International Legal Studies Program

More than 50 people, including children, were killed in a Russian attack on a train station in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, in April. Even if members of the military were among the dead, Newton said the attack could still violate the laws of war if it disproportionately harmed civilians. “If you’re going to kill a small number of troops as opposed to a large number of civilians, that’s a war crime,” he said. Read More

Wuerth is a foreign policy expert and holds the Helen Strong Curry Chair in International Law. "The state sponsor of terrorism designation is not a symbolic act to chastise states that behave badly," she writes. "It is a legal trigger embedded in an extremely complex statutory and regulatory framework. The effects of pulling that...trigger are not easy to identify and untangle." Read More

The report is entitled "Ensuring Fair and Effective Justice in Adjudicating War Crimes Cases in Ukraine." Read More

Wuerth, an expert in foreign affairs, is quoted extensively in "Is Russia a Terrorist State?", a July 18 article discussing calls for the Biden administration to label Russia as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, a designation meant to further isolate Russia diplomatically and cut off its economy from the global financial system. Read More

Wuerth's column, published in Just Security and in the Transnational Litigation blog, suggests the designation would be largely symbolic and could ultimately harm the interests of the Ukrainian government and the people of Ukraine. Read More

"The International Law Practice Lab provided a unique opportunity to develop my technical understanding of international legal frameworks concerning counterterrorism policy while obtaining practical experience researching, analyzing and writing in a professional environment," Kehoe said. Read More

Newton presented portions of his USAID report for Ukraine at a June 24 conference, "Responsibility for War Crimes and Other Violations of IHL: What Are Possible Models for Adjudicating in Such Cases for Ukraine?", cosponsored by USAID and EU Project Pravo-Justice. The conference schedule appears here. Read More

Newton is quoted in Politico coverage of a "show trial" against three foreign nationals fighting with the Ukraine army against Russian troops. "There is no legal basis for the trial," Newton said, addng that "The Russians have the obligation to accord prisoner-of-war status to all persons who come into their custody" under the Geneva Convention. Newton has served in the State Department as the senior adviser to the ambassador-at-large for War Crimes Issues. Read More

VLS students are working for government and nonprofit legal employers in 15 states, Washington, D.C., and The Hague, Netherlands during summer 2022. Read More

The panel, "Russia's Acts in Ukraine: Terrorism, War Crimes or Genocide?", also featured experts in war crimes, state-sponsored terrorism and genocide from the University of Birmingham, Bryant University and the Geneva Graduate Institute. Read More