Law Commons^™

Sexual Violence As A Weapon Of War In Ethiopia's Tigray Region And The Developing Adjudication Of Violations Of The Protocol On The Rights Of Women In Africa, Valerie R. Cook

American University International Law Review

On November 4, 2020, a civil war broke out in the Tigray region of Ethiopia between joint Ethiopian and Eritrean military forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (“TPLF”). The war is in part an ethnic conflict between the newly centralized nationalist government under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the once politically dominant beneficiaries of a federalist system, the TPLF. Sexual violence as a method of war has become a hallmark of this conflict as reports of rape by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers against Tigrayan women have increased.

White Silence And Violence: Positionality And Storytelling In Women’S Rights Movements, Inka Boehm

Human Rights Brief

Our identity impacts everything about how we move through the world as individuals. In the legislative process, identity is often disregarded but has detrimental effects if ignored. Positionality describes how society shapes identities through power and privilege. This methodology requires researchers to analyze their world with their own privileges in mind and is often overlooked by policymakers.

What An Ethics Of Discourse And Recognition Can Contribute To A Critical Theory Of Refugee Claim Adjudication, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Thanks to Axel Honneth, recognition theory has become a prominent fixture of critical social theory. In recent years, he has deployed his recognition theory in diagnosing pathologies and injustices that afflict institutional practices. Some of these institutional practices revolve around specifically juridical institutions, such as human rights and democratic citizenship, that directly impact the lives of the most desperate migrants. Hence it is worthwhile asking what recognition theory can add to a critical theory of migration. In this paper, I argue that, although its contribution to a critical theory of migration is limited, it nonetheless carves out a unique body …

Promoting Gender Equity And Foreign Policy Goals Through Ratifying The Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women, Raj Telwala

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

The Tortured Woman: Defying The Gendered Conventions Of The Convention Against Torture, Linda Kelly

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

“Time Is A-Wasting”: Making The Case For Cedaw Ratification By The United States, Rangita De Silva De Alwis, Melanne Verveer

All Faculty Scholarship

Since President Carter signed the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (the “CEDAW” or the “Convention”) on July 17, 1980, the United States has failed to ratify the Convention time and again. As one of only a handful of countries that has not ratified the CEDAW, the United States is in the same company as Sudan, Somalia, Iran, Tonga, and Palau. When CEDAW ratification stalled yet again in 2002, then-Senator Joseph Biden lamented that “[t]ime is a-wasting.”

Writing in 2002, Harold Koh, former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, bemoaned America’s …

Sustainable Development: Energy, Justice, And Women, Lakshman Guruswamy

Publications

This article will first offer a functional synopsis relevant to its remit, of the concept of sustainable development (SD) embodied in international law and policy that reflects a tension between economic and social claims as contrasted with environmental protection. While the dominant place acquired by the economic and social dimensions of SD will be recognized, it will argue consistent with the predicate of justice discussed in the article, that the protection of the human environment encompasses the plight of the energy poor and their women and children. Second, the article will delineate the contours of one of the great developmental …

The Dynamic Impact Of Periodic Review On Women’S Rights, Cosette D. Creamer, Beth A. Simmons

All Faculty Scholarship

Human rights treaty bodies have been frequently criticized as useless and the regime’s self-reporting procedure widely viewed as a whitewash. Yet very little research explores what, if any, influence this periodic review process has on governments’ implementation of and compliance with treaty obligations. We argue oversight committees may play an important role in improving rights on the ground by providing information for international and primarily domestic audiences. This paper examines the cumulative effects on women’s rights of self-reporting and oversight review, using original data on the history of state reporting to and review by the Committee on the Elimination of …

Making Laws, Breaking Silence: Case Studies From The Field, Rangita De Silva De Alwis

All Faculty Scholarship

The Sustainable Development Goals seek to change the history of the 21st century, addressing key challenges such as poverty, inequality, and violence against women and girls. The inalienable rights of gender equality and empowerment of women and girls addressed in Goal 5 are a pre-condition for this. Despite decades of struggle by women’s movements and reformist agendas, much still needs to be done to address de facto and de jure discrimination against women. At a time of enormous change for women, these essays from around the world are a critical analysis of the role of law in regulating and shaping …

The Elusive Promise Of Equal Opportunity And Women’S Empowerment Through Temporary Labor Migration Programs: Lessons In Systemic Discrimination From The United States, Sarah Paoletti

All Faculty Scholarship

Women comprise approximately half of all migrants across the world, and similarly account for nearly half of all of labor migration. But equality in numbers belies the systemic discrimination women confront in accessing employment opportunities through labor migration programs, as well as the experiences of women within those programs. Migration – and specifically labor migration – is not a gender-neutral phenomenon. The International Labor Organization (ILO) has expressed concern that as feminization of migration increases, women migrants will be increasingly vulnerable to “discrimination, exploitation and abuse… because of hardened attitudes towards migrants in general and because gender-based attitudes and perceptions …

Achieving Sex-Representative International Court Benches, Nienke Grossman

All Faculty Scholarship

Twenty-five years ago, in this Journal, Hilary Charlesworth, Christine Chinkin, and Shelley Wright argued that the structures of international law “privilege men.”1 As shown in Table 1, which summarizes data from a forthcoming article, on nine of twelve international courts of varied size, subject-matter jurisdiction, and global and regional membership, women made up 20 percent or less of the bench in mid 2015.2 On many of these courts, the percentage of women on the bench has stayed constant, vacillated, or even declined over time.3 Women made up a lower percentage of the bench in mid 2015 than in previous years …

Zero-Tolerance Comes To International Law, Aya Gruber

Publications

No abstract provided.

Brief For Foreign And Comparative Law Experts Harold Hongju Koh Et Al. As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioners, Harold Hongju Koh, Thomas Buergenthal, Sarah H. Cleveland, Laurence R. Helfer, Ryan Goodman, Sujit Choudhry

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Liberty, Equality, Diversity: States, Cultures And International Law, Ana Filipa Vrdoljak

Ana Filipa Vrdoljak

This chapter explores how culture is addressed by contemporary international law, with particular reference to human rights law norms. The first part covering freedom focuses on the rise of the modern state and its conscious reimagining of ties with its citizens through the promotion of tolerance and a secular, national identity. The shift is explored through the prisms of the freedom of religion, the right to participate in (national) cultural life, and the limitations on freedom of expression including prohibition of hate speech and domestic blasphemy laws. The second part on equality centres on the relationship between the state, the …

Hollingsworth V. Perry, Brief For Foreign And Comparative Law Experts Harold Hongju Koh Et. Al. As Amici Curiae Supporting Respondents, Harold Hongju Koh, Sarah H. Cleveland, Laurence R. Helfer, Ryan Goodman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Global "Parliament Of Mothers": History, The Revolutionary Tradition, And International Law In The Pre-War Women's Movement, Susan Hinely

Chicago-Kent Law Review

In spite of recent literature that examines late nineteenth and early twentieth century transnational movements in innovative ways, the largest transnational movement of that period, the women's movement, remains lodged in academic and popular memory as the "suffrage movement," a single-issue campaign waged by privileged Victorian women, a foregone development in the march of electoral progress that ended in victory with postwar enfranchisement. A fresh approach to the suffrage archive reveals instead a far more radical movement than conventional history suggests, one that explicitly linked its cause with both the revolutionary democratic tradition and with anti-colonial activism. Like the non-Western …

The Challenge Of Domestic Implementation Of International Human Rights Law In The Cotton Field Case, Caroline Bettinger-López

Articles

No abstract provided.

Critical Theories Of Race And Racism In World Perspective, Angela P. Harris

Angela P Harris

This introduction to an edited collection on race and equality to be published by Ashgate Press surveys antidiscrimination law in a number of countries from a critical race theory perspective.

The High Cost Of Freedom: A Legal And Policy Analysis Of Shelter Detention For Victims Of Trafficking, Anne T. Gallagher, Elaine Pearson

Anne T Gallagher

In countries around the world it is common practice for victims of human trafficking who have been “rescued” or who have escaped from situations of exploitation to be placed and detained in public or private shelters. In the most egregious situations, victims can be effectively imprisoned in such shelters for months, even years. This article uses field-based research to document this largely unreported phenomenon. It then considers the international legal aspects of victim detention in shelters and weighs the common justifications for such detention from legal, policy, and practical perspectives.

Women And Private Military And Security Companies, Ana Filipa Vrdoljak

Ana Filipa Vrdoljak

Lack of clarity about the application of international law norms and inadequacies of existing regulatory regimes covering private military and security companies have reinforced concerns about transparency and accountability in respect of gender-related violence, harassment and discrimination. This chapter focuses on the main issues and legal concerns raised by the impact of the privatisation of war on women, both as PMSC employees and civilians. Part I highlights how armed conflict, civil unrest, occupation and transition have a detrimental effect upon the lives of women with particular reference to safety, displacement, health and economic disadvantage. Part II provides a summary of …

Rethinking International Women's Human Rights Through Eve Sedgwick, Darren Rosenblum

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Since the death of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, I have wanted to honor her memory, and this panel is the perfect venue. Sedgwick's foundational understandings of sexuality, gender, and identity set the stage for much of my work and that of those I admire. My own work looks at how the state regulates gender in the “public” sphere. I attempt to challenge the tensions and intersections among international and comparative notions of equality and identity. Group identity constructions vary across cultural lines and conflict with liberal notions of universalist constitutionalism and equality. My current work, Unsex CEDAW: What's Wrong with Women's …

Unsex Cedaw: What's Wrong With "Women's Rights", Darren Rosenblum

International & Comparative Law Colloquium Papers

Although the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (“CEDAW” or the “Convention”) has succeeded in some respects, even its supporters acknowledge broad failures. CEDAW’s weakness draws on the titular mistaken diagnosis: “women” are not the issue&#;gender disparities are. The 1970’s drafting of CEDAW focused on bringing women to their place at the international law table. What’s wrong with women’s rights? In the international context, CEDAW attempts to empower women but fails to respect other gender inequality. As the preeminent treaty on gender inequality, CEDAW cannot succeed in creating gender equality if its scope remains limited …

"The Distant 'Big' Hospital": Linking Development, Poverty And Reproductive Health-A Gender Mainstreaming Approach, Edith Miguda

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Learning To Love After Learning To Harm: Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Gender Equality And Cultural Values, Penelope Andrews

Articles & Chapters

The question that the Jacob Zuma rape trial and its aftermath raised was how a country like South Africa, with such a wonderful Constitution and expansive Bill of Rights, could generate such negative and retrogressive attitudes towards women. In line with this inquiry, this article raises three issues: The first focuses on the legacy of apartheid violence and specifically the cultures of masculinity, the underbelly of apartheid violence. Second, the article explores the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a vital part of the post-apartheid transformation agenda, to examine how the TRC pursued violations of women's human rights. …

Judicial Review And United States Supreme Court Citations To Foreign And International Law, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

Recent decisions by the United States Supreme Court and extracurricular discussions between some of the Justices have fueled a debate regarding whether and when it is appropriate for the Court to make reference to foreign law in cases involving the interpretation and application of the United States Constitution. This debate has, to some extent, paralleled the argument over whether the Constitution is best interpreted by looking at the intent of the original drafters - an originalist approach - or by considering it to be a "living" document that must be interpreted to take account of contemporary realities. This article considers …

Legal Pluralism & Women's Rights: A Study In Post-Colonial Tanzania, Edward R. Fluet, Mark J. Calaguas, Cristina M. Drost

ExpressO

Recognizing a dearth of legal research on Zanzibar, the authors explore the complex legal and cultural landscape of this archipelago and its relationship to mainland Tanzania. The article discusses the problems that arise when multicultural societies adopt a pluralist system of justice in order to preserve the traditions of its diverse communities. Although the article focuses on Tanzania, the problems that arise from multicultural accommodations affect not only young, postcolonial nations in Africa and Asia, but also individuals in cosmopolitan, economically-developed countries such as Israel and the United States. As countries wrestle with ever diversifying ethnic and religious populations, such …

Internalizing Gender: International Goals, Comparative Realities, Darren Rosenblum

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article uses the example of international women's political rights to examine the value of comparative methodologies in analyzing the process by which nations internalize international norms. As internalized in Brazil and France, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women suggests possibilities for (and possible limitations of) interdisciplinary comparative and international law scholarship. Indeed, international law scholarship is divided between theories of internalization and neorealist challenges to those theories. Comparative methodologies add crucial complexity to internalization theory, the success of which depends on acknowledging vast differences in national legal cultures. Further, comparative methodologies expose important …

Battered Nation Syndrome: Relaxing The Imminence Requirement Of Self-Defense In International Law, Michael Skopets

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Battered Nation Syndrome: Relaxing The Imminence Requirement Of Self-Defense In International Law, Michael Skopets

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Gendered Subjects Of Transitional Justice, Katherine M. Franke

Faculty Scholarship

Transitional societies must contend with a range of complex challenges as they seek to come to terms with and move beyond an immediate past saturated with mass murder, rape, torture, exploitation, disappearance, displacement, starvation, and all other manner of human suffering. Questions of justice figure prominently in these transitional moments, and they do so in a dual fashion that is at once backward and forward looking. Successor governments must think creatively about building institutions that bring justice to the past, while at the same time demonstrate a commitment that justice will form a bedrock of governance in the present and …