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The changing dynamics of war have reestablished the corporation as a chief agent of the war economy. Its agency is exercised directly through privatised markets of military goods and services, or less directly through the network of the global economy. This study builds on the observation that the hazards posed by such involvement are undervalued from the normative perspective of international law. The first part of this study sets out to investigate this primary observation. It establishes the claim that corporate actors' involvement in public considerations stemming from the war economy is absent from the international legal optic overlooking the context of war. The nature of the claim, being focused on an absence, calls for a study of second-order meanings and signs shaping such an absence. Taking the inquiry further, the second part of this study discusses the interplay of representations, theoretical presumptions and power discourses which uphold this absence. This discussion is guided by questions on the representation of the corporate agent and its involvement through the international legal optic overlooking war. This study goes beyond the examination of law and the political to claim that the interplay of second-order signs has rendered the international legal optic's perception of the war economy distorted. This distortion asserts blind spots over hazards posed to the subjects affected by the war economy, deepening existing normative disassociation from such subjects.

The thesis purports to assess the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in maintaining international peace and security and the International Criminal Court (ICC) in prosecuting individuals who have committed severe violations of international humanitarian law (IHL) and international law, during humanitarian and counter-terrorism operations. The thesis endeavours to highlight the failures of both institutions, firstly, the UNSC being unable to fulfil its institutional mandate, which is mainly attributed to the abuse of veto privileges granted to the five permanent members (P5). This has effectively allowed individuals from the militaries of the P5 and their allies elude criminal liability, promoting a culture of impunity. The UNSC's failure to prevent P5 members use of unauthorised military force in pursuing counter-terrorism operations and interpose expeditiously in humanitarian crises, have also contributed to the erosion of the institutions' legitimacy, which is further perpetuated by the USA's continued 'War on Terror' doctrine after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Secondly, the ICC's inability to prosecute individuals for crimes under the Rome Statute will also be highlighted as the principle of complementarity and the court's inability to enforce arrest warrants are significant factors contributing to the institutions inability to administer international criminal justice. The thesis draws upon practical examples to substantiate the failures of both institutions by referring to the conflicts in: Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Syria and Libya. Before concluding the UNSC and the ICC have become futile, the thesis will then make recommendations for reform and propose a novel solution to restore legitimacy back to both institutions.

This thesis explores militaries' efforts to prevent and respond to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV). As militaries around the world declare their commitment to gender mainstreaming and implementation of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda, CRSV tests the limits of what militaries can and should do. CRSV presents complex legal questions in view of the convergence between international humanitarian law and international human rights law in military operations. For critics of militaries, CRSV also raises dilemmas over whether to resist militarism or urge militaries to change. In examining both these aspects, this thesis opens a new dialogue between feminist approaches to international law and scholarship on gender and militaries. This study examines international law obligations applying to military action to prevent and respond to CRSV committed by third parties, proposing the relevance of a range of human rights standards. It uses NATO and the British Armed Forces as case studies to explore how militaries understand and integrate these obligations. Using interviews, observation of training, and review of policy, doctrine, directives and training materials, this research traces NATO and the British Armed Forces' commitments and action concerning CSRV since 2006, identifying key progress, shortcomings and constraints. The analysis is guided by feminist methodologies of identifying structural bias within the law. This thesis proposes that, in certain circumstances, armed forces have an obligation of due diligence to prevent CRSV by third parties and to support the investigation of CRSV. What this requires in practice has been inadequately considered. It finds that NATO and the British Armed Forces have made strides in incorporating CRSV into policy, doctrine and training, in particular since 2012. NATO has established institutional structures to support gender mainstreaming and issued a series of operational directives. The British Armed Forces have delivered CRSV training to foreign forces and introduced policy on human security. In both contexts, however, there remain conceptual and cultural obstacles to effectively preventing or responding to CRSV. CRSV is framed with reference to the Women, Peace and Security Agenda: in political rather than legal terms. Exploring how militaries understand their possibilities for action concerning CRSV reveals how the primacy of combat in militaries' strategic culture limits what they consider reasonable, and how this shapes and is shaped by understandings of legal obligation. In demonstrating the difficulties of and resistance to responding to CRSV, this study offers a sobering counterpoint to progressive visions for the transformation of militaries. It questions any expectation that adopting a human rights framework for armed intervention will be enough to orient militaries to human security. In exploring the place of international law in military understandings of CRSV and what militaries see their role in countering CRSV to be, this thesis contributes new insights to scholarship concerning law in armed conflict as well as to critical scholarship on gender, militaries, and security. It urges critical engagement with militaries and military organisations to deepen militaries' commitment to human security goals.

The jus in bello proportionality rule establishes an upper boundary on how much collateral damage combatants can cause whilst striking a lawful target and its associated rule on precautions in attack compels them to take all feasible measures to properly understand the situation on the ground and to mitigate civilian harm. Proportionality and precautions in attack have been codified in API for over forty years, but in that time, it has been difficult to hold troops and their leaders accountable for breaches of these rules. In this study, I examine several reasons for why these rules have been difficult to apply ex post by considering the strategic motivations of state officials and prosecutors. Specifically, I propose a game-theoretic model which describes the decisions that state officials and prosecutors have historically made, and I explore what changes to this model would prompt these actors to behave differently. The model was developed using insights gained from legal case studies, archival research and a series of interviews with relevant actors. It suggests, inter alia, that to induce state officials to support a stricter liability standard for unlawful attacks, they must either ascribe much more value to legitimacy than to the success of future military operations, or they must perceive the success of future military operations to be unaffected by the possibility of losing criminal or civil adjudication. State officials may perceive losing a civil case based on state liability as being less likely to affect the success of future military operations compared with criminal liability against individual troops. Therefore, state officials may be inclined to support a stricter civil liability standard, if they believed it would help the state to secure greater legitimacy.

In a world shaped by the simultaneous forces of globalization and fragmentation, very few armed conflicts remain isolated from any foreign involvement and confined to the territory of one State. On the contrary, many begin as internal conflicts that gradually acquire international characteristics of varying degree and nature. Yet, the law of armed conflict forces each such conflict into one of two legal categories: it must either be a non-international, or an international armed conflict. Accordingly, the prevailing approach in the literature is to examine what type of conflict, if any, corresponds to a certain situation in reality at a given time. In contrast, this thesis opts for a dynamic approach, focussing on the combination of factors that transform a prima facie non-international armed conflict into an international armed conflict. It argues that four such modalities of internationalization have emerged thus far: (1) outside intervention; (2) State dissolution; (3) wars of national liberation; and (4) relative internationalization by way of recognition of belligerency, unilateral declarations, or special agreements. Since some situations feature more than two conflict parties, the thesis puts forward an autonomy-based interpretive model, which enables to determine whether such situations should be seen as a single internationalized armed conflict or a number of independent international and non-international armed conflicts. On the basis of this comprehensive map of conflict internationalization, the thesis turns to the effects brought about by this process. It analyses two areas of the law of armed conflict considered to be regulated differently in the two respective types of conflict, namely matters of combatant status and belligerent occupation. It argues that fighters belonging to non-State armed groups participating in internationalized armed conflicts are in principle eligible for combatant status and it proposes an interpretive model for the determination whether they in fact meet the relevant criteria in practice. Finally, the thesis argues in favour of the applicability of the law of belligerent occupation to internationalized armed conflicts. To substantiate this claim, it delineates the temporal, geographical, and personal scope of the law of occupation in such conflicts. In its totality, the thesis analyses the meaning, process, and effects of conflict internationalization and on this basis argues for a particular interpretation of the concept of internationalized armed conflict in international law.

'International humanitarian law' (IHL) has long differentiated between international and non-international armed conflicts, regulating the latter, at least at the level of treaty law, far less than the former. One of the starkest examples of this is in the case of administrative detention on security grounds or 'internment'. Thus, IHL applicable in international armed conflicts establishes a seemingly robust regime regarding internment. As such, it specifies the limited grounds on which an individual may be interned, the procedural safeguards that must be provided to internees, and the point at which the internee must be released. In the conventional IHL provisions applicable in non-international armed conflicts, on the other hand, no equivalent rules are made explicit. In addition, the application in such situations of international human rights law (IHRL), which also contains procedural rules applicable to detention, is considered by many to be very controversial. This has led to considerable confusion over the current state of the law governing detention in non-international armed conflict, and it is here that some of the most controversial practices and intractable debates within IHL of the last decade have developed. The present thesis seeks to clarify the law here and does so through a comprehensive examination of both IHL and IHRL. It begins with a discussion of the general context in which the thesis falls, i.e. the distinction between international and non-international armed conflicts. This is considered from an historical perspective, considering the basis for the distinction as well as its appropriateness in contemporary international law. Having considered this general question, the thesis then moves on to an examination of the current lex lata with regard to internment in non-international armed conflicts, with a comprehensive examination of both IHL and IHRL. Regarding IHL, it is shown that, whilst there remains a dearth of conventional and customary rules here, one can discern a general prohibition of internment that is not necessary as a result of the conflict. The application of the IHRL rules on detention in non-international conflicts and their interaction with relevant rules of IHL are then explored, with substantial reference to the practice of both states and human rights treaty bodies. It is shown that, absent derogation, human rights treaty rules continue fully to regulate detentions by states in relation to non-international armed conflicts, alongside the minimal rules of IHL. However, it is also demonstrated that the current law remains inadequate in this area. First, there is significant disagreement between the human rights treaty bodies on the extent to which derogation from these rules is permitted. Second, persons detained in non-international conflicts by non-state armed groups or by states with no human rights treaty obligations are protected by the far more basic customary rules in this area. The thesis, therefore, concludes with a set of concrete proposals for developing the law here, in a manner that builds upon and clarifies the current obligations of all states and non-state armed groups.

Tens of thousands of contractors work for private military and security companies (PMSCs) in armed conflicts around the world, often hired by states to fulfil functions that were once the exclusive domain of the armed forces. In this context, PMSCs have performed a wide range of activities including offensive combat, prisoner interrogation, military advice and training, armed security, intelligence and logistics. The proliferation of PMSCs during the past two decades has challenged conventional conceptions of the state as the primary holder of coercive power in the international arena. Nonetheless, this Thesis argues that the traditional state-centred frameworks of international law remain vitally relevant to the regulation of private security activity in contemporary armed conflict. Three states are in a strong position to influence PMSCs in this context—the state that hires the PMSC, the state in which the company is based or incorporated, and the state in which the company operates—and this capacity for influence enables international law to regulate PMSC activities indirectly using these states as an intermediary. This Thesis critically analyses the pertinent international obligations on these three categories of states and identifies the circumstances in which PMSC misconduct may give rise to state responsibility in each case. It also examines the recent practice of certain key states in order to evaluate their compliance with these obligations. By providing a clear and in-depth analysis of states' international obligations to control PMSCs in armed conflict, this Thesis may not only facilitate the assessment of state responsibility in cases of PMSC misconduct; it may also play an important prospective role in setting standards of conduct for states in relation to the private security industry. This in turn may encourage and assist states to develop their domestic laws and policies in order to improve overall PMSC compliance with international law.

This thesis examines how values (as goals, priorities, background assumptions) shape, advance, and hinder legal processes to safeguard cultural heritage. I argue that the narrative of international cultural heritage law (ICHL) that eschews economic considerations of cultural heritage in favour of pronouncements about heritage’s intrinsic value disconnects ICHL from some of the other legal regimes that contribute to safeguarding heritage. This disconnection ultimately weakens the mission of ICHL of protecting cultural heritage. The law serves as both the expression of social values and tool for enforcing them, and recalls different values as needed to validate law-making and orient the interpretation and implementation of legislation. Similarly, established values prioritise what international law should regulate, how and for which purposes, with practical consequences regarding the allocation of resources to protect specific interests. My research analyses this role of values in rearranging priorities when international humanitarian law (IHL), anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CTF) regimes regulate cultural heritage. I draw on rules of interpretation established by the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties to identify the values that underlie these legal regimes, and develop a much-needed analysis of intrinsic and extrinsic value in ICHL. By analysing how IHL, AML and CTF regimes and cultural heritage studies imagine heritage value as extrinsic, I show that ICHL’s insistence on emphasising the intrinsic value of heritage disconnects it from such regimes. My research advances scholarship by overcoming doctrinal boundaries that isolate ICHL from IHL, AML, and CTF law. By navigating those boundaries, my research impacts legal responses to, and broader management of cultural heritage recovered during criminal proceedings – an under-explored area of the literature. Bringing criminal law into the conversation about heritage through values is significant to scholars because it connects ICHL with disciplines that heritage lawyers and managers engage with only tangentially, widening the scope of areas where the safeguarding of heritage and its enforcement can be prosecuted. This thesis rethinks cultural heritage value so that legal regimes, when recovering cultural items, can better manage these objects for interpreting and addressing the social tensions in which context cultural heritage was taken.

This article examines the role played by China in the development of international regulatory standards at the intersection of intellectual prop- erty, international trade, and public health. It begins by briefly discussing the role China has played in the global health arena during the COVID-19 pandemic. The article then highlights the difficulty in determining how best to engage with the country in the development of new international regula- tory standards. It shows that the preferred method of engagement will likely depend on one’s perspective on China’s potential contributions and hin- drances: a perspective that focuses on global competition—in the economic, trade, and technological arenas—is likely to differ significantly from one emphasizing global health. This article concludes by providing four key takeaways concerning the challenges and complications that China has posed, or will pose, to policymakers in the development of new international regulatory standards.

Дисертаційне дослідження присвячене актуальному завданню науки міжнародного права – дослідженню правових основ та виявленню можливостей для розвитку правового регулювання автономних систем озброєнь (АСО) як важливої частини міжнародного гуманітарного права ХХІ століття.

Regional disparities in immigration enforcement have existed for decades, yet they remain largely overlooked in immigration law scholarship. This Article theorizes that bottom-up pressure from states and localities, combined with top-down pressures and policies established by the President, produce these regional disparities. The Article then provides an empirical analysis demonstrating enormous variations in how Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s twenty-four field offices engage in federal enforcement around the United States. By analyzing data related to detainers, arrests, removals, and detention across these field offices, the Article demonstrates substantial differences between field offices located in sanctuary and anti-sanctuary regions, as well as variations within each of those groups. In order to promote more equitable and transparent enforcement, the Article offers recommendations regarding agency guidelines, rulemaking, performance metrics, and institutional designs, examining the strengths and limitations of these approaches.

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The post-World War II international system made globalization possible, but globalization challenges the legal underpinnings of that international order. The nature of global issues and actors affected by and crucial to a state’s effective functioning are profoundly changing the understanding of responsibility in international law. The fragmented and shared responsibility created by the twentieth century’s international institutions, technological changes, and networked local political activism are laying the foundation for a new system of global responsibility.

The fundamental aim of this thesis is to test three things. First, whether there can be a ‘rule of law’ in the international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL) rules that regulate the use of lethal force by state militaries (Rules of Targeting). Second, whether there should be such a rule of law, and third, whether there is one. These questions matter because they allow us to consider what is important about the rule of law and whether and, if so, how the rule of law can be applied within the context of an armed conflict. I have chosen to focus on targeting decisions by state militaries, in the context of international armed conflicts (IAC) – conflicts between two or more states. This is because it forms the paradigm case for which the law in question is designed. In this thesis I set out why there can be a rule of law regulating the use of lethal force in IACs, why – to a limited but non-trivial extent – there currently is such a rule of law, and why it is a worthwhile endeavour to attempt to apply the rule of law to such exercises of power.

As we were in the final phases of editing a book on disruption in environmental law, a pandemic swept across the world disrupting daily life and the functioning of society to an extent unprecedented in living memory. The novel coronavirus known as COVID-19 was identified in China in late 2019 and by late February 2020, it had spread to every continent except Antarctica; as of April, 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that over 148 million people had been infected worldwide with over 3 million deaths. Scientists and public health experts have raced to understand the virus—how is it transmitted and spreads, who is vulnerable, how is it dangerous, and what are effective treatments—to help governments respond. In many places, including the United States, governments slowed the spread of the virus by relying primarily on the blunt tool of physical distancing, typically in the form of stay-at-home orders. Physical distancing, whether engaged in voluntarily as a result of fear of the virus or required by stay-at-home orders, coupled with other virus control measures, including mask wearing, travel restrictions, and a nationwide conversion to distance learning at all levels of education, impeded the virus’ spread, but it also occasioned massive economic disruption, with unemployment rates reaching over 14% in April 2020 before dropping again to around 8% (pre-COVID rates had been right below 4%). The National Bureau of Economic Research concluded by early June 2020 that “the unprecedented magnitude of the decline in employment and production, and its broad reach across the entire economy” had led to a recession.4 By late spring 2020, having either met public health criteria, seeking economic and psychological relief, or simply acting out of political partisanship, many states began to relax social distancing measures.

This Chapter addresses the topic of intellectual property (IP) exhaustion in the context of the parallel trade of pharmaceuticals. These imports, which are controversial in general, are more complex with respect to pharmaceuticals, which require additional marketing and import authorizations. Nevertheless, individual countries remain free to accept these imports under the flexibility of Article 6 of the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects to Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement). This Chapter reviews several national approaches—in developed, developing, and least developed countries (LDCs)—from the perspective of the exhaustion of patent rights as well as other IP rights. Through this review, it highlights that several countries today accept parallel trade. A large number of these countries are, however, developed countries, whereas several developing countries and LDCs instead prohibit parallel imports. This finding is perplexing, and the reasons for this restrictive approach are unclear as developing countries and LDCs need flexible policies and can largely benefit from parallel trade. In addition, despite the claim by the pharmaceutical industry that parallel trade would increase the price of medicines in these countries—as originator would increase prices due to the fear of parallel imports—medicines are sold at lower prices mostly because of governments’ pricing or after the expiration of patent protection. Based on this review, this Chapter concludes that national legislations, which are not taking advantage of the flexibility in Article 6 of the TRIPS Agreement, may consider reviewing their policies and allow parallel imports.

The principal aim of this thesis project is to examine the socio-legal context of the Vichy regime in World War II France, and to provide an understanding of how that context informed, and continues to inform, the integrity of French nationhood. With Ernest Renan’s oubli serving as a framework for the solidification of nationhood, I will demonstrate that the betrayals to French law and custom that were committed in an attempt to right the wrongs of the Vichy resulted in an imperfect forgetting, and ultimately, a more fragmented national sense of self. I contend that this imperfect oubli resulting from attempting to erase the widespread, institutional collaboration with the German occupiers demonstrates not an antithesis to oubli and its purposes and value, but rather that any perfidy to a nation’s most closely-held values, even with noble ends, will only serve to the dissolution of what truly makes a nation. That constant is required in order to forget those unforgettable events of the past. Without one, alternate, inconsistent versions of a nation—a Vichy versus République, a pre-9/11 United States and a post-9/11 United States—vie for domination and ultimately, there can be no one nation.

The last 8 years have seen a dramatic increase in the flow of Central American apprehensions by the U.S. Border Patrol. Explanations for this surge in apprehensions have been split between two leading hypotheses. Most academic scholars, immigrant advocates, progressive media outlets, and human rights organizations identify poverty and violence (the Poverty and Violence Hypothesis) in Central America as the primary triggers responsible. In contrast, while most government officials, conservative think tanks, and the agencies that work in the immigration and border enforcement realm admit poverty and violence may underlie some decisions to migrate, they instead blame lax U.S. immigration policies, incorrect perceptions of U.S. immigration policy, and the exploitation of immigration system loopholes (the Policy and Loophole Hypothesis) as the real cause of the surge. Despite the existence of opposing claims, neither side has provided a clear data-based explanation regarding what has caused the sudden surge of unauthorized immigration from Central America. To address these competing claims, this study explored both hypotheses from a macrolevel using an empirically-driven quantitative research design. The study first identified the universe of data as tracked and gathered by large reputable organizations for the seven relevant countries/regions in the study (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Latin America, and United States). A total of 195 independent variables were selected with 181 of them being specific to each country/region. This data produced a series of 68 independent stepwise regression models that explored the direct and indirect effects of both competing hypotheses. Ultimately, the study found more overall support for the Policy and Loophole Hypothesis, though it did not produce findings that confidently dismiss the Poverty and Violence Hypothesis. However, findings do suggest the often-cited Poverty and Violence Hypothesis has likely been overstated and exaggerated as a cause of the Central American migration surge. Furthermore, while neither hypothesis had enough inferentially robust support to conclusively back its claims, the findings do provide credence to the argument that the often-dismissed Policy and Loophole Hypothesis must be considered along with the Poverty and Violence Hypothesis in any analysis looking at unauthorized immigration from Central America.

From the Missouri River, passing through the Sonora Desert, all the way down to the Amazon Forest and the Andean Mountains, drills and pipelines are crossing over indigenous lands. In an energy-thirsty continent, there is no land left to spare, not even tribal land. Many of these energy infrastructure projects involve international investments that are protected by treaties and enforced by arbitral tribunals. At the same time, tribal communities have an internationally recognized right to receive prior and informed consultation before they are affected by projects of this nature. The Article focuses on the clash of rights between energy extraction companies investing abroad, and persons in indigenous communities whose lands are being condemned or disturbed to facilitate these companies’ extraction activities. As the Article explains, international treaties force the State to protect both these interests and set up norms, backed by international judicial interpretations, that prioritize the economic benefits of resource extraction in the name of public benefits. Consequently, when the rights of investors and communities clash, governments almost categorically side with the interests of foreign investors, at the sacrifice of the interests of local communities. The Article sees this course as endorsing a societal view that elevates economic considerations over noneconomic considerations and advocates a more pluralistic societal view that sees noneconomic considerations on par with (and at times, of superior importance to) economic considerations.

This dissertation is about the problem of runaway advancements in weaponry since the 1860s, and how a vast set of characters—diplomats, international lawyers, and politicians, but also surgeons, chemists, teachers and artists—sought to do something about it by outlawing some of them. Their motivations for calling for a ban varied. Some were moved by budgetary woes and the cost of keeping up with the European arms race. Others saw a threat posed to their ability of mending wartime bodies after battle. Yet others were troubled by endangered cities and trade routes. Each time some called for a ban on a weapon, there were others who came to its defense. Sometimes the opposition to a ban came from a wide embrace of the promise of unfettered technological development to make war more humane—by making battles more brutal and therefore hastening war’s conclusion, by raising the barriers to entry and avoiding war, or even through the purported humaneness of technologically advanced weapons themselves. Others opposed weapons prohibitions because they went too far and curtailed perceived national interest, while yet others complained that weapons prohibitions stopped short of outlawing war altogether.My dissertation is structured along five case studies in the history of international weapons law, all taking place in what I call the foundational period of this body of law between the 1860s and the 1920s. Chapters one and two focus on the prohibition of explosive bullets at St. Petersburg in 1868, and the prohibition of dum-dum bullets at the 1899 Hague Conference. These prohibitions centered on the concept of unnecessary suffering and injuries to soldiers’ bodies. In chapter three, I turn to the meaning of the prohibition on dum-dum bullets in the First World War. While the prohibition was intended to regulate and humanize warfare, during the war the pariah status of dum-dum bullets—fettered by their special status under international law—turned them into a potent propaganda weapon. Dum-dum weapons did not just harm human bodies; their purported use also violated the body of international law, and as a result of their propagandistic use they contributed to the escalation and confusions of war. Chapter four turns to discussions about submarines in the 1920s, arguing for a shift in scale from soldiers’ bodies to world empires and their trade routes. Chapter five traces the debate about chemical warfare in the same time period. If debates about submarines turned on threats to global connectivity, opponents of chemical weapons pointed to the potential of total destruction of urban centers and, by extension, the threat chemical warfare posed to civilians and civilization at large. The dissertation concludes with a look at discussions about dum-dum bullets today and the ongoing campaigns to outlaw nuclear weapons and lethal autonomous weapons. Throughout, I focus on the relationship between technological innovation, law, and humanity in war as they were negotiated in the context of European imperialism and industrialized warfare.

Hong Kong has been fighting for democracy and to retain its autonomy from China, and the world has been watching. Over time, Hong Kongers have seen Beijing blatantly tighten its grip before time was up for the fifty-year agreement since the handover in 1997. In 2014, and again in 2019, hundreds of thousands of citizens filled the streets to participate in pro-democracy demonstrations with the protests only gaining momentum and influence. While there has mostly been support for Hong Kong’s independence movement, there has been argument that Beijing’s actions are completely justified. Should Hong Kong remain autonomous from China, and if so, what is the justification? This paper will discuss Hong Kong’s need to regain and maintain autonomy from China as well as solutions to help it achieve this.

The Hero & the Victim: Narratives of Criminality in Iraq War Fiction analyzes several works of literary fiction, and one popular memoir, by American authors about the U.S. military experience in the Iraq War from 2003 to 2011. In contrast to the emphasis of most ancient war literature on the figure of the warrior-as-hero, and the growing modern emphasis on the figure of the soldier-as-victim, Iraq War fiction reflects the troubled emergence of a new narrative template for war literature: the story of the ordinary soldier as a wrongdoer or even criminal. Iraq War fiction is haunted by depictions of moral injury and expressions of unresolved guilt. The dissertation argues that the emphasis on criminality in Iraq War fiction can be partly explained by the rise of moral cosmopolitanism and its blurring of the traditional conceptual lines between war and crime.

Since the establishment of the WTO TRIPS Agreement, government officials, international intergovernmental organizations, civil society groups, judges, academic commentators and the media have focused considerable attention on the interplay of intellectual property and human rights. In the mid-2000s, scholars have begun advocating the development of a human rights framework for intellectual property law and policy. As I pointed out in earlier works, such a framework will not only be socially beneficial, but will also enable countries to develop a balanced intellectual property system that takes international human rights obligations into consideration. While the development of a human rights framework for intellectual property is important, skeptics have warned about the danger of an "arranged marriage" between intellectual property and human rights. Although their concerns are understandable, it may be too late to deny the protection of human rights-based interests in intellectual creations. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and many other international and regional instruments have all explicitly recognized the right to the protection of interests resulting from intellectual productions as a human right.This chapter does not seek to reopen this debate, which has been widely explored and documented elsewhere. Rather, it examines three challenges that may confront the development of this framework, especially from a pro-development perspective: (1) the "human rights ratchet" of intellectual property protection; (2) the undesirable capture of the human rights forum by intellectual property rights holders; and (3) the framework's potential bias against non-Western cultures and traditional communities.

Refugees are both an urgent humanitarian issue and the subject of much political debate in the U.S. and Europe. This research paper compares and contrasts the asylum process in US and Sweden. It analyzes the similarities and differences in their refugee policies and how asylumseeker rights are undermined or supported in the detention centers. The research discusses the historical origin of the contemporary asylum/immigration policies, international standards on detention, their implication, and key contemporary policy trends in US and Sweden. The selection of US and Sweden was not random. Both countries are highly influential in different ways in shaping global policies toward refugees. Both have faced a recent upsurge in incoming refugees; however, they have adopted different approaches to the asylum process. It also focuses on detention policies and conditions and their implications for the ability of refugees to fully exercise in practice their rights to asylum.

This thesis examines the relationship between Islam, democratic government, and the governmental leadership of women in the Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey (MENAT). In order to understand female leadership in this region, the compatibility between Islam and democracy is analyzed. This occurs through the examination of Sharia Law and democratic principles within Islam. Furthermore, a statistical analysis of the successes of democracies in the region will be presented. Each nation will be categorized by the constitutional provisions entrusted to its female citizens. Thus, this thesis will present the legality of the political participation of women in each of the MENAT states. Finally, resolutions which aim to increase the political participation of women in MENAT governments are proposed.

Desde hace décadas se utilizan los drones como un instrumento más para ejecutar operaciones de diverso tipo que, incluso, pueden implicar el uso de la fuerza letal. Con frecuencia, el recurso a los drones armados ha sido criticado por supuestas violaciones del Derecho internacional humanitario (DIH). El presente estudio analiza, por tanto, el recurso a unas armas tan criticadas como los drones a la luz, en particular, de los principios básicos del DIH de precaución, distinción y proporcionalidad. El objetivo es demostrar que, pese a su mala fama atribuida por los medios de comunicación, los drones armados respetan el DIH precisamente en atención a los tres principios mencionados.

Autonomous Weapon Systems (AWS) are the next logical advancement for military technology. There is a significant concern though that by allowing such systems on the battlefield, we are collectively abdicating our moral responsibility. In this thesis, I will examine two arguments that advocate for a total ban on the use of AWS. I call these arguments the “Responsibility” and the “Agency” arguments. After presenting these arguments, I provide my own objections and demonstrate why these arguments fail to convince. I then provide an argument as to why the use of AWS is a rational choice in the evolution of warfare. I conclude my thesis by providing a framework upon which future international regulations regarding AWS could be built.

The Syrian Civil War is an interesting case in geopolitics if one looks at the evolution of foreign fighters. What began as a demonstration in a southern village of Syria transformed into one of the most devastating conflicts of the twenty-first century. The war brought new challenges to the world as a consequence of this now almost decade-long civil war. Myriad challenges are all too apparent: refugees, terrorism, and reconstruction, among them. The focus of this thesis is on foreign fighters, which I define as those involved in foreign terrorist organizations who continually challenge international law. Prior to the Syrian civil war, foreign fighters did not have extensive support. That came only with the temporary successes of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other radical extremists during their zenith from 2014 to 2016. Today, the problem that needs to be resolved worldwide is how to handle the return of every foreign fighter as they return to their original homes. No corner of the globe is exempt since recruitment of these foreign fighters reached throughout six continents. Thousands of men and women joined ISIS, and now many will return home following the failure of the self-proclaimed caliphate. ISIS declared its caliphate in 2014, but even before then it used horrendous tactics to recruit new members and seize territory and power; indeed, other Islamic extremist groups pursued similar activities. Many of the crimes committed during the Syrian civil war—rape, massacre, ethnic cleansing, and genocide—were carried out by members recruited into these groups. That begs the questions: Will the world bring justice to the victims of this war? Can anything be done? If there is no court to hold accountable these violators of international law and international human rights, what recourse is there for holding these fighters accountable for actions that have ravaged and prolonged a conflict resulting in millions of displaced people and more than a half a million dead? This thesis aims to answer the following question: What is the most viable option for holding foreign fighters accountable when it is determined that they violated international law during the Syrian civil war? My research suggests that a new international tribunal is required, one that can hold foreign fighters in the Syrian civil war accountable for their actions. Most domestic laws stop short, deciding instead to charge a foreign fighter with membership in a terrorism organization when he/she attempts to return home. Many entities and governments point to international courts as the most viable option for rendering judgment. However, I identify several hurdles in that path, which I discuss. In sum, my research efforts lead me to a more viable approach: establishing an international tribunal through the United National Security Council. To this end, I offer specific suggestions to bring this realistic option to fruition.

Part I of this Article provides a brief background about the evolution of the PSG ground in the United States and how it has become increasingly complicated and constricted over time. Part II discusses several ways that recent administrative decisions have imposed uniquely strict requirements for PSG-based asylum claims, both procedurally and substantively. Namely, the recent decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") in Matter of W-Y-C- & H-O-B- creates two new procedural restrictions. First, it imposes an exceedingly strict pleading standard in PSG cases by requiring "exact delineation" of the PSG. Second, Matter of W-Y-Cprohibits asylum seekers from revising their PSG in an administrative appeal, departing from longstanding practice. At the same time, the Attorney General's recent decision in Matter of A-B- imposes two significant substantive restrictions. It purports to exclude entire categories of claims from the PSG ground. Additionally, it imposes a heightened legal standard for showing persecution by non-governmental actors, which is especially common in gender-related cases brought under the PSG ground. Part III explores the significant implications of these recent developments

North Korea’s road of survival began in the aftermath of World War II, when the United States and the Soviet Union sparred over rival ideologies. Ultimately, Korea split into a free south and an authoritarian north. Over seventy years later, North Korea remains a bastion of communism. Nuclear weaponry is a factor behind North Korea’s survival, and the history of their program can offer insight for American policy makers today. This paper offers a history of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program during the Clinton presidency, along with recommendations for present day policy makers. Without an understanding of history decision-makers tend to make mistakes and act rashly. It is imperative America understands its diplomatic issues with North Korea, and provide diplomatic, strategic, and military solutions for future negotiations.

Дисертація присвячена комплексному правовому аналізу кваліфікації неміжнародних збройних конфліктів у МГП. Проаналізовано теоретичні засади кваліфікації неміжнародних збройних конфліктів у МГП. Розкрито правову природу та змістовні характеристики поняття «збройний конфлікт». Визначено місце поняття «неміжнародний збройний конфлікт» у межах існуючого у системі МГП історично сформованого правового розподілу між міжнародними та неміжнародними збройними конфліктами. Виявлено сучасні тенденції кваліфікації неміжнародних збройних конфліктів. Досліджено еволюцію міжнародно-правової регламентації неміжнародних збройних конфліктів та сформовано періодизацію становлення та розвитку міжнародно-правової регламентації неміжнародних збройних конфліктів. Охарактеризовано сучасні реалії кваліфікації неміжнародних збройних конфліктів у МГП. Надано правову оцінку іноземного втручання у неміжнародні збройні конфлікти та визначено роль політичного впливу під час кваліфікації неміжнародних збройних конфліктів.

This article traces the development of the International Court of Justice from the establishment of its predecessor in 1919, the Permanent Court of International Justice. The article explores the place of the ICJ in the international settlement of disputes including issues relating to the proliferation of international courts and tribunals; the selection and impartiality of judges; provisional measures; the willingness of states to accept the jurisdiction of the ICJ; compliance with the Court’s rulings; and where the ICJ has seen the greatest success in developing its jurisprudence. Specific attention is paid to the ICJ’s advisory and contentious jurisdictions. The article concludes with an assessment of its contribution to international law.

Дисертація на здобуття наукового ступеня кандидата юридичних наук за спеціальністю 12.00.11 – міжнародне право. – Національний університет «Одеська юридична академія». – Одеса, 2018. Дисертація присвячена аналізу міжнародно-правового захисту осіб від насильницьких зникнень. У роботі висвітлено історичні етапи становлення та розвитку співробітництва держав в сфері забезпечення міжнародно-правового захисту осіб від насильницьких зникнень. Проаналізовано юридичну природу, склад злочину насильницького зникнення. Проаналізовано основні положення Міжнародної конвенції про захист усіх від насильницьких зникнень 2006 р., в якій вперше визначено абсолютний характер права людини не піддаватися насильницьким зникненням. Розглянуто особливості правого статусу та практичної діяльності Комітету з насильницьких зникнень, його основні завдання та процедури. Проаналізовано судову практику міжнародних моніторингових органів з прав людини стосовно актів насильницького зникнення, які використовують на практиці підхід, відповідно до якого даний злочин розглядається не як окреме правопорушення, а як сукупність порушення таких фундаментальних прав людини, як право на життя, право на безпеку та свободу, право не зазнавати катувань.

Od czasów utworzenia pierwszej jednostki sił powietrznych w 1794 lotnictwo wojskowe stopniowo uzyskiwało status znaczącego narzędzia prowadzenia działań wojennych. Pierwsze bombardowanie z powietrza mające miejsce w 1911 roku, a także doświadczenia I wojny światowej uświadomiły kołom wojskowo-politycznym strategiczne znaczenie uderzeń lotniczych. Równolegle, postępy techniki lotniczej, zasięgu oraz udźwigu maszyn bojowych niosły obok korzyści wojskowych także wielkie zagrożenie dla ludności cywilnej. II wojna światowa i zjawisko masowych bombardowań ośrodków miejskich wykreowało obraz kolizji płaszczyzn wojskowych i humanitarnych. "Rozwiązywanie" tych punktów tarcia jest szczególnym zadaniem norm międzynarodowego prawa humanitarnego. Celem niniejszej rozprawy jest przedstawienie prawnego aspektu zjawiska wojny powietrznej od czasów Pierwszej Konferencji Pokojowej w Hadze do teraźniejszości.

The establishment of state-sponsored militia led to human rights violations in armed conflicts in Indonesia. Most of the state-sponsored militia was formed and supported by the Indonesian National Defense Forces (Tentara Nasional Indonesia), and based on the implementation of a concept called the Total People s Security and Defense System (sistem pertahanan rakyat semesta-sishankamrata¬). Total People s Defense is a legacy from Indonesia s experience during the armed revolution for independence (1945-1949) and is recognized by the Second Amendment to the 1945 Constitution. This thesis focuses on the implementation of the Total People s Defense by Indonesia in East Timor and Aceh and its pervasive effects on local populations. This thesis addresses the logical and legal gap between the professional Indonesian military and state-sponsored militias as part of the Indonesian military strategy. It focuses on the consequences of this gap across constitutional, human rights, and international humanitarian law. The thesis argues that only by shedding light on this gap can we truly understand the pervasiveness and power of the military in Indonesia, further complicated by numerous human rights violation and breaches of international humanitarian law. The thesis proposes the abolition of militia groups and engages with alternatives such as total demobilization, regularization, or security sector reform. The originality of this thesis lies in uncovering the legal mechanics that enable the endurance and might of the Total People s Defense doctrine, as opposed to previous research that focused primarily on historical or political dynamics. First, the thesis uses doctrinal analysis of international humanitarian law as a tool for analyzing the problems of the Total People s Defense and discussing the pattern of Indonesian responsibility in international law. Secondly, socio-legal approaches are used in analyzing viable solutions to abolish the militia by using the broader socio-political context, including attitudes towards military power and nationalism. Finally, the thesis uses Colombia as a paradigmatic comparator because of their experience in abolishing the paramilitary via demobilization processes followed by the imposition of criminal law measures as a deterrent to the reconstitution of those forces.

An individual who faces a significant risk of persecution in her home country is barred from asylum in the United States if she is convicted of a “particularly serious crime” (“PSC”). Despite the grave consequences of such a conviction, there is relatively little scholarship exploring how a PSC should be defined. The term, which comes from the UN Refugee Convention, was incorporated into the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1980. Professor Holper’s article, Redefining “Particularly Serious Crimes” in Refugee Law, makes an important contribution to the literature by showing how the historical trajectory of the PSC definition mirrors the “severity revolution” of the 1980s and 1990s in the criminal justice system. She also explains that the federal Bail Reform Act (BRA) creates rebuttable presumptions of dangerousness for certain types of offenses—not just crimes of violence, but also drug trafficking and offenses involving minor victims, including possession of child pornography—that are now treated as PSCs in immigration cases. Professor Holper persuasively argues that immigration law has gone astray by following in the footsteps of the severity revolution, which many agree has failed. Because an individual’s life is at stake in cases involving refugee protection, Professor Holper contends that PSC determinations should be narrower than classifications of dangerousness under federal bail law. She proposes dropping offenses like drug trafficking and child pornography from the PSC definition and limiting this categorization to violent crimes against persons with a significant sentence of at least five years. This response seeks to develop the discussion in two ways. First, it addresses Professor Holper’s argument that the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) has expressed “mistrust” of criminal law judges by minimizing the importance of the length of a sentence in the PSC determination. I argue that the relationship between the immigration and criminal systems is complicated and cannot easily be categorized as one of trust or mistrust. I then address Professor Holper’s proposal and compare it to a proposal that I made recently in an article arguing that the PSC analysis should follow the categorical approach to analyzing convictions.

After almost five decades of continuous occupation, Israel still controls water resources in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). Water rights is one of the most contentious issues between Israeli and the Palestinians. It was specifically left out of the Oslo Agreements and was supposed to be dealt with in the final status negotiation, along with other important issues such as Jerusalem, refugees and borders. However, the final status negotiations which were supposed to start in 2000 did not take place due to political tensions. Currently, water relations between Israel and the Palestinians are governed by interim arrangements. A Joint Water Committee (JWC) was established pursuant to the Interim Agreement in order to co-ordinate the co-operation between both parties. Nevertheless, the Joint Committee has proven to be unsuccessful both in boosting the co-operation and addressing water rights inequalities between Israelis and Palestinians. Recently, the work of the JWC has been suspended. The status of the water sector in the OPT is dire. The Palestinian population of the OPT suffers of lack of access to adequate and clean amounts of water, and that which is available is well below the amounts recommended by the World Health Organisation. The main reasons for this situation are Israel’s policies and control over water resources in the OPT. These policies and continuous control have resulted in widespread violations of Palestinians’ water rights, as well as retrogressive impacts on the Palestinian economic sector. Israel’s position in regards to its control over water resources in the OPT has been described as one of hydro-hegemony. This thesis examines the role of relevant rules of international law in Israel’s hydro-hegemony in the OPT. In doing so, the analysis employs the theory of hydro-hegemony and examines its application and limitations in regards to the Palestinian context. It explores the role of relevant rules of international law in strengthening, or countering, Israeli hydro-hegemony in the OPT. In particular, the thesis examines the role of relevant rules of three branches of international law in relation to water rights; international humanitarian law, international human rights law and international water law. The thesis identifies whether and how these rules have been exploited or employed to feed into Israel’s hydro-hegemony in the OPT.

Дисертація присвячена аналізу правового статусу осіб, свобода яких обмежена у зв’язку із неміжнародним збройним конфліктом. Уперше у вітчизняній науці введене нове наукове поняття «осіб, свобода яких обмежена у зв’язку із неміжнародним збройним конфліктом» та визначено його ознаки. Детально проаналізовано основні етапи становлення та розвитку правового регулювання статусу осіб, свобода яких обмежена у зв’язку із неміжнародним збройним конфліктом та встановлено, що правове регулювання їх статусу здійснюється не лише нормами міжнародного гуманітарного права, але й права прав людини та міжнародного кримінального права. На основі аналізу норм міжнародного права та міжнародно-правової доктрини проводиться класифікація підстав обмеження свободи осіб у зв’язку із неміжнародним збройним конфліктом, які поділяються на юридичні, фактичні та процесуальні. Детально розкрито умови утримання даної категорії осіб, та визначено особливості нормативного змісту гарантії на справедливий судовий розгляд. Особливу увагу приділено дослідженню впливу наслідків припинення неміжнародного збройного конфлікту на статус осіб, свободу який було обмежено у зв’язку із останнім. Доведено, що у міжнародному гуманітарному праві утвердився обов’язок сторін після завершення неміжнародного збройного конфлікту звільнити всіх осіб, свободу яких було обмежено у зв’язку із останнім. Додатково проаналізовано питання про кримінальну відповідальність даної категорії осіб, а також можливість застосування до них амністії.

This thesis traces the legal development of rules intended to limit harm to civilian populations during wartime in both the Islamic law and Western, Christian law context. After exploring the pre-modern development of these rules, a comparative law approach illustrates that pre-modern Islamic protections for civilians developed earlier and in a more nuanced way than did Western Christian rules. It offers several hypotheses as to why this might be, and then turns to the question of why, in light of this discovery, Muslim-majority countries today seem to view international humanitarian laws’ dictates regarding civilian protection as illegitimate Western constructs. The piece questions the narrative placing Islamic and international law as fundamentally at odds with one another, as well as the Western origin story of international humanitarian law. Several suggestions are then presented to alleviate the legitimacy challenge that faces the international humanitarian law regime in Muslim-majority countries.

Aunque las defensas antimisiles han sido diseñadas para fines defensivos, la incorporación de interceptores cinéticos exo-atmosféricos las convierte en armas ofensivas al permitir la intercepción no sólo de misiles balísticos sino también de satélites. Si bien las capacidades exo-atmosféricas amplían el alcance estratégico de las defensas antimisiles, a su vez, representan una amenaza para los activos espaciales y el medio ambiente espacial. Máxime, dada la ausencia de un régimen legal que prohíba el ensayo o uso de interceptores como armas antisatélite (ASAT). Este artículo se centrará en investigar las restricciones que ofrecen el derecho espacial y humanitario sobre el uso de armas ASAT y sugerirá una serie de medidas que eviten poner en riesgo los recursos orbitales.

У дисертації здійснено комплексний аналіз міжнародно-правового режиму військовополонених та досліджено його розвиток та специфіку. Вказано на поступову гуманізацію інституту воєнного полону та проліферацію міжнародно-правових норм щодо поводження та захисту військовополонених. Проведено системну характеристику інституту воєнного полону. Детально проаналізовані положення універсальних міжнародних договорів та відповідні звичаєві норми міжнародного гуманітарного права, які встановлюють міжнародно-правовий режим військовополонених, досліджені допоміжні джерела міжнародного гуманітарного права щодо поводження та захисту військовополонених: резолюції ГА ООН, резолюції РБ ООН, коментарі Міжнародного комітету Червоного Хреста, судова практика. Конкретизовано застосування положень щодо поводження та захисту військовополонених у період сучасних інтернаціоналізованих конфліктів, зокрема на сході України. Проведено аналіз міжнародно-правових основ функціонування міжнародних контрольних механізмів щодо захисту військовополонених. Систематизовано заходи внутрішньодержавної імплементації положень щодо поводження та захисту військовополонених. Запропоновано комплекс законодавчих та правозастосовних заходів для підвищення якості імплементації в Україні міжнародно-правових норм щодо поводження та захисту військовополонених. Висвітлено питання кримінальної відповідальності за порушення правил щодо поводження з військовополоненими.

This paper assesses U.S. national security policies in surveillance, detention, interrogation and torture, and targeted killing to determine whether they comport with international human rights law and international humanitarian law. The U.S. is responsible for adhering to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Geneva Conventions. These human rights law documents can be understood through court decisions, congressional statutes, and widely accepted interpretations from organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the UN Human Rights Council. Further, this paper offers prescriptions on how international human rights law and international humanitarian law can be updated to better deal with the current war on terror.

Among the most characteristic issues in modern jurisprudence is the distinction between adjudication and legislation. In the some accounts, a judge's role in deciding a particular controversy is highly constrained and limited to the application of preexisting law. Whereas legislation is inescapably political, adjudication requires at least some form of impersonal neutrality. In various ways over the past century, theorists have pressed this conventional account, complicating the conceptual underpinnings of the distinction between law-application and lawmaking. This Article contributes to this literature on the nature of adjudication through the resuscitation of a structuralist mode of legal interpretation. In the structuralist view, the distinction between adjudication and legislation has little to do with so-called neutral law application and political lawmaking. At the same time, and perhaps surprisingly, structuralists do not assume that adjudication is wholly subjective either. Rather, structuralists view judicial practice as at once constrained and discretionary, emerging only in the navigation of the syntactic and tropological structures of legal language. The judge is certainly free to speak the law in myriad ways, but just as critically, the particularly legal forms in which the judge may speak are always limited by the language of law itself In order to demonstrate this structuralist mode of legal interpretation, I apply it to an emerging and hotly debated field of law known as the law of killing. Within international law 's rules regulating the use offorce, the law of killing is most commonly associated with the legality of drone strikes in the context of the U.S. Administration's ongoing fight with al Qaeda and "associated forces." Structuralism does not help us figure out whether drone strikes in any given instance are legal. But it does help us understand the patterns of legal reasoning that assist in giving certain strikes a gloss of legal necessity, as well as those patterns that do not.

Decisions about intervention into today's armed conflicts are difficult, dangerous, and politically complicated. There are no safe choices. Amid the climate of urgency and uncertainty in which intervention decision-making occurs, international law serves as a guide by providing rules about the legality of intervention. These rules assert that, except for in cases of self-defense, choices about when and how to intervene are to be made by the United Nations Security Council. What the rules do not provide, however, is effective guidance for the political choices the Council makes, such as how to prioritize among competing norms. When, for example, should the Council uphold the sovereignty-based norm of nonintervention and when should it authorize humanitarian intervention in alignment with the emerging norm of the Responsibility to Protect? Absent such guidance, some hold that international law becomes an after-the-fact justification for whatever decision is made or that it has no influence whatsoever. Rejecting this view, this Article proposes that international law informs political choices about intervention through its purposive intent. The idea of law's purposive intent--that rules and norms should be interpreted in light of their object and purpose--is rooted in legal process theory. The Article further posits that the purposive intent of international law is the promotion of peace. Under this approach, any decision to intervene must have as its overriding purpose the promotion of long-term, positive peace. This thesis offers a novel contribution to the literature on intervention by applying legal process theory to an area of inquiry dominated by substantive legal perspectives. More fundamentally, it presents a vision that reshapes the paradigm of intervention from one that mistakenly focuses on combating violence with force to one that takes seriously the daunting task of building peace.

This chapter examines the impact of the intellectual property chapters in the economic partnership agreements (EPAs) on the protection of human rights. It begins by outlining the challenges inherent in any analysis of the interface between intellectual property and human rights. It reminds readers that some of the rights protected under the intellectual property chapters in the EPAs do overlap with rights recognized in existing international or regional human rights instruments. Taking seriously this overlap, the chapter discusses the compatibilities between intellectual property rights and human rights and the resulting synergies created by the EPAs. The chapter then examines the various impediments the EPAs have posed to greater protection of human rights. In particular, it discusses the conflicts and inconsistencies within the EPAs, lost opportunities for promoting human rights and the indirect systemic tension that the agreements have generated within the human rights system. The chapter concludes with a discussion of normative and systemic adjustments that seek to alleviate the tension or conflict between the intellectual property chapters in the EPAs and the international human rights system

This dissertation investigates the political origins of the international rules for internal armed conflicts. It explores the following questions: Where do these norms and rules come from? Why have states negotiated and accepted them? How and why have international legal responsibilities been assigned to armed non-state actors waging internal wars? The two crucial international instruments of this type are Common Article 3 to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Additional Protocols to those Conventions, from 1977. Through them states agreed to limit their means of action via binding treaty law while promising to extend humanitarian care to their challengers, at the risk of favoring them militarily or of legitimating their cause. States also extensively debated whether and how their armed contenders should bear responsibility. These are historically important and theoretically counterintuitive developments in international law and security, and this is the first work of political science to investigate them on the basis of extensive multi-archival research (amounting to over 35,000 declassified documents) and interviews conducted in four countries (the UK, the US, France and Switzerland.) I adopt the qualitative methods of process-tracing and focused case comparisons to answer the research questions. The argument unveils in two phases. In a first stage, I show how international shocks, or domestic shocks of international proportions (typically, major civil wars) progressively opened windows of opportunity which 1) evinced the "need to do something" about internal conflicts; 2) motivated prominent non-state actors to take up the issue and press for change; and 3) facilitated states' acceptance to work out new international rules either by morally motivating some of them or by helping others relax their initial reluctance toward them. Yet I argue also that socializing "the need to do something" was only half the work. Between the collapse of the old orthodoxies and the construction of new norms, much politics occurred. I theorize this second stage as one in which states waged struggles in international conferences to hammer out consensus formulae, with different groups trying to influence/coerce their opponents into accepting their vision. In 1949, for instance, while several Western democracies (including the United States, Scandinavian and Latin American countries) accepted the idea of the humanitarian regulation of civil wars, many others still fought hard to include high restrictions on its application. The Soviet Union fiercely supported the idea against all predictions, while the United Kingdom and France, already facing turmoil in their colonies, strongly opposed them and tried to warn their peers of the dangers posed by rules that might encourage or protect rebels. In the midst of these various pressures, I show how the pro-regulation majorities in the room managed to socially coerce (rather than persuade) skeptics into accepting the idea of making new rules. In the 1970s, under the powerful banner of self-determination, a majority coalition of newly-independent, Third World and socialist states forced the diplomatic hand of otherwise more powerful Western states into accepting polemical language that legally legitimated "armed conflicts in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes" as international conflicts. Simultaneously, this coalition fought hard to water down standards to regulate other types of internal conflicts, which many of them were experiencing in the aftermath of decolonization. In a final step, having shown the effects of social coercion in diplomatic negotiations, I also detail how coerced states reacted or "pushed back" covertly by crafting counterproposals whose language seemed acceptable to them at the same time that it appeared to address the concerns of pro-regulation groups. In the case of Common Article 3 of 1949, I detail how the UK and France jointly re-shaped the resulting text to read simultaneously generous and vague, knowing this might allow them to "interpret their way out" of the commitment later on. In the 1970s, Western states swallowed the bitter pill of enshrining violent struggles for self-determination in international law while making sure the language applied only to specific and increasingly rare conflict situations. Far from representing a persuasive consensus, I argue that final regulatory outcomes in this issue-area are difficult compromises that strike an uneasy balance between various' states' concerns for status legitimacy, morality and military expediency, whose conflicted political origins partly explain their limited impact in practice.

U.S. asylum law is based on a domestic statute that incorporates an international treaty, the U.N. Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. While Supreme Court cases indicate that the rules of treaty interpretation apply to an incorporative statute, courts analyzing the statutory asylum pro- visions fail to give weight to the interpretations of our sister signatories, which is one of the distinctive and uncontroversial principles of treaty interpretation. This Article highlights this significant omission and urges courts to examine the interpretations of other States Parties to the Protocol in asylum cases. Using as an example the current debate over social visibility in defining a "particular social group," which is a part of the definition of a "refugee," the Article demonstrates the utility of a comparative analysis even when our sister signatories' interpretations are not uniform. The Article also addresses some of the challenges involved in examining foreign authority, including: how to select and weigh such authority in the context of treaty interpretation; what weight, if any, courts should give to the interpretation of the European Union; and how courts should treat the interpretations of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The Article concludes that asylum and refugee law is an area ripe for deeper transnational dialogue, in which U.S. courts should play a critical part.

In the past decade, countries have actively established bilateral, plurilateral and regional trade and investment agreements, such as the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. Although commentators have examined the conflict and tension between intellectual property and human rights in the past, the arrival of these agreements has ushered in a new era of nonmultilateralism that warrants a reexamination of the complex interrelationship between intellectual property and human rights. This article closely examines the human rights impact of the intellectual property provisions in TRIPS-plus nonmultilateral agreements. It begins by outlining the challenges inherent in any analysis of the interface between intellectual property and human rights. It then examines the relationship between these agreements and the human rights system. The article concludes with a discussion of the normative and systemic adjustments needed to alleviate the tension or conflict between these agreements and the international human rights system.

This concise and accessible volume focuses on collaborative work within the disciplines of international law and international relations, and highlights the need to develop this collaboration further, describing the value for individuals, states, IGOs, and other non-state actors in being able to draw on the cross-pollination of international relations and international legal scholarship. This book: examines how different elements of governance are interacting and shifting from one actor to another analyses the cumulative effect of these shifts, and evaluates how they both enhance and challenge the worlds governing capacity considers how the characteristics of an architecture for a globalized governance are emerging. Helping readers to examine and understand how accumulated actions over time have given rise to system-wide changes, this work is essential reading for all students of international law, international relations and global governance.