Human Rights Law Commons^™

Analyzing Prison Sex: Reconciling Self Expression With Safety, Brenda V. Smith

Project on Addressing Prison Rape - Articles

This article examines the complexity of prison sex and the challenges that it raises in the context of recently enacted United States legislation, specifically the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). It begins by identifying a range of prisoner interests in enhanced sexual expression. These interests are described below in an attempt to disentangle prisoners’ rights in sexual expression from states’ legitimate interests in regulating that expression. This article also directs policymakers and decision makers to mine international documents and human rights norms that recognize the necessity of punishment and at the same time outline a standard for the safety of …

Book Review. Companies, International Trade And Human Rights By Janet Dine, Christiana Ochoa

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This is a book review of Janet Dine's Companies, International Trade and Human Rights (2005). While this 9-page review is quite positive, it does offer some criticisms of Dine's analysis and views.

Remembering Sudetenland: On The Legal Construction Of Ethnic Cleansing, Timothy W. Waters

Articles by Maurer Faculty

What is the true shape of our commitment to prohibit ethnic cleansing? This Article explores that question by considering a case observers have almost universally decided does not constitute ethnic cleansing. It examines the recent controversy in the European Union, when Sudeten Germans demanded that the Czech Republic apologize for having expelled them after WWII before being admitted to the EU. Their demands were almost universally rejected and the legality of the expulsions was reconfirmed by all relevant actors. So what is the consequence for customary international law's rules on ethnic cleansing?

The Article derives the customary legal norms logically …

Towards A Cosmopolitan Vision Of International Law: Identifying And Defining Cil Post Sosa V. Alvarez-Machain, Christiana Ochoa

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, future Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) litigants seemingly will be asked to demonstrate that the norms giving rise to their actions are violations of clearly established Customary International Law (CIL). Given the mutable character of CIL, especially in the area of human rights, this will surely fuel the already voluminous literature on the content of the CIL of human rights.

While debate will certainly arise over the norms that have been become CIL, significant attention must be also be devoted to the problems inherent in the CIL of …

Feminist Legal Theory And Human Trafficking In The United States: Towards A New Framework, Cynthia L. Wolken

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

No abstract provided.

Peace Versus Justice, Richard J. Goldstone

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Imagine A World Without Hunger: The Hurdles Of Global Justice, Muna B. Ndulo

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Refugees' Human Rights And The Challenge Of Political Will, James C. Hathaway

Articles

Governments in all parts of the world are withdrawing in practice from meeting the legal duty to provide refugees with the protection they require. While states continue to proclaim a willingness to assist refugees as a matter of political discretion or humanitarian goodwill, many appear committed to a pattern of defensive strategies designed to avoid international legal responsibility toward involuntary migrants. Some see this shift away from a legal paradigm of refugee protection as a source of enhanced operational flexibility in the face of changed political circumstances. For refugees themselves, however, the increasingly marginal relevance of international refugee law has …

Peoples' Tribunals: Legitimate Or Rough Justice, Christine M. Chinkin

Articles

The article examines the use of Peoples' Tribunals in seeking access to justice where none has been possible through more formal methods. It uses as illustration the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal that sought justice for the so-called comfort women, the primarily Asian women who were subjected to sexual slavery by the Japanese military before and during World War Two. The article briefly recounts the fate of the comfort women and then considers the legal and practical obstacles they faced in accessing justice at the end of the War. It outlines how towards the end of the 20th century the …

Finding The Winning Combination: How Blending Organ Procurement Systems Used Internationally Can Reduce The Organ Shortage, Sarah E. Statz

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The shortage in transplantable organs worldwide not only leads to unnecessary death, but also to grave human rights abuses through illegal methods of procuring organs. The shortage leads some desperate to find an organ through any possible means, including purchasing an organ on the black market. The system for procuring organs in the United States is based on altruism, where potential donors have to opt in to the system in order for their organs to be donated. This creates issues at the time of death for medical professionals or the next of kin to decide whether their patient or loved …

"One Good Man": The Jacksonian Shape Of Nuremberg, John Q. Barrett

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954) was a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States when President Truman asked him in April 1945 to take on, and Jackson accepted responsibility to be the chief United States prosecutor of Nazi war criminals. The International Military Tribunal proceedings that commenced seven months later in Nuremberg, Germany—the first and, in public memory, the Nuremberg trial—are, like Jackson himself, well-known, especially to this audience of participants, witnesses and experts.

The Nuremberg story of Justice Jackson—he who was first among Allied equals at Nuremberg; he who was its architect—is not, however, merely a story …

Medellin, Norm Portals, And The Horizontal Integration Of International Human Rights, Margaret E. Mcguinness

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The dominant narrative of the Medellín v. Dretke line of cases challenging widespread noncompliance by the United States with the notification provisions of Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR) tells a story of vertical treaty enforcement. The United States has agreed to be bound by a treaty that requires law enforcement authorities to inform foreign nationals arrested in this country of their right to notify their consulates and also requires authorities to permit the foreign consulate to assist its nationals. The United States has further agreed that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has jurisdiction …

Exploring The Limits Of International Human Rights Law, Margaret E. Mcguiness

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The Limits of International Law stands on the shoulders of international relations realists who have traditionally argued that international law does not affect interstate relations and is therefore unworthy of much scholarly attention. International law scholars have in many ways set out to disprove the realist claim and explain the sources and effects of law as separate from politics: Why do states, which are driven primarily (according to realist theory) by a need to protect and expand security interests, insist on using international law at all? In Limits, Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner engage both the international relations …

Triptych: Sectarian Disputes, International Law, And Transnational Tribunals In Drinan's "Can God And Caesar Coexist?", Christopher J. Borgen

Faculty Publications

Can international law be used to address conflicts that arise out of questions of the freedom of religion? Modern international law was born of conflicts of politics and religion. The Treaty of Westphalia, the seed from which grew today's systems of international law and international relations, attempted to set out rules to end decades of religious strife and war across the European continent. The treaty replaced empires and feudal holdings with a system of sovereign states. But this was within a relatively narrow and historically interconnected community: Protestants and Catholics, yes, but Christians all. Europe was Christendom.

To what extent …

Universal Rights And Wrongs, Michael E. Tigar

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Empowering The Human In Human Rights Discourse, Seval Yildirim

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

You Got No Secrets To Conceal: Considering The Application Of The Tarasoff Doctrine Abroad, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of Non-State Actors And Human Rights, Michael Ashley Stein

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Counter-Rejoinder: Justice Vs. Justiciability?: Normative Neutrality And Technical Precision, The Role Of The Lawyer In Supranational Social Rights Litigation, Tara J. Melish

Journal Articles

An important debate is currently underway in the inter-American human rights system involving the proper approach litigators, adjudicators, and advocates should take to supranational litigation of economic, social and cultural rights. Centered on questions of jurisdiction and the proper characterization and limits of justiciability, its resolution has tremendous implications for the tools available to on-the-ground advocates, their real-world effectiveness and sustainability in adjudicatory and advocacy contexts alike, and the rationalization of the system's developing jurisprudence over the long-term.

This article book-ends a trilogy of pieces appearing in the NYU Journal of International Law and Politics by two sets of authors, …

Rethinking The "Less As More" Thesis: Supranational Litigation Of Economic, Social And Cultural Rights In The Americas, Tara J. Melish

Journal Articles

In their 2005 law review article Less as More: Rethinking Supranational Litigation of Economic and Social Rights in the Americas, James Cavallaro and Emily Schaffer argue for a "rethinking" of strategies to advance economic, social and cultural rights in the Americas. They posit that to achieve higher rates of real-world protection for such rights, social rights advocates should do two things: first, bring less litigation and, second, frame any marginal litigation that is pursued as violations of classic civil and political rights. According to the authors, this recommended course will increase the "legitimacy" of the litigation and lead to higher …

Gender Equality And Women's Solidarity Across Religious, Ethnic And Class Difference In The Kenyan Constitutional Review Process, Athena D. Mutua

Journal Articles

This paper examines Kenyan's women's struggle to gain new legal authority for gender equality and women's empowerment in the Kenya Constitutional Review process. Specifically it examines the efforts of the campaign to "safeguard the gains of women in the Draft Constitution," a campaign launched by a coalition of four civil society organizations in Kenya after the release of a new Draft constitution in 2002. Its focus is the 2002 Draft, the Draft's relationship to the current Kenyan Constitution and to recent constitutional proposals, from a gender perspective.

The constitutional review process is part of a larger movement to democratize the …

2005 Cardozo International Advocate For Peace Award: Acceptance Speech, Betty Kaari Murungi

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

Thank you very much for this truly inspiring award, which I am honored to accept on my own behalf and on behalf of the many women with whom I have been privileged to work over the years. The award is presented against the backdrop of two historic international events: the passing of Rosa Parks and the announcement of the victory of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf as the first elected female head of state of an African country.

Democracy's Handmaid, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

Democratic theory presupposes open channels of dialogue, but focuses almost exclusively on matters of institutional design writ large. The philosophy of language explicates linguistic infrastructure, but often avoids exploring the political significance of its findings. In this Article, I draw from the two disciplines to reach new insights about the democracy enhancing qualities of popular constitutional language. Employing examples from the founding era, the struggle for black civil rights, the religious awakening of the last two decades, and the search for gay equality, I present a model of constitutional dialogue that emphasizes common modalities and mobilized vernacular. According to this …

Defending Human Rights In The "War" Against Terror, Douglass Cassel

Journal Articles

Safeguarding human rights in our "war" against terrorism is both the right and the smart thing to do. It is right because human rights embody our fundamental values as Americans and as Christians. Our Constitution stands for freedom; our Creator teaches us to respect the God-given dignity of each human soul. Christians are called to cherish human dignity, not only of innocents, and not only of captives in war whose status as combatant or civilian may be uncertain, but also of cardinal sinners, the terrorists themselves. Christ Jesus teaches us to hate the sin, but somehow to bring ourselves to …

When Is A War Not A War? The Myth Of The Global War On Terror, Mary Ellen O'Connell

Journal Articles

It is essential to correctly classify situations in the world as ones of war or peace: human lives depend on the distinction, but so do liberty, property, and the integrity of the natural environment. President Bush's war on terror finds war where suspected members of al Qaeda are found. By contrast, war under international law exists where hostilities are on-going. To the extent there is ambiguity, the United States should err on the side of pursuing terrorists within the peacetime criminal law enforcement paradigm, not a wartime one. Not only does the criminal law better protect important human rights and …

"The Dean Of Chicago's Black Lawyers": Earl Dickerson And Civil Rights Lawyering In The Years Before Brown, Jay Tidmarsh, Stephen Robinson

Journal Articles

Brown v. Board of Education is a watershed in American law and society. In the years since it was decided, Brown has shaped America's views of race, constitutionalism, and equality. Brown exerts an equally important influence over the historiography of civil rights lawyering in the decades before Brown. In particular, in constructing the story of civil rights lawyering in the crucial years between World War I and World War II, historians and legal scholars have focused primarily on the people and the events that shaped Brown.

The Cultural, Political, And Legal Climate Behind The Fight To Stop Trafficking In Women: William J. Clinton's Legacy To Women's Rights, Susan Tiefenbrun

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article examines the Clinton Administration's significant contributions to advancing women's rights, particularly through landmark legislation such as the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA). These efforts, including the appointment of women to high office, reflect a cultural shift toward valuing women's roles and protecting them from exploitation. The TVPA, reauthorized under subsequent administrations, has had a lasting domestic and international impact in combating human trafficking and supporting victims. The article highlights the importance of legislative and judicial approaches in addressing violence against women and promoting gender equality.

China And The Human Right To Health: Selective Adaptation And Treaty Compliance, Pitman B. Potter

All Faculty Publications

The international community has devoted considerable energy to dialogue and exchanges with China on issues of treaty compliance in areas of trade and human rights, and while many improvements are evident in China’s legal regimes for trade and human rights, problems remain. Further, academic and policy discourses on China’s trade and human rights policy and practice are all too often conflicted by normative differences and illusions about them. The paradigm of “selective adaptation” offers a potential solution by examining compliance with international trade and human rights treaties by reference to the interplay between normative systems associated with international rule regimes …

Human Dignity In The Line Of Fire: The Application Of International Human Rights Law During Armed Conflict, Occupation, And Peace Operations, John Cerone

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

One of the most controversial and politically charged issues in current human rights discourse is whether and to what extent states are bound by human rights obligations with respect to the conduct of their armed forces abroad in armed conflict, occupation, and peace operations. Underlying the controversy are a number of complex legal questions, several of which have eluded definitive resolution. Chief among these questions is whether individuals affected by the conflict are among those whose rights states are obliged to secure. Answering these questions is further complicated in situations of collective action, giving rise to such questions as whether …

The Detainee Treatment Act Of 2005: Embodying U.S. Values To Eliminate Detainee Abuse By Civilian Contractors And Bounty Hunters In Afghanistan And Iraq, Ryan P. Logan

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The growth in the number of bounty hunters and civilian contractors accompanying the U.S. military into battle has swelled during the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Civilians have been utilized in all facets of those military campaigns, including the interrogation of suspected terrorists or insurgents. Faced with intense pressure to rapidly obtain information about terrorist operations and yet having little oversight of their interrogation activities, some of these contractors and bounty hunters have been accused of abusing detainees. This Note explores the legal avenues for addressing accusations of detainee abuse by U.S. civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq and concludes …