International Law Commons^™

Ending Bacha Bazi: Boy Sex Slavery And The Responsibility To Protect Doctrine, 25 Ind. Int'l. & Comp. L. Rev. 63 (2015), Samuel Vincent Jones

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

This essay challenges the conventional wisdom that prohibitions against government-condoned child-sex slavery have attained non- derogable, peremptory status under international law. Much to the utter shock of field investigators and human rights experts, boy sex slavery has evolved into a constitutive and central feature of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (Afghanistan) because of a customary practice commonly referred to as bacha bazi.

The Extraterritorial Reach Of Sovereign Debt Enforcement, 12 Berkeley Bus. L.J. 111 (2015), Karen H. Cross

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

A significant barrier to enforcing sovereign debt obligations in U.S. court has been finding and attaching non-immune assets of the foreign sovereign debtor. In June 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court issued decisions in litigation between Argentina and hedge fund NML Capital that will significantly benefit creditors in the enforcement process. In one decision, the Court affirmed an order to compel banks to provide information as to how Argentina moves its monetary assets around the world, finding that the U.S. Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) does not limit a court's power to order post-judgment discovery. In the other decision, the Court …

Law And Development In West And Central Africa (Ohada), Peter Winship

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This seminar paper considers whether OHADA - an experiment in unifying business law in African countries - has been a success. Following a prologue that explains the origins of the paper, the first part of the paper sets out basic information about the Organisation pour l’Harmonisation du Droit des Affaires en Afrique (“Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa,” known by the acronym OHADA). This part is followed by a review of law and development literature to assess the value of this literature for an evaluation of the success (or not) of OHADA. A third part then focuses …

New Weaknesses: Despite A Major Win, Arbitration Decisions In 2014 Increase The Us’S Future Exposure To Litigation And Liability, Lise Johnson

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In 2014, the US continued its overall record of success in defending investment treaty claims. But it did suffer losses on a number of important issues, and those losses will render the US (and its treaty parties) vulnerable to future claims, litigation expense, and liability. The US’s recent losses, which have thus far been largely ignored in commentary on the US’s experiences in investment arbitration, are highlighted in this briefing note.

At Play In The Field Of Law: Symbolic Capital And Foreign Attorneys In Ll.M. Programs, Jan Hoffman French

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

The article under consideration in this symposium issue, “Foreign Attorneys in U.S. LL.M. Programs: Who’s In, Who’s Out, and Who They Are,” by Mindie Lazarus-Black and Julie Globokar, comes at a critical moment for law schools, especially those below the top tier. Many schools are reducing class size, offering unprecedented financial aid and scholarship packages, and entering a general retrenchment mode. This most recent crisis in law school applications and enrollment (applications are down at some schools by over 30 percent) has led to an increase in the popularity of Master of Laws (LL.M.) programs for foreign attorneys. The steep …

Legal Reform In The Xi Jinping Era, Carl F. Minzner

Faculty Scholarship

In the fall of 2014, Chinese Communist Party authorities made legal reform the focus of their annual plenum for the first time. The plenum decision confirmed a shift away from some of the policies of the late Hu Jintao era, but liberal reforms still remain off the table. The top-down vision of legal reform developing under Xi Jinping’s administration may have more in common with current trends in the party disciplinary apparatus or historical ones in the imperial Chinese censorate than it does with Western rule-of-law norms. This article attempts to do three things: (1) analyze how and why China’s …

Notes On The German Economy And Energy Ministry's Proposal For Reformed Investor-State Dispute Settlement (Isds), Gus Van Harten

Osgoode Legal Studies Research Paper Series

These notes provide a general reaction to a proposal by the German economy and energy ministry for ISDS in a treaty between Europe and the U.S. Overall, the proposal takes only a minority of the steps needed to make ISDS independent, fair, open, subsidiary, and balanced. I suggest that the appropriate approach remains to reject ISDS in new treaties (especially among Western developed countries). The proposal would be a good starting point for replacing ISDS in existing treaties with developing or transition countries – but that is clearly not its purpose.

A Parade Of Reforms: The European Commission's Latest Proposal For Isds, Gus Van Harten

Osgoode Legal Studies Research Paper Series

The European Commission's most recent proposal for ISDS reflects a move away from essentially fake reforms to something potentially more meaningful. However, it is insufficient to satisfy the criteria of independence, fairness, openness, subsidiarity, and balance and does not appear reliable until backed by clear language and a negotiating red line for the proposed Canada-Europe CETA and any other agreement providing for ISDS.

The European Commission's Push To Consolidate And Expand Isds: An Assessment Of The Proposed Canada-Europe Ceta And Europe-Singapore Fta, Gus Van Harten

Osgoode Legal Studies Research Paper Series

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the European Commission’s approach to investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) in the proposed CETA with Canada and FTA with Singapore. The text on ISDS in both agreements is evaluated according to general criteria of independence, fairness, openness, and balance. The main conclusion reached is that there is no significant difference between the CETA and FTA when it comes to ISDS. With the qualified exception of the criterion of openness, both agreements fall well short of satisfying the criteria. As such, neither agreement offers a significant improvement on the U.S. model of ISDS and, …

The Icsid Under Siege: Unasur And The Rise Of A Hybrid Regime For International Investment Arbitration, Kendall Grant

Osgoode Legal Studies Research Paper Series

The legitimacy and effectiveness of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) — a dispute resolution body established in 1966 under the auspices of the World Bank — is a matter of spirited debate. It has been argued by some that ICSID’s ideological and procedural bias impedes fairness and by others that its complexity and cost restrict access to justice; many contend that the absence of an appeal process has exacerbated uncertainty and unpredictability. In 2009, in the wake of rampant dissatisfaction and ideological challenge, especially on the part of Latin American states, Ecuador proposed the creation of …

Climate Change And Human Rights: How? Where? When?, Basil E. Ugochukwu

Osgoode Legal Studies Research Paper Series

Climate change poses a threat to several internationally recognized human rights, including the rights to food, a livelihood, health, a healthy environment, access to water and the rights to work and to cultural life. Actions taken to mitigate and adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change have to be centred on human rights. In negotiations for a binding international climate change instrument, nation states have been called upon to fully respect human rights in all climate-related actions. As important as this demand is, there is also the need to describe and plan how human rights can be integrated into …

Talking Foreign Policy: A Discussion On Cyber Warfare, Milena Sterio, Shannon French, Michael Newton, Peter Singer, Michael P. Scharf

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Talking Foreign Policy is a one-hour radio program, hosted by Case Western Reserve University School of Law Co-Dean Michael Scharf, in which experts discuss the salient foreign policy issues of the day. Dean Scharf created Talking Foreign Policy to break down complex foreign policy topics that are prominent in the day-to-day news cycles yet difficult to understand.

This broadcast featured:

• Peter Singer, Director of the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, Brookings Institution
• Michael Newton, Professor of Law, Vanderbilt University
• Milena Sterio, Associate Professor of Law, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law
• Shannon French, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the …

Mediation: The Best And Worst Of Times, Jacqueline Nolan-Haley

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

At this period in the evolution of dispute resolution, mediation is in a unique time zone, similar to what Dickens described in a Tale of Two Cities, as the best and worst of times, the seasons of Light and Darkness. It is the best of times, the season of Light and a time of joy in honoring human connections, as mediation is widely embraced in the public and private sectors. From government agencies and courts to corporations and United Nations peacemaking units, mediation offers a vision of hope in the midst of drowning bureaucracies, clogged dockets, corporate scandals and …

The Increasing Weight Of Regulation: Countries Combat The Global Obesity Epidemic, Allyn L. Taylor, Emily Whelan Parento, Laura A. Schmidt

Indiana Law Journal

Obesity is a global epidemic, exacting an enormous human and economic toll. In the absence of a comprehensive global governance strategy, states have increasingly employed a wide array of legal strategies targeting the drivers of obesity. This Article identifies recent global trends in obesity-related legislation and makes the normative case for an updated global governance strategy.

National governments have responded to the epidemic both by strengthening traditional interventions and by developing novel legislative strategies. This response consists of nine important trends: (1) strengthened and tailored tax measures; (2) broadened use of counter-advertising and health campaigns; (3) expanded food labeling; (4) …

Law’S Power To Safeguard Global Health: A Lancet–O’Neill Institute, Georgetown University Commission On Global Health And The Law, Lawrence O. Gostin, John T. Monahan, Mary C. Debartolo, Richard Horton

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The law-–global, national, and subnational–-plays a vital, yet often underappreciated, role in safeguarding and promoting the public’s health. In this article, we launch the Lancet-O’Neill Institute, Georgetown University Commission on Global Health and the Law. Commissioners from around the world will explore the critical opportunities and challenges of using law as a tool, while evaluating the evidence base for legal interventions. The Commission aims to define and systematically describe the current landscape of law that affects global health and safety.

Commissioners were chosen from disciplines that range from health, policy, and law to economics and governance. The Commission aims …

Plenary Energy, Carla F. Fredericks

Publications

An incompatible relationship exists between the federal trust responsibility over Indian tribes and tribal sovereignty, the conflicting nature of which has been exacerbated by numerous judicial confirmations of the unbridled congressional plenary power over all tribal affairs. Nowhere is there more conflict between the trust responsibility and sovereignty than within the context of mineral resource development on tribal lands. The evolution of the regulatory framework of Indian mineral development can be viewed as a continuum, with maximum trust obligation and minimum tribal sovereignty on one extreme, and an inversion of these two variables on the other. There currently exists pending …

Global Data Meets 3-D Printing: The Quest For A Balanced And Globally Collaborative Solution To Prevent Patent Infringement In The Foreseeable 3-D Printing Revolution, Tyler Macik

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This Note explores a potential global solution to the foreseeable patent infringement problems with 3-D printing and do-it-yourself users. More specifically, at a time when 3-D printing is quickly gaining popularity and recognition for its many beneficial applications through advancements in printing and scanning technology, the current state of patent law lacks the ability to detect and prevent patent infringement among do-it-yourself users of 3-D printing. I propose a potential global solution that would provide a balance between fostering growth in 3-D printing and upholding patentees' rights by exploring the possibility of creating a collaborative, intergovernmental 3-D CAD file database …

Are Bilateral Investment Treaties And Free Trade Agreements Drafted With Sufficient Clarity To Give Guidance To Tribunals?, Benard Hanotiau

American University Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Interface Between Arbitration And The Brussels Regulation, Filip De Ly

American University Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

Challenges To The Credibility Of The Investor-State Arbitration System, Michael Nolan

American University Business Law Review

No abstract provided.