Digital Commons Network^™

Peer Producing Human Rights, Molly Land

Molly K. Land

Can there be a Wikipedia for human rights? The growth of collaborative technologies has spurred the development of projects such as Wikipedia, in which large groups of volunteers contribute to production in a decentralized and open format. The author analyzes how these methods of peer-based production can be applied to advance international human rights as well as the limitations of such a model in this field. An underlying characteristic of peer-based production, amateurism, increases capacity and participation. However, the involvement of ordinary individuals in the production of human rights reporting is also its greatest disadvantage, since human rights reports generated …

Labor Union Coalition Challenges To Governmental Action: Defending The Civil Rights Of Law-Wage Workers, Maria Ontiveros

Maria L. Ontiveros

(This paper is a working draft, which will be published in final form by the University of Chicago Legal Forum, Vol. 2009.)

The article examines international and domestic legal challenges filed by traditional labor unions, in coalition with others, against the government of the Unites States of America. The article argues that these lawsuits can help protect the civil rights of low-wage workers by creating a coherent legal theory defending the civil rights of low-wage workers and by creating an identifiable change agent to work on that defense. The lawsuits include those challenging governmental action with respect to immigrant workers, …

Race, Class, And Katrina : Human Rights And (Un)Natural Disaster, Hope Lewis

Hope Lewis

This essay reflects on the international human rights implications of Hurricane Katrina. For those of us in the human rights movement, it seemed natural to see Katrina and its aftermath as both a massive international humanitarian disaster and a human rights crisis. This was not just the awful result of a huge storm having hit a densely populated area and thereby necessitating the marshalling of public and private humanitarian aid. It also revealed government inaction and affirmatively abusive actions before, during, and after the storm hit that implicate international human rights standards.

We know that Katrina was not the last …

Global Sustainable Values – Video Interviews To Selected Global Leaders, Marco Tavanti

Marco Tavanti

Dr. Tavanti's interviews to selected global leaders exemplifying teaching values on sustainability, human rights, international development, social responsibility and public service

Protecting Rights Online, Molly Land

Molly K. Land

Although the human rights and access to knowledge (A2K) movements share many of the same goals, their legal and regulatory agendas have little in common. While state censorship online is a central concern for human rights advocates, this issue has been largely ignored by the A2K movement. Likewise, human rights advocates have failed to examine the cumulative effect of expanding copyright protections on education and culture. These disparate agendas reflect fundamentally different views about what states should regulate and the role of international institutions. Overcoming this divide is critical to ensuring the movements can draw on their respective strengths to …

Vindicating Fundamental Environmental Rights: Judicial Acceptance Of Constitutionally Entrenched Environmental Rights, James R. May, Erin Daly

James R. May

This article examines the extent to which constitutionally embedded fundamental environmental rights have met the promise of ensuring a right to an adequate environment. It explains these results and suggests ways to neutralize judicial resistance to these emerging constitutional rights. In Part II we explain the prevalence of constitutionally entrenched rights to a quality environment. In Part III, we provide examples of the extent to which courts have enforced these provisions. In Part IV, we examine institutional and structural factors, conceptual disjunctions, and pragmatic considerations that help to explain judicial receptivity to constitutionally entrenched environmental rights. And in Part V …

The Duty Of Treatment: Human Rights And The Hiv/Aids Pandemic, Noah B. Novogrodsky

Noah B Novogrodsky

This article argues that the treatment of HIV and AIDS is spawning a juridical, advocacy and enforcement revolution. The intersection of AIDS and human rights was once characterized almost exclusively by anti-discrimination and destigmatization efforts. Today, human rights advocates are demanding life-saving treatment and convincing courts and legislatures to make states pay for it. Using a comparative Constitutional law methodology that places domestic courts at the center of the struggle for HIV treatment, this article shows how the provision of AIDS medications is reframing the right to health and the implementation of socio-economic rights. First, it locates an emerging right …

Who Is The "Human" In Human Rights? The Claims Of Culture And Religion, Peter G. Danchin

Peter G. Danchin

Modern critiques of international human rights law force us to confront at least two conceptual puzzles in the area of the claims of culture and religion. The first concerns the two concepts, often run together, of the secular (or secularism) and freedom, and the question of how rights—e.g. the right to freedom of conscience and religion—mediate between these purportedly universal or objective positions and the imagined subjective claims of particular religious or cultural norms. The second concerns the question of what we mean by “human equality” and how this idea relates to deeply-situated issues of collective identity and culture. Such …

Squatters, Pirates, And Entrepreneurs: Is Informality The Solution To The Urban Housing Crisis?, Carmen G. Gonzalez

Carmen G. Gonzalez

Giving the poor legal title to the lands they occupy extra-legally (informally) has been widely promoted by the World Bank and by best-selling author Hernando de Soto as a means of addressing both poverty and the scarcity of affordable housing in the urban centers of the global South. Using Bogotá, Colombia, as a case study, this article interrogates de Soto’s claims about the causes of informality and the benefits of formal title. The article concludes that de Soto’s analysis is problematic in three distinct respects. First, de Soto exaggerates the benefits of formal title and fails to consider its risks. …

Version Française: On The Constitutionalisation Of The Convention: The European Court Of Human Rights As A Constitutional Court, Alec Stone Sweet

Alec Stone Sweet

No abstract provided.

The Emerging Constitutional Challenge Of Climate Change: India In Perspective, Deepa Badrinarayana

Deepa Badrinarayana

India’s rapidly growing economy naturally demands increasing energy needs from the industrial scale down to the personal. Mindful of potential negative impacts of economic development, India is making efforts to encourage growth while preserving and protecting the environment and human rights. India’s Integrated Energy Policy sets out the roadmap for how the country plans to achieve the balance among development, environmental protection, citizens’ rights, energy security, and a host of other priorities and concerns. Though ambitious and broad in scope, the Policy may prove inadequate in mitigating environmental impacts of development, and thus inadequate in balancing India’s needs, particularly in …

The Aesthetics Of Human Rights, Sharon Sliwinski

Sharon Sliwinski