Law Commons^™

The United States’ Stringent Sovereignty: How Foreign Policy Framing Prioritizes Security Over Human Rights, Kathryn Parker

Scripps Senior Theses

American policymakers utilize valence framing, purposeful descriptions of outcomes as positive or negative, to influence the opinions of voters while maintaining the moral superiority felt by many citizens in the liberal Western hegemon. This study intended to combine the political theories of Constructivism and Realism to form Constructive Realism, a theory that emphasizes the significance of state power and norms as joint influences on constituents. Constructive realism was then applied to four case studies – the UN Security Council, International Criminal Court, Convention on the Rights of the Child, and Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. This study …

Equality Across The Pond: An Analysis Of Marriage Equality Between The United States And The United Kingdom, Angel Santiago

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

Throughout history, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US) have faced criticism and backlash for limitations on marriage equality. Within the last two decades, there have been many initiatives put into place to combat the marriage equality dilemma. I will be conducting two case studies on prominent social movements within the US and UK. Within the UK, I will be examining the Stonewall organization and the LGBT Foundation; and within the US, I will be examining the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and National LGBT Chamber of Commerce. This root of the dilemma spurs mainly from human …

International Imposition Vs. Domestic Assimilation: The Criminalization Of Female Genital Cutting In Ghana, Anna Amma Sallah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The unassailable continuity of female genital cutting (FGC) despite its criminalization and the salience wielded over the past few decades stokes thoughts about what is missing—signifying the need to examine present legal mechanisms pertinent to FGC critically. The current research fails to consider the full breadth of the entanglement of law and culture relating to FGC, which is important because where the change of behavior is the objective of the law, social and legal norms must interact. By relying on the basis that FGC is not a normative crime but a deeply rooted cultural practice, I argue that international law …

Roadblocks To Access: Perceptions Of Law And Socioeconomic Problems In South Africa, Kira Tait

Doctoral Dissertations

My dissertation explores ordinary Black South Africans' perceptions of the law and how these perceptions impact their views of the desirability and appropriateness of appealing to courts when they have problems accessing constitutionally guaranteed services. Specifically, I study why people choose not to use courts to secure access to water, healthcare, education, and housing when it is both legal and possible to do so. Since it transitioned to democracy, South Africa has become one of the leaders of socioeconomic rights protection through courts. It is globally recognized for its progressive constitution buttressed by an expansive system of rights and a …

Violence After Victory: Explaining Variation In State Repression Following Contentious Politics, Christopher Wiley Shay

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

If conflict onset leads to increases in human rights abuse, how can these abuses be curbed once conflicts have ended? To answer this question, researchers have traditionally focused on a country’s regime type and leaders’ incentive structures. This is insufficient, I argue, because many regimes with obvious incentives to curb repression (especially democracies) fail to do so. In addition to regime-type, therefore, the answer depends on whether a given regime can count on the cooperation of its military and law enforcement institutions, which I refer to collectively as the security apparatus. This is because security agents’ prior experiences usually create …

Surveillance Technology Toward A Dystopian Future, Sandy Hernandez

University Honors Program Senior Projects

There is a continual debate between individuals who attempt to measure the individual’s right to privacy against the government’s right to know as an exchange to provide for the security of all citizens. Questions that demand an answer are whether the individual’s right to privacy outweighs the government’s duty to provide security; and if security is considered more important, can there even be a right to privacy. When questioning the right to privacy and state surveillance, there are three key goals. First, to investigate whether the human right to privacy should exist, considering the continued threat of terrorist attacks and …

In Search Of Trojan Horses: The United Nations Culture War, Patricia Ackerman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the expanding influence of the religious Right at the UN, building on extant scholarship on the role of the culture war at the UN. This scholarship has tracked the increasing presence of the religious Right following the Beijing World Conference on Women and the Cairo Conference of Population and Development. Since that time, there has been a systematic and strategic movement against LGBT human rights and sexual and reproductive health and rights. The religious Right influence UN discourse, documents, and global policy in favor of their agenda. This conflict manifests in a frenzied media and policy battle …

Socio-Economic Well-Being Of International F-1 Students Living And Working In The United States, Elena K. Taborda

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

According to United States law, international F-1 students are nonimmigrant aliens residing in the United States temporarily. Yet, they are more than just short-term visitors, as many of them live in the country for years while pursuing their postsecondary studies. Since international students are foreign citizens, their rights and freedoms are bound by the constraints of the country’s immigration policies. This study is concerned with work-related restrictions imposed on F-1 students by the U.S. government, positioning international students’ limited opportunities for employment as being in violation with their basic human right to economic and social development.

This multi-method project drew …

How States Respond To The Human Rights Violations Of A Past Dictatorship: The Cases Of Argentina And Chile, Michaela Drucker

Senior Theses and Projects

Many countries around the world have suffered from disastrous dictatorships riddled with human rights abuses. This thesis aims to answer the question of what happens after the dictatorship to address these human rights violations and why the responses differ from country to country. This paper poses six possible explanations as to what motivates justice, specifically prosecutions against former perpetrators: 1) the heinousness of the human rights violations, 2) the type of transition, 3) the legal structure, 4) the role of the executive, 5) international pressure through transnational advocacy networks, and 6) diffusion theory--the occurrence of similar justice policies in geographically …

The Black Women Anti-Defamation Coalition: A Proposal For The Remediation Of The Negative, Controlling Images Of Black Women, Shemar Antonio Taylor

Senior Projects Spring 2017

This research sets out to highlight the life-altering degree to which negative, domineering depictions of Black women has had and continues to have on their livelihood and also to argue that due to their systemic inability to control and craft their own reputation, this should be categorized as a human rights violation and enforced on the grounds of defamation law. Although I am not a Black woman myself, as a Black man who was raised by three Black women, I have seen first hand the importance of proving this point. Many Black women scholars, many of whom I will be …

Qué Tan Lejos Hemos Ido Y Qué Tan Lejos Nos Queda: Los Niños Trabajadores Y La Erradicación Del Trabajo Infantil En Ecuador, Alicia Serna Frausto

CMC Senior Theses

Al investigar este problema en el caso específico de Ecuador podemos ver algunos patrones que otros investigadores y políticos podrían aplicar en otros contextos de abusos laborales y trabajo infantil. En un mundo más consciente de los derechos humanos, es necesario impedir el trabajo infantil donde se pueda o por lo menos asegurar que los niños que trabajan lo hagan en la forma más sana y segura. En esta investigación se analizan las leyes y regulaciones de las últimas dos décadas, la implementación, y los efectos en las vidas de los niños trabajadores. La implementación de las leyes y regulaciones …

Older Indigent Women’S Economic Crimes: Subsuming Feminism In Favour Of A Human Rights Explanation, Patricia Joan Rhodes

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Many people today believe the concept of gender inequality is outmoded, irrelevant and unnecessary in Western societies that are deemed egalitarian. As a consequence, feminism as a movement with gender equality at its core has often been proclaimed ‘dead’,a relic of the past. Feminist perspectives, nevertheless, have produced differing points of view about the sources of gender inequality affecting crime rates and criminal behaviour.

For the last 50 years or so, women and girls have been the subject of criminological research that has largely evolved from sociological perspectives and specifically from feminism. Although gender intersects with other social realities and …

On The Poverty, Rise, And Demise Of International Criminal Law, Tiphaine Dickson

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation in four essays critically examines the emergence of international criminal courts: their international political underpinnings, context, and the impact of their political production in relation to liberal legalism, liberal political theory, and history. The essays conceive of international criminal legal bodies both as political projects at their inception and as institutions that deny their own political provenance. The work is primarily one of political theory at the intersection of history, international relations, international criminal law, and the politics of memory. The first essay questions Nuremberg's legacy on the United States' exceptionalist view of international law and its deviant …

Examining The Legality Of The Guantánamo Bay Detention Center According To International Humanitarian Law And International Human Rights Law, Sydney T. Winchester

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The purpose of this research paper is to examine how international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL) are applied to the Guantánamo Bay detention center. This paper was completed through the research of international treaties, court cases, and secondary sources that thoroughly discussed issues pertaining to Guantánamo and international law.

This paper first examines the differences between the two laws by looking at the particular roles each is meant to play in the subject of international law, as well as how the two have been applied thus far to the situation at Guantánamo. Second, the paper discusses …

Incentives To Incarcerate: Corporation Involvement In Prison Labor And The Privatization Of The Prison System, Alythea S. Morrell

Master's Projects and Capstones

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the entire world. The United States accounts for approximately 5% of the world’s population, yet it accounts for 25% of the world’s prisoners. Not only does the United States mercilessly incarcerate its own citizens, it disproportionately incarcerates African American and Latino men. This fact on its own is disturbing; however, when it is coupled with the fact that corporations profit from and lobby for an overly aggressive and ineffective criminal justice system, makes these statistics even more horrendous. Private prison companies such as Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group admit …

In The Name Of National Interest? Assessing The Shift Of Australian Foreign Policy Regarding West Papua During 2006, Jaymin Beck

Theses : Honours

The Australian government currently maintains a strong position against an independent West Papua. Despite claims of human rights abuses by the Indonesian Government in West Papua and the huge number of West Papuan refugees fleeing to Australian shores, the Australian Government continues to tighten foreign policy and migration laws to make it increasingly difficult for West Papuans to seek asylum in Australia and hope for an independent West Papua. When Australia’s humanitarian intervention in the Timor-Leste fight for independence in 1999 is considered, reasons why the Australian government maintains an anti-separatist position towards West Papua are unclear. Australia took a …

Memory, Truth And Justice: A Contextualisation Of The Uses Of Photographs Of The Victims Of State Terrorism In Argentina, 1972-2012: Communicating An Intersection Of Art, Politics And History, Richard Askam

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Photographs of the victims of Argentine state terrorism from 1972 to 1983, and most prominently those of the detained-disappeared victims of the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional dictatorship (1976-1983), have had a significant role in elucidating the demands of human rights activists since the aftermath of the Trelew Massacre in 1972. In this thesis I examine the role of photographs of victims of state terrorism in the construction of unofficial, or counter, narratives critical of those produced by two dictatorships and by elected democratic administrations in the demand for truth and justice, and in the construction of social memory. I discuss …

Justice Across The Hemispheres: The Effect Of The Pinochet Arrest On Domestic Courts In Chile And Spain, Audrey A. Hansen

Honors Theses and Capstones

This study examines whether the 1998 arrest, by order of a Spanish judge, of former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet in London for crimes of genocide and terrorism impacted the attitude of Chilean and Spanish courts toward prosecuting their own country’s human rights violations. It argues that after 1998 Chile’s judiciary increased prosecutions against former regime officials, while the Spanish judiciary upheld Spain’s 1977 Amnesty Law and declined to participate in the national discourse on the country’s past human rights violations. This research includes a comparative case study of Chile and Spain, their recent histories, their judiciaries’ attitudes towards prosecution of …

Detainment And Torture In Guantanamo Bay: Events, Legality And Effectiveness, Samuel Fein

Honors Theses

The first chapter found that following September 11th, the Bush Administration implemented policies allowing the indefinite detainment and torture of suspected terrorists. Many detainees held in Guantanamo Bay, as well as other detention facilities, were tortured, both physically and psychologically. The second chapter concluded that the Bush Administration was incorrect in claiming that the detainees were not subject to any protections under international law. According to international law, detainees are protected by either IHL (international humanitarian law) or by international human rights law. It was found that whether or not the prisoners can be held indefinitely and tried by military …

The Hegemony Of English In South African Education, Kelsey E. Figone

Scripps Senior Theses

The South African Constitution recognizes 11 official languages and protects an individual’s right to use their mother-tongue freely. Despite this recognition, the majority of South African schools use English as the language of learning and teaching (LOLT). Learning in English is a struggle for many students who speak indigenous African languages, rather than English, as a mother-tongue, and the educational system is failing its students. This perpetuates inequality between different South African communities in a way that has roots in the divisions of South Africa’s past. An examination of the power of language and South Africa’s experience with colonialism and …

Leviathan’S Rage: State Sovereignty And Crimes Against Humanity In The Late Twentieth Century, Cecil Bryant Lawson

Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014

This dissertation explores the relationship between state sovereignty and major instances of crimes against humanity committed in the latter 20 ^th century. In order to examine this dynamics of this relationship, the author analyzes the history and theory of the concept of sovereignty and examines five case studies of crimes against humanity: Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, Argentina during the military junta from 1976 to 1983, the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda in 1994, and the ongoing conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan. State sovereign power is shown to be an important facilitating factor in these atrocities as …

An Emerging Triangle: Climate Change, Migration And Human Rights: The Case Of New Zealand,Tuvalu And Kiribati, Sarah Stefanos

Archived Theses and Dissertations

Three important global issues - climate change, migration, and human rights- form an emerging triangle because of their interrelatedness. However, critical analysis of the relationship between these three issues apart from an as yet legally meaningless discourse about an imminent global catastrophe of 250 million 'climate refugees' has been limited. This paper examines the climate change, migration, and human rights triangle through the lens of the Pacific, where some of the states most severely threatened by climate change can be found. Extremely small Pacific states whose inhabitants have lived on coral reef islands (called atolls) for more than 2000 years, …

Rights Of Muslim Converts To Christianity In Egypt, Hebatallah Ghali

Archived Theses and Dissertations

“Rights of Muslim Converts to Christianity in Egypt” is a research long-overdue, because converts are increasing in number and they are stripped off their human rights, persecuted by state and society, and considered as apostates civically dead. There is a sharp discrimination and difference in jurisprudence between Court of Administrative Litigation of State Council and State Security Court, which deal with converts. Converts of Christian background are recuperating their civil liberty rights, whereas rights of converts of Muslim background are still violated. I reached this conclusion by tracking the jurisprudential development of the Court of Administrative Litigation, which moved from …