Law Commons^™

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 …

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

Biennial 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 …

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

Biennial 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 …

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

Biennial 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, …

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

Biennial 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 …

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

Biennial 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 …

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

Biennial 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 …

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

Biennial 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 …

Human Rights, Environmental Justice, Social Justice, Faith Values And Ethics: Building Stronger Partnerships For The Common Good By Understanding The Differences, Theresa Harris, Leanne M. Jablonski, Sarah Fortner, Malcolm Daniels

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Partnerships between human rights practitioners, local communities, scientists, engineers, and health professionals have shown potential to address deeply rooted, systemic human rights concerns. These collaborations are essential for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and for engaging the perspectives and expertise of all constituents. However, even when the individuals in these partnerships or the organizations they represent have common goals, their motivations, analyses, and solutions often come from different perspectives. Members of good will can inadvertently alienate one another when attempting to work together. The fields of human rights, social justice, environmental justice, and ethics have each developed their …

Decolonizing Human Rights: Sovereignty. Disruption. Tactics., A. Kayum Ahmed

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Despite its emancipatory potential, human rights remains locked in a form of epistemic coloniality that defers to Euro-American knowledge and reinforces anthropocentric exceptionalism. In order to employ human rights as a source of emancipation, human rights must itself be emancipated—it must be decolonized. Drawing on the notion of 'decoloniality' as a framework that advances radical possibilities by delinking from structural racism, patriarchy and class embedded in capitalism and Western modernity, a typology of human rights as sovereignty, disruption, and tactics is developed as a way of understanding human rights from the position of the colonized.

Human Rights And Disability, Lowell Ewert

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In every context where racism, poverty, inequality, religious intolerance, or any other form of exploitation is present, persons with disabilities within the category experiencing discrimination are almost always worse off than their non-disabled peers. In this way, disability has the practical impact of magnifying discrimination and multiplying harmful practices. There is even evidence in some places that persons with disabilities have been deliberately targeted with violence. Additionally, sexual violence against disabled women and girls can be especially cruel.

Efforts to combat discriminatory practices that are primarily focused on addressing the concerns of the able-bodied often further exacerbate the general indifference …

Interrogating Rights: How The United States Is Not Complying With The Racial Equality Treaty, Malia Lee Womack

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In 1994, the United States ratified the United Nations’ core anti-racism treaty, ICERD. Although it has been more than two decades since the United States became a member to the multilateral agreement, a wide range of scholarship determines that the nation is not in compliance with the treaty. Little of this research focuses on gender. This paper intervenes with the research by conducting a gendered analysis, with a focus on African American women, of key areas where the US is not meeting its duties to the multilateral agreement.

This manuscript proves that, first, the United States does not comply with …

Child Brides, Brydon Koch, Alexis Steffanni, Carly Catalanello, Michelle Gamberdella

The Research and Scholarship Symposium (2013-2019)

The goal of this presentation is to take a look into the human rights violation of child marriage happening in countries all over the world. For the purpose of this presentation, we will focus on four countries where child marriages are extremely prevalent: India, Niger, Bangladesh, and Yemen. First, we will begin with a brief history and background of child brides and statistics related to this population. Second, we will discuss the four countries (as stated above) where this is a major problem, and why the rates of child brides are especially high within each country. Third, we will consider …