International Law Commons^™

Transferring Wartime Detainees And Astate’S Responsibility To Prevent Torture, Jonathan Horowitz

American University National Security Law Brief

No abstract provided.

Chuaigh Ár Lá – Debt Of A Gaelsman: Ireland’S Sovereign Debt Crisis, National And International Responses, James Croke

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

How did a small island nation on the periphery of Europe go from the pauper of the European Union, to a paragon of a market economy, and back to fiscal ruin within the space of twenty years? Ireland was the poorest nation in the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1988. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s it undertook structural reforms to fundamentally reshape its economy, the result was a booming economy throughout the mid-to-late 1990’s and early 2000’s, primarily fueled by exports and foreign direct investment. Rather than continue on a sustained, but slower, growth path in the 2000’s, …

A Bright Idea: A Bright-Line Test For Extraterritoriality In F-Cubed Securities Fraud Private Causes Of Action, Jennifer Mitchell Coupland

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Whether a foreign or American claimant has a private right of action in so-called ―Foreign-Cubed‖ or ―Foreign-Squared‖ claims under Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Exchange Act) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Rule 10b-5 has been the subject of much debate among U.S. courts, Congress, and the international community. Historically, these cases have been heard in the United States if the conduct had a substantial effect in the United States or on U.S. citizens (the effects test), or if the fraudulent or wrongful conduct occurred in the United States (the conduct test). However, in June 2010, …

Culpa In Contrahendo In European Private International Law: Another Look At Article 12 Of The Rome Ii Regulation, Najib Hage-Chahine

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Precontractual liability is liability that arises out of a harmful conduct that occurs during the formation period of a contract. Where the harmful conduct occurs during international negotiations, a conflict of laws issue arises. The determination of the applicable law to precontractual liability can be a complex and tedious task, which is why the European Legislature has provided a special conflict-of-law rule in Article 12 of the Rome II Regulation on the applicable law to non-contractual obligations. Through this provision, the European Legislature aims to achieve uniformity between EU Member States, while providing an appropriate conflicts rule. The present essay …

Confronting Complexities Through The Diversity Of International Law, Michael P. Scharf, Cameron Macleod

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Foreign Administrative Law And International Taxation: A Case Study Of Tax Treaty Implementation In China, Wei Cui

All Faculty Publications

U.S. taxpayers and the IRS increasingly have to take into account the interactions between U.S. and foreign laws, but they have paid little attention to the administrative law backgrounds of foreign tax laws. In a growing range of cases, the need for such attention has become urgent. This Article describes a novel class of cases encountered by U.S. taxpayers that emanate from tax treaty implementation in China. In these cases, U.S. (and other foreign) investors face certain rules that conflict with common treaty interpretations, and that, at the same time, are not legally binding under Chinese domestic law. The question …

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 …

A Functional Approach To Targeting And Detention, Monica Hakimi

Faculty Scholarship

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 …

Brown Abroad: An Empirical Analysis Of Foreign Judicial Citation And The Metaphor Of Cosmopolitan Conversation, Sheldon B. Lyke

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article generates a data set (twelve courts and thirty-two decisions) of foreign judicial citations to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The purpose of this Article is to learn what happens when a case is deterritorialized and reconstituted in a different national scenario, and to conceptualize how courts around the world use foreign authority. My analysis reveals that few foreign courts used Brown in decisions involving education or race and ethnicity. Foreign courts used the case as a form of factual evidence, as a guide in understanding the proper role of a court …

A Social Psychology Model Of The Perceived Legitimacy Of International Criminal Courts, Stuart Ford

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

There is a large body of literature arguing that positive perceived legitimacy is a critical factor in the success of international criminal courts, and that courts can be engineered in such a way that they will be positively perceived by adjusting factors such as their institutional structure and outreach efforts. But in many situations the perceived legitimacy of international criminal courts has almost nothing to do with these factors. This Article takes the latest research in social psychology and applies it to survey data about perceptions of international criminal courts in order to understand how affected populations form attitudes about …

Signal And Affirm: How The United Nations Should Articulate The Right To Remedial Secession, John R. Ablan

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In international law, the right of peoples to self-determination as applied to remedial secession is anything but clear. The International Court of Justice had an opportunity to clarify this area of law in its recent advisory opinion concerning the unilateral declaration of independence made by Kosovo. Much to the disappointment of international commentators, the Court expressly declined to adjudicate whether Kosovo had, by its declaration, attained state status. Instead, the Court declared that international law does not prohibit unilateral declarations of independence. This Note argues that the proper method for the United Nations to articulate international law of secession is …

The Hierarchy That Wasn’T There: Elevating “Usage” To Its Rightful Position For Contracts Governed By The Cisg, William P. Johnson

All Faculty Scholarship

Under domestic U.S. sales law, usage of trade is relevant in ascertaining the meaning of an agreement, and it can be used to supplement, qualify, or explain an agreement. However, usage of trade may not be used under domestic U.S. sales law to contradict a written agreement. Moreover, any course of performance or course of dealing between the parties will prevail over inconsistent usage of trade. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, or CISG, similarly provides for consideration of usage to establish the terms of the agreement between the parties, as well as to …

Lifting The Veil Of Secrecy: Judicial Review Of Administrative Detentions In The Israeli Supreme Court, Shiri Krebs

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

All around the world, hundreds of individuals are constantly subjected to administrative detentions designed to prevent them from committing future atrocities. Generally, the main protection against arbitrary and unjustified administrative detentions is judicial review. Nonetheless, judicial review of administrative detention proceedings suffers from inherent difficulties and is typically based on ex parte proceedings and secret evidence. In spite of these difficulties and based on a few renowned cases, it is widely accepted in the scholarly debates that the Israeli judicial review model is robust and effective. Therefore, prominent international law scholars often recommend the adoption of this model in various …

The Role Of International Law In Intrastate Natural Resource Allocation, Lillian A. Miranda

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

State natural resource development projects have become sites of intense political, social, and cultural contestation among a diversity of actors. In particular, such projects often lead to detrimental consequences for the empowerment, livelihood, and cultural and economic development of historically marginalized communities. This Article fills a gap in the existing literature by identifying and analyzing emerging international law approaches that impact the intrastate allocation of land and natural resources to historically marginalized communities, and thereby, carve away at states' top-down decision-making authority over development. It argues that while international law may have only been originally concerned with the allocation of …

Reflections From The International Criminal Court Prosecutor, Fatou B. Bensouda

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Today I would like to introduce the idea of a new paradigm in international relations, which was introduced by the work of the drafters of the Rome Statute and the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC): this idea is that of law as a global tool to contribute to the world's peace and security. This idea first surfaced with the belief that the power of law has the capacity to redress the balance between the criminals who wield power and the victims who suffer at their hands. Law provides power for all regardless of their social, economic, or political …

Arbitration Of Trust Disputes: Two Bodies Of Law Collide, S. I. Strong

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Once considered nothing more than "mere" estate-planning devices, trusts play a large and growing role in the international economy, holding trillions of dollars of assets and generating billions of dollars of income each year. However, the rising popularity of both commercial and noncommercial trusts has led to an explosion in hostile trust litigation, leading settlors and trustees to search for new and less expensive ways to resolve trust-related disputes.

One possible solution involves use of a mandatory arbitration provision in the trust itself. However, the unique, multiparty nature of trust disputes often makes this sort of arbitration highly controversial.

This …

Virtual Witness Confrontation In Criminal Cases, Yvonne M. Dutton

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Maritime piracy is a serious problem, yet states are not prosecuting captured pirates with any regularity. One of the many reasons cited to explain this phenomenon focuses on the expense and difficulty of mounting cases of such international proportions and which involve evidence, suspects, victims, and witnesses from around the globe. In an effort to help close the impunity gap that surrounds piracy, this Article offers a potential solution to the difficulties associated with obtaining live witness testimony. It proposes a rule to allow witnesses under some circumstances to testify remotely by way of two-way, live videoconferencing technology. While remote …

Enforcing The Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime: The Legality Of Preventive Measures, Cristian Defrancia

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Efforts to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons and nuclear-weapons-related technology have increasingly involved economic, technological, and military forms of coercion implemented in an environment of low-level conflict. Coercive counterproliferation measures have included a range of actions, including targeted economic sanctions, industrial sabotage, cyber attacks, targeted killings, and military strikes. While the nonproliferation obligations of states are well-established under relevant treaties, state practice, and the international monitoring system of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), norms relating to the enforcement of those obligations are not clearly defined in legal instruments. This Article reviews the legality of prevention and enforcement measures …

A Complementarity Conundrum: International Criminal Enforcement In The Mexican Drug War, Spencer Thomas

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Drug-related violence in Mexico has claimed over 34,000 lives since Mexican President Felipe Calderon initiated his crackdown on Mexico's drug cartels in 2006 with the deployment of military troops to Michoacan. Somewhat surprisingly, Mexico's drug war has garnered rather little attention from the international community, despite a wealth of headlines in popular media. This Note takes up the question of international criminal enforcement in Mexico against Los Zetas, widely considered Mexico's most violent drug cartel. By setting up a hypothetical--but possible--International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecution of Los Zetas cartel leader Heriberto Lazcano, this Note demonstrates that the ICC Prosecutor could …

What Types Of Evidence Are Used To Prove A Joint Criminal Enterprise Under International Criminal Law?, Katlyn Kraus

War Crimes Memoranda

No abstract provided.