EXTENDING COMITY TO FOREIGN DECREES IN INTERNATIONAL CUSTODY DISPUTES BETWEEN PARENTS IN THE UNITED STATES AND ISLAMIC NATIONS

International custody disputes involving parents and children from Islamic nations and the United States have yielded a spectrum of interpretation of Islamic Shari'a law and the best interests of the child. The lack of a determinative treaty between the United States and all but one Islamic nation has led to an inconsistency of criterion in determining whether to extend comity to a custody decree from a court of an Islamic nation. The domestic law statutes, which determine jurisdiction in these matters, have provisions for international application and recognition of foreign custody decrees. The recognition of custody decrees from the courts of Islamic nations is contingent upon the satisfying of procedural and substantive thresholds. Focusing on the substantive, the author opines that American courts have a responsibility to understand certain aspects of the law, culture, and religion of Islam in order to accurately determine if the threshold has been meet.     

Child witnesses and the confrontation clause

InMaryland v. Craig, the United States Supreme Court relied heavily on a brief prepared by a committee of the American Psychology-Law Society on behalf of the American Psychological Association (APA). The APA brief concluded that sexually abused children may be particularly vulnerable to distress in the legal process, especially when forced to confront the defendant face to face, and that such acute distress may be inconsistent with the state's interests in promotion of reliable testimony and child welfare. APA also argued that psychological theory and research provide foundations for individualized determination of the need for measures to protect children from face-to-face confrontation. *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** AFE06051 00002     

Toward Peace in the World of Business through International Criminal Justice

In response to the concerns of the world community over the interlockings between the abuse of economic and political power and its potential negative effect on national socio-economic development efforts, the United Nations has undertaken several major strategic programs. The recent Sixth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders focused on this topic, with a global strategy beginning to emerge. Yet that strategy could be on a collision course with the policies of the new American administration. The author reasons that support for an international control strategy is in the best interests of the United States and other Western nations, that it need not collide with a laissez-faire domestic policy, and that it provides an alternative to violent acts of aggression and other non-negotiated mechanisms for achieving world economic justice.     

Constitution, Court, Indian Tribes

We claim that the "constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof… shall be the supreme law of the land." But we also claim to recognize the sovereignty of Native American nations, the original occupants of the land. These claims—one to jurisdictional monopoly, the other to jurisdictional mu1tiplicity—are irreconcilable. Two hundred years have produced no resolution of the contradiction except at the expense of the tribes and the loss to non-Indians of the Indians' gift of their diflerence. This article explores the bear- ing of American constitutional law upon Native American tribes.     

Illusions and Realities of the "New Era"

"Last week the world suffered a shock that will inevitably make us divide the time into two parts—before the terrorist acts in the United States and after them. Because a new world and a new world order are being born in the ruins of the World Trade Center" (S. Strokan', "The Dawn of a New Era" [Zarevo novoi ery], Kommersant-Vlast', 2001, no. 37 [18 September], p. 35). Not only the Russian political weeklies thought this. The tragic events that the United States suffered on 11 September not only sent many countries into shock but also sparked the idea that humanity suddenly found itself in an incomprehensible world, a new space-time—that life would be different from then on, that we would think differently and structure international relations differently. Even some of the supporters of Francis Fukuyama, who proclaimed the "end of history" more than ten years ago, hurriedly declared that the "oracle" was wrong, since on 11 September events of historic scale and significance had taken place in the United States. One critic of the American "prophet" noted, not without sarcasm, that "Black Tuesday" signified "the end of the end of history." That did not, however, shake the convictions of Fukuyama himself. In an article eloquently titled "History Is Still Going Our Way," published in The Wall Street Journal Europe on 8 October, he continued to assert that "we remain in the final stage of history" (F. Fukuyama, "History Is Still Going Our Way," The Wall Street Journal Europe, 8 October 2001).     

Targeting the terrorists: A legal proposal for assassinating terrorists as a preemptive strike

Recently, Sam Nunn, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, stated to a gathering of weapons scientists and military planners at Los Alamos National Laboratory that, although the Cold War is over, “this is a world of regional wars, of spreading ethnic, religious and tribal warfare” in which more countries are acquiring the capability to unleash mass death. In January, 1994, then‐Defense Secretary Les Aspin wrote in his annual report to the President and Congress that “[t]he danger that [weapons of mass destruction] might be used against U.S. forces in some conflict is not, unfortunately, theoretical.” In July, 1994, during a visit to Moscow, FBI Director Louis Freeh commented that the efforts of organized crime to steal or buy weapons‐grade nuclear material is “the greatest long‐term threat to the security of the United States.” Later that month, “credible threats” were received by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence sources of an impending bombing of Israeli targets throughout the United States. While targeting Israeli interests is not uncommon, the fact that such targets were in the U.S. is somewhat alarming.

These statements and other episodes emphasize the ever‐increasing threat that confronts the United States. Terrorists, by nature, are continuously modifying their tactics to thwart defensive/protective measures placed before them by many nations. Therefore, it is contingent upon these nations to develop new strategies and remain one step ahead of the potential nuclear attackers. One such strategy is assassinating the terrorist before he strikes. While many commentators and politicians summarily dismiss this idea, it remains a viable, yet unexplored, option. This article details the historical and current perspectives on assassination as well as its legal significance and justification. While this author is not advocating a national policy of assassination, this argument is submitted strictly as an academic exercise for consideration and debate.     

Public Diplomacy,Smith-Mundt and the American Public

The U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, also known as the Smith-Mundt Act, is a mostly unknown and widely misunderstood piece of legislation. Revised multiple times, the law bans domestic dissemination of Voice of America and other U.S. international broadcast content in the United States. Presenting government-supported international broadcasting as an example of public diplomacy, this article discusses the long-term misrepresentation of Smith-Mundt's original intent and highlights the consequences of the continuing ban. The article considers prospects for ending the ban and emphasizes potential opportunities presented by its elimination, concluding that ending the ban might eliminate incongruity between American foreign policy goals of democracy promotion and the reality of banned domestic content. Repeal of the ban may also result in unexpected remedies for challenges facing the American media industry and the American public's desire for international news.

The United States government may be the largest broadcaster that few Americans know about. Although its networks reach 100 countries in 59 languages, they are banned from distribution in the United States by a 1948 law devised to prevent the government from turning its propaganda machine on its own citizens. ^{1 1}Mark Landler, A New Voice of America for the Age of Twitter, N.Y. Times, June 7, 2011 at 9. The broadcasters comprising the U.S. international broadcasting operation are the Voice of America (VOA), Alhurra, Radio Sawa, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and Radio and TV Marti. The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) is “a bipartisan agency … that acts as a ‘firewall’ between the U.S. government and international broadcasting entities it funds.” Kim Andrew Elliott, America Calling: A 21st-Century Model, Foreign Service J., Oct. 2010, at 31. When Smith-Mundt was passed in 1948, USIB authority fell under the Department of State. Later, Congress created the United States Information Agency (USIA) to facilitate American public diplomacy operations. After the end of the cold war, Congress dismantled USIA and returned responsibility for American public diplomacy efforts to the Department of State. For an excellent history of the rise and fall of the USIA, see Nicholas J. Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy 1945–1989 (2008).      

Transferring gas-turbine technologies to the former Soviet Union: Opportunities and problems

The new nations of the Commonwealth of Independent States are notoriously energy- inefficient. States like Russia and Ukraine seek technologies from the West that will improve efficient combustion of fossil fuels. Recently, scientists in the United States and the former Soviet Union have explored the idea of transferring technologies to Russia and Ukraine to develop and mass-produce aeroderivative gas turbines, which promise to quickly replace power lost front the shut- down of unsafe nuclear reactors in Russia, Ukraine and the former Soviet republics. Production of these turbines could promote defense conversion in Russia and Ukraine and could provide opportunities for American companies to trade and invest in emerging markets. Despite these clear advantages, formidable obstacles impede the immediate development, production, and commercialization of this technology by American firms in the former Soviet republics. Constraints include competition from European firms that are developing and marketing similar technologies, unfavorable business and economic conditions in the former Soviet republics, and official Russian- US differences concerning the closure of nuclear power plants and development of oil and gas reserves.     

Women and the dynamics of marriage,household status,and aging in victorian canada and the united states

This article compares the life course transitions and household statuses of Canadian and American women and men in late nineteenth-century Canada and the United States. Using a set of integrated census data from 1871 Canada and the United States in 1880, the article suggests that household status differences between the two nations centered on gender. Canadian and American men timed or experienced their own transitions into and out of marriage and household headship at similar ages and to a similar extent. Demographic and economic differences between Victorian Canada and the United States, however, produced distinctions in Canadian and American women's life course transitions and household status: for Canadian women, older ages at first marriage, and the prolongation of the duration of the status, spouse of the household head. For their part, American elderly women more frequently lived as single and widowed heads of households than did their Canadian counterparts.     

The United States Supreme Court and the death penalty since Furman: The settlement of basic issues

In 1972 the United States Supreme Court in Furman V. Georgia found that the death penalty as it was then being applied was cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. Furman provided few constitutional guidelines, but states reinacted their death penalty statutes.In 1976 the Court began to receive appeals from death sentences imposed under the reinacted statutes. In its decisions the Court began to establish guidelines. It found the death penalty was not per se cruel and unusual punishment. Before the death penalty can be imposed the court must take into consideration any mitigating circumstances and the case must be reviewed by the state supreme court. A mandatory death sentence is unconstitutional.Other issues including proportionality, due process and finality of judgment will be examined in the next segment of this study.     

Women and the dynamics of marriage, household status, and aging in victorian canada and the united states

This article compares the life course transitions and household statuses of Canadian and American women and men in late nineteenth-century Canada and the United States. Using a set of integrated census data from 1871 Canada and the United States in 1880, the article suggests that household status differences between the two nations centered on gender. Canadian and American men timed or experienced their own transitions into and out of marriage and household headship at similar ages and to a similar extent. Demographic and economic differences between Victorian Canada and the United States, however, produced distinctions in Canadian and American women's life course transitions and household status: for Canadian women, older ages at first marriage, and the prolongation of the duration of the status, spouse of the household head. For their part, American elderly women more frequently lived as single and widowed heads of households than did their Canadian counterparts.     

Formed by thalidomide: mass torts as a false cure for toxic exposure

Professor Bernstein considers a theme of Judge Weinstein's judicial and academic writings--that tort law works imperfectly to effect justice in mass disaster cases--through the vehicle of thalidomide, the paradigmatic toxic substance. Thirty-five years ago, thalidomide poisoned thousands of children, inflicting limb-reduction birth defects. Professor Bernstein argues that the drug has also had a malforming effect on mass tort law. Courts and scholars have used the precedent of thalidomide to build stringent legal standards of proof and causation, without enough attention to the functions and consistency of these standards. Thalidomide has also prompted commentators to celebrate American drug regulation and the American liability system; Professor Bernstein argues that these paeans are exaggerated. She concludes that the United States must confront its thalidomide history, as other nations in the world have done, and build social institutions--strong regulation and social insurance--to guard against toxic disasters of the future.     

International Law and Administrative Insulation: A Comparison of Refugee Status Determination Regimes in the United States,Canada, and Australia

International law provides nations with a common definition of a refugee, yet the processes by which countries determine who should be granted refugee status look strikingly different, even across nations with many institutional, cultural, geographical, and political similarities. This article compares the refugee status determination regimes of three popular asylum seeker destinations—the United States, Canada, and Australia. Despite these nations' similar border control policies, asylum seekers crossing their borders access three very different systems. These differences have less to do with political debates over admission and border control policy than with the level of insulation the administrative decision‐making agency enjoys from political interference and judicial review. Bureaucratic justice is conceptualized and organized differently in different states, and so states vary in how they draw the line between refugee and nonrefugee.     

TO REGULATE OR NOT TO REGULATE: THE NEED FOR COMPLIANCE WITH INTERNATIONAL NORMS BY GUATEMALA AND COOPERATION BY THE UNITED STATES IN ORDER TO MAINTAIN INTERCOUNTRY ADOPTIONS

The United States will be entering into force the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption by the end of 2007. At this time, all intercountry adoptions that occur between the United States and one of the 70 other countries that also have entered the Hague Convention into force must be done according to Hague protocol. Guatemala has entered the Convention into force but its adoption practices do not currently align themselves with Convention requirements. The U.S. State Department has threatened that intercountry adoptions between the United States and Guatemala will come to a complete stop if Guatemala's conditions are not reformed. One out of every 100 children born in Guatemala is adopted by an American family and in the 2006 fiscal year, the United States adopted 4,135 Guatemalan babies. This high number placed Guatemala as the second country from which the United States adopted the most children in 2006 second only to China. A structured compromise must be established between the United States and Guatemala in order to ensure the continued provision of homes to Guatemala babies in America while Guatemala reforms its malignant adoption practices.     

Identifying Southwest Hispanics using nonmetric traits and the cultural profile

Due to the increasing number of Southwest Hispanics in the United States, as well as the overwhelming number of foreign nationals that die every year trying to enter the United States along the southern United States border with Mexico, new methods for classifying individuals have been established at the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner in Tucson, Arizona (PCOME). For each of the past 5 years, the PCOME has investigated a record number of deaths associated with these border crossings. The overwhelming majority of the identified decedents are Mexican Nationals. However, approximately 25% of these undocumented border crossers have yet to be identified, making it clear that improved methods for human identification are greatly needed. The first goal of this paper is to delineate the suite of skeletal nonmetric traits utilized in assessing Southwest Hispanic ancestry at the PCOME. This suite of nonmetric traits has proven to be an effective component in establishing the "biological profile" of unknown individuals in these cases. The second goal of this paper is to introduce methods used at the PCOME to establish the "cultural profile" of individuals in these cases. The "cultural profile" is a set of identification criteria that include: the geographic context of recovery, personal effects, dental health, and cultural accoutrements. Establishing the "cultural profile" in these cases is essential in identifying individuals as foreign nationals who have died trying to cross the border.     

The impact of human rights principles on extradition from Canada and the United States: The role of national courts

Conclusion Throughout this article, the primary emphasis has been on how the courts in Canada and the United States have decided to apply international human rights standards, many of which have been incorporated into national constitutions, in extradition cases. The emphasis on national courts reflects the particular North American experience, where only limited jurisdiction in these matters exists in the relevant international forum, the UN Human Rights Committee. Accordingly, resort must be made to domestic constitutional rights.In order to give practical effect to international human rights obligations in Canada and the United States, courts can play a useful role, in addition to the role exercised by the executive branch of government. The ambit of this role depends upon the point at which judicial interference is viewed as necessary to protect fundamental rights and override considerations of international cooperation. In Canada the point has been located where there is a risk of treatment that is simply unacceptable178 or that would shock the conscience. In the United States, courts have in the past demonstrated a degree of willingness to probe into potential violations that would be expected if extradition were to be granted and that would offend a federal court's sense of decency.¹⁸⁰ However, there is dispute about the propriety of this encroachment on the rule of noninquiry. Recently, the pendulum has begun to swing toward applying the rule of noninquiry more stringently and, at present, U.S. courts play a very limited role in examining the motives behind an extradition request and the procedures or punishment that likely await an individual upon return to the requesting state.While there are many differences between the constitutional regimes of protection in Canada and the United States as compared with the multilateral treaty protection of the European Convention, there appear to be a number of parallels in interpretation and application. Continued scrutiny of the jurisprudence from both sides of the Atlantic could benefit each jurisdiction.This article was originally prepared for an international workshop on Principles and Procedures for a New Transnational Criminal Law, organized jointly by the Society for the Reform of Criminal Law and the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law, Freiburg, Germany, May 21–25, 1991. The views expressed herein are those of the authors themselves and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Canadian Department of Justice.B.A., University of Winnipeg 1975; LL.B., University of Manitoba 1978; LL.M., University of Toronto 1980.LL.B., University of Manitoba 1980; B.A., University of Manitoba 1986; Dip. Soc. Sci., University of Stockholm 1988; M.A., University of Toronto 1989.     

Inching toward incrementalism: federalism, devolution, and health policy in the United States and the United Kingdom

In the United States, the recently enacted Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 envisions a significant increase in federal oversight over the nation's health care system. At the same time, however, the legislation requires the states to play key roles in every aspect of the reform agenda (such as expanding Medicaid programs, creating insurance exchanges, and working with providers on delivery system reforms). The complicated intergovernmental partnerships that govern the nation's fragmented and decentralized system are likely to continue, albeit with greater federal oversight and control. But what about intergovernmental relations in the United Kingdom? What impact did the formal devolution of power in 1999 to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have on health policy in those nations, and in the United Kingdom more generally? Has devolution begun a political process in which health policy in the United Kingdom will, over time, become increasingly decentralized and fragmented, or will this "state of unions" retain its long-standing reputation as perhaps the most centralized of the European nations? In this article, we explore the federalist and intergovernmental implications of recent reforms in the United States and the United Kingdom, and we put forward the argument that political fragmentation (long-standing in the United States and just emerging in the United Kingdom) produces new intergovernmental partnerships that, in turn, produce incremental growth in overall government involvement in the health care arena. This is the impact of what can be called catalytic federalism.     

When death is the sanction—United States and worldwide perspectives

Conclusion Gross and Mauro are probably correct in concluding that in the United States McCleskey ... certainly seems to represent a final decision to give up any pretense that the death penalty can be tamed.8 Current attempts at judicial oversight in the United States have proved as ineffective in bridling the discretion of capital case decision makers as were prior attempts at legislative and gubernatorial oversight. The historical lesson appears to be unmistakable: the nation must either abolish the death penalty or suffer its improper application and imposition. The worldwide pattern documented by Hood reinforces this conclusion; when the death penalty is on a country's statute books, it will be used—but, sooner or later, improperly so. No attempts at judicial or other forms of vigilance have proved this prediction to be incorrect—no matter how few cases have been permitted to flow through the system and no matter how principled have been the system and its officials.B.A., Queens College 1969; M. A., University of Pennsylvania 1973; Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania 1978.     

Disease subject to presumptive service connection (radiation risk activity)--VA. Final rule

This document amends Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) adjudication regulations concerning diseases presumed to be the result of exposure to ionizing radiation. This amendment is necessary to implement Public Law 103-446, the Veterans' Benefits Improvements Act, which provides that the term "radiation risk activity" includes the onsite participation in a test involving the atmospheric detonation of a nuclear device by the United States and by other governments. The intended effect of this amendment is to extend the presumption of service connection for radiogenic disabilities to those veterans exposed to radiation during active military service due to onsite participation in atmospheric nuclear tests conducted by nations other than the United States.     

Goodbye to All That? The Rule of Law,International Law,the United States,and the Use of Force

The attitude of past United States administrations to public international law, particularly but not exclusively governing the use of force, has often seemed ambivalent, or sometimes decidedly hostile (where the conduct of the United States itself was called in to question). This paper considers the attitude of many of those with power or influence in the Bush administration (particularly that of the 'neo-conservatives'), and the implications of their often thinly disguised contempt for public international law which might seek to constrain the exercise of United States power. The conclusion is that while the academic arguments which seek to justify this American 'exceptionalism' are worthy of serious examination, they are ultimately inadequate and in the interests of neither the rest of the world, nor, finally, the United States itself.