Law Commons^™

A New Future? The Catholic Church, Grassroots Justice, And Accountability, Regina Menachery Paulose

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Between the 1970s and 1980s, Guatemalans, particularly the indigenous populations, were targets of a state-sponsored genocide. Several years after the genocide, Catholic Bishop Juan Gerardi of Guatemala City took the lead in creating the Recovery of Historical Memory Project which was an independent investigation into the events of the genocide. Gerardi was murdered before the report was made public. This paper will briefly discuss Gerardi’s work and his contribution to local justice in Guatemala. The author will then explore what contributions the Catholic Church could make in creating similar fact-finding missions. Could a grassroots mechanism such as the one Gerardi …

The Socialization Of Human Rights As An Inroad To Protect Sacred Space, Leonard Hammer

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Serious problems exist for cultural heritage protection, and these problems are even more serious when accounting for the protection of sacred space and holy places. The lack of effectiveness of the majority of existing international norms and institutions will be reviewed in this paper, which shall then turn to potential sources for entrenching protection of scared space within states.

The paper shall rely on the human right to freedom of religion or belief as the basis for upholding sacred space given an emerging broader understanding of the right within the human rights framework.

The paper shall principally focus on the …

Where Do We Go From Here? Charting Perceptions Of The Impact Of The Human Rights City Boston Resolution, Kostas Koutsioumpas, Maggie Schneider, Matthew Annunziato

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as a common standard of achievement and called upon every individual and organ of society to promote the rights enshrined in the document. The UDHR has been applied in many ways around the world, including by the international Human Rights Cities movement, which began in Rosario, Argentina, in 1997.

Today more than two dozen Human Rights Cities have formed around the globe, including at least nine in the United States (Washington, DC; Eugene, OR; Pittsburgh, PA; Chapel Hill, NC; Columbus, IN; Jackson, MI; Seattle, WA; Mountain View, …