Human Rights Law Commons^™

Does Political Islam Conflict With Secular Democracy? Philosophical Reflections On Religion And Politics, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Abstract: This paper rebuts the thesis that political Islam conflicts with secular democracy. More precisely, it examines three sorts of claims that ostensibly support this thesis:

(a) The Muslim religion is incompatible with secular democracy;

(b) No Muslim country has instituted secular democracy; and

(c) No movement seeking to advance its agenda as aggressively as political Islam does can do so with the degree of moderation required of a political party that is committed to secular democracy.

Theologians, philosophers, and political scientists have debated (a) through (c) within the jurisdiction of their respective fields. I propose to combine these debates ...

Corporate Social Responsibility In A Remedy-Seeking Society: A Public Choice Perspective, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Written for the Chapman Law Review Symposium on “What Can Law & Economics Teach Us About the Corporate Social Responsibility Debate?,” this Article applies the lessons of public choice theory to examine corporate social responsibility. The Article adopts a broad definition of corporate social responsibility activism to include both (1) those efforts that seek to convince corporations to voluntarily take into account corporate social responsibility in their own decision-making, and (2) the efforts to alter the legal landscape and expand legal obligations of corporations beyond traditional notions of harm and duty so as to force corporations to invest in interests other ...

Freedom Of Association And The Right To Contest: Getting Back To Basics, Cynthia L. Estlund, Alan Bogg

New York University Law and Economics Working Papers

As worker participation through trade unions has declined across much of the developed world, especially in the US, the UK and Canada, scholars and activists have turned to the concept of "freedom of association" (FOA) -- defined in international labour law as the fundamental right of workers to form and join trade unions of their own choosing -- as a basis for reclaiming a voice for workers in economic governance. Much of this work pursues what we call a strategy of ‘ascent’: to what extent does the existing FOA as defined in international and national labour law encompass constitutionalised rights to collective ...

Climate Change, Natural Disasters And Non-Refoulement: What Scope For Resisting Expulsion Under Articles 3 & 8 Echr?, Matthew Scott

Matthew Scott

This presentation sets out in brief the concepts of environmentally-related harm and climate change-related harm, and considers the extent to which individuals fearing such harm can resist expulsion by relying on Articles 3 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Recognising the limited scope of protection, the presentation summarises some potential arguments for extending the scope of protection by incorporating consideration of the role of anthropogenic climate change in the harm feared.

Rios Montt Edges Closer To Escaping Accountability For Genocide, Lauren Carasik

Media Presence

No abstract provided.

The American Dream: Daca, Dreamers, And Comprehensive Immigration Reform, Heather Fathali

Seattle University Law Review

On June 15, 2012, President Obama made an announcement that changed the lives of millions. Effective immediately, the Obama administration would implement a new program—what would come to be known as Deferred Action for Child-hood Arrivals (DACA)—offering eligible undocumented young people both a two-year respite from the haunting possibility of deportation as well as the eligibility to apply for employment authorization. While millions were elated by the President’s announcement, he also faced harsh criticism. Many claimed that his action exceeded federal statutory limits, exceeded his Executive powers, and usurped congressional authority. Still others, anxious to see comprehensive ...

The Voice Of Reason—Why Recent Judicial Interpretations Of The Antiterrorism And Effective Death Penalty Act’S Restrictions On Habeas Corpus Are Wrong, Judith L. Ritter

Seattle University Law Review

By filing a petition for a federal writ of habeas corpus, a prisoner initiates a legal proceeding collateral to the direct appeals process. Federal statutes set forth the procedure and parameters of habeas corpus review. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) first signed into law by President Clinton in 1996, included significant cut-backs in the availability of federal writs of habeas corpus. This was by congressional design. Yet, despite the dire predictions, for most of the first decade of AEDPA’s reign, the door to habeas relief remained open. More recently, however, the Supreme Court reinterpreted a key ...

"Amorphous Federalism" And The Supreme Court's Marriage Cases, David B. Cruz

University of Southern California Legal Studies Working Paper Series

This is a draft of an article forthcoming in the Loyola Law Review Supreme Court issue. It addresses the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in Hollingsworth v. Perry and United States v. Windsor, the two cases in the October 2012 term that took up issues of marriage rights of same sex couples. Part I examines the Supreme Court’s opinion in Perry. It summarizes the litigation; teases out divergent views of the relevance of federalism for the Court’s standing ruling in the case; identifies the problematic constitutional underpinnings of the Perry dissenters’ views of federal court standing, which ...

Honduras’ Political Violence Threatens To Undermine Its November Elections, Lauren Carasik

Media Presence

No abstract provided.

The Obligation Of Criminalizing Slavery, Servitude, Forced Labour And Human Trafficking Under Article 4 Of The European Convention On Human Rights And The Failures Of The Domestic Criminal Law, Vladislava Stoyanova

Vladislava Stoyanova

It has been widely reported that the number of prosecutions and convictions for THB and for slavery, servitude and forced labour (where the latters have been specifically criminalized) is low. As a reaction it has been suggested that the definitions of these crimes have to be expansively construed. These suggestions ignore the basic criminal law precepts. Criminal law has to remain faithful to the principle of legal certainty and to the rights of the accused which ban expansive interpretations. It is human rights law which celebrates liberal interpretations of concepts for the purpose of holding states internationally responsible for their ...

The Comparative Fortunes Of The Right To Health: Two Tales Of Justiciability In Colombia And South Africa, Katharine G. Young

Boston College Law School Faculty Papers

No abstract provided.

Please Don't Be Our Guest: The Roma Expulsion From France Under European Union Law, Quinn Bennett

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Speaking Of Secession: A Theory Of Linguistic Secession, Sami M. Dudar

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

A Balancing Act? The Rights Of Donor-Conceived Children To Know Their Biological Origins, Brigitte Clark

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

‘The Corporate Responsibility To Respect Human Rights: Soft Law Or Not Law, Justine Nolan

University of New South Wales Faculty of Law Research Series 2013

This paper is primarily focussed on examining the role (and effectiveness) of soft law in regulating businesses with respect to human rights. Section I grapples with developing a general definition of soft law, and in doing so, examines both the advantages and limitations of soft law regulation. Section II provides an overview of the significant soft law developments in the business and human rights field. Given the diversity of the principal constituents in this sector – States, corporations and NGOs - it is perhaps not surprising that soft law has been a principal default mechanism for connecting human rights and business in ...

The Human Right To Water And The Responsibility To Protect, David Devlaeminck

Open Access Dissertations and Theses

In this thesis I argue that it is an implication of the acceptance of the human right to water and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) that violations of the human right to water can invoke the Responsibility to Protect. Extreme violations of the right to water can invoke the responsibility to react, and ultimately the responsibility to prevent and rebuild. Although this is the case, I argue that the human right to water is unlikely to invoke R2P on its own. Instead, water issues are more likely to compound with issues of poverty, weak political institutions, poor leadership and social ...

After The Eu Charter Of Fundamental Rights: The Court Of Justice As A Human Rights Adjudicator?, Gráinne De Búrca

New York University Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

This article examines the engagement by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights over the period since the Charter was made formally binding by the Lisbon Treaty in 2009. A survey of the output of the Court during that time reveals a sharp rise in the number of cases in which a provision of the Charter was cited or argued before the Court. Further, the Court has engaged substantively with and given prominence to the Charter argument in a growing number of these cases. In other words, the incidence of human ...

Constitutionalism And The Cosmopolitan State, Mattias Kumm

New York University Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

If the point of constitutionalism is to define the legal framework within which collective self-government can legitimately take place, constitutionalism has to take a cosmopolitan turn. Contrary to widely made implicit assumptions in constitutional theory and practice, national constitutional legitimacy is not self-standing. Whether a national constitution and the political practices authorized by it are legitimate does not depend only on the appropriate democratic quality and rights respecting nature of domestic legal practices. Instead, national constitutional legitimacy depends, in part, on how the national constitution is integrated into and relates to the wider legal and political world. The drawing of ...

Towards A Framework Convention On Global Health, Lawrence O. Gostin, Eric A. Friedman, Kent Buse, Attiya Waris, Moses Mulumba, Mayowa Joel, Lola Dare, Ames Dhai, Devi Sridhar

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

A global health treaty, a Framework Convention on Global Health (FCGH)–grounded in the right to health, with the central goal of reducing immense domestic and global health inequities–could serve as a robust global governance instrument to underpin the United Nations post-2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It would ensure for all people the three essential conditions for a healthy life–public health, health care, and the positive social determinants of health–while advancing good governance, responding to drivers of health disadvantages for marginalized populations, elevating health in other legal regimes, and enhancing people's ability to claim their rights ...

The Liberty Of The Church: Source, Scope And Scandal, Patrick Mckinley Brennan

Villanova University School of Law Working Paper Series

This article was presented at a conference, and is part of a symposium, on "The Freedom of the Church in the Modern Era." The article argues that the liberty of the Church, libertas Ecclesiae, is not a mere metaphor, pace the views of some other contributions to the conference and symposium and of the mentality mostly prevailing over the last five hundred years. The argument is that the Church and her directly God-given rights are ontologically irreducible in a way that the rights of, say, the state of California or even of the United States are not. Based on a ...