Law Commons^™

Asian Courts And Lgbt Rights, Holning Lau

Holning Lau

Human Pipeline To The Continental United States: Puerto Rico’S Trafficking Of A Vulnerable Population As A Violation Of The Right To Health (2019), Sarah Dávila-Ruhaak

Sarah Dávila-Ruhaak

No abstract provided.

Reducing Vulnerability To Human Trafficking: An Experimental Intervention Using Anti-Trafficking Campaigns To Change Knowledge, Attitudes, Beliefs, And Practices In Nepal, Margaret Boittin, Dan Archer, Cecilia Hyunjung Mo

Margaret Boittin

Prepared for USAID, Humanity United, the US Department of Labor, and Terre des Hommes, March 2016.

Submission To The U.N. Human Rights Committee In Relation To The List Of Issues Of The United States Concerning The Unsafe Dumping And Mismanagement Of Coal Ash In Puerto Rico, Sarah Dávila-Ruhaak

Sarah Dávila-Ruhaak

The IHRC has investigated the human rights abuses arising out of the environmental injustices imposed on communities in the southern municipalities of Puerto Rico that represent violations of international human rights, and specifically of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (“ICCPR”). Since 1994, Applied Energy Systems (“AES”), a private American energy company, has been responsible for continued coal ash contamination of the southern coastal region of Puerto Rico.[i] AES coal-fired power plants in Puerto Rico have released toxic amounts of coal ash into the air and water, negatively impacting air quality and drinking water for residents in …

Countering Nationalist Oligarchy, Ganesh Sitaraman

Ganesh Sitaraman

The challenge we face today is not one of authoritarianism, as so many seem inclined to believe, but of nationalist oligarchy. This form of government feeds populism to the people, delivers special privileges to the rich and well-connected, and rigs politics to sustain its regime.

Nationalist oligarchy is an existential threat to American democracy. The countries already under its thrall steal technology and use economic power as political leverage. Some of them are actively trying to undermine democracy, through cyber attacks, hacking, and social media disinformation. And they spread bribery and corruption around the world—deepening inequality and threatening to turn …

Economic Hardship As Coercion Under The Protocol On International Trafficking In Persons By Organized Crime Elements, Linda A. Malone

Linda A. Malone

No abstract provided.

Human Rights In The Middle East, Linda A. Malone

Linda A. Malone

No abstract provided.

Immigration - Refugee Act Of 1980 - Resistance To Female Circumcision As Grounds For Political Asylum In The United States, Linda A. Malone

Linda A. Malone

No abstract provided.

Dark Ages Of Human Rights?, Linda A. Malone

Linda A. Malone

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of Federal Courts And The International Human Rights Paradigm And World Justice? U.S. Courts And International Human Rights, Linda A. Malone

Linda A. Malone

No abstract provided.

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Linda A. Malone

Linda A. Malone

No abstract provided.

Three Grotian Theories Of Humanitarian Intervention, Evan J. Criddle

Evan J. Criddle

This Article explores three theories of humanitarian intervention that appear in, or are inspired by, the writings of Hugo Grotius. One theory asserts that natural law authorizes all states to punish violations of the law of nations, irrespective of where or against whom the violations occur, to preserve the integrity of international law. A second theory, which also appears in Grotius’s writings, proposes that states may intervene as temporary legal guardians for peoples who have suffered intolerable cruelties at the hands of their own state. Each of these theories has fallen out of fashion today based on skepticism about their …

Standing For Human Rights Abroad, Evan J. Criddle

Evan J. Criddle

When may states impose coercive measures such as asset freezes, trade embargos, and investment restrictions to protect the human rights of foreign nationals abroad? Drawing inspiration from Hugo Grotius’s guardianship account of humanitarian intervention, this Article offers a new theory of states’ standing to enforce human rights abroad: under some circumstances, international law authorizes states to impose countermeasures as fiduciary representatives, asserting the human rights of oppressed foreign peoples for the benefit of those peoples. The fiduciary theory explains why all states may use countermeasures to vindicate the human rights of foreign nationals abroad despite the fact that they do …

Proportionality In Counterinsurgency: A Relational Theory, Evan J. Criddle

Evan J. Criddle

At a time when the United States has undertaken high-stakes counterinsurgency campaigns in at least three countries (Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan) while offering support to insurgents in a fourth (Libya), it is striking that the international legal standards governing the use of force in counterinsurgency remain unsettled and deeply controversial. Some authorities have endorsed norms from international humanitarian law as lex specialis, while others have emphasized international human rights as minimum standards of care for counterinsurgency operations. This Article addresses the growing friction between international human rights and humanitarian law in counterinsurgency by developing a relational theory of the use …

The Fiduciary Constitution Of Human Rights, Evan Fox-Decent, Evan J. Criddle

Evan J. Criddle

We argue that human rights are best conceived as norms arising from a fiduciary relationship that exists between states (or statelike actors) and the citizens and noncitizens subject to their power. These norms draw on a Kantian conception of moral personhood, protecting agents from instrumentalization and domination. They do not, however, exist in the abstract as timeless natural rights. Instead, they are correlates of the state’s fiduciary duty to provide equal security under the rule of law, a duty that flows from the state’s institutional assumption of irresistible sovereign powers.

Protecting Human Rights During Emergencies: Delegation, Derogation, And Deference, Evan J. Criddle

Evan J. Criddle

Leading human rights treaties permit states as a temporary measure to suspend a variety of human rights guarantees during national crises. This chapter argues that human rights derogation is best justified as a temporary mechanism for empowering states to protect human rights, rather than as a device for enabling national authorities to advance their own interests in a manner that compromises human rights protection. Human rights treaties use broad legal standards to entrust states with responsibility for deciding what measures are best calculated to maximize human right protection during emergencies. For this delegation of authority to operate effectively, international tribunals …

Interest-Balancing Vs. Fiduciary Duty: Two Models For National Security Law, Evan Fox-Decent, Evan J. Criddle

Evan J. Criddle

No abstract provided.

Human Rights, Emergencies, And The Rule Of Law, Evan J. Criddle, Evan Fox-Decent

Evan J. Criddle

This article illuminates the normative basis for international law’s regulation of public emergencies by arguing that human rights are best conceived as norms arising from a fiduciary relationship between states (or state-like actors) and persons subject to their power. States bear a fiduciary duty to guarantee subjects’ secure and equal freedom, a duty that flows from their institutional assumption of sovereign powers. The fiduciary theory disarms Carl Schmitt’s critique of constitutionalism by explaining how emergency powers can be reconciled with the rule of law.

Humanitarian Financial Intervention, Evan J. Criddle

Evan J. Criddle

Over the past several decades, states have used international asset freezes with increasing frequency as a mechanism for promoting human rights abroad. Yet the international law governing this mechanism, which I refer to as ‘humanitarian financial intervention’, remains fragmented. This article offers the first systematic legal analysis of humanitarian financial intervention. It identifies six humanitarian purposes that states may pursue through asset freezes: preserving foreign assets from misappropriation, incapacitating foreign states or foreign nationals, coercing foreign states or foreign nationals to forsake abusive practices, compensating victims, ameliorating humanitarian crises through humanitarian aid or postconflict reconstruction, and punishing human rights violators. …

Unequal Enforcement Of The Law: Targeting Aggressors For Mass Atrocity Prosecutions, Nancy Amoury Combs

Nancy Combs

It is a central tenet of the laws of war that they apply equally to all parties to a conflict. For this reason, a party that illegally launches a war benefits from all the same rights as a party that must defend against the illegal aggression. Countless philosophers have shown that this so-called equal application doctrine is morally indefensible and that defenders should have more rights and fewer responsibilities than aggressors. The equal application doctrine retains the support of legal scholars, however, because they reasonably fear that applying different rules to different warring parties will substantially reduce overall compliance with …

Amnesty For Even The Worst Offenders, Jay Butler

Jay Butler

In recent years, global policy makers have declared that heads of state must be held accountable through criminal prosecution for internationally wrongful acts. Scholars too have insisted that the international system’s embrace of accountability excludes or renders illegal the granting of amnesty. This Article argues that that position is too narrow and uses the ongoing conflict in Syria, as well as other contemporary examples, to examine some of consequences of the clamor for prosecution.

The Article rejects the binary juxtaposition of amnesty and accountability in current international legal scholarship, and instead seeks to broaden the terms of the conversation by …

Inter-Country Adoption And The Special Rights Fallacy, James G. Dwyer

James G. Dwyer

No abstract provided.

Introduction: Death Penalty And International Law, Davison M. Douglas

Davison M. Douglas

No abstract provided.

Justice Unconceived: How Posterity Has Rights, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl

Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl

No abstract provided.

Workplace Sexual Harassment: Assessing The Effectiveness Of Human Rights Law In Canada, Bethany Hastie

Bethany Hastie

This report analyzes substantive decisions on the merits concerning workplace sexual harassment at each of the BC and Ontario Human Rights Tribunals from 2000-2018, with a view to identifying how the law of sexual harassment is understood, interpreted and applied by the Tribunals’ adjudicators. In particular, this report examines whether, and to what extent, gender-based stereotypes and myths known to occur in criminal justice proceedings arise in the human rights context.

This report examines substantive decisions on the merits for claims of workplace sexual harassment from 2000-2018 in BC and Ontario. The limitation to substantive decisions allows for a greater …

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, …

Diamonds On The Souls Of Her Shoes: The Kimberly Process And The Morality Exception To Wto Restrictions, Karen E. Woody

Karen Woody

This Article analyzes the events predicating the Kimberley Process and examines the validity of the Kimberley Process in relation to international trade obligations. Part I describes the background of conflict diamonds and their role in African wars. The section outlines the need for regulation in the diamond industry and examines how other attempted measures at curbing the illicit diamond trade have fallen short. Part II details the Kimberley Process and its guidelines. This section analyzes the relevant U.S. legislation passed in 2003, the Clean Diamond Trade Act. Part II also suggests that because the Kimberley Process ("KP") is predicated upon …

Karen E. Woody, Putting Pandora On Trial, 98 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 699 (2008) (Reviewing Mark A. Drumbl, Atrocity, Punishment, And International Law (2007)), Karen E. Woody

Karen Woody

In the wake of increasing globalization over the past fifty years, international criminal law has transformed from a toothless shadow into a concrete reality; the International Criminal Court is the most recent and impressive institutional accomplishment. Unfortunately, international criminal law has enjoyed this progress on the heels of increasingly horrific international crimes. International adjudicatory institutions have taken many forms and the sentences they deliver have varied widely. In Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law, Mark Drumbl reviews the strides made in international criminal law from the Nuremberg trials through present-day trials, particularly those related to the crimes committed in Rwanda and …

Limitations On Religious Rights: Problematizing Religious Freedom In The African Context, Makau Wa Mutua

Makau Mutua

No abstract provided.

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 …