Jeffrey S. Morton

The international legal regime on genocide

Andreopoulos (1994, p 1) notes that no crime matches genocide in the moral opprobrium that it generates. Constituting a criminal intent to destroy or cripple permanently a human group, acts of genocide shock the collective conscience of the world’s community perhaps like no other act. While the commission of genocide dates to antiquity, it is in response to the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany during World War II that the international community undertook the development of international laws designed to both prevent and punish acts of genocide. Over the course of the past quarter-century, genocide has come under increasing scrutiny from legal experts, scholars, statespersons, and citizens for a variety of reasons. Acts of genocide in a number of states, including Cambodia, Bosnia and Rwanda, have captured international attention. Legal developments, principally in the form of the establishment of two ad hoc tribunals, three genocide cases brought before the International Court of Justice, and the establishment of the International Criminal Court with jurisdiction over cases involving the crime of genocide, have encouraged scholars to revisit the provisions codified in the 1948 Genocide Convention. Efforts by Spain to secure the extradition of Augusto Pinochet, the former head of state of Chile, on charges of genocide and the prosecution of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on numerous counts, including genocide, further elevated the debate on the issues of immunity, jurisdiction and extradition as they relate to the adjudication of the crime of genocide. At the same time, these events along with fundamental changes in the international system associated with the end of the Cold War have resulted in greater expectations from the international community that the legal regime on genocide will succeed in its ambitious aims of both preventing and punishing acts of genocide. Thus, it is within an atmosphere of renewed optimism and unparalleled expectations that studies of genocide and the legal prohibitions against it have been undertaken. The focus of this article is the contemporary legal status of the international regime on genocide. In order to assess its current status, the evolution of the regime is examined. Central to the regime’s current status are the provisions codified in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which are analyzed on an article-by-article basis. While the

Uncertainty, Change, and War: Power Fluctuations and War in the Modern Elite Power System

This article examines the relationship between power fluctuations in the elite power system and the frequency of war. A theory is developed and tested using a new dataset of elite powers and elite power wars. The theory posits that fluctuations in the elite power system are related to war among elite powers due to an increase in uncertainty that accompanies such fluctuations. The theory is logically extended to contend that as elite power systems age (move temporally away from the point of fluctuation) the frequency of war will decrease, due to the decline of uncertainty. The theory is supported by analysis employing an existing dataset collected by Jack Levy, as well as a new elite war dataset. Additionally, in terms of the type of fluctuation and war, the study finds that as the system becomes more complex the incidence of war also increases.

The Legal Status of Laser Weapons That Blind

In response to growing concerns over the production, deployment, and use of laser weapons that cause blinding, the international community in 1995 convened an international conference to restrict the use and transfer of blinding laser weapons. The result was the Fourth Additional Protocol to the 1980 United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. In doing so, a significant step was taken towards restricting the intentional blinding of combatants in time of war. This article provides a review of the process by which the Fourth Additional Protocol was drafted and an analysis of its legal impact on the use of laser weapon systems.

The Arab Spring: Implications for Israeli Security

The popular uprising that started in Tunisia in December 2010 quickly spread across the Arab world, culminating in a historic regional realignment with far-reaching implications. This essay details the implications of the Arab Spring for Israeli security. After highlighting the history of Israel’s defense strategy and reviewing the Arab Spring revolts, the authors find that the recent uprisings exacerbate several issues faced by Israel, including geopolitical relations with other countries in the region, energy issues, and growing threats presented by nonstate actors.

The international law commission of the United Nations: Legal vacuum or microcosm of world politics?

Classical realists and Utopian idealists have long disagreed over the nature of international law. While classical realists from E.H. Carr to Hans Morgenthau contend that law is the product of power realities in international relations, Utopian idealists reject such power explanations, focusing instead on the institutions that create international law. This study addresses that theoretic struggle by empirically examining the intervention of world politics in the debate process of the International Law Commission. A data base is created from the debate record of Law Commission members from 1983 to 1989. Content analysis is performed to test explicit hypotheses that examine the Utopian assumption of an apolitical Law Commission found in the Commissions Statute. The findings indicate that the Law Commission functions in a manner that is greatly constrained by global politics and power realities. The focus on institutions, prevalent in the literature, is misleading and fails to capture the essence of the deb...