Law Commons^™

The Evolving International Judiciary, Karen J. Alter

Faculty Working Papers

This article explains the rapid proliferation in international courts first in the post WWII and then the post Cold War era. It examines the larger international judicial complex, showing how developments in one region and domain affect developments in similar and distant regimes. Situating individual developments into their larger context, and showing how change occurs incrementally and slowly over time, allows one to see developments in economic, human rights and war crimes systems as part of a longer term evolutionary process of the creation of international judicial authority. Evolution is not the same as teleology; we see that some international …

Is International Law Really Law? Theorizing The Multi-Dimensionality Of Law, Elizabeth M. Bruch

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Rule Of Law In Haiti Before And After The 2010 Earthquake, James D. Wilets, Camilo Espinosa

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Realist Defense Of The Alien Tort Statute, Robert Knowles

Law Faculty Publications

This Article offers a new justification for modern litigation under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), a provision from the 1789 Judiciary Act that permits victims of human rights violations anywhere in the world to sue tortfeasors in U.S. courts. The ATS, moribund for nearly 200 years, has recently emerged as an important but controversial tool for the enforcement of human rights norms. “Realist” critics contend that ATS litigation exasperates U.S. allies and rivals, weakens efforts to combat terrorism, and threatens U.S. sovereignty by importing into our jurisprudence undemocratic international law norms. Defenders of the statute, largely because they do not …

Keeping The Welcome Mat Rolled-Up: Social Jsutice Theorists' Failure To Embrace Adverse Possession As A Redistributive Tool, Tessa Davis

Florida State University Journal of Transnational Law & Policy

"The essential difference between prescription and limitation is that in the former case title can be acquired only by possession as of right. That is the antithesis of what is required for limitation, which perhaps can be described as possession as of wrong." "Property rights must be defined and structured so as to grant legal protection for particular interests while at the same time limiting that protection to ensure an environment in which all people may exercise their rights . . . . Contrary, perhaps, to popular belief this means that one of the purposes of property systems must be …

Russia’S 'Orthodox' Foreign Policy: The Growing Influence Of The Russian Orthodox Church In Shaping Russia’S Policies Abroad, Robert C. Blitt

Scholarly Works

The government of Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) - the country’s predominant religious group - recently underwent back-to-back changes in each institution’s respective leadership. This coincidence of timing has afforded a unique opportunity to reexamine the status of constitutional secularism and church-state relations in the Russian Federation.

In the short space of two years, the partnership of President Dmitri Medvedev and Patriarch Kirill has further entrenched a discriminatory three-tiered status system for religious groups and - perhaps more significantly - has generated multiple new channels of influence for the ROC in Russian social and political life, including handing …

Behrami V. France: An Unfortunate Step Backwards In The Protection Of Human Rights, Sadia R. Sorathia

Maryland Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

The Limits Of Constructivism: Can Rawls Condemn Female Genital Mutilation?, Andrew Koppelman

Faculty Working Papers

The strategy for coping with value pluralism that Rawls has proposed is to permit political decisions, at least with respect to basic rights, to depend only on those goods that can be inferred from the bare requirements of respectful relations between persons. His account offers such a parsimonious conception of the good that it cannot cognize some atrocities. I focus on one extreme human rights case: the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), which, it is well established, violates basic human rights. Doubtless Rawls was appalled by the practice. Yet his theory cannot generate a basis for condemning it. A …

Sent ‘Home’ With Nothing: The Deportation Of Jamaicans With Mental Disabilities, Georgetown University Law Center, Human Rights Institute

HRI Papers & Reports

No abstract provided.

Group Rights: A Defense, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Human rights belong to individuals in virtue of their common humanity. Yet it is an important question whether human rights entail or comport with the possession of what I call group-specific rights (sometimes referred to as collective rights), or rights that individuals possess only because they belong to a particular group. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) says they do. Article 15 asserts the right to nationality, or citizenship. Unless one believes that the only citizenship compatible with a universal human rights regime is cosmopolitan citizenship in a world state – a conception of citizenship that is not countenanced …

Obama And Libya, Benjamin G. Davis

Florida A & M University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Obama's Africa Policy On Human Rights, Use Of Force And Humanitarian Intervention: In Whose Interest, Vincent O. Nmehielle, John-Mark Iyi

Florida A & M University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Benevolent Assistance Or Bureaucratic Burden: Promoting Effective Haitian Reconstruction, Self-Governance, And Human Rights Under The Right To Development, Jeffery M. Brown

Intercultural Human Rights Law Review

This Article examines the capacity of regional organizations to coordinate foreign assistance and development programs in underdeveloped states, and in doing so, to promote the transformation of the Right to Development (RTD) - which stresses the right of nations and their people to progress in a manner that insures their ability to meet basic material, security and social needs -from conceptual template to a binding normative framework under international law. As the poorest state in the western hemisphere, but also the recipient of significant influxes of foreign aid, Haiti exemplifies the underdevelopment dilemma. For despite the large sums of aid …

Defamation Of Religion: Rumors Of Its Death Are Greatly Exaggerated, Robert C. Blitt

Scholarly Works

This Article explores the recent decisions by the United Nations (“UN”) Human Rights Council and General Assembly to adopt consensus resolutions aimed at “combating intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization of, and discrimination, incitement to violence and violence against, persons based on religion or belief.” These resolutions represent an effort to move past a decade’s worth of contentious roll call votes in favor of prohibiting defamation of religion within the international human rights framework. Although labeled “historic” resolutions, this Article argues that the UN’s new compromise approach endorsed in 2011 — and motivated in part by the desire to end years …

Whither Secular Bear: The Russian Orthodox Church’S Strengthening Influence On Russia's Domestic And Foreign Policy, Robert C. Blitt

Scholarly Works

As 2012 presidential elections in Russia draw near, evidence points to a collapse in that country’s constitutional obligation of secularism and state-church separation. Although early signs of this phenomenon can be traced back to the Yeltsin era, the Putin and Medvedev presidencies have dealt a fatal blow to secular state policy manifested both at home and abroad, as well as to Russia’s constitutional human rights principles including nondiscrimination and equality of religious beliefs.

The first part of this article argues that leadership changes in the Russian government and the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) have triggered an unprecedented deepening of state-ROC …

Seeking Deliberation On The Unborn In International Law, S De Freitas, G Myburgh

Law Papers and Journal Articles

International human rights instruments and jurisprudence radiate an understanding of international law as also serving to protect fundamental rights and the interests of the individual. The idea that human rights provide a credible framework for constructing common norms among nations and across cultures is both powerful and attractive. If the protection of being human serves as the common denominator in human rights discussion, and if human rights are deeply inclusive, despite being culturally and historically diverse, then a failure to deliberate on the legal status and protection of the unborn may be seen as a failure to extend respect where …

Collective V. Individual Human Rights In Membership Governance For Indigenous Peoples, Austin Badger

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Decent Work For All: A Holistic Human Rights Approach , Gillian Macnaughton, Diane F. Frey

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ngo Standing And Influence In Regional Human Rights Courts And Commissions, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

Journal Articles

This article explores the extent to which nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have standing to bring claims in the European, Inter-American, and African human rights enforcement systems, examines the degree to which NGOs in fact bring such cases, and analyzes the ramifications of NGO involvement in these systems. Part I of this article considers how NGOs can be involved in the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Human Rights Commission and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. As detailed in this part, while …

Seductive Drones: Learning From A Decade Of Lethal Operations, Mary Ellen O'Connell

Journal Articles

The world’s fleets of unmanned combat vehicles (UCVs) are growing exponentially. This contribution aims to raise awareness that the very existence of UCV technology may well be lowering the inhibitions to kill. At least two sets of data indicate a problem: First, we have evidence from psychological studies that killing at a distance using unmanned launch vehicles may lower the inhibition to kill on the part of operators. Second, we have a decade of evidence of US presidents deploying military force where such force was unlikely to be used prior to the development of UCVs. This evidence indicates that the …

From Sovereignty To Responsibility: An Emerging International Norm And Its Call To Action In Burma, Alison Mccormick

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

"[O]ur struggle for democracy is a struggle for our everyday life." This, in the words of long-detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, describes the isolated pariah state of Burma. Under brutal military rule since 1962, Burma is still desperately trying to change its deplorable circumstances through the leadership of Suu Kyi, but continues to fail due to the regime-written "new" constitution that guarantees the regime's continued leading role in the state apparatus.2 Illegitimate elections and continued repression of the democratic opposition allow for the regime's violations of basic human rights to continue. Rights violations that include displacement, forced labor, …

Once, Twice, Three Times A Victim: Why A Defendant In A Sexual Assault Case Has No Right To Compel Physical Examinations, Jenny M. Flanigan

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Where Should Haitians Go - Why Environmental Refugees Are Up The Creek Without A Paddle, Amanda A. Doran

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

International Law In Crisis: Foreword, Michael P. Scharf, Adam Centner, Kara Mcclain

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Self-Determination In Regional Human Rights Law: From Kosovo To Cameroon, Dinah L. Shelton

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This article discusses the right to self-determination in Africa and America and begins by examining the right to self-determination in regional human rights treaties. No treaty in the Inter-American system provides a right to self-determination; however, the African Charter provides a right to self-determination, which I attribute to its history of colonization and apartheid. Next, the article describes secession claims made in Africa, starting in 1995 and discusses self-determination of indigenous and tribal groups by analyzing case law from the Inter-American system and the African Commission. The article concludes that these regions have established the framework for self-determination and must …

Human Rights And The Environment: Substantive Rights, Dinah L. Shelton

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This chapter focuses on the relationship between human rights and the environment. The chapter describes multiple sources of human rights and environmental obligations, including international treaties, national law, and the judicial decisions of international courts. Human rights that indirectly call for environmental conservatism include the rights to life, health, privacy, and standard of living. This chapter concludes by noting that governments must balance human rights related to the environment with other concerns such as economic advancement.

The Legal Status Of Normative Pronouncements Of Human Rights Treaty Bodies, Dinah L. Shelton

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This essay examines international human rights treaties and the statements that tribunals and other organizations make about them. Next, the essay discusses the general non-binding nature of treaties and describes use of General Comments and other interpretive statements. The essay concludes that increasing unofficial commentary on human rights organs’ decisions and increased compliance will encourage more states to comply and make it “increasingly difficult for a single state to hold out.”

Law On The Books Vs. Law In Action: Under-Enforcement Of Morocco’S Reformed 2004 Family Law, The Moudawana, Ann M. Eisenberg

Faculty Publications

Morocco shares cultural, religious, and linguistic roots with more conservative countries in the region, yet the Moroccan government has interpreted similar traditions to yield the starkly different stance that gender equality is desirable. Morocco’s Moudawana, the 2004 legislation on family law with provisions largely derived from Islamic sources, confers unprecedented rights on Moroccan women. Part I of this Note evaluates the Moudawana in light of its break with traditional Shari’a, alongside its fidelity to other Islamic law principles in giving Moroccan women unprecedented rights. While the new Moudawana has provisions addressing inheritance, children’s rights, and assets within a marriage, this …

Latin America’S Indigenous Women, Courtney Hall

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Latin America’s indigenous women are as diverse as the land they inhabit. Their uniqueness is shaped by belonging to groups that have their own distinct history, traditions, and identity. Yet despite this diversity, indigenous women confront the same human rights challenges: racial, gender, and socio-economic discrimination. Without ignoring the diversity of indigenous women, a better understanding of their fundamental struggles can be gained by weaving these issues together in a comprehensive narrative.

Peeking Out From Behind The Curtain, Ian Reese

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Absconded by airport security to middle-of-nowhere Russia, Nikolai Alexeyev sat for several days in early September 2010 unaware of his infractions or of his fate. Like a page from a Cold-War spy novel, the point of his abduction was to terrorize; Alexeyev’s abductors psychologically tortured and berated him with homophobic remarks. Nikolai Alexeyev is the leading gay rights activist in Russia and has been a twisting thorn in the side of local and national government for several years. Upon his release, he resolved to agitate further by leading a public demonstration to boycott the Swiss International Air Lines for its …