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Full-Text Articles in Law
Hate Speech And Persecution: A Contextual Approach, Gregory S. Gordon
Hate Speech And Persecution: A Contextual Approach, Gregory S. Gordon
Gregory S. Gordon
Scholarly work on atrocity-speech law has focused almost exclusively on incitement to genocide. But case law has established liability for a different speech offense: persecution as a crime against humanity (CAH). The lack of scholarship regarding this crime is puzzling given a split between the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda (ICTR) and Yugoslavia (ICTY) on the issue of whether hate speech can serve as an actus reus for CAH-persecution. In the 2000 Ruggiu and 2003 Nahimana judgments, separate ICTR Trial Chambers found that hate speech radio broadcasts not calling for violence deprived the target ethnic group of fundamental rights and …
Giving Shelter From The Storm: Colombians Fleeing Persecution Based On Sexual Orientation, Luz Estella Nagle
Giving Shelter From The Storm: Colombians Fleeing Persecution Based On Sexual Orientation, Luz Estella Nagle
Luz Estella Nagle
Asylum seekers fleeing persecution due to sexual orientation face difficult challenges in proving their claims before United States immigration judges. Homosexuals in Latin America, and especially in Colombia, live under constant fear of harassment and violent attack, despite the fact that laws and constitutional rights are slowly being extended to the Gay and Lesbian population in Latin America. This article examines the conditions for LGBTs in Colombia, as a model for the region, to educate immigration judges about the horrific experiences that compel LGBTs to flee, and why they should be extended every consideration for gaining asylum in the United …
U.S. Asylum Law As A Path To Religious Persecution, Jack C. Dolance Ii
U.S. Asylum Law As A Path To Religious Persecution, Jack C. Dolance Ii
Jack C Dolance II
U.S. asylum law protects against persecution “on account of . . . religion.” But must the law protect a non-believer seeking religious asylum in the United States? Many may instinctively answer “no,” for a non-believer is by most definitions not “religious.” Such a response misses the mark, however—at least in the context of U.S. asylum law, which is subject to the First Amendment. The protection of religious liberty enshrined in the First Amendment embodies freedom from persecution on account of one’s “religion”—in whatever form that religion may take. In the asylum context, then, “religion” must be defined broadly. Protection from …
Emerging From The Shadow Of Nuremberg: Crimes Against Humanity In The Modern Age, Leila N. Sadat
Emerging From The Shadow Of Nuremberg: Crimes Against Humanity In The Modern Age, Leila N. Sadat
Leila N Sadat
This Article demonstrates the central importance of Crimes Against Humanity (CAH) prosecutions at the ad hoc international criminal tribunals and in the International Criminal Court (ICC). It represents the first comprehensive and empirical assessment of what CAH charges accomplish as a matter of observable practice. This empirical analysis informs the construction of a new theory of CAH in modern international criminal law. The Article analyzes the early jurisprudence of the ICC and challenges the conventional wisdom that CAH must be interpreted unduly restrictively, with reference to Nuremberg in mind. Instead, CAH at the world’s first permanent international criminal court must …
Mapping Expansive Uses Of Human Dignity In International Criminal Law, J.Benton Heath
Mapping Expansive Uses Of Human Dignity In International Criminal Law, J.Benton Heath
J.Benton Heath
International criminal law (ICL) makes frequent reference to the concept of human dignity, which also plays a central role in human rights law. While many of these invocations occur in the context of torture and cruel treatment, a handful of cases have used human dignity more expansively to justify punishment for hate speech and other crimes. In this chapter, I argue that such expansive invocations of human dignity fill gaps in substantive criminal law, motivate tribunals toward broad interpretations of the law, may serve to 'trump' competing claims, and provide an argument for overcoming strict applications of the principle of …
Human Dignity At Trial: Hard Cases And Broad Concepts In International Criminal Law, J.Benton Heath
Human Dignity At Trial: Hard Cases And Broad Concepts In International Criminal Law, J.Benton Heath
J.Benton Heath
Broad and indeterminate invocations of human dignity play a sporadic but powerful role in the adjudication of international criminal law (ICL). Drawing on detailed case studies, I argue that the concept of dignity enables courts to fill gaps in the substantive criminal law, justify expansive interpretations, resolve conflicts between competing rights and values, and potentially overcome the requirements of strict legality. These features enable judges to reach important and sometimes morally compelling conclusions. But expansive uses of human dignity come into tension with rule-of-law principles, and they challenge the self-understanding of ICL as a regime of limited subject-matter jurisdiction. This …