Why Should Treaty Violations Matter:

If Somebody Else Will Pay for Them?

by Yannick Adler
Yannick Adler is a third year student at Albany Law School and graduate of Bielefeld University in Germany, where he majored in Economics and minored in German Law. He also holds an MBA from Union Graduate College.
Before attending law school, Yannick worked for a mid-cap corporation in an accounting capacity; he also spent a year working with disabled children at a school in Bielefeld.
Yannick is currently serving as the Executive Editor of the Albany Law Journal of Science and Technology. During law school he interned for the New York State Office of General Services and Bogdan, Lasky and Kopley, a local firm. After law school, he plans to return to Germany.
This paper was prepared for Prof. Harrington's International Organizations class.

The recent sovereign debt crisis within the European Union has caused several regulatory responses.  Among other measures the Union created (by treaty) two instruments called European Financial Stability Facility and European Stability Mechanism.

This paper will show how the European Union has set up this framework.   It will also show how this framework (or specifically the two instruments) violates the establishing treaties of the European Union and domestic constitutional provisions at the example of Germany and its recent decision to ratify the European Stability Mechanism.

This paper also includes a short note considering the mixing of fiscal and monetary policies within the European Union framework, and how these acts can become toxic to the government debt markets.
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To read the paper, open HERE.

Humanitarian Intervention in the Twenty First Century

Would the Security Council Intervene to Stop the Genocide in Rwanda if it Happened Today?

By Anna Ovcharenko

Anna Ovcharenko is a third-year student at Hofstra Law School and President of the Hofstra International Law Society. She is a magna cum laude graduate from Tomsk State University, Russia, where she majored in International Relations. Before law school, Anna served as a diplomat at the Russian Mission to the United Nations where she specialized in international development, children’s rights and environmental issues. In March 2010, she visited Rwanda as part of the UN official delegation. Past summer, Anna worked at the Global Legal Program at the Center for Reproductive Rights. In Spring 2013, she will start her legal internship at the Immigration Clinical Practicum.

This paper was prepared for Professor James Hickey’s International Human Rights Seminar at Hofstra Law School.

The 1994 genocide in Rwanda claimed the lives of at least 800,000 people while the United Nations withdrew its peacekeepers and the rest of the world stood aside. Had the UN Security Council mandated humanitarian intervention, it would have saved the lives of many innocent people.

This paper examines the development of the humanitarian intervention doctrine and analyzes whether it could have been used by the U.N. Security Council in the case of Rwanda. Specifically, it provides the factual context for the genocide in Rwanda and summarizes the lack of effective action by the Security Council to prevent it. It analyzes the international law of humanitarian intervention as it stands today and examines several instances of the use of force by the Security Council in situations amounting to genocide.

The paper concludes with a recommendation that the international community needs to develop a clearer framework for the use of force by the Security Council in the future.

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To read the paper, open HERE.