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Full-Text Articles in Human Rights Law
Backlash Against International Courts In West, East And Southern Africa: Causes And Consequences, Karen J. Alter, James T. Gathii, Laurence R. Helfer
Backlash Against International Courts In West, East And Southern Africa: Causes And Consequences, Karen J. Alter, James T. Gathii, Laurence R. Helfer
James T Gathii
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 …
Youth Activism, Art And Transitional Artist: Emerging Spaces Of Memory After The Jasmin Revolution, Arnaud Kurze
Youth Activism, Art And Transitional Artist: Emerging Spaces Of Memory After The Jasmin Revolution, Arnaud Kurze
Arnaud Kurze
This project explores the creation of alternative transitional justice spaces in post-conflict contexts, particularly concentrating on the role of art and the impact of social movements to address human rights abuses. Drawing from post-authoritarian Tunisia, it scrutinizes the work of contemporary youth activists and artists to deal with the past and foster sociopolitical change. Although these vanguard protesters provoked the overthrow of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011, the power vacuum was quickly filled by old elites. The exclusion of young revolutionaries from political decision-making led to unprecedented forms of mobilization to account for repression and injustice under …
The "Common Word," Development, And Human Rights: African And Catholic Perspectives, Joseph M. Isanga
The "Common Word," Development, And Human Rights: African And Catholic Perspectives, Joseph M. Isanga
Joseph Isanga
Africa is the most conflict-ridden region of the world and has been since the end of the Cold War. The Continent's performance in both development and human rights continues to lag behind other regions in the world. Such conditions can cause religious differences to escalate into conflict, particularly where religious polarity is susceptible to being exploited. The sheer scale of such conflicts underscores the urgency and significance of interreligious engagement and dialogue: 'Quantitative and qualitative analysis based on a ... database including 28 violent conflicts show that religion plays a role more frequently than is usually assumed.' This ambivalent character …
Foundations Of Human Rights And Development: A Critique Of African Human Rights Instruments, Joseph M. Isanga
Foundations Of Human Rights And Development: A Critique Of African Human Rights Instruments, Joseph M. Isanga
Joseph Isanga
This Article argues that, of the contemporary human rights theories, sustainable African development necessitates grounding human rights in complete alignment with the broader perspective of natural law theory, as opposed to narrower perspectives such as utilitarian, positivist, and kindred theories.3 Part I presents pertinent philosophical theories and modes of analysis in conjunction with general international legal jurisprudence. Part II then uses this philosophical analysis to examine specific African human rights instruments and jurisprudence. Part III considers African traditional human rights conceptions. Part IV recommends a natural law foundation for African development. [excerpt]
Rethinking The "Less As More" Thesis: Supranational Litigation Of Economic, Social And Cultural Rights In The Americas, Tara J. Melish
Rethinking The "Less As More" Thesis: Supranational Litigation Of Economic, Social And Cultural Rights In The Americas, Tara J. Melish
Tara Melish
In their 2005 law review article Less as More: Rethinking Supranational Litigation of Economic and Social Rights in the Americas, James Cavallaro and Emily Schaffer argue for a "rethinking" of strategies to advance economic, social and cultural rights in the Americas. They posit that to achieve higher rates of real-world protection for such rights, social rights advocates should do two things: first, bring less litigation and, second, frame any marginal litigation that is pursued as violations of classic civil and political rights. According to the authors, this recommended course will increase the "legitimacy" of the litigation and lead to higher …
New Uri Journal Explores Sexual Exploitation, G. Wayne Miller, Donna M. Hughes Dr.
New Uri Journal Explores Sexual Exploitation, G. Wayne Miller, Donna M. Hughes Dr.
Donna M. Hughes
Uri Professor Launches Online Journal About Sexual Exploitation, Violence, Slavery, Donna M. Hughes Dr.
Uri Professor Launches Online Journal About Sexual Exploitation, Violence, Slavery, Donna M. Hughes Dr.
Donna M. Hughes
Dignity, Vol 1, Issue 1, 2016, Donna M. Hughes Dr.
Dignity, Vol 1, Issue 1, 2016, Donna M. Hughes Dr.
Donna M. Hughes
Embodying The Population: Five Decades Of Immigrant/Integration Policy In Sweden, Leila Brännström
Embodying The Population: Five Decades Of Immigrant/Integration Policy In Sweden, Leila Brännström
Leila Brännström
Participatory Fact-Finding: Developing New Directions For Human Rights Investigations Through New Technologies, Molly Land
Molly K. Land
This chapter considers the way in which broader participation in human rights fact-finding, enabled by the introduction of new technologies, will change the nature of fact-finding itself. Using the example of a participatory mapping project called Map Kibera, the chapter argues that new technologies will change human rights fact-finding by providing opportunities for ordinary individuals to investigate the human rights issues that affect them. Those who were formerly the ‘subjects’ of human rights investigations now have the potential to be agents in their own right. This ‘participatory fact-finding’ may not be as effective in ‘naming and shaming’ states and companies …
Human Rights Frames In Ip Contests, Molly Land
Reconciling Positivism And Realism: Kelsen And Habermas On Democracy And Human Rights, David Ingram
Reconciling Positivism And Realism: Kelsen And Habermas On Democracy And Human Rights, David Ingram
David Ingram
It is well known that Hans Kelsen and Jürgen Habermas invoke realist arguments drawn from social science in defending an international, democratic human rights regime against Carl Schmitt’s attack on the rule of law. However, despite embracing the realist spirit of Kelsen’s legal positivism, Habermas criticizes Kelsen for neglecting to connect the rule of law with a concept of procedural justice (Part I). I argue, to the contrary (Part II), that Kelsen does connect these terms, albeit in a manner that may be best described as functional, rather than conceptual. Indeed, whereas Habermas tends to emphasize a conceptual connection between …
Addressing Early Marriage: Culturally Competent Practices And Romanian Roma (“Gypsy”) Communities, Judith Hale Reed
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 …
#Ict4hr—Information And Communication Technologies For Human Rights, Molly Land, Patrick Meier, Mark Belinsky, Emily Jacobi
#Ict4hr—Information And Communication Technologies For Human Rights, Molly Land, Patrick Meier, Mark Belinsky, Emily Jacobi
Molly K. Land
No abstract provided.
Legal Mechanization Of Corporate Social Responsibility Through Alien Tort Statute Litigation: A Response To Professor Branson With Some Supplemental Thoughts, Donald J. Kochan
Legal Mechanization Of Corporate Social Responsibility Through Alien Tort Statute Litigation: A Response To Professor Branson With Some Supplemental Thoughts, Donald J. Kochan
Donald J. Kochan
This Response argues that as ATS jurisprudence “matures” or becomes more sophisticated, the legitimate limits of the law regress. The further expansion within the corporate defendant pool – attempting to pin liability on parent, great grandparent corporations and up to the top – raises the stakes and complexity of ATS litigation. The corporate social responsibility discussion raises three principal issues about how a moral corporation lives its life: how a corporation chooses its self-interest versus the interests of others, when and how it should help others if control decisions may harm the shareholder owners, and how far the corporation must …
Counter Terrorism And Access To Justice: Public Policy Divided?, Mark Rix
Counter Terrorism And Access To Justice: Public Policy Divided?, Mark Rix
Mark Rix
This paper will consider the manner in which Australia’s counter-terrorism strategy has been operationalised, highlighting the implications of its strategy for access to justice. Access to justice, encompassing the ability of individuals, including persons suspected of terrorism offences and non-suspects, effectively to exercise their human and legal rights, can be an important curb on state power. But, in another equally important sense, providing individuals with access to justice also protects national security by helping to ensure that the law enforcement and security agencies focus their efforts on genuine terror suspects rather than wasting their resources on investigating and prosecuting genuine …
Peer Producing Human Rights, Molly Land
Peer Producing Human Rights, Molly Land
Molly K. Land
Can there be a Wikipedia for human rights? The growth of collaborative technologies has spurred the development of projects such as Wikipedia, in which large groups of volunteers contribute to production in a decentralized and open format. The author analyzes how these methods of peer-based production can be applied to advance international human rights as well as the limitations of such a model in this field. An underlying characteristic of peer-based production, amateurism, increases capacity and participation. However, the involvement of ordinary individuals in the production of human rights reporting is also its greatest disadvantage, since human rights reports generated …
Protecting Rights Online, Molly Land
Protecting Rights Online, Molly Land
Molly K. Land
Although the human rights and access to knowledge (A2K) movements share many of the same goals, their legal and regulatory agendas have little in common. While state censorship online is a central concern for human rights advocates, this issue has been largely ignored by the A2K movement. Likewise, human rights advocates have failed to examine the cumulative effect of expanding copyright protections on education and culture. These disparate agendas reflect fundamentally different views about what states should regulate and the role of international institutions. Overcoming this divide is critical to ensuring the movements can draw on their respective strengths to …
Human And Fundamental Rights And Duties In Portuguese Constitution. Some Reflections, Paulo Ferreira Da Cunha
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...