Law Commons^™

The Us On The Palestinian Statehood Bid: Weighing The Costs, Thomas Pegram

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Reflecting on the controversy surrounding the Palestinian bid for statehood, Richard Falk neatly subverts the opening words of the UN Charter, “we the people,” as having always surrendered to “we the governments,” and, in the modern era of American empire, “we the hegemon.”

This may well be true. The UN Security Council (UNSC), in particular, is viewed in Washington as a vehicle for hegemonic ambitions—to be indulged when it serves its purpose and vetoed and sidelined when it does not. Unfolding events at the UNSC, reportedly due to vote on the Palestinian resolution on November 11 but now postponed perhaps …

Holding My Breath: The Experience Of Being Sikh After 9/11, Muninder Kaur Ahluwalia

Department of Counseling Scholarship and Creative Works

This article is based on the author’s experiences after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City and the impact of the attacks on her life as a New Yorker, an academic, and a member of a Sikh family and community. To position the author’s narrative, her reflection integrates race-based traumatic stress (Carter, 2007), a model suggesting that individuals who are targets of racism experience harm or injury. The author outlines lessons learned that affect her both personally and professionally, including (a) Paralysis can happen but advocacy and allies are healing, (b) Trauma changes the work, and (c) …

European Union Accession To The European Convention On Human Rights: An Institutional “Marriage”, Konstantinos G. Margaritis

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A possible accession of European Union (hereinafter: EU/the Union) to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR/the Convention) has been discussed in legal society for more than thirty years. The topic had widely opened after the 1979 Commission Memorandum where the major pros and cons were underlined and practical problems were addressed. This discussion led to an official request to the European Court of Justice (ECJ/the Court) in relation to the legality of such accession; the outcome was included in opinion 2/94 that found such accession incompatible with the European Community (EC/the Community) Treaty.

© Konstantinos G. Margaritis. All rights …

Foucault And American Foreign Policy During 2001 Bush Era, Kyle S. Herman

Dr. Kyle S. Herman

In this paper I discuss the theory of power structures written by Michel Foucault in “Docile Bodies: Discipline”1 and relate this to George Bush’s Foreign policy agenda (roughly around 2001) in accordance with the Cheney Report described by Michael Klare in his book “Blood and Oil.”

Steven M. Schneebaum On The Death Penalty And Human Rights. By Sir Fred Phillips. Q.C. Kingston, Jamaica: Caribbean Law Publishing Company. 2009. 101pp., Steven M. Schneebaum

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Death Penalty and Human Rights. By Sir Fred Phillips. Q.C. Kingston, Jamaica: Caribbean Law Publishing Company. 2009. 101pp.

January Roundtable: The Haiti Earthquake, One Year Later, Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“Haiti's Blame Game” by Poooja Bhatia. Foreign Policy. November 23 2010.

Central And Eastern Europe: Europeanization And Westernization Through Accession Conditionality, Michael K. Marriott

Michael K Marriott

With 27 member states, the EU is not a body in and of itself, but rather is a central authority constituted of its member states. In order to create a reasonable level of coherence within the Union, the national politics of each member state must undergo a process of Europeanization so as to find a common ground for the members to work together. This leads to the logical question: ‘to what extent are national politics Europeanized?’ Although important to consider, this question is overly broad for the purposes of this paper. A more appropriate question, one that exists within the …

Innovation Cooperation: Energy Biosciences And Law, Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

This Article analyzes the development and dissemination of environmentally sound technologies that can address climate change. Climate change poses catastrophic health and security risks on a global scale. Universities, individual innovators, private firms, civil society, governments, and the United Nations can unite in the common goal to address climate change. This Article recommends means by which legal, scientific, engineering, and a host of other public and private actors can bring environmentally sound innovation into widespread use to achieve sustainable development. In particular, universities can facilitate this collaboration by fostering global innovation and diffusion networks.

Cancun Climate Negotiations, Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

The United Nations Climate Change Conference, held from November 29 to December 11, 2010, in Cancún, Mexico, relaunched the United Nation's multilateral facilitation role.

Tribes As Essential Partners In Achieving Sustainable Governance, Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Indigenous peoples have modeled sustainable development around the world. Incentivizing the innovation and instillation of wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources can come in the form of public funding, including renewable portfolio standards, feed in tariffs and green tag programs. This article analyzes ways in which tribal communities are helping to expand cooperative good governance.

Vincent Druliolle On Unearthing Franco's Legacy: Mass Graves And The Recovery Of Historical Memory In Spain. Edited By Carlos Jerez-Farrán And Samuel Amago. Notre Dame, In: University Of Notre Dame Press, 2010. 410pp., Vincent Druliolle

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Unearthing Franco's Legacy: Mass Graves and the Recovery of Historical Memory in Spain. Edited by Carlos Jerez-Farrán and Samuel Amago. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010. 410pp.

Lost In Translation: Linguistic Minorities In The European Union, Nirvana Bhatia

Human Rights & Human Welfare

“A nation without a language is a nation without a soul,” declares a Gaelic proverb. Indubitably, language is a product of national identity; it preserves heritage, reflects societal beliefs and values, and expresses a cultural spirit. The current international human rights regime, however, does not recognize an individual’s right to language choice; instead, it promises freedom from linguistic discrimination. The implications are not quite the same and, as a result, states have successfully repressed minority populations by controlling their language options. The European Union in particular—with its panoply of languages—demonstrates an inconsistent approach toward linguistic minorities; it attempts to promote …

The Perils Of Walking Fast And Walking Far, Walter Lotze

Human Rights & Human Welfare

When Haitian President René Préval early in January 2011 lambasted the international community for riding roughshod over his country’s sovereignty and his government, and called for greater Haitian ownership over the aid and recovery effort in his country, he highlighted a frustration which has been noted by so many other nations before: while international aid efforts are welcome and usually do provide critical relief to the targeted populations in the short term, they generally tend to undermine governments (and the faith of the people in their government) over the long term.

The Scourge Of Occupation, Christina Cerna

Human Rights & Human Welfare

“Haiti’s Blame Game” suggests that Haitians are wondering why they should bother voting when it is unclear that their government is running the country. The anger of the Haitians, according to the author, is focused on MINUSTAH, the UN mission that was created in 2004 to stabilize Haiti and to coordinate the work of the different UN agencies active in the country.¹ Some Haitians perceive MINUSTAH to be an occupying force, but is it really, and who is running the country?

Earthquakes And Expectations In Haiti And Chile, Robert Funk

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Although 2010 was a bicentenary year for many countries in Latin America, that the year was a memorable one for Chileans is due less to celebrations of independence than to two disasters— one natural and one man-made—and to the country’s response to them. The usual year-end retrospectives tended to emphasize the February 27 earthquake and the accident and rescue at the San José mine much more than the light shows and other forgettable pyrotechnics of the bicentenary. But as with the bicentenary, both the earthquake and the San José disaster enabled the authorities and the average Chilean to indulge in …

Paul Timmermans On Invisible War: The United States And The Iraq Sanctions. By Joy Gordon. Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University Press, 2010. 359 Pp., Paul Timmermans

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions. By Joy Gordon. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010. 359 pp.

Combating Discrimination Against The Roma In Europe: Why Current Strategies Aren’T Working And What Can Be Done, Erica Rosenfield

Human Rights & Human Welfare

In the summer of 2010, the forced expulsion of many Roma from Western to Eastern Europe captured headlines and world attention, yet this practice simply represented the latest manifestation of anti-Roma sentiment in Europe. Indeed, the Roma—numbering over ten million across Europe, making them the continent’s largest minority—face discrimination in housing, education, healthcare, employment, and law enforcement; widespread prejudice against this group shows no evidence of receding. There is, however, certainly no shortage of national and supranational policies aiming to promote inclusion and equality for the Roma.

Bring Back Aristide, Louis Edgar Esparza

Human Rights & Human Welfare

My friend Annie recently had her trip to Haiti postponed because of the political instability surrounding the November elections. Annie totes modest sums of cash, medicine, and clothing collected from sympathetic friends and has a resolute willingness to help. Together with the partner organizations she is working with, she is hiring Haitians to build an orphanage. Another colleague of mine, Tonya, traveled to the country very soon after the earthquake. She described her experience in The Nation, lamenting that the major US airlines, which had agreed to waive baggage fees for relief aid to Haiti, did not do so for …

Hastening The Wheels Of Change: International Cold War Pressure And Civil Rights Reform During The Truman Presidency, Caley A. Robertson

Honors Theses

In the early Cold War arena, international pressure on the United States to live according to its ideological rhetoric enabled the Truman Administration to set a precedent for federal engagement in domestic civil rights reform. As the United States led the march to institutionalise human rights as the standard of moral legitimacy in the global arena, the country’s grisly record of racial oppression and violence invited foreign and domestic criticism alike. This paper intends to prove five discrete points. First: Cold War tensions brought questions of moral legitimacy to the forefront of the U.S. national agenda. Second: during the Truman …

Don’T’ Know Much About History: Constitutional Text, Practice, And Presidential Power, David A. Schultz

David A Schultz

Assertions of presidential supremacy and power in affairs often invoke history, including events during the administration of George Washington, to defend their assertions. This article raises some questions regarding what we can learn from history for constitutional argument. It concedes generally that historical facts can support or buttress constitution argument, but more specifically it contends that acts undertaken by George Washington are problematic assertions for presidential power, especially those that assert “supremacist” or broad if not exclusive claims for presidential foreign policy authority. To do that, this article first describes how history is employed as constitutional argument for presidential power. …

The Ghost In The Global War On Terror: Critical Perspectives And Dangerous Implications For National Security And The Law, Nick J. Sciullo

Nick J. Sciullo

In this Article, I set out to discuss the dangerous implications of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) and, more generally, the at- tempts of the United States government to address notions of terror- ism and its effect on the safety of the United States and world citizens. I am primarily concerned with engaging a poststructuralist critique of the GWOT to strengthen legal discussions of terrorism and national security policy. While many in the legal academy have focused on particular issues relating to terrorism, I will engage in a macro-level analysis of the way the legal academy conceptualizes terrorism—not how …