International Law Commons^™

The Legal Dilemma Of Guantanamo Detainees From Bush To Obama [Updated], Linda A. Malone

Faculty Publications

The stage for the Guantanamo detainees’ commission proceedings was set by the interplay between the Executive’s detention powers and the Judiciary’s habeas powers. The Bush administration turned to Congress to provide less than what was required by the court, instead of the minimum deemed necessary to comply with each decision, or to explore another legal argument for not complying. This article examines how the law for the Guantanamo detainees has been shaped by the US courts and by Congress. The article begins by observing the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court for compliance with the constitutional and humanitarian law requirements, …

Legitimizing International Criminal Justice: The Importance Of Process Control, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Free, Prior, Informed Consent: The Key To Self-Determination: An Analysis Of The Kichwa People Of Sarayaku V. Ecuador, Carol Y. Verbeek

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

Study On The Implementation And Effect In Member States' Laws Of Directive 2001/29/Ec On The Harmonisation Of Certain Aspects Of Copyright And Related Rights In The Information Society: Final Report, Lucie Guibault, Guido Westkamp, Thomas Rieber-Mohn

Reports & Public Policy Documents

This study, commissioned by the European Commission, examines the application of Directive 2001/29/EC in the light of the development of the digital market. Its purpose is to consider how Member States have implemented the Directive into national law and to assist the Commission in evaluating whether the Directive, as currently formulated, remains the appropriate response to the continuing challenges faced by the stakeholders concerned, such as rights holders, commercial users, consumers, educational and scientific users. As set out in specifications of the study set out by the Commission, its aim is 'to assess the role that the Directive has played …

The Cause Lawyer’S Cause, Frank W. Munger

Articles & Chapters

The promise of human rights in South Africa may depend significantly on the course chosen by a professional and relatively independent South African judiciary. But what about the promise of human rights in other developing states which lack a judiciary with similar potential? Cause lawyers, increasingly visible in many of these new states, are presumed carriers of liberal legalism and democracy and celebrated for their courageous defence of human rights even in the absence of an independent court system. This comment argues that celebration of cause lawyers may reflect presumptions about their causes that are questionable even in the Global …

Lemkin’S Situation: Toward A Rhetorical Understanding Of "Genocide", Perry Bechky

Faculty Articles

Legal debate about genocide revolves around the definition set forth in the 1948 Genocide Convention, but often critically and with prescriptions for amendment. Many other definitions compete in public discourse. Often lost in all the discussion about what genocide does or should mean is the original intent of Raphael Lemkin, the man who coined the word and convinced the United Nations to denounce and outlaw the “odious scourge” of genocide. This Article contributes to genocide discourse by conceiving of Lemkin’s coinage as rhetoric – that is, as part of his strategy to persuade the nations of the world to change …

The End Of 'Modes Of Liability' For International Crimes, James G. Stewart

All Faculty Publications

Modes of liability, such as ordering, instigation, superior responsibility and joint criminal liability, are arguably the most discussed topics in modern international criminal justice. In recent years, a wide range of scholars have rebuked some of these modes of liability for compromising basic concepts in liberal notions of blame attribution, thereby reducing international defendants to mere instruments for the promotion of wider socio-political objectives. Critics attribute this willingness to depart from orthodox concepts of criminal responsibility to international forces, be they interpretative styles typical of human rights or aspirations associated with transitional justice. Strangely, however, complicity has avoided these criticisms …

Overdetermined Atrocities, James G. Stewart

All Faculty Publications

An event is overdetermined if there are multiple sufficient causes for its occurrence. A firing squad is a classic illustration. If eight soldiers are convened to execute a prisoner, they can all walk away afterwards in the moral comfort that “I didn’t really make a difference; it would have happened without me.” The difficulty is, if we are only responsible for making a difference to harm occurring in the world, none of the soldiers is responsible for the death — none made, either directly or through others, an essential contribution to its occurrence. In many respects, this dilemma is the …

The Emergence Of International Property Law, John G. Sprankling

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

This Article explores a new field: international property law. International law increasingly creates, regulates, or otherwise affects the property rights of individuals, business entities, and other non-state actors. Globalization, democratic reforms, technology, and human rights principles have all contributed to this development.

The Article begins by examining the unsuccessful effort to create a broad, internationally-enforceable human right to property during the second half of the twentieth century. Despite this failure, international property law doctrines have evolved in specialized contexts over recent decades. The Article demonstrates that these doctrines stem from four sources: (a) regulation of the global commons; (b) …

Torture And The War On Terror: The Need For Consistent Definitions And Legal Remedies, Linda Carter

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

The Global Impact And Implementation Of Human Rights Norms: Introduction, Linda Carter

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Contractualism In The Law Of Treaties, Omar M. Dajani

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

A Functional Approach To Targeting And Detention, Monica Hakimi

Articles

The international law governing when states may target to kill or preventively detain nonstate actors is in disarray. This Article puts much of the blame on the method that international law uses to answer that question. The method establishes different standards in four regulatory domains: (1) law enforcement, (2) emergency, (3) armed conflict for civilians, and (4) armed conflict for combatants. Because the legal standards vary, so too may substantive outcomes; decisionmakers must select the correct domain before determining whether targeting or detention is lawful. This Article argues that the "domain method" is practically unworkable and theoretically dubious. Practically, the …

Edzia Carvalho On Human Rights In The Global Political Economy: Critical Processes. By Tony Evans. Boulder, Co: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2011. 232pp., Edzia Carvalho

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Human Rights in the Global Political Economy: Critical Processes. By Tony Evans. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2011. 232pp.

Lina Acalugaritei And Karen Mingst On From Human Trafficking To Human Rights: Reframing Contemporary Slavery. Edited By Alison Brysk & Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick. Philadelphia, Pa: University Of Pennsylvania Press, 2012. 280pp., Lina Acalugaritei, Karen Mingst

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

From Human Trafficking to Human Rights: Reframing Contemporary Slavery. Edited by Alison Brysk & Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012. 280pp.

A Reply To David Richards’ Review Of Measuring Human Rights, Todd Landman, Edzia Carvalho

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Professor Richards highlights, in his generous review of our book Measuring Human Rights that one of the aims of the book is to bring to the forefront the importance of conceptualization before operationalization – that conceptual clarity (or lack of it) is at the heart of the problems concerning the measurement of human rights. He draws out three key issues from the book as the springboard for further discussion on measurement of the concept – a) the “Respect, Protect and Fulfill” (RPF) framework, b) the lack of reliable data sources, and c) the conceptual links between human rights, human development, …

International Organization And Poverty Alleviation, William F. Felice, Diana Fuguitt

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The World Trade Organization and Human Rights: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Edited by Sarah Joseph, David Kinley & Jeff Waincymer. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. 2009.

and

Global Poverty, Ethics and Human Rights. By Desmond McNeill & Asunción St. Clair. New York, NY: Routledge. 2009.

and

Hypocrisy Trap: The World Bank and the Poverty of Reform. By Catherine Weaver. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 2008.

Confronting “Indivisibility” In The History Of Economic And Social Rights: From Parity To Priority And Back Again, Roland Burke

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Indivisible Human Rights. By Daniel Whelan. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2010. 269pp.

Making Peace Or Pacifying?, Therese O'Donnell

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Notions of a culture of impunity surrounding the violence perpetrated by the Brazilian police have lingered ever since the largely unsuccessful prosecutions of those suspected to be involved in the notorious Candelária massacre of 1993. Eight young people, six of whom were under eighteen, were killed by an adult group comprised of several members of the police. Despite the security forces coming under increasing scrutiny ever since, the 2005 Concluding Observations of the Human Rights Committee on Brazil's Periodic Report made disheartening reading. The Committee expressed its continuing concerns regarding the widespread use of excessive force by Brazilian law enforcement …

January Roundtable: Crime And Human Rights In Brazil: The Police Pacification Units, Introduction, Claudia Fuentes Julio

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“Brazil slum raids impress, but what's the impact?” By Bradley Brooks. Huffington Post, November 14, 2011.