Law Commons^™

Connecticut Yankee Speech In Europe’S Court: Alternative Vision Of Constitutional Defamation Law To New York Times V. Sullivan?, Allen E. Shoenberger

Allen E Shoenberger

The article compares and contrasts the defamation law of the European Court of Human Rights(ECHR) with that of the United States, with particular reference to NY Times v. Sullivan. The NY Times actual malice standard not only over-protects speakers, it denies a name clearing hearing to the target of defamatory speech. This is of increasing importance as new media, such as the internet, make it so easy to communicate false, defamatory statements about anyone, including in particular elected officials and candidates. President Obama was first elected to the U.S. Senate because of a sex scandal that tainted his only serious …

Connecticut Yankee Speech In Europe’S Court: Alternative Vision Of Constitutional Defamation Law To New York Times V. Sullivan?, Allen E. Shoenberger

Allen E Shoenberger

The article compares and contrasts the defamation law of the European Court of Human Rights(ECHR) with that of the United States, with particular reference to NY Times v. Sullivan. The NY Times actual malice standard not only over-protects speakers, it denies a name clearing hearing to the target of defamatory speech. This is of increasing importance as new media, such as the internet, make it so easy to communicate false, defamatory statements about anyone, including in particular elected officials and candidates. President Obama was first elected to the U.S. Senate because of a sex scandal that tainted his only serious …

The 'I' In Indigenous; Enforcing Individual Rights Guaranties In An Indigenous Group Rights Context, Rebecca Gross

Rebecca Gross

This article suggests that the international trend toward supporting legal autonomy from state control for indigenous communities under the guise of “self-determination,” as embodied in the recently enacted Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, has created a manifest legal conflict within the body of international human rights laws between the rights of individuals and the new concept of collective group rights. The article highlights one indigenous woman’s recent struggle in Mexico to assert her right to participate in a local election contrary to her tribe’s customary law forbidding women to do so, in order to illustrate the potential human …

The 'I' In Indigenous; Enforcing Individual Rights Guaranties In An Indigenous Group Rights Context, Rebecca Gross

Rebecca Gross

This article suggests that the international trend toward supporting legal autonomy from state control for indigenous communities under the guise of “self-determination,” as embodied in the recently enacted Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, has created a manifest legal conflict within the body of international human rights laws between the rights of individuals and the new concept of collective group rights. The article highlights one indigenous woman’s recent struggle in Mexico to assert her right to participate in a local election contrary to her tribe’s customary law forbidding women to do so, in order to illustrate the potential human …

The 'I' In Indigenous; Enforcing Individual Rights Guaranties In An Indigenous Group Rights Context, Rebecca Gross

Rebecca Gross

This article suggests that the international trend toward supporting legal autonomy from state control for indigenous communities under the guise of “self-determination,” as embodied in the recently enacted Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, has created a manifest legal conflict within the body of international human rights laws between the rights of individuals and the new concept of collective group rights. The article highlights one indigenous woman’s recent struggle in Mexico to assert her right to participate in a local election contrary to her tribe’s customary law forbidding women to do so, in order to illustrate the potential human …

What's So Special About Transitional Justice? Prolegomenon For An Excuse-Centered Approach To Transitional Justice, David C. Gray

David C. Gray

No abstract provided.

Devilry, Complicity, And Greed: Transitional Justice And Odious Debt, David C. Gray

David C. Gray

The doctrine of odious debts came into its full in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century to deal with the financial injustices of colonialism and its stalking horse, despotism. The basic rule, as articulated by Alexander Sack in 1927, is that debts incurred by an illegitimate regime that neither benefit nor have the consent of the people of a territory are personal to the regime and are subject to unilateral recision by a successor government. While the traditional doctrine focused on the nature and circumstances of individual debts, it has been expanded in recent years, moving the focus from the …

An Excuse-Centered Approach To Transitional Justice, David Gray

David C. Gray

Transitional justice asks what successor regimes, committed to human rights and the rule of law, can and should do to seek justice for atrocities perpetrated by and under their predecessors. The normal instinct is to prosecute criminally everyone implicated in past wrongs; but practical conditions in transitions make this impossible. As a result, most transitions pursue hybrid approaches, featuring prosecutions of those most responsible, amnesties, truth commissions, and reparations. This approach is often condemned as a compromise against justice. This article advances a transitional jurisprudence that justifies the hybrid approach by taking normative account of the unique conditions that define …

Incorporating The Supreme Court's Eighth Amendment Framework Into Substantive Due Process Jurisprudence Through The Introduction Of A Contingent-Based And Legislatively-Driven Constitutional Theory, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

No abstract provided.

About Time: The Timeliness Of Habeas Corpus And An Exceptional Circumstance In Boumediene V. Bush, Benjamin Lozano

Benjamin J Lozano

In wartime states of emergency, the Supreme Court has historically held that a constitutional entitlement to habeas review is neither predicated on the length of detention nor the timeliness of due process, but rather is objective, concrete, and atemporal. The question of wartime habeas corpus has therefore always been an ontological question, exclusively determined by the corresponding categories of subject and space. However, this paper argues that a surreptitious shift in methodology buried inside the ostensible precedent of Boumediene v. Bush should not be overlooked, for the ruling signals the inaugural moment whereby the length and indefinite duration (i.e. the …

Rendition To Torture: A Critical Legal History, Alan W. Clarke

Alan Clarke

Abstract

Rendition to Torture: A Critical Legal History

International law has long prohibited rendering people to places where they faced torture. Nonetheless, the United States has, since the Clinton administration, through a process called extraordinary rendition, sent people to places where they were tortured. This process greatly expanded during the Bush administration. Historically, renditions were primarily used to bring war criminals and terrorists from places where extradition was difficult or impossible to countries affording a fair trial. Rendition became extraordinary when these constraints were lost and when it became a way to either “disappear” someone or to make them talk, …

Will The Supreme Court Send The Vra’S Biggest Sunset Provision Into The Sunset?: Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One And The 2006 Reauthorization Of Section Five Of The Voting Rights Act, Cameron Eubanks

Cameron W Eubanks

The D.C. Circuit correctly decided Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Mukasey. The court subjected the 2006 reauthorization of § 5 of the Voting Rights Act to the rational and appropriate test announced in South Carolina v. Katzenbach. Under this test the court found that Congress had a rational basis to extend § 5 based on evidence of continued racial discrimination in voting. On review, the Supreme Court will uphold the § 5 reauthorization in spite of the congruent and proportional test announced in City of Boerne v. Flores which is used to review enactments passed pursuant to …

Thomas Paine And The Rights Of Man In European Jurisprudence: European Caselaw Confronts New York Times V. Sullivan : Different Results, Methods And Considerations: Time To Rethink Sullivan?∗, Allen E. Shoenberger

Allen E Shoenberger

The article compares and contrasts the defamation law of the European Court of Human Rights(ECHR) with that of the United States, with particular reference to NY Times v. Sullivan. It is suggested that american courts should themselves weigh and evalue the facts of defamation (as the NYTimes ct did); and also consider whether justification should be demanded for opinion statements, free attorney appointments for public interest defendants in defamation cases, and consideration given to a sliding scale of defamatory review for public officials who hold non-elected, lower rank positions.

Contemporary Constitutional Issue: Deportation By Private Hospitals, Jinsung Chang

Jason Zang

An indigent alien’s rights under the Constitution and Immigration and Nationality Act was traversed when a private hospital transferred him to Guatemala on an invalid order by Florida state court which violated Due Process rights entitled him to a specified proceedings delineated by Congress.

Thomas Paine And The Rights Of Man In European Jurisprudence: European Caselaw Confronts New York Times V. Sullivan : Different Results, Methods And Considerations: Time To Rethink Sullivan?∗, Allen E. Shoenberger

Allen E Shoenberger

The article compares and contrasts the defamation law of the European Court of Human Rights(ECHR) with that of the United States, with particular reference to NY Times v. Sullivan. It is suggested that american courts should themselves weigh and evalue the facts of defamation (as the NYTimes ct did); and also consider whether justification should be demanded for opinion statements, free attorney appointments for public interest defendants in defamation cases, and consideration given to a sliding scale of defamatory review for public officials who hold non-elected, lower rank positions.

Thomas Paine And The Rights Of Man In European Jurisprudence: European Caselaw Confronts New York Times V. Sullivan : Different Results, Methods And Considerations: Time To Rethink Sullivan?∗, Allen E. Shoenberger

Allen E Shoenberger

The article compares and contrasts the defamation law of the European Court of Human Rights(ECHR) with that of the United States, with particular reference to NY Times v. Sullivan. It is suggested that american courts should themselves weigh and evalue the facts of defamation (as the NYTimes ct did); and also consider whether justification should be demanded for opinion statements, free attorney appointments for public interest defendants in defamation cases, and consideration given to a sliding scale of defamatory review for public officials who hold non-elected, lower rank positions.

Thomas Paine And The Rights Of Man In European Jurisprudence: European Caselaw Confronts New York Times V. Sullivan : Different Results, Methods And Considerations: Time To Rethink Sullivan?∗, Allen E. Shoenberger

Allen E Shoenberger

The article compares and contrasts the defamation law of the European Court of Human Rights(ECHR) with that of the United States, with particular reference to NY Times v. Sullivan. It is suggested that american courts should themselves weigh and evalue the facts of defamation (as the NYTimes ct did); and also consider whether justification should be demanded for opinion statements, free attorney appointments for public interest defendants in defamation cases, and consideration given to a sliding scale of defamatory review for public officials who hold non-elected, lower

Seceding In The 21st Century: A Paradigm For The Ages, Robert Trisotto

Robert Trisotto

No abstract provided.

De-Cloaking Torture: Boumediene And The Military Commissions Act, Alan W. Clarke

Alan Clarke

Legal Cover for Torture in the War on Terror

Notwithstanding robust evidence that the U.S. engages in extraordinary renditions to countries that torture, and that it engages in practices that many consider to be torture, the U.S. administration adamantly denies that it tortures, or sends people to nations that do. Indeed, President Bush has declared that the United States “will always be the world’s leader in support of human rights.” Moreover, despite criticism from international legal scholars, the U.S. persistently maintains that it follows international law and its treaty obligations.

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) is the endgame …

Seceding In The 21st Century: A Paradigm For The Ages, Robert Trisotto

Robert Trisotto

No abstract provided.

Seceding In The 21st Century: A Paradigm For The Ages, Robert Trisotto

Robert Trisotto

No abstract provided.

Intellectual Property Rights And The Right To Participate In Cultural Life, Molly Land

Molly K. Land

Although many contend that human rights law is a justification for intellectual property rights, precisely the opposite is true. Human rights law is far more a limit on intellectual property rights than a rationale for such regimes. In a variety of ways, human rights law requires states to take specific, concrete steps to limit the effects of intellectual property rights in order to protect international human rights. This powerful and emancipatory dimension of human rights law has unfortunately been overshadowed by those who claim human rights as a basis for granting exclusive rights.

The U.N. Committee on Economic, Social, and …

Networked Activism, Molly Land

Molly K. Land

The same technologies that groups of ordinary citizens are using to write operating systems and encyclopedias are fostering a quiet revolution in another area – human rights advocacy. On websites such as Avaaz.org and Wikipedia, ordinary citizens are reporting on human rights violations and organizing email writing campaigns, activities formerly the prerogative of professionals. The involvement of amateurs has been heralded as revolutionizing a variety of industries, from journalism to photography. This article asks whether it has the potential to make human rights organizations irrelevant.

In contrast to much of the recent literature, this article provides a decidedly more skeptical …

The International Criminal Tribunal For The Former Yugoslavia, Bartram Brown

Bartram Brown

No abstract provided.

Peer Producing Human Rights, Molly Land

Molly K. Land

Can there be a Wikipedia for human rights? The growth of collaborative technologies has spurred the development of projects such as Wikipedia, in which large groups of volunteers contribute to production in a decentralized and open format. The author analyzes how these methods of peer-based production can be applied to advance international human rights as well as the limitations of such a model in this field. An underlying characteristic of peer-based production, amateurism, increases capacity and participation. However, the involvement of ordinary individuals in the production of human rights reporting is also its greatest disadvantage, since human rights reports generated …

Protecting Rights Online, Molly Land

Molly K. Land

Although the human rights and access to knowledge (A2K) movements share many of the same goals, their legal and regulatory agendas have little in common. While state censorship online is a central concern for human rights advocates, this issue has been largely ignored by the A2K movement. Likewise, human rights advocates have failed to examine the cumulative effect of expanding copyright protections on education and culture. These disparate agendas reflect fundamentally different views about what states should regulate and the role of international institutions. Overcoming this divide is critical to ensuring the movements can draw on their respective strengths to …

Internet Killed The Copyright Law: Perfect 10 V. Google And The Devastating Impact On The Exclusiive Right To Display, Deborah B. Morse

Deborah Brightman Morse

Never has the dissonance between copyright and innovation been so extreme. The Internet provides enormous economic growth due to the strength of e-commerce, and affords an avenue for creativity and the wide dissemination of information. Nevertheless, the Internet has become a plague on copyright law. The advent of the digital medium has made the unlawful reproduction, distribution, and display of copyrighted works essentially effortless. The law has been unable to keep pace with the rapid advance of technology. For the past decade, Congress has been actively attempting to draft comprehensible legislation in an effort to afford copyright owners more protection …

Wheel Of Fortune: A Critique Of The "Manifest Imbalance" Requirement For Race-Conscious Affirmative Action Under Title Vii, Kenneth R. Davis

Kenneth R. Davis

The Article criticizes the Supreme Court's requirement that a voluntary affirmative action plan must seek to eliminate "a manifest imbalance in traditionally segregated job categories." Although supposedly advancing the goals of Title VII, the manifest imbalance requirement interferes with achieving those goals. It prevents civically conscientious employers from instituting affirmative action, while it does nothing to promote the values of equal employment opportunity, meritocracy, or fairness to nonminority workers. For example, in Schurr v. Resorts International Hotel, Inc., 196 F.3d 486 (3d Cir. 1998), the hotel, located in Atlantic City, adopted a race-conscious affirmative action plan to combat minority unemployment …

The Duty Of Treatment: Human Rights And The Hiv/Aids Pandemic, Noah B. Novogrodsky

Noah B Novogrodsky

This article argues that the treatment of HIV and AIDS is spawning a juridical, advocacy and enforcement revolution. The intersection of AIDS and human rights was once characterized almost exclusively by anti-discrimination and destigmatization efforts. Today, human rights advocates are demanding life-saving treatment and convincing courts and legislatures to make states pay for it. Using a comparative Constitutional law methodology that places domestic courts at the center of the struggle for HIV treatment, this article shows how the provision of AIDS medications is reframing the right to health and the implementation of socio-economic rights. First, it locates an emerging right …

Behavioral Economic Issues In American & Islamic Marriage & Divorce Law, Ryan M. Riegg

Ryan M. Riegg