Dispute Resolution and International Law: The United Nations Dialogue Among Civilizations

The United Nations Dialogue among Civilizations initiative for the Year 2001 may contribute another dispute resolution technique for the global community. Elements of negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and adjudication and legal principles relevant to dialogue are reviewed. Dialogue, understood as a daily aspect of human interaction on many levels and in many situations, may lead to relationship-building and long-term conflict avoidance. Dialogue leads to learning and understanding other perspectives and may result in wellaccepted resolution of misunderstandings and reduction of conflict. This article suggests that dialogue may be useful for lawyers, arbitrators, and judges as an alternative to other forms of dispute resolution, or for settlement of certain issues within a dispute

Responsibility for Biological Diversity Conservation Under International Law

Professor Tinker begins with a general discussion of biodiversity law within the context of existing international environmental issues and traditional international lawmaking. The article analyzes the legal issues that attend the fulfillment of the objectives of the Biodiversity Convention. The article examines the work of the International Law Commission on state responsibility and liability for environmental harm. The article then explores the precautionary principle and argues that it should be more aggressively applied in order to fulfill the mandate of the Biodiversity Convention

Public International Law, On-Line Course

This course explores the history and nature of international law and how international law and courts address selected issues currently challenging the global community. The course will focus on the creation and implementation of international law; global governance; relations between and among states; and relations between states and non-state actors, including individuals and international organizations. The course introduces and examines the traditional sources of international law and the actors of international law through history and today. Students will be encouraged to examine issues where new international law and policy is being made in response to global challenges — sustainable development, refugees and migration, access to scarce water resources, individual international criminal responsibility. Students will read cases and materials and engage in online class discussions of how rules developed and are observed between and among states and through courts and international organizations like the United Nations. A look at the evolution of laws of war and humanitarian law governing international armed conflicts will prepare students to consider the applicability of historical norms and rules to current crises worldwide and the use of new technological forms of warfare. The last part of the course considers how international law claims are addressed in national and in international courts and tribunals, examining specific cases at the International Court of Justice, arbitrations and national court decisions based on international law

Religion, Law and War

This course will examine the relationship of the terms religion, law and war and how political and legal philosophers have understood these terms in different centuries, continents and contexts. As both a CORE course and a DIPLOMACY course, students from different backgrounds will be encouraged to learn from one another and to be aware of their own perspectives as they come to understand others. The development of laws of war and humanitarian law in international armed conflicts, collective responses to state aggression, and individual criminal responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide will be studied and discussed. The course will encourage students to engage in a process of critical response to and logical, objective analysis of traditional concepts of the laws of war and humanitarian law. By the end of the course, through readings, written assignments, and an in-class simulation of a United Nations negotiation in an actual conflict situation, students will understand how doctrines of law and religion apply to war, violent political events, the international legal system and the quest for peace. The course will involve an analysis of original documents like the UN Charter, Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, certain treaties and international law cases involving war, peace and respect for humanitarian law. In addition, students will read selections from books and articles by scholars, commentators and practitioners of international law related to the topics described in the class schedule below

DIPL 4106 Human Rights Law and Policy

This course explores the history and nature of international human rights law and policy, considering both economic, social and cultural rights and civil and political rights as articulated through the United Nations and various sources of international law (treaties, custom, UN declarations and resolutions, and “soft law”). The structure of international institutions as they address particular aspects of human rights, with a focus on the creation and implementation of international law, global governance, and relations between states and non-state actors, will be examined in an effort to understand and define “human rights” in our time. By the end of the course, students will possess an understanding of the operation of the international human rights system and its mechanisms through the United Nations and treaty bodies; the difficulties of negotiating, implementing and enforcing the agreements that elaborate the rights and responsibilities of states to each other, to their citizens, and universally to all people; and the role of international human rights law and policy in international affairs in the creation of a just, equitable, fair and secure world with dignity for all. Students will develop critical thinking through an introduction to legal reasoning and concepts in international human rights law and policy. The course requires students to read closely, to think logically, and to become skilled in formulating convincing positions while understanding opposing arguments. Students will apply these legal reasoning skills throughout the course in assignments and class discussion. The ability to think critically and analytically, and to communicate an analysis clearly, are crucial skills not only for lawyers, but for practitioners of diplomacy and for all professionals

DIPL 3104 Public International Law

This course explores the history and nature of international law and how international law and courts address selected issues currently challenging the global community. The course will focus broadly on the creation and implementation of international law; global governance and diplomacy; and rules or practices in international relations between and among states and between states and non-state actors, including individuals and international or regional organizations. The course introduces and examines the traditional sources of international law and the actors of international law through history and developments up to the present. The creation of international law will be examined through treaties, customary international law, general principles and “soft law” declarations and resolutions. Students will be encouraged to analyze and apply these sources of international law and policy to new global challenges: sustainable development and the triple environmental crises of climate change, loss of biodiversity and pollution; unequal access to food and scarce water resources; wars of aggression and individual international criminal responsibility; AI and the digital divide; the role of the private sector in public policy and diplomacy; and changing notions of human rights and responsibilities. Students will read cases and materials and engage in class discussions and presentations on how rules developed and are observed between and among states and through courts and international organizations like the United Nations. Students will see how international law claims are raised in national and international courts and tribunals by examining selected cases at the International Court of Justice, international arbitrations and national court decisions based on international law, and how principles of public international law are applied to actual cases

DIPL 6005 Public International Law

This course explores the history and nature of international law and how international law and courts address selected issues currently confronting the global community. The course will focus on the creation and implementation of international law, global governance, and relations between states and between states and non-state actors, including individuals and international organizations. The first part of the course examines the sources of international law by examining current topics -- sustainable development, refugees and migration, water resources -- and the various actors in international law, including NGOs and the private sector as parts of civil society as well as states. The second part of the course considers how claims in international courts and tribunals are treated under international law, first by examining specific cases at the International Court of Justice related to transboundary water. Next, individual claims against states or officials in the context of human rights tribunals, war crimes tribunals, the ICC, and transboundary law enforcement cooperation are explored. Finally, contentious cases between states will be examined in a classroom exercise where students have an opportunity to advocate for the resolution of a conflict, and in a look at the laws of war and humanitarian law governing armed conflicts. In the final section of the course, international law claims in national courts and other forms of international dispute resolution such as arbitration will be considered