Law Commons^™

How Is Access To Legal Resources And Advocacy Foundational To Health Justice?, Yael Zakai Cannon

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Health justice as a movement incorporates research about how to more effectively leverage law, policy, and institutions to dismantle inequitable power distributions and accompanying patterns of marginalization that are root causes of health inequity. Legal advocacy is key to health justice because it addresses patients’ health-harming legal needs in housing, public benefits, employment, education, immigration, domestic violence, and other areas of law. In medical-legal partnerships, lawyers and clinicians are uniquely positioned to jointly identify and remove legal barriers to patients’ health, advocate for structural reform, and build community power.

The Persistent Public Health Emergency, Yael Zakai Cannon

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

May 11, 2023 was ostensibly a day of celebration. With infections and deaths from COVID-19 down, the federal government announced the end of the official Public Health Emergency three years after its initial declaration. But the conclusion of the Public Health Emergency also signaled the termination of unprecedented health protection measures—outside the realm of healthcare—such as eviction and utility shutoff moratoria and emergency rental and utility assistance. These COVID-era measures successfully cut eviction filings nationally by more than half and provided people in many jurisdictions with the protections and assistance needed to maintain their electricity, heat, water, and gas. Now …

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 …

The Murder Of George Floyd: A Case Study Examining How The Policing Of Black Men And Grassroots Activism Influence The Will Of Black Women To Lead, Ella Gates-Mahmoud

Doctorate in Education

This study's objective investigates the viewpoints held by Black women in two urban areas of Minnesota about the social upheaval that followed the murder of George Floyd in 2020 for using a counterfeit $20 bill. In the last decade, police killings of innocent Black people in the United States have received more attention, and Floyd's death is only one example of this phenomenon. In the U.S., the likelihood of a police officer taking the life of a Black man is higher than that of a White man. Between 2013-2019 there have been 1,641 fatal shootings of defenseless Black men by …

Social Services And Mutual Aid In Times Of Covid-19 And Beyond: A Brief Critique, Dana Neacsu

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Social Services And Mutual Aid In Times Of Covid-19 And Beyond: A Brief Critique, Dana Neacsu

Law Faculty Publications

May 19, 2021, marked a crucial point in the United States’ fight against the COVID-19 pandemic: sixty percent of U.S. adults had been vaccinated. Since then, Americans have witnessed the beginning of the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, but its long-term effects are here to stay. Ironically, some are unexpectedly welcome. Among the lasting positive changes is an augmented sense of individual involvement in community well-being. This multifaceted phenomenon has given rise to #BLM allyship and heightened interest in mutual aid networks. In the legal realm, it has manifested with law students, their educators, lawyers, and the American Bar Association …

Between Hope And Critique: Human Rights, Social Justice And Re-Imagining International Law From The Bottom Up, Lorenzo Cotula

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

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 …

Book Review: Not Enough: Human Rights In An Unequal World, Harlan G. Cohen

Scholarly Works

Review of the book Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World. By Samuel Moyn. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press 2018. Pp. ix, 220. Index.

Trapped In The Shackles Of America's Criminal Justice System, Shristi Devu

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

Abstract forthcoming

The "Common Word," Development, And Human Rights: African And Catholic Perspectives, Joseph M. Isanga

Joseph Isanga

Africa is the most conflict-ridden region of the world and has been since the end of the Cold War. The Continent's performance in both development and human rights continues to lag behind other regions in the world. Such condi­tions can cause religious differences to escalate into conflict, particularly where religious polarity is susceptible to being exploited. The sheer scale of such con­flicts underscores the urgency and significance of interreligious engagement and dialogue: 'Quantitative and qualitative analysis based on a ... database including 28 violent conflicts show that religion plays a role more frequently than is usually assumed.' This ambivalent character …

Social Justice And The American Law School Today: Since We Are Made For Love, Michael J. Kaufman

Faculty Publications & Other Works

No abstract provided.

Complexity Analysis: A Preliminary Step Toward A General Systems Theory Of International Law, James L. Hildebrand

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Heredity In The Epigenetic Era: Are We Facing A Politics Of Reproductive Obligations?, Michael J. Crawford

Biological Sciences Publications

Recent research in the emerging field of epigenetics has implications with the potential to re-ignite acrimony in the discourse of reproductive rights, medical ethics, and the role of the state in our homes and in our lives. For scientists, epigenetics has profoundly realigned our understanding of heredity: epigenetics provides a mechanism through which the environmental challenges met in one generation can be inscribed and transmitted to future offspring. Although both genetic parents have the potential to transmit heritable epigenetic changes to their offspring, mothers have a particularly potent effect because nutrition in the uterine environment can exert a supplemental effect …

Bringing Human Rights Home: The Birmingham Mayor's Office Human Rights Dialogue, Human Rights Institute, Office Of The Mayor Of The City Birmingham

Human Rights Institute

Human rights begin close to home. Local governments have jurisdiction over a range of human rights issues, including those related to housing, education, employment, and criminal justice. Indeed, local agencies and officials are essential to the promotion and protection of human rights in the United States. They work every day to create conditions under which all communities can flourish. Mayors are particularly well-situated to advance human rights and build a culture of human rights based on dignity, freedom from discrimination, and opportunity.

Engaging U.N. Special Procedures To Advance Human Rights At Home: A Guide For U.S. Advocates, Human Rights Institute

Human Rights Institute

Social justice advocates in the United States are increasingly using the human rights mechanisms of the United Nations to advance their domestic advocacy on issues ranging from criminal justice to access to health care. These mechanisms offer unique opportunities for U.S. advocates to mobilize grassroots communities, raise public awareness, exert international pressure, and engage with local, state, and national government officials around local human rights concerns. The U.N. special procedures are among the more versatile of the U.N. human rights mechanisms.

This report explores ways in which U.S. advocates are making effective use of the U.N. special procedures. Based on …

Men And Boys And The Ethical Demand For Social Justice, Samuel Vincent Jones

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Denying Freedom Rather Than Securing The Country: National Security Is Undermined By Laws Governing Battered Immigrants, Eve Tilley-Coulson

Eve Tilley-Coulson

Relief for battered immigrants is not an obvious national security matter per se, yet remedies are enacted in conjunction with stringent interpretations of immigration law, as though victims pose a security threat. Discrepancies exist between the immigration laws themselves—which attempt to secure the United States from disease, violence, and illegal activity—and the loopholes found within remedies under these laws, unnecessarily removing victims and perpetuating a cycle of fear and abuse. This paper addresses how relief for battered immigrants, when implemented with the priority of protecting national security and immigration legislation, creates and perpetuates negative societal consequences. The economic and societal …

Agenda: Free, Prior And Informed Consent: Pathways For A New Millennium, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment, University Of Colorado Boulder. School Of Law. American Indian Law Program

Free, Prior and Informed Consent: Pathways for a New Millennium (November 1)

Presented by the University of Colorado's American Indian Law Program and the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy & the Environment.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), along with treaties, instruments, and decisions of international law, recognizes that indigenous peoples have the right to give "free, prior, and informed consent" to legislation and development affecting their lands, natural resources, and other interests, and to receive remedies for losses of property taken without such consent. With approximately 150 nations, including the United States, endorsing the UNDRIP, this requirement gives rise to emerging standards, obligations, and opportunities …

“Religious Freedom,” The Individual Mandate, And Gifts: On Why The Church Is Not A Bomb Shelter, Patrick Mckinley Brennan

Susan Rexford

The Health and Human Services' regulatory requirement that all but a narrow set of "religious" employers provide contraceptives to employees is an example of what Robert Post and Nancy Rosenblum refer to as a growing "congruence" between civil society's values and the state's legally enacted policy. Catholics and many others have resisted the HHS requirement on the ground that it violates "religious freedom." They ask (in the words of Cardinal Dolan) to be "left alone" by the state. But the argument to be "left alone" overlooks or suppresses the fact that the Catholic Church understands that it is its role …

Professional Ethics In Interdisciplinary Collaboratives: Zeal, Paternalism And Mandated Reporting, Alexis Anderson, Lynn Barenberg, Paul R. Tremblay

Paul R. Tremblay

In this Article, the authors, two clinical law teachers and a social worker teaching in the clinic, wrestle with some persistent questions that arise in cross-professional, interdisciplinary law practice. In the past decade much writing has praised the benefits of interdisciplinary legal practice, but many sympathetic skeptics have worried about the ethical implications of lawyers working with nonlawyers, such as social workers and mental health professionals. Those worries include the difference in advocacy stances between lawyers and other helping professionals, and the mandated reporting requirements that apply to helping professionals but usually not to lawyers. This Article addresses those concerns …

The Fifth Freedom: The Constitutional Duty To Provide Public Education, Areto Imoukhuede

Faculty Scholarship

“The fifth freedom is freedom from ignorance. It means that every[one], everywhere, should be free to develop his [or her] talents to their full potential – unhampered by arbitrary barriers of race or birth or income.” Lyndon B. Johnson This article argues that education is a fundamental human right that the U.S. Supreme Court has failed to recognize because of the Court’s bias towards negative, rather than positive rights. Viewed from the limited perspective of rights as liberties, the concern with declaring a fundamental right to education is that education legislation would be strictly scrutinized, thus causing the undesired result …

Using Human Rights Mechanisms Of The United Nations To Advance Economic Justice, Risa E. Kaufman, Joann Kamuf Ward

Human Rights Institute

As a growing number of social justice lawyers employ human rights standards and strategies to advocate for their clients. human rights mechanisms of the United Nations have become a promising way for lawyers to work toward economic justice. These mechanisms are not only an alternative to traditional litigation and administrative advocacy but also unique opportunities for collaboration among U.S. civil society groups and engagement with policymakers. Because they are grounded in international human 1ights norms. human rights mechanisms have the potential to deal with social and economic issues beyond the reach of traditional domestic protections. By strategically using these mechanisms. …

The Limited Case For Permitting Sme Procurement Preferences In The Wto Agreement On Government Procurement, John Linarelli

Scholarly Works

This is a chapter in the book, Sue Arrowsmith & Robert D. Anderson, The WTO Regime on Government Procurement: Challenge and Reform (Cambridge University Press, 2011). The chapter puts under scrutiny public procurement policies designed to benefit SMEs per se, as small or medium sized enterprises, and to evaluate whether the GPA (and hence possibly other trade agreements liberalizing procurement markets) should be more accommodating to these policies, even though these policies might restrict international trade. The chapter also evaluates whether the GPA should be more accommodating to policies designed to benefit firms controlled by individuals who belong to historically …

Necessary Fictions: Indigenous Claims And The Humanity Of Rights, Peter Fitzpatrick

Human Rights & Human Welfare

To begin, not propitiously. When checking whether my title ‘Necessary Fictions’ was being used elsewhere, Google revealed that it was going to be used in a future talk, and by me. It transpired mercifully that this use was going to be quite different to the present which suggested the prospect of a new academic genre: same title, different paper; rather than the standard combination of same paper, different title. Fortuitously, that contrast gave me the leitmotiv for this talk – that things ostensibly the same can be different, and that things ostensibly different can be the same.

© Peter Fitzpatrick. …

Linking International Markets And Global Justice, Jeffrey L. Dunoff

Michigan Law Review

The U.S. government is the planet's largest purchaser of goods and services; worldwide, states spend trillions of dollars on procurement each year. Yet legal scholarship has devoted relatively limited attention to the conceptual and normative issues that arise when states enter the market. Should states as purchasers be permitted to "discriminate" to advance social objectives - say, racial justice - in ways that would be unlawful when they act as regulators? Is each country free to strike its own balance between the pursuit of economic and social objectives through procurement, or do international trade norms limit state discretion in the …

Queer Lockdown: Coming To Terms With The Ongoing Criminalization Of Lgbtq Communities, Ann Cammett

Scholarly Works

The criminal justice system exacts a toll on some Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) communities. The experience of living in poverty and the concomitant exposure to a variety of governmental systems puts all poor, but especially LGBTQ low-income people of color, at risk of incarceration. What typically goes unexamined are the myriad ways that LGBTQ people are drawn into and experience the carceral system because of sexual identities and expression. This negative effect surfaces at every conceivable level: the marginalization and subsequent criminalization of queer youth; anti-gay bias in the judicial system; the rerouting of domestic violence cases …

Global Health Law: A Definition And Grand Challenges, Lawrence O. Gostin, Allyn L. Taylor

O'Neill Institute Papers

It has been only recently that scholars have engaged in a serious discussion of "public health law." This academic discourse examines the role of the state and civil society in health promotion and disease prevention within the country. There is an important emerging literature on the international dimensions of health, but no similar systematic definition and exposition of a field we call "global health law." In this article we aim to fill this gap by defining global health law and characterizing the grand challenges. Given the rapid and expanding globalization that is a defining feature of today's world, the need …

Global Health Law: Health In A Global Community, Lawrence O. Gostin

O'Neill Institute Papers

The examination of public health law traditionally focuses on constitutions, statutes, regulations, and common law at the national and sub-national level. However, the determinants of health (e.g., pathogens, air, food, water, even lifestyle choices) do not originate solely within national borders. Health threats inexorably spread to neighboring countries, regions, and even continents. Peoples’ lives are profoundly affected by commerce, politics, science, and technology from all over the world. Global integration and interdependence occur “as capital, traded goods, persons, concepts, images, ideas, and values diffuse across state boundaries.” It is for this reason that law and policy need to be transnational, …

Human Rights, Social Justice And State Law: A Manual For Creative Lawyering, Program On Human Rights And The Global Economy, National Economic And Social Rights Initiative (Nesri), Human Rights Institute

Human Rights Institute

This manual is written to help lawyers consider the role of transnational law as an interpretive tool in state constitutional and other state law litigation to protect economic and social rights.9 In Chapter I, the manual provides an overview of the relationship between state law and transnational law. In Chapter II, the manual covers key economic and social rights and provides examples of how courts have found those rights to be justiciable in a range of contexts. The principal economic and social rights discussed in Chapter II are:

• The right to health
• The right to housing
• The right to food …