Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Series

2004

Human Rights Law

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Articles 1 - 6 of 6

Full-Text Articles in Law

Constitutional Dialogue And Human Dignity: States And Transnational Constitutional Discourse, Vicki C. Jackson Jan 2004

Constitutional Dialogue And Human Dignity: States And Transnational Constitutional Discourse, Vicki C. Jackson

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The U.S. Supreme Court has been slower than some other national courts to become familiar with and discuss, distinguish, or borrow from related constitutional approaches of other nations and systems. The growth in transnational judicial discourse, especially on constitutional issues relating to human rights, has been remarked by many. National courts in Argentina, Botswana, Canada, Germany, India, South Africa, and elsewhere not infrequently refer to the constitutional jurisprudence of other nations in resolving domestic constitutional questions. Although such references are not unheard of in the United States, transnational discourse involving national courts, supranational and international tribunals is still subject to …

Go to article

The Priority Of Morality: The Emergency Constitution's Blind Spot, David Cole Jan 2004

The Priority Of Morality: The Emergency Constitution's Blind Spot, David Cole

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Three aspects of Bruce Ackerman’s thesis, which is a proposal to legitimate the practice of suspicionless preventive detention during emergencies, are discussed in this essay—its premises, its efficacy, and its morality. Part I critiques three of Ackerman’s premises—his underestimation of courts and overestimation of legislatures as guardians of liberty, his misguided belief that the supermajoritarian escalator provides a one-size-fits-all solution to the conundrum of emergency powers, and his contention that the short-lived character of emergencies makes it sensible to cede to a minority of our popular representatives control over critically important and largely unpredictable decisions concerning the appropriate duration of …

Go to article

War Everywhere: Rights, National Security Law, And The Law Of Armed Conflict In The Age Of Terror, Rosa Ehrenreich Brooks Jan 2004

War Everywhere: Rights, National Security Law, And The Law Of Armed Conflict In The Age Of Terror, Rosa Ehrenreich Brooks

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Both international and domestic law take as a basic premise the notion that it is possible, important, and usually fairly straightforward to distinguish between war and peace, emergencies and normality, the foreign and the domestic, the external and the internal. From an international law perspective, the law of armed conflict is triggered only when a armed conflict actually exists; the rest of the time, other bodies of law are applicable. Domestically, U.S. courts have developed a constitutional and statutory jurisprudence that distinguishes between national security issues and domestic questions, with the courts subjecting government actions to far less scrutiny when …

Go to article

A Theory Of Crimes Against Humanity, David Luban Jan 2004

A Theory Of Crimes Against Humanity, David Luban

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The answer I offer in this Article is that crimes against humanity assault one particular aspect of human being, namely our character as political animals. We are creatures whose nature compels us to live socially, but who cannot do so without artificial political organization that inevitably poses threats to our well-being, and, at the limit, to our very survival. Crimes against humanity represent the worst of those threats; they are the limiting case of politics gone cancerous. Precisely because we cannot live without politics, we exist under the permanent threat that politics will turn cancerous and the indispensable institutions of …

Go to article

The Human Rights Of Persons With Mental Disabilities: A Global Perspective On The Application Of Human Rights Principles To Mental Health, Lawrence O. Gostin, Lance Gable Jan 2004

The Human Rights Of Persons With Mental Disabilities: A Global Perspective On The Application Of Human Rights Principles To Mental Health, Lawrence O. Gostin, Lance Gable

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Article examines the human rights of persons with mental disabilities and the application and development of these rights by the various international and regional systems that have been established to protect human rights. An international system of human rights with universal application has been developed under the auspices of the United Nations. Regional human rights systems have applied additional human rights protections to their respective geographic regions. Both the international and regional systems have addressed the human rights of persons with mental disabilities through treaties, declarations, and thematic resolutions. Moreover, regional institutions have incrementally formulated a body of law …

Go to article

The Non-Monetary Value Of Reparations Rhetoric, Emma Coleman Jordan Jan 2004

The Non-Monetary Value Of Reparations Rhetoric, Emma Coleman Jordan

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

I have several comments to offer on the subject of reparations. Reparations is not a single idea. The forty acres and a mule that General Sherman promised to the slaves was the beginning of the idea of reparations in America, but not the end. Reparations is a multi-part idea; until we get that straight, we are vulnerable to the feeling that we are lost again. There are at least three arenas in which the reparations issue may be contested. One is the political arena. In the arena of legislation and political maneuvering, bills must be submitted for majoritarian acceptance. It …

Go to article