• Paper should be an analytic case study of international law’s role in some political dispute. Check the list of potential case studies in the book. There are partly-digested materials from which full-fledged case studies. Other sources can be located in the Official Records of U.N. agencies, especially the Security Council and General Assembly, and in the United Nations Yearbook. Others appear regularly in the international news.
• A case study in international law is a study of a dispute, not of a judicial decision, although there may be one or more adjudications as parts of the dispute. Disputes need not have been “resolved” to be studied.
General Topics:
Case studies could involve disputes over the legitimacy of: states (including existing states whose legitimacy is challenged, and nonexistent states which are argued to have a right to exist), governments (including competing governments in a civil war, insurgent-opposed governments, foreign-imposed governments, governments condemned by transnational ideological or religious groups, etc.), the rule by some state over some territory (which it occupied or wishes to occupy against objection), the use of force (by states, alliances, international organizations, governments, insurgents, secessionists, assassins, terrorists, guerrillas, revolutionaries, etc.), the threat of force, foreign policy (boycotts, embargoes, alliances, diplomatic relations, etc.), and/or domestic policy (religious, racial, ethnic and national discrimination, human rights violations, genocide and “autogenocide,” etc.).
• Legitimacy of states. Recent disputes over the legitimacy of states have included the disputed or alleged rights to exist as independent states of: Western Sahara, Eritrea, Taiwan, East Timor, West New Guinea, Chechnya, Israel, Palestine, Kuwait, Tibet, Bosnia, Macedonia, Kurdistan, Bougainville, etc.
• Legitimacy of governments. Recent international disputes over the legitimacy of governments have involved e.g. South Africa, Haiti, Burma/Myanmar, Georgia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Liberia, Angola, Nigeria.
• Territorial rule. Recent international disputes over the legitimacy of territorial rule have included e.g. Gaza, the West Bank, East (and all) Jerusalem, Kashmir, Crimea, Krajina, Kosovo, Bosnia, Aouzou Strip, Nagorno-Karabakh.
• Use of force. Recent international disputes over the legitimacy of the use of force have included uses by UN/US/NATO in Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia; Serbia in Croatia and Bosnia; Croatia in Bosnia; Russia in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Chechnya; Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan; India and Pakistan in Kashmir; Indonesia in East Timor and West New Guinea; Cuba (aircraft shootdown 2/96); etc.
• Threats of force. Recent disputes include: U.S. vs. Haiti,Russia vs. Ukraine and other ex-Soviet areas, US vs. Iraq,US/NATO/UN vs. Serbia, China vs. Taiwan and US vs. China, etc.
• Legitimacy of foreign policy. Recent disputes include:U.S.boycott of Cuba; Russian forces stationing in the Baltic states; accusations of US intervention through criticism of domestic policies of Burma and China; objections to assassination- sponsoring by Iran and Libya; etc.
• Legitimacy of domestic policy. Recent disputes include e.g.general human rights violation accusations against China and Burma; accusations of genocide against Sudan, Iraq, Bosnian Serbs, Croats, Muslims; against China (Tibet), Indonesia (East Timor), ex-government of Rwanda; accusations of chattel slave-markets in Mauritania and Sudan, accusations of illegitimate divorce-obstruction in Ireland, accusations of compulsory abortion in China, child slavery in India and Pakistan, child slave-trading from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh to the United Arab Emirates, toleration of drug-trafficking in Burma and Colombia, executions of oppositionists on Nigeria, etc.
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