Digital Commons Network^™

Comparing Supreme Court Jurisprudence In Obergefell V. Hodges And Town Of Castle Rock V. Gonzales: A Watershed Moment For Due Process Liberty, Jill C. Engle

Jill Engle

“The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times. The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning. When new insight reveals discord between the Constitution’s central protections and a received legal stricture, a claim to liberty must be addressed.” -- Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584, …

Implementing Truth And Reconciliation: Comparative Lessons For The Republic Of Korea, Tara J. Melish

Tara Melish

This Article substantively introduces a special symposium issue on "Implementing Truth and Reconciliation: Comparative Lessons for Korea." Inspired by the Dec. 2010 release of the official report and recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Republic of Korea (TRCK), the special issue gathers comparative national and cross-national lessons from four nations -- South Korea, South Africa, Cambodia, and Peru -- on the factors that contribute to or hinder the effective implementation of truth commission recommendations and other efforts aimed at achieving national, community, and individual-level reconciliation. Such lessons are offered in the hope of assisting victim groups and other advocacy …

Justice Jackson's 1946 Nuremberg Reflections At Buffalo: An Introduction, Alfred S. Konefsky, Tara J. Melish

Tara Melish

This Essay introduces the 2011 James McCormick Mitchell Lecture, “From Nuremberg to Buffalo: Justice Jackson’s Enduring Lessons of Morality and Law in a World at War,” a commemoration of Jackson’s 1946 centennial convocation speech at the University of Buffalo. It discusses Jackson’s speech, breaks down its thematic components, and situates the distinguished Mitchell Lecturers’ responses to it in context. Unlike Justice Jackson’s commanding and historic opening and closing statements as U.S. chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, Jackson’s 1946 speech, delivered just days after his return from Germany where he heard the Nuremberg Tribunal deliver its final judgment and verdicts, has largely …

Terrorism And Human Rights: Power, Culture, And Subordination, Makau Mutua

Makau Mutua

This piece analyzes the effects of the global war on terror in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. The author argues that under the pretext of a global war on terrorism, the United States has set out to dominate the globe in a campaign that will undoubtedly influence human rights, and diminish their respect and enforcement. Human rights will now be defined by the United States to exclude and narrow them while putting pressure on large international institutions such as the United Nations to subordinate itself to other American interests. Thinkers and advocates should work together to craft a …

Cognitive Relatives Yet Moral Strangers?, Judith Benz-Scharzberg, Andrew Knight

Andrew Knight, PhD

This article provides an empirically based, interdisciplinary approach to the following two questions: Do animals possess behavioral and cognitive characteristics such as culture, language, and a theory of mind? And if so, what are the implications, when long-standing criteria used to justify differences in moral consideration between humans and animals are no longer considered indisputable? One basic implication is that the psychological needs of captive animals should be adequately catered for. However, for species such as great apes and dolphins with whom we share major characteristics of personhood, welfare considerations alone may not suffice, and consideration of basic rights may …

Reexamining Eli Lilly V. Canada: A Human Rights Approach To Investor-State Disputes?, Cynthia M. Ho

Cynthia M Ho

This Article provides valuable insight to the broader discussion of reforming investor-state disputes. Many have noted that the system is in a crisis due to a lack of democratic accountability and inconsistent decisions, which create a chilling effect on legitimate domestic law and policy. Despite substantial discussion in recent years concerning how to reform investor-state disputes, there is only limited discussion concerning the extent to which such disputes challenge domestic intellectual property (IP) limits, as well as global IP norms. Moreover, even among those who recognize the challenge to IP limits, the relevance of human rights is generally not addressed. …

Human Rights In A Time Of Terror: Comparison Between Treatment In The European Courts Of Human Rights And The United States, Allen E. Shoenberger

Allen E Shoenberger

No abstract provided.

Reforming The Global Value Chain Through Transnational Private Regulation, Kishanthi Parella

Kish Parella

In many industries, corporations have changed the organization of their production from a vertically integrated model to a model that is often characterized by outsourcing-shifting business activities to external parties -and offshoring, where production occurs at sites overseas. The global value chain (GVC) for an American corporation often involves several tiers of suppliers. One end of the GVC is often occupied by a multinational buyer (MNB), such as a large brand name corporation. At the opposite end of the value chain are the factories, farms, and other production sites that supply multinational corporations with their goods. This organization of production …

Outsourcing Corporate Accountability, Kishanthi Parella

Kish Parella

This Article addresses the problem of preventing human rights violations abroad that result from the globalization of business. It specifically explores the challenge of improving labor standards in global value chains. The modern business has changed dramatically and has “gone global” in order to court foreign markets and secure resources, including labor. Familiar household names, such as Nike and Apple, have “outsourced” many of their functions to suppliers overseas. As multinational buyers, they dominate one end of the global value chain. At the opposite end of the value chain are the local managers and owners of the factories and workhouses …

Backlash Against International Courts In West, East And Southern Africa: Causes And Consequences, Karen J. Alter, James T. Gathii, Laurence R. Helfer

James T Gathii

This paper discusses three credible attempts by African governments to restrict the jurisdiction of three similarly-situated sub-regional courts in response to politically controversial rulings. In West Africa, when the ECOWAS Court upheld allegations of torture by opposition journalists in the Gambia, that country’s political leaders sought to restrict the Court’s power to review human rights complaints. The other member states ultimately defeated the Gambia’s proposal. In East Africa, Kenya failed in its efforts to eliminate the EACJ and to remove some of its judges after a decision challenging an election to a sub-regional legislature. However, the member states agreed to …

In The Right Direction, Family Diversity In The Inter-American System Of Human Rights, Macarena Sáez

Macarena Saez

Networked Human, Network’S Human: Humans In Networks Inter-Asia, Eric Kerr, Connor Graham, Alfred Montoya

Alfred Montoya

This special issue explores the conceptions of the human that emerge out of the form and the design of information and communications technologies (ICTs). Geographically, our focus compares two countries with a relatively high level of ICT penetration—South Korea and Singapore—and two countries with a relatively low level—India and Vietnam. In each country we see how different forms of the human emerge, in part out of the ways in which technological infrastructure develop and intertwine with social order. In this introduction we reflect on the long genealogy of “human” and “humanity” and the more recent history of ICTs in Asia.