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Restitution For Haiti, Reparations For All: Haiti’S Place In The Global Reparations Movement, Brian Concannon Jr., Kristina Fried, Alexandra V. Filippova

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

Haiti’s claim for restitution of the debt coerced by France in exchange for Haiti’s 1804 independence has unique legal advantages that can open the door to broader reparations for the descendants of all people harmed by slavery. But in order to assert the claim, Haiti first needs help reclaiming its democracy from a corrupt, repressive regime propped up by the powerful countries that prospered through slavery and overthrew the Haitian President who dared to assert his country’s legal claim. This article explores Haiti’s Independence Debt, and the fight for restitution of it, in the context of two centuries of continued …

Haiti: Confronting An Immense Challenge, Irwin Stotzky

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

This article analyzes the history of Haiti, from its origins as a slave colony of France, which was the richest colony in the Americas, to its war of independence leading to the first Black independent nation in the Americas, to its economic re-enslavement under the power of France and then the United States. The article discusses the great harm the French caused the Haitian people by imposing through force a ransom of billions of dollars that has led Haiti to its present position of being on the brink of becoming a failed state, with all of the disastrous consequences for …

Haiti’S Legal Claim For Restitution: The Political Context For The Recovery Of The Double-Debt, Ira J. Kurzban

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

This article discusses Haiti’s efforts to seek restitution from France for the “Double-Debt” imposed in 1825. After Haiti gained independence in 1804 following a slave revolt, France threatened to invade and re-enslave the Haitian people if they did not pay compensation to French slave owners for their lost “property.” This became known as the Double-Debt, as French and American banks profited by converting the debt into high-interest loans. In 2003, on the 200th anniversary of Haitian hero Toussaint Louverture’s death, Haiti’s president Jean-Bertrand Aristide announced his intention to demand repayment from France. This sparked retaliation from France and Haiti’s elite, …

Redress For Historical Injustices: Haiti’S Claim For The Restitution Of Post-Independence Payments To France, Günther Handl

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

Haiti And The Indemnity Question, Alex Dupuy

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

1) Haiti did not agree to pay an indemnity to France in 1825 because it feared a war with its former colonial power. In 1814, France sent envoys to Haiti to demand that King Henry Christophe, who controlled the north of Haiti, and President Alexandre Pétion, who controlled the south and west, resubmit to French sovereignty. Christophe had that envoy arrested and jailed. Pétion, on the other hand, offered to pay an indemnity to France to compensate the former colonial property owners in return for France’s official recognition of Haiti’s independence.

2) Jean-Pierre Boyer succeeded Pétion as president of the …

The War On Gangs: El Salvador’S Playground For International Human Rights Violations, Sanobar Valiani

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

International human rights law was developed with the underlying philosophy that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. However, since its development, we have seen a vast number of human rights violations persist with no recourse. The War on Gangs in El Salvador is just one example of this. This Note examines the history of the War on Gangs in El Salvador, the tumultuous political landscape that has spurred as a result, and how political efforts to address gang violence have been used as a tactic to strip Salvadorans of their fundamental rights and dignity. …

Haiti And The Burden Of History, Frédérique Beauvois

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Lost Haitian Generation And The 1826 “French Debt”: The Case For Restitution To Haiti, Charlot Lucien

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

Religious Liberty, Discriminatory Intent, And The Conservative Constitution, Luke Boso

Utah Law Review

The Supreme Court shocked the world at the end of its 2021–22 term by issuing landmark decisions ending constitutional protection for abortion rights, expanding gun rights, and weakening what remained of the wall between church and state. One thread uniting these cases that captured the public’s attention is the rhetoric common of originalism—a backwards-looking theory of constitutional interpretation focused on founding-era meaning and intent. This Article identifies the discriminatory intent doctrine as another powerful tool the Court is using to protect the social norms and hierarchies of a bygone era, and to build a conservative Constitution.

Discriminatory intent rose to …

An Imperial History Of Race-Religion In International Law, Rabiat Akande

Articles & Book Chapters

More than half a century after the UN’s adoption of the International Convention on the Prohibition of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, a debate has emerged over whether to extend the Convention’s protections to religious discrimination. This Article uses history to intervene in the debate. It argues that racial and religious othering were mutually co-constitutive in the colonial encounter and foundational to the making of modern international law. Moreover, the contemporary proposal to address the interplay of racial and religious othering is hardly new; iterations of that demand surfaced in the earlier twentieth century, as well. By illuminating the centrality …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

The Violation Of Transgender Prisoners: The Violent Impact Of Gender Discrimination Experienced By Incarcerated Trans People In The United States Of America, Brooklyn Jennings Mx.

Access*: Interdisciplinary Journal of Student Research and Scholarship

U.S prison reform policies such as the Prison Rape Elimination Act pacify the government and the public into believing that prisons are a less harmful place for vulnerable inmates. However, thousands of transgender inmates in the United States experience extraordinary rates of violence and discrimination for their gender identity. There are difficulties in determining exact statistics of gender-based incidents of assault due to dueling structures of legal power and questionable support from prison authorities. However, from available information, trans inmates report dehumanizing prison environments that severely impact their wellbeing. This literature draws upon the current status of incarcerated trans inmates’ …

Environmental (In)Justice: Evaluating The Factors That Led To The Jackson Water Crisis & Proposing A Solution For Environmental Justice In Mississippi, Emily Brennan

Mississippi College Law Review

40,000. That is the number of residents that were left without potable water for nearly five weeks during Jackson, Mississippi’s February 2021 water crisis. An unusual cold front rolled through, freezing plant equipment, bursting water pipes, and causing many in Jackson to lose access to running water. This was not, however, the first time that Jackson residents had endured hardships with regard to their drinking water—it was just the first time that national attention turned to, and has seemed to remain on, Mississippi’s capital city. Those in Jackson are all too familiar with water pipes bursting, low water pressure, boil …

Table Of Contents

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Masthead

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Editor's Note

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Exploring The African Regional Human Rights Standards As The Basis For An Enabling Environment For Self-Managed Abortion, Lucia Berro Pizzarossa, Michelle Maziwisa, Ebenezer Durojaye

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Self-managed abortion holds great promise to save lives and promote reproductive autonomy, particularly in Africa. Indeed, the African region records very high numbers of unsafe abortions, and the burden of abortion-related mortality is the highest globally. Abortion remains generally criminalized in violation of numerous internationally and regionally recognized human rights standards. The advent of abortion medicines and the increased grassroots energy geared towards curbing the harms of unsafe abortion evince medical abortion holds great promise for revolutionizing people’s access to high-quality reproductive care. This study discusses regional human rights frameworks, policy, case law, and a few representative domestic legislative frameworks …

The Low-Hanging Fruit: Health, Rights, And The Commission, Bright Nkrumah

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

The year 2022 marked the 35th anniversary of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. As it is a custom in many communities, when one reaches this milestone, it is an opportune time to introspect and reflect on the successes and challenges encountered in one’s journey. It is this template that the paper adopts to measure the prospects and setbacks of the African Commission in the advancement of the right to health. The Article argues that while the body remains the poster child of the continent’s human rights architecture, its inability to clearly articulate how states ought to advance …

The Right To Hope: A New Perspective Of The Right To Have Expectations, Opportunities And Plans, Juan Carlos Riofrio

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Hope has been considered to be an important and constitutive aspect of the human person, not only by philosophers of all backgrounds, but also by international and national courts of several countries especially in the last decade. As an existential aspect of each person, hope has multiple manifestations in private and public life. Up until now, authors and some cases have been discussing particular manifestations of the right to hope. While in the past these courts were more aware of the hopes raised in judicial litigation and ordinary life, now the inmates’ hope of being released is the major point …

A Miscarriage Of Justice: How Femtech Apps And Fog Data Evade Fourth Amendment Privacy Protections, Rachel Silver

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

After the fall of Roe v. Wade, states across the country have enacted extreme abortion bans. Anti-abortion states, emboldened by their new, unrestricted power to regulate women’s bodies, are only broadening the scope of abortion prosecutions. And modern technology provides law enforcement with unprecedented access to women’s most intimate information, including, for example, their menstrual cycle, weight, body temperature, sexual activity, mood, medications, and pregnancy details. Fourth Amendment law fails to protect this sensitive information stored on femtech apps from government searches. In a largely unregulated private market, femtech apps sell health and location data to third parties like Fog …

Show Me The Money: How Bankruptcy Courts Could Become The Most Equitable Mass Tort Forum, Olivia Maier

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

The Texas Two-Step has emerged as a dangerous bankruptcy maneuver for companies to defend against mass tort liability. The process allows a company to allocate all of its tort liability to a newly created company which then files for bankruptcy. The Bankruptcy Code provides instantaneous benefits for that new company, which tort victims are left unable to proceed with their claims. This has resulted in an inequitable process, and outcomes, for those victims as seen by the recent Johnson & Johnson Texas Two-Step. While this process is unjust, it has raised an interesting question: could a bankruptcy court become the …

Takings In Disguise: The Inequity Of Public Nuisance Receiverships In America’S Rust Belt, Anna Kennedy

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Since they were created in the 1980s in Cleveland, Ohio, public nuisance receiverships have spread across the American Rust Belt. This Note critically analyzes the legal implications of public nuisance receiverships, which involve the intrusion onto private property for public purposes. Despite claims that these actions align with exceptions to due process or public nuisance principles, a deeper examination reveals their fundamental nature as government takings of private property. This Note dissects the legal framework within the context of the Fifth Amendment, debunking the applicability of the public nuisance exception, establishing that receiverships constitute takings, and highlighting conflicts with Anti-Kelo …

How To Punish Your Least Favorite Online Influencer: Wellness Checks As Swatting And Their Disproportionate Impact On Marginalized Creators, Tara Blackwell

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Marginalized online creators are vulnerable to attacks using digital means of harassment including traditional swatting as well as the abuse of wellness checks that can act as swatting. Enabled by permissive Supreme Court 4th Amendment jurisprudence, malignant online actors have taken advantage of the ramshackle system of wellness checks that sends armed police officers with little training and even less compassion to the doors of individuals with reported mental health crises. This Note focuses on two polarizing influencers who have been subject to wellness check swatting after being very open about their mental health statuses online. This Note argues that …

Rights And Remedies: Rental Housing For Low-Income Households In The United States, David Ray Papke, Mary Elise Papke

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

The state of rental housing for low-income households in the United States is deplorable. Unaffordable, unsanitary, and insecure, this housing violates the internationally recognized right of housing. While the United States has never formally recognized that right, the right guarantees not only a roof overhead but also affordability, habitability, and security of tenure. Policies and programs seeking to remedy the problems in rental housing might consciously address these aspects of rental housing. Policies and programs of this sort will not be enough to eliminate all problems, but they would alleviate a matter of great embarrassment, namely, the most affluent country …

Sexual Orientation At The Crossroads, Johan D. Van Der Vyver

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

The decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Bostock v. Clayton County that sexual orientation is included in the concept of “sex” in the non-discrimination provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is historically indefensible. The Civil Rights Act was initiated by President John F. Kennedy to combat racial discrimination in the workplace and the word “sex” was included in the Act by a “claque of Southern Congressmen” as part of a filibuster attempt to prevent its enactment. It was accepted by proponents of the Act on the instructions of President Johnson merely to avoid the …

Racial Discrimination In Jury Selection: The Urgent Need For Sixth Amendment Protections For Black Capital Defendants, Claire Austin

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

In the U.S., death row is made up of a disproportionate number of black persons. In capital trials, black defendants often face all white juries. The deep-rooted racial discrimination in the justice system impacts jury selection because prosecutors use peremptory strikes to remove black jurors from the jury panel. As the law stands today, the Sixth Amendment guarantee of an impartial jury made up of a fair representation of the jury applies only to the pool of jurors called in for jury service, not those who are actually selected to hear the case.

This comment analyzes the Supreme Court decision, …

African Courts And International Human Rights Law, John Mukum Mbaku

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

The UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and since then, the international community, with the help of the United Nations, has adopted other international human rights instruments designed to recognize and protect human rights. Since international human rights instruments do not automatically confer rights that are justiciable in domestic courts, each African country must domesticate these instruments in order to create rights that are justiciable in its domestic courts. Given the fact that many African countries have not yet domesticated the core international human rights instruments, international human rights law’s ability to positively impact …

A Not-So Turkish Delight: The Implications Of Turkey’S Unprecedented Withdrawal From A Groundbreaking Women’S Rights Treaty And The Need For International Reform, Allyssa Myers

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Domestic violence against women is one of the most pervasive and pressing international issues of our time. There have been multiple international human rights treaties enacted to address this issue and move to end gender-based violence—the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combatting Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention) being one. Created in 2011, the Istanbul Convention sought to provide an international legal framework for how states should work toward eradicating gender-based violence. Turkey, the first country to sign and to subsequently ratify the Istanbul Convention, unprecedently withdrew from the Convention in 2021. Turkish President Recep Tayyip …

Symposium Keynote: "Isolation And Restraint: Maine's Unique Status Outside Federal Indian Law", Michael-Corey Francis Hinton

Maine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Proving Intra-Racial Discrimination In The U.S. And Canada: The Room For Making The Artificial Distinction Between Genealogical Relatedness And Race, Martin Kwan

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

This article takes the role of the Devil’s advocate in order to question the judicial willingness to distinguish “race” from comparable notions. It suggests that, depending on the exact circumstances, a defendant can make an arguable case that the alleged intra–racial discrimination is motivated by perceived genealogical relatedness, but not because of belonging to the same “race.” Factually, the defendant claims to believe in being remotely genealogically related to the plaintiff. This is not unworthy of credence, because it is academically recognized that modern genealogy and root tracing can be an imaginative, forged exercise. Legally, this argument is supportable because …