Human Rights Law Commons^™

Three Observations About Justice Alito's Draft Opinion In Dobbs - Commentary, John M. Greabe

Law Faculty Scholarship

[Excerpt] "There is much to say about Justice Samuel Alito's draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which was leaked from the United States Supreme Court on May 2 [2022].

Obviously, the most significant direct consequence of the proposed decision, which overrules Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) while upholding the constitutionality of a Mississippi law that outlaws most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, would be the restriction or elimination of abortion services throughout much of the nation. This will have all sorts of attendant consequences, large and smaller, many of which …

Justice For All? Impeding The Villainization Of Human Trafficking Victims Via The Expansion Of Vacatur Laws, Sarah Devaney

Pepperdine Law Review

It is common for human trafficking victims to acquire a criminal record as a result of the activities they are forced to engage in whilst being trafficked. Once these victims become survivors, their criminal record hinders them from wholly reacclimating to society. The current state of human trafficking laws provides little to no relief for human trafficking survivors in regard to alleviating their criminal records. Accordingly, human trafficking survivors are perpetually victimized by the United States criminal justice system. This Article explores the current state of human trafficking laws and their enduring effect on survivors. Specifically, the Article examines California’s …

Gendered Normativities: The Role And Rule Of Law, Susanne Baer

Book Chapters

In the 21st century, human rights are as present as they are endangered. Specifically, sex/gender equality rights are contested, or actively abridged, which is to be understood as an attack on women and on people who do not fit a ‘normal’ pattern of gender relations. Yet in addition, these are attacks on democratic constitutionalism itself. The article argues that to properly understand the recent contestations of human rights, one must distinguish between critique and attack, and revisit the very form and content of human rights, to deal with law’s ambivalence, such as ‘legal colonialism’, and also take into account critical …

Law, Criminalisation And Hiv In The World: Have Countries That Criminalise Achieved More Or Less Successful Pandemic Response?, Matthew M. Kavanagh, Schadrac C. Agbla, Marissa Joy, Kashish Aneja, Mara Pillinger, Alaina Case, Ngozi A. Erondu, Taavi Erkkola, Ellie Graeden

O'Neill Institute Papers

How do choices in criminal law and rights protections affect disease-fighting efforts? This long-standing question facing governments around the world is acute in the context of pandemics like HIV and COVID-19. The Global AIDS Strategy of the last 5 years sought to prevent mortality and HIV transmission in part through ensuring people living with HIV (PLHIV) knew their HIV status and could suppress the HIV virus through antiretroviral treatment. This article presents a cross-national ecological analysis of the relative success of national AIDS responses under this strategy, where laws were characterised by more or less criminalisation and with varying rights …

Asian Courts And Lgbt Rights, Holning Lau

Holning Lau

Oliari And The European Court Of Human Rights: Where The Court Failed, Vito John Marzano

Pace International Law Review

The European Court of Human Rights revisited the issue of legal recognition for same-sex partnerships on July 21, 2015 when it decided Oliari and Others v. Italy. This Note explores the implications of that decision and what it may mean for same-sex couples within Italy and throughout the Council of Europe. Through a careful analysis of the decision, this Note concludes that Oliari provides slight yet important movement on the issue of a Contracting State’s obligation to afford legal recognition for same-sex partnerships, but a practical implementation of the Court’s holding likely will yield little additional movement in more conservative …

Why We Must Oppose The Full Decriminalization Of Prostitution, Taina Bien-Aime

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Today's Porn: Not A Constitutional Right; Not A Human Right, Patrick Trueman

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Amend The Communications Decency Act To Protect Victims Of Sexual Exploitation, Samantha Vardaman

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Women, Migration, And Prostitution In Europe: Not A Sex Work Story, Anna Zobnina

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Afterword – Straightness As Property: Back To The Future-Law And Status In The 21st Century, Symposium: Liberalism And Property Rights, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Shelbi D. Day

Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

As is evident from the other works in this Symposium, throughout history in both the United States and the greater Western World, status-based exclusion of individuals and groups from property rights has been central to the existence of political and social hierarchies. Specifically, exclusion based on status — whether it be nationality, culture, race, sex or sexuality — has plagued our history and has been integral in the formation and development of both constitutional and property law regimes. Consequently, both regimes are at best uneven in the grant and distribution of rights and benefits. A forward-looking examination of the link …

Religiosity In Constitutions And The Status Of Minority Rights, Brandy G. Robinson

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

Minority rights and religion have never been topics that are simultaneously considered. However, arguably, the two have relevance, especially when combined with the topic and theory of constitutionalism. Historically and traditionally, minorities have been granted certain rights and have been denied certain rights under various constitutions. These grants and denials relate to cultural differences and values, arguably relating to a culture’s understanding and interpretation of religion.

This article explores the relationship and status of minority rights as it relates to religiosity and constitutionalism. Essentially, there is a correlation between these topics and research shows where certain nations have used religion …

Abortion In South Africa And The United States: An Integrative, Contrastive Comparative Analysis Of The Effect Of Legal And Cultural Influences On Implementation Of Abortion Rights, Danielle Y. Blanks

Danielle Y Blanks

Despite similarly progressive abortion rights laws, women in South Africa and the U.S. experience completely different levels of access to legal and safe abortions. In this paper, I will seek to explain the reasons for this disparity by describing the ways in which natural law has influenced the application of law in the U.S. and South Africa while examining the role of cultural values in the realization of abortion rights. I will take an integrative approach to explain ideological similarities and a contrastive approach to denote the cultural differences that have led to a de facto marginalization of South African …

Denying Freedom Rather Than Securing The Country: National Security Is Undermined By Laws Governing Battered Immigrants, Eve Tilley-Coulson

Eve Tilley-Coulson

Relief for battered immigrants is not an obvious national security matter per se, yet remedies are enacted in conjunction with stringent interpretations of immigration law, as though victims pose a security threat. Discrepancies exist between the immigration laws themselves—which attempt to secure the United States from disease, violence, and illegal activity—and the loopholes found within remedies under these laws, unnecessarily removing victims and perpetuating a cycle of fear and abuse. This paper addresses how relief for battered immigrants, when implemented with the priority of protecting national security and immigration legislation, creates and perpetuates negative societal consequences. The economic and societal …

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 …

Peeking Out From Behind The Curtain, Ian Reese

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Absconded by airport security to middle-of-nowhere Russia, Nikolai Alexeyev sat for several days in early September 2010 unaware of his infractions or of his fate. Like a page from a Cold-War spy novel, the point of his abduction was to terrorize; Alexeyev’s abductors psychologically tortured and berated him with homophobic remarks. Nikolai Alexeyev is the leading gay rights activist in Russia and has been a twisting thorn in the side of local and national government for several years. Upon his release, he resolved to agitate further by leading a public demonstration to boycott the Swiss International Air Lines for its …

Reproductive Health As A Human Right, Lance Gable

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

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 …

Cultural Rage: A Severe Threat To Gay Men, Rhoda Howard-Hassmann

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Men who have sex with men have become a world cultural flashpoint. Fomenting and exploiting cultural rage at the West is a useful way for Islamists to gain electoral and other types of support, even though the motives of the Islamists may have more to do with the drive for power, regional influence, or economic benefit.

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 …

The United States As Global Sheriff: Using Unilateral Sanctions To Combat Human Trafficking, Janie Chuang

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

In recent years, the issue of human trafficking - the recruitment or movement of persons by means of coercion or deception into exploitative labor or slavery-like practices - has moved from the margins to the mainstream political agenda. The rapid proliferation of international, regional and domestic anti-trafficking laws bespeaks universal condemnation of the practice, but belies deep divisions among States over how to define and approach the problem. It is thus significant that the international community was able to reach consensus and conclude a new international law on trafficking - the Palermo Protocol. But just weeks before the signing of …

The Impact Of International Human Rights Developments On Sexual Minority Rights, Arthur S. Leonard

Articles & Chapters

The Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence v. Texas (2003) marked the first time that tribunal took notice of how foreign and international courts were dealing with the civil rights claims of lesbians and gay men as part of its discussion of American constitutional law. If this evinces a new openness by the Court to looking at such external sources in gay rights cases, what would it find on the major legal issues now facing the LGBT community in the United States? This article summarizes developments abroad on legal recognition of same-sex partners (including for purposes of immigration status) and military …

Finding Fundamental Fairness: Protecting The Rights Of Homosexuals Under European Union Accession Law, Travis J. Langenkamp

San Diego International Law Journal

In tackling the issue of sexual orientation discrimination, the European Union must make significant efforts to conform or, perhaps, eradicate incongruous legislation within Applicant Countries. The difficulty of this endeavor is two-fold: first, in terms of the number and complexity of the laws of each Applicant Country; and, second, in the absence of any detailed and systematic documentation of sexual orientation discrimination within those same Applicant Countries. Compounding, if not confounding, such legitimate endeavors are the inconsistent anti-gay legislation prevalent within the present Member States. The stakes are high for Member States and Applicant Countries alike. Thus, the European Union's …

Afterword – Straightness As Property: Back To The Future-Law And Status In The 21st Century, Symposium: Liberalism And Property Rights, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Shelbi D. Day

UF Law Faculty Publications

As is evident from the other works in this Symposium, throughout history in both the United States and the greater Western World, status-based exclusion of individuals and groups from property rights has been central to the existence of political and social hierarchies. Specifically, exclusion based on status — whether it be nationality, culture, race, sex or sexuality — has plagued our history and has been integral in the formation and development of both constitutional and property law regimes. Consequently, both regimes are at best uneven in the grant and distribution of rights and benefits.

A forward-looking examination of the link …

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 …