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Ambulatory Versus Fixed Baselines Under the Law of the Sea In the Context of Rising Sea Levels
Get PDFIt is a great pleasure to be here, especially with such an esteemed group of participants. My thanks to all the co-sponsors for the invitation to participate in this event; I am very happy to contribute to the conversation.
When “diving” into consideration of sea-level rise issues, one finds various “pools” of international law that are perfectly suited for answering some of the issues we are addressing. For example, Professor Galvão Teles spoke about the protection of persons in the event of sea-level rise. There are, of course, various aspects of human rights law and international law relating to disasters that can be employed to resolve some of the concerns in that regard. It is just a question of applying that law to a new, factual phenomenon
Between Disruption and Legitimation of Development: A Critical Perspective on the Inspection Panel and a call for more radical thinking within the accountability community
Get PDFThe essay explores the Inspection Panel’s (the Panel) conflicting role of providing accountability for negatively affected people while facing political limitations. The Panel has proven its potential to disrupt harmful development practices. However, by reproducing “dev-speak” it also continuously contributes to legitimizing the same assumptions of “how to do development”, and thus to the continuation of harmful development practices. This ambivalent effect is inherent to the Panel because of its politically inhibited and depoliticized (i.e. technocratic) environment. To overcome this long-lasting and structural condition will require critical examination of the concept of development and the role it plays in accountability. Strategies to counter depoliticization - whether intended or not - have the potential to strengthen and revitalize the concept and practices of citizen-driven-accountability
Future-Proofing U.S. Laws for War Crimes Investigations in the Digital Era
Get PDFAdvances in information technology have irrevocably changed the nature of war crimes investigations. The pursuit of accountability for the most serious crimes of concern to the international community now invariably requires access to digital evidence. The global reach of platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter means that much of that digital evidence is held by U.S. social media companies, and access to it is subject to the U.S. Stored Communications Act.
This is the first Article to look at the legal landscape facing international investigators seeking access to digital evidence regarding genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression. It analyzes Republic of Gambia v. Facebook (Meta), the first case to seek digital evidence from a U.S. social media company for an international proceeding on genocide. And it draws on material gleaned from background interviews with international investigators seeking digital evidence held by U.S. social media companies in relation to atrocities in Myanmar and Ukraine. This reveals two key problems facing international investigators. First, and in contrast to their counterparts in domestic criminal investigations, the Stored Communications Act provides no pathway through which international investigators can overcome the prohibition on disclosure of private digital evidence. Second, the ability of international investigators to access quasi-public digital evidence, and/or digital evidence that was public but has been removed by a social media company, is at the discretion of the social media company. A significant risk emerging from this arrangement is that evidence disclosure decisions are not made in a consistent and principled manner, but are instead driven by the self-interest of a few U.S. corporations, creating disparate outcomes across victim groups.
The Article recommends two, non-exclusive, reforms that could be undertaken in the short term to advance principled disclosure decisions for accountability, while ensuring privacy protections and data security. It also urges U.S. social media companies to develop and publish their own interim guidelines on how they make evidence disclosure decisions, with a presumption in favor of disclosing removed public and quasipublic evidence needed for the pursuit of accountability for the international crimes of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression. The Article concludes by pointing to the need for a long-term incremental process of research, reform, and review to future-proof U.S. law for war crimes accountability in the digital era
The Islands and Small States Institute to host Fulbright U.S. Scholar Prof. Rebecca Hamilton
No full textDuring the 2023-2024 academic year, the Islands and Small States Institute (ISSI) of the University of Malta will be hosting Prof. Rebecca Hamilton, professor of law at the American University Washington College of Law, who has received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award from the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Scholarship Board.
Prof. Hamilton will research and teach International Law, working with graduate students from small island developing states from the Pacific, Caribbean, and Indian Ocean. As Professor Hamilton explains, there is a growing need to prepare students for the climate dimension in all areas of law. In her research titled ‘Digital Life and Climate Survival’, Professor Hamilton explores the growing conflicts between the technology industry, which aims to reduce the importance of physical location, and climate activists who emphasise the significance of specific places
Class of 1919
No full textClass of 1919, third floor, left wallhttps://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/photo_1910/1010/thumbnail.jp
Class of 1990
No full textClass of 1990https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/photo_1990/1000/thumbnail.jp
Violating the Protections of International Law: Examining Methods to Combat the Practice of Female
Get PDFIn 2021, the women’s rights non-governmental organization (“NGO”), Equality Now, filed a lawsuit alongside other organizations1 challenging Mali’s failure to outlaw the practice of female genital mutilation (“FGM”). FGM involves the partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to female genital organs for non-medical purposes. The practice of FGM traces back to an ancient ritual, however, current research reveals that it causes serious health problems. The case brought by these NGOs has the potential to create binding precedent against the practice of FGM across all the African States
Anti-Abortion Statutes As Religious Beliefs
Get PDFIn Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Justice Alito ruled there is no right, under the U.S. Constitution, for a woman to have an abortion. Since then, eleven states have either enacted or activated statutes that forbid the performance of an abortion. Others may soon follow suit. This Article does not attempt to dispute the reasoning of the Dobbs decision. Instead, it asks whether the eleven state statutes, now construed as constitutionally permitted, are, in fact impermissible intrusions into the constitutionally required separation of church and state. This Article approaches this problem from both a historical and philosophical perspective. First, it uses the over 4,000-year-long history of the church state interrelationship (including U.S. Supreme Court opinions) to define when a belief is a “religious belief.” Second, using that definition, the Article engages in a careful logical analysis of the eleven statutes to argue both that they promote religious beliefs in contravention of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause and that they do not fall under the exception the Court has carved out in Kennedy v. Bremerton
Building a Stronger Foundation: Goal Setting and Design Strategies for Clinical Fellowship Programs
No full textTo a public defender, phone numbers are gold. It is conventional wisdom among public defenders that when you meet a client, you ask for their contact information and phone numbers for family members, friends, and others who live with or see the client on a regular basis. However, during my years as a public defender, I observed and practiced a more nuanced version of this pattern. After much trial and error (and many bench warrants issued for absent clients), I began to specifically request the contact information for the closest woman - be it a mother, sister, grandmother, wife, or girlfriend - to my client.Although the overwhelming majority of my clients were men, specifically Black men and men of color, I found that women played a critical role in clients’ cases, often performing crucial tasks. This Article centers those women and casts them as shadow “defendants” who suffer many of the same consequences of criminal justice involvement as their system-involved loved ones. It examines the economic, social, emotional, and collateral consequences that the criminal justice system imposes on these women arguing that they are prosecuted and punished right alongside traditional male defendants. These women are often specters in the criminal justice system: their presence and participation are anticipated, expected even, but rarely acknowledged. The system relies on their contributions but fails to acknowledge their burdens or suffering. And while the system eagerly penalizes those accused and convicted of committing crimes, it (perhaps) unwittingly punishes those who stand beside them.Moderator and Discussant: Chris Dearborn, Suffolk University Law SchoolWhat If I Told You: Judicial Discretion and Juror RehabilitationAlba Morales, NYU School of LawIn my post-conviction criminal defense practice, I’ve read countless trial transcripts and noticed a phenomenon wherein judges are quick to rehabilitate jurors who express anti-defendant sentiments but less inclined to rehabilitate jurors with anti-prosecution thoughts and feelings. For example, a juror who states that they assume that an arrest provides some indication of guilt will elicit a question from the judge regarding whether they could follow an instruction about the presumption of innocence. A juror who expressed antipathy from police, however, will receive no such attempt at rehabilitation. Unless an attorney makes and loses a ‘for cause’ challenge, these exercises of judicial discretion do not give rise to any appellate claims, and are, in many cases, unreviewable.This paper will look at the history of judicial rehabilitation and examine how New York City judges exercise their discretion in voir dire—when and how they choose to rehabilitate, when they choose not to rehabilitate. I am currently working with several appellate public defenders in New York City to gain access to voir dire transcripts. I hope to access a large enough sample to provide a snapshot of judicial use of rehabilitative questioning in New York criminal courts.Discussant: Lauren E. Bartlett, St. Louis University School of La
[quotes] Worker Noncompete Ban Proposal Promises FTC Authority Fight (1)
No full textThe Federal Trade Commission’s aggressive bid to free workers from restrictive noncompete agreements is likely to spark a court challenge testing the scope of the agency’s powers