Law Commons^™

After Privacy: The Rise Of Facebook, The Fall Of Wikileaks, And Singapore’S Personal Data Protection Act 2012, Simon Chesterman

Simon Chesterman

This article discusses the changing ways in which information is produced, stored, and shared — exemplified by the rise of social-networking sites like Facebook and controversies over the activities of WikiLeaks — and the implications for privacy and data protection. Legal protections of privacy have always been reactive, but the coherence of any legal regime has also been undermined by the lack of a strong theory of what privacy is. There is more promise in the narrower field of data protection. Singapore, which does not recognise a right to privacy, has positioned itself as an e-commerce hub but had no …

The Law Of Indicators On Women’S Human Rights: Unmet Promises And Global Challenges, Marta Infantino

Marta Infantino

Global indicators on human rights (HRs) aim to measure HRs scores against HRs standards. In other words, they aim to measure legal phenomena against legal benchmarks.

Despite HRs indicators’ reliance on legal knowledge, lawyers have so far neither made substantial contributions to their production, nor studied in depth the legal implications of their uses. The current state-of-the-art in the world of HRs indicators is the result of an ongoing process led by bureaucrats, economists, statisticians, and activists with limited legal training. It is these actors who are developing a new body of professional knowledge, and a new technology of governance …

Towards Determining Legal Parentage By Agreement In Israel, Yehezkel Margalit

Hezi Margalit

In Israel as in other parts of the world, families, parenthood, and relations between parents and children have changed dramatically over the past few decades. So, too, developments in modern medicine have enhanced the ability to separate sexuality from fertility and parenthood. Many researchers feel that the legal system has not kept pace with these changes, and that traditional models of familial relationships no longer provide adequate tools for dealing with them. In order to bridge the gap between a desired social status and current law, a growing number of parents seek to regulate the status, rights, and obligations of …

Determining Legal Parenthood By Agreement As A Possible Solution To The Challenges Of The New Era, Yehezkel Margalit

Hezi Margalit

Over the past decades, we witnessed changes in the matrimonial and parenting institutions. Medical innovations have further created ethical-legal dilemmas. It is, therefore, essential to create a theory and framework that will determine ways to deal with the resulting dilemma in a fully developed manner. This paper surveys the current, conflicting shifts in family structure and the definition of legal parenthood. In it, I deal with the importance and various aspects of defining legal parenthood. I will also focus on the singularity of this dilemma as it is increasingly apparent in the various fertility treatments. I present the sociological-legal roots …

The New Scheme For Foreign National Prisoners: Vigilance Is Key, Patrick Matthew Hassan-Morlai

Patrick Matthew Hassan-Morlai

The provision governing the Tariff Expired Removal Scheme (TERS) is contained in section 32A of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 as inserted by section 119 of the LASPO Act. In broad terms, TERS applies only to foreign national prisoners whom the secretary of state can remove from the UK if the foreign national prisoner is serving a life sentence that includes an IPP sentence, has served their minimum term, i.e. tariff, and is liable to removal from the UK. Section 119 adopts the definition of liability to removal from the UK in section 259 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003.

Penny Wise But Pound Foolish In The Heartland: A Case Study Of Decriminalizing Domestic Violence In Topeka, Kansas, Shelley Santry

Shelley M. Santry

Exchange As A Cornerstone Of Families, Martha Ertman

Martha M. Ertman

This essay up-ends critical theorist Ivan Illich’s critique of economic thinking as replacing households defined by vernacular gender with married pairs in “inhumane” sex-neutral economic partnerships. It challenges Illich’s view of exchange as a destroyer that has meddled in families for only a few hundred years, citing sociobiological literature to counter his case against exchange with one valorizing two exchanges that I call “primal deals” that played crucial roles in the evolution of humans, families, and day-to-day life. These primal deals—especially the primal pair-bonding deal between men and women—continue to play a central role in families and family law today. …

The Death Penalty And The Absolute Prohibition Of Torture And Cruel, Inhuman, And Degrading Treatment Or Punishment, Juan E. Mendez

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Mere Ritual Or Gradual Change: Why Has Asia Failed To Establish Regional Human Rights Institutions Thus Far?, Buhm Suk Baek

Buhm Suk Baek

This paper reviews all the major initiatives to establish regional human rights institutions (RHRIs) in Asia and concludes that, for the last twenty years, Asian governments’ efforts to create RHRIs have been ritualistic, with non-legally binding promises and temporal discussions, but without any concrete actions. After analyzing the major initiatives, this paper identifies five main factors that have hindered the establishment of a regional human rights system in Asia. It concludes that those obstacles result not from a different understanding of fundamental human rights under the already existing international human rights legal system, but mainly from political considerations. Thus, this …

Rhris, Nhris And Human Rights Ngos, Buhm Suk Baek

Buhm Suk Baek

This paper reviews the characteristics of human rights NGOs and their evolving role within the existing international and regional human rights mechanisms, and further, in Asia, the way in which they have worked together for better human rights practices and the establishment of regional human rights institutions (RHRIs) in this region. It also examines the role of human rights NGOs in strengthening human rights protection systems at the national level, especially in cooperation with national human rights institutions (NHRIs). My broad argument is that not only have they contributed to strengthening the international human rights system, but have also been …

The Medium Foreseeing The Future: The Role Of Nhris In Creating Rhris In The Asia-Pacific Region, Buhm Suk Baek

Buhm Suk Baek

This paper explores the ways in which NHRIs can be a key player for the establishment of RHRIs in this region by addressing some of the concerns and inhibitions of Asian states, while furthering the broad policies and aims of international human rights law. In examining the unique strengths and weaknesses of NHRIs, this paper also explores the role that NHRIs can play in the creation, administration and furtherance of international human rights law, thus illuminating the particular role of such actors to create RHRIs in the Asian human rights context. This paper broadly maintains that as intermediate institutions, NHRIs …

Too Rough A Justice: The Ethiopia-Eritrea Claims Commission And Civil Liability For Claims For Rape Under International Law, Ryan S. Lincoln

Ryan S. Lincoln

The developments in international law prohibiting rape during armed conflict have grown at a rapid pace in recent decades. Whereas rape had long been considered an inevitable by-product of armed conflict, evolution in international humanitarian law (IHL) has relegated this conception mostly to the past. The work of international criminal tribunals has been at the forefront of this change, developing the specific elements of the international crime of rape, and helping to change the perception of rape in international law. Violations of IHL, however, also give rise to civil liability. Despite the advances with respect to rape made in the …

The Enforcement Of Foreign Judgments In The Jurisprudence Of The European Court Of Human Rights, Theodor Jr Schilling

Theodor JR Schilling

The enforcement of foreign judgments is a matter of choice for the States. The ECtHR has recognised the value of exequatur proceedings in protecting human rights of the foreign-judgment debtor. On the other hand, the Court postulates, in principle, a human right of the foreign-judgment creditor to an exequatur. The Court has to find a reasonably closed system guaranteeing both rights while at the same time paying due respect to the Convention States' margin of appreciation. The present contribution will discuss how the Court's jurisprudence fits the States' preoccupations on this subject as reflected in general international law and in …

Treaty Interpretation Of The Right To Life Before Birth By Latin American And Caribbean States: An Analysis Of International Treaty Obligations, Regional Agreements And Relevant State Practice, Ligia M. De Jesus

Ligia M. De Jesus

Even though non-judicial international human rights bodies routinely promote the understanding that the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the American Convention on Human Rights mandate the legalization of abortion, states parties have authoritatively interpreted their treaty obligations otherwise. This article examines, in particular, evidence of Latin American and Caribbean states’ interpretation of these treaties as recognizing and protecting the unborn child’s right to life and health in a comprehensive manner, as well as evidence of their rejection of abortion rights in international fora. Section II discusses international treaties ratified by Latin American and Caribbean states that explicitly …

U.S. Foreign Policy And The Arab Spring: Ten Short-Term Lessons Learned, Paul Williams, Colleen Popken

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Session One: Using Forensic Medical Evidence In Court, Juan E. Mendez

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Victim Participation At The International Criminal Court And The Extraordinary Chambers In The Courts Of Cambodia: A Feminist Project?, Susana Sacouto

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

INTRODUCTION: Over the last couple of decades, and particularly since 1998, incredible advances have been made in the effort to end impunity for sexual and gender-based violence committed in the context of war, mass violence, or repression. Before this, crimes committed exclusively or disproportionately against women and girls during conflict or periods of mass violence were either largely ignored, or at most, treated as secondary to other crimes. However, evidence of the large-scale and systematic use of rape in conflicts over the last two decades helped create unprecedented levels of awareness of sexual violence as a method of war and …

Region Codes And Human Rights, Molly Land

Molly K. Land

No abstract provided.

#Ict4hr—Information And Communication Technologies For Human Rights, Molly Land, Patrick Meier, Mark Belinsky, Emily Jacobi

Molly K. Land

No abstract provided.

From Politics To Law, To Tedium, And Back, Mark Drumbl

Mark A. Drumbl

No abstract provided.

Access To Health Information Under International Human Rights Law, Molly Land

Molly K. Land

This article discusses whether and, if so, to what extent states are obligated under international treaty law to provide individuals, lay healthcare providers, professional healthcare providers, and policymakers with appropriate health information. The article concludes that health information is an essential component of many identified and established human rights. States party to treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights must provide and guarantee access to health information. Appropriate health information fosters meaningful social and political participation and ensures that individuals achieve and enjoy the rights afforded to them by international human rights law. This article provides …

In Search Of A Forum For The Families Of The Guantanamo Disappeared, Peter Honigsberg

Peter J Honigsberg

The United States government has committed grave human rights violations by disappearing people during the past decade into the detention camps in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And for nearly thirty years, beginning with a 1983 decision from a case arising in Uruguay, there has been a well-developed body of international law establishing that parents, wives and children of the disappeared suffer torture, or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (CID).

This paper argues that the rights of family members were severely violated when their loved ones were disappeared into Guantanamo. Family members of men disappeared by the United States have legitimate claims …

"A Sea Change In Security: How The War On Terror Strengthened Human Rights", Michael Galchinsky

Michael Galchinsky

The UN Security Council's initial response to 9/11 (UNSC Res. 1373) deemphasized the requirement that states respect human rights and humanitarian law in their counter-terrorism efforts. However, starting in 2002, a backlash by numerous global governance institutions asserted that human rights and security are mutually reinforcing. The emerging norm of mutual reinforcement influenced the SC to direct its Counter-Terrorism Committee to incorporate human rights concerns more robustly into its work. The SC’s increasing adoption of a rights-based approach indicates that the UN's security and human rights missions are bound more closely together than ever before.

Rebalancing Trips, Molly K. Land

Molly K. Land

In recent years, global intellectual property scholarship has been preoccupied with “rehabilitating” the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS). With some distance from the polarizing rhetoric that accompanied the early years of TRIPS, contemporary accounts laud the treaty as far more flexible and sensitive to the needs of developing countries than had previously been believed. This article argues that, contrary to these accounts, the fears of developing countries concerning TRIPS have indeed been realized—just not in the manner they imagined at the time of its conclusion. Although TRIPS does contain significant flexibilities, states have largely failed to take …