Law Commons^™

Banding Together: Reflections Of The Role Of The Women's Bar Association Of The District Of Columbia And The Washington College Of Law In Promoting Women's Rights, Jamie R. Abrams, Daniela Kraiem

Jamie R. Abrams

No abstract provided.

Domestic Disorders: Suffrage And New York's Constitutional Convention Of 1867, Felice Batlan

Felice J Batlan

In this essay, Felice Batlan discusses New York State’s Constitutional Convention of 1867. She argues that it is (at least in part) the outcome of this convention and the antagonisms that it created that further propelled Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan Anthony to align with interests opposing African-American suffrage. It also shows the absolute mess of pursuing suffrage on a state by state basis and how legislators themselves equated the voting of African American men with women’s suffrage. The essay is part of a larger project in conversation with scholarship about Reconstruction in the North and a second body of …

Policing Rape Complainants: When Reporting Rape Becomes A Crime, Lisa Avalos

Lisa Avalos

Professor Breaks Ground With Journal On Sexual Violence And Exploitation, Joseph Essig, Donna M. Hughes Dr.

Donna M. Hughes

What Does The Minimum Wage Have To Do With Reproductive Rights?, Terry O'Neill

Terry O'Neill

No abstract provided.

Prosecuting Rape Victims While Rapists Run Free: The Consequences Of Police Failure To Investigate Sex Crimes In Britain And The United States, Lisa Avalos

Lisa Avalos

Out Of The Shadows: Traversing The Imaginary Of Sameness, Difference, And Relationalism - A Human Rights Proposal, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

This work seeks to develop a methodology that serves a women's anti-subordination project. To achieve this goal, Part II sets out the theoretical background of feminist theory (II.A) and three waves of feminism (II.B). Part II.C articulates the feminist revelations about law these analytical frameworks have engendered.

This project sets out to craft a methodology that can assist the goal of full personhood for women. Women's full personhood is a substantive concept that, as detailed in Part III, I ground on international human rights notions of fundamental rights - rights that we have, or ought to have, because we are …

Law, Culture, And Equality - Human Rights' Influence On Domestic Norms: The Case Of Women In The Americas, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

This essay originated with a panel on Alternatives to the Regular Courts that took place during the first Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas conference sponsored by the University of Florida Levin College of Law. Some of the possible alternatives to the courts, in the trade field, that have been discussed include mediation, arbitration, constitutional courts and binational dispute panels. This essay reflects upon another alternative to domestic courts that progressively and increasingly is also being invoked in the trade context: international and regional human rights regimes. I specifically will review the Inter-American Human Rights System to ascertain the …

Female Genital Mutilation And Designer Vaginas In Britain: Crafting An Effective Legal And Policy Framework, Lisa Avalos

Lisa Avalos

Ending Female Genital Mutilation And Child Marriage In Tanzania, Lisa Avalos, Naima Farrell, Rebecca Stellato, Marc Werner

Lisa Avalos

Holistic Pregnancy: Rejecting The Theory Of The Adversarial Mother, Rona Kaufman Kitchen

Rona Kaufman Kitchen

In its zealous effort to protect the lives and health of unborn children, the law frequently views the expecting mother with suspicion. In its most extreme form, the law regards the potential mother as a potential murderess. This perspective does not reflect the nature of pregnancy, it undermines the autonomy of loving mothers, and it is detrimental to children. Regardless of whether there is any conflict between mother and fetus, the State presumes the mother to be a threat to her fetus and subjugates her rights as a result. The State interferes with the mother’s autonomy, bodily integrity, parental rights, …

Rights Inside Out: The Case Of The Women's Human Rights Campaign, Annelise Riles

Annelise Riles

This essay traces the relationship between activists and academics involved in the campaign for “women’s rights as human rights” as a case study of the relationship between different classes of what I call “knowledge professionals” self-consciously acting in a transnational domain. The puzzle that animates this essay is the following: how was it that at the very moment at which a critique of “rights” and a reimagination of rights as “rights talk” proved to be such fertile ground for academic scholarship did the same “rights” prove to be an equally fertile ground for activist networking and lobbying activities? The paper …

Restricting The Rights Of Poor Mothers: An International Human Rights Critique Of "Workfare", Shruti Rana

Shruti Rana

In every society, the work that women do is undervalued and unrecognized. Political and social tensions behind conceptions of work, motherhood, and equality can ignite movements that threaten the human rights of women. One such movement is underway in the United States where recent “Workfare” provisions specifically target and punish the most vulnerable members of society under the guise of reform and morality. This critique of Workfare aims to demonstrate some of the dynamism and power of a human rights framework, and to lay the groundwork for effective action to improve the plight of the single mothers who rely on …

Beyond Labor Rights: Which Core Human Rights Must Regional Trade Agreements Protect?, Stephen Joseph Powell, Trisha Low

Stephen Joseph Powell

As WTO Members relentlessly pursue new regional trade agreements to achieve even faster economic growth than the extraordinary numbers posted by global trade rules, the smaller number of parties and their greater cultural affinity have led negotiators to address the intersection of trade with human rights to an extent unparalleled in the culturally disparate and near-unmanageable 150-plus member WTO itself. These new provisions have used trade’s huge power to improve worker rights, secure environmental protections, and make initial inroads toward defending indigenous populations from trade’s adverse effects. Employing the perspectives both of trade negotiators and students of this halting progress …

Female Genital Mutilation And Female Genital Cutting, Hope Lewis

Hope Lewis

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) or Female Genital Cutting (FGC) refers to a range of harmful traditional practices performed on infants, girls, and women in certain ethnic groups. This article, published in The Encyclopedia of Human Rights (David Forsythe, et al, ed., Oxford University Press, 2009) discusses the practices in the context of international human rights law. FGM-FGC, violates a number of international human rights standards, including the right to bodily integrity, the right to life, the right to the highest attainable standard of health, the rights of children, and the rights of women and girls to equality and non-discrimination. Nevertheless, …

Women (Under)Development : The Relevance Of The "Right To Development" To Poor Women Of Color In The United States, Hope Lewis

Hope Lewis

This essay, written during a time of Clinton-era welfare reform, was an attempt to reimagine South-North roles. What if "right to development" analysis were applied to poor women of color living in the United States? Some see the right to development as an anachronism in the face of the apparent globalization of market-based economic development. However, “development” in the narrow form of a thriving industrial sector, reliable infrastructure, and steady economic growth, remains beyond the reach of many nations - particularly the poorest African nations. More important, the broader goals of human development - access to basic needs and an …

Integrating Reproductive Rights Into The Work Of National Human Rights Institutions, Anne T. Gallagher

Anne T Gallagher

Deconstructing Cedaw’S Article 14: Naming And Explaining Rural Difference, Lisa Pruitt

Lisa R Pruitt

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is the first human rights instrument to recognize explicitly rural-urban difference. It does so by enumerating specific rights for rural women in Article 14 and also by mentioning their needs in relation to Article 10 on education. In this Essay, I examine the Convention’s Travaux Préparatoires to better understand the forces and considerations that led to the inclusion of Article 14 and its recognition of rural people and places. I also assess Article 14’s particular mandates in light of both that drafting history and CEDAW’s other provisions, …

Abortion Rights (Symposium: The Supreme Court And Local Government Law; The 1989-90 Term), Eileen Kaufman

Eileen Kaufman

No abstract provided.

Abortion Rights (Symposium: The Supreme Court And Local Government Law; The 1989-90 Term), Eileen Kaufman

Eileen Kaufman

No abstract provided.

Thurgood Marshall, The Race Man, And Gender Equality In The Courts, Taunya Banks

Taunya Lovell Banks

Renowned civil rights advocate and race man Thurgood Marshall came of age as a lawyer during the black protest movement in the 1930s. He represented civil rights protesters, albeit reluctantly, but was ambivalent about post-Brown mass protests. Although Marshall recognized law's limitations, he felt more comfortable using litigation as a tool for social change. His experiences as a legal advocate for racial equality influenced his thinking as a judge. Marshall joined the United States Supreme Court in 1967, as dramatic advancement of black civil rights through litigation waned. Other social movements, notably the women's rights movement, took its place. The …

Female Genital Mutilation And Female Genital Cutting, Hope Lewis

Hope Lewis

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) or Female Genital Cutting (FGC) refers to a range of harmful traditional practices performed on infants, girls, and women in certain ethnic groups. This article, published in The Encyclopedia of Human Rights (David Forsythe, et al, ed., Oxford University Press, 2009) discusses the practices in the context of international human rights law. FGM-FGC, violates a number of international human rights standards, including the right to bodily integrity, the right to life, the right to the highest attainable standard of health, the rights of children, and the rights of women and girls to equality and non-discrimination. Nevertheless, …

Cleaning Our Own House : "Exotic" And Familiar Human Rights Violations, Hope Lewis, Isabelle Gunning

Hope Lewis

Women's human rights activism in the United States tend to highlight human rights violations of women outside the U.S., or on women from other cultures who enter the U.S. as immigrants or asylum-seekers, while ignoring internal human rights abuses. This Article focuses on the events surrounding a recent U.S. gender asylum case involving Fauziya Kassindja, a young asylee from Togo, in an attempt to demonstrate the irony of American complacency about the status of the United States as a haven for the protection of human rights. Ms. Kassindja, and other immigrants and asylum-seekers, were subjected to degradation and abuse--in the …

Women (Under)Development : The Relevance Of The "Right To Development" To Poor Women Of Color In The United States, Hope Lewis

Hope Lewis

This essay, written during a time of Clinton-era welfare reform, was an attempt to reimagine South-North roles. What if "right to development" analysis were applied to poor women of color living in the United States? Some see the right to development as an anachronism in the face of the apparent globalization of market-based economic development. However, “development” in the narrow form of a thriving industrial sector, reliable infrastructure, and steady economic growth, remains beyond the reach of many nations - particularly the poorest African nations. More important, the broader goals of human development - access to basic needs and an …