Law Commons^™

Missouri's Innocent Citizens: An Examination Of Missouri's Response To Domestic Violence Incidents Against Children And Teens, Keith P. Freie

Keith P Freie

In 2010 the Missouri Attorney’s General’s Office created a Domestic Violence Task Force for the purpose of analyzing Missouri’s Domestic Violence laws. In 2011, the Missouri General Assembly enacted Senate Bill 320 which included several changes to Missouri’s domestic violence laws stemming from several recommendations from the Attorney General’s Task Force. While Missouri’s 2011 domestic violence law is a comprehensive solution to the many unaddressed needs of child and teen domestic violence victims, additional solutions need to be considered to fully address the problem. Those solutions may include creating special domestic violence and child abuse courts and creating educational programs …

The Holocaust And Mass Atrocity: The Continuing Challenge For Decision, Winston Nagan, Aitza Haddad

Winston P Nagan

This article begins with an appraisal of a report published by the United States Institute for Peace and authored by the former Secretary of State, Albright, and former Secretary of Defense, Cohen. This Report generated a great deal of interest and reaction from scholars across the globe. The article will introduce the broad outline of this Report and provide a summary of the principal criticisms that it has generated. This sets the stage for approaching the problem that is sensitive to the issue that this phenomenon be explore with a view to developing usable insights and data as well as …

Exploration Into The Foreign Policy Impact Of Recent Immigration Laws, Luke Larson

Luke Larson

No abstract provided.

The Holocaust And Mass Atrocity: The Continuing Challenge For Decision, Winston P. Nagan, Aitza M. Haddad

Winston P Nagan

This article begins with an appraisal of a report published by the United States Institute for Peace and authored by the former Secretary of State, Albright, and former Secretary of Defense, Cohen. This Report generated a great deal of interest and reaction from scholars across the globe. The article will introduce the broad outline of this Report and provide a summary of the principal criticisms that it has generated. This sets the stage for approaching the problem that is sensitive to the issue that this phenomenon be explore with a view to developing usable insights and data as well as …

Exploration Into The Foreign Policy Impact Of Recent Immigration Laws, Luke Larson

Luke Larson

No abstract provided.

The Politics Underpinning The Non-Realisation Of The Right To Development, Belachew M. Fikre

Belachew M Fikre

No abstract provided.

Imperial Ignition: Ecological Debt, Greenhouse Development Rights And Climate Change, Jonathan Stribling

Jonathan Stribling

This paper argues for legal principles to remedy the harm done to those least responsible for yet most affected by climate change. It examines approaches to developing the concepts of ecological and climate debt in U.S. law. This paper argues for the importance of understanding ecological debt and particularly “climate debt” in order to sustainably remedy climate change. The paper also argues that the principles of capacity and responsibility, which are the basis of the Greenhouse Development Rights (GDR) framework, are critical to remedying climate debt and should be included in global climate negotiations and U.S. environmental law.

Immigration Detention & Human Rights In The Lone Star State, Liane N. Noble

Liane N Noble

Every year, almost 400,000 individuals are held in immigration detention in the United States. These individuals—men, women, and even children—are held in a patchwork of federal, local, and private contract facilities. Surprisingly, one-third of all U.S. immigration detention beds are located in the state of Texas. Given the concentration of detention space in Texas and thus the unique issues facing that state, this report seeks to elucidate the key human rights issues surrounding immigration detention with a focus on the situation in Texas.

The information contained in this report was gathered using a variety of research methods, including: (1) review …

Preserving The Seed: Why Parents Should Have A Say In Whether Their Mentally Handicapped Child Should Be Sterelized, Rebecca Lenz Mrs.

Rebecca Lenz Mrs.

This article addresses the history of the eugenics movement, the current status of sterilization laws and the rights of parents to choose to sterilize their mentally handicapped child. Recently, North Carolina lawmakers have been pondering a way to compensate victims of unwanted sterilization that occurred in the early twentieth century. During the eugenics movement, many poor, uneducated women were sterilized against their will after being deemed feebleminded or mentally incompetent. Unfortunately, most of the victims were competent women and girls who were unable to fight for their right to reproduce. As a result, North Carolina lawmakers are trying to rectify …

On “Waterboarding”: Legal Interpretation And The Continuing Struggle For Human Rights , Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

While some aspects of the “waterboarding” debate are largely political, the practice also implicates deeply normative underpinnings of human rights and law. Attorney General Michael Mukasey has steadfastly declined to declare waterboarding illegal or to launch an investigation into past waterboarding. His equivocations have generated anguished controversy because they raise a fundamental question: should we balance “heinousness and cruelty” against information that we “might get”? Mr. Mukasey’s approach appears to be careful lawyering. However, it portends a radical and dangerous departure from a fundamental premise of human rights law: the inherent dignity of each person. Although there is some lack …

Legal Lines In Shifting Sand: Immigration Law And Human Rights In The Wake Of September 11, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

In March of 2004, a group of legal scholars gathered at Boston College Law School to examine the doctrinal implications of the events of September 11, 2001. They reconsidered the lines drawn between citizens and noncitizens, war and peace, the civil and criminal systems, as well as the U.S. territorial line. Participants responded to the proposition that certain entrenched historical matrices no longer adequately answer the complex questions raised in the “war on terror.” They examined the importance of government disclosure and the public’s right to know; the deportation system’s habeas corpus practices; racial profiling; the convergence of immigration and …

Sharpening The Cutting Edge Of International Human Rights Law: Unresolved Issues Of War Crimes Tribunals, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

International criminal tribunals have emerged as the most tangible and well-known mechanism for seeking justice in the wake of atrocious human rights violations. As the enterprise has developed, the need to ask fundamental questions is obvious, compelling, and essential. In March, 2006, the Boston College International and Comparative Law Re-view, together with The Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Boston College and the Owen M. Kupferschmid Holocaust/Human Rights Project convened a diverse and impressive group of speakers from academia, the judiciary, and legal practice to evaluate: the development of “common law” of the tribunals, the function and limits …

Holding Corporations To Account. Crafting Ats Suits In The Uk?, Simon J. Baughen

Simon J Baughen

The traditional province of international law is in the regulation of relations between States. However, with the tribunals at Nuremberg and Tokyo established at the end of the second world war, for the first time it became possible for individuals to incur criminal liability in respect of violation of a core of norms of customary international law, such as the prohibitions on war crimes and crimes against humanity. This process has continued with the UN’s establishment in the 1993 and 1994 of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (‘ICTY’) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (‘ICTR’) respectively, …

The First Amendment In The Multicultural Climate Of Colleges And Universities: A Story Ending With Christian Legal Society V. Martinez, Blake M. Lawrence

Blake M Lawrence

This article argues that the “limited public forum” analysis used by the United States Supreme Court in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez correctly addresses the competing concerns of students and university administration when approaching free speech and association on college and university campuses. It extensively analyzes the creation of the “limited public forum” analysis, explains why that particular analysis is ill-equipped for limiting high-school speech, and comprehensively addresses the Christian Legal Society v. Martinez opinion. Further, weaknesses in the dicta of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez are analyzed and points made by dissenting Justices are critiqued.

What Should Guide Determinations Of Foreign Official Immunity In Us Courts After Samantar?, Chris C. Morley

Chris C Morley

In the recent Samantar decision, the Supreme Court held that individual foreign officials were not covered by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act but might still be covered by common law immunity. This article analyzes the extent of that common law immunity and discusses whether more recent developments in domestic and international human rights law should impact the availability of immunity for officials accused of torture, extra-judicial killings, and other violations of the law of nations.

Although the bulk of authority from US and foreign courts suggests that foreign officials should enjoy immunity for acts committed within the scope of their …

Justice, The Bretton Woods Institutions And The Problem Of Inequality, Frank J. Garcia

Frank J. Garcia

The Bretton Woods Institutions are, together with the WTO, the preeminent international institutions devoted to managing international economic relations. This mandate puts them squarely in the center of the debate concerning development, inequality and global justice. While the normative analysis of the WTO is gaining momentum, the systematic normative evaluation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund is comparatively less developed. This essay aims to contribute to that nascent inquiry. How might global justice criteria apply to the ideology and operations of the Bank and Fund? Political theory offers an abundance of perspectives from which to conduct such …

The Global Market And Human Rights: Trading Away The Human Rights Principle, Frank J. Garcia

Frank J. Garcia

No abstract provided.

Review: A Philosophy Of International Law, Frank J. Garcia

Frank J. Garcia

No abstract provided.

Right To Information Identity, Elad Oreg

Elad Oreg

Inspired by the famous Warren&Brandeis conceptualization of the "right to privacy", this article tries to answer a modern conceptual lacuna and present the argument for the need to conceptualize and recognize a new, independent legal principle of a "right to information-identity". This is the right of an individual to the functionality of the information platforms that enable others to identify and know him and to remember who and what he is. Changes in technology and social standards make the very notion of identity increasingly fluid, transforming the way it is treated and opening new and fascinating ways of relating to …

The Invisible Man: How The Sex Offender Registry Results In Social Death, Elizabeth B. Megale

Elizabeth B. Megale

This Article establishes that overcriminalization serves to marginalize unwanted groups of society, and particularly regarding the sex offender registry, it results in social death. The author relies upon the notion of crime as a social construct to establish that the concept of “sex offense” changes over time as society and culture evolve. From there, the author incorporates the work of Michele Foucault involving the relationship of power, knowledge, and sexuality to show how the trend toward more repressive social controls over sex-related activity is related to a shift in this relationship. The Author identifies three characteristics and the associated traits …

Community Recovery Lawyering: Hard-Learned Lessons From Post-Katrina Mississippi, Bonnie Allen, Barbara Bezdek, John Jopling

Barbara L Bezdek

No abstract provided.

The War On Medical Terror: Holding Medical Professionals At Guantanamo Civilly Liable For Violating The International Law Norm Prohibiting Nonconsensual Human Experimentation, Arin M. Brenner

Arin M Brenner

This article examines the use of the Alien Tort Statue to hold medical professionals, both contract and government employees, at Guantanamo civilly liable for conducting nonconsensual human experimentation on detainees in creating and justifying the "enhanced interrogation techniques" program.

Here, There And Everywhere: Human Dignity In Contemporary Law And In The Transnational Discourse, Luis Roberto Barroso

Luis Roberto Barroso Professor

ABSTRACT: Over the past several decades, human dignity has become an omnipresent idea in contemporary law. This Article surveys the use of human dignity by domestic and international courts and describes the concept’s growing role in transnational discourse, with special attention paid to the case law of the United States Supreme Court. The Article then examines the legal nature of human dignity, finding it to be a constitutional principle rather than a freestanding fundamental right, and develops a unifying and universal identity for the concept. At its core, human dignity contains three elements - intrinsic value, autonomy and community value …

The Holocaust And Mass Atrocity: The Continuing Challenge For Decision, Winston P. Nagan, Aitza M. Haddad

Winston P Nagan

This article begins with an appraisal of a report published by the United States Institute for Peace and authored by the former Secretary of State, Albright, and former Secretary of Defense, Cohen. This Report generated a great deal of interest and reaction from scholars across the globe. The article will introduce the broad outline of this Report and provide a summary of the principal criticisms that it has generated. This sets the stage for approaching the problem that is sensitive to the issue that this phenomenon be explore with a view to developing usable insights and data as well as …

The International Human Right To Safe And Humane Treatment During Pregnancy And A Theory For Its Application In U.S. Courts, Hilary Hammell

Hilary Hammell

Under international human rights law, every woman has the right to safe and humane treatment during pregnancy, labor, and childbirth. This article examines the content of that human right as it exists under international law, and suggests one theory –international customary law – for its application in U.S. court cases challenging the treatment of pregnant women in custody. Using Juana Villegas v. Metropolitan Government of Davidson County as a case study, this article argues that international law should be used as binding law, not just as a tool for Eighth Amendment interpretation, and is especially relevant when non-citizen pregnant women …

Online Investigations And The Americans With Disabilities Act: The Resurgence Of Overbroad And Ineffectual Mental Health Inquiries In Character And Fitness Evaluations, Bernice M. Bird

Bernice M. Bird

Nationally, state board bar examiners’ interest to inquire into mental health has been a hotly contested issue invoking the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) for the last two decades. After the enactment of the ADA in 1990 a floodgate of litigation resulted in a litany of publications, all surrounding the issue of whether mental health based inquiries into character and fitness violated the ADA. Consequently, narrowly tailored mental health inquiries into specific disorders emerged as the trend in a majority of jurisdictions. This comment analyzes whether fitness boards' mental health inquiries among social networking profiles may cause the resurgence of …

''Here, There And Everywhere'': Human Dignity In Contemporary Law And In The Transnational Discourse, Luis Roberto Barroso

Luis Roberto Barroso Professor

ABSTRACT: Over the past several decades, human dignity has become an omnipresent idea in contemporary law. This Article surveys the use of human dignity by domestic and international courts and describes the concept’s growing role in transnational discourse, with special attention paid to the case law of the United States Supreme Court. The Article then examines the legal nature of human dignity, finding it to be a constitutional principle rather than a freestanding fundamental right, and develops a unifying and universal identity for the concept. At its core, human dignity contains three elements - intrinsic value, autonomy and community value …

''Here, There And Everywhere'': Human Dignity In Contemporary Law And In The Transnational Discourse, Luis Roberto Barroso

Luis Roberto Barroso Professor

ABSTRACT: Over the past several decades, human dignity has become an omnipresent idea in contemporary law. This Article surveys the use of human dignity by domestic and international courts and describes the concept’s growing role in transnational discourse, with special attention paid to the case law of the United States Supreme Court. The Article then examines the legal nature of human dignity, finding it to be a constitutional principle rather than a freestanding fundamental right, and develops a unifying and universal identity for the concept. At its core, human dignity contains three elements - intrinsic value, autonomy and community value …

''Here, There And Everywhere'': Human Dignity In Contemporary Law And In The Transnational Discourse, Luis Roberto Barroso

Luis Roberto Barroso Professor

ABSTRACT: Over the past several decades, human dignity has become an omnipresent idea in contemporary law. This Article surveys the use of human dignity by domestic and international courts and describes the concept’s growing role in transnational discourse, with special attention paid to the case law of the United States Supreme Court. The Article then examines the legal nature of human dignity, finding it to be a constitutional principle rather than a freestanding fundamental right, and develops a unifying and universal identity for the concept. At its core, human dignity contains three elements - intrinsic value, autonomy and community value …

Human Rights Treaty Body Reform: New Proposals, Andrew Kloster

Andrew Kloster

“Reform” in international human rights law has become a narrow concept. A survey of the literature reveals that nearly any suggestion for reform concerns greater enforcement of international human rights substantive norms.

It is the purpose of this article to address the neglected question of treaty body role. Section II provides a nuts-and-bolts guide to the treaty body mandates for United Nations delegates, States Parties, and international lawyers. This section sketches the proper and improper actions for treaty bodies to take. It is our contention that if treaty bodies were limited to their proper role, they could more effectively use …