international law — Online Journal — Columbia Undergraduate Law Review

Examining Chile’s Constitutional Pathways Toward Political Decentralization

Chile’s ongoing effort to write a new constitution has created an opportunity for the country to create a more democratic, cohesive, and equal society. These core values guided the design behind each section of the proposed Chilean Constitution, from civil rights to government structure. The timing of this new constitution coincided with the decades-long legal movement to restructure power between the federal and regional governments; until then, Chile’s decentralization process had unfolded gradually through patchwork revisions to the current Constitution. [1] If ratified, the recently proposed constitution would have reconfigured the relationship between the federal and regional governments, distributing power locally through newly created political bodies that would have the resources to carry out their constitutional responsibilities. Even though the proposed constitution was rejected by Chileans in the 2022 plebiscite, understanding how its language would have changed power-sharing arrangements throughout the country allows us to visualize innovative legal methods for fostering and protecting local autonomy while still respecting the national political framework.

Taiwan’s Long (Impossible) Road from a De Facto to a De Jure Country: Is a New Constitution the Answer?

“Weeping in the wind, the orphan of Asia / There is scarlet mud on his yellowish face / There is White Terror in his dark pupils / And there is West Wind whistling the sad song in the East.” As Lo Ta-yu lamented in his song “The Orphan of Asia,” Taiwan in the 1980s suffered an identity crisis, drifting between the Nationalist Party’s urge to reclaim mainland China and the inhabitants’ will to put down roots on the island—all amidst the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) intensifying efforts to subjugate the island. An abandonment sentiment began to brew, and today, it has amplified in more concrete ways: the denied entry to the United Nations (UN), the constant terror of an imminent Chinese invasion, and the lack of recognition from the international community.

Yu (Sunny) FangDecember 27, 2022Cross-Strait relations, Taiwanese Independence, international law

Poland’s Women’s Strike and the Legality of Radical Forms of Verbal Protest in Defense of Democratic Principles

They say desperate times call for desperate measures. Yet is this concept applicable in law? Women protesting against the unconstitutional abortion ban in Poland found out the hard way. On October 22, 2020, women in Poland were stripped of their rights to abortion. According to the new amendment to the Parliamentary Act on Family Planning, the Protection of Human Feti, and the Conditions Permitting the Termination of Pregnancy of January 7, 1993, the procedure is also penalized when carried out in accord with medical recommendations on embryo-pathological premises. [1]

Ewa SiemiatkowskaNovember 14, 2022polish law, freedom of speech, abortion ban, protests, international law

Can the U.S. Turn Away Asylees At Sea? A Legal Examination of the Migrant Interdiction Program

On April 12, 2022, the Coast Guard intercepted a vessel near the Bahamas carrying sixty seven Haitian migrants. [1] The rickety, U.S.-bound boat was stopped, its migrants were transferred onto a Coast Guard cutter, and ultimately, the entire group was sent back to Haiti. [2] This is common practice for the Migrant Interdiction Program (MIP)– the Coast Guard performs interdictions by intercepting refugee boats before they enter U.S. territorial waters and returning them back to their country of origin where many face imprisonment and torture, with insufficient determination of asylum eligibility. [3] Created in 1981 by President Reagan’s Executive Order 12324, the MIP was established as a “necessary and proper means” of enforcing U.S. immigration laws by preventing undocumented migration. [4]

Bowei LiOctober 4, 2022asylum, refugees, interdiction, international law

What is a “Refugee”? Expanding the UN Refugee Convention in the Face of Climate Change

Over the next few decades, anthropogenic climate change will force hundreds of millions from their homes in a migrant crisis of unprecedented proportions. As global temperatures rise, a series of “slow onset” environmental catastrophes has been set in motion; in many regions of the world, fresh water is becoming scarce, agricultural productivity is declining, and rising sea levels are producing higher storm surges. [1] Modeling the effects of these and other factors—such as heat stress, more extreme weather events, and the loss of habitable land—on “livability,” the World Bank predicts “climate change ... could force 216 million people ... to move by 2050.” [2] While some of these displaced individuals may migrate to safer regions within their home countries, many will choose to move to countries less economically affected by climate change. Ensuring that these future migrants receive government support is necessary to guarantee that they can secure a livelihood and find community in their new homes.

Sreyas AdirajuFebruary 7, 2022climate change, refugees, international law

How International Children’s Rights Law Can Force Governments to Prioritize Tackling Climate Change

The United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) guarantees youth the human right to be protected from threats. According to the convention, which was ratified by 196 UN member nations, all children are entitled to the “inherent right to life” and education, with the goal of these rights being the “development of the child’s personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential.” Of all the threats children face, climate change is, without a doubt, proving itself to be the most formidable and existential. Today, the planet increasingly hurdles over temperature records, while extreme weather phenomena worsen in intensity and frequency each year. It has become increasingly evident that, due to climate change, children will lack an environment conducive to their development in the coming decades.

The Self-Defense Principle Re-examined: The Israel-Palestine Conflict in International Law

May 2021 clashes in the Gaza Strip between the Israeli Defense Forces and Hamas, Gaza’s de facto government, have caused the Israel-Palestine conflict to capture international attention yet again. The conflict can be dated back to the early 20th century, when the British Empire first took control over what was then known as the Palestinian mandate after the end of the First World War. Since then, the region has seen bitter disputes between the Arab majority and the Jewish minority over the ownership of the land. The conflict intensified after the United Nations (UN) proposal to partition the territory in 1948, which culminated in the eviction of more than 700,000 Palestinians in an event known as the Nakba, as well as increasing Israeli infringement upon the delineated Palestinian lands. Since 2005, Israel has committed to a process known as “distanciation,” in which Israel reduced its direct military occupation of Palestinian territories, leaving the strip of Gaza to stand alone.

COVID-19 and Intellectual Property Rights: The Promises and Limitations of a WTO Vaccine Intellectual Property Waiver

Over the past year and a half, COVID-19 has ravaged the planet. However, in the past few months, while the developed world, spurred by high-efficacy vaccines, has enjoyed relative normalcy, the developing world has suffered the worst of the pandemic. This disparity has sparked debate around whether the World Trade Organization (WTO) should grant an Intellectual Property (IP) waiver for technology related to COVID-19 vaccine production. This waiver would protect national governments that issue a compulsory license—the right to produce a patented product—to its companies for the vaccine from legal action by other members. The resulting increase in producers would theoretically fuel a decrease in vaccine prices, making vaccines available to poorer nations.

Milieudefensie et al v. Royal Dutch Shell: Budding Legal Corporate Accountability in the Climate Change Fight

In the past fifty years, torrents of environmental regulations have washed down upon corporate activity around the world, collecting into what many have termed an ‘environmental alphabet soup.’ Indeed, over 1,300 multilateral environmental agreements, 2,200 baseline environmental assessments, 250 other environmental agreements, and 90,000 individual country actions in accordance with these assessments currently exist. Yet, because international environmental standards lack systematic means of enforcing corporate adherence, corporate heads have the leeway to continue prioritizing profit over their environmental responsibilities, and, as a consequence, the world has seen a 75 percent increase in global greenhouse gas emissions between 1970 and 2004. To remedy this lack of oversight, the corporate accountability movement aims to build an environmental standard of care: a set of responsibilities each corporate entity has to prevent any anticipatable environmental damage.