Law Commons^™

Human Trafficking, Cheryl George, Robert Piatt

Cheryl Page

Targeted Sanctions: Resolving The International Due Process Dilemma, Jack Garvey

Jack I Garvey

The Consequences Today Of The United States' Brutal Post-9/11 Interrogation Techniques, Peter J. Honigsberg

Peter J Honigsberg

The Silent Enemy: Current Practices For Healthcare Professionals In The Identification And Reporting Of Psychological Harm In Cases Of Domestic Violence., Matthew Raj, Ellie Mckay

Matthew Raj

Awareness and recognition of domestic violence in Australia is increasing. In 2014, the Victorian Government appointed Fiona Richardson as the first Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence and Australian domestic violence campaigner Rosie Batty, whose 11-year-old son Luke was killed by her husband, was named 2015 Australian of the Year. Also, a Special Taskforce chaired by Former Governor-General Quentin Bryce has been formed to conduct an extensive review of domestic violence in Queensland and legislative reforms have been implemented that adopt a broader concept and definition of domestic violence which include psychological harm. Despite these developments, the ability of …

The Respectable Dignity Of Obergefell V. Hodges, Yuvraj Joshi

Yuvraj Joshi

In declaring state laws that restrict same-sex marriage unconstitutional, Justice Kennedy invoked “dignity” nine times—to no one’s surprise. References in Obergefell to “dignity” are in important respects the culmination of Justice Kennedy’s elevation of the concept, dating back to the Supreme Court’s 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In Casey, “dignity” expressed respect for a woman’s freedom to make choices about her pregnancy. Casey laid the foundation for Lawrence v. Texas, which similarly respected the freedom of choice of homosexual persons. Yet, starting in United States v. Windsor and continuing in Obergefell, the narrative began to change. Dignity veered …

The Impact Of Weapons On Civilian Deaths In The Syrian Conflict, Debarati Guha-Sapir, Jose Rodriguez-Llanes, Madelyn Hicks, Anne-Françoise Donneau, Adam Coutts, Louis Lillywhite, Fouad Fouad

Madelyn Hsiao-Rei Hicks

No abstract provided.

International Intellectual Property, Access To Health Care, And Human Rights: South Africa V. United States, Winston Nagan

Winston P Nagan

This Article examines the question of access to patented medicines in international law. It analyzes the extent to which international agreements may lawfully limit affordable versions of these medicines that may be available through parallel imports or compulsory licensing procedures. It considers the concept of intellectual property rights from a national and international perspective to determine how these rights must be sensitive to matters of national sovereignty when extraordinary, life-threatening diseases afflict societies in catastrophic ways. This Article suggests that viewing property (including intellectual property) as a human right requires that its scope be delimited and understood in the context …

All Americans Not Equal: Mistrust And Discrimination Against Naturalized Citizens In The U.S., Alev Dudek

Alev Dudek

Justice Should Be Done, But Where? The Relationship Between National And International Courts, Naomi Roht-Arriaza, Laura Dickinson, Christopher Hall, Paul Seils

Naomi Roht-Arriaza

No abstract provided.

"First, Do No Harm": Human Rights And Efforts To Combat Climate Change, Naomi Roht-Arriaza

Naomi Roht-Arriaza

No abstract provided.

The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act And Human Rights Violations: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back?, Naomi Roht-Arriaza

Naomi Roht-Arriaza

No abstract provided.

Human Rights Module: On Crimes Against Humanity, Genocide, Other Crimes Against Human Rights, And War Crimes, Jimmy Gurule, Jordan Paust

Jimmy Gurule

The Human Rights Module provides an up-to-date exploration of the "core" international crimes most often associated with human rights infractions for those interested in human rights and for use in international law courses, human rights courses, or seminars. "Core" crimes include crimes against humanity, genocide, other crimes against human rights (such as torture, criminalized race discrimination, apartheid, hostage-taking, and disappearances), and war crimes. There is also a separate chapter on sanctions against Karadzic that applies many of the core crimes in both criminal and civil sanctions arenas (before the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia and the U.S. federal courts) …

U.S. Immigration Policy: Contract Or Human Rights Law?, Victor Romero

Victor C. Romero

The current immigration debate often reflects a tension between affirming the individual rights of migrants against the power of a nation to control its borders. An examination of U.S. Supreme Court precedent reveals that, from our earliest immigration history to the present time, our immigration policy has functioned more like contract law than human rights law, with the Court deferring to the power of Congress to define the terms of that contract at the expense of the immigrant's freedom.

The Child Citizenship Act And The Family Reunification Act: Valuing The Citizen Child As Well As The Citizen Parent, Victor Romero

Victor C. Romero

Leading civil rights advocates today lament the degree to which current immigration law fails to maintain family unity. The recent passage of the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 is a rare bipartisan step in the right direction because it grants automatic citizenship to foreign-born children of U.S. citizens upon receipt of their permanent resident status and finalization of their adoption. Congress now has before it the Family Reunification Act of 2001, which aims to restore certain procedural safeguards relaxed in 1996 to ensure that foreign-born parents are not summarily separated from their children, many of whom may be U.S. citizens. …

On Elián And Aliens: A Political Solution To The Plenary Power Problem, Victor Romero

Victor C. Romero

The poignant story of a little boy fished out of the sea after losing his mother to the elements captured the country's imagination and ignited a political firestorm. The Elián González saga drew conflicting opinions from nearly every branch of American local, state, and federal governments.

This article takes no specific position on Elián's situation. Rather, this artivle values the González story for putting a human face on often faceless legal issues. More specifically, Elián's saga raises the following important question: When should the right of the human being to be treated as an individual trump the right of government …

A Role For Strategic Litigation, Matthew Scott

Matthew Scott

Strategic litigation to protect internationally displaced persons at risk of disaster-related harm in their home countries can usefully support higher-level protection initiatives.

Regional Protection Of Human Rights, Paolo Carozza, Dinah Shelton

Paolo G. Carozza

What role do human rights play in the development of regional organizations? What human rights obligations do states assume upon joining regional bodies? Regional Protection of Human Rights, Second Edition is the first text of its kind devoted to the European, Inter-American and African systems for the protection of human rights. It illustrates how international human rights law is interpreted and implemented across international organizations and offers examples of political, economic, social problems and legal issues to emphasize the significant impact of international human rights law institutions on the constitutions, law, policies, and societies of different regions. Regional Protection of …

U.S. Police Officers Kill Primarily Because They Are Attacked, Not To Disrupt Crime, Alev Dudek

Alev Dudek

Religious Liberty: Between Strategy And Telos, Kristine Kalanges

Kristine Kalanges

It has become woefully commonplace to observe that threats to religious freedom are increasing in the United States and globally. In response, scholars, human rights activists, and policymakers are engaging courts, political institutions, and the public square to make the case that religious liberty merits robust protection. Historically, these arguments were crafted primarily in theological and political terms. But as the number of those disclaiming religious affiliation rises and the political climate becomes ever more gridlocked, the search is on for new ways to make religious freedom relevant to state leaders and salable to a diverse public. Thus, during a …

Taking God Seriously: Why Religion Is Essential To The Defense Of Religious Human Rights, Kristine Kalanges

Kristine Kalanges

The immediate challenge is to transform the “difficult choice” between religious liberty as a universal human right and peaceful coexistence of diverse legal political cultures. The development of a world legal tradition is an important component of that transformation. World legal tradition emphasizes the comparative moral and historical bases of law in the subject spheres of study. Its integrative jurisprudence necessitates consideration of the contributions made by religion, politics, and historical circumstance to the evolution of law. While the elements of a world legal tradition are to be found in the intellectual and institutional resources of the Western and Islamic …

Talking Points On Report Of The Special Rapporteur On Freedom Of Religion Or Belief, Kristine Kalanges

Kristine Kalanges

To support the Holy See in its work at the United Nations, the Caritas in Veritate Foundation, in Geneva, Switzerland, and the Center for Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, collaborated in preparing reports on current issues discussed at the United Nations. The Terrence J. Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law, and Public Policy, a joint venture between the Center for Catholic Studies and the School of Law at the University of St. Thomas, supports this collaboration, helps identify experts to draft these reports and, with the authors' permission, makes them available on its website. In …

Corporate Social Responsibility For Enforcement Of Labor Rights: Are There More Effective Alternatives?, Barbara Fick

Barbara Fick

Professor Fick's presentation begins at 2:08:36 of the video, and ends at 3:05:27.

Response To Jacqueline Bhabha, Child Migration And Human Rights In A Global Age, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

No abstract provided.

Reforming The International Investment Regime: Lessons From International Trade Law, Frank Garcia, Lindita Ciko, Apurv Gaurav

Frank J. Garcia

Does Propaganda Incite Violence?, Richard Wilson, Christine Lillie

Richard Ashby Wilson

In America and abroad there is a renewed impetus to prosecute propagandists who incite others to commit acts of war, terrorism and genocide. While we may feel intuitively that the inciters should bear criminal responsibility, thus far the science supporting the position that extreme speech directly influences attitudes and behavior has been quite inconclusive. Therefore we set out to test the concrete effects of propaganda for war, drawing on the actual speeches of Vojislav Seselj, a Serb political leader presently awaiting judgment in The Hague for instigating murder, torture and deportation of Croat civilians in the early 1990s. We divided …

The Implications Of Incorporating The Eighth Amendment Prohibition On Excessive Bail, Scott Howe

Scott W. Howe

In its opinion in McDonald v. City of Chicago, 130 S.Ct. 3020 (2010), concerning the incorporation of the Second Amendment, the Supreme Court included a footnote that listed the Eighth Amendment prohibition on excessive bail as one of the incorporated Bill of Rights protections. Oddly, the Court had never incorporated the bail clause or even explained what protections it conferred. While strange, these circumstances provide a rare opportunity to reason backward from incorporation to the meaning of the incorporated provision. And by pursuing those backward implications, the paper offers novel arguments about the proper understanding of the bail clause.

I …

"I Still Live In Guantanamo!" Human Rights Abuses Continue After Detainees Leave Guantanamo, Peter Honigsberg

Peter J Honigsberg

In November 2014, the U.S. government transferred Yemeni national Hussein Al-marfadi, from the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba detention center to the nation of Slovakia. He had never been charged with a crime, and had been cleared for release nearly five years before his transfer to Slovakia. Three months later, in February 2015, the Witness to Guantanamo project (W2G) interviewed Al-marfadi in Zvolen, a town in central Slovakia. Although physically and psychologically scarred from his 12 years of detention, Al-marfadi was an engaging, even-tempered and thoughtful man.

However, when W2G asked Al-marfadi about his life today, his composure and even-tempered tone transformed …

Notes From A New Underground: The Intersection Of Russian Orthodoxy, Religious Liberty, Lgbt Rights, And State Authority, John Ehrett

John Ehrett

Current laws in the Russian Federation impose sanctions against both speech deemed offensive to Russia’s traditional religious groups, and speech considered “propaganda” of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. This Featured Note offers a contemporary examination of the historical, cultural and political forces underlying these ongoing trends, and offers an interdisciplinary consideration of issues surrounding the intersection of liberty of religious expression with liberty of LGBT expression in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. This is historically contextualized through consideration of the political integration of church and state as a contributing factor toward limitations on these political freedoms. Ultimately, a vision …

What Are Transitions For? Atrocity, International Criminal Justice, And The Political, Paulo Barrozo

Paulo Barrozo

This essay offers an answer to the question of what societies afflicted by atrocities ought to transition into. The answer offered is able to better direct the evaluation of previous models and the design of new models of transitional justice. Into what, then, should transitional justice transition? I argue in this essay that transitional justice should be a transition into the political, understood in its robust liberalism version. I further argue that the most significant part of transitions ought to happen in the minds of the members of political communities, precisely where the less tangible and yet most important dimension …

Is Jus In Bello In Crisis?, Jens Ohlin

Jens David Ohlin

It is a truism that new technologies are remaking the tactical and legal landscape of armed conflict. While such statements are undoubtedly true, it is important to separate genuine trends from scholarly exaggeration. The following essay, an introduction to the Drone Wars symposium of the Journal, catalogues today’s most pressing disputes regarding international humanitarian law (IHL) and their consequences for criminal responsibility. These include: (i) the triggering and classification of armed conflicts with non-state actors; (ii) the relative scope of IHL and international human rights law in asymmetrical conflicts; (iii) the targeting of suspected terrorists under concept- or status-based classifications …