Syrian Culpability for “Crimes Against Humanity”

Like a handful of other states in the Middle East, Syria has experienced significant domestic political turmoil in recent months, with a sizable and seemingly increasing percentage of its population openly protesting against the autocratic government of Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian government has responded with a crackdown comprised of some of the most violent and repressive tactics seen anywhere since the start of the Arab Spring several months ago. In a report issued yesterday, the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the United Nations described this crackdown as a systematic campaign of murder, torture, deprivation of liberty, and persecution that spans from March to July 2011. The report, which is based on a series of field investigations conducted by the Office of the High Commissioner, concludes that the Syrian government’s conduct “may amount to crimes against humanity” under Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The report seems to raise three questions for most readers: First, what is a “crime against humanity”? Second, how might the Syrian government have engaged in such conduct? And third, what consequences, if any, follow from culpability?

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The Dodgers Debacle

Straight out of Hollywood, in what has turned into a long-running soap opera, is Major League Baseball’s own “War of the Roses.” MLB’s version, featuring the divorce of the Los Angeles Dodgers owners Frank and Jamie McCourt, is being played out in court venues across three states and in a sundry of court proceedings and legal maneuverings involving numerous areas of law as well as MLB’s rules.  This is not “Dodgers Baseball”; instead this tragedy has thrown “one of the most prestigious teams in all of sport” into the depths of despair, financial ruin, legal turmoil, and fodder for the tabloids.

The story begins with Frank McCourt’s purchase of the Los Angeles Dodgers in January 2004 after a failed attempt to purchase his home town team, the Boston Red Sox.  Soon thereafter, he and his wife Jamie headed out to the “Wild Wild West.”

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Postcard from Giessen

The third annual U.S.- German Summer School in International and Comparative Law came to a successful conclusion with the program’s closing ceremony on August 12, in Giessen, Germany.  This year’s session of the program, sponsored jointly by Marquette University Law School, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University of Giessen, featured 68 law students from 20 countries. Faculty members came from the University of Giessen; the University of Gottingen; the University of Wisconsin; and Marquette.

The program’s Marquette contingent for 2011 consisted of 24 law students and Professors Gordon Hylton and Alan Madry.  The session lasted from July 16 through August 13.

This year’s course offerings included International Human Rights (team-taught by a group of professors from Giessen and Gottingen including program co-director Thilo Marauhn of the University of Giessen); Comparative and International Sports Law (taught by Professor J. Gordon Hylton of Marquette); International Business Transactions (taught by Adjunct Professor Eric Ibele of the Univeristy of Wisconsin); and International Economic Law (taught by Sven Simon of the University of Giessen). Classes were held at the law and economics campus of the University of Giessen.  The program also included law-oriented field trips to Brussels and Berlin and a recreation tour of the Rhine Valley.

Also participating in the program in Giessen were co-directors Professor Alan Madry of Marquette and Professor Stephen Barkan of the University of Wisconsin.  (Professor Barkan is also a former Marquette law professor who served as Interim Dean of the Law School during the 1994-95 academic year.)  Students were expected to enroll in two of the courses, although a number of foreign students enrolled in three or four.

Students from Marquette included: Ryan Albregts, Andrea Austin, Margaret Barr, Justin Bertron, Tyler Brennan, Allison Ceille, Jason Cooper, Alexandra Dziamski, Matthew Galvin, Cody Garza, John Graham, Patricia Heise, Aneet Kaur, Patrick Kern, Derek Kulland, Stephen Laczniak, Adam Lopez, Patricia Mattingly, Jonathan Meulemans, Brad Meyer, Jessica Pfau, Lauren Raupp, Bryan Strand, and Ryan Truesdale.

In addition to the Marquette students, there were six law students from the University of Wisconsin as well as students from the law schools at Northern Kentucky University and the University of Southern California.  The 36 remaining students came from the following countries: Brazil, the Central African Republic, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Georgia, Germany, Greece, (South) Korea, Krygystan, Latvia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, and Ukraine.

An article on the program published earlier this week in the Giessener Anzeiger (a local newspaper) can be found at http://www.giessener-anzeiger.de/lokales/hochschule/11064040.htm.  Unfortunately, the article is in German, and the photo accompanying the article is of the class attending the University of Giessen’s International Summer School in Biodiversity and Law, rather than the students and faculty in the International and Comparative Law program.  (Both programs held commencement exercises in the same building on the same day.)  One of the students in the picture is Professor Hylton’s daughter Veronica.

A program description provided by the University of Giessen can be found at http://www.recht.uni-giessen.de/wps/fb01/home/summer_program_law/1002292/. The Marquette description is here.

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