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Articles 61 - 90 of 93

Full-Text Articles in Human Rights Law

International Law As A Process, Louis B. Sohn May 1995

International Law As A Process, Louis B. Sohn

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Problems and Process: International Law and How We Use It by Rosalyn Higgins


The Grave Breaches System And The Armed Conflict In The Former Yugoslavia, Oren Gross Jan 1995

The Grave Breaches System And The Armed Conflict In The Former Yugoslavia, Oren Gross

Michigan Journal of International Law

The system of grave breaches, established in the Conventions, is the focal point of the enforcement mechanism of international humanitarian law in general and of the Conventions in particular. It is therefore surprising that very little has been written to date about this system. This article is intended to fill that gap by discussing the repression -the prohibition, prosecution, and adjudication - of grave breaches of the Conventions. The article's main purpose is to chart and map the basic contours of the terrain of an area which despite its vast significance has not been adequately and systematically explored. It is …


Irreconcilable Differences? Divorcing Regugee Protections From Human Rights Norms, Karen Musalo Jan 1994

Irreconcilable Differences? Divorcing Regugee Protections From Human Rights Norms, Karen Musalo

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article will discuss in greater detail the profound defects of the Court's Zacarias decision. Section I will discuss the interpretation of key provisions of the 1980 Refugee Act, and describe the case of Jairo Elias Zacarias. Section II will review the plain language and legislative intent of the Act, including the congressional purpose of conforming to the 1967 Protocol. Section III will consider issues of burden of proof, and will examine the substantive impact which Zacarias has had on refugee cases. Section IV will focus on religious persecution as a paradigm of the inadequacy of an intent-based requirement and …


Universal Versus Islamic Human Rights: A Clash Of Cultures Or A Clash With A Construct?, Ann Elizabeth Mayer Jan 1994

Universal Versus Islamic Human Rights: A Clash Of Cultures Or A Clash With A Construct?, Ann Elizabeth Mayer

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article examines the recent trend proposing that Islam and Islamic culture mandate a distinctive approach to human rights. It offers critical assessments of selected civil and political rights in two recent products of this trend: (1) the 1990 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, issued by the Organization of the Islamic Conference and endorsed by Iran and Saudi Arabia; and (2) the rights provisions in the Saudi Arabian Basic Law promulgated in 1992. These legislative initiatives will be examined in conjunction with constructs of an Islamic culture necessarily at odds with international human rights norms. These constructs have …


Israel's Forty-Five Year Emergency: Are There Time Limits To Derogations From Human Rights Obligations?, John Quigley Jan 1994

Israel's Forty-Five Year Emergency: Are There Time Limits To Derogations From Human Rights Obligations?, John Quigley

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article analyzes the permissibility of such a derogation under the Covenant and under general international law. Part I of this article outlines the historical development of Israel's declaration of a continuous state of emergency and its justification for detention without trial. Part II examines international rules on detention and derogation. Part III establishes a standard for declaring a state of emergency and applies this standard to Israel's declaration, with respect both to Israel's own territory and to the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel. Finally, Part IV inquires whether Israel will apply the Covenant as a matter of domestic law.


The Worldwide Market For Sex: A Review Of International And Regional Legal Prohibitions Regarding Trafficking In Women, Susan Jeanne Toepfer, Bryan Stuart Wells Jan 1994

The Worldwide Market For Sex: A Review Of International And Regional Legal Prohibitions Regarding Trafficking In Women, Susan Jeanne Toepfer, Bryan Stuart Wells

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This essay considers whether international treaty law is a useful weapon in the battle against the global sex trade. The introduction to this essay surveys the extent of global sex trafficking. Part I of this essay discusses the international legal conventions that address the issue of trafficking in women. Part II of this essay assesses the effectiveness of these international instruments and considers why they have failed to and the world sex trade. In Part III, this essay describes the European and Inter-American human rights systems, focusing upon substantive law in the regional systems that might be relevant to the …


The Haitian Refugee Crisis: A Quest For Human Rights, Thomas David Jones Jan 1993

The Haitian Refugee Crisis: A Quest For Human Rights, Thomas David Jones

Michigan Journal of International Law

On June 14, 1993, the Vienna Conference on Human Rights, sponsored by the United Nations, commenced its opening session mired in controversy over the validity of a universal human rights doctrine. Many Third World or developing nations contended that Western norms of justice and fairness were not applicable to their societies. Thus, the developing nations articulated a culture-bound or relativistic concept of fundamental human rights. The developing nations' particularistic position was championed by such nations as China, Iran, Cuba, and Vietnam, signatories to the Bangkok Declaration of 1993. The Bangkok Declaration provides, inter alia, that though human rights are …


South Korea: Implementation And Application Of Human Rights Covenants, Suk Tae Lee Jan 1993

South Korea: Implementation And Application Of Human Rights Covenants, Suk Tae Lee

Michigan Journal of International Law

Under article 40 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the State Party undertakes to submit reports on the measures it has adopted which give effect to the rights recognized in the ICCPR and demonstrate the progress it has made in granting its citizens the enjoyment of those rights. The report was examined by the HRC in July 1992 and will be discussed in Part I of this article. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) also requires State Parties to submit reports, but the initial report of the South Korean government has not …


The Role Of Human Rights In Global Securtiy Issues: A Normative And Institutional Critique, Douglas Lee Donoho Jan 1993

The Role Of Human Rights In Global Securtiy Issues: A Normative And Institutional Critique, Douglas Lee Donoho

Michigan Journal of International Law

The purpose of this article is to evaluate the institutional and normative capacity of international human rights to effectively serve such enhanced roles in global peace and security matters. In particular, the analysis focuses on key normative and institutional weaknesses in the existing U.N. human rights system and addresses their implications for the roles which human rights might serve to enhance peace. By describing some of the system's fundamental weaknesses, this analysis also indicates important areas for reform within the U.N. system.


The Age Of Rights, Stephen D. Sencer May 1992

The Age Of Rights, Stephen D. Sencer

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Age of Rights by Louis Henkin


International Human Rights And Feminism: When Discourses Meet, Karen Engle Jan 1992

International Human Rights And Feminism: When Discourses Meet, Karen Engle

Michigan Journal of International Law

In this article, the author brings some of the issues identified and discussed in domestic law into public international law, through an analysis of that area of human rights law pertaining to women. Although she is inspired by the domestic debate, her purpose here is not specifically to critique or defend rights. Rather, to explore the various ways that advocates of international women's rights have deployed, and at the same time critiqued, existing rights frameworks in order to achieve change for women. In doing so, the author analyzes the multiple roles that rights discourse plays in the advocacy of women's …


Measuring Freedom? The Undp Human Freedom Index, Lisa J. Bernt Jan 1992

Measuring Freedom? The Undp Human Freedom Index, Lisa J. Bernt

Michigan Journal of International Law

Part I of this Note describes and compares the Humana index and the UNDP's Human Freedom Index. Part II surveys some of the criticism of the Human Freedom Index since its publication in May 1991, and identifies fundamental problems with the manner in which the Human Freedom Index was prepared and presented. This Note concludes with recommendations for refining and presenting such an index in future years.


Note, The Convention For The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women: Radical, Reasonable, Or Reactionary?, Sarah C. Zearfoss Jan 1991

Note, The Convention For The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women: Radical, Reasonable, Or Reactionary?, Sarah C. Zearfoss

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Note will explore the merits behind these positions and attempt a resolution. If the potential effect of the Convention can only be to freeze and enshrine sex equality law as it currently exists, one who is interested in achieving changes in the law for the purpose of benefiting women will not want to put her energy into lobbying for ratification. It is therefore important to get past political strategies and determine what promise the Convention might hold for women in the United States. If the United States were to ratify the Convention, what changes, if any, would result?


Nurturin Rights: An Essay On Women, Peace, And International Human Rights, Barbara Stark Jan 1991

Nurturin Rights: An Essay On Women, Peace, And International Human Rights, Barbara Stark

Michigan Journal of International Law

This essay will explore the relationship between what many view as the two most urgent issues of our time: nurturing rights, and promoting peace.


The United States Should Withdraw Its Reservations To The Genocide Convention: A Response To Professor Paust's Proposal, Maria Frankowska Jan 1990

The United States Should Withdraw Its Reservations To The Genocide Convention: A Response To Professor Paust's Proposal, Maria Frankowska

Michigan Journal of International Law

A reiteration of Professor Paust's views on the topic, followed by an alternative course of action, and the international and domestic aspects of the withdrawal process.


Human Rights V. Extradition: The Soering Case, Stephan Breitenmoser, Gunter E. Wilms Jan 1990

Human Rights V. Extradition: The Soering Case, Stephan Breitenmoser, Gunter E. Wilms

Michigan Journal of International Law

The European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms is widely regarded as the most dynamic and effective of the various international human rights instruments. Its impact on the judiciary of the twenty-three Western European Member States, as well as its pace-setting role for other international mechanisms for the protection of human rights, has recently been confirmed by the unanimous judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in Soering v. United Kingdom. In its judgment delivered on July 7, 1989, the Court held that the United Kingdom would act in violation of article 3 of …


Coherence And The European Court Of Human Rights: The Adjudicative Background To The Soering Case, Colin Warbrick Jan 1990

Coherence And The European Court Of Human Rights: The Adjudicative Background To The Soering Case, Colin Warbrick

Michigan Journal of International Law

On January 1, 1990, the Eighth Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights came into force. This Protocol makes some amendments to the structure and procedure set out in the Convention itself. The need for reform was created by the increasing workload of the institutions, which had reached such a level that the backlog of applications before the Commission would have continued to increase at a greater rate than the Commission's capacity to dispose of them. There are several reasons for this overwhelming burden. The acceptances by States of the right of individual application under article 25 have been …


"Federal" Aspects Of The European Convention On Human Rights, Colin Warbrick Jan 1989

"Federal" Aspects Of The European Convention On Human Rights, Colin Warbrick

Michigan Journal of International Law

The inquiry pursued in this paper has been prompted by a paradox. In the United States, the Supreme Court has been reluctant to find any constitutional limitations upon the power of the States to allow the administration of corporal punishment in schools, despite being able to rely on the national Bill of Rights - in the interpretation of which the Court has many times circumscribed the power of the State governments in other contexts. The result has been that some children have been left without redress when they have been subjected to exceptionally severe punishment. Under the system of the …


Normative Surrender, Jerome B. Elkind Jan 1988

Normative Surrender, Jerome B. Elkind

Michigan Journal of International Law

It is submitted, at the risk of being accused of idealism, that those who most conspicuously don the mantle of realism are also guilty of normative sloppiness, a form of sloppiness which deserves the name "normative surrender" because it concedes large areas of the law to the will and whim of States. This article will examine the phenomenon of normative surrender and provide some examples of it.


The Lawful Rights Of Mankind: An Introduction To The International Legal Code Of Human Rights, Alexander W. Joel Apr 1986

The Lawful Rights Of Mankind: An Introduction To The International Legal Code Of Human Rights, Alexander W. Joel

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Lawful Rights of Mankind: An Introduction to the International Legal Code of Human Rights by Paul Sieghart


European Integration Through Fundamental Rights, Jochen Abr. Frowein Oct 1984

European Integration Through Fundamental Rights, Jochen Abr. Frowein

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The conception of fundamental rights as natural rights of human beings developed in European legal thinking mainly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and also Immanuel Kant should be mentioned. But it was in the new world that the principles of fundamental human rights were first put into practice. A little more than ten years after the first American declarations, the "Declaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen" was adopted in Paris; it remains part of French constitutional law today. But, unlike the development in the United States, the French guarantees could not be enforced …


Prior Consent And The United Nations Human Rights Instruments, Walter E. Spiegel Jan 1984

Prior Consent And The United Nations Human Rights Instruments, Walter E. Spiegel

Michigan Journal of International Law

After reviewing the legal framework of an international right of freedom of information, this article examines United States opposition to prior consent in the context of the human rights provisions. It contends that the United States should not argue that any recognition of a right of prior consent is inconsistent with Article 19, but rather that international principles recognize a right of prior consent limited to certain types of programming. The article then considers arguments for the Third World position of strict prior consent concluding that, in addition to being inconsistent with the general intent of Article 19, strict prior …


Jamming And The Law Of International Communications, Rochelle B. Price Jan 1984

Jamming And The Law Of International Communications, Rochelle B. Price

Michigan Journal of International Law

The Soviet Union began to jam Western radio broadcasts to the Soviet Union in 1948. Jamming has continued to be a problem since then, though not a constant one; over the years, the level of jamming has varied in relation to East-West tensions but more particularly in consonance with internal and external crises. As the post-war international debate concerned with virtually all aspects of modem communications has evolved, jamming has become one focus of the free flow of information- national sovereignty debate. Though seldom completely effective, jamming is a sufficiently large-scale and controversial practice to warrant international attention today, as …


Procedural Unvertainty Attending The Assertion Of The Political Offense Exception In Extradition Hearings, Charles R. Meyer Iii Jan 1983

Procedural Unvertainty Attending The Assertion Of The Political Offense Exception In Extradition Hearings, Charles R. Meyer Iii

Michigan Journal of International Law

The American approach to the political offense exception to extradition is under increasing attack. Unfavorable commentary, sparked in part by the recent decision In re McMullen, has noted the confusion present in the operation of the exception. This article will trace some of the difficulties to the uncertain procedural burdens of raising and proving the exception in the judicial hearing. The current practice should be reformed to ameliorate the confusion. To this end, the United States Congress or Supreme Court must intervene to unify the procedural approaches taken by U.S. magistrates with respect to raising and proving the political …


Protecting The Rights Of The Requested Person In Extradition Proceedings: An Argument For A Humanitarian Exception, Leslie Anderson Jan 1983

Protecting The Rights Of The Requested Person In Extradition Proceedings: An Argument For A Humanitarian Exception, Leslie Anderson

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article will first define the types of post-extradition treatment which requested persons have raised as requiring judicial attention. It will next survey judicial responses to these claims and then consider the scope of executive review. The article concludes that the courts have exaggerated the range of executive discretion to deny extradition. As extradition currently operates in the United States, there is the serious possibility that a bona fide claim of unfair treatment would not receive adequate consideration by either the judicial or executive branch.


The Individual Right To Asylum Under Article 3 Of The European Convention On Human Rights, David Scott Nance Jan 1982

The Individual Right To Asylum Under Article 3 Of The European Convention On Human Rights, David Scott Nance

Michigan Journal of International Law

International law does not recognize an individual right to be granted asylum. The emergence of a variant of such a right under the European Convention on Human Rights, albeit under limited conditions, therefore marks a major departure from customary law, a departure particularly noteworthy given that the parties to the Convention represent some of the most advanced legal systems in the world. The recognition of a right to asylum not only establishes a valuable precedent, but also has a direct impact on the status of refugees in Europe. Although no right of entry is provided, aliens already in countries of …


Entry And Exclusion Of Refugees: The Obligations Of States And The Protection Function Of The Office Of The United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees, Guy S. Goodwin-Gill Jan 1982

Entry And Exclusion Of Refugees: The Obligations Of States And The Protection Function Of The Office Of The United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees, Guy S. Goodwin-Gill

Michigan Journal of International Law

Refugee problems today tend to have one factor in common-the huge numbers of people involved. But whether it is a case of one or of a mass of individuals, each arriving asylum seeker represents a challenge to established principles of state sovereignty. International jurists once wrote of the free movement of persons between nations, unhampered by passport and visa control. Since the late nineteenth century, however, the principle most widely accepted has been that each state retains exclusive control- an absolute discretion- over the admission to its territory of foreign nationals, refugees or not. Although in practice many countries concede …


Appendix I, Michigan Journal Of International Law Jan 1982

Appendix I, Michigan Journal Of International Law

Michigan Journal of International Law

In this section: • Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees • Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees • Statute of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees • OAU Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa • A List of Other International Instruments Concerning Refugees


The Development Of Refugee Law, Paul Weis Jan 1982

The Development Of Refugee Law, Paul Weis

Michigan Journal of International Law

In customary international law, nationality provides the principal link between the individual and the law of nations. Refugees are commonly understood to be persons who have been compelled to leave their homes on account of natural catastrophes or because of political events; they may be inside or outside their country of origin. Refugees may be stateless or not; most present-day refugees are not stateless. Only international political refugees-persons who are outside their country of origin for political reasons-are discussed in this article, an overview of sources of refugee law, and a preface to the articles in this volume which take …


Refugees And Refugee Law In A World In Transition, Atle Grahl-Madsen Jan 1982

Refugees And Refugee Law In A World In Transition, Atle Grahl-Madsen

Michigan Journal of International Law

In country after country a political polarization is growing, a movement away from the center-to the right and to the left. In states with a less than stable political structure, coups d'etat and strongmen are commonplace. International law is broken as a matter of convenience. The media are filled with news of interventions, aggressions, even warfare. Human rights are frequently trodden under foot. And we are faced with a rising wave of xenophobia.