Law Commons^™

Human Rights In The United States: Primer On Recommendations From The Inter-American Human Rights Commission & The United Nations, Human Rights Institute

Human Rights Institute

Over the past decade, U.S. social justice advocates have increasingly recognized that international and regional human rights mechanisms are important avenues for seeking human rights accountability. A broad and diverse range of advocates have mobilized, in particular, around United Nations human rights reviews, including treaty compliance reviews, Special Rapporteur visits to the United States, and the U.N. Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review process, increasing visibility of numerous domestic human rights concerns.

A smaller number of advocates and social justice groups have engaged with the Americas’ regional human rights system, the Inter-American Human Rights System, which offers additional and complementary …

Abuse And Potential Misuse Of Resources In U.S. Terrorism Prosecutions, Human Rights Institute

Human Rights Institute

New York, July 21, 2014 – Prosecutions of American Muslims for terrorism offenses are rife with abuse, the Columbia Human Rights Institute says in a new report released today and produced jointly with Human Rights Watch. The report, Illusion of Justice: Human Rights Abuses in US Terrorism Prosecutions, examines 27 federal terrorism cases, some involving aggressive sting operations and others amounting to overbroad prosecutions for material support of terrorism. It also documents the significant human cost of solitary confinement and other restrictive conditions of confinement in these cases.

Challenging Juvenile Life Without Parole: How Has Human Rights Made A Difference?, Human Rights Institute

Human Rights Institute

Human rights standards and strategies play an important role in social justice legal advocacy in the United States. Human rights help frame new arguments, offer new venues for challenging existing policies and practices, provide opportunities for coalition-building, and afford new means to bring attention to rights violations. One example of human rights strategies at work in the U.S. is found in advocates’ efforts to end a practice unique to the United States: sentencing juveniles to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A Constitutional Right Of Religious Exemption: An Historical Perspective, Philip A. Hamburger

Faculty Scholarship

Did late eighteenth-century Americans understand the Free Exercise Clause of the United States Constitution to provide individuals a right of exemption from civil laws to which they had religious objections? Claims of exemption based on the Free Exercise Clause have prompted some of the Supreme Court's most prominent free exercise decisions, and therefore this historical inquiry about a right of exemption may have implications for our constitutional jurisprudence. Even if the Court does not adopt late eighteenth-century ideas about the free exercise of religion, we may, nonetheless, find that the history of such ideas can contribute to our contemporary analysis. …