Human Rights Law Commons^™

From The Nuremberg Charter To The Rome Statute: Defining The Elements Of Crimes Against Humanity, Mohamed Elewa Badar

San Diego International Law Journal

The purpose of this study is to examine the past and present contours of the prohibition of "crimes against humanity", analyzing and scrutinizing the essential elements of this crime, with a view to obtaining and drawing together basic criteria that could eventually guide the adjudication of this offence. Furthermore, this clarification of "crimes against humanity" is particularly timely with respect to the soon functioning International Criminal Court (ICC).

Human Rights Approaches Of Corruption Control Mechanisms - Enhancing The Hong Kong Experience Of Corruption Prevention Strategies, C. Raj Kumar

San Diego International Law Journal

This Article is intended to make a case for promoting transparency in governance policies from a human rights perspective so as to argue for the development of a human right to good governance in Hong Kong. Secondly, it analyzes the work of the Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC) in Hong Kong and addresses certain concerns in improving the efficiency of the ICAC. Thirdly, it argues that rights against corruption in Hong Kong should move beyond a law enforcement and public policy issue and attain the status of a human right. Fourthly, this Article examines the growth and development of international …

Soldiers Of Semipalatinsk: Seeking A Theory And Forum For Legal Remedy, Anne Miers Kammer

San Diego International Law Journal

This Comment will address the unique dilemma of individuals in Kazakhstan whose health has been compromised by the former Soviet Union's 40-year period of nuclear testing on what is now Kazakhstan soil. The principal legal analysis of this Comment will focus on the availability of remedies (in the form of monetary damages available through legal resolution) to the citizens and/or state of Kazakhstan, and potential judicial forums in which to seek those remedies. Particular attention will be paid to the comparative likelihood of successful remedial legal action if pursued by a private class of Kazakhstan citizens versus action pursued by …

Hong Kong Right Of Abode: Ng Siu Tung & (And) Others V. Director Of Immigration - Constitutional And Human Rights At The Mercy Of China, Teresa Martin

San Diego International Law Journal

This Comment argues that the Court's refusal to sidestep the Standing Committee's reinterpretation using either the Doctrine of Legitimate Expectation, or the judgments previously rendered clause in the Basic Law, signifies its capitulation to the Standing Committee, and its inability to protect constitutional rights and/or human rights in Hong Kong. This Comment will first give a brief background on the concept of one country, two systems and the drafting of the basic law. Second, it will introduce the Right of Abode cases, and explain the constitutional crisis of 1999. Third, it analyzes Ng Siu Tung & Others v. Director of …

Sell V. United States: Involuntary Administration Of Antipsychotic Medication To Criminal Defendants, Brandy M. Rapp

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Religious Freedom And Laicite: A Comparison Of The United States And France, T.Jeremy Gunn

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

The German Headscarf Debate, Axel Frhr. Von Campenhausen

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

The "No Property" Problem: Understanding Poverty By Understanding Wealth, Jane B. Baron

Michigan Law Review

Could it be that understanding homelessness and poverty is less a function of understanding the homeless and the poor than of understanding how the wealthy come to ignore and tolerate them? This is one of the more intriguing suggestions of anthropologist Kim Hopper's Reckoning with Homelessness, and it echoes claims made by lawyers who, like Hopper, have spent much of their careers advocating on behalf of the homeless. While Hopper's new book is first and foremost a work of anthropology, its structure strongly parallels recent work by legal scholars who have sought to assess the effects of litigation and lobbying …

Given By Senator Orrin G. Hatch Before The Tenth Annual International Law And Religion Symposium, Orrin G. Hatch

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Individual Religious Freedom And National Security In Europe After September 11, Silvio Ferrari

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Advances In Religious Liberty In Peru, Guillermo Garcia-Montufar, Moises Arata Solis, Scott E. Isaacson

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Religious Pluralism In Spain: Striking The Balance Between Religious Freedom And Constitutional Rights, Augustin Motilla

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Justice For The Collective: The Limits Of The Human Rights Class Action, Paul R. Dubinsky

Michigan Law Review

The class action lawsuit is our grand procedural experiment in collective justice. As against the U.S. legal system's strong orientation toward individual rights rather than group rights, the class action is a countercurrent. Through Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, large numbers of previously unaffiliated individuals can proceed in federal court as a group, litigating through representatives. A recent form of this litigation, the human rights class action, takes this experiment to its far reaches. In the human rights class action, the tension between individual claimants and the group as a whole can be heightened. The class …

Cognitive Dissonance Theory: A Case Study Of Loving V. Virginia, Bowers V. Hard Wick, And Lawrence V. Texas, Andrea Celina Coleman

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Imperatives Of Culture And Race For Understanding Human Rights Law: Human Rights: A Political And Cultural Critique Makau Mutua, Henry J. Richardson Iii

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Virginia V. Black,123 S. Ct. 1536 (2003), Angela R. Ernst

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

"Accommodations" For The Learning Disabled: A Level Playing Field Or Affirmative Action For Elites?, Craig S. Lerner

Vanderbilt Law Review

A growing number of students in American higher education are being diagnosed as "learning disabled" and then using that diagnosis to secure beneficial "accommodations," such as extra time on exams. These accommodations are often said to be mandated by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This Article challenges the premise that the ADA necessarily requires educational institutions to provide learning disabled students with any accommodations. The ADA defines "disability" as an impairment that substantially limits a major life activity. Whether one is substantially limited is determined with reference not to one's innate abilities, but to the skills of the average …

The Central Case Approach To Human Rights: Its Universal Application And The Singapore Example, Tai-Heng Cheng

Washington International Law Journal

Human rights situations are often analyzed and described in binary terms, that is, whether rights have been violated or upheld. This Article argues that it is more meaningful to measure human rights situations in terms of deviations from a central case of key characteristics, and to understand the subtle interplay of social, political, and economic vectors that cause such deviations. Using Singapore as a case study, this Article demonstrates that in any State the real human rights situation revealed by central case analysis can be dramatically different than the traditional binary assessment of that situation. The Article concludes by showing …

Peter Zwiebach On Human Rights: Concept And Context By Brian Orend. Petersburg, Ont: Broadview Press, 2002. 272pp., Peter Zwiebach

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Human Rights: Concept and Context by Brian Orend. Petersburg, Ont: Broadview Press, 2002. 272pp.

Lisa Schechtman On Social Work And Human Rights: A Foundation For Policy And Practice By Elisabeth Reichert. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. 295pp., Lisa Schechtman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Social Work and Human Rights: A Foundation for Policy and Practice by Elisabeth Reichert. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. 295pp.

The Right To Health, Sarah Friedmann

Human Rights & Human Welfare

In the human rights discourse and practice the right to health has been and continues to be a contentious arena. Primarily located within legal frameworks that focus on civil and political rights, the right to health is more frequently being used to challenge abuses of health by invoking social and economic rights, even though this places the right to health on slippery terrain that is not as internationally accepted as civil and political rights.

Health, Human Rights And The Pharmaceutical Industry, Gerald Montgomery

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The pharmaceutical industry is a crucial touchstone in the discussion of corporate responsibility to promote human rights. This relationship is, however, problematic at best and, at worst work in opposition to each other. At the same time that drug producers are instrumental in promoting a basic level of human welfare, the outlook of major pharmaceutical corporations are mitigated by unfiltered lenses of profit. With hundreds of millions of dollars spent on research and development, patenting, and marketing, they understandably develop strategies for handling reoccurring costs. But should a morally responsible international community redirect these costs to the developing world or …

Religious Freedom And The Undoing Of The Westphalian State, Daniel Philpott

Michigan Journal of International Law

Not so long ago, in 1998, the world acknowledged both the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 350th anniversary of the Peace of Westphalia. The Universal Declaration was celebrated in the popular press, by thousands of activists, and at well attended open forums at schools and universities. Westphalia was noted almost exclusively at academic conferences. But public obscurity is an undeserved fate for Westphalia, for its legacy in organizing our political world vies with that of the American and French revolutions. What Westphalia inaugurated was a system of sovereign states where a single authority resided …

The Use Of Human Rights Discourse To Secure Women's Interests: Critical Analysis Of The Implications, Renu Mandhane

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This article highlights the significant theoretical constraints of universalism, the tendency of human rights advocates to ignore the underlying cause of rights violations, as well as problems associated with the concept of and informal hierarchy between rights. The article suggests that there are certain circumstances in which INGOs that rely primarily on human rights language in their advocacy efforts may wish to supplement their analysis with explicit reference to feminist legal theory in order to more effectively secure women's interests globally. These ideas will be developed with ongoing reference to the recent and successful campaign initiated by Nepali women to …

Return To Europe? The Czech Republic And The Eu's Influence On Its Treatment Of Roma, Matthew D. Marden

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The Czech Republic has faced much criticism in the past fifteen years for the treatment of its Romani minority community. The European Union has successfully applied informal, non-legal means of pressuring the Czech Republic into making some changes necessary to improve living conditions for Roma. With the Czech Republic's recent accession to the European Union, legal human rights institutions will likely play a larger role in ensuring that the Czech Republic continues to improve conditions for Czech Roma. The Author uses a case brought by a group of Roma at the European Court of Human Rights to demonstrate the potential …

The Lives Of Animals, The Lives Of Prisoners, And The Revelations Of Abu Ghraib, Charles H. Brower, Ii

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In this Article, Professor Brower suggests that the images depicting inhuman treatment of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison contain timely lessons about the function and the importance of legal personality. To illustrate this thesis, the Author first identifies animals as a population condemned to an existence bereft of the protections that accompany legal personality. Next, the Author describes the chilling similarities between the treatment of animals and the treatment of prisoners in Iraq and in the so-called "Global War on Terror." Finally, the Author discusses three potential lessons for a nation widely perceived to have retreated from its commitment …

Editor's Note, Melanie Nakagawa, Kirk Herbertson

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Indigenous Peoples' Free Prior And Informed Consent In The Inter-American Human Rights System, Alex Page

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

The Participation Of Afghan Women In The Reconstruction Process, Laura Grenfell

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Updates From The Regional Human Rights Systems, Patricia Staible, Kristin Edison, Lilah Rosenblum

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.