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Full-Text Articles in Law

Standing And Collective Cultural Rights, Ana Filipa Vrdoljak Jan 2016

Standing And Collective Cultural Rights, Ana Filipa Vrdoljak

Ana Filipa Vrdoljak

The procedural question of standing has deep implications for the definition and enforcement of cultural rights. Cultural rights have individual and collective elements that can lead to several entities seeking access to justice when these rights are violated. This chapter focuses on the question of standing to explore the contours of existing cultural human rights and possible reparations flowing from their violation. It considers claims by (1) an individual member of the group who has been wronged because of their membership of the group; (2) a collective action brought by the group; and (3) a representative action on behalf of …


Indigenous Peoples, Intangible Cultural Heritage And Participation In The United Nations, Ana Filipa Vrdoljak Jan 2016

Indigenous Peoples, Intangible Cultural Heritage And Participation In The United Nations, Ana Filipa Vrdoljak

Ana Filipa Vrdoljak

This chapter concentrates on the participation of indigenous peoples in multilateral initiatives to protect cultural heritage, with specific reference to intangible heritage. While an international instrument for the protection of intangible heritage was adopted over a decade ago, the importance of intangible heritage for indigenous peoples is evident in their work in various UN fora. I examine indigenous peoples’ interventions before UNESCO and bodies established to implement the Convention on the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage; within WIPO in respect of ongoing moves to adopt specialist instruments on traditional knowledge and cultural expressions; and finally, within UNEP and the implementation …


Gandhi’S Prophecy: Corporate Violence And A Mindful Law For Bhopal, Nehal A. Patel Dec 2015

Gandhi’S Prophecy: Corporate Violence And A Mindful Law For Bhopal, Nehal A. Patel

Nehal A. Patel

AbstractOver thirty years have passed since the Bhopal chemical disaster began,and in that time scholars of corporate social responsibility (CSR) havediscussed and debated several frameworks for improving corporate responseto social and environmental problems. However, CSR discourse rarelydelves into the fundamental architecture of legal thought that oftenbuttresses corporate dominance in the global economy. Moreover, CSRdiscourse does little to challenge the ontological and epistemologicalassumptions that form the foundation for modern economics and the role ofcorporations in the world.I explore methods of transforming CSR by employing the thought ofMohandas Gandhi. I pay particular attention to Gandhi’s critique ofindustrialization and principle of swadeshi (self-sufficiency) …


Guidelines For Physician-Assisted Suicide, Raphael Cohen-Almagor Oct 2015

Guidelines For Physician-Assisted Suicide, Raphael Cohen-Almagor

raphael cohen-almagor

This paper proposes a set of guidelines for physician-assisted suicide (PAS). This set of guidelines integrates pertinent guidelines that were adopted in Oregon, where physician-assisted suicide is legal, in the Netherlands and Belgium where euthanasia is legal, in Switzerland where assisted suicide is practiced, and in the Northern Territory of Australia, where physician-assisted suicide was legal for a short period of time.


Guidelines For Physician-Assisted Suicide, Raphael Cohen-Almagor Oct 2015

Guidelines For Physician-Assisted Suicide, Raphael Cohen-Almagor

raphael cohen-almagor

This paper proposes a set of guidelines for physician-assisted suicide (PAS). This set of guidelines integrates pertinent guidelines that were adopted in Oregon, where physician-assisted suicide is legal, in the Netherlands and Belgium where euthanasia is legal, in Switzerland where assisted suicide is practiced, and in the Northern Territory of Australia, where physician-assisted suicide was legal for a short period of time.


Climate Change And Human Rights: Intellectual Property Challenges And Opportunities, Alexandra Phelan Sep 2015

Climate Change And Human Rights: Intellectual Property Challenges And Opportunities, Alexandra Phelan

Matthew Rimmer

Mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change will require innovation and the development of new technologies. Intellectual property laws have a key part to play in the global transfer of climate technologies. However, failures to properly utilize flexibilities in intellectual property regimes or comply with technology transfer obligations under international climate change agreements calls for a human rights based analysis of climate technology transfer. Climate change is an unprecedented challenge and requires unprecedented strategies. Given the substantial impact of climate change on all of humanity and the ethical imperative to act, a complete rethink of traditional intellectual property …


A Child’S Right To A Family Versus A State’S Discretion To Institutionalize The Child, Richard R. Carlson Aug 2015

A Child’S Right To A Family Versus A State’S Discretion To Institutionalize The Child, Richard R. Carlson

Richard R Carlson

International law, represented particularly by the U.N. Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC), declares that a child has the right to be raised in a "family environment." Nevertheless, the CRC grants states the discretion to institutionalize children who are without functioning families. States have this discretion because the CRC does not require states to arrange, facilitate, or even allow for child placement in a permanent, substitute family. In this article, I describe this contradiction in international law--a child's right a family environment versus the state's discretion to institutionalize the child--and I explore the possible reasons for the contradiction. …


Latest Surveys And Polls On Bascule Of Religion And Belief In Both The United Kingdom And Iran, Mohamad Ali Ali Yousefkhani Mr May 2015

Latest Surveys And Polls On Bascule Of Religion And Belief In Both The United Kingdom And Iran, Mohamad Ali Ali Yousefkhani Mr

Mohamad Ali Ali Yousefkhani

Numerous surveys indicate that the proportion of individuals who do not hold religious beliefs is steadily increasing. Religions and beliefs are notoriously difficult to measure, as they are not fixed or innate, and therefore any poll should be primarily treated as an indication of beliefs rather than a concrete measure. However, one of the foremost respected measures of religious attitudes is the annual British Social Attitudes Survey, further details of the latest report may be found on NatCen’s website


“Ya Me Canse”: How The Iguala Mass Kidnapping Demonstrates Mexico’S Continued Failure To Adhere To Its International Human Rights Obligations, Justin A. Behravesh Mar 2015

“Ya Me Canse”: How The Iguala Mass Kidnapping Demonstrates Mexico’S Continued Failure To Adhere To Its International Human Rights Obligations, Justin A. Behravesh

Justin A. Behravesh

This article addresses the recent kidnapping and disappearance of forty-three college students from Iguala, Mexico (the “Iguala Mass Kidnapping”), under the lens of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (the “Convention”). While Mexico’s reporting documents on its compliance with the Convention paint a positive picture of how that country is adhering to Convention, any notion that the country was in compliance with the Convention was completely shattered through the Iguala Mass Kidnapping. The article concludes that the actions of state officials during the Iguala Mass Kidnapping violated articles one, six, and twenty-three of the …


No Sovereign Immunity Under Fsia For Human Rights Violations: A Proposal To Strengthen The System Of Human Rights Protection, Omar E. Garcia-Bolivar Mar 2015

No Sovereign Immunity Under Fsia For Human Rights Violations: A Proposal To Strengthen The System Of Human Rights Protection, Omar E. Garcia-Bolivar

Omar E Garcia-Bolivar

A proposal to reform the U.S. Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act to include an exception referred to human rights violations


Surrogacy As The Sale Of Children: Applying Lessons Learned From Adoption To The Regulation Of The Surrogacy Industry's Global Marketing Of Children, David M. Smolin Jan 2015

Surrogacy As The Sale Of Children: Applying Lessons Learned From Adoption To The Regulation Of The Surrogacy Industry's Global Marketing Of Children, David M. Smolin

David M. Smolin

This article will argue that most surrogacy arrangements as currently practiced do constitute the “sale of children” under international law, and hence should not be legally legitimated. Hence, maintaining the core legal norm against the sale of children requires rejecting currently constituted claims of a right to procreate through surrogacy. Given the underlying purpose of all human rights law in maintaining the inherent human dignity of all human beings, a claimed legal right built upon the sale of human beings must be rejected.


Finogenov C. Rusia: Agentes Químicos Incapacitantes Y El Derecho A La Vida, Lucas Arteaga Dec 2014

Finogenov C. Rusia: Agentes Químicos Incapacitantes Y El Derecho A La Vida, Lucas Arteaga

Lucas Arteaga Gatica

the article analyzes the recent judgment of the European Court of Human Rights relative to the hostage crisis on a Moscow theatre and the Russian authorities actions. Finogenov v. Russia (2012) deals, for the first time before an international tribunal, with the use of incapacitating chemical agents. This judgment did not condemn Russia for using such weapons but for its actions after the gas was released. The author’s pretensions are to expose a critical view on the basis of Human Rights and the Chemical Weapons Convention that will lead to conclude that the use of incapacitating chemical weapons, on the …


The Necessity Of A Human Rights Accountabilty For The United Nations, Gerhard Niedrist Jul 2014

The Necessity Of A Human Rights Accountabilty For The United Nations, Gerhard Niedrist

Gerhard Niedrist

The United Nations is an exceptional organization that covers nearly all states of the world. The UN has not only contributed greatly to the maintenance of international peace and security, but also has contributed significantly to the development of the present international human rights regime. With the end of the Cold War and the new geopolitical order in the early nineties, the concept of peace maintenance changed more and more to active peace-enforcement. UN operations gradually turned into “peace-making” operations, like those in Yugoslavia and Rwanda. This new type of peacemaking also led to new tasks for the UN, which …


Reconciling Liberalism And Judaism? Human Rights In Israel, Raphael Cohen-Almagor Jun 2014

Reconciling Liberalism And Judaism? Human Rights In Israel, Raphael Cohen-Almagor

raphael cohen-almagor

This essay argues that mixing religion in politics is problematic. It becomes destructive when the religion is unyielding and coercive. Whenever religious powers are on the rise, the foundations of liberal democracy are shaken and its protective mechanisms are regressing. Indeed, in Israel egalitarianism is still in the making. Orthodox Judaism and liberal democracy are in conflict. The rise of one comes at the expense of the other in a situation where religion does not encompass the concept of freedom from religion. This essay further argues that Palestinians and Israelis are entitled to the same rights and liberties. Accommodations and …


Denying Freedom Rather Than Securing The Country: National Security Is Undermined By Laws Governing Battered Immigrants, Eve Tilley-Coulson Jan 2014

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 within remedies under these laws, unnecessarily removing victims and perpetuating a cycle of fear and abuse. By displacing the victim, rather than the abuser, the government allows the cycle of violence to continue, while simultaneously breaking up families and creating disorder and instability. The economic and societal …


Os Direitos Humanos E A Responsabilidade Do Credor Internacional, Douglas Antônio Rocha Pinheiro Jan 2014

Os Direitos Humanos E A Responsabilidade Do Credor Internacional, Douglas Antônio Rocha Pinheiro

Douglas Antônio Rocha Pinheiro

Based on the modern concept of odious debt and the loan policy of the World Bank, this article intends to point out the viability of requiring respect for human rights as an essential condition for the international lending.


Constitutional Islamization And Human Rights: The Surprising Origin And Spread Of Islamic Supremacy In Constitutions, Tom Ginsburg Jan 2014

Constitutional Islamization And Human Rights: The Surprising Origin And Spread Of Islamic Supremacy In Constitutions, Tom Ginsburg

Tom Ginsburg

No abstract provided.


Human Rights Conventions And Reservations: An Examination Of A Critical Deficit In The Cedaw, Michael Buenger Jan 2014

Human Rights Conventions And Reservations: An Examination Of A Critical Deficit In The Cedaw, Michael Buenger

Michael Buenger

Human rights agreements like CEDAW contain language that seeks to inspire and establish the legal boundaries of state action with regards to protected rights. Such agreements also contain reservation provisions that enable states to join an agreement and simultaneously exempt themselves from the very substantive goals the agreement seeks to achieve. In the past, the issue of reservation compatibility has been treated as political questions under an objection process. Establishing a mechanism for testing reservation compatibility before the ICJ is a better means of ensuring that states do not nonchalantly exempt themselves from human rights obligations through reservations.


International Cooperation Over Water Use In Central Asia, Jaume Saura Estapà Nov 2013

International Cooperation Over Water Use In Central Asia, Jaume Saura Estapà

Jaume Saura Estapà

The aim of this paper is to analyse one of the key factors for understanding the region ofCentral Asia: its distinctive relationship to water resources. The first section examines the management of water resources in the region from the viewpoint of the obligation of cooperation established in general international law. Then, we explore the implications of water management in terms of the rights of citizens, regional cooperation in the management, conservation and sustainable development of the inland fisheries of Central Asia, and cooperation in the generation and distribution of hydroelectric power in the region.


Intentional Parenthood: A Solution To The Plight Of Same-Sex Partners Striving For Legal Recognition As Parents, Yehezkel Margalit Nov 2013

Intentional Parenthood: A Solution To The Plight Of Same-Sex Partners Striving For Legal Recognition As Parents, Yehezkel Margalit

Hezi Margalit

One significant ramification of the plight of same-sex partners attempting to receive legal recognition of their non-“traditional” family structure is their inability to be recognized as the legal and/or additional parent of a non-biologically related child either by adoption or following fertility treatments. It is a fact that gay partners are not legally recognized as married, therefore they are not granted the same legal recognition as their heterosexual peers. In this research, I will explore the main approaches available today to same-sex partners to acquire legal parentage and their inherent difficulties. I will suggest a way to circumvent those difficulties …


Foreign Investment-Induced Migration In Colombia: Rethinking The Legal Schemes Of Protection And Accountability, Marco A. Velásquez-Ruiz Jun 2013

Foreign Investment-Induced Migration In Colombia: Rethinking The Legal Schemes Of Protection And Accountability, Marco A. Velásquez-Ruiz

Marco A. Velásquez-Ruiz

This paper intends to explore the relation between foreign investment and forced Migration in the context of Colombian armed conflict. Through the illustration of recent cases, it shows the various forms in which the operation of multinational corporations has generated adverse effects to the vulnerable communities located at their area of influence, thus generating processes of involuntary human mobility. In that way, it is established that there is a symbiotic relation between conflict and development, affecting the structure and scope of the norms for both the protection of forced migrants and accountability for human rights violations. This is so because …


Indigenus Peoples' Rights At The Intersection Of Human Rights And Intellectual Property Rights, Chidi Oguamanam Feb 2013

Indigenus Peoples' Rights At The Intersection Of Human Rights And Intellectual Property Rights, Chidi Oguamanam

Chidi Oguamanam

Exploration of the interface between human rights (HRs) and intellectual property rights (IPRs) is a venture still at a gestational stage. One of the major challenges of that initiative is how to map indigenous peoples’ rights into the discourse. Indigenous peoples’ rights pose significant challenges to both HRs and IPRs jurisprudence. Not only is there a clarity gap over indigenous peoples’ rights in the international bill of rights. Indigenous people’s rights are analogous misfits to any head of conventional HRs as well as conventional IPRs. Overall, indigenous people’s rights are a source of irritation to both HRs and IPRs. The …


Concerning Summary Repatriations Of Sex-Trafficking Victims Out Of Cambodia Part Ii (Law And Steps For Repatriation), Patrick M. Talbot Jan 2013

Concerning Summary Repatriations Of Sex-Trafficking Victims Out Of Cambodia Part Ii (Law And Steps For Repatriation), Patrick M. Talbot

Patrick M Talbot

No abstract provided.


Super-Intermediaries, Code, Human Rights, Ira Nathenson Jan 2013

Super-Intermediaries, Code, Human Rights, Ira Nathenson

Ira Steven Nathenson

We live in an age of intermediated network communications. Although the internet includes many intermediaries, some stand heads and shoulders above the rest. This article examines some of the responsibilities of “Super-Intermediaries” such as YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, intermediaries that have tremendous power over their users’ human rights. After considering the controversy arising from the incendiary YouTube video Innocence of Muslims, the article suggests that Super-Intermediaries face a difficult and likely impossible mission of fully servicing the broad tapestry of human rights contained in the International Bill of Human Rights. The article further considers how intermediary content-control procedures focus too …


Intellectual Property, Ag-Biotech And The Right To Adequate Food: A Critical African Perspective, Chidi Oguamanam Jan 2013

Intellectual Property, Ag-Biotech And The Right To Adequate Food: A Critical African Perspective, Chidi Oguamanam

Chidi Oguamanam

Recent transformations in agricultural innovations have resulted in the consolidation of intellectual property rights in the agricultural arena resulting in an ongoing struggle for the control of plant genetic resources. For many developing countries, especially in Africa, traditional and communal-based artisanal farmers are the producers of over three quarters of regional food supply. But contemporary techno-legal transformations in agriculture undermine the critical role of these informal actors in a manner that aggravates the state of regional food insecurity in Africa. The aspirations of African countries to implement their obligations in regard to the right to adequate food under the International …


Climate Change And The Ageing Population: Enforcing The Rights To Life And Health Under Human Rights, Health And Climate Change Regimes, Saheed A. Alabi Jan 2013

Climate Change And The Ageing Population: Enforcing The Rights To Life And Health Under Human Rights, Health And Climate Change Regimes, Saheed A. Alabi

Saheed Alabi

This article explores potential methods of protecting the ageing population from the consequences of climate change. It discusses the enforcement of the "right to life" (the right to live a life free from environmental degradation) and/or health relating to the environment in protection of the ageing population. Many countries have codified the right to life and/or health in their constitutions. In order to enjoy this right, it is essential that a clean and healthy environment be secured. Thus, this article assesses the consideration of climate change by international human rights and health regimes. It also examines whether climate obligations such …


A Noble Cause: A Case Study Of Discrimination, Symbols, And Reciprocity, In: Diversity And European Human Rights, Yofi Tirosh Jan 2013

A Noble Cause: A Case Study Of Discrimination, Symbols, And Reciprocity, In: Diversity And European Human Rights, Yofi Tirosh

Yofi Tirosh

This chapter is part of a volume dedicated to rewriting human rights cases issued by the European Court of Human Rights. It uses the case of De La Cierva Osorio De Moscoso v. Spain (1999) as a platform to discuss the inherent tension typifying signs such as nobility titles – as merely symbolic or as carrying substantive content. The problem of one’s ownership of signs is especially acute in the case of women. I will argue that the distinction between form and substance collapses in this case, as in many other cases that involve allocation of allegedly merely symbolic signifiers …


In The Shadow Of An Absent Law. Human Rights And The Meaning From Conrad To Coppola,Via Eliot And Brooks, Pier Giuseppe Monateri Jan 2013

In The Shadow Of An Absent Law. Human Rights And The Meaning From Conrad To Coppola,Via Eliot And Brooks, Pier Giuseppe Monateri

Pier Giuseppe Monateri

"A Presentation Held at the Annual Meeting of Italian Association of Law and Literature (AIDEL) analyzing the way Coppola produces meaning through deferral giving the Human Rights content to the faceless horrors of Conrad's Kurtz, via essential quotations from Eliot. In this way the Author also purport a theory of the meaning of the Waste Land through the close reading of its Epigraphe after Pound's interventions,"


Smart Power For Hard Problems: The Role Of Special Operation Forces Strengthening The Rule Of Law And Human Rights In Africa, Kevin H. Govern Jan 2013

Smart Power For Hard Problems: The Role Of Special Operation Forces Strengthening The Rule Of Law And Human Rights In Africa, Kevin H. Govern

Kevin H. Govern

This article will assess the roles and responsibilities of Special Operations Forces (SOF) within the newly created U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) as an active proponent of a so-called “smart power” national security strategy. In particular, it will outline the economic, political, and military challenges faced in Africa; specifically, how and why SOCAFRICA is the U.S. force of choice for promoting human rights and rule of law in Africa. With the goals of the U.S. military in mind, questions will necessarily arise as to “what success looks like” for both the U.S. and African nations, and the roles of each in …


Corporate Liability In Regional Human Rights Courts, Diana Kearney Jan 2013

Corporate Liability In Regional Human Rights Courts, Diana Kearney

Diana Kearney

No abstract provided.