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Tags: Law

Rights of Due Process and the Post-Arab Spring: Paradigm Shift from International to Domestic Court Jurisdiction

Kichere Mwita draws attention to the precedent-setting role of the Arab Spring from an international law perspective. Highlighting the shift from international to domestic court jurisdiction over high-level crimes committed during the Arab Spring uprisings, Mwita argues for the implementation of a sub-international criminal court based on the model of the ad hoc tribunals created for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.

The Rise of Private Military Companies and the Legal Vacuum of Regulation

This paper discusses the rise of the private military industry as a challenge to contemporary international law. In recent times, the privatization of activities preserved by governments have been proposed and implemented;, such as communication facilities, garbage collection, electricity supply, immigration services and much more. Military operations have not been left out. The increasing privatization of military activities is proving to be a major challenge to international law. The literature on Private Military Companies (PMCs) is mind-boggling, but neither extensive nor exhaustive. As a new phenomenon, it receives situational attention. For example, when the operations of Executive Outcomes and Sandline International were unearthed by the press in the 90s,’ numerous scholarly material was written, but with distinct themes like the efficiency of the corporations and the human rights violations carried out, as well as the legal vacuum created by ex-professional soldiers banding up to create and legally incorporate a mercenary outfit. The issue of PMCs being present in weak states and ravaged war-torn zones is an understatement, yet these corporations are registered mostly in the U.S., U.K. and South Africa. The articles on this issue are usually highly polarized; opponents verses proponents of these corporations, as the activities of these outfits do not fit within any conventional classification as actors of war in the law of war.
This paper describes the history and definition of PMCs and analyses how the operations of these corporations affect human rights, sovereignty and states´ monopoly of violence. The paper also focuses on the legality of PMCs and proceeds to discuss how to regulate the industry. The paper concludes in favor of tougher regulatory controls through new international legal framework and national legislation to deal with mercenaries as decisively as with other non-state actors who wield violence.

World Peace through Law: Rethinking an Old Theory

James Ranney discusses the potential of law to bring about world peace, without submitting the world to a “global government” as such, but through the creation of a UN Peace Force to enforce the decisions of global courts, promote the abolition of nuclear arms, and generally create an atmosphere of global “justice” so that peace may prevail.

The Perfect Storm: Impunity and Violence against Women in Guatemala

The high levels of violence in Central America are often experssed as gender-based violence against women. This article discusses the use of violence against women as a weapon of war, as well as its presistence long into times of “peace”. By adressing the problems of femicide, domestic violence, and other forms of brutality directed at women and girls, we can also address the culture of violence more generally, in Guatemala, and beyond.

The Creation of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala: Miscalculation by a ‘Corporate Mafia State’?

This paper traces the development of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). A UN affiliated hybrid International-National quasi-judicial entity, CICIG was mandated to help investigate and prosecute organized crime groups in Guatemala and was heralded as an important step forward in the fight against impunity. This paper explores the often heard narrative that human rights groups successfully convinced first the Portillo administration and then the Berger government to agree to support CICIG, and analyzes alternative rationales. The paper suggests that the Portillo government sought to derive short term benefits from supporting the agreement but may have miscalculated in its assessment of long term risks. The Berger administration clearly derived benefits from the agreement, including the reinstatement of certain US military aid, as did the Colom administration. The paper also suggests that despite its mandate to strengthen national investigations and the judiciary system, some of CICIG’s greatest successes were achieved through public actions and the eventual resignation of the founding Commissioner Castresana. The paper concludes that even though CICIG’s institutional reform efforts have been piecemeal, they are significant nonetheless.

Fragments of the Iraq War Ten Years Later: International Law, Constitutional Law, and Erga Omnes

Ten years after the US invasion of Iraq, Professor of International Law and Vice President of IALANA Dr Kenji Urata discusses some of the literary fragments we are left with, including attempts to justify preemptive war, domestic assertions that a foreign nation should be “liberated”, reassertions of American exceptionalism, and the emergence of universal jurisdiction and global constitutionalism.

Palestine and the International Criminal Court

The Palestinian National Authority’s 2009 declaration under Article 12(3) of the Rome Statute to join the ICC presented the international court with an opportunity to implement its Statute and respond to the many UN and other reports of human rights abuses committed in Palestine since 2002. As Mahmoud Abdou argues, the Prosecutor of the ICC’s reaction accomplished precisely the opposite, allowing power politics to further frustrate the realization of justice and accountability in Palestine.