Law Commons^™

Nothing "Colonial" About It: Service Delivery And Accountability, Todd Landman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

At one level, there is little in “The New Colonialists” with which I disagree. The necessary state capacity in developing societies for basic service delivery is in many cases absent, significantly weak, or has been corrupted in ways that produce tremendous inequality of access and disproportionate social outcomes that are related to race, ethnicity, poverty, gender, and other categories of social identity. It is true that in the presence of weak state institutions, widespread corruption, and underdeveloped infrastructure, a large number of national and international non-governmental agencies and organizations have sought to redress such imbalances through their work in providing …

September Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

"The New Colonialists" by Michael A. Cohen, Maria Figueroa Küpçü, and Parag Khanna. Foreign Policy. July/August 2008.

Saving Lives: A First Step Toward Freedom Not Dependence, William F. Felice

Human Rights & Human Welfare

During the nineteenth century, European powers extended and deepened their brutal domination of the so-called “uncivilized” (sic) nations and peoples around the world. These efforts were named “colonialist” and were based on the uprooting of indigenous peoples, the export and pillage of natural resources, cultural displacement, direct political control, and economic exploitation and the creation of dependency by the Europeans. While the European states gained colossal economic benefits from these arrangements, the colonized peoples were left with failed states and bad governments. Advocates of these colonialist policies often justified these actions on the basis of a deep-felt ideological belief in …

Cosmopolitanism And Rationalizing Tendencies, James Pattison

Human Rights & Human Welfare

When phone-in talk shows, the press, and undergraduates debate the case for cosmopolitan accounts of global distributive justice, there are a number of standard rationalizations given for why we don’t have a duty to help. These include: “we have duties only to our fellow countrymen”; “poverty is caused by corrupt leaders, so not our fault, and therefore not our responsibility“; and “humanitarian aid is counter-productive.” Unlike the other two sorts of rationalization, the latter claim does not necessarily deny the moral cosmopolitanism premise that we have extensive duties to relieve the suffering of those beyond our borders. Rather, it follows …

In With The Old, Out With The New, Brent J. Steele

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Michael Cohen, Maria Figueroa Küpçü and Parag Khanna make some compelling arguments about the inherent drawbacks regarding the role diverse networks of NGOs play in keeping at-risk populations alive throughout the world. We are informed that these groups are “the new colonialists,” agencies much like the old European empires. These new colonialists are apparently enforcing a cycle of dependency which prevents the development of state structures, structures that apparently sustain these populations more effectively. The problem with this thesis is that the authors do not seem to entertain the possibility that the nation-state is itself an (old) colonial construct, and …

August Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

"Still knocking, as the doors close." The Economist. June 19, 2008.

Who Counts? Refugees And The Politics Of Indifference, Sonia Cardenas

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The contemporary plight of refugees, asylum seekers, and other marginalized groups reveals the limits of international human rights norms. Numerous internationally recognized standards and laws exist for the humane treatment of people. Yet despite enormous progress, the reality is that some people are simply deemed to be less fully human than others. Nationalism and racism underlie popular indifference to today’s unwanted refugees. This is the unspoken truth that lies at the heart of the global refugee problem.

Social Contract In A Borderless World, Daniel J. Graeber

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Addressing the American Political Science Association in 2000, the international relations theorist Robert Keohane of Princeton University noted that effective governance in a globalized world depends more on interstate cooperation and transnational networks than any type of world body. Keohane made the claim that the people and players in a globalized world stand to gain from the system through cooperation across borders and boundaries. Nevertheless, Keohane also observed that the actors may exploit interdependence in that system by transferring blame to others and that, although institutions may be essential, they can also be dangerous. So it is when confronting the …

Appealing To The Realist Nature Of The Problem: An Attempt To Find Common Ground, Eric K. Leonard

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Whenever I teach my undergraduate course on human rights, I inevitably have one student who argues that state sovereignty trumps all and that states should act in their “national interest” in regards to issues where human rights and sovereignty clash. They usually continue the argument by stipulating that “human rights” are not defensible unless they are universally accepted, meaning contained in a universally ratified document (and they use the term “universal” literally), because all authority resides in the state. Thus, it is always an interesting discussion when we turn to the issue of migration, and more specifically, refugees.

The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights At Sixty: Is It Still Right For The United States, Tai-Heng Cheng

Cornell International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Reconstructing Sovereignty: From Control To Responsibility, Eric K. Leonard

Human Rights & Human Welfare

As I stood with a standing-room only crowd last fall at a United Nations University of New York (UNU-ONY) event entitled, "Prevention of Mass Atrocities: From Mandate to Realization," I began to wonder how far the responsibility to protect (R2P) could be stretched. As defined by the UNU-ONY organizers, the purpose of the event was " to explore the work of mass atrocity prevention across the UN system, with a focus on the role of the new Office of the Special Representative for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities (SRPGMA)." As I currently look at the international community's response …

July Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

"Armed and Humanitarian" by Bruce Falconer. Mother Jones. May 19, 2008.

Toward A World Migratory Regime, Raffaele Marchetti

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Increasing transnationalism challenges the predominant statist treatment of migration and citizenship. Global, indeed cosmopolitan, citizenship offers an alternative to open border policies and global migratory management that focuses on the extent to which political agents are free to move and join different societies. Multilayered citizenship and multileveled political membership encourages a supranational institution dedicated to global deliberation. Such a migratory regulatory system and new admission criteria developed under the universal membership regime ensure the grant of civil, social, and political rights to all migrants.

Sexual Violence As The Language Of Border Control: Where French Feminist And Anti‐Immigrant Rhetoric Meet, Miriam Ticktin

Publications and Research

When I first arrived in the Paris region in 1999 to do research on the struggle by undocumented immigrants (les sans papiers) for basic human rights, discussions of violence against women were remarkably absent from the public arena. Nongovernmental organizations and researchers had begun to broach the topic, but with little public visibility. However, this changed in late 2000, with a media explosion on the issue of les tournantes, or the gang rapes committed in the banlieues of Paris. Such tournantes involve boys “taking turns” with their friends’ girlfriends, both parties usually being of Maghrebian or North …

The Reach Of Rights: “The Foreign” And “The Private” In Conflict-Of-Laws, State-Action, And Fundamental-Rights Cases With Foreign Elements, Jacco Bomhoff

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

The Course Of True Human Rights Progress Never Did Run Smooth, Diane Marie Amann

Scholarly Works

As the United States moves toward the inauguration in January 2009 of a new President, greater attention is paid to what the country might do to restore and reinforce its traditional role as a leader in the promotion of human rights. This essay warns against any assumption that innovation alone will assure greater enforcement of rights; its points of reference are not only the current administration, but also one long past, that of President John F. Kennedy. Rather than jump to embrace new, global concepts like responsibility to protect, therefore, it argues for careful pursuit of local change. It then …

Mission Creep: De-Militarizing Humanitarian Protection, Sonia Cardenas

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Over a decade ago, the U.S. military was warning liberal internationalists about the dangers of "mission creep." Today it is doing the opposite, incorporating relief and development work into its operations. In the devastating aftermath of Cyclone Nargis in Burma , the U.S. military's newfound mission may seem compelling. Unfortunately, expanding the military's role into humanitarian work reflects a flawed logic that should be resisted. There are more promising ways to protect victims of humanitarian disaster.

When Steel And Guns Meets Bread And Butter, Daniel J. Graeber

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Speaking before the 191-member United Nations in 2005, then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair said that "For the first time . we are agreed that states do not have the right to do what they will within their own borders but that we in the name of humanity have a common duty to protect people where their own governments will not." This notion, that of responsible sovereignty , says that nation states forfeit the right to uninterrupted internal freedoms when they no longer uphold the responsibilities associated with sovereignty.

The 2008 Ruggie Report: A Framework For Business And Human Rights, Christiana Ochoa

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In June 2008, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, John Ruggie, submitted the final report of his initial three-year mandate. The Report, titled Protect, Respect and Remedy: A Framework for Business and Human Rights, provides a governance-based set of findings and recommendations on the issue of business and human rights. This essay provides a concise description and brief analysis of the Report.

June Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

"A Screaming Start: The UN and Human Rights." The Economist. April 24, 2008.

The Human Rights Council: A Failure In Global Governance, Eric K. Leonard

Human Rights & Human Welfare

“The UN and Human Rights: A Screaming Start,” makes several valid points of concern in regards to the recently formed Human Rights Council. As the article stipulates, in many ways the Council does not look radically different from its predecessor, the Human Rights Commission, in that it fails to provide membership regulations that would keep “not free” states of the Council (with only twenty-three out of forty-seven states defined as free) and it lacks the clout in the political hierarchy to truly accomplish anything of substance. However, the article does point out that the one mechanism that could prove useful …

The Myth Of Membership: Reforming The U.N. Human Rights Council, Sonia Cardenas

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The purportedly new-and-improved Human Rights Council is, by most accounts, failing to live up to its promise. Critics accuse the Council of following in the footsteps of its predecessor the U.N. Human Rights Commission because it permits rights abusers among its ranks and it focuses overwhelmingly on Israel. The dominant assumption, articulated by the United States, is that this is a problem of membership; more stringent criteria would result in a less biased body. This, however, is wishful thinking. Changing the rules of membership would only substitute one set of biases for another. A productive dialogue about reforming the Human …

Involuntary Commitment And Forced Psychiatric Drugging In The Trial Courts: Rights Violations As A Matter Of Course, James B. (Jim) Gottstein

Alaska Law Review

No abstract provided.

Exile: Why The Human Rights Council Will Not Work, Daniel J. Graeber

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The Economist writes in an April 24th edition that the U.N.’s Human Rights Council, the predecessor to the sixty-year-old U.N. Commission on Human Rights, is a “one-sided Israeli-bashing” organization. The Economist argues that the inclusion of second- and third-tier countries from the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) makes it a forum for targeting offenses committed by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people.

Christina M. Cerna On Truth And Reconciliation In South Africa, Did The Trc Deliver? Edited By Audrey R. Chapman And Hugo Van Der Merwe. Philadelphia: University Of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. 346 Pp., Christina M. Cerna

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa, Did the TRC Deliver? Edited by Audrey R. Chapman and Hugo van der Merwe. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. 346 pp.

Stephen James On The Battle For Welfare Rights: Politics And Poverty In Modern America By Felicia Kornbluh. Philadelphia: University Of Pennsylvania Press, 2007. 287pp., Stephen James

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Battle for Welfare Rights: Politics and Poverty in Modern America by Felicia Kornbluh. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007. 287pp.

Transcript: Left Out In The Cold? The Chilling Of Speech, Association, And The Press In Post-9/11 America , American University Law Review

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The International Security Presence In Kosovo And The Protection Of Human Rights, Federico Sperotto

Human Rights & Human Welfare

On March 11th, 2000, two children who were playing in the neighborhoods of Mitrovica, Kosovo, got hurt by an “unexploded ordnance”. One of them died in the explosion, the other was severely injured. An inquire clarified that the ordnance was a “bomblet”, a part of a cluster bomb dropped during the 1999 NATO air campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

© Federico Sperotto. All rights reserved.

This paper may be freely circulated in electronic or hard copy provided it is not modified in any way, the rights of the author not infringed, and the paper is not quoted or …

May 8, 2008: Church-State Talk To Pittsburgh Aclu, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Church-State Talk to Pittsburgh ACLU“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

"Instant Karma": How Globalization Contests China's Abuses, Alison Brysk

Human Rights & Human Welfare

China’s rise from impoverished backwater to prospective superpower has been accompanied by the repression of tens of millions of its own people, at the hands of a nationalist, developmentalist government. Under contemporary conditions of globalization, suppression of civil liberties, domination of ethnic minorities, and unholy alliances with resource-rich dictatorships are no longer plausible requisites of this model—if they ever were. The broadening and deepening of economic globalization towards a more sustainable complex of political influence involves “soft power,” including international reputation and norms. Thus, China’s Olympian reach for true hegemony provides the best chance for human rights advocates to weave …