Law Commons^™

Homophobia, Human Rights And Diplomacy, Douglas Janoff

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Multilateral human rights diplomacy is a product of the triad relationship between intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), civil society organizations (CSOs), and states. This paper examines the emergence of LGBT rights within the context of the UN human rights system. Recently, the global debates around LGBT rights have become much more public and increasingly complex: Ministers, leaders, and even the UN Secretary-General routinely call on states to do more to protect sexual minorities. Countries such as Uganda and Russia are labeled “homophobic” — not just by human rights activists, but by other states. These “accusations” are delivered both bilaterally and in multilateral …

Gay Teachers In Catholic Schools: A Conflict Of Human Rights, Ish Ruiz

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

What happens when a person’s exercise of a human right conflicts with another’s enjoyment of a human right? Such is the case when a gay teacher in a Catholic school is fired as the school exercises its right to religious freedom in order to ensure its teachers live lives consistent with Church teaching.

As religious institutions, Catholic schools are protected by a ministerial exception that offers legal immunity to Catholic educational institutions that fire gay and lesbian teachers (teachers are sometimes considered “ministers” by the courts). In many states these firings on the basis of sexual orientation or marital status …

Gender, Displacement And Transitional Justice, Sinead Mcgrath

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In the past fifteen years, there has been huge emphasis on the need for gendered mechanisms dealing with both forced migration and peacebuilding. The UN landmark resolution on Women, Peace and Security (S/RES/1325) and the gender-mainstreaming of the 1951 Refugee Convention have urged all actors to increase the participation of women in peacebuilding and their protection in instances of displacement. An underdeveloped link between these issues has not been addressed by the academic community, particularly when looking at societies in transition and the relationship of displaced women to international migration organisations in the context of transitional justice. This study aims …

Inequalities, Human Rights, And Sustainable Development Goal 10, Gillian Macnaughton

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Most of the 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and targets echo the goals and targets in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) framework. SDG 10 — reduce inequality within and among countries — is, however, completely new. The idea that the global community should work together toward equality had no part in the MDG framework, which focused on reducing poverty rather than making a more equal world. From a human rights perspective, the inclusion of the new SDG on reducing inequality is a great step forward.

Notably, Oxfam reported in January 2017 that the eight wealthiest men in the world …

Out Of The Prison And Onto The Streets: The Trafficking Of Incarcerated Women (A Trans-Disciplinary Media Research Project), Mei-Ling Mcnamara

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Women are being actively targeted for the sex trafficking trade within US prisons and are recruited by a network of fellow inmates who are given "finders fees" for supplying victims. In prisons from Florida to North Carolina, Ohio to Massachusetts, women are promised housing and food in exchange for work upon release but instead are deceived and prostituted for the human trafficking trade. Some traffickers stalk their victims through public-access profiles from statewide prison websites, then groom them over months through correspondence and phone calls.

Inside the largest women’s prison in the United States, the Florida Lowell Correctional Institution, officers …

Agency, Equality And Courage: A Case Study Of Women On The Front Lines Of Egypt’S 2011 Revolution, Carol Gray

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

How were women involved in Egypt’s 2011 revolution/uprising? What role did they play vis-à-vis male activists? To what degree were Egyptian women “equal” during those 18 days in Tahrir Square? These questions will be explored within the context of interviews conducted by this writer in Cairo during and following Egypt’s 18-day revolution (uprising). This essay will explore the public/private sphere split, political consciousness-raising, and gender equality within the context of the stories of Egyptian women on the front lines of protest.

Much of the recent literature on women's protests in Egypt has focused on women's victimization. Critical gender theorist Ann …

Engaging Human Rights Norms To Realize Universal And Equitable Health Care In Massachusetts, April Jakubec, Mariah Mcgill, Gillian Macnaughton

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Massachusetts health care law served as the model in 2010 for the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). In 2006, Massachusetts adopted sweeping health care reforms. The law sought to increase health care insurance coverage for residents of Massachusetts by:

(1) Mandating that all adults in the state have health care insurance unless an affordable option was not available;

(2) Expanding Medicaid;

(3) Creating a new program of subsidized private insurance for low- and moderate-income residents; and

(4) Establishing a transparent health care insurance market exchange.

Previous studies on the Massachusetts health care reforms of 2006 have analyzed …

Where Do We Go From Here? Charting Perceptions Of The Impact Of The Human Rights City Boston Resolution, Kostas Koutsioumpas, Maggie Schneider, Matthew Annunziato

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as a common standard of achievement and called upon every individual and organ of society to promote the rights enshrined in the document. The UDHR has been applied in many ways around the world, including by the international Human Rights Cities movement, which began in Rosario, Argentina, in 1997.

Today more than two dozen Human Rights Cities have formed around the globe, including at least nine in the United States (Washington, DC; Eugene, OR; Pittsburgh, PA; Chapel Hill, NC; Columbus, IN; Jackson, MI; Seattle, WA; Mountain View, …

Building Academic/Practitioner Teams For Human Rights Projects: Examples, Lessons Learned, And Pitfalls To Avoid, Theresa Harris

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Academics are increasingly interested in getting out of their classrooms and labs to contribute their knowledge, expertise, and resources to help communities develop evidence-based policies. In addition to post-election initiatives such as the March for Science and 314 Action, many academics are joining “without borders”-type programs and organizations that connect academics with opportunities to volunteer their time and talents for “social good.”

One of the longest-running of these is On-call Scientists, an initiative of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) that connects human rights organizations with pro bono scientists across all fields — life, physical, behavioral, and …

The Business Of Being Good: How It Pays To Be A Humanitarian State, Taylor Benjamin-Britton, Danielle Scherer

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In an era where human rights increasingly take a position of primacy in international relations, certain states have donned the mantle of the humanitarian, prioritizing human rights over nearly every other item on the foreign policy agenda and mainstreaming humanitarianism in other areas of foreign policy.

Existing arguments find that states that advance humanitarian policies are coerced, socialized, or mimicking, but they fail to seriously consider that states may choose and benefit from humanitarianism in several ways. We do not focus on explaining or theorizing why states have chosen to engage in humanitarianism; rather, we offer an analysis of the …