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Same Sex Marriage And Its Implications For Employee Benefits: Proceedings Of The 2005 Meeting Of The Association Of American Law Schools Sections On Employee Benefits, And Sexual Orientation And Gender Identity Issues, Maria O'Brien, Constance Hiatt, Shannon Minter, Teresa S. Collett

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Maria O'Brien Hylton*: Welcome to this session on "Same Sex Marriage and its Implications for Employee Benefits." I'm Maria Hylton and I will introduce our speakers and moderate the program.

Our first speaker is Constance Hiatt, who is a partner with the Hanson Bridgett law firm here in San Francisco. She represents mostly large employers and large employee benefit plans, including the State of California's 401(k) and 457 plans as well as the University of California's benefits office. So, she has extensive experience in the employee benefits area and she came to us, to me really, through several …

Book Review, Lakshman D. Guruswamy

Publications

No abstract provided.

Section 7 And The Politics Of Social Justice, Margot Young

All Faculty Publications

This paper examines the transformative potential of section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and its potential usefulness in the struggle against social and economic injustice central to Canadian society. Can section 7 of the Charter encompass the protection of social and economic rights? In other words, can section 7 be interpreted to capture the progressive goal of economic redistribution? Three separate issues are considered, each providing different perspectives on the issue. First jurisprudence (doctrine) is considered, i.e. how section 7 can encompass substantive claims to economic redistributive justice. Secondly, the institutional appropriateness and justiciability of socio-economic …

Law And War: Individual Rights, Executive Authority, And Judicial Power In England During World War I , Rachel Vorspan

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the role of the English courts during World War I, particularly the judicial response to executive infringements on individual liberty. Focusing on the areas of detention, deportation, conscription, and confiscation of property, the Article revises the conventional depiction of the English judiciary during World War I as passive and peripheral. It argues that in four ways the judges were activist and energetic, both in advancing the government's war effort and in promoting their own policies and powers. First, they were judicial warriors, developing innovative legal strategies to legitimize detention and other governmental restrictions on personal. Second, they …

Lifting Our Veil Of Ignorance: Culture, Constitutionalism, And Women's Human Rights In Post-September 11 America , Catherine Powell

Faculty Scholarship

This Article challenges the culture clash view of human rights law, which posits a clash between Western countries' presumed respect for women's human rights and non-Western countries' presumed rejection of these rights on cultural and religious grounds. Since the September 11 terrorist attacks, this view has taken on new significance, in light of the perceived civilizational divide between the Western and Muslim worlds. The Article calls into question this view, by examining cultural stereotypes of women used to oppose U.S. ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. My reading, therefore, is at odds …

Redressing Colonial Genocide: The Hereros' Cause Of Action Against Germany, Rachel J. Anderson

Scholarly Works

In February 2003, the Herero People's Reparations Corporation filed a complaint against Germany in the District Court of the District of Columbia alleging violations of international law, crimes against humanity, genocide, slavery, and forced labor before, during, and after the German-Herero War (1904-07). The German government, modern scholars, and other commentators have long taken the position that genocides committed by colonial governments in the nineteenth century did not violate international law at that time. Arguments for this position rely, inter alia, on the belief that all forms of genocide were first criminalized and made punishable by the 1948 U.N. Convention …

Ingando Solidarity Camps: Reconciliation And Political Indoctrination In Post-Genocide Rwanda Note, Chi Adanna Mgbako

Faculty Scholarship

This Note, based primarily on interviews with ingando participants, government officials, journalists, and genocide survivors conducted in Rwanda in January 2004, evaluates the merits and limits of government-run ingando solidarity camps as a means of fostering reconciliation in the complicated social landscape of post-genocide Rwanda. Focusing on ingando for ex-combatants, ex-soldiers, students, and released genocidaires, this Note argues that much of the ingando project is focused on the dissemination of pro-RPF ideology, a dangerous undertaking in a country in which political indoctrination and government-controlled information were essential in sparking and sustaining the genocide. Furthermore, a successful reconciliation program must take …

When Is A War Not A War? The Myth Of The Global War On Terror, Mary Ellen O'Connell

Journal Articles

It is essential to correctly classify situations in the world as ones of war or peace: human lives depend on the distinction, but so do liberty, property, and the integrity of the natural environment. President Bush's war on terror finds war where suspected members of al Qaeda are found. By contrast, war under international law exists where hostilities are on-going. To the extent there is ambiguity, the United States should err on the side of pursuing terrorists within the peacetime criminal law enforcement paradigm, not a wartime one. Not only does the criminal law better protect important human rights and …

Universal Human Rights, The United Nations, And The Telos Of Human Dignity, William J. Wagner

Scholarly Articles

In this short essay, I seek to provide a description of the way the rights framework, by its nature, functions to unify global practice around normative ideals. I then outline obstacles, both theoretical and practical, to the effective functioning of this framework and the advancement of its purpose. Next, I lay out and critique the means that the Church, in its official teaching, proposes for overcoming these obstacles. I conclude by sketching briefly what I understand to be a more adequate program for addressing the impediments that exist to the realization of the aspiration of universal respect for human dignity …

Review Of Human Rights: Between Idealism And Realism, Steven R. Ratner

Reviews

For centuries, moral philosophers have regarded ethics and justice in the international plane as part of their domain. The move from the personal to the societal or national to the global seems effortless. In recent years, philosophers in ethics have devoted considerable attention to the ethical significance of nationality and patriotism, asking whether an impartial morality permits better treatment of an individual’s co-nationals; while those in politics have revisited issues of international justice through, for instance, works on human rights and just war theory. These two bodies of work both address what constitutes a just world and what role the …

Dimensions Of Equality In Regulating Assisted Reproductive Technologies, Mary Crossley

Articles

Although concerns about individual liberty and the nature and extent of reproductive freedom have tended to dominate discussions regarding the proliferation of and access to reproductive technologies, questions about the implications of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) for equality have also arisen. Despite the high number of invocations of equality in the literature regarding ARTs, to date little effort has been made to comprehensively examine the implications of ARTs for equality. This short Article seeks to highlight the variety of equality issues that ARTs present and to develop a framework for classifying different types of equality issues. Specifically, I suggest that …

The Michigan Guidelines On Well-Founded Fear, Colloquium On Challenges In International Refugee Law

Other Publications

An individual qualifies as a Convention refugee only if he or she has a "well-founded fear" of being persecuted. While it is generally agreed that the "well-founded fear" requirement limits refugee status to persons who face an actual, forward-looking risk of being persecuted (the "objective element"), linguistic ambiguity has resulted in a divergence of views regarding whether the test also involves assessment of the state of mind of the person seeking recognition of refugee status (the "subjective element").

Regional Economic Arrangements And The Rule Of Law In The Americas: The Human Rights Face Of Free Trade Agreements, Stephen J. Powell

UF Law Faculty Publications

We have addressed the widespread criticism that international trade rules are insensitive to basic human rights and that globalization has done little with its enormous power to preserve exhaustible natural resources and otherwise promote sustainable development, to alleviate the gap between rich and poor, to encourage states to grant their citizens basic human rights contained in the U.N. Covenant on Human Rights and other treaties, to resolve the often conflicting policies underlying essential human rights and trade goals, and, in general, to integrate trade and critical human rights law on the global front.

Our focus in this Essay is on …

Traveling The Boundaries Of Statelessness: Global Passports And Citizenship, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Matthew Hawk

UF Law Faculty Publications

An independent global citizenship without a local component and in the absence of the much-feared global government creates two concerns. One, an individual may imperil the rights of others, without a structure that can impose sanctions for the heinous conduct. Two, an individual's rights may be imperiled, and there may be no entity to provide protection. This essay proposes a model of a formal global citizenship that will alleviate these concerns and prove both practically and theoretically feasible. The model flows from the concept of dual or multiple nationality and offers global citizenship only as an elective nationality. Such citizenship …

Indigenous Peoples’ Participatory Rights In Relation To Decisions About Natural Resource Extraction: The More Fundamental Issue Of What Rights Indigenous Peoples Have In Lands And Resources, James Anaya

Publications

No abstract provided.

Refugee Protection In The United States Post-September 11, Andrew I. Schoenholtz

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The U.S. refugee resettlement program, was the first refugee protection casualty of the terrorist attacks. American officials perceived resettlement as being particularly vulnerable to security problems. That was not the case with the other major U.S. refugee protection program, the asylum system. That system was effectively revamped in 1995 to address a variety of abuses, in part connected to individuals involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Yet, even though official attention did not focus on asylum, subtle, significant changes have occurred. This article delineates and assesses these changes by closely examining data and developments at all levels of …

Protecting Rights In The Age Of Terrorism: Challenges And Opportunities, Rosa Brooks

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Depending on whom you speak to these days (and the mood in which you find them), international law is either practically moribund, or it's more vibrant and important than it has been for years. To take the good news story first, international law issues have been at the forefront of public discourse over the past few years. Pick your issue: the U.N. Charter and the international law on the use of force? The Convention Against Torture? The Geneva Conventions? You'll find it on the front page these days. Journalists are phoning international law professors for background briefings, and students are …

Liberalism, Torture, And The Ticking Bomb, David Luban

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Torture used to be incompatible with American values. Our Bill of Rights forbids cruel and unusual punishment, and that has come to include all forms of corporal punishment except prison and death by methods purported to be painless. Americans and our government have historically condemned states that torture; we have granted asylum or refuge to those who fear it. The Senate ratified the Convention Against Torture, Congress enacted antitorture legislation, and judicial opinions spoke of "the dastardly and totally inhuman act of torture.” Then came September 11.

Globalized Citizenship: Sovereignty, Security And Soul, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

Human rights law has redefined the concepts of sovereignty and citizenship. Just as transnationalization has weakened the hegemony of the political elites (corporate economic elites and domestic ruling classes) by strengthening citizenship claims of all persons, so, too, a globalized citizenship grounded on a human rights model will strengthen personhood by denationalizing states' claims on individuals' rights. The human rights narrative has been imagined, crafted and delivered by Northern/Western powers--the hegemon--however, for the human rights model to be of utility to the globalized citizen project, it must be reconstituted with an antisubordination agenda. It must include the voices of the …

Torture's Truth, Louis Michael Seidman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this Article, I argue that the obstacles to having a serious conversation about torture are exacerbated by a truth that torture teaches us - a truth that we cannot afford fully to know and, so, frantically try to obscure. Law is about respect for commitments and limits, and the existence of torture challenges the possibility of such respect. If we are prepared to torture, then, it would seem, we are prepared to do anything, and the restraint that law purports to impose upon us is a fraud. Torture's truth, then, is that all of our promises to ourselves and …

Arbitrating Human Rights, Roger P. Alford

Journal Articles

The article addresses the vexing problem of holding corporations liable for assisting in the sovereign abuse of human rights. Currently domestic human rights litigation against corporations appears to be a proxy fight in which the accomplice is pursued while the principal evades punishment. Typically the principal malfeasor - the sovereign - is immune from suit because of foreign sovereign immunity. But corporations can be found liable for aiding and abetting those violations. This article suggests a solution to this problem, drawing on principles from contract law and arbitration. If a corporation is found liable for aiding and abetting sovereign abuse, …

The Right Of States To Repatriate Former Refugees, James C. Hathaway

Articles

Armed conflict often results in the large-scale exodus of refugees into politically and economically fragile neighboring states. The burdens on asylum countries can be extreme, and may only be partly offset by the arrival of international aid and protection resources. Moreover, difficulties inherent in the provision of asylum have been exacerbated in recent years by the increasing disinclination of the wealthier countries that fund the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and most other assistance agencies to meet the real costs of protection. In such circumstances, it is unsurprising that as conflicts wind down, host countries ordinarily seek to …

Is There A Subjective Element In The Refugee Convention's Requirement Of 'Well-Founded Fear'?, James C. Hathaway, William S. Hicks

Articles

Linguistic ambiguity in the refugee definition's requirement of "well-founded fear" of being persecuted has given rise to a wide range of interpretations. There is general agreement that a fear is "well-founded" only if the refugee claimant faces an actual, forward-looking risk of being persecuted in her country of origin (the "objective element"). But it is less clear whether the well-founded "fear" standard also requires a showing that the applicant is not only genuinely at risk, but also stands in trepidation of being persecuted. Beyond vague references to the subjective quality of "fear," few courts or commentators have undertaken the task …

Introduction And Postscript: Partial Progress On Un Reform, Douglass Cassel

Journal Articles

The conference on Reforming the United Nations: The use of force to safeguard international security and human rights, co-sponsored by Northwestern University School of Law and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Faculty of Law as their Fourth Annual Transatlantic Dialogue, was held in January 2005.

Its timing was propitious. It was held one month after publication of the report of the prestigious and geographically diverse High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change, appointed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Among many other proposals to reform the UN, the High-Level Panel recommended expansion of the Security Council, new guidelines for use of force …

Rights And The Need For Objective Moral Limits, Charles E. Rice

Journal Articles

In this article, we will examine the natural law conception that rights are rooted in human nature, which nature itself is of divine origin through creation. We will compare this natural law concept to the premises and social consequences of the secular, relativist, and individualist approaches common to the jurisprudence of the Enlightenment. This article will offer the conclusion that only a grounding of right in the nature of persons as immortal beings created by God can offer moral and cultural security against the depersonalization characteristic of regimes premised on a relativist individualism.

Alvarez-Machain Ii: The Supreme Court's Reliance On The Non-Self-Executing Declaration In The Senate Resolution Giving Advice And Consent To The International Covenant On Civil And Political Rights, Malvina Halberstam

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Politics Of The Geneva Conventions: Avoiding Formalist Traps, Rosa Brooks

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Geneva Conventions were drafted in 1949, in another world. The world of the Geneva Conventions' "framers" is still familiar to all of us, though increasingly it is familiar from movies and books rather from the evening news or, still less, our own lived experience. The world in which the Conventions were drafted was a world of states: powerful states, weak states, predatory states, law-abiding states, but states all the same. Soldiers wore uniforms designed by their states, carried weapons issued by their states, obeyed orders given by their commanders, and fought against the armies of other states.

Well--most of …

Direct Vs. Indirect Obligations Of Corporations Under International Law, Carlos Manuel Vázquez

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

International law today addresses the conduct of private corporations in a variety of areas. With very few exceptions, however, international law regulates corporate conduct indirectly--that is, by requiring states to enact and enforce regulations applicable to corporations and other non-state actors. Only a small number of international legal norms--primarily those relating to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and forced labor--apply directly to non-state actors. Scholars have argued forcefully that international law should move in the direction of directly imposing obligations on corporations. These arguments overlook important aspects of the problem. If international legal norms were extended to corporations and backed …