ILSA Journal of International and Comparative Law 

About: ILSA Journal of International and Comparative Law is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Human rights & International law. It has an ISSN identifier of 1082-944X. Over the lifetime, 439 publications have been published receiving 1752 citations.

Can A State Commit A Crime? Definitely, Yes!

Abstract: Despite the strong (probably growing) and passionate campaign against the notion of state crimes led by a handful of powerful states and relayed by some ILC members, including the new Special Rapporteur, the distinction between what is termed 'delicts' and what is termed 'crimes' answers an indisputable need and must be maintained. However, while the definition of crimes given in Article 19 of the ILC Draft Articles on State Responsibility is acceptable, though perhaps unduly sophisticated, the legal regime of these crimes as envisaged by the ILC is debatable. The method adopted to establish this regime has been grossly unsatisfactory and it must be accepted that the word 'crime' might be misleading. The concept is nevertheless indispensable in contemporary international law. As is well known, the International Law Commission decided in 1976 to include an article in its Draft Articles on State Responsibility which makes a distinction between 'normal' internationally wrongful acts, which it rather unfortunately called 'delicts', and exceptionally grave breaches of international law, which it termed, perhaps less unfortunately, 'international crimes'. 1 In this way, the ILC took up a suggestion made by its then Special Rapporteur, Roberto Ago, who, as early as 1939, had proposed such a distinction. 2 The ILC maintained this distinction when it completed the first reading of its Draft Articles in 1996, 3 despite strong (most likely growing) and passionate opposition, as several recent writings by members or former members of the Commission show. 4

Multinational Corporations as Objects and Sources of Transnational Regulation

Abstract: Regulatory power is increasingly exercised by autonomous non-governmental organizations. Though not lawmaking in the accepted sense, the regulatory power asserted has come to be asserted within the framework of institutionalized and self-contained systems that exercise state functions outside the state. At the same time, public law has sought to assert a measure of legislative control over private regulatory systems, especially those that seek to impose a harmonized ad institutionalized regulatory framework across borders. Among the most dynamic players in this are has been multi-national corporations. From the perspective of public law, the objective has been to develop a network of regulatory systems through which state actors can control such entities. From the perspective of the multinational corporation, the objective has been to develop governance systems of its own to regulate the factors of production of wealth wherever located. My object in this essay is, first, to describe the traditional public law regulatory framework and suggest its limitations and failures of perspective. Second, I will illustrate the response of multinational corporations to these limitations and failures. For this purpose I will focus critically on the institutionalized regulatory framework created by Gap, Inc, to regulate its global supplier network, a regulatory framework in which the state is substantially absent and the center of regulatory activity shifts to the corporation. Lastly, I will posit the rough contours of a theory of soft public regulatory power in private law, its connection to the basic premises of contemporary economic globalization, and suggest some consequences for the actors principally and those left out.

Protocol To Prevent, Suppress And Punish Trafficking In Persons-A New Approach

Abstract: Trafficking in persons, the illegal and highly profitable recruitment, transport, or sale of human beings into all forms of forced labor and servitude is a tragic and complex human rights abuse. The U.S. State Department estimates that anywhere from 700,000 to four million persons are trafficked annually worldwide, and that approximately 50,000 women and children are trafficked annually for sexual exploitation into the United States.' Women and female children are particularly vulnerable to this slavery-like practice, due largely to the persistent inequalities they face in status and opportunity worldwide and the widespread business of prostitution.2 International agreements that address trafficking in women or trafficking in children date back to the 1904 International Agreement for the Suppression of White Slave Traffic.' The goal of the Agreement was to halt the sale of women into prostitution in Europe at a time of adverse economic conditions. Several subsequent treaties were adopted under the auspices of the League of Nations and the 1949 Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others4 consolidated all previous treaties on the subject. It characterized prostitution as \"incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person,\" and obligated governments to punish any person who \"exploits the prostitution of another person, even with the consent of that person.\"5 The 1949 Convention also criminalized the action of any person who \"(1) keeps or manages or knowingly finances or takes part in financing of a brothel (or) (2) knowingly lets or rents a building or other place or any part thereof for the purpose of the prostitution of others.\"6 However the

Inaccessible Justice: Human Rights, Persons With Disabilities And The Legal System

Abstract: This paper focuses on the important concept of access to justice and what it means to persons with disabilities. It also addresses how the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) provides for awareness of the requirements to provide access to justice for persons with disabilities.