Law Commons^™

Mobilizing Universalism: The Origins Of Human Rights, Catherine Baylin Duryea

Faculty Publications

Human rights law claims to be universal, setting rights apart from paradigms based on shared religion, culture, or nationality. This claim of universality was a significant factor in the proliferation of human rights NGOs in the 1970s and remains an important source of legitimacy. The universality of human rights has been challenged and contested since they were first discussed at the United Nations (UN). Today, much of the debate centers around the origins of human rights-particularly whether they arose out of Western traditions or whether they have more global roots. For too long, discussions about universality have ignored the practice …

Human Rights Reporting As Human Rights Governance, Margaret E. Mcguiness

Faculty Publications

Contrary to the view that the rejection of human rights treaty membership has left the United States outside the formal international human rights system, the United States has played a key role in international human rights governance through congressionally mandated human rights monitoring and reporting. Since the mid-1970s, congressional oversight of human rights diplomacy, which requires reporting on global human rights practices, has integrated international human rights law and norms into the execution of U.S. foreign policy. While the congressional human rights mandates have drifted from their original purpose to condition allocation of foreign aid, they have effectively embedded international …

Coming To Terms: Using Contract Theory To Understand The Detroit Water Shutoffs, Marissa Jackson Sow

Faculty Publications

After the City of Detroit underwent financial takeover and filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history in 2013, the city’s emergency manager encouraged mass water shutoffs as a way of making the city’s water utility a more attractive asset for sale— and for privatization—by ridding the water department of its association with bad debt. The sale never took place, but the water shutoff, too, became the largest ever in American history, with over 141,000 homes subjected to water disconnections over a period of over six years. The governor of the State of Michigan ordered that the shutoffs be temporarily …

Human Rights Movements In The Middle East: Global Norms And Regional Particularities, Catherine Baylin Duryea

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The Middle East is often portrayed as an outlier when it comes to human rights, but rights are an important part of the political, diplomatic, and social fabric of the region. This chapter summarises regional trends in human rights advocacy at both the international and domestic levels. Popular movements for independence, equality for women, and protections for workers have deep roots in the region. When the United Nations began to enshrine these values into law after World War II, representatives from the Middle East were at the centre of the debates. In the following two decades, human rights largely …