Human Rights Law Commons^™

Pride, Prejudice, And Japan's Unified State, Suzanne M. Sable

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

Japan is undoubtedly one of the foremost economic powers in the world and is internationally recognized as a democratic leader among modern nations. The economy's rapid growth in the mid-twentieth century has been attributed to its booming technical industries, including its electronic and automobile industries. However, Japan is unique in that it has retained traditions associated with typically less advanced nations-namely, a regressive human rights agenda. Although cultural, ethnic, and social minorities continue to exist on Japanese soil today, Japan's social policy of Nihonjinron allows the majority of the population to disregard such minorities and perpetuate the government's vision of …

Rwanda: No Conspiracy, No Genocide Planning ... No Genocide?, C. Peter Erlinder

C. Peter Erlinder

No abstract provided.

Inherent Powers, Ignoble History Make New Idea Anything But Innocuous, C. Peter Erlinder

C. Peter Erlinder

No abstract provided.

Peace Without Justice, Or Justice Without Peace?, Clair Apodaca

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Peace without justice is an illusion. The use of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate and prosecute human rights violations not only provides restorative justice for those harmed by the wrongdoing but also retributive justice towards the perpetrators. Restorative justice seeks to help heal the wounds of the victims and community by acknowledging and witnessing the pain and suffering of the victim. Retributive justice seeks to punish the offenders. The hope is that retribution will deter or prevent future acts of violence by holding perpetrators accountable for the violations of human rights, genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. …

State Regulation Of Sexuality In International Human Rights Law And Theory, Aaron Xavier Fellmeth

William & Mary Law Review

In Part I, this Article presents the first published, worldwide survey of international practice in interpreting and applying various international human rights norms to the issue of sexual freedom, with a special emphasis on the rights to privacy, family life, and freedom from arbitrary discrimination based on sexual orientation. Although progress toward general recognition of such rights by international authorities and states has been extremely rapid over a very short period, such recognition continues to vary geographically and according to the subject matter. For example, some rights, such as the right to consensual, adult, private intercourse have achieved more widespread …

Challenging The International Criminal Court Over Al-Bashir, Emma Gilligan

Human Rights & Human Welfare

As of late November 2008, we are still awaiting the decision of the U.N. Security Council with regard to the request for the arrest of Sudanese President, Omar al-Bashir for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide put forward by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in July. With former Presidents Charles Taylor of Liberia and Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia as the only two heads of state formally indicted by the ICC since its inception in 2002, the question remains whether the U.N. Security Council will allow this controversial indictment of al-Bashir by Chief Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo or invoke Article 16 …

Alex De Waal's Shuttle Diplomacy, Sarah Stanlick

Human Rights & Human Welfare

This month’s discussion piece, “The Activist,” is a critical look at one of the most renowned scholars of the turmoil in Sudan. Alex de Waal, a man with an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the different factions, aspects, and issues surrounding the conflicts in Sudan, is profiled under a careful eye. De Waal, a competent critic—as McDonell notes who “takes pride in his competence, and he does not hesitate to criticize activists he deems inexpert”— has built a career on a meticulously researched understanding of the conflict. He honed that reputation through careful action, critical thinking, and a critical voice for …

December Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“The Activist.” Harper's Magazine. November 2008.

Human Rights Or Inhuman Wrongs, Edward Friedman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The project of promoting universally recognized human rights, that is, the commitments of the U.N. General Assembly-ratified Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), is in danger. Military and political intervention, including economic sanctions, to stop genocide and ethnic and other political mass murder is under attack. Apparently the lessons of Hitler’s holocaust, the Turkish genocide of Armenians, Pol Pot’s slaughter of innocents, and the loss of life in Rwanda are being rethought and un-taught. So-called peace is now preferred over prevention. The dead may have died in vain.

Global Ethics And The Role Of Academics, Christien Van Den Anker

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Academics have a social and professional responsibility that stems from their individual duties as global citizens. With their privileged position as lifelong learners they need to assess carefully where they direct their attention for research, their teaching and their exchange of knowledge with the wider public. This means that academic freedom does not only bring a range of rights, it also involves duties to develop and advocate ethical positions on real-life dilemmas and to engage in self-reflection on being in the role of contributing to oppression.

An Emerging Triangle: Climate Change, Migration And Human Rights: The Case Of New Zealand,Tuvalu And Kiribati, Sarah Stefanos

Archived Theses and Dissertations

Three important global issues - climate change, migration, and human rights- form an emerging triangle because of their interrelatedness. However, critical analysis of the relationship between these three issues apart from an as yet legally meaningless discourse about an imminent global catastrophe of 250 million 'climate refugees' has been limited. This paper examines the climate change, migration, and human rights triangle through the lens of the Pacific, where some of the states most severely threatened by climate change can be found. Extremely small Pacific states whose inhabitants have lived on coral reef islands (called atolls) for more than 2000 years, …

Liberdade, Ética E Direito, Paulo Ferreira Da Cunha

Paulo Ferreira da Cunha

Further than Ethics concieved as mere obedience, Republican Ethics expresses the idea of duty for freedom and Liberty. After Law concieved as only duty and imperative norms from power to the subjects, there is the possibility of a fraternal law, in new patterns. This article explores several ways in a new ethics and a new law paradigms, after the objective Roman Law and the subjective modern Law.

Protection Of Journalists In Situations Of Armed Conflict : Enhancing Legal Protection Under International Law, Hong Tang

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to highlight the specific conditions created by armed conflicts (international and internal armed conflicts), and to survey and discuss the international laws (governing both sovereign states and international intergovernmental organizations, or governing either sovereign states or international inter-governmental organizations) that can promote better protection for journalists in the circumstances of armed conflict. This dissertation also serves to reaffirm those elements of international humanitarian law that apply to the protection of civilians and journalists in situations of armed conflict; to reestablish and promote the authority of those basic rules on both international and national levels; …

Will President Obama Finally Bury King Leopold’S Ghost? Common Dreams, C. Peter Erlinder

C. Peter Erlinder

No abstract provided.

Applying The Rule Of Law To All Heads Of State, C. Peter Erlinder

C. Peter Erlinder

No abstract provided.

November Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“Foreign Policy Myths Debunked." The Nation. October 6, 2008.

Speak Softly...With Everyone You Can, Todd Landman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

From the Monroe Doctrine to the Bush Doctrine, United States foreign policy has been predicated on the assumption that somehow it knows what is best for the rest of the world. Monroe feared a potential encroachment from Russia and meddling in the "American" Hemisphere by the European powers and issued what originally appeared as a modest statement about resistance to intervention by any other country than the United States . Ironically enforced by the British Navy at that time, the Monroe Doctrine went far beyond its modest beginnings to set a precedent for the development of U.S. foreign policy. The …

Human Rights And The 2008 U.S. Presidential Election, Brent J. Steele

Human Rights & Human Welfare

There has been a vivid tendency this year by the conventional keepers of Washington wisdom to explicate the two presidential candidates' foreign policy views using old frameworks of "hawk" and "dove." Not only is this binary wrong, it fundamentally obscures some rather ironic potentials for how each candidate, if elected president, will focus upon human rights in their foreign policy. McCain's neoconservative view of the world is founded upon the Wilsonian call for democratization-culminating in what he terms a "League of Democracies." To use a concept that Arnold Wolfers first coined, and one which Joshua Muravchik has proffered as well, …

America As An Ordinary Nation, William F. Felice

Human Rights & Human Welfare

For decades, scholars of international relations have called attention to the limits of American power. For example, in 1976 Cornel University Press published America as an Ordinary Country: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Future , edited by Richard Rosecrance. As the title indicates, Rosecrance's book analyzed the impact of the economic, military, and foreign policy setbacks of the 1970s on U.S. power. Suddenly the U.S. seemed less the powerful, "indispensible" leader and more the vulnerable, "ordinary" country unable to control external forces lashing the society's economy and foreign policy. These insights led many scholars to call for a reassessment of …

Myths, Reasonable Disagreement, And A League Of Democracies, James Pattison

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The United States ' election in 2004 was based on a number of foreign policy myths. Three of the most obvious were:

• The war in Iraq was necessary as a response to the threat of international terrorism. As a result, the world is now a safer place;
• The institutions of the UN are corrupt and do nothing but restrict American power;
• Al Qaeda and international terrorism more generally are extremely significant threats to American national security

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

Peter G. Danchin

No abstract provided.

U.S./U.K. Allies Grab Congo Riches And Millions Die: 2001-03 Un Expert Reports, C. Peter Erlinder

C. Peter Erlinder

No abstract provided.

The Inter-American System Of Human Rights: Challenges For The Future, Claudio Grossman

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The Inter-American system is a combination of human rights norms and supervisory institutions within the Americas. The applicable rules consist primarily of the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man ("American Declaration") and the American Convention on Human Rights ("American Convention"). The institutions involved are the organs responsible for supervising compliance with the established rules: the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ("the Commission") and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ("the Court"). The system performs supervisory functions basically through country reports adopted by the Commission which describe the overall human rights situation in a country and decisions in …

Reforming Humanitarian Rescue, Brent J. Steele

Human Rights & Human Welfare

There is much to commend in Morton Abramowitz and Thomas Pickering’s article “Making Intervention Work.” They propose to reform the United Nations’ capacity for intervention with the creation of an autonomous U.N. force largely constituted with forces contributed by the Security Council’s member-states. If such a force were kept to a minimal operational mission, “a small rapid-deployment force with special engineering, logistical, medical, and police skills,” as the authors suggest, then I think this is a good idea. If such a force would, however, become more than this—an autonomous army of military personnel meant to intervene with force into any …

October Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“Making Intervention Work.” by Morton Abramowitz and Thomas Pickering. Foreign Affairs. September/October 2008.

Has The Iraq War Torpedoed The “Responsibility To Protect”?, William F. Felice

Human Rights & Human Welfare

At a U.N. World Summit in 2005, the nations of the world approved the “responsibility to protect.” This emerging principle of international law, charges each individual state with the responsibility to protect its population from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. If a nation fails to protect its populations from these barbarities, the nations of the world declared that they would act, through the Security Council, in accordance with the U.N. Charter, to stop the violence against innocents everywhere and protect imperiled peoples. In theory, Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter gives the member states the military …

The Responsibility To Protect And The Failure To Respond, Todd Landman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Commentators on global politics frequently observe the abject failure of states and global institutions to respond to local, regional, and global crises ranging from dramatic climatic events, humanitarian crises, warfare and violence, to the continuation of unsavoury rights-abusive regimes. In my own work in the field of the comparative politics of human rights, the types of observations that Abramowitz and Pickering make in this piece are all too common, and have led many in the past to make similar such observations that powerful states constantly engage in a grand human rights “double standard.”

Improving The Agents And Mechanisms Of Humanitarian Intervention, James Pattison

Human Rights & Human Welfare

I agree with the broad thrust of Abramowitz and Pickering’s article. They rightly highlight the failings of the current agents and mechanisms of humanitarian intervention. The problem, however, is twofold. First, all the currently-existing interveners possess notable, and well-known, flaws. The U.N. and regional organizations suffer from serious shortfalls in funding and equipment. States frequently lack the commitment and willingness to act. And, although NATO’s operations in Bosnia and Kosovo raised hopes that it would be a willing and powerful humanitarian intervener, the reluctance of many of its members to commit troops in Afghanistan (where member states have clear interests) …

Global Health Law: A Definition And Grand Challenges, Lawrence O. Gostin, Allyn L. Taylor

O'Neill Institute Papers

It has been only recently that scholars have engaged in a serious discussion of "public health law." This academic discourse examines the role of the state and civil society in health promotion and disease prevention within the country. There is an important emerging literature on the international dimensions of health, but no similar systematic definition and exposition of a field we call "global health law." In this article we aim to fill this gap by defining global health law and characterizing the grand challenges. Given the rapid and expanding globalization that is a defining feature of today's world, the need …

Global Health Law: Health In A Global Community, Lawrence O. Gostin

O'Neill Institute Papers

The examination of public health law traditionally focuses on constitutions, statutes, regulations, and common law at the national and sub-national level. However, the determinants of health (e.g., pathogens, air, food, water, even lifestyle choices) do not originate solely within national borders. Health threats inexorably spread to neighboring countries, regions, and even continents. Peoples’ lives are profoundly affected by commerce, politics, science, and technology from all over the world. Global integration and interdependence occur “as capital, traded goods, persons, concepts, images, ideas, and values diffuse across state boundaries.” It is for this reason that law and policy need to be transnational, …