Democracy, Governance, and Rule of Law

With the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) rapidly approaching, various groups are convening to talk about what is next. Many have indicated an imperative need for the inclusion of a rule of law component in the post-2015 framework, either as a separate goal or as a necessary underpinning to accomplish all development goals. The American Society of International Law will host a diverse group of rule of law development experts to address the issues of legal reform and development in the context of the MDGs.

Cyber threats pose national, economic, and personal risks to both the public and private sectors. The frequency and complexity of cyber attacks are rising exponentially and outpace policy and legal regulations of the area. In this context, the issue for international law is in the applicability of traditional concepts to the realities of cyber threats. This event, cosponsored by the American Society of International Law and the United Nations Association, will explore the legal aspects of selected areas of cyber security in the United States.

ASIL, in cosponsorship with its Lieber Society on the Law of Armed Conflict, will host a discussion of the United States's decade-long experience with military commission proceedings against detainees held at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, featuring Jess Bravin, an award-winning Wall Street Journal reporter and author of The Terror Courts: Rough Justice at Guantanamo Bay. Bravin will summarize the findings in his book, which draws on more than a decade of first-hand reporting at Guantanamo and extensive interviews with insiders in the commission process.

The ongoing trial of Rios Montt represents the first time a national court has tried a former head of state for genocide and war crimes. Guatemala's former dictator Rios Montt and his military intelligence chief, Jose Mauricio Rodriguez, have been on trial since March for the deaths of some 1,700 Maya-Ixil people during the 1982-83 period, when Montt was head of state and defense minister, and the army waged a brutal counter-insurgency campaign in the area.

In the last two decades international criminal courts such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Tribunal for Rwanda have issued judgments characterizing gender-based crimes as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, depending on the context in which the crimes had been perpetrated.