Law Commons^™

Protecting Humanity's Cradle Of Civilization: Advancing The Right To Self-Determination For Indigenous Peoples In The Middle East & South Caucasus, Lisabelle Panossian

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

During this paper’s drafting, an indigenous people’s independent government collapsed. For over thirty years, the Republic of Artsakh was a de facto independent region inside the internationally-recognized borders of Azerbaijan. The region comprised of an indigenous Armenian majority—until September 2023. In December 2022, Azerbaijani authorities blocked the only road that connected Nagorno-Karabakh to the outside world. This blockade resulted in shortages of food, medical supplies, and fuel, the severity of which was especially felt during a harsh winter.

After experiencing starvation and preventable medical complications under a nine month-long blockade, the Azerbaijani government launched a military incursion on the Republic …

Public Health Consequences Of Appellate Standards For Hostile Work Environment Claims, Lauren Krumholz

Washington Journal of Social & Environmental Justice

No abstract provided.

Forced To Bear The Burden And Now The Children: The Dobbs Decision And Environmental Justice Communities, Mia Petrucci

Washington Journal of Social & Environmental Justice

No abstract provided.

Pursuing The Exemption: The Makah's White Whale, Sarah Van Voorhis

Washington Journal of Social & Environmental Justice

No abstract provided.

U'Wa Indigenous People Vs. Columbia: Potential Applications Of The Escazu Agreement, Ariana Lippi

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

Though the case is ongoing, and results are still to be seen, it in many ways sets a precedent for indigenous communities in Latin America seeking redress for environmental and cultural injustices. With Colombia’s recent ratification of The Escazú Regional Agreement (the Agreement herein) in 2022, this case presents a unique opportunity for implementation of the Agreement and greater accountability within existing domestic legislation.

Natural Resources In The Arctic: The Equal Distribution Of Uneven Resrouces, Ganeswar Matcha, Sudarsanan Sivakumar

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

This paper analyses the governance machine in place at the Arctic and examines the application of the principles of “common heritage of mankind” at the Arctic. This paper also offers some tentative propositions aimed at protecting Out Bound investment rights and how the World Trade Organization or other countries, like the U.S., can intercede in the Arctic investment sphere and attempt to regulate along with the United Nations Convention for the Law of the Sea.

Incentivizing Sustainability In American Enterprise: Lessons From Finnish Model, Vasa T. Dunham

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

The disparate climate performances of Finland and the United States, two of the wealthiest countries in the world, bring to light the question of how corporate responsibility has been inspired in each jurisdiction. Having established the urgency of the climate crisis and the importance of corporate behavior in optimizing a given country’s approach to protection of the global environment, an examination of each nation’s legal frameworks may shed light on features of the corporate regime that are effective in advancing sustainability goals and those that are not.22 Part I of this paper establishes a comparative framework by providing background on …

Editor's Note, Shade Streeter, Reagan Ferris

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

The Sustainable Development Law & Policy Brief (ISSN 1552-3721) is a student-run initiative at American University Washington College of Law that is published twice each academic year. The Brief embraces an interdisciplinary focus to provide a broad view of current legal, political, and social developments. It was founded to provide a forum for those interested in promoting sustainable economic development, conservation, environmental justice, and biodiversity throughout the world.

Then They Came For Us: Access To Justice Harm And Opportunity For Our Transgender And Nonbinary Youth, Sarah Steadman

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Transgender and nonbinary youth are under legislative and political siege as the latest victims in our nation’s culture wars. They are acutely aware of the hostility towards their existence and best interests, damaging their often already precarious well-being. There is a concerning risk they will associate biased and antagonistic lawmakers with our entire legal system, including legal service providers. Fear of encountering discrimination and bias leads targeted individuals to avoid accessing services. I fear that means too many among this generation transgender and nonbinary youth may avoid addressing their legal health needs as they age.

Consequently, the legal profession must …

The Overlooked Communities Of Forced Displacement In The United States: Humanizing The Relocation Of Indigenous Tribes In The Face Of Climate Change, Jennifer O'Rourke

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Affirmatively Furthering Health Equity, Mary Crossley

Brooklyn Law Review

Pervasive health disparities in the United States undermine both public health and social cohesion. Because of the enormity of the healthcare sector, government action, standing alone, is limited in its power to remedy health disparities. This article proposes a novel approach to distributing responsibility for promoting health equity broadly among public and private actors in the healthcare sector. Specifically, it recommends that the Department of Health and Human Services issue guidance articulating an obligation on the part of all recipients of federal healthcare funding to act affirmatively to advance health equity. The Fair Housing Act’s requirement that recipients of federal …

My Body, Whose Choice? A Case For A Fundamental Right To Bodily Autonomy, Miri Trauner

Brooklyn Law Review

In 2022, the US Supreme Court decided Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and the fundamental right to abortion it had established nearly fifty years prior. The Court’s decision threw into uncertainty the future of not only reproductive rights in this country, but also many other individual rights. At the same time as the decision, the world was still reeling from a global pandemic, and the development of COVID-19 vaccines had spurred widespread controversy over the constitutionality of vaccine mandates. Both advocates for abortion access and opponents to vaccine mandates shared a common cry: “my …

From Precedent To Policy: The Effects Of Dobbs On Detained Immigrant Youth, Ciera Phung-Marion

Washington Law Review

In June 2022, the United States Supreme Court released the historic decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, holding that the U.S. Constitution does not protect an individual’s right to an abortion. Dobbs overturned many cases, including J.D. v. Azar, which previously protected abortion rights for unaccompanied migrant youth in federal detention facilities. Post-Dobbs, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)—the agency responsible for caring for detained immigrant children—still protects abortion rights as part of its own internal policy. Without judicial precedent, however, this policy lacks the stability to truly protect the rights of the children in its …

Transformasi Dan Marginalisasi Masyarakat Adat: Suku Ata Modo Di Tengah Hegemoni Pengembangan Pariwisata Taman Nasional Komodo (Transformation And Marginalization Of Indigenous Communities: The Ata Modo Tribe's Experience Amidst The Hegemony Of Komodo National Park Tourism Development), Arif Putra Pratama, Avicenna Elang Chandra, Noor Risa Isnanto, An Nuur Khairune Nisa

The Indonesian Journal of Socio-Legal Studies

The massive development of tourism in Komodo National Park (KNP) has had a signi;icant impact on the local community there, in this case the Ata Modo Tribe. This tribe is a local tribe that has remained silent for a long time and was formed on Komodo Island long before the Komodo National Park was established. They have also lived side by side with the endangered Komodo dragon for decades and tried to maintain their culture and customs amidst the existence of KNP tourism development. This research tries to answer what cultural potential is still maintained by the Ata Modo Tribe, …

Aggressor Status And Its Impact On International Criminal Law Case Selection, Nancy Amoury Combs

Pace International Law Review

The laws of war apply equally to all parties to a conflict; thus, a party that violates international law by launching a war is granted the same international humanitarian law rights as a party that is required to defend against the illegal war. This doctrine—known as the equal application doctrine—has been sharply critiqued, particularly by philosophers, who claim the doctrine to be morally indefensible. Lawyers and legal academics, by contrast, defend the equal application doctrine because they reasonably fear that applying different rules to different warring parties will sharply reduce states’ willingness to comply with the international humanitarian law system …

Throwing Tomato Soup At A Van Gogh: How Climate Activists Leveraged Legal Theory, Criminal Law, And Moral Outrage To Conduct A Radical Protest Campaign In The World's Most Famous Museums, Joe Udell

Villanova Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Torts And Personhood, Melissa Mortazavi

Arkansas Law Review

Perhaps more so than ever, legal personhood is contested. Part I of this Article lays out an overview of existing tort theories exposing the limitations of existing paradigms. This positions the reader to consider in Part II the core assertion of this paper: that a fundamental role of torts is to define personhood. As such, it explores the idea that a principal project that each tort case and litigant is engaged with is not truly about money, property, or even pain per se—it is about determining who is seen.

The United States Must Reform Its Laws To Eradicate Female Genital Mutilation, Kelly Schweikert

Immigration and Human Rights Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Interconnectedness Of The Classroom To The Health Of Black Men Who Have Sex With Men, Travis Hardee

Immigration and Human Rights Law Review

The human right to education and health are inherently interrelated, both key in ensuring the health and development of an equitable and just society.1 Yet, the series of bills currently threatening the inclusion of essential conversations about race, sexuality, and sexual orientation is an overt attempt to obscure the honest history of the United States and further supplant the current social hierarchy. The United States’ failure to acknowledge the essential role representational education plays in undermining the disparate outcomes that afflict vulnerable communities in the country deserves more attention than it has garnered. Here, the disparate health status of Black …

Anti-Abortion Authoritarianism: The Rise Of Restriction On Voting Rights And Free Speech Post-Dobbs, Emma Kalucki

Immigration and Human Rights Law Review

Following the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, state governments have individually addressed abortion rights through legislation. Many Republican controlled state legislators have taken extreme authoritarian and harsh measures to push anti-abortion legislation; however, these measures, while addressing abortion rights, heavily infringe on basic human rights guaranteed to the American people. More specifically, the proposed amendment to Ohio’s State Constitution in August 2023 violated Ohioan’s essential voting rights and Idaho’s No Public Funds for Abortion Act blatantly infringes upon public university professor’s First Amendment freedom of speech.

False Promises Of Protection: Town Of Castle Rock V. Gonzales And The Supreme Court’S Failure To Protect Human Rights, Kylie Rhoton

Immigration and Human Rights Law Review

No abstract provided.

Italian And Eu Funding Of The Libyan Coast Guard: How Italian External Border Immigration Policies Have Created Crimes Against Humanity, Public Ignorance, And Legal Accountability Issues, Andrea Beck

Immigration and Human Rights Law Review

No abstract provided.

287(G): Ice Deputizing Local Law Enforcement Harms Migrants And Local Communities, Charles Powers

Immigration and Human Rights Law Review

Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act authorizes the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to form agreements with local law enforcement departments; deputizing them for ICE’s objectives while they continue to serve their local municipalities. This program has resulted in racial profiling, the stripping of liberties, and wrongful detentions. In recent years, municipalities have signed 287(g) agreements at a staggering rate. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination issued a report pleading for the US to end this practice, yet there seems to be no end in sight. In this essay, I hope to explain …

The Implementation Of Law Enforcement In Combating Terrorist Financing In Indonesia, Nova Vincentia Pati, Emma Valentina Senewe, Merry Elisabeth Kalalo, Caecilia Johanna Waha, Theodorus Hw Lumunon

Indonesian Journal of International Law

Law enforcement in Indonesia terrorism has encountered enormous difficulties when it comes to combating terrorist financing. In contrast, the terrorists who have been imprisoned found that the punishment given by the judge in the court and the deradicalization programs offered by BNPT, the National Counter Terrorism Agency, does not deter them from recidivism. Our research question is whether or not the implementation of law enforcement in combating terrorist financing in Indonesia has deterred terrorists from re-offending. The methodology used in this research is a qualitative method that employs two case studies through in-depth interviews to determine whether or not the …

Conflict And Race In Literature & Law. The Case Of Americanah, Emanuela Ignatoiu Sora

Comparative Woman

In Americanah, the 2013 novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, there is a scene when one of the characters, Laura, speaks of her Ugandan classmate who did not get along with an African-American colleague. Laura is surprised as, for her, all persons of color are similar, with no understanding for their differences in background, personal stories and experiences. The novel depicts and critiques this very categorization of race, which flattens differences, conflating groups and individuals who might share very little, if anything. For a long time, law (with its stipulations, precedents and rulings) has operated in a similar manner, disengaging …

Energy Justice And Renewable Rikers, Rebecca Bratspies

University of Miami Law Review

Unsustainable energy practices generate the lion’s share of global carbon emissions as well as staggering levels of deadly particulate pollution. Replacing the current dirty, fossil fuel-based system with affordable, clean energy is both a human rights imperative and a climate change necessity. This transition, which has already begun, creates the opportunity to do things differently. By confronting the structural racism embedded in existing energy structures, we can build a just transition rather than just a transition. This Article uses New York City’s Renewable Rikers project as a case study to explore how we might take advantage of the intersections between …

Human Rights Without Borders, Christian Gonzalez Chacon

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

In the current global context, millions of people are forced to migrate

yearly for reasons ranging from persecution and violence, internal armed

conflicts, and forced displacement, to lack of employment and climate

change. In the Americas, we recently witnessed the phenomenon of the

“migrant caravans,” where thousands of people, mostly from the Northern

Triangle of Central America—El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala—

were willing to walk hundreds of miles to enter the U.S.-Mexico border to

escape poverty and violence in their countries. Another caravan of close to

10,000 migrants from the Northern Triangle of Central America including

Guatemala, El Salvador and …

A Haven For Traffickers: How The United States Provides A Legal Safe Haven For Businesses That Rely On Forced Labor In The International Supply Chain, Ramona Lampley

Pepperdine Law Review

Congress enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (“TVPRA” or “Act”) in 2000, which, through its amendments, gives victims of human trafficking, including forced labor or slave labor, a private right of action against those who knowingly benefit from the abusive labor practices perpetrated on them. Even though slave labor, particularly child labor, is a perceived evil in the foreign supply chains of many domestic companies, courts appear uncomfortable with the some of the civil liability provisions of the TVPRA. This Article examines recent cases brought under the TVPRA, and how, in some cases, courts have eviscerated the private right of …

The Case For Second Chances: A Pathway To Decarceration In Maine, Catherine Besteman, Leo Hylton

Maine Law Review

The Article argues that Maine incarcerates too many people, for too long, for too many things, at too great of an expense. We offer evidence to support this claim, briefly review some of the criminal legal legislation that shaped our present reality, and show how recent efforts at reform have been, at best, only modestly successful. In concert with a growing number of expert voices across the country calling for strategies of decarceration, our goal is to demonstrate the need for second chance legislation in Maine in the form of the reinstatement of parole, an effective clemency process, a far-reaching …

Calming The Waters: The International Atomic Energy Agency As A Viable Model To Address Water Weaponization, Jenna Beasley

Emory International Law Review

No abstract provided.