Law Commons^™

Reparations For Slavery: A Productive Strategy?, Makau Wa Mutua

Contributions to Books

Published as Chapter 1 in Time for Reparations: A Global Perspective, Jacqueline Bhabha, Margareta Matache & Caroline Elkins, eds.

Putting “Human Rights” Back Into The U.N. Guiding Principles On Business And Human Rights: Shifting Frames And Embedding Participation Rights, Tara J. Melish

Contributions to Books

Published as Chapter 4 in Business and Human Rights: Beyond the End of the Beginning, Cesar Rodriguez-Garavito, ed.

The Transformative Influence Of International Law And Practice On The Death Penalty In The United States, Richard Wilson

Contributions to Books

No region of the world has been more vocal and persistent in its opposition to U.S. death penalty practice than Europe, which has itself become a death penalty-free zone. The chapter will examine the actions taken by European legislative and judicial bodies against U.S. practice of the death penalty, as well as those of the other regional treaty bodies, with particular attention to the Inter-American human rights system, in which the U.S. reluctantly participates. It then will examine U.S. interactions with its treaty partners in the area of extradition, where death penalty policy is acted out in the exchanges of …

Extraterritorial Application Of The Human Rights To Life And Personal Liberty, Including Habeas Corpus, During Situations Of Armed Conflict, Robert K. Goldman

Contributions to Books

Chapter 6 of Research Handbook on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law

In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, the US, with the assistance of its coalition partners – all parties to various human rights instruments – initiated the so-called ‘war on terror’ by invading Afghanistan, where their armed forces killed or captured hundreds of ‘terrorist suspects’. Some of those detained were taken to the US military facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, while others have languished in US custody in Afghanistan. These actions raise the question whether a State is bound by its human rights …

A Critique Of Rights In Transitional Justice: The African Experience, Makau Wa Mutua

Contributions to Books

Published in Rethinking Transitions: Equality and Social Justice in Societies Emerging from Conflict, Gaby Oré Aguilar & Felipe Gómez Isa, eds.

This chapter interrogates the concept and application of transitional justice as a medium for the reclamation of post-conflict states in Africa. While it argues that transitional justice is an important – often indispensable – process in reconstructing post-despotic and battered societies, it nevertheless casts a jaundiced eye at traditionalist human rights approaches. It contends that individualist, non-collective, or non-community, approaches to transitional justice have serious limitations. It posits that the Nuremberg model, on which the ICTR and ICTY were …

From Paradox To Subsidiarity: The United States And Human Rights Treaty Bodies, Tara J. Melish

Contributions to Books

Published as Chapter 8 in The Sword and the Scales: The United States and International Courts and Tribunals, Cesare P.R. Romano, ed.

It is frequently said that the United States has a paradoxical human rights policy. This Article takes a closer look at this vision from the perspective of U.S. engagement with international human rights treaty bodies, the quasi-adjudicatory expert committees or commissions that exercise supervisory jurisdiction over the U.S. human rights record. Contrary to popular perception that the U.S. thumbs its nose at these bodies, the U.S. in fact engages quite actively with their human rights procedures.

To untangle …

Human Rights Ngos In East Africa: Defining The Challenges, Makau Wa Mutua

Contributions to Books

Published as Chapter 1 in Human Rights NGOS in East Africa: Political and Normative Tensions, Makau Mutua, ed.

African Human Rights Organizations: Questions Of Context And Legitimacy, Makau Wa Mutua

Contributions to Books

Published as Chapter 13 in Human Rights, the Rule of Law, and Development in Africa, Gaby Oré Aguilar & Felipe Gómez Isa, eds.

The human rights movement is largely the product of the horrors of World War II. The development of its normative content and structure is the direct result of the abominations committed by the Third Reich during that war. Drawing on the Western liberal tradition, the human rights movement arose primarily to control and contain state action against the individual. It is ironic that it was the victors of the war, most of whom held colonies in Africa, …

Human Rights International Ngos: A Critical Evaluation, Makau Wa Mutua

Contributions to Books

Published as Chapter 7 in NGOs and Human Rights: Promise and Performance, Claude E. Welch, Jr., ed.

The Human rights movement can be seen in a variety of guises. It can be seen as a movement for international justice or as a cultural project for “civilizing savage” cultures. In this chapter, I discuss a part of that movement as a crusade for a political project. International nongovernmental human rights organizations (INGOs), the small and elite collection of human rights groups based in the most powerful cultural and political capitals of the West, have arguably been the most influential component of …

Gaps In Gender-Based Violence Jurisprudence Of International And Hybrid Criminal Courts: Can Human Rights Law Help, Susana Sacouto

Contributions to Books

Great progress has been made over the last two decades in the investigation and prosecution of sexual and gender-based violence, in particular by the ad-hoc International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR). Yet the practice and jurisprudence of these tribunals makes clear that significant challenges remain, including inconsistency in how to understand – and therefore how to prove and adequately link to higher level perpetrators – crimes of sexual violence committed in the context of conflict, mass violence or repression. This chapter examines these challenges and explores whether human rights law, particularly the requirement that access …