The U.N.’s “Responsibility to Protect”

By Alexandra Galus

Ali Galus is a 2023 Albany Law School graduate. She grew up in Buffalo, NY, and received Bachelor's degrees in Political Science and International Studies from SUNY Cortland.

While in law school, Ali was a member of the Government Law Review, serving as their Managing Editor for Research and Writing in her 3L year. She was also heavily involved in the Moot Court program and served as the Domenick L. Gabrielli Appellate Advocacy Competition Chair in her 3L year as well.

Ali has done several internships within the New York State government, including at the New York State Department of Health, the Office of the Attorney General, and the New York State Assembly. She will be pursuing a career in civil litigation, starting at Napierski, Vandenburgh, Napierski, and O’Connor this fall.

The official purpose of the United Nations is “[t]o maintain international peace and security; to achieve international cooperation in solving economic, social, cultural, and humanitarian problems and in promoting respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms; [and] to be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in attaining these common ends.”  The United Nations (“UN”) places a strong focus on international peace and security, as the catalyst to the development of the UN was an international conflict.

However, despite that being one of the UN's basic principles, the organization hasn't always been successful in achieving that goal. In the seventy-seven years since the UN was founded, there have been several armed conflicts, wars, and genocides that have occurred on its watch. The UN has fundamentally restructured how to approach sustaining international peace and security as a result of some startling failures. Some of these failures were not the organization's fault directly. But they were still perceived as contributing to the catastrophes in some way.

What was the UN’s response to the disastrous failures? The introduction of the “Responsibility to Protect” Doctrine. To determine whether the "Responsibility to Protect" Doctrine was the correct response to address the UN’s earlier failures, this paper will examine the UN's most significant errors in carrying out its previous missions, as well as the adoption of the doctrine and its overall success.

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To read the paper, open HERE.

Analysis of Rwandan Genocide and Rohingya Genocide

By Victor Obech

Victor Obech is an alum of the Albany Law School Class of 2020. He completed his Master of Laws Degree (LLM) at Albany Law, having concentrated in International Law. Victor finished his undergraduate law degree at the University of Nairobi, Kenya in 2015. He is passionate about helping vulnerable immigrants with legal services. He enjoys research and community organization. Victor also works at The Devereux Foundation, a nonprofit organization with interest in providing support to individuals with developmental disability in the society.

Throughout the centuries, different nations and people have experienced acts of genocide. Even though genocide was formally recognized through the Genocide Conventions, targeted killing towards different particular groups of people started way before that. For instance, it is estimated that the Mongols killed and destroyed the lives of about 5% of the world’s population during the peak of their empire. At that time, there were no formalized laws that prevented or guided conduct during wars, and this led to massive deaths during the early century acts of war crime. The perpetrators were also not formally tried or punished in a manner that would deter future acts of war crimes like genocide.

This paper particularly looks into the Rwanda Genocide of 1994 and the Rohingya Genocide which is currently ongoing. The paper intends to make a comparative analysis of the responses of states and other bodies in prevention and punishment of genocide in the two instances. The paper aims at elucidating the necessary steps the world has made in prevention of acts of genocide, and what should be done during an ongoing genocide. It also analyses the punishments faced by the perpetrators and whether they were of deterrent nature or simply a slap on the wrist.

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To read the paper, open HERE.

Genocide: The International Community’s Response

By Bryan Kotowski
Bryan Kotowski graduated from University at Albany SUNY in 2013 where he majored in Psychology. He was accepted into the “3 plus 3” SUNY Albany and Albany Law pipeline program and is now a third year law student at Albany Law.
During his time in law school he has participated in the Gabrielli Appellate Advocacy Competition where he was a Quarter-Finalist, worked with attorneys at the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Immigration and Custom Enforcement and studied International Business Transactions in Rome, Italy. 
After law school, Bryan is hoping to pursue a position as a JAG Officer in the United States Army, which he hopes will later lead to a career with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
This essay was prepared for Prof. Bonventre's International Law of War and Crime Seminar.

I. Genocide; Generally

Genocide is defined as “any of the following acts committed with an intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

While genocide was originally thought of as a crime against humanity it became it’s own separate offense in 1948 with the adoption of the U.N. Genocide Convention. This Convention not only punishes acts of genocide but those acts associated with genocide, such as the “conspiracy to commit genocide”, as well as establishes individual criminal responsibility and international state responsibility for genocide. The Convention has been “widely acknowledged as representing customary international law.”

The Living Death: Prosecuting Rape as Torture Under International Law [The Presentation]

By Dana P. Stanton
Dana Stanton is a 2013 summa cum laude graduate of Albany Law School. She did her undergraduate work in chemical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and she worked as an engineer for General Electric in the Operations Management Leadership Program.
During law school, Dana was an associate editor on the Albany Law Review, and she interned with the Domestic Violence Prosecution Hybrid Clinic and the Family Violence Litigation Clinic, as well as with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of New York and the New York State Office of the Attorney General's Environmental Protection Bureau.
Dana is now an associate at the law firm of McNamee, Lochner, Titus and Williams in Albany, NY.
This presentation was prepared for Professor Bonventre’s International Law of War and Crime Seminar. It is the companion to Ms. Stanton's paper of the same title that was published by ILS on Sept.16, 2013.

As was stated in the introduction to that companion paper:
The torture of men has traditionally been taken more seriously under international law than sexual violence against women.   As a consequence, wartime rape was not prosecuted in international tribunals until the late 1990s.
However, the physical and psychological harm to rape victims can be just as severe as the harm to torture victims. International tribunals have begun to bring rape within the realm of jus cogens norm by prosecuting rape as a form of torture.
This presentation outlines how rape was used as a weapon in war, why rape was not prosecuted as a war crime until recently, compares rape to torture, explores the sexual violence in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the significance of jus cogens for international rape prosecutions.

(click to enlarge slides)

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For the entire presentation, open HERE.
(It is then best to Download [by clicking on File] and then Open the downloaded power-point presentation.)

The Living Death: Prosecuting Rape as Torture Under International Law

Dana P. Stanton is a 2013 summa cum laude graduate of Albany Law School. She did her undergraduate work in chemical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and she worked as an engineer for General Electric in the Operations Management Leadership Program.
During law school, Dana was an associate editor on the Albany Law Review, and she interned with the Domestic Violence Prosecution Hybrid Clinic and the Family Violence Litigation Clinic, as well as with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of New York and the New York State Office of the Attorney General's Environmental Protection Bureau.
Dana is now an associate at the law firm of McNamee, Lochner, Titus and Williams in Albany, NY.
This paper was prepared for Professor Bonventre’s International Law of War and Crime Seminar.

The torture of men has traditionally been taken more seriously under international law than sexual violence against women.   As a consequence, wartime rape was not prosecuted in international tribunals until the late 1990s.
However, the physical and psychological harm to rape victims can be just as severe as the harm to torture victims. International tribunals have begun to bring rape within the realm of jus cogens norm by prosecuting rape as a form of torture.
Part I of the paper explains how rape was used as a weapon in war, and Part II discusses why rape was not prosecuted as a war crime until recently. Part III explains rape from the victims’ perspective and Part IV compares rape to torture. Parts V through VII explore the sexual violence in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the jurisprudence arising therefrom. Finally, Part VIII discusses the significance of jus cogens for international rape prosecutions.

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To read the paper, open HERE.

Humanitarian Intervention in the Twenty First Century

Would the Security Council Intervene to Stop the Genocide in Rwanda if it Happened Today?

By Anna Ovcharenko

Anna Ovcharenko is a third-year student at Hofstra Law School and President of the Hofstra International Law Society. She is a magna cum laude graduate from Tomsk State University, Russia, where she majored in International Relations. Before law school, Anna served as a diplomat at the Russian Mission to the United Nations where she specialized in international development, children’s rights and environmental issues. In March 2010, she visited Rwanda as part of the UN official delegation. Past summer, Anna worked at the Global Legal Program at the Center for Reproductive Rights. In Spring 2013, she will start her legal internship at the Immigration Clinical Practicum.

This paper was prepared for Professor James Hickey’s International Human Rights Seminar at Hofstra Law School.

The 1994 genocide in Rwanda claimed the lives of at least 800,000 people while the United Nations withdrew its peacekeepers and the rest of the world stood aside. Had the UN Security Council mandated humanitarian intervention, it would have saved the lives of many innocent people.

This paper examines the development of the humanitarian intervention doctrine and analyzes whether it could have been used by the U.N. Security Council in the case of Rwanda. Specifically, it provides the factual context for the genocide in Rwanda and summarizes the lack of effective action by the Security Council to prevent it. It analyzes the international law of humanitarian intervention as it stands today and examines several instances of the use of force by the Security Council in situations amounting to genocide.

The paper concludes with a recommendation that the international community needs to develop a clearer framework for the use of force by the Security Council in the future.

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To read the paper, open HERE.

Humanitarian Intervention [presentation]

An Introduction to Legal Force

By Andrea A. Long
Andrea Long, a third-year student at Albany Law School, is the Executive Editor of the Center for Judicial Process. She is a magna cum laude graduate of the Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam. Andrea is a Senior Editor on the Albany Law Review, she served as Project Director of the Education Pro Bono Project, and she works year-round as a law clerk in the Office of General Counsel of New York State United Teachers. She was both the winner and Best Oral Advocate of the 2011 Domenick L. Gabrielli Appellate Advocacy Moot Court Competition. For the Fall 2012 semester, Andrea is a legal intern in the law school's Domestic Violence Prosecution Hybrid Clinic.
Andrea prepared this presentation for Professor Bonventre's seminar on International Law of War & Crime, Fall 2012. She has previously been published on ILS. (See Just War: Augustine, Aquinas, & Today, Oct. 28, 2012.)

Humanitarian intervention has become a controversial subject in international law. This presentation begins with a brief overview of humanitarian intervention and situations that often require it. The presentation then describes several different international conflicts with an analysis of the humanitarian intervention that occurred. It ends by suggesting methods for future improvements in humanitarian intervention.

(click to enlarge slides)

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For the entire presentation, open HERE.
(It is then best to download the presentation and view it from there.)