Law and Gender Commons^™

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 …

“Which One Of You Did It?” Criminal Liability For “Causing Or Allowing” The Death Of A Child, Lissa Griffin

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Profitable Proposals: Explaining And Addressing The Mail-Order Bride Industry Through International Human Rights Law, Vanessa Brocato

San Diego International Law Journal

This Article looks at the MOBI in the United States through the lens of international human rights. Part II will describe the MOBI. Part III will evaluate the MOBI within an international human rights framework. Part IV will examine current U.S. legislation relating to the MOBI. Part V suggests strategies for addressing the MOBI. Nations will not be able to solve the problem independently because the MOBI is a transnational phenomenon. Conducting a critique of marriage brokers in a human rights context can help place problems caused by the MOBI at the forefront of international debate. Applying current human rights …

International Child Abductions: The Challenges Facing America , Charles F. Hall

ExpressO

International child abductors often escape domestic law enforcement and disappear without consequence or resolution. International child abductions occur too frequently; in the United States alone, the number of children abducted abroad every year has risen to over 1,000. Currently, 11,000 American children live abroad with their abductors. These abductions occur despite international treaties and the Congressional resolutions that have significantly stiffened the penalties for those caught. Effectively combating international child abductions requires drafting resolutions that are acceptable across the diverse societies and cultures of the international community. Without such resolutions to fill the gaps of current treaties this problem will …

Another Of Roger William's Gifts: Women's Right To Liberty Of Conscience: Joshua Verin V. Providence Plantations, Edward J. Eberle

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Lysistrata, Women And War: International Law's Treatment Of Women In Conflict And Post-Conflict Situations, Emma L. Lindsay

ExpressO

Aristophanes’ Lysistrata is powerful anti-war play often revived during times of international conflict. This paper uses Lysistrata to highlight and critique binary oppositions that underpin the treatment of women in conflict and post-conflict situations in the play and in international law. While many of the experiences of women and girls in war are similar to those of men and boys, there are important differences. Existing inequalities between women and men, and patterns of discrimination against women and girls, tend to be exacerbated in wartime. There are circumstances in which women suffer harms of a different kind and to a different …

Gay And Lesbian Rights To Procreate And Access To Assisted Reproductive Technology, John A. Robertson

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Transnational Law As A Domestic Resource Thoughts On The Case Of Women's Rights, Elizabeth M. Schneider

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

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 …

Copyright Infringement, Sex Trafficking, And Defamation In The Fictional Life Of A Geisha, Susan Tiefenbrun

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Memoirs of a Geisha has sold and made millions for Arthur Golden since 1997. This is his first novel, and it has earned him worldwide acclaim. A feature film version directed by Steven Spielberg is in the works. The book is translated into more than twenty languages. This article uses the book and the legal controversy that ensued after its publication to ask, and hopefully answer, two questions: First, is the geisha tradition as described by Golden in his fictional biography a variant of sex trafficking and sexual slavery which, despite possible cultural justifications, should be abolished by law? Second, …

The Human Rights Dilemma: Rethinking The Humanitarian Project, Deborah M. Weissman

Deborah M. Weissman

This Article provides an interpretive account of the human rights discourse at a time when the U.S. legal community is deepening its relationship with these issues. It maps the context of the human rights project over the past one hundred years, with a critical eye and as a cautionary tale. It reviews the historical circumstances and the ideological framework in which human rights have been appropriated as an instrument of national policy, often to the detriment of humanitarian objectives. It considers the role of law, not only as an instrument by which colonial rule was maintained but as a system …

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

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

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 …

The Past Is Another Country: Against The Retroactive Applicability Of The Foreign Immunities Act To Pre-1952 Conduct, 37 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1337 (2004), Andrzej R. Niekrasz

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Brown’S Legacy: Looking Back, Moving Forward, Wilhelmina M. Wright

William Mitchell Law Review

This keynote speech was delivered at the Lena O. Smith Luncheon on May 7, 2004. Lena O. Smith was the first African-American woman to practice law in Minnesota. In 1921, she graduated from Northwestern College of Law, a predecessor of William Mitchell College of Law. See generally Ann Juergens, Lena Olive Smith: A Minnesota Civil Rights Pioneer, 28 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 397 (2001).

The Recently Revised Marriage Law Of China: The Promise And The Reality, Charles J. Ogletree Jr., Rangita De Silva De Alwis

All Faculty Scholarship

In April 2001, the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People's Congress (NPC), China's highest legislative body, passed the long-debated and much awaited amendments to the Marriage Law on the closing day of its twenty-first session. As stated by one PRC commentator, "In the 50 years since the founding of the New China, there has not been any law that has caused such a widespread concern for ordinary people."'

Even though the recent revisions to the marriage laws have been hailed as some of the most significant and positive changes in family law in China, thus far no empirical evaluation …

Women's Inheritance Rights In Africa: The Need To Intergrate Cultural Understanding And Legal Reform, Abby Morrow Richardson

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Rule Of Law Prevails In The Case Of Amina Lawal, Hauwa Ibrahim

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Econometric Analyses Of U.S. Abortion Policy: A Critical Review, Jonathan Klick

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Homophobia And The 'Mathew Shepard Effect' In Lawrence V. Texas, Kris Franklin

Articles & Chapters

This paper explores the significance of shifting cultural understandings of gay men and lesbians in the Supreme Court's majority, concurring and dissenting opinions in the landmark sodomy case Lawrence v. Texas. By examining the legal authorities in which the case's various opinions are grounded, the article shows that the differing positions taken by the Court reflect radically diverging views on the significance of homosexuality in contemporary culture.

Beyond the rather easy observation that the Supreme Court justices are speaking different languages in the Lawrence opinion, the article contends that the rhetoric of the majority and dissent converge on at least …