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Missed Connections In The U.N. Agenda: Applying The Women, Peace And Security Framework To The Feminization Of Poverty, Lauren A. Fleming Jul 2023

Missed Connections In The U.N. Agenda: Applying The Women, Peace And Security Framework To The Feminization Of Poverty, Lauren A. Fleming

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Women, Peace and Security, a multifaceted agenda intended to address the particular ways in which conflict affects women, has been on the United Nations agenda since the landmark Security Council Resolution 1325 passed in 2000. The unequal burden of poverty on women, a phenomenon that has been coined “the feminization of poverty,” has been on the United Nations agenda for even longer, since the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women. Yet, despite the fact that poverty and inequality both cause and result in conflict in a violent cycle, the problem of the feminization of poverty has not been integrated into the …


Litigation, Referendum Or Legislation? The Road To Becoming The First In Asia To Institutionalize Same-Sex Marriage, Tzu-Chiang Huang Dec 2022

Litigation, Referendum Or Legislation? The Road To Becoming The First In Asia To Institutionalize Same-Sex Marriage, Tzu-Chiang Huang

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

In the pursuit of same-sex marriage, advocates in each country evaluate the appropriate decision-making process for addressing this highly disputed issue—litigation, legislation, or referendum. The choice may be partially based on the institutional advantages of each approach, but more importantly, the choice is also conditioned by the legal and political context of each country, such as the authority of the court, the framing of public opinion, and the dynamics between movement and countermovement. Uniquely, all three decision-making processes are involved in the course of the institutionalization of same-sex marriage in Taiwan. This Article, focusing on the experience in Taiwan, examines …


Defining Sexual Orientation: A Proposal For A New Definition, Andrew Park Jun 2022

Defining Sexual Orientation: A Proposal For A New Definition, Andrew Park

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation are becoming more common in all parts of the world. Few of these laws provide useful definitions of the term sexual orientation. As a result, the meaning and impact of these laws remains unclear. This Article reviews past and current definitions of sexual orientation according to how well they incorporate current empirical knowledge of sexual orientation, and how their use in human rights laws impacts the dignity, right to equality, and human development of sexual minorities. The Article gives particular attention to the definition of sexual orientation found in the Yogyakarta Principles which …


Advancing Reproductive Justice In Latin America Through A Transitional Justice Lens, Rosario Grimà Algora Apr 2022

Advancing Reproductive Justice In Latin America Through A Transitional Justice Lens, Rosario Grimà Algora

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Reproductive autonomy is a pivotal part of women’s access to equal citizenship, yet it has not been included in any international nor regional human rights treaty. In the past decades, the U.N. Committees, notably the CEDAW Committee, and regional human rights bodies, particularly the Inter-American System for the Protection of Human Rights, have timidly advanced reproductive justice through their jurisprudence, including through the use of reparations. Drawing from the standards of reparations developed in the field of transitional justice, human rights bodies increasingly rely on reparations to enhance the transformative effects of their decisions. These reparations intend to include a …


Gender Discrimination And Statelessness In The Gulf Cooperation Council States, Betsy L. Fisher Dec 2016

Gender Discrimination And Statelessness In The Gulf Cooperation Council States, Betsy L. Fisher

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Using the Gulf Cooperation Council countries as a case study, this Article outlines the ways in which gender and birth status discrimination create new cases of statelessness. These occur when women are legally unable to convey their nationality to their children. This Article studies gender and birth status discrimination in nationality laws and in civil registration, family, and criminal law in each GCC state: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Ending statelessness will require these states to end discrimination against women and non-marital children in all of its forms in law and practice.


Sexual Assault And Rape In The Military: The Invisible Victims Of International Gender Crimes At The Front Lines, Stella Cernak Jan 2015

Sexual Assault And Rape In The Military: The Invisible Victims Of International Gender Crimes At The Front Lines, Stella Cernak

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

In the past several years in particular, intra-military sexual assault and rape in the U.S. armed forces have been the focus of frequent media attention and intense congressional debate. Despite reforms, the rate of intra-military sexual crimes continues to remain high, as does soldiers’ wariness to report instances of sexual violence to military commanders. These problems and others have invigorated the position taken by some that outside judicial review of intra- military sexual crimes is necessary to provide justice to victims and lower the rate of intra-military sexual assault and rape. This Note argues that one of the primary contributors …


Victim Participation At The International Criminal Court And The Extraordinary Chambers In The Courts Of Cambodia: A Feminist Project, Susana Sacouto Jan 2012

Victim Participation At The International Criminal Court And The Extraordinary Chambers In The Courts Of Cambodia: A Feminist Project, Susana Sacouto

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

The question this Article poses is whether victim participation--one of the most recent developments in international criminal law--has increased the visibility of the actual lived experience of survivors of sexual and gender-based violence in the context of war, mass violence, or repression. Under the Rome Statute, victims of the world's most serious crimes were given unprecedented rights to participate in proceedings before the Court. Nearly a decade later, a similar scheme was established to allow victims to participate as civil parties in the proceedings before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC or Extraordinary Chambers), a court created …


Left Out In The Cold: Trafficking Victims, Gender, And Misinterpretation Of The Refugee Convention's "Nexus" Requirement, Martina Pomeroy Jan 2010

Left Out In The Cold: Trafficking Victims, Gender, And Misinterpretation Of The Refugee Convention's "Nexus" Requirement, Martina Pomeroy

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Victims of human trafficking who seek international protection in their country of destination face a steep uphill battle. Special visa programs designed to regularize their status are often riddled with conditions that make them inaccessible to all but a very few victims. Despite widespread international agreement that the manifold harms inflicted upon the majority of trafficked persons generally rise to the level of persecution, and therefore that victims should be eligible to apply for asylum, many national courts misinterpret international refugee law standards and routinely deny refugee status to deserving applicants. Courts often refuse to recognize persecution on the basis …


A Sign Of "Weakness"? Disrupting Gender Certainties In The Implementation Of Security Council Resolution 1325, Dianne Otto Jan 2006

A Sign Of "Weakness"? Disrupting Gender Certainties In The Implementation Of Security Council Resolution 1325, Dianne Otto

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article will examine whether efforts to implement the Resolution suggest new ways to address the old problems: the reliance on stereotyped gender representations to rally women in the cause of peace and the vexed strategic question of how movements for transformative change might influence the mainstream institutions of international law and politics. The first concerns the way that the category of gender is deployed by women's peace activism and by international institutions as they respond to it. The author’s question is whether it is possible to rally women to promote peace, while also challenging the gender dichotomies that underpin …


More Than Mere Semantics: The Case For An Expansive Definition Of Persecution In Sexual Minority Asylum Claims, Monica Saxena Jan 2006

More Than Mere Semantics: The Case For An Expansive Definition Of Persecution In Sexual Minority Asylum Claims, Monica Saxena

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article asserts that the requirement in U.S. asylum law that requires an asylee to make a showing of persecutory intent is overly and especially restrictive in claims made by sexual minorities. This Article proposes that the U.S. adopt the asylum standards of New Zealand and Canada, where the focus is on the failure of government protection as opposed to a focus on persecutory intent. Such standards are consistent with both the realities of persecution that sexual minorities encounter and the original impetus behind the Refugee Convention. Part I examines the different forms of persecution against sexual minorities. Part II …


Global Sex Trafficking And The Trafficking Victims Protection Act Of 2000: Legislative Responses To The Problem Of Modern Slavery, Rosy Kandathil Jan 2005

Global Sex Trafficking And The Trafficking Victims Protection Act Of 2000: Legislative Responses To The Problem Of Modern Slavery, Rosy Kandathil

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Human trafficking is becoming the fastest growing criminal activity in the world. Generally, trafficking is defined as the transportation of persons across international borders for labor purposes, by means of force, fraud, or coercion. Commerce directly related to human slavery yields approximately $7-$10 billion a year, trailing only behind drugs and weapons trade for international profit. According to recent congressional findings, over 700,000 human beings are trafficked across international borders each year, including approximately 50,000 women and children into the United States. Women and girl children are the primary targets for sexual exploitation into prostitution, pornography, sex tourism, and other …


The Use Of Human Rights Discourse To Secure Women's Interests: Critical Analysis Of The Implications, Renu Mandhane Jan 2004

The Use Of Human Rights Discourse To Secure Women's Interests: Critical Analysis Of The Implications, Renu Mandhane

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This article highlights the significant theoretical constraints of universalism, the tendency of human rights advocates to ignore the underlying cause of rights violations, as well as problems associated with the concept of and informal hierarchy between rights. The article suggests that there are certain circumstances in which INGOs that rely primarily on human rights language in their advocacy efforts may wish to supplement their analysis with explicit reference to feminist legal theory in order to more effectively secure women's interests globally. These ideas will be developed with ongoing reference to the recent and successful campaign initiated by Nepali women to …


Copyright Infringement, Sex Trafficking, And Defamation In The Fictional Life Of A Geisha, Susan Tiefenbrun Jan 2004

Copyright Infringement, Sex Trafficking, And Defamation In The Fictional Life Of A Geisha, Susan Tiefenbrun

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Memoirs of a Geisha has sold and made millions for Arthur Golden since 1997. This is his first novel, and it has earned him worldwide acclaim. A feature film version directed by Steven Spielberg is in the works. The book is translated into more than twenty languages. This article uses the book and the legal controversy that ensued after its publication to ask, and hopefully answer, two questions: First, is the geisha tradition as described by Golden in his fictional biography a variant of sex trafficking and sexual slavery which, despite possible cultural justifications, should be abolished by law? Second, …


Dowry Deaths: Proposing A Standard For Implementation Of Domestic Legislation In Accordance With Human Rights Obligations, Namratha S. Ravikant Jan 2000

Dowry Deaths: Proposing A Standard For Implementation Of Domestic Legislation In Accordance With Human Rights Obligations, Namratha S. Ravikant

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This article discusses the due diligence standard of governmental responsibility, and measures the adequacy of India's implementation of its national dowry death legislation in accordance with its international human rights obligations. India has enacted legislation designed to combat dowry violence. Although India's laws seem to follow the letter of its international human rights obligations, the country violates the spirit of human rights by lacking an actual commitment to implement this legislation. This Article demonstrates and examines India's breach of its duty of due diligence. Such a breach constitutes government complicity in condoning and perpetuating dowry deaths, which violate women's human …


Granting Political Asylum To Potential Victims Of Female Circumcision, Gregory A. Kelson Jan 1996

Granting Political Asylum To Potential Victims Of Female Circumcision, Gregory A. Kelson

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Part I of this article examines two cases. In one case, a United States immigration court allowed female circumcision as a defense to deportation. In another case, the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board granted political asylum after recognizing female circumcision as a form of persecution. Part II assesses the extent of protections currently provided for potential victims of female circumcision under U.S. asylum law and analyzes the factors that a court should consider when making asylum determinations. Part III recommends that gender should be added to the enumerated grounds for persecution under U.S. asylum law. This section provides a hypothetical …


China's Denial Of Tibetan Women's Right To Reproductive Freedom, Eva Herzer, Sara B. Levin Jan 1996

China's Denial Of Tibetan Women's Right To Reproductive Freedom, Eva Herzer, Sara B. Levin

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article first provides a historical account of the social and political context of the PRC's family planning policies in Tibet. Part B describes the PRC's official family policies from 1982 to the present. Part C discusses the PRC's actual practices, including its population quota controls, focusing on the forced and coerced abortions and sterilizations performed on Tibetan women. Part D applies international human rights law and concludes that the PRC's family planning policy, as implemented, violates international human rights laws. The Article concludes by recommending points of action for the PRC and international community to address these human rights …


Book Review: From Basic Needs To Basic Rights: Women's Claim To Human Rights. Edited By Margaret A. Schuler. Washington, D.C.: Women, Law And Development International, 1995. 597 Pages., Joel Armstrong Schoenmeyer Jan 1996

Book Review: From Basic Needs To Basic Rights: Women's Claim To Human Rights. Edited By Margaret A. Schuler. Washington, D.C.: Women, Law And Development International, 1995. 597 Pages., Joel Armstrong Schoenmeyer

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

In the review of this work, Schoenmeyer will adhere to the structure provided by Schuler. In doing so, he will give an overview of the topics addressed in each individual section and then attempt to tie together and further analyze some of the book's main concepts.


The Worldwide Market For Sex: A Review Of International And Regional Legal Prohibitions Regarding Trafficking In Women, Susan Jeanne Toepfer, Bryan Stuart Wells Jan 1994

The Worldwide Market For Sex: A Review Of International And Regional Legal Prohibitions Regarding Trafficking In Women, Susan Jeanne Toepfer, Bryan Stuart Wells

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This essay considers whether international treaty law is a useful weapon in the battle against the global sex trade. The introduction to this essay surveys the extent of global sex trafficking. Part I of this essay discusses the international legal conventions that address the issue of trafficking in women. Part II of this essay assesses the effectiveness of these international instruments and considers why they have failed to and the world sex trade. In Part III, this essay describes the European and Inter-American human rights systems, focusing upon substantive law in the regional systems that might be relevant to the …