International Law Commons^™

Pillar 2 And The United States: What's Next, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

January 1 marked the official effective date of the 15 percent global corporate minimum tax imposed by pillar 2 as part of the G-20/OECD/ inclusive framework base erosion and profitshifting 2.0 project. Pillar 2 went into effect in Australia, Canada, the EU, Japan, Norway, South Korea, and the United Kingdom, with more countries expected to adopt it soon, including low-tax countries like Barbados, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Critics have argued that pillar 2 violates tax treaties, customary international law, or bilateral investment treaties. But it seems unlikely that legal challenges against it will succeed. Most of the countries …

Digital Terror Crimes, Cody Corliss

Law Faculty Scholarship

Terror actors operating within armed conflict have weaponized social media by using these platforms to threaten and spread images of brutality in order to taunt, terrify, and intimidate civilians. These acts or threats of violence are terror, a prohibited war crime in which acts or threats of violence are made with the primary purpose of spreading terror among the civilian population. The weaponization of terror content through social media is a digital terror crime.

This article is the first to argue that the war crime of terror applies to digital terror crimes perpetrated through social media platforms. It situates digital …

The International Criminal Court And International Court Ofjustice: Similarities And Differences, Frank Rosenblatt

Journal Articles

Two international courts, the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), have been in the news recently for theirroles in addressing allegations that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. This post explains these courts’ similarities and differences and describestheir distinct roles in this and other international crises.

The Status Of The Icj Case Of Ukraine V. Russia, Anne Harper

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review (CICLR) Blog

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of eastern Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Russia claimed that the use of force in Ukraine was justified since Ukraine was committing genocide. Within a few days, Ukraine filed a petition with the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Ukraine evoked the ICJ’s jurisdiction under Article IX of the Genocide Convention, which provides the ICJ with jurisdiction to resolve “[d]isputes between the Contracting Parties relating to the interpretation, application or fulfillment of the present Convention, including those relating to the responsibility of a State for genocide or for any of the other acts enumerated in …

Seizure Of Russian Corporate Assets: Prosecution Of Russian Corporations For War Crimes In Ukraine As A Precursor To Seizure Of Frozen Corporate Assets In Foreign Jurisdictions, Milena Sterio, Federica D’Alessandra, Michael J. Kelly, Lydia Korostelova, Dmytro Koval

Law Faculty Reports and Comments

This White Paper proposes a criminal litigation pathway within a broader rule of law context for legally securing those assets, which Ukraine can then utilize to begin the rebuilding process without having to wait through more years of depredation and harsh winters. Doing so through a legal process such as that outlined in this White Paper is going to be key to Ukraine’s future as a democracy, as a candidate to join the European Union, as a candidate to join NATO, and as a rule of law society that is trusted and safe enough to attract substantial foreign direct investment.

Zero-Option Defendants: United States V. Mclellan And The Judiciary's Role In Protecting The Right To Compulsory Process, Wisdom U. Onwuchekwa-Banogu

JCLC Online

How does one obtain evidence located outside the United States for a criminal trial? For prosecutors, the answer is an exclusive treaty process: Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLATs). Defendants, on the other hand, may only use an unpredictable, ineffective, non-treaty process: letters rogatory. The result is a selective advantage for law enforcement at the expense of the defendant. Though this imbalance necessarily raises Sixth Amendment Compulsory Process Clause concerns, MLATs have remained largely undisturbed because defendants still have some form of process, albeit a lesser one. But what happens when the letters rogatory process is also closed off to the …

30 Years Removed, Oil-Spill Liability Insurance's Evolution Since The 1989 Exxon Valdez Incident, Rejo Mathew

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

In the thirty years since the Exxon Valdez incident, much has changed. This article looks back at the events of the accident and the subsequent changes to the marine pollution insurance industry, from the statutes regulating oil tankers in 1989 to the Oil Pollution Act of the 1990. The regulatory framework resulting from the Exxon Valdez is examined and compared to the litigation deriving from the spill.

Legal, Policy, And Environmental Scholars Discuss Global Food Systems At Indiana Law Symposium, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

The Indiana University Maurer School of Law and its Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies are hosting scholars from around the country Friday and Saturday (Jan. 19-20) for an interdisciplinary discussion on one of the world’s most prevalent problems—food insecurity.

Data from the World Bank estimate more than 780 million people around the world suffered from chronic hunger in 2022. As climate change affects agricultural production and water accessibility, the problem could worsen in coming years.

“A Fragile Framework: How Global Food Systems Intersect with the International Legal Order, the Environment, and the World’s Populations” will bring together legal, policy, …

The Failure Of Australia's Voice Referendum: A Lost Opportunity For Progress?, Jennifer Grubman

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review (CICLR) Blog

On October 14, 2023, Australia held its first constitutional referendum of the twenty-first century. Had the referendum succeeded, a section would have been added to the Australian Constitution not only recognizing First Nations as the “First Peoples of Australia,” but also establishing a body known as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, or the Voice. This was not Australia’s first constitutional referendum concerning First Nations. In 1967, Australians voted in favor of an amendment to the Australian Constitution that granted “state and National parliaments … concurrent power” to legislate for the First Nations. However, unlike the 1967 referendum, the …

Introduction To The Symposium, Julian Arato, Jonathan Bonnitcha, Mavluda Sattorva

Other Publications

This symposium explores the interrelation and juxtaposition of private and public registers in the logics and practices of private international law, public international law, and foreign relations law. It is inspired by the scholarly work of a brilliant scholar and much-missed friend: Karen Knop, Professor and Cecil A. Wright Chair at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law (1960–2022).

Global Brand Protection In Web 3.0: Blockchain Domain Names And New Legal Challenges, Vera Glonina

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review (CICLR) Blog

The development of blockchain technologies is changing the world by introducing new systems and opportunities. In particular, blockchain technologies are a key component of so-called Web 3.0, a new generation of the Internet, which incorporates “the idea of a new, decentralized internet built on blockchains, which are distributed ledgers controlled communally by participants.”

This post was originally published on the Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review on January 11, 2024. The original post can be accessed via the Archived Link button above.

Constitutional Constraint: The United States Should Follow In New Zealand’S Gun Reform Footsteps, Jillian Fantuzzi

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review (CICLR) Blog

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” The United States is one of three countries worldwide that provide a constitutional right to bear arms, but the only country where this right is not accompanied by a restrictive condition. Despite the apparent gun crisis that increasingly characterizes the United States, legislators struggle to implement regulation due to the Supreme Court’s classification of the Second Amendment as a right to self-defense. However, where the initial purpose of the Second Amendment was to equip civilians as members of the militia to …

Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs In Brazil, And The Fight For Official Recognition, Christian Zavardino

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review (CICLR) Blog

In recent years, the Indigenous peoples of Brazil have fought a host of legal obstacles to maintain sovereignty over their traditional ancestral lands, in large part owing to the policy imperatives of successive presidential administrations and Congresses that have favored agribusiness interests and commercial development of Brazil’s interior regions at the expense of the Indigenous peoples who live in these areas. The Brazilian Constitution of 1988 guarantees Brazil’s Indigenous peoples legal recognition of their ancestral lands via the “land demarcation” or “official land recognition” process, providing that the federal government shall recognize “their original rights to the lands they traditionally …

Book Review: Jane Henderson, The Constitution Of The Russian Federation: A Contextual Analysis (Hart Publishing, 2d Ed. 2022), Robert C. Blitt

Tennessee Law in the News

No abstract provided.

‘Resisting’ While Collaboratively Informing In Communist Czechoslovakia, Mark A. Drumbl, Barbora Holá

Scholarly Articles

Informers in the service of state secret police collaborate with authorities and thus contribute to the power of repressive regimes. Through a case-study of Communist Czechoslovakia (1945–1989)—and drawing from secret police archives– this article presents selected stories of informers who in one way or another also ‘resisted’ collaboration with the Czechoslovak State Security (StB). By doing so, we try to further complexify the notions of ’everyday resistance’, on the one hand, and ‘collaboration’ on the other. We demonstrate that resistant acts, similar to collaborative acts, can be apolitically devoid of ideology, highly idiosyncratic, and motivated by private drivers. Informing can …

Agent Of Russian Interests Abroad: Assessing The Moscow Patriarchate’S Activity In The Balkans And Beyond, Robert C. Blitt

Scholarly Works

This Article addresses the role played by the Russian Orthodox Church—Moscow Patriarchate (ROC) in supporting the Kremlin’s policy objectives in the Balkans, a region with significant historical ties to Russia and a common religious heritage steeped in Eastern Orthodoxy. In the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, concern for the region’s stability has grown. This is particularly so due to Kremlin efforts to deflect attention away from Ukraine by fueling ethnic, religious, and political tensions left over from the U.S.-brokered Dayton Accords that ended the years of war following Yugoslavia’s collapse.

The analysis presented herein demonstrates that the ROC’s operation …

Fleeing Terror In Southern Mexico: Why Numerous Guerrero Refugees Qualify For Asylum, International Human Rights Clinic Of Seattle University School Of Law, Kino Border Initiative

International Human Rights Clinic

This report sheds light on the crisis confronting residents of Guerrero, a state in Southern Mexico plagued by rampant, indiscriminate violence and human rights violations. It utilizes research and first-person interviews to methodically provide a rationale for granting these refugees asylum under U.S. law.

Belt And Road Initiative: Legal Mechanism To Recover Stolen Assets, Veltrice Tan

Singapore International Dispute Resolution Academy

Purpose: This paper aims to determine the types of legal mechanisms that authorities can use to recover stolen assets for and from China. Design/methodology/approach: Newspaper articles and books are examined as are relevant reports by various regulatory authorities and academic institutions. Findings: The effectiveness of legal mechanisms in the recovery of stolen assets may be affected by issues such as the difficulties in tracing illicit funds, the ambiguous nature of “value” as well as the rise in technology. Research limitations/implications: There are limited data available in relation to the prevalence of corrupt officials along the Belt and Road Initiative and …

Enforcing International Law Against Corporations: A Stakeholder Management Approach, Kishanthi Parella

Scholarly Articles

There is an important but oft neglected relationship between the problems of corporate governance and international law. Corporate managers grapple with how to respond to society's demands that their enterprises do better when it comes to protecting people and the planet. These demands take many forms, including increased pressure for “sustainability” and “environmental, social, and governance” (“ESG”) measures. These demands are made in response to the economic, social, environmental, and political crises facing our world and a recognition of the responsibility of corporations and other business actors to contribute to their resolution. What is often unrecognized is that many of …

Justifying Aggression: Russia's 2020 Constitutional Amendments And The Invasion Of Ukraine, Robert C. Blitt

Scholarly Works

Beyond the alluring promise of an enhanced social safety net for Russian citizens, President Vladimir Putin's constitutional amendments of 2020 betrayed a distinct preoccupation with fortifying Russia's international standing and crafting a new national identity. By Putin's own account, these amendments were necessary to steel the country against the malevolent action of international conspirators committed to Russia's downfall. As this Article posits, these specific constitutional changes systematically entrenched an exceptionalist vision of Russian sovereignty and a civilizational identity that left the country constitutionally untethered from international norms and institutions, saturated in religious fervor and visions of imperial glory, and poised …