Law Commons^™

Exploring Human Rights Implications Of Microfinance Initiatives, Rebecca Farrar

Rebecca Farrar

Abstract for Article: Exploring the Human Rights Implications of Microfinance Initiatives by Rebecca Farrar

Microfinance and microcredit (“MFI”) programs have been advanced as a way to make the world a better place. These programs involve making small loans to people who would otherwise be unable to borrow money to facilitate them starting their own businesses: frequently, the programs focus on women borrowers in developing countries. Muhammad Yunus of the Grameen Bank says microfinance and microcredit programs can literally end world poverty.

This Article explores MFI from several perspectives, with particular emphasis on human rights issues. The emphasis of MFI programs …

December 16, 2008: Is Dobby Really Free?, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Is Dobby Really Free?“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Corporate Social Responsibility And Workers’ Rights, Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] Corporate social responsibility (CSR) brings an important dimension to the global economy. CSR can enhance human rights, labor rights, and labor standards in the workplace by joining consumer power and socially responsible business leadership—not just leadership in Nike headquarters in Oregon or Levi Strauss headquarters in California, but leadership in trading house headquarters in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and leadership at the factory level in Dongguan and Shenzhen. Ten years ago, I would not have said this. I viewed corporate social responsibility and corporate codes of conduct as public relations maneuvers to pacify concerned consumers. Behind a facade of …

The Right Of Public Participation In The Law-Making Process And The Role Of The Legislature In The Promotion Of This Right, Karen Czapanskiy, Rashida Manjoo

Karen Czapanskiy

In 2006, the South African Constitutional Court found a constitutional right to participate in the legislative process in the case of Doctors for Life, Case CCT 12/05 (decided 17 August 2006). In this article, we argue that, first, legislation is better when legislators are required to invite and attend to public input, and, second, citizenship is better when legislators are required to invite and attend to public input. Doctors for Life puts South Africa on the road to improving both legislation and citizenship. In the United States, this road is largely untraveled. While rejecting traditional representative democracy as an adequate …

Book Review: Stephen Hopgood, 'Keepers Of The Flame: Understanding Amnesty International', Kenneth Anderson

Book Reviews

American University, WCL Research Paper No. 2008-66Abstract:This brief review (1100 words) examines Stephen Hopgood's half journalism-half anthropological journey inside the world of Amnesty International. The book is an outstanding piece of both reportage and analysis, and the review discusses the various pressures, political and ideological and social, on AI and those that work in its International Secretariat. As the review notes, AI is more like a religious order than anything else, and that observation has ramifications for the NGO world beyond AI.

Peace Without Justice, Or Justice Without Peace?, Clair Apodaca

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Peace without justice is an illusion. The use of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate and prosecute human rights violations not only provides restorative justice for those harmed by the wrongdoing but also retributive justice towards the perpetrators. Restorative justice seeks to help heal the wounds of the victims and community by acknowledging and witnessing the pain and suffering of the victim. Retributive justice seeks to punish the offenders. The hope is that retribution will deter or prevent future acts of violence by holding perpetrators accountable for the violations of human rights, genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. …

Challenging The International Criminal Court Over Al-Bashir, Emma Gilligan

Human Rights & Human Welfare

As of late November 2008, we are still awaiting the decision of the U.N. Security Council with regard to the request for the arrest of Sudanese President, Omar al-Bashir for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide put forward by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in July. With former Presidents Charles Taylor of Liberia and Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia as the only two heads of state formally indicted by the ICC since its inception in 2002, the question remains whether the U.N. Security Council will allow this controversial indictment of al-Bashir by Chief Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo or invoke Article 16 …

Alex De Waal's Shuttle Diplomacy, Sarah Stanlick

Human Rights & Human Welfare

This month’s discussion piece, “The Activist,” is a critical look at one of the most renowned scholars of the turmoil in Sudan. Alex de Waal, a man with an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the different factions, aspects, and issues surrounding the conflicts in Sudan, is profiled under a careful eye. De Waal, a competent critic—as McDonell notes who “takes pride in his competence, and he does not hesitate to criticize activists he deems inexpert”— has built a career on a meticulously researched understanding of the conflict. He honed that reputation through careful action, critical thinking, and a critical voice for …

December Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“The Activist.” Harper's Magazine. November 2008.

Human Rights Or Inhuman Wrongs, Edward Friedman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The project of promoting universally recognized human rights, that is, the commitments of the U.N. General Assembly-ratified Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), is in danger. Military and political intervention, including economic sanctions, to stop genocide and ethnic and other political mass murder is under attack. Apparently the lessons of Hitler’s holocaust, the Turkish genocide of Armenians, Pol Pot’s slaughter of innocents, and the loss of life in Rwanda are being rethought and un-taught. So-called peace is now preferred over prevention. The dead may have died in vain.

Global Ethics And The Role Of Academics, Christien Van Den Anker

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Academics have a social and professional responsibility that stems from their individual duties as global citizens. With their privileged position as lifelong learners they need to assess carefully where they direct their attention for research, their teaching and their exchange of knowledge with the wider public. This means that academic freedom does not only bring a range of rights, it also involves duties to develop and advocate ethical positions on real-life dilemmas and to engage in self-reflection on being in the role of contributing to oppression.

An Emerging Triangle: Climate Change, Migration And Human Rights: The Case Of New Zealand,Tuvalu And Kiribati, Sarah Stefanos

Archived Theses and Dissertations

Three important global issues - climate change, migration, and human rights- form an emerging triangle because of their interrelatedness. However, critical analysis of the relationship between these three issues apart from an as yet legally meaningless discourse about an imminent global catastrophe of 250 million 'climate refugees' has been limited. This paper examines the climate change, migration, and human rights triangle through the lens of the Pacific, where some of the states most severely threatened by climate change can be found. Extremely small Pacific states whose inhabitants have lived on coral reef islands (called atolls) for more than 2000 years, …

Human Rights Protection Under The Nigerian Constitution, Ibrahim Sule

Ibrahim Sule

No abstract provided.

November 17, 2008: The Mormon Church And Proposition 8, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “The Mormon church and Proposition 8“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

November Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“Foreign Policy Myths Debunked." The Nation. October 6, 2008.

The Past, Present, And Future Of The United Nations: A Comment On Paul Kennedy And The Parliament Of Man (El Pasado Como Prologo: El Futuro Glorioso Y El Turbio Presente De Las Naciones Unidas (Revista De Paul Kennedy, El Parlamento De La Humanidad)), Kenneth Anderson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

American University, WCL Research Paper No. 2008-72Abstract:This is the original Spanish language version of an essay (10,000 words) appearing in the Revista de Libros (Madrid), considering the history and future of the United Nations and global governance through the lens of Paul Kennedy's recent work, The Parliament of Man. The essay is highly skeptical of what it describes as platonism about the future of the UN as the seat of global governance. It offers an alternative view of how to consider the work of the UN, in three areas: security, economic development, and values. The essay argues that, particularly with …

Federalism And Horizontality In International Human Rights , Margaret E. Mcguinness

Missouri Law Review

The advent of the international human rights system is one of the many changes to international law since the time Missouri v. Holland was decided. As other contributions to this symposium note, one of the challenging federalism questions raised by Holland in this new era is the effect of international human rights treaties and emerging customary international human rights law on U.S. states. And just as the creation of the international human rights regime has affected domestic analysis of federalism, the international human rights system has itself adjusted to the processes of federalism. The human rights regime is largely structured …

Speak Softly...With Everyone You Can, Todd Landman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

From the Monroe Doctrine to the Bush Doctrine, United States foreign policy has been predicated on the assumption that somehow it knows what is best for the rest of the world. Monroe feared a potential encroachment from Russia and meddling in the "American" Hemisphere by the European powers and issued what originally appeared as a modest statement about resistance to intervention by any other country than the United States . Ironically enforced by the British Navy at that time, the Monroe Doctrine went far beyond its modest beginnings to set a precedent for the development of U.S. foreign policy. The …

Human Rights And The 2008 U.S. Presidential Election, Brent J. Steele

Human Rights & Human Welfare

There has been a vivid tendency this year by the conventional keepers of Washington wisdom to explicate the two presidential candidates' foreign policy views using old frameworks of "hawk" and "dove." Not only is this binary wrong, it fundamentally obscures some rather ironic potentials for how each candidate, if elected president, will focus upon human rights in their foreign policy. McCain's neoconservative view of the world is founded upon the Wilsonian call for democratization-culminating in what he terms a "League of Democracies." To use a concept that Arnold Wolfers first coined, and one which Joshua Muravchik has proffered as well, …

America As An Ordinary Nation, William F. Felice

Human Rights & Human Welfare

For decades, scholars of international relations have called attention to the limits of American power. For example, in 1976 Cornel University Press published America as an Ordinary Country: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Future , edited by Richard Rosecrance. As the title indicates, Rosecrance's book analyzed the impact of the economic, military, and foreign policy setbacks of the 1970s on U.S. power. Suddenly the U.S. seemed less the powerful, "indispensible" leader and more the vulnerable, "ordinary" country unable to control external forces lashing the society's economy and foreign policy. These insights led many scholars to call for a reassessment of …

Myths, Reasonable Disagreement, And A League Of Democracies, James Pattison

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The United States ' election in 2004 was based on a number of foreign policy myths. Three of the most obvious were:

• The war in Iraq was necessary as a response to the threat of international terrorism. As a result, the world is now a safer place;
• The institutions of the UN are corrupt and do nothing but restrict American power;
• Al Qaeda and international terrorism more generally are extremely significant threats to American national security

Between Rogues And Liberals: Towards Value Pluralism As A Theory Of Freedom Of Religion In International Law, Peter G. Danchin

Peter G. Danchin

No abstract provided.

The Inter-American System Of Human Rights: Challenges For The Future, Claudio Grossman

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The Inter-American system is a combination of human rights norms and supervisory institutions within the Americas. The applicable rules consist primarily of the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man ("American Declaration") and the American Convention on Human Rights ("American Convention"). The institutions involved are the organs responsible for supervising compliance with the established rules: the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ("the Commission") and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ("the Court"). The system performs supervisory functions basically through country reports adopted by the Commission which describe the overall human rights situation in a country and decisions in …

The Lost Sanctuary: Examining Sex Trafficking Through The Lens Of United States V. Ah Sou, M. Margaret Mckeown, Emily Ryo

Cornell International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Reforming Humanitarian Rescue, Brent J. Steele

Human Rights & Human Welfare

There is much to commend in Morton Abramowitz and Thomas Pickering’s article “Making Intervention Work.” They propose to reform the United Nations’ capacity for intervention with the creation of an autonomous U.N. force largely constituted with forces contributed by the Security Council’s member-states. If such a force were kept to a minimal operational mission, “a small rapid-deployment force with special engineering, logistical, medical, and police skills,” as the authors suggest, then I think this is a good idea. If such a force would, however, become more than this—an autonomous army of military personnel meant to intervene with force into any …

The Right Of Public Participation In The Law-Making Process And The Role Of The Legislature In The Promotion Of This Right, Karen Syma Czapanskiy, Rashida Manjoo

Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law

No abstract provided.

When Human Rights Conflict: Mediating International Parental Kidnapping Disputes Involving The Domestic Violence Defense, Julia Alanen

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

October Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“Making Intervention Work.” by Morton Abramowitz and Thomas Pickering. Foreign Affairs. September/October 2008.

Has The Iraq War Torpedoed The “Responsibility To Protect”?, William F. Felice

Human Rights & Human Welfare

At a U.N. World Summit in 2005, the nations of the world approved the “responsibility to protect.” This emerging principle of international law, charges each individual state with the responsibility to protect its population from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. If a nation fails to protect its populations from these barbarities, the nations of the world declared that they would act, through the Security Council, in accordance with the U.N. Charter, to stop the violence against innocents everywhere and protect imperiled peoples. In theory, Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter gives the member states the military …

The Responsibility To Protect And The Failure To Respond, Todd Landman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Commentators on global politics frequently observe the abject failure of states and global institutions to respond to local, regional, and global crises ranging from dramatic climatic events, humanitarian crises, warfare and violence, to the continuation of unsavoury rights-abusive regimes. In my own work in the field of the comparative politics of human rights, the types of observations that Abramowitz and Pickering make in this piece are all too common, and have led many in the past to make similar such observations that powerful states constantly engage in a grand human rights “double standard.”