Regional Delegation for the United States and Canada, the Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict, and the Stockton Center for the Study of International Law at the U.S. Naval War College recently hosted a workshop titled Global Battlefields: The Future of U.S. Detention under International Law. The workshop was designed to facilitate discussion on international law issues pertaining to U.S. detention practices and policies in armed conflict. Workshop participants included members of government, legal experts, practitioners and scholars from a variety of countries. This report attempts to capture the …

Niac Nonsense, The Afghan War, And Combatant Immunity, Jordan J. Paust

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

A Truck Stop Instead Of Saint Peter's: The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act Is Not Perfect, But It Solves Some Of The Problems Of Sosa And Kiobel, Jonathan S. Tonge

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Beyond Vulnerability: Refugee Women’S Leadership In Jordan, Widad Hassan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

While both men and women are affected by conflicts and humanitarian crises, 80 percent of the world’s refugees and internally displaced persons are women and children, indicating that women experience conflict and war differently. The emphasis on women’s vulnerability during conflicts and humanitarian crises leads to their exclusion from leadership roles and decision-making on humanitarian programs and issues that impact them. Though women experience numerous socio-cultural barriers to exercising leadership in humanitarian settings, they have taken on important roles in emergency response and in refugee camps. This paper traces the progress of UN and humanitarian agencies recognition and development of …

Fragmented Wars: Multi-Territorial Military Operations Against Armed Groups, Noam Lubell

International Law Studies

Recent years have seen the emergence of significant legal debate surrounding the use of force against armed groups located in other States. With time, it has become clear that in many cases such operations are not confined to the territory of one other State, but expand to encompass multiple territories and often more than one armed group. This article examines multi-territorial conflicts with armed groups through the lens of several legal frameworks. Among other topics, it analyses the questions surrounding the extension of self-defense into multiple territories, the classification of the hostilities with the group and between involved States, the …

Around Campus

DePaul Magazine

A. Gabriel Esteban Named DePaul's 12th President; Dedicated Service: Deans Marisa Alicea and Ray Whittington to Step Down; Embracing Spirits:Centre for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology Hosts Major Conference; A Place of Refuge: Law Panel Discusses Work Defending Refugee Claims in Greece

Space Weapons And The Law, Bill Boothby

International Law Studies

Outer space is of vital importance for numerous civilian and military functions in the modern world. The idea of a space weapon involves something used, intended or designed for employment in, to or from outer space to cause injury or damage to the enemy during an armed conflict. Non-injurious, non-damaging space activities that adversely affect enemy military operations or capacity, though not involving the use of weapons, will nevertheless be methods of warfare. Article III of the Outer Space Treaty makes it clear that international law, including weapons law, applies in outer space. Accordingly, the superfluous injury/unnecessary suffering and indiscriminate …

The Drone Question: Legality, Ethics, And The Need To Recognize Transnational Armed Conflict, Matthew T. Mueller

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This work focuses on the legality and ethics of targeted killings via drones conducted by the United States. The first section of this work looks at the use of drone strikes by the U.S. government as they fall outside of the traditional notion of a zone of armed conflict, that being one that can be defined geographically and temporally, and explores whether these strikes could be considered legal under international humanitarian law and the international law of self-defense. This work assumes that an armed conflict exists between the United States and the non-state armed actors that have been targeted by …

Remarks Of Dr. Douglass Cassel, Notre Dame Law School Candidate (United States), Inter-American Commission On Human Rights Special Meeting Of The Oas Permanent Council, Douglass Cassel

Faculty Lectures and Presentations

Cassel briefly addresses four points:

• First, while the Commission must process cases, that is not its only mission. The case system is a means, not an end. The goal of the Commission is to contribute to the highest possible level of respect for human rights throughout the hemisphere.
• In addition, while the case system leads at times to adversarial relations, the proactive role is one in which the Commission and States can and should strive to work together toward common goals.
• His third point is that we need a Commission that serves the peoples of all OAS member States.
• Finally, …

Judge Posner's Road Map For Convention Against Torture Claims When Central American Governments Cannot Protect Citizens Against Gang Violence, Steven H. Schulman

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Truth Or Dare: A Framework For Analyzing Credibility In Children Seeking Asylum, Karen Smeda

Cornell Law Library Cantwell Prize for Exemplary Student Research Papers

U.S. border agents detained at least 52,000 unaccompanied minors from only four Central American countries—Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras—in 2014, while 95,000 unaccompanied children sought asylum in Europe in 2015. Given the ongoing turmoil in various parts of the world, these numbers will likely rise. Children are narrowly escaping their native countries. With little help available from legal counsel and little time to gather supporting evidence, more children are relying on the gamble of a positive credibility assessment in an asylum application.

The stakes are high—either a new life in the United States, or probable fatality at home if …

The Plight Of Undocumented Female Migrants: Identifying Structural Factors That Contribute To The Proliferation Of Sex Trafficking And The Failings Of International Law, Hannah K. Valles

International and Global Studies Undergraduate Honors Theses

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the conditions at two specific border zones, the United States-Mexico border and the Mexico-Guatemalan border, that render undocumented female migrants vulnerable to abduction or recruitment into sexual exploitation. In addition to exploring the factors that expose women to trafficking networks, the study scrutinizes the legal failings of the international law-making community with regards to the safeguarding of women whose socio-economic conditions and environment of perpetual violence prompt their extralegal international movement. The paper provides an overview of the social, economic, and historical factors that underpin the flourishing of sex trafficking operations in …

Sensors Everywhere: Using Satellites And Mobile Phones To Reduce Information Uncertainty In Human Rights Crisis Research, Christoph Koettl

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article critically reviews the use of ICTs for human rights crisis research. While focusing on two specific technologies—satellite imagery and mobile phone technology—it proposes a general framework for analyzing the added value of ICTs. The author suggests that their added value in mass atrocities research arises from their ability to reduce information uncertainty, a challenge that is exacerbated in the digital age. This is different from delivering “truth”, an inaccurate description that only leads to unfulfilled expectations and hopes. The article is written from a practitioner’s perspective, drawing from the work of a global human rights watchdog, thus avoiding …

Jurisdiction, Privacy, And Ownership: Dna Technology And Field Dynamics In Conflict-Related Mass Fatalities, Stefan Schmitt, Dallas Mazoori

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article explores the dynamics and challenges of undertaking human identifications in states experiencing armed conflict or emerging therefrom. It emphasises the integral role of the State in human identifications and the need for the legal acts of the State in identifying an individual and confirming their death to be integrated into any humanitarian response to repatriating the dead. Conflict-related mass fatalities occur in uncontrolled circumstances, making DNA-based human identifications necessary. In states lacking the necessary forensic infrastructure, the promise of expedited human identifications through outsourcing DNA work can lead to the State abdicating the necessary jurisdiction and scientific transparency …

Ties Of Separation: Analogy And Generational Segregation In North America, Australia, And Israel/Palestine, Hedi Viterbo

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

This article takes analogy as both its mode and object of inquiry, to canvas the relationship between historical-geographical analogies and generational segregation (the large-scale separation of children and adults) from three complementary perspectives. First, due to restrictions recently introduced by the Israeli authorities, Palestinian prisoners have been prevented from reading popular study materials dealing with both Indigenous child removal and analogies concerning settler-indigenous relations in North America and Australia. This article revives the critical potential of this encounter with analogies and accounts by asserting an analogy between the removal of indigenous children to boarding schools in the United States and …

Taking Off The Blindfold: An End To Impunity In Nigeria, Harry K. Tiwari

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Reigning in Nigeria, Boko Haram, a terrorist organization has murdered over 15,000 civilians and forced over two million people away from their homes. To address such crimes, the International Criminal Court (ICC) was created after its founding treaty, the Rome Statute, entered into effect on July 1, 2002. The ICC’s mandate—to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes—had remained unfulfilled, as it has only issued three verdicts in approximately fifteen years of existence and has failed to protect international humanitarian law. Historically, the U.N Security Council has established two successful international criminal tribunals, which investigated and prosecuted a specific …

Toward A Science Of Torture?, Maxwell Gregg Bloche

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Does torture “work?” Proponents, including President Trump and the architects of CIA “Enhanced Interrogation” say it does, by breaking terrorists' resistance to revealing information that saves lives. Torture's foes typically dismiss this claim as false to the point of fraud--fortuitous coincidence with torture's unlawfulness. Neither view, I argue herein, rests firmly on evidence. Rival anecdotes, not data, have, so far, driven this debate. And a scientific answer is beyond our reach, since: (1) rigorous comparison between interrogation methods that do and don't involve torture isn't possible, and (2) studies of this sort would be transparently unethical. This hasn't stopped the …

Legal Status Of Drones Under Loac And International Law, Vivek Sehrawat

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

No abstract provided.

Willful Blindness Or Deliberate Indifference: The United States' Abdication Of Legal Responsibility To Refugees, Abed A. Ayoub, Yolanda C. Rondon

Barry Law Review

No abstract provided.