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Articles 1 - 6 of 6

Full-Text Articles in Law

Seeking Asylum For Former Child Soldiers And Victims Of Human Trafficking, Tina Javaherian Sep 2012

Seeking Asylum For Former Child Soldiers And Victims Of Human Trafficking, Tina Javaherian

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


An End To The Violence: Justifying Gender As A "Particular Social Group", Suzanne Sidun Jul 2012

An End To The Violence: Justifying Gender As A "Particular Social Group", Suzanne Sidun

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Discretionary (In)Justice: The Exercise Of Discretion In Claims For Asylum, Kate Aschenbrenner Apr 2012

Discretionary (In)Justice: The Exercise Of Discretion In Claims For Asylum, Kate Aschenbrenner

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Section 208(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act provides that asylum may be granted to an applicant who meets the definition of a refugee-that is, someone who has been persecuted or has a well-founded fear of future persecution in her own country on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. Asylum is a discretionary form of relief which means that the United States government is not required to grant asylum to every refugee within the United States but instead may decide whether or not to do so. This Article sets out in Part …


Mapping Expansive Uses Of Human Dignity In International Criminal Law, J.Benton Heath Jan 2012

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 Jan 2012

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 …


Queer Cases Make Bad Law, James C. Hathaway, Jason Pobjoy Jan 2012

Queer Cases Make Bad Law, James C. Hathaway, Jason Pobjoy

Articles

The Refugee Convention, now adopted by 147 states, is the primary instrument governing refugee status under international law. The Convention sets a binding and nonamendable definition of which persons are entitled to recognition as refugees, and thus to enjoy the surrogate or substitute national protection of an asylum state. The core of the article 1A(2) definition provides that a refugee is a person who has a “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership of a particular social group.” A person is thus a refugee, and entitled to the non-refoulement and other protections …