Law Commons^™

The Roma: During And After Communism, Florinda Lucero, Jill Collum

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The Roma are an interconnected ethnic and cultural group that migrated out of India more than ten centuries ago. In the Czech Republic, they may have been present since the 15th century. Although relations within Czech lands began honorably, they quickly disintegrated into enmity and within a century Czechs could kill the Roma with impunity. Legislation restricting Roma movement came about in 1927 with Law 117: the “Law on Wandering Gypsies,” which stated that the Roma were now required to seek permission to stay overnight in any given location. In the run-up to World War II, parallel restrictions to those …

Sudan: A Survey Of Terrorism And Human Rights, Arika Long

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Sudan is a primary example of a country dominated by terror and human rights violations. Upon the release of Amnesty International’s 2007 annual report, Secretary General Khan described the continuing conflict in Sudan's Darfur region as a “bleeding wound on the world’s conscience.” In the report, the authors declare that the world has been “impotent” in the face of major crises like Darfur. They state that policies linked to the “War on Terror” are creating a more polarized and dangerous world, with grave effects in Sudan. In addition to the terror and human rights violations permeating the North, frustration also …

Totalitarianism: The Case Of Turkmenistan, Hayden Gore

Human Rights & Human Welfare

With the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, Saparmurat Niyazov, the former First Secretary of the Communist Party of Turkmenistan and self-styled “Turkmenbashi” (Father of All Turkmen), became the country’s first president, quickly fashioning Turkmenistan into one of the most repressive regimes in the world. Declared president-for-life after a dubious parliamentary election in which he selected all of the candidates, Niyazov has created a Stalinistic personality cult to glorify his image and to solidify his control over the state. His “reforms” have outlawed political dissent, marginalized ethnic and religious minorities, gutted the public health system, and enforced a campaign …

Ethnic Conflict, Kristina Libby

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has experienced high levels of ethnic conflict with regard to exit claims by former satellite states that no longer want to be part of the federation. Exit claims often antagonize the state. However, political leaders of titular ethnicities maximize ethnic revivals to keep traditions alive, and to minimize the amount of exclusion vis-à-vis the center. Massive human rights violations have resulted because of misperceptions between the center and the periphery, especially in Chechnya, the Volga-Ural’s Region and Eastern Siberia.

The Health Crisis In Russia, Christine Danton

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A health crisis has emerged in Russia due to declining health and inadequate health care. The crisis is so severe that the term “disappearing population” has been applied to Russia due to a high death rate, low birth rate, and low life expectancy among its people. These factors continue to worsen due to inefficiency and a lack of resources throughout the health care system. The government has been slow to respond to the current crisis, often ignoring calls to reform the system and sometimes passing inappropriate measures. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and medical professionals report there is an urgent need to …

The Priority Of The Person: Some Critical Challenges Facing International Human Rights In The Next Generation, Paolo G. Carozza

Book Chapters

From the Introduction

One of the great pleasures for me of teaching regularly at ASERI has been the chance to interact with a marvellous cross-section of young people from all of Europe and beyond. In them I have found a hope, enthusiasm, openness and dynamism that transcends their languages and nationalities. One can only hope that they will keep those qualities alive as they are called to face the challenges that the world of international affairs will bring to their generation, demands that will be as multifaceted and cross-cultural as they themselves are. Many of the issues that they will …

Global Health And Human Rights Imperative, Patricia C. Kuszler

Articles

Open any magazine, click on a television news channel, or surf the net and you are likely to find global health highlighted as one of the foremost challenges of new millennium. First, this article will consider the meaning and measures of global health and detail the path to improved health and development prescribed by the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Second, it will trace the development of international human rights law as it relates to health. Third, it demonstrate how human rights and health, long traversing parallel routes, are in fact converging in the 21st Century quest for global health–a …

The Arab Charter On Human Rights 2004, Susan M. Akram

Faculty Scholarship

The Boston University International Law Journal is publishing, for the first time, an English version of the 2004 Arab Charter on Human Rights. A very brief review of how the 2004 Arab Charter came into being introduces this English translation. The drafting history of the Arab Charter on Human Rights begins in 1960. In that year, members of the Union of Arab Lawyers (the oldest NGO in the Arab world) requested the League of Arab States (created in 1945) during their meeting in Damascus to adopt an Arab Convention on Human Rights. Eight years later, participants in the first meeting …

Guide To International Environmental Law, Dinah L. Shelton, Alexandre Kiss

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This book aims to present the essential elements of international environmental law. The attached document includes a page memorializing the life of Alexandre Kiss (who passed away on March 22, 2007); a forward; a table of contents, author information, abbreviations, and Chapter 1, "An Introduction to International Law." The book provides a general overview of why and how the international system elaborates environmental obligations and monitors compliance with them. Second, it discusses the relationship between international obligations and national and local law, with particular reference to federal systems. It indicates another interrelationship, pointing out the influence national law has on …

Multinational Enterprises And Workplace Reproductive Health: Extending Corporate Social Responsibility, Rebecca K. Atkins

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Corporate social responsibility is a relatively new approach to the protection of human rights. While the human rights to whole-body health and workplace health are long-standing, the right to reproductive health is a new topic of discussion. This Note examines the right to reproductive health in the workplace and proposes that it would be best protected by imposing an affirmative duty on multi-national enterprises via corporate social responsibility. Origins of human rights, corporate social responsibility, and reproductive health are discussed before turning to the developing stalemate between multi-national enterprises and less developed countries.

An Ounce Of Prevention: Improving The Preventative Measures Of The Trafficking Victims Protection Act, Takiyah R. Mcclain

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Trafficking is a multi-billion dollar industry that affects the lives of millions of people, especially young girls and women. In an effort to combat this issue, the United States enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in 2000. The Act has had some positive effects on the trafficking industry, but its preventative measures overlook or fail to deal sufficiently with some key factors: human rights issues, gender and economic inequalities, and sensationalism of the sex industry.

This Note discusses these three issues and their importance in establishing more effective preventative measures. Additionally, this Note looks to two approaches to trafficking, the …

The Limits Of International Human Rights Law And The Role Of Food Sovereignty In Protecting People From Further Trade Liberalization Under The Doha Round Negotiations, Wenonah Hauter

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

International free trade agreements under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO) seriously undermine the international human right to adequate food. Conceivably, those deprived should be able to seek redress under Article 11 of the International. Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which spells out the right to adequate food. Unfortunately, while the concept of the right to adequate food has developed substantially since its inception, its implementation has been slow. It is not a well-developed tool for individuals or the groups representing them to redress harms that will likely result from the current Doha Round negotiations …

Liberalizing Trade In Agriculture And Food Security--Mission Impossible?, Christine Kaufmann, Simone Heri

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (WTO) foresees that trade should be conducted with a view to raising standards of living. It is undisputed that raising living standards contributes to the implementation of the right to food. Indeed, state parties to the WTO have obligations regarding the right to food not only under the international trade system, but also under the human rights regime. All WTO state parties are bound by customary human rights law, and most have ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, of which Article 11 contains the most important codification of the …

‘Settling Accounts’ Revisited: Reconciling Global Norms With Local Agency, Diane F. Orentlicher

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

In the mid- to late-1980s, the discourse of transitional justice was shaped above all by the experience of countries in Latin America, where military forces continued to exercise autonomous power even after ceding formal authority to democratically elected governments. In this setting, while human rights professionals agreed that fledgling democracies should undertake prosecutions in accordance with their international legal obligations, they were divided over the question of whether further development of international obligations in respect of punishment was desirable. Nor was it clear what, precisely, international law already required. Writing in the early 1990s, the author of this essay concluded …

Learning To Love After Learning To Harm: Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Gender Equality And Cultural Values, Penelope Andrews

Articles & Chapters

The question that the Jacob Zuma rape trial and its aftermath raised was how a country like South Africa, with such a wonderful Constitution and expansive Bill of Rights, could generate such negative and retrogressive attitudes towards women. In line with this inquiry, this article raises three issues: The first focuses on the legacy of apartheid violence and specifically the cultures of masculinity, the underbelly of apartheid violence. Second, the article explores the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a vital part of the post-apartheid transformation agenda, to examine how the TRC pursued violations of women's human rights. …

Restitution As A Remedy For Refugee Property Claims In The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Michael Kagan

Scholarly Works

This Article examines restitution as an autonomous human right for refugees displaced in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and assesses the implications of taking such a rights-based approach. The author concludes that the refugees have a strong legal claim to restitution. In international law, compensation is relevant only when restitution is materially impossible, where property has been damaged or declined in value so that restitution is not a complete remedy for the victim's loss or where a refugee chooses not to seek restitution. Current empirical research about land usage in Israel indicates that a great deal, and possibly the majority, of lost …

The Twail Discourse: The Emergence Of A New Phase, Madhav Khosla

Faculty Scholarship

One of the most important discourses to have emerged in opposition to mainstream international law has been the third world approaches to international law (TWAIL). This discourse may be divided into two historical phases: TWAIL I and TWAIL II. While TWAIL I was characterised by a focus on colonization and the hegemonic use of international law by powerful nations, TWAIL II has concentrated on international institutions and the impact of globalisation. It is posited that the TWAIL discourse is in the process of entering into a new phase post 9/11. This phase can be understood as one in which TWAIL …

The Relative Universality Of Human Rights (Revised), Jack Donnelly

Human Rights & Human Welfare

© Jack Donnelly. All rights reserved.

This article is forthcoming in Human Rights Quarterly.

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 cited without express permission of the author. The editors cannot guarantee a stable URL for any paper posted here, nor will they be responsible for notifying others if the URL is changed or the paper is taken off the site. Electronic copies of this paper may not be posted on any other website …

On Conflict Of Human Rights, Xiaobing Xu, George Wilson

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “This article supports Gewirth’s view: that is, the reason why utilitarian values such as national security, public safety, public order, public health, and public morality may outweigh human rights is that they contain human rights elements. Thus, as a rule, whenever human rights clash with nonrights value considerations, we should analyze whether they contain human rights elements. If they do, they may override human rights that conflict with them. If they do not, they cannot.”

Beyond Bankovic: Extraterritorial Application Of The European Convention On Human Rights, Federico Sperotto

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The obligations set forth in the international and regional instruments on human rights are considered as having a strictly territorial scope. States parties have the duty to guarantee the rights recognized in the treaties to all individuals within their territories. The territorial reach of these obligations is expanding by way of interpretation. In its decision on Bankovic, the European Court reduced the impact of this international trend toward a progressive enlargement of the protection granted by human rights treaties, affirming those attacks conducted by NATO against Yugoslavia in 1999 fell out of the extraterritorial reach of the European Convention. After …

(Not Yet) Taking Rights Seriously: The House Of Lords In Begum V. Headteacher And Governors Of Denbigh High School, Gareth Davies

Human Rights & Human Welfare

© Gareth Davies. 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 cited without express permission of the author. The editors cannot guarantee a stable URL for any paper posted here, nor will they be responsible for notifying others if the URL is changed or the paper is taken off the site. Electronic copies of this paper may not be posted on any other website without express permission of the author.

Compensation For Property Under The European Convention On Human Rights, Tom Allen

ExpressO

This Article investigates the nature of the right to property guaranteed under the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights ('P1-1'). It argues that the European Court of Human Rights has been torn between two theories of the right to property. The first is the "integrated theory", and it holds that the right to property shares common values and purposes with other Convention rights. Hence, the interpretation of P1-1 should reflect principles developed in the interpretation of other Convention rights. It is argued that the application of the integrated theory should support a "social model" of property. The …

Linking Global Warming To Inuit Human Rights, Marguerite E. Middaugh

San Diego International Law Journal

Under international law, the United States government has violated the Inuit's human rights by failing to take action against climate change. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights should find that the allegations of human rights violations by the Inuit are justified and rule in their favor. This Article first explores the impacts of climate change on the Inuit and each of the Inuit's basic human rights, which are implicated by the environmental changes. Next, the role and responsibility of the U.S. with respect to climate change is examined. This section discusses the current attitude and actions of the U.S. government, …

J. Eric Dibbern On Forbidden Families: Family Unification And Child Registration In East Jerusalem By Yael Stein. Hamoked: Center For The Defense Of The Individual, 2004. 41pp., J. Eric Dibbern

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Forbidden Families: Family Unification and Child Registration in East Jerusalem by Yael Stein. HaMoked: Center for the Defense of the Individual, 2004. 41pp.

Sarah Bania-Dobyns On New Terror, New Wars By Paul Gilbert. Washington, Dc: Georgetown University Press, 2003. 176pp., Sarah Bania-Dobyns

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

New Terror, New Wars by Paul Gilbert. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2003. 176pp.

U.S. Asylum Law Out Of Sync With International Obligations: Real Id Act, Victor P. White

San Diego International Law Journal

Focusing on defensive asylum applications, this Comment examines whether certain provisions of REAL ID violate due process and international obligations to asylum seekers. Part I situates REAL ID within the historical context of nearly a decade of restrictive U.S. immigration law and over two decades of Executive Orders aimed at deterring a mass exodus of asylum seekers from reaching U.S. shores. Part II provides an overview of the U.S. asylum system and argues that the system produces inconsistent and sometimes arbitrary results, indicating that segments of the system do not satisfy international obligations. Part III outlines three provisions of REAL …

Labor’S Human Rights: A Review Of The Nature And Status Of Core Labor Rights As Human Rights, Roy J. Adams

Human Rights & Human Welfare

© Roy J. Adams. 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 cited without express permission of the author. The editors cannot guarantee a stable URL for any paper posted here, nor will they be responsible for notifying others if the URL is changed or the paper is taken off the site. Electronic copies of this paper may not be posted on any other website without express permission of the author.

Codes, Lawsuits Or International Law: How Should The Multinational Corporation Be Regulated With Respect To Human Rights?, Nancy L. Mensch

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

Kimberly Lanegran On Telling The Truths: Truth Telling And Peace Building In Post-Conflict Societies. Edited By Tristan Anne Borer. Notre Dame, In: University Of Notre Dame Press, 2006. 316 Pp., Kimberly Lanegran

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Telling the Truths: Truth Telling and Peace Building in Post-Conflict Societies. Edited by Tristan Anne Borer. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006. 316 pp.

On Disposable People And Human Well-Being: Health, Money And Power, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

The foundational premise of this essay is that health and well-being are human rights issues. My focus on this theme, specifically within the human rights paradigm, is new, passionate, and personal. On December 15, 2005, just three months before the conference that prompted the writing of this essay, I lost my partner of over 20 years. She fought a valiant, strong, and dignified fight against cancer--a journey I traveled with her. During that time I learned much about health systems and health care. Most saliently, notwithstanding the reality of the extraordinarily good care she ultimately received, I realized there is …