Law Commons^™

The Declaration Of Independence, Constitution, And Slavery, Johnny B. Davis

Helm's School of Government Conference

The paper address the nature of the principles of the Declaration and the Declaration's relationship to the Constitution and how these related to slavery. The argument is that the Declaration did stand for universal equality of the individual before God and the law and therefore its principles condemned slavery. The Constitution did not embrace slavery even though it failed to ban slavery but did set the foundation for the end of slavery.

Judges 20:48, Dorien Porter

Helm's School of Government Conference

No abstract provided.

Jus Gentium, Natural Law, And Grotius’ Treatise: The Impact Of International Law’S Classical Heritage On Today’S Enforcement Dilemma, Faith Chudkowski

Helm's School of Government Conference

No abstract provided.

Opening Remarks, Danielle Kerker Goldstein, Mary Anne Bobinski, Samantha Harrell

Randolph W. Thrower Symposium

No abstract provided.

2022 Mlk Keynote Address: Eddie Glaude Jr. Pre-Event Presentation, Center For Social Equity & Inclusion, Eddie Glaude Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Series

One of the nation’s most prominent scholars, Eddie Glaude, Jr. is an author, political commentator, public intellectual and passionate educator who examines the complex dynamics of the American experience. His writings, including his most recent—the New York Times bestseller Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for our Own—take a wide look at Black communities, the difficulties of race in the United States and the challenges we face as a democracy.

In his writing and speaking, Glaude is an American critic in the tradition of James Baldwin and Ralph Waldo Emerson, confronting history and bringing our nation’s …

2022 Mlk Keynote Address: Eddie Glaude Jr. Presentation, Center For Social Equity & Inclusion, Eddie Glaude Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Series

One of the nation’s most prominent scholars, Eddie Glaude, Jr. is an author, political commentator, public intellectual and passionate educator who examines the complex dynamics of the American experience. His writings, including his most recent—the New York Times bestseller Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for our Own—take a wide look at Black communities, the difficulties of race in the United States and the challenges we face as a democracy.

In his writing and speaking, Glaude is an American critic in the tradition of James Baldwin and Ralph Waldo Emerson, confronting history and bringing our nation’s …

Never Again? The United Nations And Genocide: A Doomed Mission?, Maria Terrinoni

Capstone Showcase

Despite their commitment to international peace and security and to the concept of “never again,” the United Nations has failed to end the many genocides of the late 20th century. In this thesis, I use the genocides in Rwanda (1994) and in the Yugoslav Wars (1991-1999) as case studies to understand the UN’s response to genocide and to attempt to understand why the UN cannot effectively respond to and end genocide. I discover that issues such as the limitations of the Genocide Convention, the importance of state sovereignty, and overall institutional failures of the United Nation make any attempt to …

Corporate Accountability In Transitional Justice: Reflections On An Ongoing Social Lab (Roundtable), Tatiana Devia, Avery Kelly, Kaushik Sunder Rajan

Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This roundtable describes and reflects upon the Corporate Liability and Sustainable Peace (CLASP) Lab, a “social lab” convened to advance corporate accountability in post-conflict and transitional justice settings around the world. Launched in February 2021, the CLASP Lab is a virtual forum in three languages, bringing together more than 40 lawyers and community activists from 25 countries in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East to share experiences and devise strategies for holding corporations accountable for human rights violations, as part of processes of transitional justice.

The Shortcomings Of Corporate Accountability In Post-Conflict Colombia: Land, Rivers And Animals, Isabella Ariza Buitrago, Luisa Gomez Betancur

Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Although the notion of sustainable peace requires acknowledging the role played by all actors, transitional processes around the world have inadequately addressed or completely ignored the direct and indirect participation of economic actors. In particular, Colombia's transitional justice regime left out corporations entirely. A skillshare between Colombian lawyers and US-based human rights attorneys showed some of the gaps that let corporations continue in impunity for profiting, benefiting from, or directly financing the conflict. Other than harming and deeply fracturing communities, the shortcomings of corporate accountability in post-conflict Colombia also leave land, rivers, and animals without redress. This paper explores some …

Documenting Human Rights Violations: An Analysis Of Press Reporting On The Mexican Disappearance Crisis, Maria Terra, Yolanda Burckhardt

Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The global pandemic has transformed many structures, including the way in which human rights academics and practitioners carry out their work. This project is an example of human rights research using methods that can be applied remotely from any part of the world, and even replicated in other contexts or experiences.

The initiative is one of the projects from the Observatory on Disappearances and Impunity in Mexico led by Barbara Frey (University of Minnesota), Leigh Payne (Oxford University), and Karina Ansolabehere (UNAM-México), focused on the enforced disappearances crisis occurring in Mexico. The work included an extensive database created by coding …

Developing A Practice In Remote Sensing For Next-Generation Human Rights Researchers, Theresa Harris, Jonathan Drake, Umesh K. Haritashya, Wumi Asubiaro Dada, Fredy Cumes

Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Remote sensing is increasingly recognized as an important tool for documenting human rights abuses. When used alongside interviews, case studies, surveys, forensic science, and other well-established research methods in human rights and humanitarian practice, remotely sensed data can effectively geolocate and establish chronologies for mass graves, forced displacement, destruction of cultural heritage sites, and other violations. But as a highly technical field of science that relies on ever-changing technologies, remote sensing and geospatial analysis are not readily accessible for human rights and humanitarian practitioners. The community of practice grew out of innovative work by practitioners at NGOs and specialized inter-governmental …

Refugee Homes And The Right To Property: Sunk Costs And Networked Mobility, Jordan Hayes

Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

For refugees outside their state of origin, access to humanitarian protection can come at the cost of the right to own a home. Following Anneke Smit’s scholarship on the possible contradictions between humanitarian protection and property rights, this paper explores the case of refugee homes built in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) by Syrian asylum seekers. Interviews with Syrian refugees collected in Iraq from 2018-2019 reveal the paradoxical situation faced by refugees who invest time, expertise, memory, hope, and money in a house—yet do not own it. While non-citizens in the KRI rarely have the chance to secure legal …

A Strategic Vision For The Future [Online Conference], Adna Karamehic-Oates, Patrick Mccarthy

Center for Bosnian Studies

Conference welcome and program overview by Patrick McCarthy, Working Group for Bosnia and Herzegovina

10 am: Ending Genocide Denial & Glorification of War Criminals, David Pettigrew and Adna Karamehic-Oates

11 am: NATO Membership for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sean Turcalo and Azem Dervisevic

12-1 pm: Break

1-2 pm: Euro-Atlantic Integration and EU Membership for B&H, Adnan Cerimagic and Vildana Bijedic

2-3 pm: Election and Constitutional Reform, Almira Delibegovic-Broome and Mead Misic

All times are EST.

Coronavirus Communication: Interaction Of Church, State, And Constitution In The Pandemic Environment, Valeriia Manchak

Helm's School of Government Conference

This paper investigates the response to Covid-19 by examining the communication problem between the government and religious institutions. During the outbreak, some faith-based organizations used religion-abetted value judgments which affected viral spread (Whitehead and Perry 2020). Religious institutions can also inspire people to be supportive while the world endures hard times. (Wildman, Bulbulia and et al. 2020). This paper will explain where churches have contributed to the challenges of dealing with the COVID virus and provide recommendations for the better response (Wildman, Bulbulia and et al. 2020). This paper also discusses where the government violated constitutional rights and how to …

Pornography: Social, Emotional And Mental Implications Among Adolescents, William Kelly Canady

National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference

This presentation will explain the historical development of pornography. It will highlight four segments: 1- Porn’s impact on brain development of reward pathways, ultimately increasing the appetite for more porn. 2- Porn can be a false substitute for real intimacy, resulting in decreased sexual satisfaction with a real person and increased verbal and physical aggression. 3- Porn promotes sex trafficking, promotes multiple sex partners and reduced STD prevention. 4- A review of interventions available to assist clients in navigating a lifestyle away from pornography.

Rights Of Nature And Indigenous Cosmovision: A Fundamental Inquiry, Jingjing Wu

OSSA Conference Archive

In this paper, I ask whether we can weigh and balance indigenous cosmovision—the reasoning used as the main source of legitimacy in some rights of nature legislation—within a secular legal system. I examine three barriers that rights of nature and their corollary spiritual reasoning are likely to encounter if they are invoked in secular courts: (a) spiritual reasoning is non-defeasible (Part 3) and (b) irrational (Part 4), and (3) the current concept of human rights as a universal legal norm is based on a circular logic (Part 5). In order to overcome these barriers, I draw inspiration from Dworkin’s ‘rights …

2020 Mlk Keynote Address: Michelle Alexander Presentation, Center For Social Equity & Inclusion, Michelle Alexander, Rosanne Somerson, Matthew Shenoda

Martin Luther King, Jr. Series

2020 MLK Series Keynote Michelle Alexander brings audiences profoundly necessary and meaningful insights on the practice of mass incarceration that plagues the US justice system, as well as eye-opening conversation on how we can end racial caste in America. Lecture Wednesday, January 22, 2020 at 5:30pm, RISD Auditorium, 17 Canal Walk, Providence, RI.

In her acclaimed bestseller The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Alexander peels back the curtain on systemic racism in the US prison system in a work that the New York Review of Books describes as "striking in the intelligence of her …

Toward A Human Rights Impact Assessment Tool, Mona Younis

Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Human rights organizations are increasingly questioned about impact, which is particularly challenging for overextended and under-resourced groups that tackle complex issues requiring a long view to be achieved. They would greatly benefit from a manageable assessment tool to capture how well they are doing on key dimensions that are essential for that long-view impact. Building on my experience with the Ford Foundation’s Organizational Mapping Tool designed to assess organizational capacity, I propose to develop a tool to assess human rights impact.

The tool will enable any human rights organization to assess how it is doing in areas that are essential …

Ethics And Methods Of Human Rights Work: Exploring Both Theoretical And Practical Approaches, Shayna Plaut, Maritza Felices Luna, Christina Clark Kazak, Neil Bilotta, Lara Rosenoff Gauvin

Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This workshop will explore both theoretical and practical approaches to methodologies and ethics as it relates to human rights work.

The goal of the workshop is to create a dynamic space that encourages participants to share and learn from our own experiences navigating the messiness of human rights ethics and methods. We specifically address formal education and systems and structures so that we may all design, do and teach research and practice related to human rights in a more critical and sustainable manner. We recognize the tensions of creating research, programs and advocacy that is seen as “legitimate” to educational …

Rights In Small Places? Participation, Rights And Power In Northern Ireland, Nicola Browne

Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

That a disconnect exists between ordinary people and the world of human rights academia, NGOs and INGOs and the marginalised communities they are intended to serve is undisputed. As the years preceding and following the financial crash have been characterised by increased economic inequality and concentration of power and influence in the hands of a ever-shrinking coterie of elites, human rights as a tool of change have seemed increasingly legalistic, irrelevant and divorced from the people. A case study will be presented of Belfast based rights organisation (Participation and the Practice of Rights - PPR) set up to develop and …

Delinking The "Human" From Human Rights: Artificial Intelligence, Transhumanism And The Future Of Human Rights, A. Kayum Ahmed

Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Human rights discourses are deeply embedded in an epistemic anthropocentricism that centers the human in human rights. However, conceptions of what constitutes the human are being eroded through the development of artificial intelligence, bio-hacking and transhumanism, all of which, support the emergence of new kinds of humans.These emergent humans include the enhanced human who possesses abilities that compel us to reconsider the parameters of humanness, as well as computer systems that demonstrate characteristics thought of as uniquely human. The blurring of the divide between human and machine therefore compels us to reconsider our understanding of the human in human rights, …

Using A Human Rights Framework For Regulating The Internet Of Things: The Critical Role Of Human Rights Advocacy, Adam Todd

Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the billions of technical devices around the globe that connect to and communicate through the Internet. These devices collect, store and share vast amounts of valuable data. With the advent of 5G (fifth generation cellular network technology), IoT is expected to grow even more dramatically over the coming decade and likely to change our lives in ways we have yet to imagine.

IoT holds the promise of advancing human rights by facilitating the technology that can lead to a healthier, cleaner, and more sustainable environment, and greater access to education, better healthcare, capital, …

International Surrogacy Arrangements: A Human Rights Case, Marisa Araújo

Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The scientific development in Artificial Reproductive Technology (ART), especially IFV solutions, are promoting the development of our reproductive options. Surrogacy is now one of these solutions and new ethical and legal problems arise.

Domestic Laws have the most different positions. If there are countries that admit surrogacy arrangements, even commercial ones like the Florida State in the USA (and the particular case of India); others criminalize these procedures and others, like the UK (and Portugal), have a middle term position.

Considering the frontier zone in which surrogacy takes its place, the debate is more exuberant since the concrete legal solution …

Rehumanization Among Veterans Of The Yugoslav Wars: Rethinking Reconciliation And Post-Conflict Justice, Jordan N. Kiper

Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Rehumanization is a central element in powerful social movements after war. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork in the Balkans, I consider the convergence and divergence between notions of rehumanization found in human rights literature and the role of rehumanization among veterans in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia. Rehumanization plays a prominent role among these veterans because of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which has had varied social effects on Balkan communities. By supporting the ICTY, veteran associations have vetted themselves of potential war criminals, and thereby developed overlapping justice discourses that converge on the notion of reconciliation. There are …

Innovative Collaboration To Further Community Self-Determination, Matthew Currie, Amaha Sellassie

Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The built urban environment is the product of more than a century of policy decisions that have both intentionally discriminated and have had the effect of discriminating, against African Americas, immigrants, the work class, low income individuals and other undesirables. While more than fifty years have passed since the passage of civil rights legislation in the United States, individuals in today’s cities are living out our discriminatory legacy.

In Dayton, Ohio, a new movement has risen from the community to disrupt the legacy of de jure and de facto discrimination by the collaborative efforts of the impactive individuals, neighborhood leaders, …

Fiscal Citizenship: How Can Tax Efficiency And Isonomy Aid In The Promotion Of Economic Rights, Social Participation, Political Accountability, And Cultural Diversity?, Gustavo Voeroes Dénes

Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

According to the World Inequality Report 2018 (WID 2017), Brazil is one of the few countries that has not recently displayed an increase in income inequality, having instead sustained it on persistently very high levels, actually composing the world’s “inequality frontier”. While such levels of inequality may be partly attributed to poor distribution of property rights, human capital endowments, and specificity of labor relations, a significant part of it is undoubtedly due the national fiscal system’s reduced distributive capacity, compromised by one the worst taxation systems in the world. Occupying the 184th position out of 190 countries in the World …

How Can Human Rights Activism Help Tackle Economic Inequality? Lessons From Mining Affected Communities In South Africa, Allison Corkery

Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The dramatic rise in socioeconomic inequality produced by neoliberal globalisation has provoked a crisis of confidence in the human rights community and inspired a wave of debate about whether human rights have anything meaningful to offer in advancing economic justice. The pessimistic view argues human rights are inadequate for challenging socioeconomic inequality because they are too closely aligned to Western liberalism and too uncritical of the rise of capitalism. The more optimistic view does not dismiss these critiques entirely. It argues that they are only valid for particular (arguably dominant) types of human rights praxis, however. Failing to acknowledge this …

“Water Is A Human Right”: Exploring The Paradox Of Framing Water As A Human Right In A Hostile Political Climate, Sabrina Kozikis

Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Many communities across the United States experience challenges in accessing clean and affordable water. In response, civil society and grassroots organizations are using a human rights framework to advocate for safe and affordable services for all. This is a curious trend, given that the United States is a country in which human rights, specifically socio-economic rights, are not recognized as relevant for domestic policy and even met with hostility. This study explores this tension: why do civil society actors, grassroots organizers, and national level advocates in the United States use a human rights framework to advocate for access to clean …

Human Rights Litigation And Anti-Sodomy Laws In Kenya And Botswana, Andrew Novak

Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In May 2019, the Kenya High Court is expected to rule on Sections 162 and 165 of the penal code, which criminalize consensual sex between two adult men. Similarly, the Botswana High Court will rule on its equivalent penal code provisions, Sections 164 and 165, in June 2019. Regardless of the outcomes of these decisions, both will contribute to a global “judicial dialogue” on the constitutionality of anti-sodomy laws. In jurisdictions as diverse as Northern Ireland, Belize, Singapore, South Africa, the United States, and most recently India, courts around the world have considered whether anti-sodomy laws violate the rights to …

The Human Right To A Healthy Environment: Pushing The Boundaries In The Inter-American System, Sarah Dávila-Ruhaak

Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The connection between the environment and human rights is not a surprising one. The enjoyment of human rights depends on a person’s ability to live free from interference and to have his or her rights protected. The interdependence of human rights and the protection of the environment is manifested in the full and effective enjoyment of the rights to life, highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, adequate standard of living, adequate food, clean water and sanitation, housing, culture, freedom of expression and association, information and education, participation, effective remedies, and the rights of indigenous peoples. Without adequate access …