Human Rights Law Commons^™

Untold Truths: The Exclusion Of Enforced Sterilizations From The Peruvian Truth Commission's Final Report, Jocelyn E. Getgen

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article argues that the exclusion of enforced sterilization cases from the Peruvian Truth Commission's investigation and Final Report effectively erases State responsibility and decreases the likelihood for justice and reparations for women victims-survivors of State-sponsored violence in Peru. In a context of deep cultural and economic divides and violent conflict, this Article recounts how the State's Family Planning Program violated Peruvian women's reproductive rights by sterilizing low-income, indigenous Quechua-speaking women without informed consent. This Article argues that these systematic reproductive injustices constitute an act of genocide, proposes an independent inquiry, and advocates for a more inclusive investigation and final …

Human Persons, Human Rights, And The Distributive Structure Of Global Justice, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

It is common for economically oriented transnational legal theorists to think and communicate mainly in maximizing terms. It is less common for them to notice that each time we speak explicitly of maximizing one thing, we speak implicitly of distributing another thing and equalizing yet another thing. Moreover, we effectively define ourselves and our fellow humans by reference to that which we equalize. For it is in virtue of the latter that our global welfare formulations treat us as "counting" for purposes of globally aggregating and maximizing.

To analyze maximization language on the one hand, and equalization and identification language …

Defining The Relationship Between Human Rights And Corruption, James T. Gathii

Faculty Publications & Other Works

No abstract provided.

Embargo Or Blockade? The Legal And Moral Dimensions Of The U.S. Economic Sanctions On Cuba, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

The almost fifty-year old U.S. economic policy towards Cuba—the embargo that is the topic of this essay. Indeed, not even on the naming of the economic policy can the camps agree. To those antagonistic to the revolution the policy is an embargo - an economic sanction constituting a legitimate government action that legally restricts the flow of goods, services and capital to the island in order to try to influence the Castro regime into changing its undemocratic ways. Such lawful restrictions simply signal justifiable disapproval of another country's policy with the goal of changing the state's behavior that is perceived …

Foreword: Security Detention, Michael P. Scharf, Gwen Gillespie

Faculty Publications

Foreword to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center at Case Western Reserve University organized a two-day experts meeting on security detention, Cleveland, OH, 2009

Queer Lockdown: Coming To Terms With The Ongoing Criminalization Of Lgbtq Communities, Ann Cammett

Scholarly Works

The criminal justice system exacts a toll on some Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) communities. The experience of living in poverty and the concomitant exposure to a variety of governmental systems puts all poor, but especially LGBTQ low-income people of color, at risk of incarceration. What typically goes unexamined are the myriad ways that LGBTQ people are drawn into and experience the carceral system because of sexual identities and expression. This negative effect surfaces at every conceivable level: the marginalization and subsequent criminalization of queer youth; anti-gay bias in the judicial system; the rerouting of domestic violence cases …

An Unnecessary Convenience: The Assertion Of The Uniform Code Of Military Justice ("Ucmj") Over Civilians And The Implications Of International Human Rights Law, Dan E. Stigall

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

The expansion of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) to include jurisdiction over civilians during contingency operations raises significant legal and human rights concerns, particularly regarding due process and equality under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). While the UCMJ aims to maintain military order, its application to civilians may not meet the ICCPR's requirements for necessity and fairness, potentially undermining the U.S.'s international reputation. However, proponents argue that military jurisdiction can sometimes advance human rights and accountability, suggesting a need for balanced solutions.

Recycling The Past: Resettling Displaced Persons Communities In Northern Iraq With The Aid Of Heirless Property, Samantha Klein

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Ianfu: No Comfort Yet For Korean Comfort Women And The Impact Of House Resolution 121, James Ladino

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note examines the historical injustice and ongoing legal challenges surrounding the issue of "comfort women" during World War II, highlighting the barriers to justice and the ethical and diplomatic complexities that have prevented resolution. It critiques the legal frameworks and international efforts that have failed to address the survivors' demands for acknowledgment and reparations, emphasizing the tension between morality and geopolitical interests.

The Precarious Situation Of Human Rights In The United States In Normal Times And After September 11, 2001 (La Situación Precaria De Los Derechos Humanos En Estados Unidos En Tiempos Normales Y Después Del 11 De Septiembre De 2001) (Spanish), Stephen C. Thaman

All Faculty Scholarship

The paper criticizes the impact of U. S. American criminal law and procedure on the human rights of U. S. citizens in normal times and the changes that have occurred since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It deals with racial profiling, the death penalty, Draconian prison sentences in normal times, and the use of unlimited detention, torture and expanded powers of wiretapping and evidence gathering since the attacks of 9-11.

Note: downloadable document is in Spanish

Terrorist Detention: Directions For Reform, Benjamin Priester

Journal Publications

Counterterrorism efforts by the U.S. government since 2001 have produced numerous legal controversies. One of the most controversial subjects has been the detention of individuals allegedly involved with terrorist organizations or activities. Unlike traditional criminal detainees, such persons are not held pursuant to indictment on charges pending trial or to a verdict of conviction. Unlike traditional military detainees, they are not battlefield captives from combat in a war zone against the military forces of another nation. Rather, terrorist detainees are held based on the individual's alleged connections to terrorist organizations and activities, without more. Terrorist detention, so defined, is an …

Ross, Women's Human Rights: The International And Comparative Law Casebook, Mary Pat Treuthart

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rebalancing The Scales: Restoring The Availability Of Disparate Impact Causes Of Action In Title Vi Cases, Victor Suthammanont

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Answering The Millennium Call For The Right To Maternal Health: The Need To Eliminate User Fees, Margaux J. Hall, Aziza Ahmed, Stephanie E. Swanson

Faculty Scholarship

Complications during childbirth and pregnancy are a main source of death and disability among women of reproductive age. Approximately 536,000 women die from pregnancy-related complications each year. Developing countries suffer most profoundly, accounting for 99% of deaths. The world's nations, by endorsing U.N. Millennium Development Goals, recognized that most deaths are preventable; they have pledged to reduce maternal mortality by 75% by 2015. This Article assesses the barriers presented by user fees - formal charges for health services still charged by many countries - to the attainment of MDGs. It shows that user fees hamper healthcare access, particularly in emergency …

Making People Illegal: What Globalization Means For Migration And Law, Catherine Dauvergne

All Faculty Publications

This book examines the relationship between illegal migration and globalization. Under the pressures of globalizing forces, migration law is transformed into the last bastion of sovereignty. This explains the worldwide crackdown on extra-legal migration and informs the shape this crackdown is taking. It also means that migration law reflects key facets of globalization and addresses the central debates of globalization theory. This book looks at various migration law settings, asserting that differing but related globalization effects are discernible at each location. The ‘core samples’ interrogated in the book are drawn from refugee law, illegal labor migration, human trafficking, security issues …

Turkey: At The Crossroads Of Secular West And Traditional East, Padideh Ala'i

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

On January 9, 2008 Washington College of Law at American University sponsored a conference entitled: Turkey: At the Crossroads of Secular West and Traditional East. This conference was percipitated by the recent election of the AKP party in Turkey and my trip to Turkey in summer 2007. In this short introduction to the American University International law Review symposium issue, I summarize the major issues raised in that one day conference specifically by Dean Haluk Kabaalioglu of Yeditepe University Facutly of Law, expert on EU law and Turkish-EU relations,and Professor Feroz Ahmad, the learned historian of modern Turkey. The aim …

Matter Of A-T-: Opening The Door For Gender As A Particular Social Group In Asylum Applications, Kelleen O'Fallon

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

No abstract provided.

Torture, Necessity, And Supreme Emergency: Law And Morality At The End Of Law, Zachary R. Calo

Scholarly Works

This paper employs Michael Walzer's concept of "Supreme Emergency" to address the permissibility of torture under conditions of necessity. It proposes moving beyond both utilitarian and deontological approaches to legal authority in order to understood necessity as a moral category. A full account of right action under conditions of necessity therefore demands taking account of the distinct yet cooperative function provided by legal and moral norms. A political official might therefore possess moral but not legal warrant to act in contravention of binding legal norms. Preserving the validity of law is essential to the economy of social reconstitution in the …

No Future Without (Personal) Forgiveness: Reexamining The Role Of Forgiveness In Transitional Justice, John D. Inazu

Scholarship@WashULaw

The role of forgiveness has been much discussed in the literature on transitional justice, but a basic point has been muddled: most acts of forgiveness are inherently personal and cannot be achieved by state actors alone. What I call personal forgiveness is extended by a single human victim who has been harmed by a wrongdoer. Personal forgiveness is distinguishable from three other forms of forgiveness: group forgiveness, legal forgiveness (a form of group forgiveness), and political forgiveness. In the context of transitional justice, I argue that: (1) personal forgiveness is a necessary condition for political forgiveness; (2) group forgiveness (including …

Reconstructing The Responsibility To Protect In The Wake Of Cyclones And Separatism, Jarrod Wong

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

This Article reconceptualizes the doctrine of the responsibility to protect (R2P). R2P provides that when a government fails to protect its citizens from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing or crimes against humanity (“mass atrocities”), that responsibility shifts to the international community acting through the United Nations.

The U.N.'s apparent failure to include natural disasters in the catalogue of harms potentially justifying R2P intervention generated considerable controversy following Myanmar's refusal of foreign aid following the devastation wrought by Cyclone Nargis. Those seeking to limit the scope of R2P considered it inapplicable in the case of Myanmar, reading the U.N.'s focus on …

Fifty Years Of The European Court Of Human Rights Viewed By Its Fellow International Courts, Paolo G. Carozza

Book Chapters

Remarks by Paolo Carozza, President of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Strasbourg, January 30, 2009

Obstacles On The Road To Gender Justice: The International Criminal Tribunal For Rwanda As Object Lesson , Beth Van Schaak

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Lessons From The Special Court For Sierra Leone On The Prosecution Of Gender-Based Crimes, Valerie Oosterveld

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

It’S Doom Alone That Counts: Can International Human Rights Law Be An Effective Source Of Rights In Correctional Conditions Litigation?, Michael L. Perlin, Henry A. Dlugacz

Articles & Chapters

Over the past three decades, the US judiciary has grown increasingly less receptive to claims by convicted felons about the conditions of their confinement while in prison. Although courts have not articulated a return to the 'hands off' policy of the 1950s, it is clear that it has become significantly more difficult for prisoners to prevail in constitutional correctional litigation. The passage and aggressive implementation ofthe Prison Litigation Reform Act has been a powerful disincentive to such litigation in many areas ofprisoners' rights law.

From the perspective of the prisoner, the legal landscape is more hopeful in matters that relate …

Introduction: International Review Of Constitutionalism Special Issue On Law, Poverty And Economic Inequality, Penelope Andrews, Frank W. Munger

Articles & Chapters

Editors introduction: This collection of articles by noted scholars examines what law and legal institutions can do to alleviate poverty and economic inequality in the new economic and political environment. The articles explore the contours of many struggles for distributive justice. They describe contemporary constitutional strategies, such as the incorporation of economic, social and cultural rights in constitutions in relation to grassroots anti-poverty campaigns in many parts of the world, including campaigns for rights in South Africa, and poor people's economic and human rights campaigns in the United States. Such campaigns face well-known disadvantages in contending with entrenched, powerful, and …

Developments In The Prosecution Of Gender-Based Crimes - The Special Court For Sierra Leone Experience , Hon. Theresa Doherty

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

O To A, For Helping Kill O: Wisconsin's Decision Not To Bar Inheritance To Individuals Who Assist A Decedent In Suicide, Matthew Barry Reisig

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

An Imperfect Vocabulary Of Religious Liberty, Marci A. Hamilton

Articles

No abstract provided.

Hart Avec Kant: On The Inseparability Of Law And Morality, David G. Carlson

Articles

The article critiques H.L.A. Hart's The Concept of Law from a Kantian perspective, arguing that Hart's separation thesis between law and morality is untenable. Hart's internal point of view, a cornerstone of his jurisprudence, is revealed to be indistinguishable from morality, undermining his effort to separate law from moral considerations. The analysis contends that Hart's theory ultimately collapses into a Kantian framework, where law and morality share a common form, challenging the foundational principles of legal positivism.

Rwandan Genocide: Taking Notes From The Holocaust Reparations Movement, Yael Weitz

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note examines the failure to provide adequate reparations to rape victims of the Rwandan genocide, drawing parallels with the Holocaust reparations movement. It argues that while international law has advanced in recognizing rape as a grave crime, the existing mechanisms, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), have failed to deliver reparations. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is proposed as a potential solution, despite jurisdictional limitations, through cooperation with the ICTR to address the urgent needs of Rwandan rape victims.