Law Commons^™

“Aspectos Jurídicos Del Delito De Trata De Personas En Colombia: Aportes Desde El Derecho Internacional, Derecho Penal Y Las Organizaciones No Gubernamentales”, Andres Barreto, Beatriz Londoño, Antonio Varon, Andrea Mateus

Andres Barreto

La preocupación por el fenómeno de la trata de personas en el escenario internacional ha sido una constante para los Estados desde mediados del siglo XIX. En Colombia la legislación que condena el delito empezó su recorrido desde el Código Penal de 1980, en donde se castigaba con penas de prisión de 2 a 6 años a todo aquel que promoviere la entrada o salida del país de mujer o menor de edad para ejercer la prostitución. Sin embargo, la complejidad de las redes criminales de este crimen transnacional empezó a evidenciar que la trata no solo se cometía sobre …

Hope Over Experience?, Cath Collins

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Writing about US human rights policy from the outside is always a disconcerting experience. All bets are off, and all assumptions are turned on their head. Assumptions from the South looking North are that, rhetoric aside, US interests rarely if ever feature human rights protection and promotion in first place. What’s more, they have very frequently featured the opposite: dirty tricks, torture and rendition were sadly familiar to students of Latin American history long before Guantanamo. The Clinton years went some way towards reining in the more blatant contradictions of the 1980s, but they also set in train the easy …

Change We Can Believe In?, Katherine Hite

Human Rights & Human Welfare

We were warned to temper our high hopes for a bold new Obama era of human rights. After all, President Obama would have “a lot on his plate”: a serious economic crisis, high unemployment, over forty million people without health insurance, “two wars,” global volatility. But it’s very hard not to be dismayed by some of the continuities from the Bush to the Obama administration, as well as by some Janus-faced policy decisions with damning human rights implications. When it comes to US-Latin America relations, such decisions include: professing support for progressive immigration reform while expanding regressive anti-immigration measures; claiming …

From Inspiring Hope To Taking Action: Obama And Human Rights, Stephen James

Human Rights & Human Welfare

While President George H. Bush spoke of a new world order, and his “misunderestimated” son mangled the English language at countless press conferences, with Barack Obama the USA now has a talented orator as a president. There is a new word order. But does the new and skillful rhetoric match the reality when it comes to human rights?

December Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

Obama's speech to the United Nations General Assembly (September, 2009).

and

Does Obama believe in human rights? By Bret Stephens. The Wall Street Journal. October 19, 2009.

The Statesman's Dilemma: Peace Or Justice? Or Neither?, Henry Krisch

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Just as I sat down to comment on President Obama and human rights, I glanced today's (November 19, 2009) The New York Times and found several opinion essays-careful in fact, thoughtful in tone, reasonable in argument-critical of Obama's approach during his recent visit to China toward Chinese human rights violations (mainly concerning Tibet but including also imprisoned lawyers, internet censorship, and persecution of Falun Gong.) The essayists considered various tactics for exerting American pressure on China regarding human rights. Common to all of them was a tone of rueful admiration for the political and diplomatic skill with which China fended …

Human Rights Law On Trial In The Drc, William Paul Simmons

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The ongoing tragedy in Eastern Congo contains so many tragic lessons that it should shake to their very foundations all comfortable ideologies about human rights and politics. The atrocities in the DRC should implicate all but have so far resulted in almost limitless impunity. Here, I briefly put human rights law on trial for its role in perpetuating this tragedy.

Multilayered Governance, Pluralism, And Moral Conflict, Thomas Cottier

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The quest for multilayered governance faces the problem of endemic tensions and disagreements in international relations and doubts as to whether nations truly share common values upon which an international society can be solidly built. Values, however, are equally controversial within the nation-state. We find similar tensions within domestic and regional layers of governance. In any system of governance, diverging and competing values are inevitable. There are differences in degree, but not in principle, when comparing traits of domestic and international governance. Legal experience in the fields of human rights and international trade regulation indicates that under such conditions, procedures …

The Moral High Ground In An Age Of Vulnerability, Tyler Moselle

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Mark Danner’s New York Review of Books piece on torture in conjunction with John Nichols’ comment on the Bush administration, outline moral, legal and political problems related to the global war on terrorism and the ascendancy of the American imperial presidency. Most people seem to be repulsed by the idea of torture but are not morally committed enough or fully dedicated to prevent it from being employed to defend their way of life. Torture is a policy decision predicated on fear, self-defense, and vulnerability in an age of globalized insurgency: one way to respond is to take the moral high …

International Criminal Justice Must Not Only Be Done, It Must Be Seen To Be Done, Rhona Smith

Human Rights & Human Welfare

“[U]ntil a time in which the global governance structure is not reliant on states, humanity will continue to fail in its attempt to protect global human rights” (Eric Leonard, June 2008 Roundtable). Discourse across a range of disciplines (e.g. Roundtable comments by Landman in October 2008, and Thomson-Jensen and co-panelists in May 2007), irrespective of the methods of evaluation, conclude that the existing system of “human rights protection” fails those whose rights are heinously violated: millions die annually as a direct result of violations of basic human rights (food, clean water, adequate health); gross and systematic violations of human rights …

May Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“Case Closed: A Prosecutor Without Borders” by Julie Flint and Alex de Waal. World Affairs. Spring 2009.

Adjudication For The Adjudicators?, Rebecca Otis

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Coming from the perspective of one who roundly agrees with Kofi Annan that the creation of the International Criminal Court was “a gift of hope to future generations, and a giant step forward in the march towards universal human rights and the rule of law,” it is deeply troubling to read reports of corruption within the body of the UN. Julie Flint and Alex de Waal’s piece this month judiciously exposes yet another facet of questionable activities, namely at the heart of the ICC. Flint and de Waal’s piece quickly deepens into a long list of allegations against the personal …

Character Assassination In The Court Of Public Opinion, Tyler Moselle

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Alex de Waal and Julie Flint employ character assassination on Luis Moreno Ocampo in their World Affairs article “Case Closed: A Prosecutor Without Borders.” Ironically, they are guilty of the same crime they accuse Ocampo of: being overly occupied with the court of public opinion. Or perhaps, that is the only court they as Sudan specialists, and Ocampo as the ICC’s first Prosecutor, have recourse to when attempting to right the wrongs of injustice.

The Prosecutor Of The Icc: Too Political, Not Political Enough, Or Both?, Chandra Lekha Sriram

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Much of the criticism of the behavior of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, revolves around two apparently contradictory criticisms, although both may well be true: that he is too political, and that he is not political, or politically savvy, enough. Certainly, his rush to pursue high-profile indictments, contemporaneous with his pursuit of the “low-hanging fruit” (supposedly easy cases such as that of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo), suggest a prosecutor with sharp political instincts and a recognition of the need for a new institution to have a few “quick wins.” Yet, simultaneously, his blundering approach with respect to …

The International Criminal Court, Mark Gibney

Human Rights & Human Welfare

I believe I speak for many when I say that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has not been anywhere near the institution that it was anticipated as being, and the latest manifestation of the ICC’s shortcomings is the humanitarian disaster that has ensued after the Court issued an arrest warrant against Sudanese President Bashir. Since no other UN action is anticipated, all that remains is to count the ever-growing number of Sudanese deaths that will result from what now appears to be a purely symbolic act that was all-too predictable.

Case Posed: But Can The Prosecution Rest?, Charli Carpenter

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Julie Flint and Alex de Waal have published a damning article about the ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo which reads, by extension, as a trouncing of the entire institution. I’m not in the loop with the court’s day-to-day politics well enough to offer an informed counter-argument, so instead, by way of playing devil’s advocate, let me agree for argument’s sake with a number of the authors’ claims, hyperbolic and partisan though they sound at places, and then (again for argument’s sake), push back on the assumptions the authors make about the implications of those claims.

Counter Terrorism And Access To Justice: Public Policy Divided?, Mark Rix

Sydney Business School - Papers

This paper will consider the manner in which Australia’s counter-terrorism strategy has been operationalised, highlighting the implications of its strategy for access to justice. Access to justice, encompassing the ability of individuals, including persons suspected of terrorism offences and non-suspects, effectively to exercise their human and legal rights, can be an important curb on state power. But, in another equally important sense, providing individuals with access to justice also protects national security by helping to ensure that the law enforcement and security agencies focus their efforts on genuine terror suspects rather than wasting their resources on investigating and prosecuting genuine …

The European Court’S Political Power Across Time And Space, Karen Alter

Faculty Working Papers

This article extracts from Alter's larger body of work insights on how the political and social context shapes the ECJ's political power and influence. Part I considers how the political context facilitated the constitutionalization of the European legal system. Part II considers how the political context helps determine where and when the current ECJ influences European politics. Part III draws lessons from the ECJ's experience, speculating on how the European context in specific allowed the ECJ to become such an exceptional international court. Part IV lays out a research agenda to investigate the larger question of how social support shapes …