Law Commons^™

Human Rights And Human Trafficking: Introduction, Claude D’Estrée

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Much like the first iteration of this Topical Digest on human trafficking and modern slavery, with an “Introduction” by Dr. Kevin Bales, this second iteration covers a wide range of subjects, moving from country specific and regional to broad subjects and issues of international jurisprudence. This survey of literature on human trafficking is of critical importance, especially in a young, emerging, and controversial field.

Intellectual Property Rights To Enhance International Clean Tech Transfers, Anastasia Lewandoski

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

La Declaracion Americana Y Los Derechos De Los Familiares De La Victima , José Antonio Arcila Cano

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.

60 Years Of The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights: Towards An Individual Responsibility To Protect, Kathleen Renée Cronin-Furman

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Experts Meeting On Security Detention Report, Tyler Davidson, Kathleen Gibson

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

A Few Random Thoughts About Socio-Economic "Rights" In The United States In Light Of The 2008 Financial Meltdown, Taunya Lovell Banks

Maryland Journal of International Law

Socio-economic rights, first articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) sixty years ago, are regaining currency. Legal practitioners around the world, emboldened by emerging constitutional democracies in Eastern Europe and South Africa that constitutionalized socio-economic rights, are actively seeking to enforce these rights. The UDHR "reaffirm [ed] faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person," and served as the basis for the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Among those rights included in the Covenant are housing, food, and healthcare.

A House With Two Rooms: Final Report Of The Truth And Reconciliation Commission Of Liberia Diaspora Project, Dulce Foster, Dianne Heins, Mark Kalla, Michelle Garnett Mckenzie, James O'Neal, Rosalyn Park, Robin Phillips, Jennifer Prestholdt, Ahmed K. Sirleaf Ii, Laura A. Young

DRI Press

From 1979 to 2003, more than 1.5 million Liberians were forced from their homes to escape from the violence and destruction of a protracted civil conflict. Hundreds of thousands became refugees and many eventually made their way to countries of resettlement including the United States and the United Kingdom. Most of their stories have never been told. This report on the experience of the Liberian diaspora, entitled A House with Two Rooms, is the culmination of three years of work in the United States, the United Kingdom and Buduburam Refugee Settlement in Ghana. The report has been submitted to the …

Human Rights And The Global Economy: The Centrality Of Economic And Social Rights, Marley S. Weiss

Maryland Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

International Human Rights In A Nutshell, Thomas Buergenthal, Dinah L. Shelton, David P. Stewart

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This book describes the development of international human rights law. The main difference today is that individuals receive protection as individuals independent from their affiliation with a nation, as compared to the traditional consideration that only states had rights under international law. The law of humanitarian intervention first suggested that states do not receive unlimited discretion in their behavior under international law. The first chapter describes the earliest treaties and agreements giving rise to the current status of international law, such as the League of Nations and the International Labor Organization.

Toward An Architecture Of Health Law, Wendy K. Mariner

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines 3 questions: What is an academic field of law? Is health law such a field? If it is, how can or should it be described? The first question may have no answer; scholars and practicing lawyers have fashioned their owns spheres of expertise. Describing health law faces particular challenges, including the breadth of applicable doctrines and the decline of unique medically-oriented adaptations of general principles. The article offers a blueprint based on the health and human rights framework as a functional description of the eclectic and translegal field of health law. This approach can identify the principles …

Adding Social Condition To The Canadian Human Rights Act, A. Wayne Mackay, Natasha Kim

Reports & Public Policy Documents

Almost a decade ago, in June 2000, the Canadian Human Rights Act Review Panel conducted a comprehensive review of the Canadian Human Rights Act [CHRA] and recommended that “social condition” be added as a prohibited ground of discrimination. Since then, no action has been taken to implement this recommendation, despite calls for action from international bodies, political actors, human rights agencies and organizations, and academic commentators to provide protections from discrimination for those suffering from social and economic disadvantage. The authors analyze the experiences at the provincial level with socio-economic grounds of discrimination, jurisprudential developments under the Canadian Charter of …

The Responsibility To Protect: A Policy Forum, Sarah Bania-Dobyns, Kathy Gockel, Kyle Matthews, Jodi Vittori

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Human Rights and Human Welfare is pleased to offer its first policy forum-a new type of review to add to our review essays, book notes and roundtable. In this policy forum we asked practitioners in the field to review a set of policy reports on the responsibility to protect. R2P, as practitioners and scholars alike have come to know this policy area, like many of the human rights concepts addressed by HRHW, is a multifaceted concept requiring perspectives from different fields and professions to address it comprehensively. Further, R2P is a quickly changing policy issue, and academics and practitioners …

Rebecca Root On Banning Landmines: Disarmament, Citizen Diplomacy, And Human Security. Edited By Jody Williams, Stephen D. Goose And Mary Wareham. (Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2008). 348pp., Rebecca Root

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Banning Landmines: Disarmament, Citizen Diplomacy, and Human Security. Edited by Jody Williams, Stephen D. Goose and Mary Wareham. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2008). 348pp.

Corruption And Crime In The East: Organized Crime And Human Trafficking In Russia And Ukraine, Danielle Mossbarger

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Russian culture and life are uniquely fascinating. Rarely has such magnificence, potential, and wonder been so dramatically juxtaposed to such tremendous terror, poverty, and struggle. The state has an almost mystical aura about it, simultaneously intriguing and repellant. Sharing more in Russia’s failures than in its successes, Ukraine is deeply bound to its former communist overlord in history and in modernity. As the world’s leading exporters of women, these two former Soviet strongholds have perfected the merge between organized crime and human trafficking, severely hindering national efforts to fully emerge from the shadows of the Soviet era. As the modus …

Globalization And Human Trafficking, Devin Brewer

Human Rights & Human Welfare

“International cruise line seeks attractive and adventuresome hostess to greet passengers. See the world, meet new people and earn a stable income!” –sounds innocuous enough until a destitute and unwitting applicant with seemingly nothing to lose is recruited from her home country and arrives at her destination only to be forced into prostitution. The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that there are 2.4 billion people in the world at any given time involved in forced labor and subjected to exploitation as a result of trafficking (ILO 2008).

Human Rights In China: Introduction, Hsiu-Lun Teng

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The People’s Republic of China has experienced rapid and cardinal changes in its political, economic, and societal realms over the past thirty years. These changes, in conjunction with China’s political and economic policies abroad, have left recognizable imprints on a variety of human rights issues. The human rights issues discussed in this digest cover both domestic and international dimensions.

Trafficking Of Women And The Harmonious Society: The Chinese National Plan Of Action On Combating Trafficking In Women And Children Within The Context Of Chinese Patriarchy And Reform, Sean Michael Barbezat

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The Chinese National Plan of Action on Combating Trafficking in Women and Children, an evolution of prior regional cooperative work in coordination with the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Trafficking (UNIAP), is a considerable accomplishment. It represents a comprehensive, practical foundation for counter-trafficking work, and addresses the most serious concerns raised by Chinese and international anti-trafficking research over the last dozen years. However, a statement of this magnitude produced by a state not known for its sweeping human rights instruments leads to suspicion.

Tibet Under Chinese Rule, Dina Buck

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The struggle between Tibet and China has been a long and intractable one. How China chooses to deal with Tibet, commonly referred to as the “Tibet Question,” is a point of controversy both within China and for the international community at large. The two main points of concern are Tibet’s quest for self-determination and Tibetan quality of life under Chinese rule. While Tibet’s struggle for self-determination can be linked with the questionable treatment Tibetans face under the Chinese government (hereafter referred to as Beijing), the two issues are not exactly the same.

Uyghurs Under The Chinese State: Religious Policy And Practice In China, Katie Corradini

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is notorious for committing human rights violations. These violations include infanticide, human trafficking, violent enforcement of the one-child policy, and religious persecution. The international community commonly overlooks religious persecution of the Uyghurs, who are targeted and often oppressed by the Chinese government. China is arguably the center of the political and economic international system but, as the Uyghur diaspora expands to developed countries, including the United States, the rest of the world must understand the issues at the forefront of the conflict.

Chinese Women And Economic Human Rights, Lisa Fry

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Women’s human rights in China have an intriguing history and a challenging present. In ancient China, Confucianism espoused the virtues of silent women who stayed at home. During the Maoist period, on the other hand, gender equality was prioritized by the state, and women were equally appointed to leadership positions and agricultural collectives with men. After Mao’s death, the country transitioned to a social market economic system that resulted in a loss of state support for gender equity. Today, the rights of women in China are not clearly defined, protected, or promoted. China’s patriarchal traditions have reasserted themselves, obstructing women’s …

Why China Supports Burma’S Dictators, Dustin Stokes

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Burma, also known as Myanmar, is governed by a repressive dictatorship that is guilty of numerous human rights abuses. Political prisoners, oppressed women and ethnic minorities, and child soldiers are examples of human rights violations in Burma. Burma’s government benefits from its relationship with China, whose support for the dictatorship is motivated by its own economic and strategic interests. The United States and its Western allies must alter their existing Burma policy, which has been part of the problem, in order to help end the suffering of the Burmese people.

Transforming Children Of War Into Agents Of Change, Brooke Breazeale

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Since the turn of the century, Sub-Saharan Africa has experienced the fastest growing rate of child soldiers. Consider the following statistics:

• An estimated 60 percent of child soldiers in Africa are fourteen years old and under (Singer 2006: 29);
• In Uganda the average age of personnel in armed forces is 12.9 (Singer 2006: 29);
• Since 1990, two million children have been killed in armed conflict, the equivalent of five hundred per day for ten years (Singer 2005).

Political Oppression In Sub-Saharan Africa, Alayna Hamilton

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Relative to social and economic rights, there is little discourse on the issue of political rights in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This fact is attributable to the pressing problems of lack of access to food and healthcare that plague millions of people in the region. However, without the observance of political (and civil) rights, economic development, wealth redistribution, and basic social order may be compromised. Contrary to arguments that insist that economic growth and social stability often require the limitation of political rights, political rights are a necessary requisite for promoting civilian support of governmental policies. Without political rights, equitable policies …

Considering The International Monetary Fund And World Bank: Lending Effectiveness In Sub-Saharan Africa, Daniela A. Wohlwend

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Sub-Saharan Africa is a place of unequivocal beauty, diversity and history; it is also the most impoverished and neglected area on the planet. With an objective look at what has gone wrong in the past five decades of International Monetary Fund and World Bank lending, along with strategic assessment and planning, sub-Saharan Africa does not have to remain the home to unimpeded, rampant poverty.

African Aid And Success: Four Keys, Susan Paganelli

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Aid to Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has occasional success stories, but they are intermingled amongst tales of waste and failure. The stark reality is that more of the population of SSA is chronically undernourished in the present decade than it was in 1992 and 50 percent of the population is still considered to be living in extreme poverty. These problems persist in spite of the $650 billion given in aid to Africa by the world’s concerned countries since 1960 (Sunderberg and Gelp 2006). It is clear that money and good intent are not sufficient to alleviate the suffering in Africa.

Human Rights Abuses Along The Dominican-Haitian Border, Calla Cloud

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A 122 mile-long border separates the Dominican Republic and Haiti on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. Of the two countries, Haiti’s human rights abuses are much more somber than the emerging developments of the Dominican Republic. Haiti’s stagnant economic situation has contributed to perennial political instability and lack of infrastructure, having a particularly confounding affect on the rights and labor conditions of Haitian citizens. There are a myriad of reasons why Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Two of the most prominent include its violent political history and the gradual deterioration of its economy. In the context …

Indigenous Rights In Latin America: The Gap Between Doctrine And Reality, Dan Ruge

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Indigenous people are prevalent across Latin America, with numbers reaching upwards of 70 percent of the general population in certain countries. Given their strong ancestral ties to the land and cultural practices, these groups have remained hidden and isolated from mainstream populations and the forces of globalization. For many groups, the limited interactions between indigenous people and the outside world have sadly been harmful to the survival of these communities. The discovery and exploitation of oil and other natural resources have led to the destruction of property, culture, and lives of indigenous groups. The uprooting and extinction in some cases …

Moving Beyond Divisive Discourse: Latin American Women In Politics, Ursula Miniszewski

Human Rights & Human Welfare

On June 25, 1993 the United Nations General Assembly held the World Conference on Human Rights, which adopted the Declaration and Programme of Action that states, “The human rights of women and of the girl-child are an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights. The full and equal participation of women in political, civil, economic, social and cultural life, at the national, regional and international levels, and the eradication of all forms of discrimination on grounds of sex are priority objectives of the international community.” On September 18, 2008 The New York Times quoted Senator Cecilia López Montaño …

The Limits Of International Humanitarian Law, Melissa Eli

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The goal of international humanitarian law is to humanize war in an effort to minimize human suffering and the long-term negative consequences of war. However, despite the adoption by most countries of the Geneva Conventions and other relevant agreements, crimes of war occur in every conflict around the world on a regular basis. Additionally, as the form of warfare changes, so does the implementation and consequences of various war crimes. Genocide, systematic rape, and the use of child soldiers are three of the most significant war crimes facing sub-Saharan Africa today. Each has consequences so severe that specific international laws …

Kimberly Lanegran On Justice And Reconciliation In Post-Apartheid South Africa Edited By François Du Bois And Antje Du Bois-Pedain. Cambridge, Uk: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 311pp., Kimberly Lanegran

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Justice and Reconciliation in Post-Apartheid South Africa edited by François Du Bois and Antje Du Bois-Pedain. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 311pp.