Human Rights Law Commons^™

Dangerous Clients: A Phenomenological Solution To Bureaucratic Oppression, Edward L. Rubin

ExpressO

Modern administrative agencies are often unnecessarily oppressive in their day-to-day contact with people. This article traces such oppression to status differences between agency employees and clients, their relationship as strangers to one another, the institutional pathologies of the agency and the divergent incentives to which the agency employees are subject. The article then considers three solutions to this problem that have been discussed in the academic literature regarding government agencies: the imposition of due process requirements, the shift to client-centered management, and the use of market or quasi-market mechanisms.

After critiquing all three solutions, the article proposes a new approach, …

The North Korean Nuclear Crisis: Past Failures And Present Solutions, Morse Tan

ExpressO

North Korea has recently announced that it has developed nuclear weapons and has pulled out of the six-party talks. These events do not emerge out of a vacuum, and this article lends perspective based on an interdisciplinary lens that seeks to grapple with the complexities and provide constructive approaches based on this well-researched understanding. This article analyzes political, military, historical, legal and other angles of this international crisis.

Past dealings with North Korea have been unfruitful because other nations do not recognize the ties between North Korean acts and its ideology and objectives. For a satisfactory resolution to the current …

Compliance Theory And The Inter-American Court Of Human Rights, Morse Tan

ExpressO

This essay fills a gap by exploring compliance theory in international law in relation to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. After introducing the topic and setting the context, it delves into the question of why nations follow international law. Interacting with prominent theoretical models (including the managerial model, fairness and legitimacy, transnational legal process, self-interest, and a comparative perspective with Europe), it arrives at a critical synthesis in the conclusion.

Water Justice In South Africa: Natural Resources Policy At The Intersection Of Human Rights, Economics, & Political Power, Rose Francis

ExpressO

This paper analyzes water as a social justice issue in South Africa, a nation that has undergone tremendous political and legal transformations over the last fifteen years, but whose population nonetheless continues to suffer from severe inequities in access to freshwater resources. In light of growing water scarcity worldwide, this paper highlights that legal treatment of water resources has significant socioeconomic and distributive justice impacts, even in progressive constitutional democracies that have embraced principles of human rights and international legal norms. The paper explores historical changes in South African water law and evaluates the current political and legal status of …

State Legislation As A Fulcrum For Change: Wisconsin's Public Sector Labor Law, And The Revolution In Politics And Worker Rights, Joseph E. Slater

ExpressO

The rise of public sector unions is one of the most significant but least examined movements for legal rights and social change. Through the 1950s, government employees typically had no right to bargain collectively or even to organize unions–rights often regarded as fundamental human rights–and public sector unions were small and relatively powerless. Yet today, unions represent more than 40 percent of all public workers, government employees make up about 40 percent of the entire U.S. labor movement, and public sector unions are among the strongest political advocacy groups in the country. This became possible only through a revolution of …

Compliance Theory And The Inter-American Court Of Human Rights, Morse Hyun-Myung Tan

ExpressO

This essay fills a gap by exploring compliance theory in international law to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. After introducing the topic and setting the context, it delves into the question of why nations follow international law. Interacting with prominent theoretical models (including the managerial model, fairness and legitimacy, transnational legal process, self-interest, and a comparative perspective with Europe), it arrives at a critical synthesis in the conclusion.

Neo-Colonial Relationships Gone Wrong: French Leaders Should Be Held Legally Responsible For Their Role In The Rwandan Genocide, Kirsten T. Bowman

ExpressO

This article explores the role of outside government intervention in civil war conflicts and the ability of these government actors to be held responsible for crimes committed by association and assistance to war criminals. By using the example of the French/Rwandan relationship and the criminal responsibility that France may have for its association and assistance to the Hutu majority government, it looks to the pitfalls that many western countries could find themselves in by assuming similar roles with other repressive and unstable regimes. This analysis proves particularly timely as lawyers for six Rwandan citizens recently filed a lawsuit with the …

Peggy J. Blair On Commercial Law And Human Rights Edited By Stephen Bottomley And David Kinley. Burlington, Vt: Ashgate, 2001. 356pp., Peggy J. Blair

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Commercial Law and Human Rights edited by Stephen Bottomley and David Kinley. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2001. 356pp.

Aaron Peron Ogletree On The Tiananmen Papers Compiled By Zhang Liang, Edited By Andrew Nathan And Perry Link. New York: Public Affairs, 2001. 513pp., Aaron Peron Ogletree

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Tiananmen Papers compiled by Zhang Liang, edited by Andrew Nathan and Perry Link. New York: Public Affairs, 2001. 513pp.

Aaron Peron Ogletree On Indigenous Peoples In International Law (Second Edition) By S. James Anaya. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. 396pp., Aaron Peron Ogletree

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Indigenous Peoples In International Law (Second Edition) by S. James Anaya. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. 396pp.

The W Visa: A Legislative Proposal For Female And Child Refugees Trapped In A Post-9/11 World, Marisa S. Cianciarulo

Working Paper Series

This article addresses an urgent humanitarian crisis affecting unaccompanied or abused refugee children and widowed, divorced, abandoned or abused female heads of refugee households. Such women and children suffer the consequences of the post-9/11 U.S. refugee resettlement backlog more severely than the general refugee population. They are far more at risk of life-threatening harm such as trafficking, sexual exploitation and rape. Moreover, they are far less likely to present a threat to U.S. national security than many people who are able to secure visas to the United States quickly and with fewer background checks. Despite their vulnerability and lack of …

Aiding Whom? Competing Explanations Of Middle-Power Foreign Aid Decisions, Bethany Barratt Phd

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Paper presented at International Studies Association annual meeting Honolulu, Hawaii March 2005. I thank Sabine Carey, Christian Erickson, Scott Gartner, Miroslav Nincic, Steve Poe, and Randolph Siverson for excellent feedback on earlier versions of this research, and Richard Tucker for generously providing the Similarity of UN Policy Positions data.

This paper may be freely circulated in electronic or hard copy provided it is not modified in any way, the rights of the author not infringed, and the paper is not quoted or cited without express permission of the author. The editors cannot guarantee a stable URL for any paper posted …

The United States And Economic And Social Rights: Past, Present…And Future?, Daniel J. Whelan

Human Rights & Human Welfare

There is probably no other topic in the field of human rights that is more difficult to talk about clearly than economic and social rights. The language surrounding economic and social goods as rights claims is often muddled and confusing, lacks precision, and is difficult to grasp. What does it mean, for example, to have a right to the “highest attainable standard of mental and physical health,” for example? What is “highest”? What about “attainable standard”? What is included in “mental and physical health?” Should health care be free-of-charge? Should the state provide it? Would we have to go court …

Awakening An Empire Of Liberty: Exploring The Roots Of Socratic Inquiry And Political Nihilism In American Democracy, Maurice R. Dyson

ExpressO

This book review timely examines Cornel West’s latest sequel to his 1992 best seller, Race Matters. In Democracy Matters, West unflinchingly examines the waning of democratic energies and nihilistic practices of private and public sector in our present age of democracy. This review takes a critical examination of the logic underpinning West’s arguments, his nomenclature of various nihilism plaguing our society, the sometimes clumsy employment of literary devices and his thesis regarding the ‘niggerization’ of America after 9/11 that can serve as a basis for unifying collective action against imperialism. West makes a compelling argument that the public needs to …

Report Of The Independent Expert On The Protection Of Human Rights And Fundamental Freedoms While Countering Terrorism, Robert K. Goldman

Research Reports & White Papers

The Commission on Human Rights, in resolution 2004/87, decided to designate, from within existing resources, for a period of one year, an independent expert to assist the High Commissioner for Human Rights in the fulfillment of the mandate described in the resolution and, “taking fully into account the study requested in General Assembly resolution 58/187, as well as the discussions in the Assembly and the views of States thereon, to submit a report, through the High Commissioner, to the Commission at its sixty-first session on ways and means of strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms …

International Humanitarianism In The Contemporary World: Forms And Issues, David P. Forsythe

Human Rights & Human Welfare

© 2004 David P. Forsythe. All rights reserved.

This paper was commissioned by the U.S. Social Science Research Council and the United Nations University, for a research project on multilateralism starting Fall 2004.

The paper may not be quoted or referred to in any reference without the written permission of the author. Suggested revisions are welcomed by the author via his email address. This paper may be freely circulated in electronic or hard copy provided it is not modified in any way, the rights of the author not infringed, and the paper is not quoted or cited without express permission …

Human Rights, Jack Donnelly

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Human rights are, literally, the rights we have simply because we are human. They are equal rights: one either is or is not a human being, and thus has exactly the same human rights as every other human being. They are inalienable rights: one cannot stop being a human being, and therefore cannot lose one's human rights, no matter how horribly one behaves nor how barbarously one is treated. Human rights are also universal rights, held by every human being, everywhere. This chapter offers a conceptual analysis of human rights, a brief account of their historical evolution, and an introduction …

The Children Left Behind: Roma Access To Education In Contemporary Romania, Aram A. Schvey, Martin S. Flaherty, Tracy E. Higgins

Crowley Mission Reports

In Romania, Roma children are nearly always educated in more poorly resourced schools than non-Roma children; they are nearly always educated by less-qualified teachers; and they are often treated differently—and worse—than non-Roma children by their principals, teachers, and classmates. While non-Roma children move ahead through Romania’s education system, Roma children are too often left behind. This Report begins with a synopsis of the problem. It then examines the roots of the plight of the Roma in general and of Roma children in particular. The Report then outlines the particular findings of the Mission and sets forth the relevant domestic, international, …

Human Rights, Sovereignty And The Final Status Of Kosovo, Bartram Brown

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Putting Things Into Perspective: The Realities Of Accountability In East Timor, Indonesia And Cambodia, Suzannah Linton

Maryland Series in Contemporary Asian Studies

No abstract provided.

Pluralizing International Criminal Justice, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

This Review Essay of Philippe Sands' (ed.) From Nuremberg to the Hague (2003) explores a number of controversial aspects of the theory and praxis of international criminal law. The Review Essay traces the extant heuristic of international criminal justice institutions to Nuremberg and posits that the Nuremberg experience suggests the need for modesty about what criminal justice actually can accomplish in the wake of mass atrocity. It also explores the place of one person's guilt among organic crime, the reality that international criminal law may gloss over criminogenic conditions in its pursuit of individualized accountability, the possibility of group sanction …

Comparative Human Rights Jurisprudence In Azerbaijan: Theory, Practice And Prospects, Charles H. Martin

Florida State University Journal of Transnational Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

The Evolving, Yet Still Inadequate, Legal Protections Afforded Battered Immigrant Women, Indira K. Balram

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Human Rights And "Globalization", John J. Cerullo

The University Dialogue

No abstract provided.

Editors' Note, Melanie Nakagawa, Kirk Herbertson

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Mcgoliath V. David: The European Court Of Human Rights Recent Equality Of Arms Decision, Monique C. Lillard

Articles

No abstract provided.

Ignoring The Lessons Of The Past: The Crisis In Darfur And The Case For Humanitarian Intervention, Klinton W. Alexander

Florida State University Journal of Transnational Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Who Needs Freedom Of Religion?, James W. Nickel

Articles

This article proposes that we view freedom of religion as a specific application area of more general basic liberties such as freedoms of thought, expression, association, assembly, movement, privacy, political participation, and economic activity. Separate enumeration of freedom of religion in national and international bills of rights may be useful, but it is not indispensable. In this respect freedom of religion is more like scientific freedom or artistic freedom than like freedom of expression. Recognizing that separate enumeration of freedom of religion is dispensable has salutary consequences for how we conceive and justify freedom as it applies to religion. First, …

From Dyad To Triad: Reconceptualizing The Lawyer-Client Relationship For Litigation In Regional Human Rights Commissions, Melissa E. Crow

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article analyzes the standing requirements for NGO petitions to the Inter-American and African Commissions and explores the ways which they may undermine the legitimacy and effectiveness of each of these for a, especially in the context of litigation on behalf of groups. The author evaluates various proposals for addressing these problems based on princeiples of class action and client-centered lawyering and concludes that they are inadequate.

From Indifference To Engagement: Bystanders And International Criminal Justice, Laurel E. Fletcher

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article contributes to the scholarship on transitional justice by examining how the legal architecture and operation of international criminal law constricts bystanders as subjects of jurisprudence, considering the effects of this limitation on the ability of international tribunals to promote their social and political goals, and proposing institutional reforms needed to address this limitation.