International Law Commons^™

Questioning The Peremptory Status Of The Prohibition Of The Use Of Force, James A. Green

Michigan Journal of International Law

It is incontrovertible that the prohibition of the unilateral use of force is a fundamental aspect of the United Nations (U.N.) era system for governing the relations between states. Given this fact, the prohibition, as set out most crucially in Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter, is often seen as the archetypal example of a jus cogens norm (a "peremptory norm" of general international law). Certainly, an overwhelming majority of scholars view the prohibition as having a peremptory character. Similarly, the International Law Commission (ILC) has taken this view and it is arguable that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) …

Decreasing Dirty Dumping? A Reevaluation Of Toxic Waste Colonialism And The Global Management Of Transboundary Hazardous Waste, Laura A. Pratt

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

Even though the phrase “toxic waste colonialism” has fallen out
of usage in the past ten years, the effective global management of transboundary
hazardous waste has yet to become an out-of-date topic. Starting
in the early 1980s, the international community sought to develop international
agreements governing the transboundary movement of hazardous
waste in order to protect developing countries from illegal “dirty dumping”
practices. Over twenty years have passed since the adoption of the Basel
Convention formed the foundation for other subsequent global protocols.
However, the ever-increasing global quantities of hazardous waste, including
the growing electronic waste issue, only exacerbate the …

Witchcraft: A Human Rights Conflict Between Customary/Traditional Laws And The Legal Protection Of Women In Contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa, Maakor Quarmyne

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

The United Nations And Women - A Critique, Elizabeth F. Defeis

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

We Live In A Country Of Unhcr: The Un Surrogate State And Refugee Policy In The Middle East, Michael Kagan

Scholarly Works

Many gaps in the protection of refugees can be connected to a de facto transfer of responsibility for managing refugee policy from sovereign states to United Nations agencies. This phenomenon can be seen in dozens of countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, where the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) or the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) manage refugee camps, register newly arrived asylum-seekers, carry out refugee status determination, and administer education, health, livelihood and other social welfare programs.

In carrying out these functions, the UN acts to a great …

A Comparative Review Of Environmental Policies And Laws Involving Hazardous Private Dams: 'Appropriate' Practice Models For Safe Catchments, John D. Pisaniello

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

Generally, the world’s largest dams have been erected and managed
by governments, while individual owners have been responsible for private
dams. Both kinds of dams have experienced technical failures that
have resulted in tragic losses of life as well as disastrous damage to property
and environment, and this has generated serious concerns regarding
dams’ safety worldwide. In Australia, despite the fact that attention has
been focused on the physical and technical integrity of medium- to largescale
dams, the smaller private dams have been virtually ignored with
regard to their serious potential and actual problems. Specifically, private
dams pose threats to …

How To Judge Shari'a Contracts: A Guide To Islamic Marriage Agreements In American Courts, Nathan B. Oman

Faculty Publications

This Article thus has two goals. The first is to show how the Muslim conception of marriage diverges from the Christian-influenced norms that dominate American law and society. Understanding this divergence provides a necessary background to Islamic mahr contracts. The second goal is to provide lawyers and judges with a doctrinal framework within our current law for analyzing these contracts and reaching sensible results in concrete cases.

A Little Respect, Please, Christina Cerna

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Simon Tisdall suggests that last month, when Mohammed Bouazizi (twenty-six years old), “an unemployed graduate, set himself on fire outside a government building in protest at police harassment,” his act became the “rallying cause for Tunisia’s disaffected legions of unemployed students, impoverished workers, trade unionists, lawyers and human rights activists.” The reaction to his act of self-immolation and death on January 4th led to the flight of President Ben Ali ten days later to Saudi Arabia and to the end of Ali's twenty-three-year rule of Tunisia. Time reported the event as follows: “When Mohamed Bouazizi set himself alight on Dec. …

Abeyance And Spontaneity In Tunisia, Louis Edgar Esparza

Human Rights & Human Welfare

On August 16, 1819, tens of thousands of workers gathered in what is now St. Peter’s Square in Manchester to demand suffrage. Entire families, parishes, and townships assembled, fueled by increasing commodity prices and political disenfranchisement. They had spread the word from town to town, and from church to church, that this previously banned meeting was indeed to occur. It was the culmination of months of agitation on the part of common people to achieve economic and political reform. The government responded violently to the challenge of its authority, as governments so often do, leading to a score of deaths …

Those Pesky Winds Of Change..., Walter Lotze

Human Rights & Human Welfare

When a police officer slapped a fruit seller by the name of Mohammed Bouazizi in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, nobody could have anticipated that a revolution had commenced. Bouazizi, a twenty-six-year-old computer science graduate unable to find work, had resorted to selling fruit from a street cart in an attempt to support himself and his seven siblings. Slapped by the police officer and ordered to pack up his goods, Bouazizi himself snapped. He marched to the local governor’s office and demanded an appointment, threatening to set himself alight if the governor did not meet with him. In frustration, …

After Deference: Formalizing The Judicial Power For Foreign Relations Law, Deborah Pearlstein

Articles

How much deference should courts afford executive branch interpretations of statutes and treaties? The question that has long engaged foreign relations scholars has found new salience as it has become apparent in recent years that the Supreme Court will neither abstain nor reliably defer to presidential judgment even in cases implicating national security. As the courts grapple with the scope of detention authority granted by Congress’ 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force, or the limits on that authority under the Geneva Conventions, a number of scholars have embraced administrative law deference doctrines such as that in Chevron v. …

Violence Against Women In The United States And The State’S Obligation To Protect: Civil Society Briefing Papers On Community, Military And Custody Submitted To The United Nations Special Rapporteur On Violence Against Women, Rashida Manjoo, In Advance Of Her Mission To The United States Of America, Brenda V. Smith, Ashley Prather, Jaime M. Yarussi

Research Reports & White Papers

The Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences visited the United States of America from 24 January to 7 February 2011. In the present report, she broadly examines the situation of violence against women in the country, including such issues as violence in custodial settings, domestic violence, violence against women in the military and violence against women who face multiple, intersecting forms of discrimination, particularly native American, immigrant and African-American women.

The Special Rapporteur highlights the positive legislative and policy initiatives undertaken by the Government to reduce the prevalence of violence against women, including the enactment and …

Vat Fraud: The Tradable Services Problem, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Tradable services – VoIP termination services, mobile minutes, software as a service (SaaS), or almost any service bought or sold in the “cloud” – are a distinct class of taxable supplies. These service-based supplies both resemble and differ fundamentally from goods. They also differ from services that are consumed-on-purchase (consumed services).

Tradable services are designed from the beginning for re-sale. They are hybrid supplies that behave commercially like goods, but have functional attributes that make them hard to distinguish from services generally. When determining the place of supply/ place of taxation for these kinds of supplies, their hybrid character presents …

Jan. 10, 2011, Ifc, Review-Update Policy And Performance Standards, Ifc

IFC E&S Performance Standards

No abstract provided.

Towards Promises Unfulfilled: Applying Sixteen Years Of Trade And Environmental Lessons To The Pending U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement, Travis A. Brooks

Global Business & Development Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Evolving International Judiciary, Karen J. Alter

Faculty Working Papers

This article explains the rapid proliferation in international courts first in the post WWII and then the post Cold War era. It examines the larger international judicial complex, showing how developments in one region and domain affect developments in similar and distant regimes. Situating individual developments into their larger context, and showing how change occurs incrementally and slowly over time, allows one to see developments in economic, human rights and war crimes systems as part of a longer term evolutionary process of the creation of international judicial authority. Evolution is not the same as teleology; we see that some international …

The Global Spread Of European Style International Courts, Karen J. Alter

Faculty Working Papers

Europe created the model of embedded international courts (IC), where domestic judges work with international judges to interpret and apply international legal rules that are also part of national legal orders. This model has now diffused around the world. This article documents the spread of European-style ICs: there are now eleven operational copies of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), three copies of the European Court of Human Rights, and a handful of additional ICs that use Europe's embedded approach to international law. After documenting the spread of European-style ICs, the article then explains how two regions chose European style …

Is International Law Really Law? Theorizing The Multi-Dimensionality Of Law, Elizabeth M. Bruch

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

International Criminal Law: Nature, Origins And A Few Key Issues, Bartram Brown

All Faculty Scholarship

The purpose of international criminal law is to establish the criminal responsibility of individuals for international crimes. Public international law is traditionally focused on the rights and obligations of states, and thus is not particularly well suited to this task. It has adapted through a long and slow historical process, drawing upon multiple sources. Many of the chapters in this Handbook explore to some extent the historical development of international criminal law. I will not attempt to summarize that history in detail, but a few historical observations here will help to explain how international criminal law emerged from its sources …

Attribution Of Criminal Liability A Critical Comparison Of The Us Doctrine Of Conspiracy And The Icty Doctrine Of Joint Criminal Enterprise From An American Perspective, Mark A. Summers

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.