Human Rights Law Commons^™

Constitutional Rights Without Effective And Enforceable Constitutional Remedies: The Case Of Ethiopia, Mizanie A. Tadesse

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

The Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia guarantees a broad range of human rights in its Bill of Rights chapter. However, constitutional remedies for infringement of constitutional rights are rarely applied notwithstanding that the Constitution has been in enforcement for close to twenty-five years. The author of this article contends that lack of a clear and comprehensive Bill of Rights litigation procedure and lack of redress for violations of constitutional rights are contributing factors to the unacceptably low enforcement of the Bill of Rights via constitutional litigation. To augment his position and show the legal gaps and challenges …

Dusting Off The Law Books: Recognizing Gender Persecution In Conflicts And Atrocities, Lisa Davis

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

War-time abuses against women, girls, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer (LGBTIQ), non-binary and gender non-conforming persons are not new. They are as old as human history, appearing in modern international criminal law records as far back as World War II (WWII). In conflicts across the globe, from Iraq to Colombia, armed actors have perpetrated gender-based crimes amounting to persecution in an effort to reinforce oppressive, discriminatory gender narratives. Rarely documented when they happen, perpetrators are hardly ever held accountable for these crimes. As a result, the crimes are often excluded from consideration by international and domestic tribunals, and in …

Conditions Of Human Rights In Ethiopia In The Aftermath Of Political Reform, Andinet Adinew Tesfaye, Endalkachew Abera Mekuriya

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

Introduction To Symposium, "Human Rights And Access To Justice In Ethiopia", Thomas Geraghty

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

Disability Rights Are Human Rights: Pushing Ethiopia Towards A Rights-Based Movement, Sirak Akalu Iyassu, Fiona Mckinnon

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

Official estimates suggest that 95 percent of Ethiopia’s disabled live under the poverty line and are unemployed. To get by, many must beg or depend on family and friends. The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, the ministry responsible for enforcing rights of disabled people, is a paper tiger, toothless at that. Recent data suggest that only one percent of Ethiopian buildings and roads are fully accessible to the disabled. Yet accessibility is not only a physical, but also a social, cultural, and political sine qua non—and so a matter of human rights.

Rights of Ethiopia’s disabled have been …

Remedies For Human Rights Violations: A Reform Proposal For Addressing Victims Of Criminal Proceedings In Ethiopia, Abdi Jibril Ali

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

Multiple Legal Orders In Ethiopia: An Impediment On The Enforcement Of Women Rights, Daniel E. Alemayehu

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

Reform Of Regulation Of Legal Practice In Ethiopia: Does It Improve Access To Justice?, Tewodros Meheret

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

Legal practice has been one of the focus areas of the reform agenda following the appointment of Abiy Ahmed (PhD) as the new Prime Minister of Ethiopia on April 2, 2018 following the resignation of his predecessor. As a response to public discontent which led to the change in leadership, he promised and commenced sweeping changes. Accordingly, working teams were formed under the Advisory Council organized under the auspice of the Attorney General and one of them has been working on regulation of legal practice. It submitted a draft bill to the Office of the Attorney General months back and …

International Lawyers As Disrupters Of Corruption: Business And Human Rights In Africa’S Most Populous Country—Nigeria, Jayanth K. Krishnan

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

Be it bribery, embezzlement, or the abuse of public trust, corruption poses a major challenge to global security and democratic governance, along with undermining the rule of law, especially within the Global South. Key to this phenomenon is understanding how lawyers are enabling but also disrupting this epidemic. Unfortunately, the literature on this subject is lacking. This study, therefore, offers a nuanced story of globalization and the complicated role that lawyers play in corruption, by relying on the case study of Nigeria—a crucial Global South market that has the largest population on the African continent. While Nigeria has been able …

Empowering Persons With Disabilities: Socio-Economic Rights As A Pathway To Personal Autonomy And Independence, Francesco Seatzu

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

Recent years have witnessed a growing awareness of the importance of the status of persons with disabilities as right-holders, and increasing linkages being made between human rights and persons with disabilities’ vulnerabilities in the development context. Stimulated by mounting concerns about the impact of the financial crisis of 2007–2008 on persons with disabilities, these changes have unsurprisingly catalyzed attention on those rights of persons with disabilities that are most closely connected to ensuring persons with disabilities’ development needs—namely their social and economic rights. Focusing on the content of, and duties imposed by, persons with disabilities’ socio-economic rights, this article starts …

Elusive Justice: Reflections On The Tenth Anniversary Of Afghanistan's Law On Elimination Of Violence Against Women, Mehdi J. Hakimi

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

The Taliban’s fall in 2001 elevated hopes for improving the plight of women and girls in Afghanistan. Those aspirations were bolstered with the promulgation of the country’s landmark Law on the Elimination of Violence against Women (EVAW) in 2009. The tenth anniversary of Afghanistan’s EVAW Law, however, offers little cause for celebration. This essay examines Afghanistan’s legal framework on combating gender-based violence against women, and the mounting challenges on the ground. The ongoing rampant violence against women, pervasive use of mediation in criminal cases, and violations perpetrated by State agents have made Afghan women’s quest for justice increasingly more elusive. …

Paradox Of Hierarchy And Conflicts Of Values: International Law, Human Rights, And Global Governance, Jootaek Lee

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

In an international society, hierarchies are set up differently among different countries and societies based on different values, which are naturally conflicting and colliding with each other and result in unstable conditions. Is hierarchy really necessary in an international society? Does more hierarchical order in international society mean more peace? Do we need a supranational organization like the European Union whose laws can pierce state sovereignty and bind citizens of each member state? Does the United Nations need to be reformed to create an effective hierarchy, which will give international society more peace, security, and protection of human rights? This …

A "Dignified Life" And The Resurgence Of Social Rights, Thomas M. Antkowiak

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

The international human rights movement and its institutions have faced searing criticism that they have abandoned social, economic, and cultural rights (“social rights”). While favorable treaties and constitutions have proliferated over the last decades, grave poverty, inequality, and disease still run rampant across the globe. Many have attributed the latest rise of demagogues and terrorist groups to this widespread social disenfranchisement.

The supranational human rights courts have historically avoided social rights enforcement due to limited subject-matter jurisdiction. Yet more recently the Inter-American Court of Human Rights introduced a conceptual breakthrough to assess social rights, which was affirmed by the U.N. …

Navigating The Moral Minefields Of Human Rights Advocacy In The Global South, Sandra L. Babcock

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

North Korean Defectors In South Korea And Asylum Seekers In The United States: A Comparison, Emma Poorman

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

North Korean defectors are considered citizens of South Korea under the South Korean Constitution, while others that flee violence gain the legal status of “refugee.” North Korean defectors, who attempt to escape one of the worst human rights crises in the world, find themselves in a unique situation. What benefits does this status have? How are refugees typically treated abroad, such as in the United States? This Comment will explore this unique status, how it differs from refugee status in the United States, and the challenges North Korean defectors face in South Korea.

Deliberation And Decision-Making Process In The Inter-American Court Of Human Rights: Do Individual Opinions Matter?, Ranieri L. Resende

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

The work is focused on the adjudicatory nature of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and investigates its model of deliberation, considering three basic schemes: per curiam, seriatim and hybrid. In order to identify an institutional pattern, the importance of individual opinions is analyzed through the quantitative performance of each category of judge (ad hoc and regular), as well as each type of adjudicative activity (judgments and advisory opinions). The quantitative data is also useful to better understand the explicit assimilation of separate opinions to the core reasoning of future cases. As a result, it has been possible to identify …

The Right To Education: An Analysis Through The Lens Of The Deontological Method Of Immanuel Kant, Kavana Ramaswamy

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

The framework of categorical imperatives is one of the most famous deontological theories of rights that have been formulated. The framework has often been used to justify human rights policies all over the world. While they have been subject to several criticisms over the last two centuries, some of these include improvements to the original framework. This paper analyses the framework of the categorical imperatives and suggest certain modifications to improve internal coherence.

The paper then seeks to apply this framework to the right to education, a right that is under fire in the conservatively-charged political arena today. This is …

The Complexities Of Human Rights And Constitutional Reform In The United Kingdom; Brexit And A Delayed Bill Of Rights: Informing (On) The Process, Katie Boyle, Leanne Cochrane

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

The United Kingdom’s politicised and contested human rights framework has come under increasing pressure during recent periods of constitutional and political instability. The UK 2016 referendum on membership of the European Union, the delayed repeal of the Human Rights Act 1998 and the proposals to enact a British Bill of Rights have all shaped the discourse at the national level around decisions to retain rights (or not) rather than progressively improve the human rights structure. The European Union and Council of Europe human rights frameworks act as important pillars of human rights and democracy under the UK constitution and each …

The Security And Human Rights Dilemma: An Inquiry Into U.S.-Ethiopia Diplomatic Relations 1991-2012, Seife Ayalew

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

In the post-1991 U.S.-Ethiopian diplomacy, the use of foreign policy as a framework to advance the cause of human rights has faced several challenges rooted in the way human rights is defined and the intricate interests vested in the U.S. foreign policy establishment. This article elucidates the limitations and challenges of diplomatic machinery as a framework for advancing the cause of human rights. First, human rights in the U.S. foreign policy machine have been given a marginal or subordinate place in diplomatic priorities. Second, the Government of Ethiopia’s (GOE) resistance and tough diplomatic measures and Ethiopia’s strategic importance to the …

Access To Justice Through Limited Legal Assistance, Deborah L. Rhode, Kevin Eaton, Anna Porto

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

This article describes an empirical survey of a limited legal assistance program designed to assist low-income individuals with family law matters. It begins by exploring the need for such research, given the nation’s shameful level of unmet legal needs, and the lack of rigorous evaluation of strategies designed to address those needs. The article discussion then describes the methodology of a survey of Alaska Legal Services’ limited legal assistance program, and the survey’s major findings. Among the most critical conclusions are that limited assistance is a cost-effective use of resources, but that more effort should center on provision of hands-on …

The Normalization Of Immigration Law, Mac Lebuhn

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

In “The Normalization of Foreign Relations Law,” Professors Ganesh Sitaraman and Ingrid Wuerth argue that the Supreme Court increasingly treats foreign relations law like other bodies of law—it has “normalized” this body of once-exceptional law. However, a subset of foreign relations law, immigration law, receives little attention in their account, which obscures the fact that immigration law, unlike the rest of foreign relations law, has not normalized in nearly the same fashion.

To understand the normalization of immigration law, this paper proposes a theory of rights normalization: the Court has been reluctant to normalize immigration law except where immigrants’ rights …

Workers, Dignity, And Equitable Tolling, Duane Rudolph

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

When workers allege that mental illness prevented the timely filing of a federal employment discrimination lawsuit, courts subject them to extreme standards at the equitable tolling stage, which ends workers’ lawsuits against their employers. Such an approach to workers suffering from mental illness is indicative both of judicial misunderstanding of equitable remedies and judicial ignorance of equity’s historical engagement with those afflicted with mental illness. More importantly, subjection of workers to high threshold requirements at equity is an affront to workers’ dignity. Dignity, like equity, has a powerful moral basis that focuses on the individual. Dignity requires that workers alleging …

Transferring Away Human Rights: Using Human Rights To Address Corporate Transfer Mispricing, Monica Iyer

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

An estimated sixty percent of international trade happens within multinational enterprises. Transfer pricing occurs when one part of a firm sets a price in order to sell to another division in another country. When these prices are deliberately set at something other than market rate in order to minimize the firm’s tax liability, this is known as transfer mispricing, or abusive transfer pricing. These practices account for an enormous portion of global illicit financial flows. This paper will consider transfer mispricing as a violation of human rights, and will look at the ways in which various human rights instruments and …

Keynes, Sen, And Hayek: Competing Approaches To International Labor Law In The Ilo And The Wto, 1994–2008, Pascal Mcdougall

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

In discussions of recent human rights-driven developments in the International Labour Organization (ILO), as well as in other international legal debates, many scholars have suggested that human rights and “neoliberalism” intrinsically tend to converge. Such purported convergence is at once deplored by critics of “globalization” and applauded by its defenders. This article offers an empirical refutation of this convergence thesis by documenting the potential for systematic divergences between human rights, neoliberalism and a third omnipresent discourse, social legal thought (i.e. tropes associated with the welfare state and Keynesianism). I support this claim by taking as a case study three interrelated …

The Transformation Of South African Private Law After Twenty Years Of Democracy, Christopher J. Roederer

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

In The Transformation of South African Private Law after Ten Years of Democracy, 37 Colum. Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 447 (2006), I evaluated the role of private law in consolidating South Africa’s constitutional democracy. There, I traced the negative effects of apartheid from public law to private law, and then to the law of delict, South Africa’s counterpart to tort law. I demonstrated that the law of delict failed to develop under apartheid and that the values animating the law of delict under apartheid were inconsistent with the values and aspirations of South Africa’s democratic transformation. By the end of …

Kiobel, Bauman, And The Presumption Against The Extraterritorial Application Of The Alien Tort Statute, Ross J. Corbett

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

A Call For The Eu To Assume Jurisdiction Over Extraterritorial Corporate Human Rights Abuses, Jodie A. Kirshner

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

Speech-Conditioned Funding And The First Amendment: New Standard, Old Doctrine, Little Impact, Heather Blakeman

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

The Legal Status Of Employees Of Private Military/Security Companies Participating In U.N. Peacekeeping Operations, Mohamad Ghazi Janaby

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

Proposal For An International Criminal Court Arrest Procedures Protocol, David Scheffer

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.