Human Rights Law Commons^™

Access To Health, Natalie Huls

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Access to health is an often-overlooked aspect of the right to health. Without practical access, the right to health becomes an empty promise. International human rights conventions and declarations do not directly mention access to health, but the above comment on the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights does address the issue.

Children’S Health And Human Rights, Norie Nogami

Human Rights & Human Welfare

One of the first international attempts to improve the health of children was by Ms.Eglantyne Jebb, a founder of Save the Children, during the aftermath of the WWI. She drafted the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child, the first international children’s rights document adopted by the League of Nations in 1924. Today, in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) we have a more comprehensive and near universal legal instrument for children’s rights.

Health Care And Professionals, Monica Fish

Human Rights & Human Welfare

One of the unfortunate truths of the current human rights regime is that it has given rise to an entirely new aid industry. Fortunate as it is that there are willing individuals eager to share their knowledge and expertise with those in need, the group of professional men and women making up the army of humanitarian workers is, perhaps, overextended and under appreciated. One way of helping the next generation of humanitarians to train and prepare for working within a context of human rights is to provide them with the sound analytical research based on research of current human rights …

Health Of Refugees And Internally Displaced Peoples, Leah Persky, Zaravshon Zukhurova

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Refugees and Internally Displaced People’s (IDPs) are extremely vulnerable to human rights abuses, particularly the lack or denial of physical and mental health care. The basic framework of refugee protection has been established and accepted worldwide for more than 50 years. Still, there is still a lack of commitment to respecting the human rights of refugees and providing adequate humanitarian assistance, including health care. Several international conventions and protocols establish the duties of states in terms of treatment of refugees. These include: the Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, the Geneva Conventions, the Statute of the Office of …

Matthew S. Weinert On Genocide In Cambodia: Documents From The Trial Of Pol Pot And Ieng Sary Edited By Howard Denike, John Quigley, And Kenneth Robinson. Philadelphia: University Of Pennsylvania Press, 2000. 559pp., Matthew S. Weinert

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Genocide in Cambodia: Documents from the Trial of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary edited by Howard Denike, John Quigley, and Kenneth Robinson. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000. 559pp.

Can The Internet Be A Human Right?, Michael L. Best

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Human Rights and the Internet edited by Steven Hick, Edward F. Halpin, and Eric Hoskins. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000. 276pp.

Cosmopolitan Law—And Cruelty— On Trial, Matthew S. Weinert

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Law against Genocide: Cosmopolitan Trials by David Hirsh. London: Cavendish/Glasshouse, 2003. 183pp.

Whose Right Is It Anyway? Rethinking A Group Rights Approach To International Human Rights, Peter Zwiebach

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Rethinking Human Rights for the New Millennium by A. Belden Fields. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003. 244pp.

and

International Human Rights in the 21st Century: Protecting the Rights of Groups edited by James Mayall and Gene M. Lyons. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. 240pp.

Human Rights And Health, Paul Hunt

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Introduction to Topical Research Digest section.

Human Rights, Health, And Corporations, Gerald Montgomery

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Unfettered economic policies have had a notable effect on the state of human rights. With the increasing spread of transnational corporations (TNCs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs) play a major role in setting ethical and moral standards for with the quality of life in the developing states where TNCs do business. Many TNCs are trying frantically to implement strategies that would alleviate labor injustices and corrupt practices in order to meet the standards argued for by NGOs.

Nutrition, Health And Human Rights, Monica Fish

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The last half-century has seen the development of a range of international instruments whose chief concern is the declaration and codification of basic human rights norms as agreed upon by the international community. Collectively these documents provide a normative and legal foundation for the human right to adequate food and nutrition, and freedom from malnutrition. A brief sampling of relevant language from these documents follows:

Health, Human Rights And The Pharmaceutical Industry, Gerald Montgomery

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The pharmaceutical industry is a crucial touchstone in the discussion of corporate responsibility to promote human rights. This relationship is, however, problematic at best and, at worst work in opposition to each other. At the same time that drug producers are instrumental in promoting a basic level of human welfare, the outlook of major pharmaceutical corporations are mitigated by unfiltered lenses of profit. With hundreds of millions of dollars spent on research and development, patenting, and marketing, they understandably develop strategies for handling reoccurring costs. But should a morally responsible international community redirect these costs to the developing world or …

'I Do' Kiss And Tell: The Subversive Potential Of Non-Normative Sexual Expression From Within Cultural Paradigms, Elaine Craig

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Using a comparative analysis of the equality movements of sexual minorities in Canada and India the author identifies a symbiosis between the subversive benefits of a deconstructionist approach to equality and the practical achievements to be gained by a rights-based model of social justice. The analysis is conducted through an examination of the role that the expression of same-sex desire plays in the legal and social positions of sexual minorities in Canada and India. The author argues that the acquisition of rights can provide sexual minorities with greater access to dominant cultural rituals and that such access provides opportunities to …

Religious Freedom And The Undoing Of The Westphalian State, Daniel Philpott

Michigan Journal of International Law

Not so long ago, in 1998, the world acknowledged both the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 350th anniversary of the Peace of Westphalia. The Universal Declaration was celebrated in the popular press, by thousands of activists, and at well attended open forums at schools and universities. Westphalia was noted almost exclusively at academic conferences. But public obscurity is an undeserved fate for Westphalia, for its legacy in organizing our political world vies with that of the American and French revolutions. What Westphalia inaugurated was a system of sovereign states where a single authority resided …

Commentary To Professor Guibernau, Annika Tahvanainen

Michigan Journal of International Law

Commentary on Professor Montserrat Guibernau's Nations Without States: Political Communities in the Global Age

Unsung Hero: The Life Of A Foot Soldier For Justice, Valerie M. Jensen

William Mitchell Law Review

Review of Frederick L. McGhee: A Life on the Color Line, 1861-1912. By Paul D. Nelson. Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2002. 234 pages. $29.95

Revisioning The Oversight Of Research Involving Humans In Canada, Jocelyn Downie, Fiona Mcdonald

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

When individuals are asked to participate in research they should be able to assume that the research "is well designed and well executed, that the investigator is competent to undertake the study, that the study will be run efficiently, safely, and ethically and that the deviations from good practice will be identified and corrected." The central question that we focus on in this paper is whether the governance mechanisms that are currently in place to regulate the conduct of research involving humans are adequate to enable those who are approached to participate in research to make these assumptions. This review …

Retrospective Justice Or Retroactive Standards? Human Rights As A Sword In The East German Leaders Case, Brad R. Roth

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Sexual Harassment: An International Human Rights Perspective., Christine M. Chinkin

Book Chapters

This chapter considers sexual harassment in the workplace from the perspective of international human rights law. Adopting a human rights approach locates sexual harassment in the context of women’s economic and social rights and more broadly in the wider frame of international imperatives such as the maintenance of international peace and security and global economic development. Sexual harassment has come onto the international agenda comparatively recently, and the story comprises both the inclusion of prohibitions within legal instruments and significant silences, especially where breaking the silence requires intrusion into state policies relating to militarism, trade and investment liberalization, and the …

Treaty Governance, Intellectual Property And Biodiversity, John Linarelli

Scholarly Works

When resources become valuable, various social and institutional pressures come to bear to enclose them in a property rights regime. Given the substantial progress of biotechnology and the life sciences, genetic resources found in biological diversity are experiencing such pressures. The question of how much commodification or commercialization of genetic resources is appropriate is of global concern; it affects the distribution of wealth in and among societies and countries. This article explores the emerging treaty law on intellectual property and biodiversity. It inquires What is biodiversity? and Why is biodiversity preservation important? It then focuses on the United Nations Framework …

Racism, Genocide, And Mass Murder: Toward A Legal Theory About Group Deprivations, Winston P. Nagan, Vivile F. Rodin

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article is focused on a specific and important issue: the relationship of law to the social reality of group deprivations. From this primary issue, several important sub-issues are generated having a real and substantial impact upon the role of law in the management of group deprivations at every level of social organization (local, national, regional, and international). To focus on the social reality of group deprivations requires a critical starting point. This starting point is determining whether we are adequately describing or assaying the etiology of the human personality types and self-systems that are normally characterized by feelings, sentiments, …

Balancing Indigenous Rights And A State's Right To Develop In Latin America: The Inter-American Rights Regime And Ilo Convention 169, David C. Baluarte

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Indigenous Peoples' Free Prior And Informed Consent In The Inter-American Human Rights System, Alex Page

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Facilitating Prior Informed Consent Context Of Genetic Resources And Traditional Knowledge, Anne Perrault

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

This paper traces the evolution of free prior informed consent (“FPIC”) and describes the importance of FPIC to achieving the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity (“CBD”). It briefly highlights elements of current approaches to obtaining FPIC from national governments and local communities, identifies limitations to obtaining FPIC, and provides examples of how the Bonn Guidelines do and do not respond to these limitations. The paper does not provide a detailed analysis of all issues related to implementation of FPIC, but rather highlights issues that will, hopefully, promote constructive discussions to advance progress on the implementation of FPIC.

National Implementation Of The International Prior Informed Consent Procedures Concerning Hazardous Chemicals And Wastes, Masa Nagai

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

The Ethnic Greeks Of Turkey: The Present Situation Of The Greek Minority And Turkey's Human Rights Obligations Under International, Steven S. Skenderis

St. Thomas Law Review

In 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne ended the Greek-Turkish war of 1919-1922 and established two distinct minorities in both Greece and Turkey after a convention signed at the same time provided for the compulsory exchanges of populations; about a million and a half Greeks left Turkey for Greece, and about a half-million Turks left Greece for Turkey.' The Convention established that the Greeks of Istanbul, the Aegean islands of Imvros and Tenedos, and the Eastern Orthodox Christian Patriarchate would be allowed to remain in Turkey, while (to ensure a numerical balance) the Turks of Western Thrace were allowed to remain …

The War On Terrorism: Peru’S Past And Present, A Legal Analysis (2004), Ralph Ruebner, Et Al.

Faculty White Papers

No abstract provided.

African Human Rights Organizations: Questions Of Context And Legitimacy, Makau Wa Mutua

Contributions to Books

Published as Chapter 13 in Human Rights, the Rule of Law, and Development in Africa, Gaby Oré Aguilar & Felipe Gómez Isa, eds.

The human rights movement is largely the product of the horrors of World War II. The development of its normative content and structure is the direct result of the abominations committed by the Third Reich during that war. Drawing on the Western liberal tradition, the human rights movement arose primarily to control and contain state action against the individual. It is ironic that it was the victors of the war, most of whom held colonies in Africa, …

Flores V. Southern Peru Copper Corporation: The Second Circuit Fails To Set A Threshold For Corporate Alien Tort Claim Act Liability, Lori D. Johnson

Scholarly Works

In Flores v. Southern Peru Copper Corporation, the U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, re-examined its Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) jurisprudence and assumed that a private domestic company acting in its private capacity could be liable to Peruvian nationals under the ATCA for a wide range of torts under international law, including violations of rights to “life and health.” Previous cases and other Circuits held that only a handful of egregious crimes, when committed by a private individual or corporation, can justify private liability under the ATCA. Rather than abiding by these interpretations, however, the court examined in depth …

The Legality And Legitimacy Of Unilateral Armed Intervention In An Age Of Terror, Neo-Imperialism, And Massive Violations Of Human Rights: Is International Law Evolving In The Right Direction?, Jean-Gabriel Castel

Articles & Book Chapters

When the United Nations was created in 1945, its main purpose was to deal with threats to international peace and security in order to prevent states from waging aggressive wars. Today, especially since 9/11, terrorism, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and internal conflicts involving massive violations of human rights are some of the new challenges confronting this organization. The Security Council, which is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security, has not been very consistent and quick in addressing these issues. As a result, when it has failed to authorize collective action, some states have resorted …