Human Rights Law Commons^™

Unrwa And Palestine Refugees, Susan M. Akram

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter studies the relationship between Palestinian refugees and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). UNRWA’s role is to provide humanitarian ‘relief’ and to provide economic opportunities—‘works’—for refugees in the areas of major displacement: the West Bank, Gaza, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon. Initially, the definition of Palestine refugee for UNRWA’s purposes was a sub-category of the United Nations Conciliation Commission on Palestine definition for purposes of relief provision, but it also included other categories of persons displaced from later conflicts. Following the passage of the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, the …

Closing International Law's Innocence Gap, Brandon L. Garrett, Laurence R. Helfer, Jayne C. Huckerby

Faculty Scholarship

Over the last decade, a growing number of countries have adopted new laws and other mechanisms to address a gap in national criminal legal systems: the absence of meaningful procedures to raise post-conviction claims of factual innocence. These legal and policy reforms have responded to a global surge of exonerations facilitated by the growth of national innocence organizations that increasingly collaborate across borders. It is striking that these developments have occurred with little direct help from international law. Although many treaties recognize extensive fair trial and appeal rights, no international human rights instrument—in its text, existing interpretation, or implementation—explicitly and …

Copyright Exceptions Across Borders: Implementing The Marrakesh Treaty, Laurence R. Helfer, Molly K. Land, Ruth L. Okediji

Faculty Scholarship

This article reviews state ratification and implementation of the Marrakesh Treaty since its conclusion in 2013. We find that most states have adhered closely to the Treaty’s text, thus creating a de facto global template of exceptions and limitations that has increasingly enabled individuals with print disabilities, libraries and schools to create accessible format copies and share them across borders. The article argues that the Marrakesh Treaty’s core innovation—mandatory exceptions to copyright to promote public welfare—together with consultations with a diverse range of stakeholders, may offer a model for harmonising human rights and IP in other contexts.

Defending Refugees: A Case For Protective Procedural Safeguards In The Persecutor Bar Analysis, Charles Shane Ellison

Faculty Scholarship

For refugees and asylum seekers, application of the so-called persecutor bar is tantamount to a death sentence. However, the Board of Immigration Appeals -- without any real deliberation--has arrived at an interpretation of a generic-relief, burdenshifting regulation to allow for application of the persecutor bar based upon very little evidence. Even mere membership in a group with a poor human rights record has been held sufficient to switch the burden of proof and apply the bar. While the recent holding of Matter of Negusie, 27 I&N Dec. 347 (June 28, 2018) can be read and understood largely as a victory …

The Trafficking Victim Protection Act: The Best Hope For International Human Rights Litigation In The U.S. Courts?, Sara Sun Beale

Faculty Scholarship

The article focuses on uses Alien Tort Statute as a vehicle for litigating human rights abuses in both civil and criminal prosecutions in the U.S. Topics discussed include developments in International Criminal Law in addressing human rights violations; judicial attitudes that could affect the interpretation of the Trafficking Victim Protection Act; and Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain court case on the same.

Corporate Criminal Responsibility For Human Rights Violations: Jurisdiction And Reparations, Kenneth S. Gallant

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Sub-Regional Courts In Africa: Litigating The Hybrid Right To Freedom Of Movement, Laurence R. Helfer

Faculty Scholarship

Human rights attorneys and civil society groups in Africa have recently focused their advocacy efforts on sub-regional courts associated with economic integration communities in East, West and Southern Africa. The East African Court of Justice (EACJ), the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the Tribunal of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have received few suits challenging trade restrictions and other barriers to sub-regional integration. Instead, and surprisingly, the courts’ dockets are dominated by complaints alleging violations of international human rights law.
This article offers the first analysis of EACJ, ECOWAS Court and …

Backlash Against International Courts In West, East And Southern Africa: Causes And Consequences, Karen J. Alter, James T. Gathii, Laurence R. Helfer

Faculty Scholarship

This paper discusses three credible attempts by African governments to restrict the jurisdiction of three similarly-situated sub-regional courts in response to politically controversial rulings. In West Africa, when the ECOWAS Court upheld allegations of torture by opposition journalists in the Gambia, that country’s political leaders sought to restrict the Court’s power to review human rights complaints. The other member states ultimately defeated the Gambia’s proposal. In East Africa, Kenya failed in its efforts to eliminate the EACJ and to remove some of its judges after a decision challenging an election to a sub-regional legislature. However, the member states agreed to …

Mapping The Interface Between Human Rights And Intellectual Property, Laurence R. Helfer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

International Courts As Agents Of Legal Change: Evidence From Lgbt Rights In Europe, Laurence R. Helfer, Erik Voeten

Faculty Scholarship

Do international court judgments influence the behavior of actors other than the parties to a dispute? Are international courts agents of policy change or do their judgments merely reflect evolving social and political trends? The authors develop a theory that specifies the conditions under which international courts can use their interpretive discretion to have system-wide effects. The authors examine the theory in the context of European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) rulings on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues by creating a new dataset that matches these rulings with laws in all Council of Europe (CoE) member states. The …

The Successes And Challenges For The European Court, Seen From The Outside, Laurence R. Helfer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Dilemma Of Piratical Ransoms: Should They Be Paid Or Not: On The Human Rights Of Kidnapped Seamen And Their Families, Barry H. Dubner, Kimberly Chavers

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Human Rights And The Evolution Of Global Environmental Law, Robert V. Percival

Faculty Scholarship

Environmental problems that jeopardize the health of humans increasingly implicate concerns that have played an important role in the development of international human rights. While some have questioned the wisdom or effectiveness of focusing human rights concerns on environmental problems, it seems an inevitable response to the failure of many countries to protect their citizens adequately from harm caused by environmental degradation. This paper reviews efforts to apply human rights concerns to environmental problems. It describes how these developments illustrate the growth of a kind of “global environmental law” that blurs traditional distinctions between domestic and international law and public …

Hollingsworth V. Perry, Brief For Foreign And Comparative Law Experts Harold Hongju Koh Et. Al. As Amici Curiae Supporting Respondents, Harold Hongju Koh, Sarah H. Cleveland, Laurence R. Helfer, Ryan Goodman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A New International Human Rights Court For West Africa: The Ecowas Community Court Of Justice, Karen J. Alter, Laurence R. Helfer, Jacqueline R. Mcallister

Faculty Scholarship

The ECOWAS Community Court of Justice (ECCJ) is an increasingly active and bold international adjudicator of human rights violations in West Africa. Since acquiring jurisdiction over human rights issues in 2005, the ECCJ has issued several path-breaking judgments, including against the Gambia for the torture of journalists, against Niger for condoning modern forms of slavery, and against Nigeria for failing to regulate the multinational oil companies that polluted the Niger Delta. This article explains why ECOWAS member states authorized the ECCJ to review human rights suits by individuals but did not allow private actors to complain about violations of regional …

Globalization And Law: Law Beyond The State, Ralf Michaels

Faculty Scholarship

The chapter provides an introduction into law and globalization for sociolegal studies. Instead of treating globalization as an external factor that impacts the law, globalization and law are here viewed as intertwined. I suggest that three types of globalization should be distinguished—globalization as empirical phenomenon, globalization as theory, and globalization as ideology. I go on to discuss one central theme of globalization, namely in what way society, and therefore law, move beyond the state. This is done along the three classical elements of the state—territory, population/citizenship, and government. The role of all of these elements is shifting, suggesting we need …

Use Of Comparative Law In Determining The Customary International Law Of Human Rights, Kenneth S. Gallant

Faculty Scholarship

Comparative law method is essential to determining the customary international law status of rules of human rights law. Doing the hard, detailed work of comparative law is necessary if we are to give up on the unfortunate tendency to make overly broad, unsupported claims that wide varieties of human rights have passed into customary international law.

The traditional use of only interstate practice in determining rules of customary international law is insufficient where the rules concern relationships between states and individuals, especially their own nationals. This, however, is the essence of human rights law.

Comparative law techniques allow, and are …

Comparative Law And International Human Rights Law: Non-Retroactivity And Lex Certa In Criminal Law, Kenneth S. Gallant

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Rule Of Law In Haiti Before And After The 2010 Earthquake, James D. Wilets, Camilo Espinosa

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Human Rights For Hedgehogs?: Global Value Pluralism, International Law, And Some Reservations Of The Fox, Robert D. Sloane

Faculty Scholarship

This essay, a contribution to the Boston University Law Review’s symposium on Ronald Dworkin’s forthcoming book, Justice for Hedgehogs, critiques the manuscript’s account of international human rights on five grounds. First, it is vague: it fails to offer much if any guidance relative to many of the most difficult concrete issues that arise in the field of international human rights law and policy - precisely the circumstances in which international lawyers might benefit from the guidance that moral foundations supposedly promise. It is also troubling, and puzzling given Dworkin’s well-known commitment to the right-answer thesis, that his account of human …

Human Rights And Intellectual Property: Mapping The Global Interface, Laurence R. Helfer, Graeme W. Austin

Faculty Scholarship

Human Rights and Intellectual Property: Mapping the Global Interface explores the intersections between intellectual property and human rights law and policy. The relationship between these two fields has captured the attention of governments, policymakers, and activist communities in a diverse array of international and domestic political and judicial venues. These actors often raise human rights arguments as counterweights to the expansion of intellectual property in areas including freedom of expression, public health, education, privacy, agriculture, and the rights of indigenous peoples. At the same time, the creators and owners of intellectual property are asserting a human rights justification for the …

The United States And Human Rights Treaties: Race Relations, The Cold War, And Constitutionalism, Curtis A. Bradley

Faculty Scholarship

The United States prides itself on being a champion of human rights and pressures other countries to improve their human rights practices, and yet appears less willing than other nations to embrace international human rights treaties. Many commentators attribute this phenomenon to the particular historical context that existed in the late 1940s and early 1950s when human rights treaties were first being developed. These commentators especially emphasize the race relations of the time, noting that some conservatives resisted the developing human rights regime because they saw it as an effort by the federal government to extend its authority to address …

Foreign Sovereign Immunity And Domestic Officer Suits, Curtis A. Bradley, Jack L. Goldsmith

Faculty Scholarship

Under international law, official-capacity suits brought against a foreign state’s officers are treated as suits against the state itself and thus as subject to the state’s immunity, even in suits alleging human rights abuses. This immunity regime differs from the immunity regime that applies in the United States in suits brought against state and federal officials for violations of federal law. Despite the federal government’s sovereign immunity and the immunity of state governments under Eleventh Amendment jurisprudence, courts often allow suits against federal and state officers for their official actions. This essay attempts to explain why the immunity rules differ …

Embedded International Law And The Constitution Abroad, Sarah H. Cleveland

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay explores the role of "embedded" international law in U.S. constitutional interpretation, in the context of extraterritorial application of the Constitution. Traditional U.S. understandings of the Constitution's application abroad were informed by nineteenth-century international law principles of jurisdiction, which largely limited the authority of a sovereign state to its geographic territory. Both international law and constitutional law since have developed significantly away from strictly territorial understandings of governmental authority, however. Modern international law principles of jurisdiction and state responsibility now recognize that states legitimately may exercise power in a number of extraterritorial contexts, and that legal obligations may apply …

United States Detention Operations In Afghanistan And The Law Of Armed Conflict, Matthew C. Waxman

Faculty Scholarship

Looking back on US and coalition detention operations in Afghanistan to date, three key issues stand out: one substantive, one procedural and one policy. The substantive matter – what are the minimum baseline treatment standards required as a matter of international law? – has clarified significantly during the course of operations there, largely as a result of the US Supreme Court’s holding in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. The procedural matter – what adjudicative processes does international law require for determining who may be detained? – eludes consensus and has become more controversial the longer the Afghan conflict continues. And the …

Between Rogues And Liberals: Towards Value Pluralism As A Theory Of Freedom Of Religion In International Law, Peter G. Danchin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Wall And The Law: A Tale Of Two Judgements, Susan M. Akram, S. Michael Lynk

Faculty Scholarship

The seminal rulings in 2004 by the International Court of Justice and the Israeli High Court on the legality of the wall/barrier that Israel is building through the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem provide a study in contrast. While both judgements were critical of the wall/barrier, their judicial approaches and legal conclusions were strikingly divergent, particularly given that the two courts were purporting to rely upon the same principles of international law. The judgements also elicited quite different political and diplomatic reactions, especially among the parties most involved in the Israel/Palestine conflict. This article explores the legal analysis and …

Universal Rights And Wrongs, Michael E. Tigar

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

International Human Rights Standards In International Organizations: The Case Of International Criminal Courts, Kenneth S. Gallant

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Japanese International Law 'Revolution': International Human Rights Law And Its Impact In Japan, Kenneth L. Port

Faculty Scholarship

Some observers have argued that because of a lack of enforcement powers, international law has relatively little impact on the conduct of nations and, in fact, may not be "law" at all. Others have inquired whether legal norms which underlie international human rights law have any influence on the domestic law of signatory nations. This article argues that international law can profoundly influence the development of the domestic laws of nations regardless of the lack of coercive enforcement powers. This point becomes clear through a consideration of Japan's experience in adopting and internalizing international law norms.