Human Rights Law Commons^™

Rights, Reservations, And Religion; International Human Rights Law And The Status Of Women, Mark Goldfeder

Scholarly Works

While human rights law in its current form is less than fifty years old, the issues that it grapples with are much, much older. People oftentimes dismiss religion or religious norms as being out of date, close-minded, or old-fashioned, and label religious views as discriminatory in theory or even in practice. In reality, religions have been dealing with human rights issues since ancient times, and in some ways have laid the groundwork for the very modern discussions that have supplanted them. The answers that religions give, therefore, deserve at the very least a careful and respectful analysis before they are …

Sexual Assault Cases In The Supreme Court Of Canada: Losing Sight Of Substantive Equality?, Emma Cunliffe

All Faculty Publications

The equality guarantee contained in section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has prompted reforms that protect women as complainants in sexual assault cases. This article considers the effectiveness of these reforms. Part 2 supplies a history of the relationships between consent, trial procedure, and substantive equality in sexual assault law. The author argues that substantive equality has had a significant effect on both substance and procedure. Part 3 examines the impact of these reforms by considering the extent to which substantive equality has infused judicial reasoning and fact determination in contested sexual assault cases. Specifically, the …

Sow What You Reap? Using Predator And Reaper Drones To Carry Out Assassinations Or Targeted Killings Of Suspected Islamic Terrorists, Thomas M. Mcdonnell

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article explores whether targeted killing of suspected Islamist terrorists comports with international law generally, whether any special rules apply in so-called “failed states,” and whether deploying attack drones poses special risks for the civilian population, for humanitarian and human rights law, and for the struggle against terrorism. Part I of this article discusses the Predator Drone and its upgraded version Predator B, the Reaper, and analyzes their technological capabilities and innovations. Part II discusses international humanitarian law and international human rights law as applied to a state’s targeting and killing an individual inside or outside armed conflict or in …

Imagining A Right To Housing, Lying In The Interstices, Shelby D. Green

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article explores whether the philosophical and constitutional predicates for the recognition of a right to housing exist in some form in our nation’s jurisprudence and political order. Part II traces the evolution of the concept of “rights” from that embraced by the country’s founders to the present, how such a right to housing would fit within the dialogue of property rights, the notion of ownership, and the interest in liberty. Part III discusses the historical role of the court in protecting housing. Part IV discusses the notion of protecting rights to housing under existing equal protection and due process …

Beyond War: Bin Laden, Escobar, And The Justification Of Targeted Killing, Luis E. Chiesa, Alexander K.A. Greenawalt

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Using the May 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden as a case study, this Article contributes to the debate on targeted killing in two distinct ways, each of which has the result of downplaying the centrality of international humanitarian law (IHL) as the decisive source of justification for targeted killings.

First, we argue that the IHL rules governing the killing of combatants in wartime should be understood to apply more strictly in cases involving the targeting of single individuals, particularly when the targeting occurs against nonparadigmatic combatants outside the traditional battlefield. As applied to the bin Laden killing, we argue …

Under Color Of Law: Siliadin V. France And The Dynamics Of Enslavement In Historical Perspective, Rebecca J. Scott

Book Chapters

When is it appropriate to apply the term ‘slavery’—a concept that appears to rest on a property right—to patterns of exploitation in contemporary society, when no state extends formal recognition to the possibility of the ownership of property in a human being? Historians, who generally position themselves as enemies of anachronism, may be particularly resistant to the use of an ancient term to describe a twenty-first century reality. And jurists have often been understandably reluctant to employ a word whose historical meaning was so closely tied to a specific property relationship that has long since been abolished in Europe and …

Human Rights And Counterterrorism: A Contradiction Or Necessary Bedfellows?, Amos N. Guiora

Georgia Law Review

Ten years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, questions
remain regarding the relationship between human rights
and counterterrorism. The historical track record of the
Executive Branch, Supreme Court, and Congress in this
vein is troubling. While the contradiction suggested in
this Essay's title need not be the case, it is, nevertheless,
the persistent reality in American history.
This Essay assesses the current relationship between
human rights and counterterrorism. In doing so, it
reflects on wartime measures implemented by presidents
throughout U.S. history and recommends a way forward
that facilitates more effective protection of human rights

without impinging on legitimate national security …

Beyond Labor Rights: Which Core Human Rights Must Regional Trade Agreements Protect?, Stephen J. Powell, Trisha Low

UF Law Faculty Publications

As World Trade Organization ("WTO") Members relentlessly pursue new regional trade agreements to achieve even faster economic growth than the extraordinary numbers posted by global trade rules, the smaller number of parties and their greater cultural affinity have led negotiators to address the intersection of trade and human rights to an extent unparalleled in the culturally disparate and near-unmanageable, 150-plus member WTO itself. These new provisions have used trade's huge power to improve worker rights, secure environmental protections, and make initial inroads toward defending indigenous populations from trade's adverse effects. Employing the perspectives both of trade negotiators and students of …

Comparative Pragmatism, Rachel Rebouché

UF Law Faculty Publications

Although several commentators have previously suggested that the United States and Germany now share more commonalities than differences, this Article challenges the conventional wisdom by suggesting that the United States and Germany have moved in the opposite direction on a spectrum of available abortion services. In the United States, the constitutional right to an abortion is unrealizable for many women due to restrictive state and federal laws and the absence of providers in many areas. In Germany, by contrast, despite the country’s formal recognition of fetal rights, early abortion is widely available and often funded by the government. In short, …

Transferring Wartime Detainees And Astate’S Responsibility To Prevent Torture, Jonathan Horowitz

American University National Security Law Brief

No abstract provided.

Disposable Workers: Applying A Human Rights Framework To Analyze Duties Owed To Seriously Injured Or Ill Migrants, Lori A. Nessel

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The practice of medical repatriation, or the extrajudicial deportation of seriously ill immigrants directly by hospitals, was largely unknown and under-theorized until recently. In the past few years, a number of scholars have focused on the legal and ethical issues raised by this practice. However, medical repatriation has most often been analyzed in isolation as an example of an anomalous unlawful or unethical action undertaken by hospitals, rather than as a predictable, if horrifying, extension of a legal regime that treats migrant labor as disposable. In contrast, this Article contextualizes the private deportation of migrant workers by hospitals within broader …

Editor's Note, Alfred C. Aman, Micah J. Nichols

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Globalization and Migration Symposium, Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Bloomington, Indiana, April 7-8, 2011

Changing Burma From Without: Political Activism Among The Burmese Diaspora, David C. Williams

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This Article examines the role that the Burmese diaspora plays from afar in influencing reform inside the country. It offers a brief history of the crisis in Burma as background for identifying the various elements of the diaspora: those on the run from the military; those in camps for internally displaced persons and refugees; migrant workers; leaders of the democracy movement active on Burma's borders; asylees; and professional activists with influence on the international community. The different groups use the different strategies available to them. The leadership on the borders is helping to lead the democracy movement inside the country; …

Troubling The Victim/Trafficker Dichotomy In Efforts To Combat Human Trafficking: The Unintended Consequences Of Moralizing Labor Migration, Kay Warren

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This analysis examines the violent predator/innocent victim paradigm employed by many governmental and nongovernmental organizations active in monitoring and combating transnational human trafficking. One common treatment of the issue moralizes victims as innocent women and children who have been deceived and coerced into exploitative sex work; another constructs human trafficking as modern day slavery which takes a variety of forms and requires foreign intervention to organize rescues and redemption. Both views see human trafficking, most especially sex trafficking, as an exceptional crime with distinct predators and victims and cultivate moral outrage as a strategic tool to combat coerced labor. This …

International Human Rights In Canadian Immigration Law - The Case Of The Immigration And Refugee Board Of Canada, Catherine Dauvergne

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This article analyzes the use of international human rights in the decision making of Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board. At the center of the analysis is a data set including all the publically available decisions of the Board since the introduction of the 2002 Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. This data set has been coded for varying degrees of engagement with international human rights law, and the results are presented and scrutinized. At the broadest level, the results are disappointing for migrant advocates as international law is relied on in an infinitesimally small number of decisions.

Globalization and Migration Symposium, …

Human Rights And The Elusive Universal Subject: Immigration Detention Under International Human Rights And Eu Law, Cathryn Costello

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The right to liberty is ubiquitous in human rights instruments, in essence protecting all individuals from arbitrary arrest and detention. Yet, in practice, immigration detention is increasingly routine, even automatic, across Europe. Asylum seekers in particular have been targeted for detention. While international human rights law limits detention, its protections against immigration detention are weaker than in other contexts, as the state's immigration control prerogatives are given sway. In spite of the overlapping authority of international and regional human rights bodies, the caselaw in this field is diverse. Focusing on the U.N. Human Rights Committee, the European Court of Human …

"The End Of The Beginning?": A Comprehensive Look At The U.N.'S Business And Human Rights Agenda From A Bystander Perspective, Jena Martin Amerson

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

With the endorsement of the Guiding Principles regarding the issue of business and human rights, an important chapter has come to a close. Beginning with the then U.N. Secretary-General’s “global compact” speech in 1999, the international legal framework for business and human rights has undergone tremendous change and progress. Yet, for all these developments, there has been no exhaustive examination in the legal academy of all of these events; certainly there is no one piece that discusses or analyzes all the major instruments that have been proposed and endorsed by the U.N. on the subject of business and its relationship …

Politics And Prosecutions, From Katherine Fite To Fatou Bensouda, Diane Marie Amann

Scholarly Works

Based on the Katherine B. Fite Lecture delivered at the 5th Annual International Humanitarian Law Dialogs in Chautauqua, New York, this essay examines the role that politics has played in the evolution of international criminal justice. It first establishes the frame of the lecture series and its relation to IntLawGrrls blog, a cosponsor of the IHL Dialogs. It then discusses the career of the series' namesake, Katherine B. Fite, a State Department lawyer who helped draft the Charter of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg and who was, in her own words, a "political observer" of the proceedings. The essay …

Good Intentions, Bad Consequences: How Congress’S Efforts To Eradicate Hiv/Aids Stifle The Speech Of Humanitarian Organizations, Garima Malhotra

Catholic University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Law Of Occupation And Un Administration Of Territory: Mandatory, Desirable, Or Irrelevant?, Steven R. Ratner

Other Publications

Governments and international organizations as well as academic commentators have remarked upon the similarities and differences between occupation of territory by States and administration of territory by the United Nations. Although formal administration of territory by the United Nations has been limited to a small number of cases, the possibility of future revival of this practice warrants consideration of the relevance of the law of occupation (hereafter LO) to this phenomenon. This paper attempts to sketch out the major issues in an attempt to guide the experts in their discussion.

Out Of House, And Home: Refocusing On Homelessness, Vulnerable Populations, And Human Rights, Adele M. Morrison

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Drone Strike Casualty Estimates Likely Understated, Human Rights Clinic

Human Rights Institute

NEW YORK — The U.S. government should provide an official accounting on who is being killed by drone strikes, said a new report released today by Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Clinic.

Annual Report 2011-2012, Human Rights Institute

Human Rights Institute

Greetings from Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute We are proud to share our first annual report and our remarkable accomplishments from the past year.

The Human Rights Institute sits at the heart of human rights teaching, practice and scholarship at the Law School Founded in 1998 by the late Professor Louis Henkin, the Institute draws on the Law School’s deep human rights tradition to support and influence human rights practice in the United States and throughout the world In the past several years, the Institute and the Human Rights Clinic have become increasingly integrated, enabling us to multiply our …

The Civilian Impact Of Drones: Unexamined Costs, Unanswered Questions, Human Rights Clinic, Center For Civilians In Conflict (Civic)

Human Rights Institute

Since 2008, the US has dramatically increased its lethal targeting of alleged militants through the use of weaponized drones—formally called unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or remotely piloted aircraft (RPA). Novel technologies always raise new ethical, legal, and practical chal- lenges, but concerns about drone strikes have been heightened by their role in what might colloquially be termed “covert drone strikes” outside the established combat theater of Af- ghanistan. Airstrike campaigns in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia are conducted with a degree of government secrecy enabled by the fact that there are few supporting US ground troops and/or CIA agents in these …

"By Some Other Means": Considering The Executive Role In Fostering Subnational Human Rights Compliance, Risa E. Kaufman

Human Rights Institute

The broad realization of human rights domestically requires strong partnership among all levels of government. Indeed, international and domestic law support an important role for state and local governments in implementing the United States’ human rights treaty commitments, with the federal government retaining ultimate responsibility. While the federal government’s responsibility is clear, its options for fostering and facilitating subnational compliance have not been fully explicated. United States’ human rights treaty ratification practices and recent Supreme Court jurisprudence primarily constrain the Executive’s ability to compel state and local compliance without congressional authorization. In the absence of such congressional action, the Executive …

Remarks, James Anaya

Publications

These remarks were delivered at the Closing Plenary--Indigenous Peoples and International Law: A Conversation with UN Special Rapporteur James Anaya and Inter-American Commission Rapporteur Dinah Shelton.

Competing Paradigms? The Use Of Dna Powers In Youth Justice, Liz Campbell

Faculty Scholarship

Collecting deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) from crime scenes and individuals is now regarded as a critical element of effective criminal investigation and prosecution. Numerous benefits are said to accrue from the gathering and comparison of DNA evidence: suspects may be speedily identified, innocent parties ruled out, the wrongfully convicted exonerated and some would-be criminal actors deterred. Retention of DNA in state controlled databases allows for speculative searching to identify subsequent offending and to provide leads for unsolved crimes. The collection and retention of convicted adults’ DNA has been held by European and US courts to be a proportionate incursion on human …

Book Review. The Legacy Of The International Criminal Tribunal For The Former Yugoslavia Edited By B. Swart, A. Zahar And G. Sluiter, Timothy W. Waters

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Rule Of Law: A Help Or Hindrance To International Business, The Honourable Mr. Justice M. Burton

South Carolina Journal of International Law and Business

No abstract provided.

Human Trafficking, The Rule Of Law, And Corporate Social Responsibility, Anna W. Shavers

South Carolina Journal of International Law and Business

No abstract provided.