Law Commons^™

42 U.S.C. § 1983: A Legal Vehicle With No International Human Rights Treaty Passengers, Matthew J. Jowanna

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “How do international human rights treaties interact with the domestic civil rights law of the United States and, particularly, 42 U.S.C. § 1983? How should international human rights treaties interact with the domestic civil rights law of the United States? ―International law is part of our law, and must be ascertained and administered by the courts of justice of appropriate jurisdiction, as often as questions of right depending upon it are duly presented for their determination. The United States is obligated to respect the international treaties it ratifies, whether they are fully implemented in domestic law or not. In …

Lessons From Hurricane Katrina: Prison Emergency Preparedness As A Constitutional Imperative, Ira P. Robbins

Ira P. Robbins

Hurricane Katrina was one of the worst natural disasters ever to strike the United States, in terms of casualties, suffering, and financial cost. Often overlooked among Katrina's victims are the 8,000 inmates who were incarcerated at Orleans Parish Prison (OPP) when Katrina struck. Despite a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans, these men and women, some of whom had been held on charges as insignificant as public intoxication, remained in the jail as the hurricane hit, and endured days of rising, toxic waters, a lack of food and drinking water, and a complete breakdown of order within OPP. When the inmates …

Protecting And Promoting The Human Right To Respect For Family Life: Treaty-Based Reform And Domestic Advocacy, Ryan Mrazik, Andrew I. Schoenholtz

International Migrants Bill of Rights Symposium

This article examines the right to respect for family life in international law, focusing on its underlying principles and explicit protections. The article identifies these legal norms so that drafters of international treaties, specifically the International Migrants Bill of Rights, and United States legal practitioners representing immigrant children can incorporate the right to respect for family life into their drafting and advocacy, thereby protecting and promoting this critical human right.

To encourage both high-level, international treaty-based reform and the grassroots domestic advocacy necessary to comprehensively protect and promote this right, this article provides specific ideas for incorporating the right to …

Reaffirming Rights: Human Rights Protections Of Migrants, Asylum Seekers, And Refugees In Immigration Detention, Eleanor Acer, Jake Goodman

International Migrants Bill of Rights Symposium

The International Migrants Bill of Rights (IMBR) addresses migrants’ rights in a variety of contexts, and this paper looks closely at some of the most crucial rights that apply to migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers who are held in immigration detention.

Migrants, refugees and asylum seekers are entitled to a broad range of rights protections. These protections are spelled out in the provisions of core human rights treaties and regional human rights conventions that apply to all people, as well as in the specific conventions relating to refugees and migrants. While States have the authority to regulate migration, their immigration …

Human Rights Of Migrants: The Dawn Of A New Era?, Ryszard Cholewinski

International Migrants Bill of Rights Symposium

The purpose of this article is to highlight a number of key legal and policy developments which have occurred since the turn of the twenty-first century and to reflect on how these have and may advance the protection of the human rights of migrants. This article is optimistic and forward-looking in tenor, although the generally positive developments discussed do not necessarily mean that abuses of migrants and violations of their rights are no longer taking place. Nonetheless, if ten years of relatively intense activity can be viewed as a sound measure of progress, there is some cause for optimism that …

A Global Water Apartheid: From Revelation To Resolution, Itzchak Kornfeld

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

It is well settled in international human rights law that a human right to water exists. Nevertheless, to date, there has been little scholarship about what the practical contours of the right should be. If legal tools are to benefit the world's poor and disenfranchised, they cannot be void due to the impossibility of implementation. This is the problem with the purported human right to water: it is quixotic.

This Article proposes a pragmatic solution to the potable water problem for the world's poor. The solution offered here is based on a model of privatized access to water grounded in …

Panacea Or Pathetic Fallacy? The Swiss Ban On Minarets, Lorenz Langer

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

On November 29, 2009, Swiss voters adopted a ballot initiative introducing a constitutional ban on the construction of minarets. This Article provides a thick description of the minaret vote's context. A legal analysis addresses the implications of the ban under national, regional, and international normative frameworks. The Article argues that the ban is irreconcilable with the Swiss constitutional bill of rights and several international human right provisions. In Switzerland, however, respect for the vox populi potentially trumps any concern over conflicting international obligations, and there is no effective judicial review of initiatives. This lack of judicial review is partly a …

"With Faces Hidden While The Walls Were Tightening": Applying International Human Rights Standards To Forensic Psychology, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

Although there are now robust bodies of literature in both Alaw and psychology and in international human rights law, there has been remarkably little written about the specific relationship between forensic psychology and international human rights standards (and about the relationship between mental disability law and such standards in general). Attention is paid when it appears that state psychiatry or psychology is used as a tool of political oppressions e.g., in the former Soviet Union or in China, but the literature is strangely silent on questions dealing with the extent to which forensic psychology practice comports withinternational human rights norms. …

International Human Rights At The Close Of The Twentieth Century, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

Speculates as to why the human-rights revolution is increasingly likely to dominate our foreign-policy attentions in the decades to come. Ventures some predictions, of particular interest perhaps to international lawyers, about where the cause of international human rights is heading.

In Search Of An “Action Principle”, Patrick J. Glen

Human Rights & Human Welfare

In his seminal work on the history of scientific development, Thomas Kuhn described the structure of that development as revolutionary in nature, occurring at that point in time “in which an older paradigm is replaced in whole or in part by an incompatible one.” The impetus for this paradigm shift is malfunction—“scientific revolutions are inaugurated by a growing sense … that an existing paradigm has ceased to function adequately in the exploration of an aspect of nature to which that paradigm itself had previously led the way…. [T]he sense of malfunction that can lead to crisis is prerequisite to revolution.” …

Seeking Justice In Lago Agrio And Beyond: An Argument For Joint Responsibility Of Host States And Foreign Investors Before The Regional Human Rights Systems, Megan S. Chapman

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Land Rights Issues In International Human Rights Law, Elizabeth Wickeri, Anil Kalhan

Anil Kalhan

Up to one quarter of the world’s population is estimated to be landless, including 200 million people living in rural areas. For many of these people, the condition of landlessness threatens the enjoyment of a number of fundamental human rights. Access to land is important for development and poverty reduction, but also often necessary for access to numerous economic, social and cultural rights, and as a gateway for many civil and political rights. However, there is no right to land codified in international human rights law. This article, which was originally written as a briefing paper for the “Forum on …