Law Commons^™

The International Law Of Human Trafficking, Anne T. Gallagher

Anne T Gallagher

This book presents the first-ever comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the international law of human trafficking. Anne T. Gallagher calls on her direct experience working within the United Nations to chart the development of new international laws on this issue. She links these rules to the international law of State responsibility , as well as key norms of international human rights law, transnational criminal law, refugee law and international criminal law, in the process identifying and explaining the major legal obligations of States with respect to preventing trafficking, protecting and supporting victims, and prosecuting perpetrators.

Justice For Rwanda: Toward A Universal Law Of Armed Conflict, Heather Alexander

Golden Gate University Law Review

Section I of this Comment provides a history of the Rwandan armed conflict and a description of the laws of armed conflict. It focuses on the basic laws of armed conflict, the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols, and describes how these laws have been interpreted by the ICTY and ICTR. Section II addresses the classification of the Rwandan armed conflict as a non-international conflict. This section discusses Ugandan support for the invading Rwandan Patriotic Front ("hereinafter RPF") and the murder of ten Belgian U.N. peacekeepers by Rwandan troops. The Section proposes changing the definition of an international conflict, thereby strengthening …

International Civil Religion: Respecting Religious Diversity While Promoting International Cooperation, Amos Prosser Davis

Amos Prosser Davis

International civil religion grounds moral claims that permeate and transcend traditional religious paradigms. Given the inevitability of international interactions – interactions that cross geographic, religious, and cultural boundaries – our global society is in need of a universally endorsable framework that undergirds the United Nations international human rights regime. International civil religion provides that framework.

Numerous scholars and moral theorists have incrementally discerned the parameters of civil religion including, inter alia, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Alexis de Tocqueville, Robert Bellah, Martin Marty, and Harold Berman. The tenets of international civil religion infuse the diplomatically drafted United Nations covenants and conventions on human …

Security Council Resolution 808: A Step Toward A Permanent International Court For The Prosecution Of International Crimes And Human Rights Violations, Daniel B. Pickard

Golden Gate University Law Review

This comment examines the difficulties involved in implementing Resolution 808, and also its contribution to the development of a permanent international criminal court (hereinafter "ICC"). The comment begins with an overview of Security Council Resolution 808. The comment next considers the factors that have stopped previous attempts to create an ICC. Finally, the author proposes that a permanent ICC could and should be implemented and that the earlier difficulties in establishing such a tribunal have been overcome.

Facilitating Friendly Settlements In The Inter-American Human Rights System: A Comparative Analysis With Recommendations, Sean B. Burke, Matthew P. Webster

Sean B Burke

No abstract provided.

September 11, 2010: What Did Rick Santorum Mean?, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “What Did Rick Santorum Mean?“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Antisemitism In The Academic Voice: Confronting Bigotry Under The First Amendment, Kenneth Lasson

Kenneth Lasson

Among the abuses of the academic enterprise that have been taking place in American universities over the past several decades, and continue to this day, are failures of intellectual rigor: the abandonment of reliance on facts, common sense, and logic in the pursuit of narrow political agendas – which all too often presented in the academic voice. Students today increasingly find themselves confronted by curricula manipulated by scholarly extremists. While the number of overt antisemitic incidents has declined markedly in the United States over the past few years, there has been a significant increase in anti-Zionist rhetoric and activity on …

Eradicating Child Labour In Pakistan, Nilofar Vazir, Yasmeen Mehboob Meghani

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

No abstract provided.

Realizing The International Human Right To Health: The Challenge Of For-Profit Health Care, Eleanor D. Kinney

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fundamental Issues And Practical Challenges Of Human Rights In The Context Of The African Union, Moussa Samb

Annual Survey of International & Comparative Law

This paper starts with an overview of the legal issues of the African human rights system. Then, it discusses the main human rights issues and challenges which confront the African system, as democracy, human rights during conflict and development issues. It ends with a brief discussion on a minimal core approach to social and economic rights.

The African Charter On Human And Peoples' Rights: Suggestions For More Effectiveness, U. O. Umozurike

Annual Survey of International & Comparative Law

This paper examines some of the problems of the African Commission, and its shortcomings, all of which gave room for the criticism and, more importantly, suggestions for the greater effectiveness of the Commission. The moderate achievements of the Commission are complicated by what appears to be some doubt about its desirability. The European Commission has been abolished and its functions merged with those of the European Court after it had functioned only long enough to develop human rights standards in Europe. The African Commission has existed for twenty years with inadequate resources and personnel. It is not even mentioned in …

Universal Human Rights: A Generational History, Eric Engle

Annual Survey of International & Comparative Law

Human rights are universal. Not in the sense of being the same positive laws, at all times and places, but rather as being aspirational goals, at all times and places, and also as containing core values which are indeed universal, such as the right to life (no irrational deprivation of life). Histories of human rights usually propose that the concept has evolved through at least three separate historical waves. This historical account, while roughly accurate, must be clarified as a theoretical construction which corresponds only partially to the historical reality: the rights of women and of non-white persons, in fact, …

Sovereignty Over Natural Resources Under Examination: The Inter-American System For Human Rights And Natural Resource Allocation, Lila Barrera-Hernández

Annual Survey of International & Comparative Law

The present paper is based on the contention that, by virtue of the impact of resource exploitation on individuals, international human rights' tribunals and bodies, particularly the organs of the Inter-American System, are increasingly in the position of "allocator" of natural resources, giving new meaning to the concept of permanent sovereignty.

Human Rights And Sharia'h Justice In Nigeria, M. Ozonnia Ojielo

Annual Survey of International & Comparative Law

This article examines the introduction of Sharia'h law in northern Nigeria, both in regard to the fundamental legal provisions of the Nigeria constitution and also as to the international rights conventions to which Nigeria is a signatory. The relationship between the new Sharia'h laws enacted in all 19 northern Nigerian states and the human rights provisions in the 1999 Constitution will be examined under five parameters: the general constitutional provision, protection of freedom of religion the federal status of Nigeria the Islamic state issue, and the politics of the Sharia'h law debate. The Zarnfara state law will be used as …

Security Council Targeted Sanctions, Due Process And The 1267 Ombudsperson, Grant L. Willis

Grant L Willis

Since its inception the Security Council’s 1267 sanctions regime has come under fire from UN member states, listed individuals and entities, domestic and international courts and tribunals, human rights NGO’s and even other organs of the UN, that all claim the 1267 sanctions regime does not secure targeted individuals’ procedural due process rights, particularly the right to an effective remedy. For instance, in June 2009 a Canadian Federal Court Judge noted that the 1267 sanctions regime creates a situation for the listed individual that is “not unlike that of Josef K. in Kafka’s The Trial, who awakens one morning, and …

Regenerating Leadership Or Rhetoric?, Marc Alexander C. Gionet

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The new coalition government in the UK is expediting efforts to mark a differentiation from its predecessor. In regards to foreign policy, the Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs, William Hague, has identified human rights as the “irreducible core” in his initial speech of a four-part series intended to outline the new government’s priorities and approach.

Human Rights At The “Core” Of Uk Foreign Policy Requires Respect For Core Human Rights, Erin Mooney

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The true measure of whether human rights indeed are the "irreducible core" of the UK’s new foreign policy will be the extent to which the coalition government respects and protects “core” human rights.

Uk Foreign Policy And Human Rights, Par Engstrom

Human Rights & Human Welfare

William Hague’s assertion that human rights should constitute the “irreducible core” of foreign policy under the new UK coalition government may seem a radical departure for the new Foreign Secretary. Hague is, after all, a leading figure in the British Conservative Party, which in its recent election manifesto called for the repeal of the UK’s Human Rights Act that incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law. Given this profound ambivalence over the substantive value of human rights at home, the new UK government is not likely to adopt more assertive human rights policies abroad. Human rights advocates …

August Roundtable: Human Rights And Foreign Policy Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“A humane nation is a safer nation” by Tom Porteous. The Guardian. July 7, 2010.

Doing Well By Doing Good, Alison Brysk

Human Rights & Human Welfare

As Tom Porteous contends in The Guardian, "a humane nation is a safer nation"—and ultimately, a more prosperous, healthy, happy, and green one too. My recent book, Global Good Samaritans, explores how half a dozen disparate nations came to adopt relatively humanitarian foreign policies, and how this has benefited global governance and their own development. Let us explore the lessons of history that inspired the real (albeit uneven) contributions of countries like Sweden, Canada, and Costa Rica—and why this should inspire more states like the UK to become active human rights promoters.

The International Control Of Illegal Drugs And The U.N. Treaty Regime: Preventing Or Causing Human Rights Violations?, Daniel P.P. Heilmann Ph.D., Ll.M.

Daniel P.P. Heilmann Ph.D., LL.M.

The article attempts to answer the question whether the international drug control system (i.e. the three conventions on which the U.N. regime is based) is still serviceable in light of recent trends on the illegal drugs markets and whether the regime is up to the standards of modern human rights law. In a first step, the set-up of the international control system is outlined in order to give an overview of the situation (Part II). The second step is to summarize recent trends in global drug markets and to assess the impact of the control system on illicit manufacturing, trafficking …

The Invading Waters: Climate Change Dispossession, State Extinction, And International Law, Jared D. Hestetune

Jared D Hestetune

The level of the sea is inevitably rising. Even the conservative estimates of the IPCC portray a dire future for low-lying island nations such as the Republic of Maldives. The future of an inundated state bodes ill for Maldives's continued participation in international relations. This essay analyzes the possibility of the persistence of a state after its territory has been submerged and destroyed, and it comes to the unfortunate conclusion that a submerged state will de facto become extinct in international law. Thus, entire nationalities will disappear, which likely consequence is strong motivation to protect the human right of national …

All Politics Are Suboptimal, Todd Landman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Despite its intentions and founding principles, the United Nations is fundamentally a political organization and therefore subject to the machinations of states as they seek to maximize their self interest, protect their reputations, and advance their power. The UN Security Council itself is a product of World War II and reflects a settlement from the end of the war that many perceive as highly inappropriate to the balance of power and global realities of the world today.

Overcoming History And Human Rights At The Un, Sonia Cardenas

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Criticism is most useful when it imagines viable alternatives. This is why the most recent wave of outrage over the elections to the UN Human Rights Council seems counter-productive. Yes, egregious human rights violators have been elected to the Council. Yes, Iran was kept off the Council in exchange for a seat on the women’s rights commission . And, yes, the elections were uncontested, with regional blocs putting forth the same number of candidates as vacancies. These facts have led observers to describe the body as a farce, as all pretense, and to decry US participation in the Council.

Perpetrators In Their Midst, David Akerson

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The two articles, “Another Human-Rights Irony at the U.N.” by Anne Applebaum and “UN Elects Rights Violators to Human Rights Council” by Edith Lederer, both set forth the problems encountered by the UN Human Rights Council and its predecessor, the Human Rights Commission. Namely, that member states with notorious human rights records will exploit the Council to their political advantage. As Applebaum points out in her article, “authoritarian regimes have long battled to join the council...the better to prevent any outsiders from investigating their own governments.”

Human Rights Abusers, The Human Rights Council, And The Un, James Pattison

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The predecessor to the Human Rights Council, the Commission on Human Rights, had several notable failings. These included double standards in the selection of which states were to be subject to scrutiny, membership of the Commission by states notable for their egregious human rights records, and the shielding of the P5 members of the Security Council and their allies from criticism. The Human Rights Council, it was hoped, would avoid these flaws and, in doing so, push human rights further up the UN agenda. For instance, the General Assembly Resolution A/RES/60/251, which set up the Council, claimed that the Council’s …

July Roundtable: The Un And Human Rights Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“Another human-rights irony at the U.N.” by Anne Applebaum. The Washington Post. May 4, 2010.

and

“UN elects rights violators to Human Rights Council” by Edith M. Lederer. Associated Press. May 13, 2010.

India’S Integrated Energy Policy: A Source Of Economic Nirvana Or Environmental Disaster?, Deepa Badrinarayana

Deepa Badrinarayana

India’s rapidly growing economy naturally demands increasing energy needs from the industrial scale down to the personal. Mindful of potential negative impacts of economic development, India is making efforts to encourage growth while preserving and protecting the environment and human rights. India’s Integrated Energy Policy sets out the roadmap for how the country plans to achieve the balance among development, environmental protection, citizens’ rights, energy security, and a host of other priorities and concerns. Though ambitious and broad in scope, the Policy may prove inadequate in mitigating environmental impacts of development, and thus inadequate in balancing India’s needs, particularly in …

June 17, 2010: Do Christian Groups Have The Right To Hire Only Christians?, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Do Christian Groups Have the Right to Hire Only Christians?“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Child Soldiers And The Duty Of Nations To Protect Children From Participation In Armed Conflict, Luz Estella Nagle

Luz Estella Nagle

Children are used as armed combatants throughout the world. Some volunteer in order to alleviate family problems or escape from them, to achieve status in their cultures, or to gain protection and a sense of belonging. Many more, however, are coerced or forced to fight. The indoctrination process is brutal and can involve the most unspeakable depredations and assaults, with the goal being to break child soldiers down into killers who will do anything they are commanded to do.

The body of international law and international humanitarian law intended to protect children is impotent. In most situations where child combatants …