Human Rights Law Commons^™

4th Annual Women In Law Leadership Lecture, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Gender And The Constitutional Theory Of The Firm, Jamee K. Moudud

Seattle University Law Review

This Article adds to the literature that has linked feminist economics to foreign trade and development. It argues that two key factors need to be in place jointly if efforts to promote gender equity are to succeed. On the one hand it argues that foreign debt is an important constraint to domestic progressive social policies of all kinds as it increases the power of international creditors who generally tend to support austerity policies. On the other hand, while alleviating the burden of foreign debt via exportpromotion policies is necessary, it is by no means a sufficient condition to promote domestic …

Women’S Sexuality And The State: A Beginning Look At Virginity’S Relationship To The Law, Ariana Strieb

Senior Projects Spring 2023

This is a beginning look at the relationship the state has with women's sexuality in the United States, specifically looking at how virginity animate the way rape trials are prosecuted.

The Human Environment: Awakening To The Indomitable Cuban Spirit--Government, Culture, And People, Berta Hernández-Truyol

FIU Law Review

My thoughts are to write about The Human Environment. I will address the recent events concerning the increased silencing of dissent and the criminal law reforms that prohibit peaceful gatherings.

Covid-19 And Lgbt Rights, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

Even in the best of times, LGBT individuals have legal vulnerabilities in employment, housing, healthcare and other domains resulting from a combination of persistent bias and uneven protection against discrimination. In this time of COVID-19, these vulnerabilities combine to amplify both the legal and health risks that LGBT people face.

This essay focuses on several risks that are particularly linked to being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, with the recognition that these vulnerabilities are often intensified by discrimination based on race, ethnicity, age, disability, immigration status and other aspects of identity. Topics include: 1) federal withdrawal of antidiscrimination protections; 2) …

2nd Annual Stonewall Lecture 04-16-2019, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Personhood Seeking New Life With Republican Control, Jonathan F. Will, I. Glenn Cohen, Eli Y. Adashi

Indiana Law Journal

Just three days prior to the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States, Representative Jody B. Hice (R-GA) introduced the Sanctity of Human Life Act (H.R. 586), which, if enacted, would provide that the rights associated with legal personhood begin at fertilization. Then, in October 2017, the Department of Health and Human Services released its draft strategic plan, which identifies a core policy of protecting Americans at every stage of life, beginning at conception. While often touted as a means to outlaw abortion, protecting the “lives” of single-celled zygotes may also have implications for the practice …

Mainstreaming Gender: The Influence Of Women's Networks On Prosecuting Sexual Violence At The International Criminal Court, Jessica Maryanne Zaccagnino

Senior Projects Spring 2017

The fall of the Soviet Union in combination with the failures of the international community to intervene in the genocides of the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda spurred a new enthusiasm for human rights as a wholly independent movement, termed the human rights wave. This paradigm shift, identified by Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann, was an embrace of human rights rooted in the redemption of past wrongs. This project is structured as a jurisprudential genealogy that will explore the human rights wave in the context of the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice, a facet of the transnational women’s network, and their quest to mainstream …

Sentencing Pregnant Drug Addicts: Why The Child Endangerment Enhancement Is Not Appropriate, Monica Carusello

Monica B Carusello

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Polyamorous Marriage: Lessons From The Marriage Equality Struggle, Hadar Aviram, Gwendolyn Manriquez Leachman

Hadar Aviram

Amidst the recent legal victories and growing public support for same-sex marriage, numerous polyamorous individuals have expressed interest in pursuing legal recognition for marriages between more than two consenting adults. This Article explores the possibilities that exist for such a polyamorous marriage equality campaign, in light of the theoretical literature on law and social movements, as well as our own original and secondary research on polyamorous and LGBT communities. Among other issues, we examine the prospect of prioritizing the marriage struggle over other forms of nonmarital relationship recognition; pragmatic regulative challenges, like taxation, healthcare, and immigration; and how law and …

Transgender Inpportunity And Inequality: Evaluating The Crossroads Between Immigration And Transgender Individuals, Alexandra Caggiano

Seattle University Law Review

Despite being married to a U.S. citizen, non-citizen transgender individuals and non-citizen spouses married to transgender U.S. citizens still face deportation today due to current immigration policies. When forced to return to their home countries, transgender individuals are likely to encounter violence from those who perpetuate hate towards transgender and gender non-conforming individuals. Instead of protecting these individuals, the United States continues to send people back to their native countries solely because those individuals do not fall within the narrowly constructed definition of marriage some states use that is legally recognized by federal courts. Transgender individuals receive disparate treatment as …

An End To The Violence: Justifying Gender As A "Particular Social Group", Suzanne Sidun

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Human Rights, Sex, And Gender: Limits In Theory And Practice, Lara Stemple

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Name Of One's Own: Gender And Symbolic Legal Personhood In The European Court Of Human Rights, Yofi Tirosh

Yofi Tirosh

Legal regulation of surnames provides a fascinating venue for examining how women negotiate their interests of autonomy and of stable personhood vis a vis a patriarchal naming structure. This is a study of 25 years of adjudication of surnames and personal status at the European Court of Human Rights. It explores the intricate ways in which legal norms governing surnames (and their judicial interpretation) sustain, shape, and reify social institutions such as gender, family, and citizenship.

As a pan European court, the adjudication of the ECHR operates within the framework of human rights. The universal characteristics of human rights principles …

Beyond The Binary: What Can Feminists Learn From Intersex And Transgender Jurisprudence?, Marybeth Herald

Marybeth Herald

This panel discussion focuses on recent developments in the intersex and transsexual communities. Recently, both movements have undergone profound changes and each has provided new and unique theoretical and practical perspectives that can potentially benefit other social justice groups. This dialogue describes these developments. It also emphasizes the importance of feminist, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex activists becoming aware of the goals that they share and areas where their interests may diverge. As each of these movements develops their legal strategies, they need to be conscious of the potentially positive and negative ramifications that their approaches may have on …

Gender Outlaws Before The Law: The Courts Of The Borderlands, Aeyal M. Gross

Aeyal M. Gross

This Article considers four trials held in the United States, United Kingdom, and Israel, in which gender outlaws were accused and convicted in a criminal court for fraudulent gender presentations. These trials raise questions at a number of junctures that touch on the regulation and politics of sex, gender, and sexuality. I argue that these cases manifest not only the unresolved tension between sexual and gender identities, but also the internal conflicts within the identities themselves, as well as the difficulty of maintaining boundaries amongst them. Furthermore, I argue that, contrary to the rhetoric used by the various courts, the …

Transphobia And The Relational Production Of Gender, Elaine Craig

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Knowing one's place in the social order, whether that place is one of relative privilege or not, serves two psychologically ameliorative functions. It relieves one from the “anxiety of [gender] identity interrogation” and it helps to inform one as to the socially agreed upon, acceptable conduct for interpersonal exchanges--the episteme of social interaction. This Paper will demonstrate that gender identity is produced through relational, contextually influenced, interpretative processes. Because gender is constructed in societies which strongly embrace static, binary conceptions of gender, and in which social, familial, occupational, and sexual *139 interactions are heavily influenced by gendered social scripts, gender …

Transphobia And The Relational Production Of Gender, Elaine Craig

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Knowing one's place in the social order, whether that place is one of relative privilege or not, serves two psychologically ameliorative functions. It relieves one from the “anxiety of [gender] identity interrogation” and it helps to inform one as to the socially agreed upon, acceptable conduct for interpersonal exchanges--the episteme of social interaction. This Paper will demonstrate that gender identity is produced through relational, contextually influenced, interpretative processes. Because gender is constructed in societies which strongly embrace static, binary conceptions of gender, and in which social, familial, occupational, and sexual *139 interactions are heavily influenced by gendered social scripts, gender …

Superstition-Based Injustice In Africa And The United States: The Use Of Provocation As A Defense For Killing Witches And Homosexuals, Jennifer Dumin

ExpressO

This Article examines two different instances where strong cultural and religious beliefs suggest that an individual is justified in taking another’s life. Focusing primarily on South Africa and the United States, it argues that the rationale used to defend those who kill suspected witches and those who kill suspected homosexuals is the same – merely because a criminal holds a belief that the victim is evil, the criminal is somehow entitled to a lesser punishment. In the United States, those who readily recognize the absurdity of the witchcraft defense may have some difficulty in recognizing the same level of absurdity …

Paradoxes Of Health And Equality: When A Boy Becomes A Girl, Noa Ben-Asher

ExpressO

This paper is about an unusual child custody dispute between the parents of a six-year-old child and the child welfare services of Franklin County, Ohio. The conflict emerged when the child’s parents complied with their male child’s professed desire to be treated as a girl by attempting to enroll the child in the first grade as a girl. The paper treats this case as an exemplary test-case of contemporary co-dependence between scientific-medical discourse and liberal-rights discourse. The paper analyzes the positions of the two sides of the custody dispute according to the classic modern distinction between mind and body. On …

Paradoxes Of Health And Equality: When A Boy Becomes A Girl, Noa Ben-Asher

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In the fall of 2000, six-year-old male Zachary from a small town in Ohio, claimed that s/he was a girl and requested, from now on, to be called Aurora. When the child's parents honored this unusual wish and made efforts to make official the child's feminine identity, the case turned into a custody battle between the parents and the state of Ohio. Although the child was occasionally treated as a girl at home from the age of two, the attempt to register the child in public school as a girl motivated the state dissolution of this family. At the …