Law Commons^™

Federalism And Horizontality In International Human Rights , Margaret E. Mcguinness

Missouri Law Review

The advent of the international human rights system is one of the many changes to international law since the time Missouri v. Holland was decided. As other contributions to this symposium note, one of the challenging federalism questions raised by Holland in this new era is the effect of international human rights treaties and emerging customary international human rights law on U.S. states. And just as the creation of the international human rights regime has affected domestic analysis of federalism, the international human rights system has itself adjusted to the processes of federalism. The human rights regime is largely structured …

The Emergence Of Transnational Constitutionalism: Its Features, Challenges And Solutions, Wen-Chen Chang, Jiunn-Rong Yeh

Wen-Chen Chang

Globalization and regional remapping have made unprecedented challenges to traditional understandings of constitutional and international laws. Not only constitutions may function across national borders but also international treaties and regional cooperative frameworks may deliver constitutional or quasi-constitutional functions. This paper aims at theorizing recent developments of transnational constitutionalism by examining its features, functions and characteristics. We find that transnational constitutionalism features transnational constitutional arrangements, transnational judicial dialogues and global convergence of national constitutions. Notwithstanding main functions in facilitating a global market, the development of transnational constitutionalism nevertheless undermines accountability, democracy and rule of law at both domestic and transnational levels. …

The Paths Of Christian Legal Scholarship, David A. Skeel Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

The history of twentieth century Christian legal scholarship– really, the absence of Christian legal scholarship in America’s elite law schools– can be told as a tale of two emblematic clashes: the first an intriguing historical footnote, the second a brief, explosive war of words. In the first, a tort action in Nebraska circa 1890,William Jennings Bryan and Roscoe Pound served as opposing counsel; the second was a war of words in the 1940s between a group of neo-Thomist scholars and defenders of Oliver Wendell Holmes. Using these two incidents to frame as a starting point, this essay briefly chronicles the …

Resolving The Dissonance Of Rodriguez And The Right To Education, Angela A. Holland

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Education exists as a fundamental right recognized by countries worldwide. Overwhelming support for the right to education is reflected in international human rights instruments, including the International Convention on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Notwithstanding a near global consensus on this issue, the United States has refused to recognize a federal right to education since the 1973 Supreme Court decision San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez. The ill-effects of Rodriguez linger today; glaring disparities continue to mar the educational prospects of women, minorities, and poor children in the United States. …

Kurt Mills On Conflict And Compliance: State Responses To International Human Rights Pressure By Sonia Cardenas. Philadelphia: University Of Pennsylvania Press, 2007. 200pp., Kurt Mills

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Conflict and Compliance: State Responses to International Human Rights Pressure by Sonia Cardenas. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007. 200pp.

International Standards For Detaining Terrorism Suspects: Moving Beyond The Armed Conflict-Criminal Divide, Monica Hakimi

Faculty Scholarship

Although sometimes described as war, the fight against transnational jihadi groups (referred to for shorthand as the "fight against terrorism") largely takes place away from any recognizable battlefield. Terrorism suspects are captured in houses, on street comers, and at border crossings around the globe. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the high-level Qaeda operative who planned the September 11 attacks, was captured by the Pakistani government in a residence in Pakistan. Abu Omar, a radical Muslim imam, was apparently abducted by U.S. and Italian agents off the streets of Milan. And Abu Baker Bashir, the spiritual leader of the Qaeda-affiliated group responsible for …

Posthumous Children, Hegemonic Human Rights And The Dilemma Of Reform: Conversations Across Cultures, Uche Ewelukwa

Uche Ewelukwa

A critical analysis of posthumous conception African style (“PPAS”) and posthumous conception Western style (“PPWS”) reveals inconsistencies between the two practices and sheds light on similarities in practices across cultures and civilizations - similarities that are seemingly ignored by international human rights bodies and human rights activists. Under PPAS, there are at least four ways in which a child can be conceived posthumously. A commonality among all four is that no genetic link exists between the dead man and any children attributable to him. PPAS has and continues to be used in many patrilineal African cultures in order to ensure …