CJIL Online is the official digital-only imprint of the Chicago Journal of International Law. Established in 2021, CJIL Online furthers the Journal’s mission by highlighting particularly timely, dynamic, and cutting-edge developments in international and comparative law. CJIL Online also strives to be as accessible as possible—both for readers and academics seeking to publish. We review submissions on a year-round, rolling basis and consider a wide range of manuscripts, from shorter Essays to traditional Articles. CJIL Online upholds the Journal’s long-standing values of intellectual curiosity, rigor, and professionalism.

 

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Comment
CJIL Online 4.1
Administering an International Climate Migration Lottery
Hana Nasser
B.A., University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Ph.D., University of Virginia, J.D. Candidate at the University of Chicago

I would like to thank my comment editors, Amara Shaikh and Tyler Lawson for their feedback and guidance. Professor Nicole Hallett provided detailed comments on drafts and helped me sharpen the argument. Professor Tom Ginsburg provided valuable feedback on the comment’s proposed design for a climate migration lottery.

Experts predict that millions of people will need to migrate internally and across borders due to global warming. Currently, international legal frameworks do not extend the same legal protections to climate migrants as are afforded refugees and asylum seekers. While international law recognizes the right to asylum based on political persecution, there is no international right to migrate based on climate-based harms that states are legally bound to observe. This Comment proposes a climate migration lottery (CML) that would be administered internationally to address current and future climate-based migration. Under this proposal, receiving states would agree via a treaty to admit their fair share of the total pool of climate migrants selected through the lottery. Migrants from countries with a high susceptibility to having large portions of territory rendered uninhabitable by climate change would be eligible to enter the CML. This comment argues that a CML can alleviate the strain on regions in developing states that must accommodate internally displaced persons as well as the burden on countries that are near low-lying Pacific island states that will experience significant rates of displacement due to sea level rises.

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Comment
CJIL Online 3.2
The Cathedral of Looted Goods: Enforcing Cultural Property Repatriation with Calabresi and Melamed’s Entitlement Protection Rules
Jennifer Kuo

I am endlessly grateful for the staff of the Chicago Journal of International Law, my faculty advisor Professor Lee Fennell, and my family and friends for their continued support, assistance, and guidance throughout the process of writing this Comment.

Normatively, most nations agree that holding onto artifacts belonging to other peoples is both morally and legally unconscionable, but practically, there has been no enforcement scheme under international law for artifacts to finally return home. Calabresi and Melamed’s property, liability, and inalienability rules could be justified and applied to repatriation disputes through consideration of a mixture of economic efficiency, distributive, and justice motivations. Using this framework to create a model of variable protection of international law would create a comprehensive enforcement scheme that resolves the fundamental enforcement problem that international law faces in facilitating repatriation.

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Comment
CJIL Online 3.2
A Comparative Approach to Addressing Language Discrepancies in Multilingual Treaties
Jake Atlas
B.A. 2020, the University of Texas at Austin; J.D. Candidate 2025, The University of Chicago Law School.

I would like to thank Professor Tom Ginsburg and the staff of the Chicago Journal of International Law for their invaluable assistance and guidance.

Multilingual treaties have a long history of interpretation at the International Court of Justice. Yet the ICJ has often ignored their unique features and interpreted them as they would any other treaty. This has led to judgments and advisory opinions that fail to reconcile discrepancies between language versions of multilingual treaties and therefore do not follow the interpretive guidelines set under Article 33 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Yet these issues facing the ICJ are not unique to that Court. Many jurisdictions face the problems of multilingualism and use novel solutions that the ICJ could incorporate. This Comment begins by analyzing two challenges facing multilingual legislation in Canada and the European Union, namely: de facto unilingualism and discrepancies in language versions. Next, it will argue that both jurisdictions have relied on unique solutions to address those two challenges. Finally, this Comment will turn its attention back to multilingual treaties and the ICJ. It will argue that the same challenges that face multilingual legislation exist for multilingual treaties. Given this, it will argue that the solutions used by Canada and the EU can be applied in the context of treaties and the ICJ should adopt those solutions to better reflect the purposes of Article 33 of the Vienna Convention and the unique principles of multilingual treaties.

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Comment
CJIL Online 3.1
Ending the Race to the Bottom: Analyzing A Recent Global Agreement on Corporate Taxation
Rupan Bharanidaran
B.A. 2018, University of California, Los Angeles; J.D. Candidate 2024, The University of Chicago Law School.

I would like to thank Professor Adam Chilton and the Chicago Journal of International Law staff for their assistance and guidance with this comment.

In October 2021, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development announced a global tax agreement that creates a territorial tax system and imposes a 15% global minimum tax. This Comment analyzes the OECD agreement by using case studies of previous multilateral tax proposals to provide historical context and by delving into various criticisms of the agreement.

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Article
CJIL Online 3.1
Justice from the General Assembly: An International Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression in Ukraine
Graham M. Glusman
Graham M. Glusman graduated from Columbia Law School and Amsterdam Law School in 2023 with a J.D. and an LL.M. in International Criminal Law. He earned his B.A. from Columbia University in 2019. He is currently employed at a major law firm in New York where he focuses on international arbitration and white collar litigation.

The author would like to extend his gratitude to Professor Lori Damrosch at Columbia Law School and Professor Tomas Hamilton at Amsterdam Law School for their frequent encouragement and invaluable guidance throughout the writing process. The author would also like to thank the incredibly talented editors at CJIL. All opinions expressed in this Article are the author’s own and do not reflect the views of the author’s employer.

In February 2022, the Russian Federation invaded the territory of Ukraine, igniting the largest military conflict in Europe since the end of the Second World War. This Article argues that under the powers articulated in the 1950 Uniting for Peace resolution, the General Assembly has the authority to convene an international tribunal capable of prosecuting the crime of aggression in Ukraine.

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Comment
CJIL Online 2.2
Constitutional Incorporation of International Human Rights Standards: An Effective Legal Mechanism?
Mary Kathryn Healy
B.A. 2020, Emory University; J.D. Candidate 2024, The University of Chicago Law School.

Thank you to my family and my partner for their unwavering support. Thank you to the members of the Chicago Journal of International Law and the CJIL Online team for their wonderful feedback and advice. And finally, thank you to Professor Aziz Huq for his generous advice on this Comment and Professor Tom Ginsburg for fostering my interest in comparative law.

This Comment analyzes the range of ways that constitutions tend to incorporate human rights. It argues that the success of the method of incorporation of human rights conventions into constitutions does not produce the results one would expect, but hinges on whether the construction is able to strike a balance between ensuring that the judiciary implements international human rights standards while still leaving the judiciary with meaningful independence and agency.

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Comment
CJIL Online 2.2
Family Influencing in the Best Interests of the Child
Rachel Caitlin Abrams
B.A. 2020, University of Chicago; J.D. Candidate 2024, The University of Chicago Law School.

I would like to thank the board and staff of the Chicago Journal of International Law for their constant guidance and support and Professor Emily Buss for her insightful feedback.

Family influencer and parent-facilitated child influencer content has gained popularity and many parents are making significant money by sharing content featuring their children. This Comment assesses the potential dangers that arise from sharing a child’s personal information on a public forum and how the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) can be utilized to protect the children of family influencers from exploitation on social media.

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Article
CJIL Online 2.2
Technologically Enabled Surrender Under the Law of Armed Conflict
David A. Wallace
Brigadier General (ret.) David A. Wallace previously served as the Professor and Head, Department of Law, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, and has been designated a Professor Emeritus. He is currently the United States Naval Academy Class of 1971 Distinguished Military Professor of Law & Leadership.

The views expressed in this work are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the United States Naval Academy, United States Military Academy, the Department of the Navy, the Department of the Army, or the Department of Defense.

Shane R. Reeves
Brigadier General Shane R. Reeves is the 15th Dean of the Academic Board of the United States Military Academy, West Point.

The views expressed in this work are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the United States Naval Academy, United States Military Academy, the Department of the Navy, the Department of the Army, or the Department of Defense.

Christopher J. Hart
Lieutenant Commander Christopher J. Hart is a submarine officer stationed at the United States Naval Academy as a senior instructor in the Leadership, Ethics, and Law Department.

The views expressed in this work are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the United States Naval Academy, United States Military Academy, the Department of the Navy, the Department of the Army, or the Department of Defense.

This Article discusses the development of the modern legal consequences of surrender under the law of armed conflict and explores how technologically enabled surrender is being used in Ukraine. It concludes with an analysis of the impact of these technologies on the surrender process and presents an adaptive interpretation of existing norms, leading to three overarching themes.

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Article
CJIL Online 2.1
A Hague Parallel Proceedings Convention: Architecture and Features
Paul Herrup and Ronald A. Brand
Paul Herrup is member of the Pennsylvania Bar. Ronald A. Brand is the Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg University Professor and Academic Director of the Center for International Legal Education at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

Both authors were members of the Experts Group and are current members of the Working Group considering a convention on parallel proceedings at the Hague Conference on Private International Law. This Article is prepared entirely in their personal capacity and should not be taken to represent the position of any delegation, state, office, or institution.

The Hague Conference on Private International Law has established a working group to examine a possible international instrument applicable to the same or related actions in courts in different countries. The goal of the project should be to improve the efficiency of resolving such situations and providing as complete a resolution as possible by channeling litigation to the “better forum.” Current approaches—lis alibi pendens in the civil law world and forum non conveniens in the common law world—are not working well and are likely to be increasingly inadequate in an ever more complex and fluid world. In this Article we provide suggestions on the architecture and certain critical features of a convention in this area.

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Comment
CJIL Online 2.1
Corporate Criminal Law and Anticorruption in the Northern Triangle
Alex Green
J.D. Candidate, University of Chicago Law School, 2023.

Thank you to Delaney Prunty, Michael Morgan, Molly Stepchuk, Professor Tom Ginsburg, and the CJIL staff for your feedback, advice, and support. Thank you to Professor Jennifer Arlen for your research on corporate compliance and your openness to outreach. And thank you to the staff of the Washington Office on Latin America for your research and reporting on corporate corruption in the Northern Triangle, which made much of this Comment possible.

This Comment argues that corporate anticorruption compliance programs would complement existing anticorruption strategies in the Northern Triangle.

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Essay
CJIL Online 2.1
A Global Migration Framework Under Water: How Can the International Community Protect Climate Refugees?
Caitlan M. Sussman
Caitlan M. Sussman is an attorney at a major international law firm. She earned a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 2022 and a B.A. from Cornell University in 2016.

This Essay is dedicated to Claire M. Sussman, David L. Sussman, Michael J. Sussman, and Rona E. Weitz. The author would like to thank these individuals for instilling in her an awareness of the climate crisis, an understanding of the plight of displaced people, and a dedication to making the world a more sustainable and equitable place. The author would also like to extend her gratitude to the members of the CJIL Online Board and Professor Tom Ginsburg for their invaluable assistance during the publication process. All opinions expressed in this Essay are the author’s own and do not reflect the views of the author’s employer.

In 2020, an international tribunal acknowledged in a landmark decision that deportation to a place where climate change would put an individual’s life at risk may violate certain provisions of international human rights law. Yet, the tribunal failed to formally recognize climate refugees or provide recommendations for their protection, perpetuating a “legal void” in the global migration framework. This Essay examines how existing provisions of refugee law, international human rights law, and international environmental law could be expanded to fill this void that legal scholarship has not directly addressed.

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Comment
CJIL Online 1.2
“Who Dares, Wins:” How Property Rights in Space Could be Dictated by the Countries Willing to Make the First Move
Morgan M. DePagter
J.D. Candidate at The University of Chicago Law School, Class of 2023.

The author would like to thank her entire family for their support, including her parents, her sisters, and Nicholas Jantschek. The author is also grateful to the entire Chicago Journal of International Law for their excellent feedback and assistance, as well as to Professor Curtis Bradley for his insight into the topic.

This Comment considers the four countries that have passed domestic legislation giving private property rights over extracted space resources to their citizens: the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Luxembourg, and Japan.