CIAO DATE: 02/05/08
European Journal of International Law
Volume 18, Issue 2, April 2007
Articles
Countering Nuclear Terrorism: A Conventional Response
Christopher C. Joyner
Nuclear terrorism poses a grave threat to national security, a fact dramatically demonstrated on 11 September 2001 by Al-Qaeda's attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. These strikes revealed the vulnerability of Western societies to foreign terrorist threats and underscored the real possibility that terrorist groups might use nuclear weapons against cities in the United States or Europe. This article analyses the nature of this threat and possible remedies within the context of a new multilateral instrument, the 2005 International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. This Convention furnishes a legal basis for international cooperation to prevent terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons. It criminalizes the possession of, use of, or threat to use radioactive devices by non-state actors, their accomplices, and organizers if intended to produce death, serious bodily injury or environmental or property damage. The agreement further encourages increased exchanges of information and greater collaboration between governments in the pursuit of terrorist suspects. But the effectiveness of this instrument depends on the degree to which state parties respect, abide by and enforce its provisions. Key in this regard is strengthening security of fissile materials stored in nuclear facilities. If governments fulfil their duties in this Convention, the agreement will work well and accomplish its purposes. To the degree that governments fall short of meeting their obligations, specific protections against nuclear terrorism in the Convention will be eroded, and the risk of nuclear terrorism will remain high.
Sexual Violence Against Men in Armed Conflict
Sandesh Sivakumaran
Reports of sexual violence by men against men emerge from numerous conflicts, ranging in time from Ancient Persia and the Crusades to the conflicts in Iraq and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Despite these accounts, relatively little material exists on the subject and the issue tends to be relegated to a footnote. This article ascertains the extent to which male sexual violence is committed in armed conflict. It considers factors that explain under-reporting by victims and lack of detection on the part of others. The particular forms of male sexual violence are also examined: namely rape, enforced sterilization and other forms of sexual violence, including enforced nudity, enforced masturbation and genital violence. The dynamics present in these offences are explored, with issues of power and dominance, expressed through emasculation, considered. Thus, attention is paid to ideas of feminization, homosexualization and the prevention of procreation. The symbolic construction of male and female bodies in armed conflict is also explored.
Dynamic Equilibrium: The Evolution of US Attitudes toward International Criminal Courts and Tribunals
John P. Cerone
This article examines the seemingly dynamic relationship between the United States and international criminal courts. Its scope is limited to a description of the attitude of the US government toward international criminal courts and tribunals, both at present and historically, and how that attitude has evolved. The article surveys US attitudes toward all of the major international criminal courts created or proposed over the past century. The US attitude is influenced by a range of factors, including such variables as ideological leanings of those in power and the strength of certain personalities (proponents or opponents). The impact of such variables tends to be moderated over time. The survey also reveals certain consistent themes underlying US attitudes toward international criminal courts. One consistent element would appear to be the (un)likelihood of prosecution of US nationals. The US has tended to support international criminal courts where the US government has (or is perceived by US officials to have) a significant degree of control over the court, or where the possibility of prosecution of US nationals is either expressly precluded or otherwise remote. If the US is assured that US nationals will not be prosecuted (or, at least, not without its consent), it will engage in a balancing of interests to determine its level of support or opposition. Ideological leanings will of course colour this balancing of interests and at times define some of those interests. To the extent that an administration's ideological strain in favour of accountability is stronger than its ideological strain opposed to the creation of international authority, the prospect of US support of a given international criminal court increases.
Implementation of LaGrand and Avena in Germany and the United States: Exploring a Transatlantic Divide in Search of a Uniform Interpretation of Consular Rights
Carsten Hoppe
Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations identifies consular information as an individual right that foreign nationals possess when arrested or detained abroad. The difficulties encountered by these persons, however, when they seek to vindicate that right before domestic courts has become dramatically visible in the cases of foreigners on death row in the United States. In recent years, three such cases have reached the International Court of Justice (ICJ), two of which were fully litigated. In LaGrand and Avena, the ICJ ordered review and reconsideration where Article 36 rights had been violated and the legal process was already exhausted. Unfortunately, the implementation of these judgments in the United States left much to be desired. The majority opinion in the recent Supreme Court decision in Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon, with its abrasive treatment of the ICJ, forms an unfortunate culmination point of this trend. On the other side of the Atlantic, the German Bundesverfassungsgericht fortunately steered a very different course. Contrary to their US counterparts, the German judges had no difficulty in subordinating their jurisprudence to the decision of a competent international court. Thus, the German judges were prepared, under certain circumstances, to afford ICJ decisions a strong guiding force, even where Germany was not a party to the respective cases. The present article compares the striking differences of ‘consideration’ afforded to the ICJ's jurisprudence on Article 36 by the Supreme Court of the United States and the Bundesverfassungsgericht respectively.
The Global Struggle over Geographic Indications
Kal Raustiala and Stephen R. Munzer
Book Reviews
The Pinochet Effect: Transnational Justice in the Age of Human Rights • The Pinochet Affair: State Terrorism and Global Justice • En el borde del mundo: Memorias del juez que procesó a Pinochet
Sonia Cardenas
Crimes against Humanity: A Normative Account
Rain Liivoja
European Union Law
Tobias Bräutigam
Table of Cases (2006)
Index to Volume 17 (2006)
Index of Authors (2006)