Human Rights Law Commons^™

Security In A Liberal Union: Eu Asylum And Migration Control Policies, Gregor Noll

Gregor Noll

Human Rights And Disability, Lowell Ewert

The Social Practice of Human Rights: Charting the Frontiers of Research and Advocacy

In every context where racism, poverty, inequality, religious intolerance, or any other form of exploitation is present, persons with disabilities within the category experiencing discrimination are almost always worse off than their non-disabled peers. In this way, disability has the practical impact of magnifying discrimination and multiplying harmful practices. There is even evidence in some places that persons with disabilities have been deliberately targeted with violence. Additionally, sexual violence against disabled women and girls can be especially cruel.

Efforts to combat discriminatory practices that are primarily focused on addressing the concerns of the able-bodied often further exacerbate the general indifference ...

Homophobia, Human Rights And Diplomacy, Douglas Janoff

The Social Practice of Human Rights: Charting the Frontiers of Research and Advocacy

Multilateral human rights diplomacy is a product of the triad relationship between intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), civil society organizations (CSOs), and states. This paper examines the emergence of LGBT rights within the context of the UN human rights system. Recently, the global debates around LGBT rights have become much more public and increasingly complex: Ministers, leaders, and even the UN Secretary-General routinely call on states to do more to protect sexual minorities. Countries such as Uganda and Russia are labeled “homophobic” — not just by human rights activists, but by other states. These “accusations” are delivered both bilaterally and in multilateral forums ...

Gay Teachers In Catholic Schools: A Conflict Of Human Rights, Ish Ruiz

The Social Practice of Human Rights: Charting the Frontiers of Research and Advocacy

What happens when a person’s exercise of a human right conflicts with another’s enjoyment of a human right? Such is the case when a gay teacher in a Catholic school is fired as the school exercises its right to religious freedom in order to ensure its teachers live lives consistent with Church teaching.

As religious institutions, Catholic schools are protected by a ministerial exception that offers legal immunity to Catholic educational institutions that fire gay and lesbian teachers (teachers are sometimes considered “ministers” by the courts). In many states these firings on the basis of sexual orientation or ...

Roundtable – Teaching Human Rights: Challenges And Best Practices, Shayna Plaut, Kristi Kenyon, Joel Pruce, William Simmons

The Social Practice of Human Rights: Charting the Frontiers of Research and Advocacy

Over the past 20 years, courses addressing human rights have grown dramatically at both the undergraduate and graduate levels worldwide. Many of these courses are housed in specific disciplines, focus on specific issues, and require practical experience in the form of internships/practicums. Amid this growth there is a need to reflect on teaching human rights including the challenges, fears, and best practices.

Recognizing that education takes place inside and outside a classroom, this roundtable brings together scholars teaching human rights in a variety of settings to examine the current state of university human rights education. This includes a discussion ...

Agency, Equality And Courage: A Case Study Of Women On The Front Lines Of Egypt’S 2011 Revolution, Carol Gray

The Social Practice of Human Rights: Charting the Frontiers of Research and Advocacy

How were women involved in Egypt’s 2011 revolution/uprising? What role did they play vis-à-vis male activists? To what degree were Egyptian women “equal” during those 18 days in Tahrir Square? These questions will be explored within the context of interviews conducted by this writer in Cairo during and following Egypt’s 18-day revolution (uprising). This essay will explore the public/private sphere split, political consciousness-raising, and gender equality within the context of the stories of Egyptian women on the front lines of protest.

Much of the recent literature on women's protests in Egypt has focused on women ...

Invisible Women: Syrian Victims Of Gender-Based Violence As A Particular Social Group In U.S. Asylum Law, Sarah Dávila-Ruhaak

The Social Practice of Human Rights: Charting the Frontiers of Research and Advocacy

In the midst of the worst humanitarian crisis of our time, in Syria, we have seen extreme suffering by millions who have been summarily executed, tortured, imprisoned, raped, starved, and bombed with chemical weapons. Specifically, we have seen that women have been the target of gender-based violence in the conflict by and with the acquiescence of the Assad regime forces and by opposition groups.

Women have been human shields; hostages for the bargaining of prisoner release; and victims of sexual violence and exploitation, forced marriage, and other forms of violence such as honor killings.

This gender-based violence has rendered women ...

Gender, Displacement And Transitional Justice, Sinead Mcgrath

The Social Practice of Human Rights: Charting the Frontiers of Research and Advocacy

In the past fifteen years, there has been huge emphasis on the need for gendered mechanisms dealing with both forced migration and peacebuilding. The UN landmark resolution on Women, Peace and Security (S/RES/1325) and the gender-mainstreaming of the 1951 Refugee Convention have urged all actors to increase the participation of women in peacebuilding and their protection in instances of displacement. An underdeveloped link between these issues has not been addressed by the academic community, particularly when looking at societies in transition and the relationship of displaced women to international migration organisations in the context of transitional justice. This ...

Interrogating Rights: How The United States Is Not Complying With The Racial Equality Treaty, Malia Lee Womack

The Social Practice of Human Rights: Charting the Frontiers of Research and Advocacy

In 1994, the United States ratified the United Nations’ core anti-racism treaty, ICERD. Although it has been more than two decades since the United States became a member to the multilateral agreement, a wide range of scholarship determines that the nation is not in compliance with the treaty. Little of this research focuses on gender. This paper intervenes with the research by conducting a gendered analysis, with a focus on African American women, of key areas where the US is not meeting its duties to the multilateral agreement.

This manuscript proves that, first, the United States does not comply with ...

Out Of The Prison And Onto The Streets: The Trafficking Of Incarcerated Women (A Trans-Disciplinary Media Research Project), Mei-Ling Mcnamara

The Social Practice of Human Rights: Charting the Frontiers of Research and Advocacy

Women are being actively targeted for the sex trafficking trade within US prisons and are recruited by a network of fellow inmates who are given "finders fees" for supplying victims. In prisons from Florida to North Carolina, Ohio to Massachusetts, women are promised housing and food in exchange for work upon release but instead are deceived and prostituted for the human trafficking trade. Some traffickers stalk their victims through public-access profiles from statewide prison websites, then groom them over months through correspondence and phone calls.

Inside the largest women’s prison in the United States, the Florida Lowell Correctional Institution ...

Indigenous Rights In The Trump Era, Tereza M. Szeghi

The Social Practice of Human Rights: Charting the Frontiers of Research and Advocacy

This paper examines the ways in which the Dakota Access Pipeline and the related protests were divergently covered in mainstream versus alternative news sources and what this divergent coverage suggests about the current status of American Indian affairs and the role of American Indians in the U.S. cultural imaginary. Moreover, the paper will address the status of American Indian tribal sovereignty in the Trump era more broadly, with particular focus on American Indians' treaty-related rights to self-determination in the use of their lands.

Inequalities, Human Rights, And Sustainable Development Goal 10, Gillian Macnaughton

The Social Practice of Human Rights: Charting the Frontiers of Research and Advocacy

Most of the 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and targets echo the goals and targets in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) framework. SDG 10 — reduce inequality within and among countries — is, however, completely new. The idea that the global community should work together toward equality had no part in the MDG framework, which focused on reducing poverty rather than making a more equal world. From a human rights perspective, the inclusion of the new SDG on reducing inequality is a great step forward.

Notably, Oxfam reported in January 2017 that the eight wealthiest men in the world own the ...

The Socialization Of Human Rights As An Inroad To Protect Sacred Space, Leonard Hammer

The Social Practice of Human Rights: Charting the Frontiers of Research and Advocacy

Serious problems exist for cultural heritage protection, and these problems are even more serious when accounting for the protection of sacred space and holy places. The lack of effectiveness of the majority of existing international norms and institutions will be reviewed in this paper, which shall then turn to potential sources for entrenching protection of scared space within states.

The paper shall rely on the human right to freedom of religion or belief as the basis for upholding sacred space given an emerging broader understanding of the right within the human rights framework.

The paper shall principally focus on the ...

Where Do We Go From Here? Charting Perceptions Of The Impact Of The Human Rights City Boston Resolution, Kostas Koutsioumpas, Maggie Schneider, Matthew Annunziato

The Social Practice of Human Rights: Charting the Frontiers of Research and Advocacy

In 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as a common standard of achievement and called upon every individual and organ of society to promote the rights enshrined in the document. The UDHR has been applied in many ways around the world, including by the international Human Rights Cities movement, which began in Rosario, Argentina, in 1997.

Today more than two dozen Human Rights Cities have formed around the globe, including at least nine in the United States (Washington, DC; Eugene, OR; Pittsburgh, PA; Chapel Hill, NC; Columbus, IN; Jackson, MI; Seattle, WA; Mountain View ...

Mass Displacement Of Destitute People: A Trigger For Non-Refoulement Protection?, Bernardo De Souza Dantas Fico, Leticia Machado Haertel

The Social Practice of Human Rights: Charting the Frontiers of Research and Advocacy

This paper focuses on two problems around the mass displacement of people in extreme poverty: the characterization of such people as refugees and the application of the non-refoulement principle to mass displacements.

Extreme poverty is causal to grave human rights violations such as deprivation of water, of food, and of an adequate standard of living. These circumstances may reach a degree in which life in a country is unbearable — forcing people to move in order to enhance their likelihood of survival.

The classic understanding of the non-refoulement obligation, as enshrined in the 1951 Refugee Convention, forbids states from returning people ...

Factors Affecting Domestic Refugee Policy Development: An Analysis Of South Korea’S Case, Yun Ju Kang

The Social Practice of Human Rights: Charting the Frontiers of Research and Advocacy

Asia is no exception to the global refugee crisis. The number of asylum-seekers in Asian countries has escalated very quickly in recent years. In the United States, President Trump's recent executive orders suspended refugee admissions, and hostile immigration policy sparked the controversy about refugees.

The rising number of refugees and migrants from the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia created political conflicts inside the European countries. The refugee issue has emerged as a global problem.

How is the world dealing with these refugee situations? What are the common barriers in designing humanistic refugee policy, and what is the best ...

Engaging Human Rights Norms To Realize Universal And Equitable Health Care In Massachusetts, April Jakubec, Mariah Mcgill, Gillian Macnaughton

The Social Practice of Human Rights: Charting the Frontiers of Research and Advocacy

Massachusetts health care law served as the model in 2010 for the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). In 2006, Massachusetts adopted sweeping health care reforms. The law sought to increase health care insurance coverage for residents of Massachusetts by:

(1) Mandating that all adults in the state have health care insurance unless an affordable option was not available;

(2) Expanding Medicaid;

(3) Creating a new program of subsidized private insurance for low- and moderate-income residents; and

(4) Establishing a transparent health care insurance market exchange.

Previous studies on the Massachusetts health care reforms of 2006 have analyzed ...

Faith-Based Approaches To Asylum: New Appeals To Accountability? Using Faith-Based Principles As Soft Law, Jinan Bastaki

The Social Practice of Human Rights: Charting the Frontiers of Research and Advocacy

Can a faith-based approach encourage states to provide greater protection for those seeking refuge and asylum? In response to the fleeing of Syrian refugees to Turkey, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated numerous times that the Turkish were the anṣār — an Arabic word loosely translated as ‘supporters’ or ‘champions’ — of the Syrian refugees, making the reference to the people of the city of Medina who offered refuge and a home to Prophet Muhammad and his followers fleeing the persecution of Mecca.

The reference to the anṣār of Muhammad gives the impression that Turkey’s act of welcoming the ...

Building Academic/Practitioner Teams For Human Rights Projects: Examples, Lessons Learned, And Pitfalls To Avoid, Theresa Harris

The Social Practice of Human Rights: Charting the Frontiers of Research and Advocacy

Academics are increasingly interested in getting out of their classrooms and labs to contribute their knowledge, expertise, and resources to help communities develop evidence-based policies. In addition to post-election initiatives such as the March for Science and 314 Action, many academics are joining “without borders”-type programs and organizations that connect academics with opportunities to volunteer their time and talents for “social good.”

One of the longest-running of these is On-call Scientists, an initiative of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) that connects human rights organizations with pro bono scientists across all fields — life, physical, behavioral, and ...

Private And Family Life, Gender Equality And Social Security Under The European Convention On Human Rights - Di Trizio V Switzerland, Mel Cousins

Mel Cousins