International Law Commons^™

Bank Frauds And Tracking The Hidden Assets, Albert F. Tellechea, Michael J. Cortes

Florida A & M University Law Review

Each year banks are the targets of insider and outsider fraudulent activity. Borrowers overstate their assets and holdings in order to obtain loans for which they would never otherwise qualify. Employees embezzle, steal, or conspire with crooked clients for a kickback, and billions are lost. Law enforcement agencies around the world are reporting increased instances of corporate, mortgage, and bank fraud. For example, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigations ("FBI") in its FY2007 Financial Crimes Report states that its corporate fraud cases doubled from five years earlier. Through FY2007, U.S. Grand Juries returned 183 indictments resulting in 173 convictions. …

Banning Metal Mining In Guatemala, Randall S. Abate, Raquel Aldana

Journal Publications

Metal mining is unsustainable for Guatemala and its harms insurmountable for its people. Guatemalans who oppose metal mining have been fighting for decades domestically and internationally against the environmental degradation and other human rights abuses from metal mining activities in the country with little to show for their efforts. The State is too weak and corrupt to offer much hope for reform. Guatemala requires extensive governance reforms to become the type of strong democracy capable of reaping the potential benefits of metal mining in its territory. This is a long-term project. Most Guatemalans opposed to metal mining already know this, …

The Michigan Guidelines On Risk For Reasons Of Political Opinion

Michigan Journal of International Law

The Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (“Convention”) recognizes as refugees those who, owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted on the basis of inter alia “political opinion,” are unable or unwilling to avail themselves of the protection of their home country

(De)Legitimation At The Wto Dispute Settlement Mechanism, Cosette D. Creamer, Zuzanna Godzimirska

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

International courts employ a variety of legitimation strategies in order to establish and maintain a sound basis of support among their constituents. Existing studies on the legitimating efforts and legitimacy of the World Trade Organization's (WTO) judicial bodies have relied largely on theoretical or normative priors about what makes them legitimate. In contrast, this Article directly connects the study of courts' legitimating efforts with their effects by empirically mapping the reception of the WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism's (DSM) exercise of authority by the system's primary constituents--WTO Members. Using an original data set of WTO Member statements within meetings of the …

"Measuring" The Erosion Of Academic Freedom As An International Human Right, Klaus D. Beiter, Terence Karran, Kwadwo Appiagyei-Atua

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article reports and comments on the results of an assessment of the legal protection of the right to academic freedom (an examination of its factual protection to be undertaken at a future point) in EU member states, having examined these countries' constitutions, laws on higher education, and other relevant legislation. The assessment relied on a standard scorecard, developed by utilizing indicators of protection of academic freedom, notably as reflected in UNESCO's Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel, a document of 1997 that is not legally, but "politically" binding, and which concretizes international human rights requirements in respect …

Making International Health Regulations Work: Lessons From The 2014 Ebola Outbreak, Tsung-Ling Lee

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Many legal scholars believe that the lack of enforcement mechanisms provided by the International Health Regulations (IHR) in part explains the slow containment of the deadly Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa in 2014. In contrast, some global health practitioners deem funding for global health emergencies as a key remedy to the ineffective international infectious disease control regime. Such belief underpinned the creation of the Pandemic Emergency Facility (PEF), the World Bank's new financing initiative, aiming to finance global disaster response. Some commentators hope that the establishment of the PEF will resuscitate international interest in global health security and …

Introduction To Model Laws On Lighting, Lakshman Guruswamy

Publications

No abstract provided.

Model Law On Lighting For Developing Countries, Lakshman Guruswamy, Audrey M. Huang, Mahir Haque, Ugyen Tshering

Publications

No abstract provided.

Zero-Tolerance Comes To International Law, Aya Gruber

Publications

No abstract provided.

Five Decades Of Intellectual Property And Global Development, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

The 2016-2017 biennium marks the historical milestones of several major pro-development initiatives relating to intellectual property law and policy. These important milestones include the Intellectual Property Conference of Stockholm in 1967, the adoption of the Declaration on the Right to Development (UNDRD) in 1986 and the establishment of the WIPO Development Agenda in 2007.

On January 1, 2016, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) also came into force. Adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2015, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development featured 17 SDGs and 169 targets. Prominently mentioned in Target 3.b of SDG 3 are the WTO …

Cyberwar, International Politics, And Institutional Design, Daniel Abebe

Faculty Scholarship

In the United States, the breadth of the president’s warmaking authority has been governed by the Constitution, the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence, and, over time, historical practice; in short, the president’s powers are constrained by a well-developed body of US foreign relations law. But the prospect of a new kind of conflict — cyberwar — potentially challenges the existing regulatory regime, which rests on assumptions that are common to traditional, conventional war. For some, the complexities of cyberwar generate new foreign relations–law questions about the president’s authority to engage in offensive cyberoperations, and they thus necessitate a new regulatory framework. For …

Ocean Iron Fertilization And Indigenous Peoples' Right To Food: Leveraging International And Domestic Law Protections To Enhance Access To Salmon In The Pacific Northwest, Randall S. Abate

Journal Publications

Ocean iron fertilization (OIF) is a new and controversial climate change mitigation strategy that seeks to increase the carbon-absorbing capacity of ocean waters by depositing significant quantities of iron dust into the marine environment to stimulate the growth of phytoplankton blooms. The photosynthetic processes of these blooms absorb carbon from the atmosphere and sequester it to the ocean floor. OIF has been criticized on several grounds. including the foreseeable and unforeseeable adverse consequences it may cause to the marine environment, as well as the daunting challenge of reconciling several potentially overlapping sources of international and domestic environmental law, which may …

President Obama's Legacy: The Iran Nuclear Agreement?, Milena Sterio

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Iran, the United States, and several world super-powers signed a historic nuclear agreement over the summer of 2015. The Agreement is a comprehensive plan of action, with an unprecedented level of minutia and detail regarding Iran’s commitment to curb its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of United Nations-imposed sanctions against Iran. This Agreement, if it is successfully implemented, may represent President Obama’s most significant foreign policy achievement and may become the most important element of President Obama's legacy.

This article examines the Iran Nuclear Agreement by focusing on the events that led to the imposition of sanctions against …

Understanding South Africa’S Aspirational Constitution As Scaffolding, Stu Woolman

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

How Should The South African Constitutional Court Approach Tensions Between Women’S Rights And Religious Rights?, Julia L. Ernst

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

“The Advert Was Put Up Yesterday”: Public Participation In The Traditional Courts Bill Legislative Process, Thuto Thipe, Monica De Souza, Nolundi Luwaya

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Essay: Understanding Employment Discrimination Litigation In China Through The Notion Of "Rights Apathy", Sheera Chan, Mimi Zou

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

The psycho-legal concept of “rights apathy” is developed in

this Essay as an underlying factor of the very low rate of

incidence of workplace discrimination lawsuits filed in China,

despite an increasingly elaborate legal framework “on paper”

and workers’ rising awareness of their legal rights under

anti-discrimination laws. “Rights apathy” is underpinned by the

notions of “frustration” and “learned helplessness,” depicting the

indifference of workers in exercising their legal rights before a

tribunal or court. A number of institutional problems, namely

defects in existing anti-discrimination provisions, judicial

practices, and contradictions in other laws, policies, and

practices, can contribute to the …

Evading The Treaty Power?: The Constitutionality Of Nonbinding Agreements, Michael D. Ramsey

FIU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Should I Stay Or Should I Go?: Why Bolivian Tactics And U.S. "Flexibility" Undermine The Single Convention On Narcotic Drugs, Robert C. Zitt

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

This Note examines the deterioration of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (“Convention”), as Member State circumvention of treaty spirit continues to highlight the disconnect between progressive drug policies and an enforcement regime armed with little or no power to monitor compliance. It first provides a brief history of the Convention with discussion underscoring the governing bodies of the treaty itself, particularly the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB). Further discussion will note the procedural mechanisms whereby parties can propose amendments or reservations to the Convention itself. With such procedures in mind, subsequent examination will analyze how Member States have …

Justice, Reconciliation, And The Masculinist Way: What Role For Women In Truth And Reconciliation Commissions?, Penelope Andrews

Articles & Chapters

During periods of armed conflict, women and girls are frequently subjected to violence because of their gender. National governments have attempted to address this issue through transitional justice mechanisms like truth and reconciliation commissions. The record of women’s input and participation in these processes, however, is rather poor. In this article, I highlight the role of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (SATRC) and the opportunity the SATRC missed in failing to comprehensively confront andexamine the systemic nature of violence against women under apartheid. Many transitional justice mechanisms, the SATRC being one of the more vivid examples, have adopted a …