Law Commons^™

Institutions From Above And Voices From Below: A Comment On Challenges To Group-Conflict Resolution And Reconciliation, Laurel E. Fletcher

Laurel E. Fletcher

Fletcher explores how assumptions about justice have succeeded in establishing a new international consensus on necessary processes of rebuilding societies, some pitfalls of this approach, and recommendations for new directions for the field of transitional justice. A central assumption animating the moral, political, and legal cases for transitional justice is that those responsible for unleashing and conducting mass violence that devastates countries and the lives of civilian residents should not get away with their criminal acts. And further, supporters of justice assume that a legal response is necessary in order to promote reconciliation. He thinks that the appropriate role of …

Time For Justice: The Case For International Prosecutions Of Rape And Gender-Based Violence In The Former Yugoslavia, Kathleen M. Pratt, Laurel E. Fletcher

Laurel E. Fletcher

This article begins with a brief overview of the historical invisibility of rape and other gender-based violence in international humanitarian and human rights discourse. It also describes the factual basis for prosecutions of rape and other forms of gender-based violence in the context of the former Yugoslavia. Finally, the authors examine relevant provisions of the Statute of the Tribunal, which under conventional and customary international law, provide the Tribunal with jurisdiction to prosecute rape and other forms of gender-based violence as international crimes. This section reviews the types of rapes and forms of gender-based violence captured by each statutorily defined …

Love In Action: Noting Similarities Between Lynching Then & Anti-Lgbt Violence Now, Koritha Mitchell

Koritha Mitchell

The more I learn about the violence currently plaguing LGBT communities, the more it reminds me of the brutal practice of lynching, which has been the focus my research for the past 15 years. Ultimately, both forms of violence are designed to deny targeted groups recognition as citizens. Relying on my expertise regarding racial violence as well as the data on anti-LGBT attacks collected by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), this essay notes similarities between lynching at the last turn of the century and anti-LGBT violence today. The piece identifies five parallels: 1) the mundane quality of the …

Sex Is Less Offensive Than Violence: A Call To Update Obscenity Jurisprudence, Rachel Simon

Rachel Simon

This article addresses the gender bias presented by the disparate treatment of sex and violence under current obscenity jurisprudence. Under the controlling standard set forth by the Supreme Court in Miller v. California, sexual works may readily be regulated as obscenity, while violent works unequivocally may not. This article posits that this disparate treatment is the product of entrenched stereotypes about the way men and women “should” react to sex and violence, and notes the hypocrisy of failing to apply the same reasoning to assessments of violent versus sexual material.

First, reliance on “community standards” to define what material …