Law Commons^™

Hard And Soft Law Preferences In Business And Human Rights, Kishanthi Parella

Scholarly Articles

States and non-state actors, such as business organizations and NGOs, have varying preferences among regulatory options in business and human rights. Some actors prefer soft law governance while others advocate for legally binding solutions at the national and international levels. In this essay, I explore some of the factors that may explain why state and non-state actors hold these diverse preferences. I conclude that while some of these preferences may be attributable to the unique advantages of soft lawor hard law, other preferences likely depend on the effects produced by the interaction of both types of law within the broader …

Student Columns

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Strengthening The Right To Know Through Truth And Reconciliation Commissions, Tracey B.C. Begley

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Indigenous Peoples’ Rights In Russian North: Main Challenges And Prospects For Future Development, Ruslan Garipov

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Of American Fragility: Public Rituals, Human Rights, And The End Of Invisible Man, Etienne C. Toussaint

Faculty Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the fragility of American democracy in at least two important ways. First, the coronavirus has ravaged Black communities across the United States, unmasking decades of inequitable laws and public policies that have rendered Black lives socially and economically isolated from adequate health care services, educational resources, housing stability, environmental security, stable and living wage jobs, generational wealth, and other institutional structures necessary for resilience. Second, government-mandated social distancing in response to the coronavirus has failed to dampen America’s racially biased, violent, and supervisory policing culture, reigniting demands from the Movement for Black Lives for police …

International Financial Institutions And Their Human Rights Silent Agenda: A Forward-Looking View On The “Protect, Respect And Remedy” Model In Development Finance, Antonio Morelli

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ranking For Good?: A Comparative Assessment Of The Performance Of French Corporations In Human Rights Rankings

The International Lawyer

In recent years, greater attention has been given to developing metrics that measure more than a country’s gross domestic product (GDP). Similarly, greater consideration has been given to more than just the financial performance of commercial enterprises; corporations are now expected to conduct business in ways that are responsible and sustainable, giving attention to a triple bottom line where the planet and people are prioritized along with profits. Taking French government policy and the performance of French multinational corporations as a case in point, this article explores the ways in which emerging indicators and instruments on business and human rights …

In A World Of "Fake News," What's A Social Media Platform To Do?, Evelyn Aswad

Faculty Articles

While the circulation of disinformation and misinformation online can pose a variety of risks to societies around the world, it should also be of concern that overreacting to such false information can undermine human rights, including freedom of expression. The business operations of global social media platforms frequently intersect with this latter concern because of a spike in the adoption of national laws that ban “fake news” as well as their own platform policies to tackle false information. This Essay assesses the corporate responsibility standards afforded by the United Nations’ Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights as well as …

Losing The Freedom To Be Human, Evelyn Aswad

Faculty Articles

In 2019, Apple’s CEO warned that contemporary business models, which are based on harvesting our personal data and monetizing everything we do online, violate our privacy and will eventually cause us “to lose the freedom to be human.” Others have taken this privacy concern a step further by questioning whether these business models undermine mental autonomy, i.e., the ability to think and form opinions. The burgeoning chorus of concerns has triggered a variety of high-profile calls to explore whether international human rights law protects against intrusions on the inner sanctum of one’s mind, particularly with respect to the business models …

Climate Change, Coming Soon To A Court Near You – Report Four: International Climate Change Legal Frameworks, Maria Cecilia T. Sicango

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

In 2020, the Paris Agreement is the pinnacle of international law on climate change. It orchestrates global climate action over the coming decades. Countries agreed to limit global warming to well below 2ºC above preindustrial times, closer to 1.5ºC. Humankind will only achieve this temperature goal if we domesticate our international climate commitments. Judges have proven to be instrumental in holding their governments accountable for their climate pledges. Report Four of this four-part series explores the nature of the Paris Agreement, its history, and the framework of international instruments and international legal principles that support global and domestic climate action.

Environmental Injustice: How Treaties Undermine Human Rights Related To The Environment, Lisa E. Sachs, Lise Johnson, Ella Merrill

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Growing cries for action to effectively address the climate and other environmental crises hold important implications for the governance of cross-border investments. Policymakers and environmental advocates have often overlooked how provisions granted by states in international investment agreements (IIAs) have been used by investors to challenge government measures taken in the public interest to protect the environment and advance environmental justice.

This 2019 paper, published in the Sciences Po Legal Review issue devoted to the climate crisis, explains how the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism, made available to investors in thousands of bilateral and multilateral trade and investment agreements, may …

Confession Obsession: How To Protect Minors In Interrogations, Cindy Chau

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

The International Criminal Court: Interconnection Between International Bodies In Venezuela, Humberto Briceño León

Lewis & Clark Law Review

In this Article, I focus on the current International Criminal Court case regarding Venezuela’s alleged violations of fundamental human rights and other criminal violations of international law. I begin by outlining the situation in Venezuela and the history that led to this state of affairs. I then review the non-judicial and quasi-judicial activities done in the Venezuelan situation by several international bodies and their interrelation. Next, I address the ICC activities on the Venezuelan case, particularly its latest standards on timely justice and international cooperation. Following that, I give an overview of the institutional international framework focusing on how the …

Copyright Exceptions Across Borders: Implementing The Marrakesh Treaty, Laurence R. Helfer, Molly K. Land, Ruth L. Okediji

Faculty Scholarship

This article reviews state ratification and implementation of the Marrakesh Treaty since its conclusion in 2013. We find that most states have adhered closely to the Treaty’s text, thus creating a de facto global template of exceptions and limitations that has increasingly enabled individuals with print disabilities, libraries and schools to create accessible format copies and share them across borders. The article argues that the Marrakesh Treaty’s core innovation—mandatory exceptions to copyright to promote public welfare—together with consultations with a diverse range of stakeholders, may offer a model for harmonising human rights and IP in other contexts.

Human Rights Laws And Authorship Norms, Roberta Rosenthal Kwall

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Shaping Intellectual Property Rights Through Human Rights Adjudication: The Example Of The European Court Of Human Rights, Christophe Geiger, Elena Izyumenko

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Copyright And Human Rights In The Ballroom: A Minuet Between The United States And The Eu, Maria Lillà Montagnani, Alina Trapova

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Redefining Lgbtq And Abortion Rights In Latin America: A Transnational Toolkit, Alyssa Julian

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Throughout Latin America, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Queer (LGBTQ) and abortion rights movements have progressed at divergent strengths and speeds, with significant variation among countries. The region is home to some of the most restrictive and discriminatory laws when it comes to these contentious issues. This Note explores some of the reasons behind the variation in LGBTQ and abortion rights throughout the region.

This Note traces the economic and political history of Latin America to illustrate the climate in which these social movements are operating. Further, this Note offers a brief snapshot of recent global developments in LGBTQ …

Human Rights And The Impact Assessment Act: Proponents And Consultants As Duty Bearers, Adebayo Majekolagbe, Sara L. Seck, Penelope Simons

Responsible Business Conduct and Impact Assessment Law

This chapter is the pre-publication version of a contribution to a book on the new federal Impact Assessment Act (IAA), and builds upon the research conducted for the SSHRC KSG on responsible business conduct and the IAA. We highlight the role of proponents and their consultants as human rights duty bearers and recommend the integration of human rights approaches into impact assessment processes under the IAA.

(Indigenous) Language As A Human Right, Kristen Carpenter, Alexey Tsykarev

Publications

The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed 2022-2032 as the International Decade of Indigenous Languages. Building on lessons of the International Year of Indigenous Languages of 2019, the Decade will "draw attention to the critical loss of indigenous languages and the urgent need to preserve, revitalize and promote indigenous languages." These actions are necessary, in part, because existing laws and policies have proven inadequate to redress the legacy of state suppression of indigenous languages or ensure nondiscrimination in contemporary usage. In light of the International Year and Decade, this Article explores the rights of indigenous peoples to "use, revitalize, and …

Practice And Ontology Of Implied Human Rights In International Law, Federico Lenzerini

Intercultural Human Rights Law Review

Since the XIXth Century, implied (unenumerated) rights have been widely recognized by the courts of several countries with the purpose of addressing the shortcomings existing in national constitutions with respect to the protection of the fundamental rights and freedoms of the human person. In the last decades, such a trend has been emulated by international human rights treaty bodies and regional courts, which use implied human rights to fill the gaps existing in human rights instruments. This practice increases the level of protection afforded to individuals and communities, achieving the goal of guaranteeing effectiveness of human rights.

The Complexities Of Democracy, Development, And Human Rights In China's Belt And Road Initiative, Diane Desierto

Journal Articles

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)-a dense network of China-funded multi-year infrastructure projects in over 65 countries from the Western Pacific to the Baltic Sea, collectively aiming to establish China's strategic "Maritime Belt" and "Silk Road" connectivity using an estimated range of USD$1 Trillion to USD$8 Trillion--is as unprecedented phenomenon in sovereign project financing and bilateral investment lending, since the United States' grant of USD $800 Billion for the Marshall Plan was for Europe's post World War II reconstruction. The scale, scope, and terms of BRI projects remain shrouded in relative opacity, with China as of this writing only incrementally …

Climate Change, Coming Soon To A Court Near You – Report Two: Climate Litigation In Asia And The Pacific And Beyond, Briony Eales, Ama Francis, Michael Burger, Romany M. Webb, Jessica A. Wentz, Dena Adler, Gregorio Rafael P. Bueta, Francesse Joy J. Cordon-Navarro

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Climate change in Asia and the Pacific is deadly and impacts communities now. Regional climate litigation seeks relief in increasingly urgent ways and judges need a tool kit to respond. Report Two of this four-part series is a comprehensive review of the growing number and variety of climate lawsuits in Asia and the Pacific. It underscores the unique flavor and voice of regional jurisprudence and compares it with global approaches. No one can solve climate change alone and neither can any particular judiciary. Judges can, however, learn from each other, taking judicial excellence and applying it to the case before …

International Law And Theories Of Global Justice: Remarks, Steven R. Ratner, James Stewart, Jiewuh Song, Carmen Pavel

Articles

International law (IL) and political philosophy represent two rich disciplines for exploring issues of global justice. At their core, each seeks to build a better world based on some universally agreed norms, rules, and practices, backed by effective institutions. International lawyers, even the most positivist of them, have some underlying assumptions about a just world order that predisposes their interpretive methods; legal scholars have incorporated concepts of justice in their work even as their overall pragmatic orientation has limited the nature of their inquiries. Many philospophers, for their part, have engaged with IL to some extent—at a minimum recognizing that …

Disaggregating Corporate Liability: Japanese Multinationals And World War Ii, Timothy Webster

Faculty Scholarship

The past two decades have witnessed unprecedented attention to corporate legal liability for human rights abuses. Yet the supporting jurisprudence is relatively thin. Scholars generally agree that corporations can incur legal liability for serious violations of international human rights law. But courts find any number of ways to avoid such a result. This Article finds qualified support for an emergent norm of corporate civil liability from recent litigation in Japan. Specifically, the transnational war reparations litigation of the past three decades has yielded a consistent jurisprudence of qualified liability. Courts detail the abuses committed by Japan's largest multinational corporations, and …

Sovereign Exception No More: The Impact Of Israel's Potential Annexation Of The Jordan River Valley On Israel's Obligations Under The International Covenant On Civil And Political Rights, Dana Busgang

American University Law Review

On July 1, 2020, the international community released a collective breath as embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a temporary halt to his election promise to formally annex (or, in his words, apply sovereignty to) the occupied Jordan River Valley. Just forty-three days later, a victorious Netanyahu announced that as part of a peace accord with the United Arab Emirates, he agreed to drop his annexation plans. While Israel’s flirtation with official annexation appears to be over for the moment, the momentum gained over the last two years is unlikely to disappear. Further, many, including Palestinians, argue that Israel’s …

Introduction: Global Health And Human Rights, Lawrence O. Gostin, Benjamin Mason Meier

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This introduction highlights the foundational importance of human rights for global health and provides an academic framework for this book by laying out the role of human rights under international law as a basis for public health. Part I seeks to define the evolving conceptualization of health, examining both the shifting focus from medicine to public health and the shifting response from international health to global health. Framing global health as a human rights imperative, Part II examines the establishment of human rights under international law, the implementation of these rights in public policy, and the development of rights for …

China's Belt And Road Initiative Is Reshaping Human Rights Norms, Mikkaela Salamatin

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Since its birth in 2015, the Belt and Road Initiative has garnered significant attention for its benefits and its detriments. Much of the current scholarship in this area is focused on particular pieces of the Belt and Road Initiative, with few in legal scholarship considering the impact of the relationship between China's growing soft power and its effect on international law and international institutions. Every state has the right to pursue power and influence, but this Note specifically examines how China's methods of obtaining this power and influence--specifically through the Belt and Road Initiative and related actions within United Nations' …

The Price Of Prevention: Anti-Terrorism Pre-Crime Measures And International Human Rights Law,, Arturo J. Carrillo

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

How far can law go to prevent violent acts of terrorism from happening? This Article examines the response by a number of Western democratic States to that question. These States have enacted special legal mechanisms that can be called ‘anti-terrorist pre-crime measures.’ Anti-terrorist pre-crime measures, or ATPCMs for short, are conditions or restrictions imposed on a person by law enforcement authorities as the outcome of a legal process set up to identify and neutralize potential sources of terrorist activity before it occurs. The issue is whether the ATCPMs regimes in existence today comply with the corresponding States’ international obligations under …

Core Criminal Procedure, Steven Arrigg Koh

Faculty Scholarship

Constitutional criminal procedural rights are familiar to contemporary criminal law scholars and practitioners alike. But today, U.S. criminal justice may diverge substantially from its centuries-old framework when all three branches recognize only a core set of inviolable rights, implicitly or explicitly discarding others. This criminal procedural line drawing takes place when the U.S. criminal justice system engages in law enforcement cooperation with foreign criminal justice systems in order to advance criminal cases.

This Article describes the two forms of this criminal procedural line drawing. The first is a “core criminal procedure” approach, rooted in fundamental rights, that arises in the …