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Articles 1 - 17 of 17
Full-Text Articles in Law
A Path To Transformation: Asking “The Woman Question” In International Law, Cochav Elkayam-Levy
A Path To Transformation: Asking “The Woman Question” In International Law, Cochav Elkayam-Levy
Michigan Journal of International Law
Methods matter, and the discussion over feminist methods in international law is an important one. As Kathrine Bartlett famously noted, “thinking about method is empowering.” It makes us more aware of the nature of what we do and what we aim to improve in the law. Consequently, we can act more effectively when we examine legal structures and do it with a stronger sense of commitment towards our feminist work. Methods are also the fundamental means by which we produce “valid knowing.” The discussion of feminist methods in international law is one that engages with the combination of rules and …
Gender And Armed Conflict, Christine Chinkin
Gender And Armed Conflict, Christine Chinkin
Book Chapters
The construction of social sex and gender roles means that armed conflict is sexed and gendered. Men still make up the majority of the fighting forces, while women's generally unequal and subordinate social and economic position makes them vulnerable in particular ways during conflict. Women and men, girls and boys all suffer gender-based violence. Such violence is directed at a person because of his or her gender. For instance men sustain specific harms such as disappearances and deliberate killings in greater numbers than women, while women disproportionately experience sexual violence. The detention of Bosnian Muslims at Potocari on 12 July …
Left Out In The Cold: Trafficking Victims, Gender, And Misinterpretation Of The Refugee Convention's "Nexus" Requirement, Martina Pomeroy
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
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 …
Sexual Slavery And The International Criminal Court: Advancing International Law, Valerie Oosterveld
Sexual Slavery And The International Criminal Court: Advancing International Law, Valerie Oosterveld
Michigan Journal of International Law
This Article explores the advancement of the international crime of sexual slavery, from its initial inclusion in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court through further development in the delineation of the ICC's Elements of Crime document. This Article begins with a detailed exploration of the negotiation process that led to the inclusion of the crime of sexual slavery in the Rome Statute. The first Section describes the decision to include both sexual slavery and enforced prostitution as crimes, as well as the debate on listing sexual slavery as a crime separate from that of enslavement. Next, the Section …
Trafficking As A Human Rights Violation: The Complex Intersection Of Legal Frameworks For Conceptualizing And Combating Trafficking, Joan Fitzpatrick
Trafficking As A Human Rights Violation: The Complex Intersection Of Legal Frameworks For Conceptualizing And Combating Trafficking, Joan Fitzpatrick
Michigan Journal of International Law
The author will focus on three legal instruments: (1) the 2000 Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (the Trafficking Protocol); (2) the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (VTVPA), enacted by the U.S. Congress in 2000; and (3) the regulations issued in 2002 by the U.S. Department of Justice to implement the T visa for trafficking victims. The U.S. response to trafficking illustrates the difficulties faced by human rights advocates in source, transit, and destination countries to insure that anti-trafficking and other migration …
(Dis)Embedded Women, Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann
(Dis)Embedded Women, Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann
Michigan Journal of International Law
The position argued in this Article is that women's rights are individual rights. To explain this position, the Article will progress along the following arguments: 1) The dichotomy between Western individualism and non-Western collectivism is false. 2) Much of the debate regarding the role of women and women's rights confuses interest and identity. 3) Women do not necessarily constitute a social group. 4) "Women's" rights are actually universal human rights: they pertain mostly to women, but also to men. 5) The debate about whether women are a social group is rooted in part in differing conceptions of women's embeddedness in …
Multicultural Jurisdictions At The National And International Levels, Christina L. Brandt-Young
Multicultural Jurisdictions At The National And International Levels, Christina L. Brandt-Young
Michigan Journal of International Law
Review of Multicultural Jurisdictions: Cultural Differences and Women's Rights by Ayelet Shachar
The Cedaw As A Collective Approach To Women's Rights, Brad R. Roth
The Cedaw As A Collective Approach To Women's Rights, Brad R. Roth
Michigan Journal of International Law
This Article will identify the individualist paradigm with the main current of contemporary liberal-individualist political thought, and more specifically with the approach to women's rights reflected in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which can be read most straightforwardly as reflecting a liberal-individualist conception of how the individual, society, and the State interrelate. This approach, dominant in the international human rights system as well as in the legal systems of some of the most influential States, can usefully be identified as that of the political Center.
Dueling Fates: Should The International Legal Regine Accept A Collective Or Individual Pradigm To Protect Women's Rights?, Michigan Journal Of International Law
Dueling Fates: Should The International Legal Regine Accept A Collective Or Individual Pradigm To Protect Women's Rights?, Michigan Journal Of International Law
Michigan Journal of International Law
Transcript for Symposium held at the University of Michigan Law School on Saturday, April 6, 2002.
Remembering Chrystal Macmillan: Women's Equality And Nationality In International Law, Karen Knop, Christine Chinkin
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 …
United Nations Convention Documents In Light Of Feminist Theory, R. Christopher Preston, Ronald Z. Ahrens
United Nations Convention Documents In Light Of Feminist Theory, R. Christopher Preston, Ronald Z. Ahrens
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
This article proposes that language identifying human rights of women in U.N. Conference documents has its origin in several different feminist theories. An understanding of these theories can help to clarify meaning, resolve inconsistencies, and predict the future direction of language in U.N. documents. Part I examines three prominent feminist theories and their relation to international law. Part II examines the history of women's rights in U.N. documents and examines the influence of feminist theory on the document language. Using the Women and the Economy section of the Fourth World Conference on Women, Platform for Action (Platform for Action), Part …
U.S. Ratification Of The Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women, Julia Ernst
U.S. Ratification Of The Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women, Julia Ernst
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
The purpose of this article is to highlight the need for ratification of the Convention by the United States, and to address arguments against ratification. Various concerns have been raised with respect to CEAFDAW, both specific to the United States and more international in scope. Some problems pertain to United States ratification generally, other issues concern potential conflicts between specific articles of the Convention and U.S. law, and broader problems have been raised with respect to international implementation. Most of these issues are not uncommon in international agreements, and may therefore be remedied through conventional mechanisms, including implementing legislation, reservations, …
The Worldwide Market For Sex: A Review Of International And Regional Legal Prohibitions Regarding Trafficking In Women, Susan Jeanne Toepfer, Bryan Stuart Wells
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 …
Gendered States: Feminist (Re)Visions Of International Relations Theory, Hilary Charlesworth
Gendered States: Feminist (Re)Visions Of International Relations Theory, Hilary Charlesworth
Michigan Journal of International Law
Review of the book edited by V. Spike Peterson.
Note, The Convention For The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women: Radical, Reasonable, Or Reactionary?, Sarah C. Zearfoss
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
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.