Human Rights Law Commons^™

Living With The Death Penalty, Samuel R. Gross

Articles

The debate over the death penalty in the United States - such as it is - is framed in terms of criminal justice policy. The issues are the same ones we consider when the question is the length of prison sentence for a drug crime: Does the defendant deserve the penalty? Is it cost effective by comparison to other available sanctions? Will it deter others from committing the crimes for which he was convicted? Can we impose this punishment fairly? Can we make sure that innocent people are not condemned?

The Naked Land: The Dayton Accords, Property Disputes, And Bosnia's Real Constitution, Timothy W. Waters

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The Dayton Accords have brought peace and stability to Bosnia. Yet the Accords were intended to do more: they were meant to create conditions for the restoration of political unity among Bosnia's factions. On these scores, Dayton has failed. Moreover, there remains a wide rift between the international community's perceptions of the local parties' obligations and those parties' own perceptions and conduct.

One of the most complicated aspects of post-conflict Bosnia is the range of disputes over real property. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced, and so far Dayton has proven singularly incapable of creating any meaningful resolution. …

Violence Against Women In South Africa: The Role Of Culture And The Limitations Of The Law, Penelope Andrews

Articles & Chapters

This paper describes the role of culture in perpetuating violence against women. It does this by contextualizing violence against women in South Africa within the grand project of transformation taking place there, and highlighting the possibilities of fundamental restructuring, with respect to rights and equality for women, when the feminist project intersects with the non-racial project. The paper, therefore, visits a familiar question, namely, the obstacles to transformation when the eradication of racism takes precedence over the elimination of sexism, as it historically has in South Africa. In addition, this paper describes recent attempts by the legislature and courts in …

When Justice Fails: Indemnification For Unjust Conviction, Adele Bernhard

Articles & Chapters

The first section of this article reviews the evidence, both historical and contemporary, documenting the existence and frequency of wrongful convictions. The next dissects an actual case to illustrate how an innocent person can be convicted and why, once the error has been corrected and the conviction is vacated, that person generally has no legal action for damages in the absence of indemnification legislation. The third section argues that society has a moral obligation to assist the wrongfully convicted; that indemnification legislation is a better approach than reliance on ''moral obligation" bills; and that enacting legislation is possible - just …

A Child's Right To Physical Integrity, Suellyn Scarnecchia

Articles

As we wring our hands over increasing reports of severe child abuse and how violent many of our children have become, it might be time to reassess policies that give parents and others the license to use even the most mild forms of violence against our children.

International Refugee Law: The Michigan Guidelines On The Internal Protection Alternative, James C. Hathaway

Articles

International refugee law is designed only to provide a back-up source of protection to seriously at-risk persons. Its purpose is not to displace the primary rule that individuals should look to their state of nationality for protection, but simply to provide a safety net in the event a state fails to meet its basic protective responsibilities.1 As observed by the Supreme Court of Canada, "[t]he international community was meant to be a forum of second resort for the persecuted, a 'surrogate,' approachable upon the failure of local protection. The rationale upon which international refugee law rests is not simply the …

America's Apostasy, James C. Hathaway

Articles

It has often struck me that the prominence of the Restatement of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States epitomizes the plight of international law in this country. The title of this standard reference on international law does not even refer to international law, but instead to foreign relations law. That is, it is meant to set out the standards by which we may legitimately judge the conduct of others. The clear, if unintended, message is that the Restatement is not really a codification of laws that bind us. And indeed, it is explicitly not just a codification, but …

The Inevitability Of Nimble Fingers? Law, Development, And Child Labor, Katherine Cox

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article examines development issues that are raised in a legal analysis of international human rights law relating to child labor. In so doing it highlights some of the weaknesses of the present legal approach to the problem. In order to demonstrate better the weaknesses of the system, India is used as an example of a developing country where some of the development issues raised in the legal analysis arise. The second Part of this Article defines the concept of child labor. It undertakes a comprehensive analysis of international legal instruments that deal with the topic of child labor and …

Liberty Of Expression In Ireland And The Need For A Constitutional Law Of Defamation, Sarah Frazier

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Judicial and constitutional conservatism have allowed Irish defamation law to remain remarkably close to its English common law origins. But the common law of defamation was not designed for a modem democracy with a free press, and Ireland's libel laws have a profound effect upon freedom of expression. If Ireland is to be a modern democracy, as its constitution asserts that it is, and the European Convention on Human Rights demands, it must protect a core area of free expression in order to allow the press (without the fear of repercussion) to keep the public informed about matters of concern. …

A Comparison Of New Zealand Taxpayers' Rights With Selected Civil Law And Common Law Countries, Adrian J. Sawyer

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This article seeks to ascertain the breadth of rights that taxpayers enjoy in New Zealand in comparison with their counterparts in a number of common law and civil law jurisdictions. Such a comparison enables the wealth of experience that codification of rights in civil law countries can provide in comparison to the traditionally lower reliance on statutory protection in common law jurisdictions. From this comparative analysis common themes are distilled, as well as differences between New Zealand and various civil law and common law nations with respect to the legal position and state of taxpayers' rights. The author mounts a …

The African Human Rights Court: A Two-Legged Stool?, Makau Wa Mutua

Journal Articles

This article examines the African continental human rights system that is built on the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. It pays particular attention to the deficits of that system and argues that the establishment of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights – a judicial body meant to strengthen the protection of human rights in Africa – falls far short. It exposes the normative and structural shortcomings that render the court virtually meaningless. It concludes that the court serves very little purpose except to address the enormous human rights challenges facing Africa.

Cultural Relativism And Cultural Imperialism In Human Rights Law, Guyora Binder

Journal Articles

The "Universalism-Cultural Relativism" debate proceeds on the assumption that international human rights law requires the identification of fundamental principles of justice that transcend culture, society, and politics. Thus, the debate presumes that to assert the cultural relativity of justice is to deny the legitimacy of international human rights law. This comment challenges this presumed linkage between international human rights law and universally valid criteria of justice. Human rights standards are obviously culturally relative, and human rights law is obviously a Western institution. But so are the kind of states that human rights law sets out to restrain. The nation-state ideal …

Cannibal Democracies, Theocratic Secularism: The Turkish Version, Edip Yuksel

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

Symposium: Cannibal Democracies: Human Rights and Democracy in Turkey

The article critically examines Turkey's democratic framework, arguing that its version of democracy diverges significantly from Western models due to its unique interpretation of secularism and the disproportionate influence of the military and political elite. The analysis highlights how the Turkish Constitutional Court's frequent banning of political parties, particularly the Welfare Party in 1998, undermines democratic processes and often leads to authoritarian governance. The article contends that Turkey's Constitution, drafted under military supervision, lacks political legitimacy and contains provisions that restrict individual and group rights, perpetuating a system of oligarchy and …

Commentaries, Paul Magnarella

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

Symposium: Cannibal Democracies: Human Rights and Democracy in Turkey

Commentaries, William Pfaff

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

Symposium: Cannibal Democracies: Human Rights and Democracy in Turkey

Illuminating The Possible In The Developing World: Guaranteeing The Human Right To Health In India, Sheetal B. Shah

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Note argues that the recognition of the social right to health offers a step forward in empowering individuals to gain control over their social environments in the developing world. Part II discusses the potential of social human rights to alleviate suffering in the developing world. Social human rights recognize that the state must provide individuals with the basic social conditions necessary to live with human dignity. Part III explores the legal obligations of social rights and their current status in human rights jurisprudence. It also discusses the most pressing challenges facing implementation of social rights at the national level. …

Anticipatory Humanitarian Intervention In Kosovo, Jonathan I. Charney

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The intervention by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Kosovo during the spring of 1999 aroused controversy at the time and still provokes questions about the legality of the action, its precedential effect, and procedures for developing new international law. The participants faced a legal and moral dilemma between international law prohibitions on the use of force and the goal of preventing or stopping widespread grave violations of international human rights. This commentary seeks to chart a course for the future in light of the current legal and moral environment.

Many individuals on all sides of the Kosovo crisis …

The Northern Ireland Peace Agreement: Evolving The Principle Of Self-Determination, Paul Williams, Sabrineh Ardalan

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Central to this article is the evolution of the nature of the principle of self-determination. The main focus will be on the examination of a recent instance of state practice — the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement. In particular, the way in which the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement has given effect to the primary elements of self-determination, including democratic self-government, the protection of human rights, and the protection of minority rights will be discussed.

Superpower Attitudes Toward Indigenous Peoples And Group Rights, S. James Anaya

Publications

No abstract provided.

Affirmative Action In South Africa: Transformation Or Tokenism, Penelope Andrews

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Forum Shopping For Human Rights, Laurence R. Helfer

Faculty Scholarship

The article analyzes a growing trend in international human rights law: the submission of petitions by aggrieved individuals to multiple human rights courts, tribunals, or treaty bodies, each of which is authorized to review the petition and to determine whether the individuals? rights have been violated. Most commentators have viewed this practice of "forum shopping for human rights" as a danger to be avoided. This article questions that conventional wisdom and offers in its place a re-envisioning of the human rights petition system. Although efficiency, finality and other concerns weigh against some varieties of duplicative review, this article argues that …

Succession By Estoppel: Hong Kong's Succession To The Iccpr, Peter K. Yu

Articles

No abstract provided.

Apartheid As A Crime Against Humanity: A Submission To The South African Truth And Reconciliation Commission, Ronald Slye

Faculty Articles

This submission made to the TRC by the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Law Clinic, the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, and twenty-one international law professors regarding apartheid as a crime against humanity (reproduced below) grew out of the debate within South Africa concerning apartheid, crimes against humanity, genocide, and Nazism. This submission is an authoritative statement by experts in international law concerning the legal status of apartheid and was drafted in part to clarify the relevant issues for a legal evaluation of apartheid-not only within the TRC, but also in broader South African and international society. The submission …