Comparative and Foreign Law Commons^™

Looted Cultural Objects, Elena Baylis

Articles

In the United States, Europe, and elsewhere, museums are in possession of cultural objects that were unethically taken from their countries and communities of origin under the auspices of colonialism. For many years, the art world considered such holdings unexceptional. Now, a longstanding movement to decolonize museums is gaining momentum, and some museums are reconsidering their collections. Presently, whether to return such looted foreign cultural objects is typically a voluntary choice for individual museums to make, not a legal obligation. Modern treaties and statutes protecting cultural property apply only prospectively, to items stolen or illegally exported after their effective dates. …

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 …

Sacred Spheres: Religious Autonomy As An International Human Right, Diana V. Thomson, Kayla A. Toney

Catholic University Law Review

How should courts resolve thorny human rights disputes that arise within religious groups? According to an emerging international consensus, they shouldn’t. When a case involves sensitive internal decisions by a religious organization, such as choosing who is qualified to teach the faith, courts are increasingly taking a hands-off approach. This global consensus has formed across international treaties, tribunals, and domestic courts in European and American nations. Every major human rights instrument and many international and domestic courts recognize that religious freedom must extend to religious communities, especially houses of worship and schools where believers gather to practice their faith and …

Examining The Social Security Tribunal’S Navigator Service: Access To Administrative Justice For Marginalized Communities, Laverne Jacobs, Sule Tomkinson

Law Publications

An accessible MS Word version of this document is available for download at the bottom of this screen under "Additional files."

This report provides the findings, analysis and recommendations of a research study conducted on the federal Social Security Tribunal’s Navigator Service (SST Navigator Service). The SST Navigator Service was established in 2019 for tribunal users without a professional representative. The study examines the use of the Navigator Service for Canada Pension Plan–Disability (CPP–Disability) appeals heard by the Income Security - General Division of the Social Security Tribunal.

This research study focuses on access to administrative justice on the …

Venezuela Crisis Humanitaria Y Recepción De Migrantes En Colombia: Creciente Xenofobia Ante Los Migrantes Venezolanos, Viviana Andrea Moreno Calderón, Jesica Alexandra Silva Quintero

Negocios y Relaciones Internacionales

La crisis humanitaria que se evidencia en Venezuela, trae consigo consecuencias que motivan a la población a migrar en busca de oportunidades a otros países, por esta razón, se genera una migración masiva a los países fronterizos, uno de ellos Colombia, en donde gracias a esta coyuntura ha surgido un fenómeno de xenofobia hacia los venezolanos. Dada esta situación, se considera importante determinar los factores socioeconómicos que han generado dicha xenofobia, debido a la violación de derechos de los migrantes que se estaría presentando por esta situación. Para cumplir con este objetivo primero se indagará sobre la crisis humanitaria que …

Detention By Armed Groups Under International Law, Andrew Clapham

International Law Studies

Does international law entitle armed groups to detain people? And what obligations are imposed on such non-state actors when they do detain? This article sets out suggested obligations for armed groups related to the right to challenge the basis for any detention and considers some related issues of fair trial and punishment. The last part of this article briefly considers the legal framework governing state responsibility and individual criminal responsibility for those that assist armed groups that detain people in ways that violate international law.

Sub-Saharan Africa: The Right Of Intervention In The Name Of Humanity, R. H. Payne

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Sleep: A Human Rights Issue, Clark J. Lee

Homeland Security Publications

Recognition of sleep as a human rights issue by governmental and legal entities (as illustrated by recent legal cases in the United States and India) raises the profile of sleep health as a societal concern. Although this recognition may not lead to immediate public policy changes, it infuses the public discourse about the importance of sleep health with loftier ideals about what it means to be human. Such recognition also elevates the work of sleep researchers and practitioners from serving the altruistic purpose of improving human health at the individual and population levels to serving the higher altruistic purpose of …

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Protecting Human Rights: The Approach Of The Singapore Courts, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee

Jack Tsen-Ta LEE

The Constitution is the supreme law of Singapore, but have the courts unnecessarily limited their role of upholding the Constitution? This article is based on a speech delivered at an event at the Conrad Centennial Singapore on 4 December 2014 entitled The Role of the Judiciary in the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights organized by the Delegation of the European Union to Singapore to commemorate Human Rights Day.

Preventing Interethnic Conflict And Promoting Human Rights Through More Effective Legal, Political, And Aid Structures: Focus On Africa, Paul J. Magnarella

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Equality And The European Union, Elizabeth F. Defeis

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Addressing Early Marriage: Culturally Competent Practices And Romanian Roma (“Gypsy”) Communities, Judith Hale Reed

Judith A Hale Reed

Early marriage affects many communities around the world. Examples of commonly practiced early marriage can be found today in the U.S., India, Syria, and many other places. Although most countries have instituted minimum age laws for marriage, so that legal marriage can only occur after an age set by law, early marriage is still practiced for tradition, control, security, and other reasons. This article explores the harms of early marriage and the international instruments meant to defend against these harms in Part II. Part III reviews theoretical perspectives from legal anthropology and presents a case study of early marriage in …

The Obligation To Investigate Ill-Treatment Of Persons With Disabilities: The Way Forward, Janos Fiala-Butora

Janos Fiala-Butora

No abstract provided.

Proportionality In Interpreting Constitutional Rights: A Comparison Between Canada, The United Kingdom And Singapore And Its Implications For Vietnam, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee

Jack Tsen-Ta LEE

Proportionality In Interpreting Constitutional Rights: A Comparison Between Canada, The United Kingdom And Singapore And Its Implications For Vietnam [Thuyết Cân Đối Trong Vấn Đề Giải Thích Các Quyền Về Hiến Pháp: So Sánh Giữa Canada, Liên Hiệp Các Vương Quốc Anh Và Singapore Và Kinh Nghiệm Cho Vìệt Nam], Jack Tsen-Ta Lee

Jack Tsen-Ta LEE

Few rights that are guaranteed by constitutions and bills of rights are expressed to be absolute. In many jurisdictions, the legislature is permitted to impose restrictions on rights for specified reasons and under particular conditions. However, constitutional or bill of rights text often do not expressly indicate how the courts should determine that applicants’ rights have been legitimately restricted. To this end, courts in jurisdictions such as Canada and the United Kingdom have adopted the European doctrine of proportionality. Essentially, this requires them to balance opposing types of public interests – the interest sought to be protected by the rights …

Ambivalence & Activism: Employment Discrimination In China, Timothy Webster

Faculty Publications

Chinese courts do not vigorously enforce many human rights, but a recent string of employment discrimination lawsuits suggests that, given the appropriate conditions, advocacy strategies, signals from above, and rights at issue, courts can help victims vindicate their constitutional and statutory rights to equality. Since 28, carriers of the hepatitis B virus (HBV) have used the Employment Promotion Law to challenge hiring discrimination. Their high success rate suggests official support for making one potent form of discrimination illegal. Central to these lawsuits is a broad network of lawyers, activists and scholars who have advocated for protecting the rights of HBV …

Emerging Law Addressing Climate Change And Water, Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

The World Economic Forum recognizes that while restrictions on energy affect water systems and vice versa, energy and water policy are rarely coordinated. The International Panel on Climate Change predicts that wet places will become wetter and dry places will become dryer. Transboundary water, energy and climate coordination can occur through international consensus building.

A Closer Look At Law: Human Rights As Multi-Level Sites Of Struggles Over Multi-Dimensional Equality, Susanne Baer

Articles

In many societies, deep conflicts arise around religious matters, and around equality. Often, religious collectives demand the right to self-determination of issues considered - by them - to be their own, and these demands collide with individual rights to, again, religious freedom. These are thus conflicts of religion v. religion. Then, collective religious freedom tends to become an obligation for all those who are defined as belonging to the collective, which carries the problem that mostly elites define its meaning and they silence dissent. Usually, such obligations are also unequal relating to gender, with different regimes for women and for …

Reconstituting Japanese Law: International Norms And Domestic Litigation, Timothy Webster

Faculty Publications

This paper examines a number of lawsuits challenging racial discrimination in Japan’s private sector. Since Japan does not have a law banning private acts of racial discrimination, victims of racial discrimination invoke international human rights law to buttress their claims for compensation. I argue that Japanese judges are, by and large, receptive to these international law claims, but that the system for adjudicating racial discrimination disputes is inadequate. Specifically, a law that bans private acts of racial discrimination would put Japan in line with recently emergent global norms of equality.

Human And Fundamental Rights And Duties In Portuguese Constitution. Some Reflections, Paulo Ferreira Da Cunha

Paulo Ferreira da Cunha

The Portuguese Constitution (1976) came after a period of 48 years of authoritarianism and a closed society, in which some happy few enjoyed great privileges while the great majority of people were charged with heavy duties So, by a very understandable "law of human nature", the constituent law givers could not reasonably impose constitutionally many obligations, in an autonomous way. As rights and duties are the twin sides of the same coin, the juridical formulation under the sign of rights also implies obligations, related to those same rights. This is kinder and more pleasant to do by a liberating Constitution...

Minority Rights, Minority Wrongs, Elena Baylis

Articles

Many of the new democracies established in the last twenty years are severely ethnically divided, with numerous minority groups, languages, and religions. As part of the process of democratization, there has also been an explosion of “national human rights institutions,” that is, independent government agencies whose purpose is to promote enforcement of human rights. But despite the significance of minority concerns to the stability and success of these new democracies, and despite the relevance of minority rights to the mandates of national human rights institutions, a surprisingly limited number of national human rights institutions have directed programs and resources to …

Rising Temperatures: Rising Tides, Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Transboundary environmental problems do not distinguish between political boundaries. Global warming is expected to cause thermal expansion of water and melt glaciers. Both are predicted to lead to a rise in sea level. We must enlarge our paradigms to encompass a global reality and reliance upon global participation.

Equal Protection And Sexual Orientation, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee

Jack Tsen-Ta LEE

Equality is the thread running through the fundamental liberties enshrined in our Constitution. ... Equality, expressed in Art 12 of the [Singapore] Constitution, is also a specific right enforceable by the court. The difficulty comes in applying this deceptively simple concept to real-life situations. ... In considering the validity of legislation, Singapore and Malaysian courts have generally favored rational review, a modest conception of equal protection, unlike their American counterparts which have adopted a more expansive reading in the form of strict and intermediate review. This article examines how these three levels of equal protection review operate, and argues that …