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Articles 1 - 17 of 17
Full-Text Articles in Law
Getting To Equal: Resolving The Judicial Impasse On The Weight Of Non-Monetary Contribution In Kenya's Marital Asset Division, Benedeta Prudence Mutiso
Getting To Equal: Resolving The Judicial Impasse On The Weight Of Non-Monetary Contribution In Kenya's Marital Asset Division, Benedeta Prudence Mutiso
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
Marital property law reforms and changing international human rights standards in the late 20th and early 21st century prompted Kenya to end certain discriminatory practices against women, especially in the area of property rights. For 50 years, Kenya relied on England’s century-old law, the Married Women’s Property Act of 1882, to regulate property rights. In 2010, Kenya adopted a new Constitution that called for equality between men and women, and in 2013, Kenya enacted independent legislation in the form of the Matrimonial Property Act (MPA). The MPA provides a basis for trial courts to divide marital property upon divorce. Specifically, …
The Definition Of Slave Labor For Criminal Enforcement And The Experience Of Adjudication: The Case Of Brazil, Carlos H. B. Haddad
The Definition Of Slave Labor For Criminal Enforcement And The Experience Of Adjudication: The Case Of Brazil, Carlos H. B. Haddad
Michigan Journal of International Law
The paper examines the intersections and differences between “slave labor” as used in the Brazilian domestic sphere and “slave labor” as applied to international law. The former shows an approach centered on criminal law, as opposed to human rights law. This paper explains why degrading working conditions and debilitating workdays should continue to be prohibited and punished. It also compares the sanctions of the Brazilian Criminal Code with those of similar crimes in other jurisdictions. It concludes with a discussion of the current bill proposed by Senator José Sarney, which would replace the current definition with one that more closely …
Equality Adds Quality: On Upgrading Higher Education And Research In The Field Of Law, Susanne Baer
Equality Adds Quality: On Upgrading Higher Education And Research In The Field Of Law, Susanne Baer
Articles
Much has been attempted, and many pro1ects are still underway aimed at achieving equality in higher education and research. Today, the key argument to demand and support the integration of gender in academia is that equality is indeed about the quality on which academic work is supposed to be based. Although more or less national political, social and cultural contexts matter as much as academic environments, regarding higher education and research, the integration of gender into the field of law seems particularly interesting. Faculties of law enjoy a certain standing and status, are closely connected to power and politics, and …
The Difference A Justice May Make: Remarks At The Symposium For Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Suzanne Baer
The Difference A Justice May Make: Remarks At The Symposium For Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Suzanne Baer
Articles
First, I will briefly summarize the state of the art of equality law in Germany today. A distinct dimension of this story from a European Union member state is that we are not just theorizing postnational constitutionalism these days, but that we live it already, since law is not anymore isolated as national but needs to be seen in the context of transnational migration and multinational regimes. Second, I turn to a key feature and key challenge in and to equality law today. It is what I have called the triangle of fundamental rights, referring to the three most prominent …
Equality, Susanne Baer
Equality, Susanne Baer
Book Chapters
This article first discusses key equality guarantees in law today. It then focuses on different understandings of the right to equality: as either a principle or an individually enforceable claim (the status); as an ‘empty idea’, a rationality test, or a ‘substantive’ right (the content); as a right of individuals or for groups (who bears the right?). It next examines equality as categorically distinctly structured as opposed to or as similar to other liberty interests (the test); as a general entitlement or as a specific guarantee to address particular inequalities, either separate or intersecting (the inequalities); and as general or …
Exporting Subjects: Globalizing Family Law Progress Through International Human Rights, Cyra Akila Choudhury
Exporting Subjects: Globalizing Family Law Progress Through International Human Rights, Cyra Akila Choudhury
Michigan Journal of International Law
In our popular culture and social consciousness, women are no longer the second-class citizens they used to be. Magazines, television advertisements, and billboards featuring women show us how we have achieved independence, wealth, desirability, and our intelligence. We are no longer the supporting role in movies and entertainment but stars in our own right. For this, we can thank both changing society and the unrelenting work of many women who refused to bring the coffee for the boss. The women's movement in the United States has made large gains for women through the use of social activism and legal action. …
A Closer Look At Law: Human Rights As Multi-Level Sites Of Struggles Over Multi-Dimensional Equality, Susanne Baer
A Closer Look At Law: Human Rights As Multi-Level Sites Of Struggles Over Multi-Dimensional Equality, Susanne Baer
Articles
In many societies, deep conflicts arise around religious matters, and around equality. Often, religious collectives demand the right to self-determination of issues considered - by them - to be their own, and these demands collide with individual rights to, again, religious freedom. These are thus conflicts of religion v. religion. Then, collective religious freedom tends to become an obligation for all those who are defined as belonging to the collective, which carries the problem that mostly elites define its meaning and they silence dissent. Usually, such obligations are also unequal relating to gender, with different regimes for women and for …
The Basic Law At 60 - Equality And Difference: A Proposal For The Guest List To The Birthday Party, Susanne Baer
The Basic Law At 60 - Equality And Difference: A Proposal For The Guest List To The Birthday Party, Susanne Baer
Articles
The German constitution, named "Basic Law", has proven to work although many did not believe in it when it was framed. Others emphasize desiderata. Sabine Berghahn commented at the 50th birthday that it has developed "far too slowly and [some] has even gone completely wrong." ' Jutta Limbach, former President of the Federal Constitutional Court, observed that constitutional history was "anything but regal, but very difficult and full of obstacles. '' 2 Former Chancellor Willy Brandt famously called the constitution "a snail on thin ice." So what is missing when we analyze the Basic Law, and what should be finally …
Can Equality Survive Exceptions?, Daphne Barak-Erez
Can Equality Survive Exceptions?, Daphne Barak-Erez
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
The meaning of the exception vis-à-vis the general rule is primarily discussed in the context of emergency powers (following Cart Schmitt and Giorgio Agamben). But the complicated relationship between the norm and its exceptions is also relevant to other legal contexts. This Commentary is dedicated to the following question: What are the implications of considering equality a fundamental legal principle while recognizing exceptions to its application? More concretely, how does the existence of exceptions influence the understanding and viability of equality as the norm?
The Developing Equality Jurisprudence In South Africa, Karthy Govender
The Developing Equality Jurisprudence In South Africa, Karthy Govender
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
Apartheid was technically about separateness, but it was fundamentally about inequality. The founding premise of the ideology was to preserve the total hegemony of white South Africans. The liberation organizations opposing the apartheid regime sought to affirm that the country belonged to all those that lived in it. Thus, it is unsurprising that the commitment to equality is one of the founding values of the Constitution and an indelible thread woven throughout the fabric of the Bill of Rights. After some misstatements about certain rights being more important than others, courts have interpreted rights in the Bill of Rights to …
An Agenda For The Obama Administration On Gender Equality: Lessons From Abroad, Adrien K. Wing, Samuel P. Nielson
An Agenda For The Obama Administration On Gender Equality: Lessons From Abroad, Adrien K. Wing, Samuel P. Nielson
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
President Barack Obama came into office with a wealth of good will after winning the historic 2008 presidential election to become the first African-American commander-in-chief. Among the many daunting issues we hope he will tackle is one that Abigail Adams mentioned to her husband John in 1776: remember the ladies. How should our President and his new administration affect social justice for women?
Instructions In Inequality: Development, Human Rights, Capabilities, And Gender Violence In School, Erika George
Instructions In Inequality: Development, Human Rights, Capabilities, And Gender Violence In School, Erika George
Michigan Journal of International Law
This Article argues that the international community's gender equality targets will not be realized by 2015 because the problems associated with sexual violence against girls in schools are situated at an intersection of contested conceptual divides between human rights (civil and political liberties) and development aims (social and economic needs). Cracks in the conceptual foundations of both the liberal and utilitarian theories of justice and equality, which support traditional human rights advocacy and economic development plans, respectively render each approach inadequate to fully identify and address the grave danger sexual violence and harassment in schools pose to educational equality. In …
The Marriage Dower: Essential Guarantor Of Women's Rights In The West Bank And Gaza Strip, Heather Jacobson
The Marriage Dower: Essential Guarantor Of Women's Rights In The West Bank And Gaza Strip, Heather Jacobson
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
This Article evaluates the impact that eliminating or reducing the marriage dower would have on the well-being of Muslim women in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Although Palestinian women's rights organizations seek to eliminate dower on the grounds that it is a "burdensome custom" that is "inconsistent with the intifada's stated goal of improving women's status," in fact, the interaction between dower and other laws relating to marriage and divorce is such that the majority of women would be materially harmed by its discontinuance. Therefore, while the movement to eliminate dower may benefit the financially secure upper class women …
Civilizing The Natives: Marriage In Post-Apartheid South Africa, David L. Chambers
Civilizing The Natives: Marriage In Post-Apartheid South Africa, David L. Chambers
Articles
South Africa is a land of many cultures. For several hundred years, British and Afrikaaner whites controlled the country, systematically manipulating black people to the whites' advantage. For the most part, however, whites tolerated the continuation within black communities of traditional marriage practices that white Christians considered uncivilized. In 1994, South Africa changed governments. A black majority Parliament came to power, adopting a consitution dedicated to equality and human dignity. Four years later, Parliament adopted a new marriage law that, though permitting some of the external trappings of the traditional marriage system to continue, eliminated by law much of the …
Cultural Resistance To Global Governance, Joel Richard Paul
Cultural Resistance To Global Governance, Joel Richard Paul
Michigan Journal of International Law
This article maps out the terrain in which state actors and legal scholars make claims premised on a cultural exception to justify derogating from international legal norms. The author’s aim is to understand why some of these claimed cultural practices displace international legal norms, while other practices are dismissed as violating international legal norms. Part II will examine this discourse in relation to the rights of women and sexual minorities. This article will show that the international community generally regards gender norms as cultural and the international legal norm of gender equality usually defers to national cultural practices. Part III …
Foundations For 15(1): Equality Rights In Canada, Martha A. Mccarthy, Joanna L. Radbord
Foundations For 15(1): Equality Rights In Canada, Martha A. Mccarthy, Joanna L. Radbord
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
The paper discusses a selection of important cases under section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It traces the development of equality jurisprudence from the introduction of section 15 to early approaches in Andrews, Hess, Weatherall, Symes, and McKinney. This review illustrates the persistence of formal equality analysis and the threats of biology, morality, and tradition to the realization of substantive equality. The May 25, 1995, trilogy of Egan, Miron, and Thibaudeau is critiqued in detail. Finally, we turn to more recent jurisprudence and offer a brief discussion of M. v. H.
South Korea: Implementation And Application Of Human Rights Covenants, Suk Tae Lee
South Korea: Implementation And Application Of Human Rights Covenants, Suk Tae Lee
Michigan Journal of International Law
Under article 40 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the State Party undertakes to submit reports on the measures it has adopted which give effect to the rights recognized in the ICCPR and demonstrate the progress it has made in granting its citizens the enjoyment of those rights. The report was examined by the HRC in July 1992 and will be discussed in Part I of this article. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) also requires State Parties to submit reports, but the initial report of the South Korean government has not …