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Full-Text Articles in Law
Property, Wealth, Inequality And Human Rights: A Formula For Reform, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Shelbi D. Day
Property, Wealth, Inequality And Human Rights: A Formula For Reform, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Shelbi D. Day
Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
This essay scrutinizes the persistence of inequality in the United States through a human rights lens and grapples with the troubling disparities unearthed by two works: American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass and Black Wealth/White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality. These two highly enlightening and, simultaneously, deeply troubling and depressing books elucidate the myriad locations at which inequalities persist and the historical, social, psychological, and legal foundations of, and explications for, such disparities in the African American community. This work proposes a human rights paradigm that provides a methodology to analyze, deconstruct and unravel the …
Building Bridges Iv: Of Cultures, Colors, And Clashes--Capturing The International In Delgado's Chronicles, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
Building Bridges Iv: Of Cultures, Colors, And Clashes--Capturing The International In Delgado's Chronicles, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
Sex, race, gender, sexuality, color, religion, language, nationality, ethnicity, culture, poverty - socially constructed categories, social tropes that relegate "others" to subordinated positions in the varied and various cultural and economic marketplaces of both global and local societies. Richard Delgado's transformational work engages all of these tropes insightfully, disturbingly, and illuminatingly. His rich literature conceptualizes persons as multidimensional, complex beings and exposes society as the pre-fabricated stage in which diverse interactions evolve. Delgado's epistemological stance is fluid, non-rigid, and grounded on subjectivity. In this essay I will focus on Delgado's latest book When Equality Ends: Stories About Race and Resistance. …
Afterword – Straightness As Property: Back To The Future-Law And Status In The 21st Century, Symposium: Liberalism And Property Rights, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Shelbi D. Day
Afterword – Straightness As Property: Back To The Future-Law And Status In The 21st Century, Symposium: Liberalism And Property Rights, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Shelbi D. Day
Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
As is evident from the other works in this Symposium, throughout history in both the United States and the greater Western World, status-based exclusion of individuals and groups from property rights has been central to the existence of political and social hierarchies. Specifically, exclusion based on status — whether it be nationality, culture, race, sex or sexuality — has plagued our history and has been integral in the formation and development of both constitutional and property law regimes. Consequently, both regimes are at best uneven in the grant and distribution of rights and benefits. A forward-looking examination of the link …
Law Is Not Enough, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
Law Is Not Enough, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
In 1995, the United Nations reported “in no society today do women enjoy the same opportunities as men.” The condition and status of women worldwide was one of social, political, educational, legal, and economic inequality. Ten years later, women's economic disparities persist. In Gender Injustice: An International Comparative Analysis of Equality in Employment, Dr. Anne-Marie Mooney Cotter focuses on women's global inequality in employment. The book's in-depth examination of women's second-class, subordinated status in the workplace around the world provides invaluable insights into the complexities of gender inequality.
Law, Culture, And Equality - Human Rights' Influence On Domestic Norms: The Case Of Women In The Americas, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
Law, Culture, And Equality - Human Rights' Influence On Domestic Norms: The Case Of Women In The Americas, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
This essay originated with a panel on Alternatives to the Regular Courts that took place during the first Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas conference sponsored by the University of Florida Levin College of Law. Some of the possible alternatives to the courts, in the trade field, that have been discussed include mediation, arbitration, constitutional courts and binational dispute panels. This essay reflects upon another alternative to domestic courts that progressively and increasingly is also being invoked in the trade context: international and regional human rights regimes. I specifically will review the Inter-American Human Rights System to ascertain the …
Latinas, Culture And Human Rights: A Model For Making Change, Saving Soul, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
Latinas, Culture And Human Rights: A Model For Making Change, Saving Soul, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
This essay provides an overview of progresses achieved for women in the Americas by virtue of the use of the human rights model to further women's rights and attain betterment of their lives. Specifically, this work reviews the location of Latinas both within and outside the United States fronteras. As women of color within larger U.S. society and as women within their comunidad Latina, Latinas experience different multifaceted subordinations. A human rights model that recognizes the multidimensional nature of gendered racial discrimination and of racialized gender discrimination can serve to improve the lives of Latinas as well as non-Latina women …
Globalized Citizenship: Sovereignty, Security And Soul, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
Globalized Citizenship: Sovereignty, Security And Soul, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
Human rights law has redefined the concepts of sovereignty and citizenship. Just as transnationalization has weakened the hegemony of the political elites (corporate economic elites and domestic ruling classes) by strengthening citizenship claims of all persons, so, too, a globalized citizenship grounded on a human rights model will strengthen personhood by denationalizing states' claims on individuals' rights. The human rights narrative has been imagined, crafted and delivered by Northern/Western powers--the hegemon--however, for the human rights model to be of utility to the globalized citizen project, it must be reconstituted with an antisubordination agenda. It must include the voices of the …
Children And Immigration: International, Local, And Social Responsibilities, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Justin Luna
Children And Immigration: International, Local, And Social Responsibilities, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Justin Luna
Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
This essay focuses on the human rights of immigrant children, regardless of the legality of their presence within U.S. borders, especially with respect to health, education, and welfare. In that context, the work explores, as the title suggests, the international, local, and social/cultural normative standards that structure the responsibilities -- independently and collectively, that proverbial village -- with respect to children's well-being. We develop these ideas in three parts. First, we address the foundations of the human rights idea and specifically enumerate the particular normative notions, including international treaties that govern children's lives. Next, we discuss immigration in the United …
Culture, Nationhood, And The Human Rights Ideal, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Sharon E. Rush
Culture, Nationhood, And The Human Rights Ideal, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Sharon E. Rush
Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
This paper was written as a part of a Symposium on Culture, Nation, and LatCrit (Latina/o Communities and Critical Race) Theory and focuses on the concept of voice and silence. Part I locates the works in the axis of silence and power. Part II explores how critical theory and international human rights norms can be used to develop a methodology to analyze and detect the exclusion or silencing of voices. A paradigm is developed that, by internationalizing voice, serves as a useful tool to explore power-based silencing. In Part III, the article illustrates how the proposed paradigm can focus the …
On Disposable People And Human Well-Being: Health, Money And Power, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
On Disposable People And Human Well-Being: Health, Money And Power, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
The foundational premise of this essay is that health and well-being are human rights issues. My focus on this theme, specifically within the human rights paradigm, is new, passionate, and personal. On December 15, 2005, just three months before the conference that prompted the writing of this essay, I lost my partner of over 20 years. She fought a valiant, strong, and dignified fight against cancer--a journey I traveled with her. During that time I learned much about health systems and health care. Most saliently, notwithstanding the reality of the extraordinarily good care she ultimately received, I realized there is …
Sexual Labor And Human Rights, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Jane E. Larson
Sexual Labor And Human Rights, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Jane E. Larson
Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
In this Article, we engage the current human rights debate that dichotomizes prostitution either as a modern form of slavery or as the exercise of the right to work. This framework effectively sets up a coercion/consent polarity. These poles raise fundamental human rights issues; both the prohibition against slavery and the right to work are matters addressed by and central to the international human rights paradigm. Yet we argue in this Article that the human rights issues raised by prostitution cannot properly be studied nor moved towards meaningful resolution in the context of the prevailing polarity. Prostitution in its current …
Glocalizing Law And Culture: Towards A Cross-Constitutive Paradigm, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
Glocalizing Law And Culture: Towards A Cross-Constitutive Paradigm, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
This lecture addresses the relationship between law and culture in three general parts. The first part consists of a brief review of the theories addressing the relationship of law and culture, mainly the mirror theory. But I will suggest that there is more to the relationship of law and culture than one being an inert reflection of the other; hence my proposal for what I call, as a working concept, a cross-constitutive paradigm of law and culture. The second part reviews the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women ("CEDAW''), a law that seeks to effect …
María Lugones's Work As A Human Rights Idea(L), Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Mariana Ribeiro
María Lugones's Work As A Human Rights Idea(L), Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Mariana Ribeiro
Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
The work of Maria Lugones can be utilized to focus on the same ideas of human reality articulated in the human rights framework. She engages the complexity of humans -- the indivisibility of their identity components -- through her concepts of hybridity/multidimensionality. Similarly, Lugones captures the human need for self-determination -- a right embedded in the human rights framework -- in her work on autonomy, agency, and self-care. Finally, her quest for an antisubordination ideal, like the human rights mandate for equality and nondiscrimination, comes to life in her call for the recognition of and respect for the equality of …
Globally Speaking - Honoring The Victims' Stories: Matsuda's Human Rights Praxis, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
Globally Speaking - Honoring The Victims' Stories: Matsuda's Human Rights Praxis, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
Globally speaking, international law and the vast majority of domestic legal systems strive to protect the right to freedom of expression. The United States’ First Amendment provides an early historical protection of speech—a safeguard now embraced around the world. The extent of this protection, however, varies among states. The United States stands alone in excluding countervailing considerations of equality, dignitary, or privacy interests that would favor restrictions on speech. The gravamen of the argument supporting such American exceptionalism is that free expression is necessary in a democracy. Totalitarianism, the libertarian narrative goes, thrives on government control of information to the …
Nativism, Terrorism, And Human Rights -- The Global Wrongs Of Reno V. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
Nativism, Terrorism, And Human Rights -- The Global Wrongs Of Reno V. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
Berta E. Hernández-Truyol
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee decision (American-Arab or AADC) is the most recent U.S. Supreme Court pronouncement regarding the intersection of immigration regulations and fundamental constitutional rights enjoyed by foreign subjects present within the United States. In American-Arab, the U.S. government commenced deportation proceedings against two legal permanent residents and six temporary visa holders on the basis of an ideological bias: the plaintiffs were alleged to be members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (Popular Front or PFLP) -- a charge all the plaintiffs denied. The Supreme Court's ruling endorsing the legality of the government's deportation actions wholly …