Human Rights Law Commons^™

Bridging The Gap Between Intent And Status: A New Framework For Modern Parentage, Yehezkel Margalit

Hezi Margalit

The last few decades have witnessed dramatic changes in the conceptualization and methodologies of determining legal parentage in the U.S. and other countries in the western world. Through various sociological shifts, growing social openness and bio-medical innovations, the traditional definitions of family and parenthood have been dramatically transformed. This transformation has led to an acute and urgent need for legal and social frameworks to regulate the process of determining legal parentage. Moreover, instead of progressing in a piecemeal, ad-hoc manner, the framework for determining legal parentage should be comprehensive. Only a comprehensive solution will address the differing needs of ...

International Tax Cooperation, Taxpayers’ Rights And Bank Secrecy: Brazilian Difficulties To Fit Global Standards, Carlos Otávio Ferreira De Almeida

Carlos Otávio Ferreira de Almeida

This paper analyses the conflict between two constitutionally protected rights: privacy and transparency. The latter has been invoked increasingly often by international organizations committed to tackling harmful tax practices, and the former has been recognized as a crucial human right. In an interconnected world, domestic laws are not capable of countering cross-border tax evasion strategies, so that transparency has become one of the most important topics in international tax cooperation, but it is doubtful whether tax authorities can access banking data in order to obtain information to exchange. The judicial reserve clause upheld by the Brazilian Supreme Court represents a ...

Book Review: Nuclear Weapons And Law. Ed. Arthur Selwyn Miller And Martin Feinrider. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1984., Dorinda G. Dallmeyer

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Peer-To-Peer File Sharing As User Rights Activism, Michael A. Gunn

Western Journal of Legal Studies

The pre-digital marketplace is no longer sustainable. With the imposition of digital rights management restrictions on the distribution of media, the Internet cannot promote intellectual freedom. Peer-to-peer file sharing technology helps expose the work of artists and authors to a much wider audience than previously possible. This provides an opportunity for more sales and a greater number of successful artists and authors. Yet corporate copyright owners continue to propagate the “piracy” label to discredit the idea of open access channels. This paper argues that as information professionals, librarians are in a position to promote policy change that revolutionizes the political ...

Permissibility Of Colour And Racial Profiling, James Singh Gill

Western Journal of Legal Studies

Racial profiling in law enforcement is a contentious matter, particularly in light of U.S. police-citizen race tensions. The racial profiling debate has not been settled. Racial profiling proponents view it as a tool to effectively uncover criminal activity among certain racial groups. Critics find that racial profiling perpetuates racial stigmas and is largely inefficient as a policing tool. This article explores the ongoing debate and offers an overview of the Canadian judicial experience with racial profiling. The author proposes a middle-ground solution where racial profiling may be used under certain constraints imposed on law enforcement. The author suggests that ...

The Right To Read, Lea Shaver

Lea Shaver

Reading – for education and for pleasure – may be framed as a personal indulgence, a moral virtue, or even a civic duty. What are the implications of framing reading as a human right?

Although novel, the rights-based frame finds strong support in international human rights law. The right to read need not be defended as a “new” human right. Rather, it can be located at the intersection of more familiar guarantees. Well-established rights to education, science, culture, and freedom of expression, among others, provide the necessary normative support for recognizing a universal right to read as already implicit in international law ...

A Case For Canadian Pay Equity Reform, Sydney Kruth

Western Journal of Legal Studies

Pay equity must be separated from collective bargaining. An examination of the history of fair pay in unionized workplaces—and the current legal remedies available for pay discrimination—prove that the current strategies to remedy the significant gender pay gap are unsuccessful. Two significant issues hinder pay equity. Pay equity is still subject to collective bargaining in unionized workplaces. The Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act (PSECA) has undermined pay equity. The PSECA embodies the dangers of subjecting pay equity issues to collective bargaining. Canada is taking a regressive approach that disregards the importance of pay equity, despite the known benefits ...

Employing Disability: Deconstructing Insufficient Protections For "Non-Mainstream" Disabilities, Maia Abbas

Western Journal of Legal Studies

This paper surveys leading and recent case law on disability with a specific focus on “non-mainstream” disabilities. Such disabilities are categorized according to the difficulty with which they can be medically diagnosed, their transient nature, and their fluctuations in severity. Jurisprudence on the duty to accommodate has been developed through what law professor Judith Mosoff classifies as “mainstream” disabilities. That is, disabilities that are better understood by employers and medical professionals, and to which the duty to accommodate more easily applies. In contrast, “non-mainstream” disabilities challenge the conventional understanding of the duty to accommodate. Standard accommodation practices do not necessarily ...

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: A Brief History Of Legal Discriminations Against Women In Iran And The Violations Of International Human Rights, Delaram Farzaneh

Annual Survey of International & Comparative Law

In recent years Iran has primarily been under international scrutiny because of concerns over its development of a nuclear program. However, there have been other developments in Iran that also raise grave concerns among the international community. Since the 1990s, the Rights of Women have been one of the major categories of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Iran. The current direction of the Iranian government, with regard to improving women’s fundamental rights, seems to be back to the “good old days” rather than towards modernizing and humanizing strict patriarchal law. To best understand these current backward steps, it ...

Reconciling Three Countries’ Current Laws With Human Rights In The Face Of International Law, Stacey Alicia Maalej Rusnak

Annual Survey of International & Comparative Law

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR] has published a landmark treatise to serve as a guide for adjudication of refugee claims made by LGBTI individuals. This treatise, known as Guidelines on International Protection No. 9, states that sexual orientation or identity is a protected category and that persecution based on those factors is grounds for refugee status and protection. This article discusses current violations of this protection in three countries: Uganda, Russia, and Nigeria. I shall first examine the relevant international law, and then review the history and current laws of each country. Finally, there is a comparative ...

For Goodness’ Sake: A Two-Part Proposal For Remedying The U.S. Charity/Justice Imbalance, Fran Quigley

Fran Quigley

The U.S. approach to addressing economic and social needs strongly favors individual and corporate charity over the establishment and enforcement of economic and social rights. This charity/justice imbalance has a severely negative impact on the nation’s poor, who despite the overall U.S. wealth struggle with inadequate access to healthcare, housing, and nutrition. This article suggests a two-part approach for remedying the charity/justice imbalance in the U.S.: First, the U.S. should eliminate the charitable tax deduction, a policy creation that does not effectively address economic and social needs, forces an inequitable poverty relief and ...

Executing On An Empty Tank: Protecting The Supply Of Lethal Injection Drugs From Public Records Requests, Ira K. Rushing

Ira K Rushing

With the US Supreme Court holding the death penalty and lethal injection as Constitutional, there has been a new strategy for condemned prisoners. Using public information requests to discover the identities of the suppliers of lethal injection drugs and others in ancillary roles, the media has broad range to publish this information. This has led to many suppliers and compounding pharmacies to withhold supplies of the drugs to states using them in executions.

This paper lays out a history of the death penalty in Mississippi that has gotten us to this point. It then attempts to provide persuasive arguments on ...

Eliminating Undue Burdens To Women's Health: Reproductive Justice Under A “Contexual Intent” Standard, Katie L. Filous

Katie L. Filous

By examining Jackson Women’s Health Organization, et. al. v. Mary Currier, et. al., this article will advocate for the position that the Supreme Court should utilize a “contextual intent” standard in reproductive justice cases in which “undue burdens” and “substantial obstacles” are being evaluated. Part I of the article will discuss the shift from reproductive “rights” to reproductive “justice” by discussing various state legislatures’ attempts at restricting abortion in conjunction with Ian Haney Lopez’s “contextual intent” theory. Part II will discuss the historical roots of varying analyses of reproductive justice cases, from public health and safety to fetal ...

Book Review: The Palestine Yearbook Of International Law. Ed. Al-Shaybani Society Of International Law. Nicosia, Cyprus., Ralph B. Lake

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

La Objeción De Conciencia, Ramiro De Valdivia Cano

Ramiro De Valdivia Cano

Se debe consagrar como Derecho Fundamental el derecho a desacatar aquellas normas que promulga el Estado y que afectan los Derechos Humanos, la dignidad humana, los principios jurídicos o religiosos personales.

Genocide Convention - Intentional Starvation - Ethiopian Famine In The Eritrean War For Independence. The Applicability Of The Genocide Convention To Government Imposed Famine In Eritrea., Jean E. Zeiler

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Doctrine Of True Threats: Protecting Our Ever-Shrinking First Amendment Rights In The New Era Of Communication, Mary M. Roark

Mary M Roark

The First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech.” Such protection has withstood the test of time and is heralded as one of our most precious rights as Americans. “The hallmark of the protection of free speech is to allow ‘free trade in ideas’—even ideas that the overwhelming majority of people might find distasteful or discomforting." However, “[t]here are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which has never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem."

One such proscribable form of speech is the “true threat ...

Unscrambling The Curate’S Egg- The High Court’S Act Same Sex Marriage Decision, Neil J. Foster

Neil J Foster

Discusses and critiques the decision of the High Court of Australia in the ACT Same Sex Marriage case [2013] HCA 55.

Full Faith And Credit For Homosexual Marriage And A Resurgent Defense Of Marriage Act, Steven Specht

Steven Specht

When the Court considered Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in United States v. Windsor, it carefully avoided addressing Section 2 which created the ability for states to ignore the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Though bans on same-sex or homosexual marriage are slowly being overturned by the courts, Section 2 creates a work-around for many states to not recognize same-sex marriages from other states on grounds of public policy. Even if the Court is to strike down all state bans on same-sex marriage in an upcoming opinion, no case on Section ...

Sentencing Pregnant Drug Addicts: Why The Child Endangerment Enhancement Is Not Appropriate, Monica B. Carusello

Monica B Carusello

No abstract provided.