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An Evaluation Of The Prospects For Successful Implementation Of The Convention On The Rights Of Persons With Disabilities In The Islamic World, Brenton Kinker Jan 2014

An Evaluation Of The Prospects For Successful Implementation Of The Convention On The Rights Of Persons With Disabilities In The Islamic World, Brenton Kinker

Michigan Journal of International Law

This note will examine the CRPD’s aspirations in light of Islamic law, comparing whether the two are—or can be—consistent. Part I will provide background on the CRPD, including the intent of the treaty, the negotiations leading to the final wording, and the solid obligations it contains for state parties. Part II examines the background of Shari’a and its provisions regarding disability. Part III compares the treatment of the disabled under Islamic law with that required by the CRPD in order to gage consistency. Where tensions exist, alternative interpretations of both Islamic law and the CPRD are proposed that might facilitate …


Islam In The Secular Nomos Of The European Court Of Human Rights, Peter G. Danchin Jul 2011

Islam In The Secular Nomos Of The European Court Of Human Rights, Peter G. Danchin

Michigan Journal of International Law

If, with the benefit of hindsight, Mr. Choudhury's case was a harbinger of the emergence of various problems associated with Islam and the rights of Muslim minorities in European nation-states, then the events of September 11, 2001 have propelled these issues to the forefront of law and politics in a way unimaginable even a decade earlier. In Denmark, cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad as a suicide bomber have been published leading to protests and violence across Europe and the Islamic world; a law prohibiting students in public schools from wearing symbols or attire through which they conspicuously exhibit a …


Making Room For Sexual Orientation And Gender Identity In International Human Rights Law: An Introduction To The Yogyakarta Principles, David Brown Jan 2010

Making Room For Sexual Orientation And Gender Identity In International Human Rights Law: An Introduction To The Yogyakarta Principles, David Brown

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Note evaluates the Yogyakarta Principles' legal and inspirational capacity to drive the development of human rights law. Part I describes the most common patterns of violence and discrimination suffered around the world on account of sexual orientation and gender identity, and the process by which the Principles' drafters sought to apply principles of international law to stem these outrages by developing a restatement of international human rights law that would leave no doubt as to their illegality. Part II assesses the Principles' claim to accuracy as a restatement of existing, binding international law. It shows that the most basic …


Reconstituting Japanese Law: International Norms And Domestic Litigation, Timothy Webster Jan 2008

Reconstituting Japanese Law: International Norms And Domestic Litigation, Timothy Webster

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Essay proceeds in four parts. Part I situates these lawsuits in the context of Japan's growing ethnic diversity. Part II analyzes a decade of racial discrimination lawsuits in Japan, ultimately synthesizing the elements of a compensable act of racial discrimination under current Japanese law. Part III begins with a brief examination of the role of international law in Japan before turning to discussions between the Japanese government and U.N. bodies regarding the proper treatment of foreigners in Japan and the desirability of anti-discrimination laws. Part IV then discusses several failed attempts by national and local lawmakers to pass anti-discrimination …


No Black Names On The Letterhead? Efficient Discrimination And The South African Legal Profession, Lisa R. Pruitt Jan 2002

No Black Names On The Letterhead? Efficient Discrimination And The South African Legal Profession, Lisa R. Pruitt

Michigan Journal of International Law

Although there have long been black lawyers in South Africa, during apartheid only a handful joined the ranks of the country's large commercial firms. Now, in the post-apartheid period, these firms are keenly aware of a range of economic and political incentives to hire black attorneys, and most are doing so at a record pace. Very few black attorneys, however, are enduring the path to partnership in these firms. Based on more than seventy-five interviews conducted in South Africa in 1999 and 2000, this Article both documents and critically examines the reasons for black attrition. While firms' incentives to integrate …


Remembering Chrystal Macmillan: Women's Equality And Nationality In International Law, Karen Knop, Christine Chinkin Jan 2001

Remembering Chrystal Macmillan: Women's Equality And Nationality In International Law, Karen Knop, Christine Chinkin

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article both continues and returns to the story of Chrystal Macmillan and the International Law Association. Some seventy-five years later, gender discrimination still exists in nationality law. For an American audience, Thailand's offer of nationality to U.S. golfer Tiger Woods, whose mother is Thai, highlighted the inequality of Thailand's laws on nationality. Although Thai women, as well as Thai men, can now pass their nationality to their children, the law continues to discriminate against women in other matters of nationality. Whereas the foreign wives of Thai men are specially entitled to apply for Thai nationality, the foreign husbands of …


Sexual Orientation And International Law: A Study In The Manufacture Of Cross-Cultural "Sensitivity", Eric Heinze Jan 2001

Sexual Orientation And International Law: A Study In The Manufacture Of Cross-Cultural "Sensitivity", Eric Heinze

Michigan Journal of International Law

Interest groups advocating rights of sexual minorities have been lobbying international organizations for years without success. A standard explanation for that failure is that human sexuality is something complex, even mysterious, which requires that international organizations proceed with special caution. In this essay, it will be argued that such an explanation amounts to a self-fulfilling prophecy. Sexual orientation is neither more nor less complex than many other issues, such as race, ethnicity, religion or gender, which have nevertheless found wide recognition within leading intergovernmental organizations. It is not because sexual orientation is uniquely complex or mysterious that it is barred …


Apartheid As A Crime Against Humanity: A Submission To The South African Truth And Reconciliation Commission, Ronald C. Slye Jan 1999

Apartheid As A Crime Against Humanity: A Submission To The South African Truth And Reconciliation Commission, Ronald C. Slye

Michigan Journal of International Law

The question of whether apartheid is a crime against humanity might seem an odd one for many people living outside South Africa-and indeed for the vast majority of people living inside South Africa. With the recent demise of legalized apartheid in South Africa, one might ask if apartheid's status under international law has any contemporary relevance beyond a small group of legal academics. The status of apartheid under international law-in particular whether apartheid constitutes a crime against humanity-is a question that the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission ("TRC") was obligated to address in its final report.


Her Honor: An Islamic Critique Of The Rape Laws Of Pakistan From A Woman-Sensitive Perspective, Asifa Quaraishi Jan 1997

Her Honor: An Islamic Critique Of The Rape Laws Of Pakistan From A Woman-Sensitive Perspective, Asifa Quaraishi

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article critiques the rape laws of Pakistan from an Islamic point of view which is careful to include women's perspectives in its analysis. Unlike much of what is popularly presented as traditional Islamic law, this woman-affirming Islamic approach will reveal the inherent gender-egalitarian nature of Islam, which is too often ignored by its academics, courts, and legislatures. This article will demonstrate how cultural patriarchy has instead colored the application of certain Islamic laws in places like Pakistan, resulting in the very injustice which the Quran so forcefully condemns.


Language Of Lullabies: The Russification And De-Russification Of The Baltic States, Sonia Bychkov Green Jan 1997

Language Of Lullabies: The Russification And De-Russification Of The Baltic States, Sonia Bychkov Green

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article argues that the laws for promotion of the national languages are a legitimate means for the Baltic states to establish their cultural independence from Russia and the former Soviet Union.


Universal Versus Islamic Human Rights: A Clash Of Cultures Or A Clash With A Construct?, Ann Elizabeth Mayer Jan 1994

Universal Versus Islamic Human Rights: A Clash Of Cultures Or A Clash With A Construct?, Ann Elizabeth Mayer

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article examines the recent trend proposing that Islam and Islamic culture mandate a distinctive approach to human rights. It offers critical assessments of selected civil and political rights in two recent products of this trend: (1) the 1990 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, issued by the Organization of the Islamic Conference and endorsed by Iran and Saudi Arabia; and (2) the rights provisions in the Saudi Arabian Basic Law promulgated in 1992. These legislative initiatives will be examined in conjunction with constructs of an Islamic culture necessarily at odds with international human rights norms. These constructs have …


"We Are The People": Alien Suffrage In German And American Perspective, Gerald L. Neuman Jan 1992

"We Are The People": Alien Suffrage In German And American Perspective, Gerald L. Neuman

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article will explore the constitutional debate over alien suffrage in the FRG, both for its own interest and in order to compare it with understandings of alien suffrage in the United States. As the interdependence of national economies deepens and regional "common market" arrangements multiply, more nations (including the United States) may be called upon to rethink the question of alien suffrage. The thoroughness and the explicitness with which the German legal community has debated this issue has brought to the surface arguments and assumptions that remain latent in U.S. commentary on the political status of aliens. Thus, the …


Self-Determination, Minority Rights, And Constitutional Accommodation: The Example Of The Czech And Slovak Federal Republic, Claudia Saladin Jan 1991

Self-Determination, Minority Rights, And Constitutional Accommodation: The Example Of The Czech And Slovak Federal Republic, Claudia Saladin

Michigan Journal of International Law

Part I of this note will explore the concepts of self-determination and minority rights in international law and their development over time. This is particularly relevant to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, because these concepts saw their first full flowering in the period during and following the First World War, when those countries gained their independence from the European powers. Part II will discuss the evolution of the constitutional relationship between the Czechs and the Slovaks from the constitution of the first Czechoslovak Republic to the current constitutional reforms of the CSFR. This analysis will show the emerging …


Note, The Convention For The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women: Radical, Reasonable, Or Reactionary?, Sarah C. Zearfoss Jan 1991

Note, The Convention For The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women: Radical, Reasonable, Or Reactionary?, Sarah C. Zearfoss

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Note will explore the merits behind these positions and attempt a resolution. If the potential effect of the Convention can only be to freeze and enshrine sex equality law as it currently exists, one who is interested in achieving changes in the law for the purpose of benefiting women will not want to put her energy into lobbying for ratification. It is therefore important to get past political strategies and determine what promise the Convention might hold for women in the United States. If the United States were to ratify the Convention, what changes, if any, would result?


Nurturin Rights: An Essay On Women, Peace, And International Human Rights, Barbara Stark Jan 1991

Nurturin Rights: An Essay On Women, Peace, And International Human Rights, Barbara Stark

Michigan Journal of International Law

This essay will explore the relationship between what many view as the two most urgent issues of our time: nurturing rights, and promoting peace.


Equal Protection- The Social Dimension Of European Community Law, T. Koopmans Jan 1989

Equal Protection- The Social Dimension Of European Community Law, T. Koopmans

Michigan Journal of International Law

There are two reasons for drawing attention to the social dimension of European Community law. First, the EEC treaty comprises different provisions on social policy whose importance is consistently underestimated: the treaty is often considered as merely establishing a "common market" and as only concerning economic problems. This approach is prominent in the United States, where the business world is primarily interested in trade with, and within, the common market, and where much literature is devoted to this subject. Second, the social provisions of the EEC treaty have given rise to an interesting evolution in the case law of the …