Law Commons^™

Missouri's Innocent Citizens: An Examination Of Missouri's Response To Domestic Violence Incidents Against Children And Teens, Keith P. Freie

Keith P Freie

In 2010 the Missouri Attorney’s General’s Office created a Domestic Violence Task Force for the purpose of analyzing Missouri’s Domestic Violence laws. In 2011, the Missouri General Assembly enacted Senate Bill 320 which included several changes to Missouri’s domestic violence laws stemming from several recommendations from the Attorney General’s Task Force. While Missouri’s 2011 domestic violence law is a comprehensive solution to the many unaddressed needs of child and teen domestic violence victims, additional solutions need to be considered to fully address the problem. Those solutions may include creating special domestic violence and child abuse courts and creating educational programs …

Exploration Into The Foreign Policy Impact Of Recent Immigration Laws, Luke Larson

Luke Larson

No abstract provided.

Exploration Into The Foreign Policy Impact Of Recent Immigration Laws, Luke Larson

Luke Larson

No abstract provided.

The Politics Underpinning The Non-Realisation Of The Right To Development, Belachew M. Fikre

Belachew M Fikre

No abstract provided.

Imperial Ignition: Ecological Debt, Greenhouse Development Rights And Climate Change, Jonathan Stribling

Jonathan Stribling

This paper argues for legal principles to remedy the harm done to those least responsible for yet most affected by climate change. It examines approaches to developing the concepts of ecological and climate debt in U.S. law. This paper argues for the importance of understanding ecological debt and particularly “climate debt” in order to sustainably remedy climate change. The paper also argues that the principles of capacity and responsibility, which are the basis of the Greenhouse Development Rights (GDR) framework, are critical to remedying climate debt and should be included in global climate negotiations and U.S. environmental law.

Immigration Detention & Human Rights In The Lone Star State, Liane N. Noble

Liane N Noble

Every year, almost 400,000 individuals are held in immigration detention in the United States. These individuals—men, women, and even children—are held in a patchwork of federal, local, and private contract facilities. Surprisingly, one-third of all U.S. immigration detention beds are located in the state of Texas. Given the concentration of detention space in Texas and thus the unique issues facing that state, this report seeks to elucidate the key human rights issues surrounding immigration detention with a focus on the situation in Texas.

The information contained in this report was gathered using a variety of research methods, including: (1) review …

Preserving The Seed: Why Parents Should Have A Say In Whether Their Mentally Handicapped Child Should Be Sterelized, Rebecca Lenz Mrs.

Rebecca Lenz Mrs.

This article addresses the history of the eugenics movement, the current status of sterilization laws and the rights of parents to choose to sterilize their mentally handicapped child. Recently, North Carolina lawmakers have been pondering a way to compensate victims of unwanted sterilization that occurred in the early twentieth century. During the eugenics movement, many poor, uneducated women were sterilized against their will after being deemed feebleminded or mentally incompetent. Unfortunately, most of the victims were competent women and girls who were unable to fight for their right to reproduce. As a result, North Carolina lawmakers are trying to rectify …

Holding Corporations To Account. Crafting Ats Suits In The Uk?, Simon J. Baughen

Simon J Baughen

The traditional province of international law is in the regulation of relations between States. However, with the tribunals at Nuremberg and Tokyo established at the end of the second world war, for the first time it became possible for individuals to incur criminal liability in respect of violation of a core of norms of customary international law, such as the prohibitions on war crimes and crimes against humanity. This process has continued with the UN’s establishment in the 1993 and 1994 of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (‘ICTY’) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (‘ICTR’) respectively, …

The First Amendment In The Multicultural Climate Of Colleges And Universities: A Story Ending With Christian Legal Society V. Martinez, Blake M. Lawrence

Blake M Lawrence

This article argues that the “limited public forum” analysis used by the United States Supreme Court in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez correctly addresses the competing concerns of students and university administration when approaching free speech and association on college and university campuses. It extensively analyzes the creation of the “limited public forum” analysis, explains why that particular analysis is ill-equipped for limiting high-school speech, and comprehensively addresses the Christian Legal Society v. Martinez opinion. Further, weaknesses in the dicta of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez are analyzed and points made by dissenting Justices are critiqued.

What Should Guide Determinations Of Foreign Official Immunity In Us Courts After Samantar?, Chris C. Morley

Chris C Morley

In the recent Samantar decision, the Supreme Court held that individual foreign officials were not covered by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act but might still be covered by common law immunity. This article analyzes the extent of that common law immunity and discusses whether more recent developments in domestic and international human rights law should impact the availability of immunity for officials accused of torture, extra-judicial killings, and other violations of the law of nations.

Although the bulk of authority from US and foreign courts suggests that foreign officials should enjoy immunity for acts committed within the scope of their …

Right To Information Identity, Elad Oreg

Elad Oreg

Inspired by the famous Warren&Brandeis conceptualization of the "right to privacy", this article tries to answer a modern conceptual lacuna and present the argument for the need to conceptualize and recognize a new, independent legal principle of a "right to information-identity". This is the right of an individual to the functionality of the information platforms that enable others to identify and know him and to remember who and what he is. Changes in technology and social standards make the very notion of identity increasingly fluid, transforming the way it is treated and opening new and fascinating ways of relating to …

The Invisible Man: How The Sex Offender Registry Results In Social Death, Elizabeth B. Megale

Elizabeth B. Megale

This Article establishes that overcriminalization serves to marginalize unwanted groups of society, and particularly regarding the sex offender registry, it results in social death. The author relies upon the notion of crime as a social construct to establish that the concept of “sex offense” changes over time as society and culture evolve. From there, the author incorporates the work of Michele Foucault involving the relationship of power, knowledge, and sexuality to show how the trend toward more repressive social controls over sex-related activity is related to a shift in this relationship. The Author identifies three characteristics and the associated traits …

The War On Medical Terror: Holding Medical Professionals At Guantanamo Civilly Liable For Violating The International Law Norm Prohibiting Nonconsensual Human Experimentation, Arin M. Brenner

Arin M Brenner

This article examines the use of the Alien Tort Statue to hold medical professionals, both contract and government employees, at Guantanamo civilly liable for conducting nonconsensual human experimentation on detainees in creating and justifying the "enhanced interrogation techniques" program.

Here, There And Everywhere: Human Dignity In Contemporary Law And In The Transnational Discourse, Luis Roberto Barroso

Luis Roberto Barroso Professor

ABSTRACT: Over the past several decades, human dignity has become an omnipresent idea in contemporary law. This Article surveys the use of human dignity by domestic and international courts and describes the concept’s growing role in transnational discourse, with special attention paid to the case law of the United States Supreme Court. The Article then examines the legal nature of human dignity, finding it to be a constitutional principle rather than a freestanding fundamental right, and develops a unifying and universal identity for the concept. At its core, human dignity contains three elements - intrinsic value, autonomy and community value …

The International Human Right To Safe And Humane Treatment During Pregnancy And A Theory For Its Application In U.S. Courts, Hilary Hammell

Hilary Hammell

Under international human rights law, every woman has the right to safe and humane treatment during pregnancy, labor, and childbirth. This article examines the content of that human right as it exists under international law, and suggests one theory –international customary law – for its application in U.S. court cases challenging the treatment of pregnant women in custody. Using Juana Villegas v. Metropolitan Government of Davidson County as a case study, this article argues that international law should be used as binding law, not just as a tool for Eighth Amendment interpretation, and is especially relevant when non-citizen pregnant women …

Online Investigations And The Americans With Disabilities Act: The Resurgence Of Overbroad And Ineffectual Mental Health Inquiries In Character And Fitness Evaluations, Bernice M. Bird

Bernice M. Bird

Nationally, state board bar examiners’ interest to inquire into mental health has been a hotly contested issue invoking the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) for the last two decades. After the enactment of the ADA in 1990 a floodgate of litigation resulted in a litany of publications, all surrounding the issue of whether mental health based inquiries into character and fitness violated the ADA. Consequently, narrowly tailored mental health inquiries into specific disorders emerged as the trend in a majority of jurisdictions. This comment analyzes whether fitness boards' mental health inquiries among social networking profiles may cause the resurgence of …

''Here, There And Everywhere'': Human Dignity In Contemporary Law And In The Transnational Discourse, Luis Roberto Barroso

Luis Roberto Barroso Professor

ABSTRACT: Over the past several decades, human dignity has become an omnipresent idea in contemporary law. This Article surveys the use of human dignity by domestic and international courts and describes the concept’s growing role in transnational discourse, with special attention paid to the case law of the United States Supreme Court. The Article then examines the legal nature of human dignity, finding it to be a constitutional principle rather than a freestanding fundamental right, and develops a unifying and universal identity for the concept. At its core, human dignity contains three elements - intrinsic value, autonomy and community value …

''Here, There And Everywhere'': Human Dignity In Contemporary Law And In The Transnational Discourse, Luis Roberto Barroso

Luis Roberto Barroso Professor

ABSTRACT: Over the past several decades, human dignity has become an omnipresent idea in contemporary law. This Article surveys the use of human dignity by domestic and international courts and describes the concept’s growing role in transnational discourse, with special attention paid to the case law of the United States Supreme Court. The Article then examines the legal nature of human dignity, finding it to be a constitutional principle rather than a freestanding fundamental right, and develops a unifying and universal identity for the concept. At its core, human dignity contains three elements - intrinsic value, autonomy and community value …

''Here, There And Everywhere'': Human Dignity In Contemporary Law And In The Transnational Discourse, Luis Roberto Barroso

Luis Roberto Barroso Professor

ABSTRACT: Over the past several decades, human dignity has become an omnipresent idea in contemporary law. This Article surveys the use of human dignity by domestic and international courts and describes the concept’s growing role in transnational discourse, with special attention paid to the case law of the United States Supreme Court. The Article then examines the legal nature of human dignity, finding it to be a constitutional principle rather than a freestanding fundamental right, and develops a unifying and universal identity for the concept. At its core, human dignity contains three elements - intrinsic value, autonomy and community value …

The Geography Of Sexuality, Yishai Blank, Issi Rosen-Zvi

Yishai Blank

Who regulates sexuality in America? Given the high salience of federal laws and policies such as the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy, and states’ legal activism regarding same-sex marriage, it would seem that sexuality is mostly a federal and a state matter, and that cities play a secondary, if not insignificant role. This Article argues that in fact the opposite is true: the regulation of sexuality has been decentralized, with cities being the main locus where the most important issues pertaining to the lives of gays and lesbians are decided. This “localization …

“The End Of The Beginning?” A Comprehensive Look At The U.N.’S Business And Human Rights Agenda From A Bystander Perspective, Jena Martin Amerson

Jena Martin Amerson

Abstract With the endorsement of Special Representative John Ruggie’s Guiding Principles regarding the issue of business and human rights, an important chapter of this subject has come to a close. Beginning with the then U.N. Secretary General’s “global compact” speech in 1999, the international legal framework for business and human rights has undergone tremendous change and progress. Yet, for all these developments, there has been no exhaustive examination in the legal academy of all of these events; certainly there is no one piece that discusses or analyzes all the major instruments that have been proposed and endorsed by the U.N. …

The Dream Act And The Right To Equal Educational Opportunity: An Analysis Of, Ashley Feasley

Ashley Feasley

Under the current U.S. immigration laws, undocumented children face deportation and are frequently denied access to higher education. The 2011 Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (“DREAM”) Act would provide conditional permanent residency to certain illegal alien applicants who graduate from U.S. high schools, are of good moral character, arrived in the U.S. illegally as minors, and have been residing in the U.S. continuously for at least five years prior to the bill's enactment. The DREAM Act proposes touches on a variety of human rights issues, including the right to education and the right to be free from discrimination. …

Vietnam, China, And The United States: The Regulatory Framework Of Mining Pollution And Water Quality, Heather Whitney

Heather Whitney

This paper compares the environmental, mining, and water quality policy and regulatory framework of three countries: Vietnam, China, and the United States. There are many similarities between China and Vietnam’s legal framework and environmental protection mechanisms, by virtue of the fact that they are both socialist countries, both authoritarian governments, and both in the midst of an industrial revolution. The United States intersects in some areas of water quality standards and technological controls of effluents with both countries, as well as certain enforcement measures. This is true especially in China, where the EPA has actively consulted the Chinese government in …

Suicide Killing Of Human Life As Human Right - The Continuing Devolution Of Assisted Suicide Law In The United Kingdom, William Wagner

William Wagner

SUICIDE KILLING OF HUMAN LIFE AS A HUMAN RIGHT

The Continuing Devolution of Assisted Suicide Law

in the United Kingdom

PROF. WILLIAM WAGNER, PROF. JOHN KANE, AND STEPHEN P. KALLMAN

ABSTRACT

Since the beginning of time, divine, natural, and positive law traditions of the United Kingdom reflected an inviolable standard that people should not assist in the killing of human life. This article reviews and analyzes the ancient inviolable benchmark, explaining why the common and statutory law of Britain historically reflected its moral reference point to prohibit assisted suicide. We then proceed to analyze a contemporary jurisprudential shift in Britain’s …

Beyond Saints And Sinners: Discretion And The Need For New Narratives In The U.S. Immigration System, Elizabeth Keyes

Elizabeth Keyes

This article examines the forces affecting the exercise of discretion in American immigration courts, and argues that in this present age of immigration anxiety, the same facts that place an individual in deportation proceedings may constitute the reasons a judge will, relying on discretion, deny them relief for which they are otherwise eligible. The article explores the polarized narratives told about “good” and ”bad” immigrants, the exceptionally difficult task of adjudicating in overburdened immigration courts, and the ways in which these polarized narratives interact with psychological short-cuts, or heuristics, that affect judicial exercises of discretion. After engaging in this analysis, …

Religious Freedom In Private Lawsuits: Untangling When Rfra Applies To Suits Involving Only Private Parties, Sara Lunsford Kohen

Sara Kohen

Religious Freedom in Private Lawsuits: Untangling When RFRA Applies to Suits Involving Only Private Parties, for publication discusses when courts should apply the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”) in cases in which the federal government is not a party. Congress passed RFRA in reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision in Employment Division v. Smith. The Court held in Smith that the Constitution does not require religious exemptions from neutral, generally applicable laws—those that do not target religion and cover non-religious conduct to the same extent as religious conduct. By contrast, RFRA allows a federal law to substantially burden a religious …

Road To Nowhere? The Future Of A Declaration On Fundamental Standards Of Humanity, Emily J. Crawford

Emily J Crawford

In the years following the adoption of the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions in 1977, debate began to emerge regarding the extant lacunae in the international rules relating to situations of conflict. It was felt, by some academic writers and practitioners, that there remained a gap in international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law with regards to what was being termed ‘grey-zone conflicts’ – armed conflicts that did not meet the minimum requirements of either Protocol II or Common Article 3, yet were more than just one-off incidents, such as a riot. Therefore, it was proposed that …

The Global War On [?]: Crafting The Definition Of "International Terrorism", Kate Kovarovic

Kate Kovarovic

It is generally accepted that global acts of terrorism constitute breaches of international law. However, the increasing prevalence of such acts in recent years has revealed a startling deficiency in the field of international law, as no uniform definition of this “crime” actually exists. Such indeterminacy in the law undermines the stability and credibility of the international legal system, and prevents the global powers from holding perpetrators responsible for their actions. This Paper was drafted as a response to this deficiency, and thus isolates those consistent elements used as indicators of the crime of international terrorism, and presents a working …

The Ballot As A Bulwark: The Impact Of Felony Disenfranchisement On Recidivism, Guy P. Hamilton-Smith, Matt Vogel

Guy P Hamilton-Smith

Felony disenfranchisement – the exclusion of individuals convicted of felonies from the voting rolls – is a practice that is commonplace in the United States. In 2010, approximately 5.3 million Americans were ineligible to vote because of a prior felony conviction. Despite the fact that the justifications for disenfranchisement in a democratic society could be characterized as dubious, disenfranchisement has withstood various legal challenges and remains a widespread practice in almost every state. One argument which has never been examined empirically is the notion that disenfranchisement hampers efforts to rehabilitate offenders, which is what this article does. First, this article …

Rape In Conflict: Battling The Impunity That Stifles Its Recognition As A Jus Cogens Human Right, Michelle Marie Seyler

Michelle Marie Seyler

Jus cogens is defined as “peremptory norms of general international law from which no derogation is permissible.” Among the human rights issues that fall into this category, such as slavery and genocide, there is one that has yet to be elevated to this level of importance that unequivocally should be: rape in conflict areas.

This paper first overviews the history of rape in conflict, the reasons for its prevalence, and the affects it has on women and communities. Second, it discusses the legal tools currently available in the international legal field. Third, it establishes genocide as a jus cogens human …