The Problem of the Terror Non-State: Rescuing International Law from ISIS and Boko Haram

This article examines how terror non-states, such as ISIS and Boko Haram, blur the distinctions between non-state actors and states under international law. Terror non-states’ confounding of this dichotomy undermines the efficacy of international human rights law in the territories that they control, complicates responsive foreign military intervention, and confuses the appropriate legal framework that governs armed conflicts in which they are involved. This article assesses these challenges and makes recommendations from a perspective that gives primacy to the protection and liberation of vulnerable populations. The article recommends that the United Nations Security Council pass a resolution that mandates that terror non-states comply with state-assumed international human rights obligations in the territories that they control. The article also determines that terror non-states’ destructive foreign attacks subject them to responsive foreign military intervention. The article further concludes that terror non-states’ oppression of vulnerable populations eliminates any potential claim that they are entitled to armed combatant immunity from domestic law during armed conflict. Finally, the article recommends that the United Nations establish an international tribunal for war crimes and human rights violations committed by ISIS, that Boko Haram leaders be referred to the International Criminal Court, and that the international community enhance its cooperation and support for the domestic prosecution of ISIS and Boko Haram

Russian Election Interference and Race-Baiting

Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election exposed the nation’s vulnerability to targeted campaign disruption by foreign intelligence actors through social media. The Russian cyber disinformation campaign exploited racial divisions in the United States to undermine public confidence in American electoral processes and institutions, revealing how those divisions can be weaponized. The campaign fed on racial divisions arising from institutionalized state practices that have a disparate discriminatory effect on racial minorities. Successful in their online interference in 2016, Russian operatives continued to stoke these divisions in the 2018 midterm election and have begun to do so in the 2020 presidential election campaign. Russia will continue to stir racial division in future elections, and other states may follow suit. To combat this threat, reframing the manner in which national security institutions address matters of race is necessary. This Article advocates that national security institutions adopt an explicit “racism as national security threat” framework in place of the implicit “minority race as threat” framework that has previously shaped national security institutions’ behavior. It traces how a minority race as threat framework has historically guided national security institutional action in significant ways. Further, it elucidates how a racism as national security threat framework promotes American antidiscrimination law and international human rights law, and how the strategic retrenchment of policies, programs, and practices that engender racial discrimination will reduce American vulnerability to foreign exploitation. Ultimately, this Article seeks to popularize the understanding that racism subverts American national security, and frame the curtailment of institutionalized racism as a national security priority of the United States

Spin-Flip Transistor

The recently developed semiclassical theory for magnetoelectronic circuits is applied to a transistor-like device consisting of a normal metal island and three magnetic terminals. The electric current between source and drain can be controlled by the magnetization of a ``base'' reservoir up to distances of the order of the spin-flip diffusion length.Comment: Proceedings of NATO-ARW on Semiconductor Nanostructures, 5-9 February 2001, Queenstown, NZ, to be published in Physica

Speeding up shortest path algorithms

Given an arbitrary, non-negatively weighted, directed graph $G=(V,E)$ we present an algorithm that computes all pairs shortest paths in time $\mathcal{O}(m^* n + m \lg n + nT_\psi(m^*, n))$, where $m^*$ is the number of different edges contained in shortest paths and $T_\psi(m^*, n)$ is a running time of an algorithm to solve a single-source shortest path problem (SSSP). This is a substantial improvement over a trivial $n$ times application of $\psi$ that runs in $\mathcal{O}(nT_\psi(m,n))$. In our algorithm we use $\psi$ as a black box and hence any improvement on $\psi$ results also in improvement of our algorithm. Furthermore, a combination of our method, Johnson's reweighting technique and topological sorting results in an $\mathcal{O}(m^*n + m \lg n)$ all-pairs shortest path algorithm for arbitrarily-weighted directed acyclic graphs. In addition, we also point out a connection between the complexity of a certain sorting problem defined on shortest paths and SSSP.Comment: 10 page