Human Rights Law Commons^™

How Far Will Fara Go? The Foreign Agents Registration Act And The Criminalization Of Global Human Rights Advocacy, Monica Romero

Washington Law Review

The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) was enacted and enforced during World War II to protect the American public from foreign propaganda, especially from the Nazi party. Following the war, FARA was scarcely used for over half a century. But in the past five years, there has been a significant uptick in FARA enforcement, particularly against major political personalities. The revival of FARA has led many legislators and scholars to advocate for expansions of FARA’s scope and enforcement mechanisms in the name of national security. But most have failed to acknowledge the risk and likelihood of politicized enforcement. The United …

Modernizing Discrimination Law: The Adoption Of An Intersectional Lens, Marisa K. Sanchez

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Foreword, Patricia E. Roberts

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Foreword written by Patricia E. Roberts upon her first year as the 10th dean of St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas.

Early Survivor Voices And Primary Sources. Modern Slavery: A Documentary And Reference Guide By Laura J. Lederer, Sandra Morgan

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Wild Legalities: Animals And Settler Colonialism In Palestine/Israel, Irus Braverman

Journal Articles

This article examines the underlying biopolitical premises of wildlife management in Palestine/Israel that make, remake, and unmake this region's settler colonial landscape. Drawing on interviews with Israeli nature officials and observations of their work, the article tells several animal stories that illuminate the hierarchies and slippages between wild and domestic, nature and culture, native and settler, and human and nonhuman life in Palestine/Israel. Animal bodies are especially apt technologies of settler colonialism, I show here. They naturalize and normalize settler modes of existence, while criminalizing native livelihoods and relations. Utilizing the terra nullius doctrine, creating biblical landscapes by reintroducing extirpated …

Environmental Justice Class Action Rises Above The Rubbish: The Third Circuit Revives Common-Law Nuisance Remedies In Baptiste V. Bethlehem Landfill Co., Kyra G. Bradley

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Getting Away With Murder: How California State Law Determined Recovery In First Roundup Cancer Case Johnson V. Monsato Co., Eliza L. Quattlebaum

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind: Analyzing Inhumane Practices In Mississippi’S Correctional Institutions Due To Overcrowding, Understaffing, And Diminished Funding, Ariel A. Williams

Honors Theses

The purpose of this research is to examine the political, social, and economic factors which have led to inhumane conditions in Mississippi’s correctional facilities. Several methods were employed, including a comparison of the historical and current methods of funding, staffing, and rehabilitating prisoners based on literature reviews. State-sponsored reports from various departments and the legislature were analyzed to provide insight into budgetary restrictions and political will to allocate funds. Statistical surveys and data were reviewed to determine how overcrowding and understaffing negatively affect administrative capacity and prisoners’ mental and physical well-being. Ultimately, it may be concluded that Mississippi has high …

Farm And Food Worker Inequity Exposed And Compounded By Covid-19, Kimberly M. Bousquet

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Of the 2.4 million farm-working laborers in the United States, upwards of 73% are immigrants. And, according to the Economic Policy Institute, immigrants make up nearly 22% of all workers in the U.S. food industry, including 27% of food production workers, 37% of meat processing industry workers, 34% of commercial bakery workers, and 31% of fruit and vegetable preservation work. Another study found that “[p]eople of color make up the majority of essential workers in food and agriculture (50%) and in industrial, commercial, residential facilities and services (53%).” Many of these workers--if not the majority in some sectors--are undocumented and/or …

Understanding Modern History Of International Food Law Is Key To Building A More Resilient And Improved Global Food System, Michael T. Roberts

Journal of Food Law & Policy

This article advocates the need for a history of the development of modern international food law and suggests an analytical approach to complement the chronicling of events. Comprehension of this history will help elucidate the evolution of a complicated modern global food system, including its resiliency and vulnerability as demonstrated by Covid-19, thereby providing valuable context for change in the system where needed. This essay makes the case for such a history in three parts. First, it briefly demonstrates the need for a historical perspective through a critical examination of a journal article that speaks to Covid-19 food security in …

A Comparison Of Gender-Based Violence Laws In Canada: A Report For The National Action Plan On Gender-Based Violence Working Group On Responsive Legal And Justice Systems, Jennifer Koshan, Janet Mosher, Wanda Wiegers

Commissioned Reports, Studies and Public Policy Documents

This report undertakes a comparison of laws related to gender-based violence across Canada with a view to identifying promising practices. We use the definition of gender-based violence from the United Nations as our frame, analyzing laws relating to “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.” While the UN definition includes both intimate partner violence and sexual violence, our focus is largely on violence in the …

Abandoning The Subjective And Objective Components Of A Well-Founded Fear Of Persecution, Grace Kim

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Current asylum law requires that asylum seekers prove that they have a “well-founded fear of persecution.” However, a “well-founded fear”—the evidentiary standard in asylum cases—has remained ambiguous and difficult to apply in asylum cases. In Cardoza-Fonseca, the Supreme Court held that an asylum seeker can establish a well-founded fear with less than a 50% probability of future persecution. Although the Supreme Court sought to clarify the meaning of a well-founded fear, the decision has complicated the evidentiary standard by implying that it consists of two parts: the subjective component and objective component. The “subjective” component—the asylum seekers’ subjective fear …

Book Review Of Law In The Time Of Covid-19, Jessie Wallace Burchfield

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

What Is Cultural Misappropriation And Why Does It Matter? 03-31-2021, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Humans Long Ignored: Revisiting Nepa's Definition Of "Human Environment" In The Era Of Black Lives Matter, Travis D. Jones

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

The Facets Of Transitional Justice And 'Red Terror' Mass Trials Of Derg Officials In Post-1991 Ethiopia: Reassessing Its Achievements And Pitfalls, Kinkino Kia Legide

Journal of African Conflicts and Peace Studies

At the end of the state perpetrated largescale violence, two important puzzling questions need to be addressed by post-conflict states. The first one chiefly concern how to ensure accountability or fight impunity, and the second is concerned with how to transform a society wrecked by prolonged conflicts into a durable peace in a non-violent means (Jarstad & Sisk, 2008). One such effort to deal with these questions was implementation of a transitional justice measures which evolved to encompass broader themes in addition to criminal accountability and it has shown a considerable relevance and expansion since the end of Cold War. …

Emergencies End Eventually: How To Better Analyze Human Rights Restrictions Sparked By The Covid-19 Pandemic Under The International Covenant On Civil And Political Rights, Eric Richardson, Colleen Devine

Michigan Journal of International Law

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, states have been quick to adopt emergency measures aimed at curbing the spread of the virus. However, poorly constructed restrictions threaten to undermine hard won human rights protections and may in fact erode important elements of international human rights law as a result of overreaching implementation or lack of rigorous analysis in how the restrictions are put, and kept, in place. This article analyzes the International Convent on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) standards which apply to emergency regulation in times of public health crisis and the tangled morass of legal tests which …

Betraying The American Public's Trust And Police Accountability Interrogations: The Darren Wilson Story, Shaymaa Shwel

Intercultural Human Rights Law Review

This paper will be focused on the specific failure by prosecutors to obtain an indictment when Michael Brown (Brown), the victim, was shot by law enforcement and will discuss: (1) systematic racism in the City of Ferguson (Ferguson), and the events leading up to the Darren Wilson (Wilson) case; (2) the specificities of the grand jury proceedings in the Wilson case; and (3) finally, conclude by evaluating how the Wilson case led to no indictment, and how attempting to indict a police officer is completely different.

North Carolina Cafos: An Example Of Why The United States Needs To Recognize The Right To Safe, Clean Drinking Water, Maggie Horstman

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Coercive Interventions In Pregnancy: Law And Ethics, Debra Debruin, Mary Faith Marshall

Journal of Health Care Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Social Justice As A Necessary Guide To Public Health Disaster Response, Stephen S. Hanson

Journal of Health Care Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Submission To The Toronto Police Services Board’S Use Of New Artificial Intelligence Technologies Policy- Leaf And The Citizen Lab, Suzie Dunn, Kristen Mj Thomasen, Kate Robertson, Pam Hrick, Cynthia Khoo, Rosel Kim, Ngozi Okidegbe, Christopher Parsons

Reports & Public Policy Documents

We write as a group of experts in the legal regulation of artificial intelligence (AI), technology-facilitated violence, equality, and the use of AI systems by law enforcement in Canada. We have experience working within academia and legal practice, and are affiliated with LEAF and the Citizen Lab who support this letter.

We reviewed the Toronto Police Services Board Use of New Artificial Intelligence Technologies Policy and provide comments and recommendations focused on the following key observations:

1. Police use of AI technologies must not be seen as inevitable
2. A commitment to protecting equality and human rights must be integrated …

Duress In Immigration Law, Elizabeth A. Keyes

Seattle University Law Review

The doctrine of duress is common to other bodies of law, but the application of the duress doctrine is both unclear and highly unstable in immigration law. Outside of immigration law, a person who commits a criminal act out of well-placed fear of terrible consequences is different than a person who willingly commits a crime, but American immigration law does not recognize this difference. The lack of clarity leads to certain absurd results and demands reimagining, redefinition, and an unequivocal statement of the significance of duress in ascertaining culpability. While there are inevitably some difficult lines to be drawn in …

Why Do The Poor Not Have A Constitutional Right To File Civil Claims In Court Under Their First Amendment Right To Petition The Government For A Redress Of Grievances?, Henry Rose

Seattle University Law Review

Since 1963, the United States Supreme Court has recognized a constitutional right for American groups, organizations, and persons to pursue civil litigation under the First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances. However, in three cases involving poor plaintiffs decided by the Supreme Court in the early 1970s—Boddie v. Connecticut,2 United States v. Kras,3 and Ortwein v. Schwab4—the Supreme Court rejected arguments that all persons have a constitutional right to access courts to pursue their civil legal claims.5 In the latter two cases, Kras and Ortwein, the Supreme Court concluded that poor persons were properly barred from …

Litigation As Education: The Role Of Public Health To Prevent Weaponizing Second Amendment Rights, Michael Ulrich

Faculty Scholarship

Tobacco litigation was unquestionably successful, but it is dangerous to expect that it can be easily duplicated. An unrealistic reliance on litigation as a regulatory measure can blind public health advocates to other mechanisms of change. And that includes litigation as a means of enabling actual regulation. Firearms and the gun violence epidemic provides a useful case study. The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) essentially bars litigation as a regulatory tool for firearms. This legislation means every time someone pulls the trigger, they become the party to blame. Soto v. Bushmaster Firearms presents a rare exception based …

In The Name Of Public Health: Misoprostol And The New Criminalization Of Abortion In Brazil, Mariana Prandini Assis, Joanna Erdman

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This article explores the criminal regulation of misoprostol as a controlled drug in Brazil as a new form of abortion criminalization. A qualitative analysis of Brazilian case law shows how the courts use a public health rhetoric of unsafe abortion to criminalize the distribution of misoprostol in the informal sector. Rather than an invention of the local bench, this judicial rhetoric reflects global public health discourse and policy on unsafe abortion and the double life of misoprostol as both an essential medicine and a controlled drug. In contrast to previous studies, the article shows that abortion criminalization is not the …

Social Determinants Of Health And Slippery Slopes In Assisted Dying Debates: Lessons From Canada, Jocelyn Downie, Udo Schuklenk

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The question of whether problems with the social determinants of health that might impact decision-making justify denying eligibility for assisted dying has recently come to the fore in debates about the legalization of assisted dying. For example, it was central to critiques of the 2021 amendments made to Canada’s assisted dying law. The question of whether changes to a country’s assisted dying legislation lead to descents down slippery slopes has also come to the fore—as it does any time a jurisdiction changes its laws. We explore these two questions through the lens of Canada’s experience both to inform Canada’s ongoing …

Attitudes Toward Withholding Antibiotics From People With Dementia Lacking Decisional Capacity: Findings From A Survey Of Canadian Stakeholders, Gina Bravo, Lieve Van Den Block, Jocelyn Downie, Marcel Arcand, Lise Trottier

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Background

Healthcare professionals and surrogate decision-makers often face the difficult decision of whether to initiate or withhold antibiotics from people with dementia who have developed a life-threatening infection after losing decisional capacity.

Methods

We conducted a vignette-based survey among 1050 Quebec stakeholders (senior citizens, family caregivers, nurses and physicians; response rate 49.4%) to (1) assess their attitudes toward withholding antibiotics from people with dementia lacking decisional capacity; (2) compare attitudes between dementia stages and stakeholder groups; and (3) investigate other correlates of attitudes, including support for continuous deep sedation (CDS) and medical assistance in dying (MAID). The vignettes feature a …

Reasonable Expectations Of Privacy In An Era Of Drones And Deepfakes: Expanding The Supreme Court Of Canada’S Decision In R V Jarvis, Suzie Dunn, Kristen Mj Thomasen

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Perpetrators of Technology-Facilitated gender-based violence are taking advantage of increasingly automated and sophisticated privacy-invasive tools to carry out their abuse. Whether this be monitoring movements through stalker-ware, using drones to non-consensually film or harass, or manipulating and distributing intimate images online such as deep-fakes and creepshots, invasions of privacy have become a significant form of gender-based violence. Accordingly, our normative and legal concepts of privacy must evolve to counter the harms arising from this misuse of new technology. Canada’s Supreme Court recently addressed Technology-Facilitated violations of privacy in the context of voyeurism in R v Jarvis (2019). The discussion of …

Is It Actually Violence? Framing Technology-Facilitated Abuse As Violence, Suzie Dunn

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

When discussing the term “Technology-Facilitated violence” (TFV) it is often asked: “Is it actually violence?” While international human rights standards, such as the United Nations’ Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, have long recognized emotional and psychological abuse as forms of violence, including many forms of technology-facilitated abuse, law makers and the general public continue to grapple with the question of whether certain harmful technology-facilitated behaviors are actually forms of violence. This chapter explores this question in two parts. First, it reviews three theoretical concepts of violence and examines how these concepts apply to technology-facilitated …