Law Commons^™

Current Patent Laws Cannot Claim The Backing Of Human Rights, Wendy J. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

In the dispute over the enforcement of pharmaceutical patents, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is sometimes cited as giving patent protection the status of a 'human right'. It is true that the ICESCR provides for ‘the right of everyone’ ‘[t]o benefit from the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author’. But that does not mean that patent protection is a human right. Patent fails as a human right for many reasons, one of which is the lack of fit between current patent …

Enhancing Enforcement Of Economic, Social And Cultural Rights Using Indicators: A Focus On The Right To Education In The Icescr, Sital Kalantry, Jocelyn E. Getgen, Steven Arrigg Koh

Faculty Scholarship

Nearly fifteen years ago, Audrey R. Chapman emphasized the importance of ascertaining violations of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) as a means to enhance its enforcement. Today, the violations approach is even more salient given the recent adoption of the ICESCR’s Optional Protocol, a powerful tool to hold States parties accountable for violations.

Indicators are essential tools for assessing violations of economic, social and cultural rights (ESCRs) because they are often the best way to measure progressive realization. Proposed guidelines on using indicators give guidance on the content of States parties reports to treaty monitoring …

Do Constitutions Make A Difference In The Protection Of Fundamental Human Rights? Comparing The United States And Israel, Susan M. Akram

Faculty Scholarship

This is a tale of two states: one with a constitution and one without. It is a tale that has no moral but ends with the question whether, from the perspective of fundamental human rights, a constitution makes a significant difference? The tale compares the United States of America, a country with a robust, well-entrenched federal Constitution that forms the fundamental compact of its society, with Israel, a country without a formal constitution, but with a set of ‘basic laws’, that operates with two distinct legal systems for the two national entities residing within its jurisdiction.

This chapter can only …

Human Rights And American Bioethics: Resistance Is Futile, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

The Borg are always confident that humans will be assimilated into their collective hive and therefore that, as they say, “resistance is futile.” In Star Trek, of course, the humans always successfully resist. Elizabeth Fenton and John Arras, like the Borg, resist the idea that humans are uniquely special as well as the utility of the human rights framework for global bioethics. I believe their resistance to human rights is futile, and I explain why in this essay. Let me begin with their subtitle, because we do seem to agree that popular culture is a powerful aid to understanding human …

Human Rights For Hedgehogs?: Global Value Pluralism, International Law, And Some Reservations Of The Fox, Robert D. Sloane

Faculty Scholarship

This essay, a contribution to the Boston University Law Review’s symposium on Ronald Dworkin’s forthcoming book, Justice for Hedgehogs, critiques the manuscript’s account of international human rights on five grounds. First, it is vague: it fails to offer much if any guidance relative to many of the most difficult concrete issues that arise in the field of international human rights law and policy - precisely the circumstances in which international lawyers might benefit from the guidance that moral foundations supposedly promise. It is also troubling, and puzzling given Dworkin’s well-known commitment to the right-answer thesis, that his account of human …