Human Rights Law Commons^™

Stories Of Syrian Refugees From Za'atari-The Second Largest Refugee Camp In The World: A Review Of Salam Neighbor, Christine A. Wernet Phd

Societies Without Borders

Salam Neighbor is a moving documentary which explores the human rights issues plaguing Syrian refugees. Two young film makers, Zach Ingrasci and Chris Temple, immerse themselves in Za’atari, the second largest refugee camp in the world, located just across the Syrian border in Jordan and home to over 85,000 refugees. They provide the viewer with an inside understanding of how refugee camps work and they humanize Muslim refugees. They are warmly welcomed into the camp and they are befriended by refugees like Ismail, Raouf, and Ghoussoon. The despair and vulnerability of these individuals who have chosen peace over war is …

The Supreme Court And Refugees At The Southern Border: 5 Questions Answered, Karla M. Mckanders

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

I sat in a small room in Tijuana, Mexico with a 13-year-old indigenous Mayan Guatemalan girl.

She left Guatemala after a cartel murdered her friend and threatened to rape her. Her mother wanted her to live and believed the only way for her to survive was to send her daughter alone to the U.S., to apply for asylum Now she was alone and stuck in Mexico. Every morning, the Guatemalan girl, along with other asylum seekers, would frantically gather at the Tijuana-U.S. border where they waited to hear their name or their number called so the Mexican government could escort …

Ethics And Methods Of Human Rights Work: Exploring Both Theoretical And Practical Approaches, Shayna Plaut, Maritza Felices Luna, Christina Clark Kazak, Neil Bilotta, Lara Rosenoff Gauvin

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This workshop will explore both theoretical and practical approaches to methodologies and ethics as it relates to human rights work.

The goal of the workshop is to create a dynamic space that encourages participants to share and learn from our own experiences navigating the messiness of human rights ethics and methods. We specifically address formal education and systems and structures so that we may all design, do and teach research and practice related to human rights in a more critical and sustainable manner. We recognize the tensions of creating research, programs and advocacy that is seen as “legitimate” to educational …

Toward A Human Rights Impact Assessment Tool, Mona Younis

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Human rights organizations are increasingly questioned about impact, which is particularly challenging for overextended and under-resourced groups that tackle complex issues requiring a long view to be achieved. They would greatly benefit from a manageable assessment tool to capture how well they are doing on key dimensions that are essential for that long-view impact. Building on my experience with the Ford Foundation’s Organizational Mapping Tool designed to assess organizational capacity, I propose to develop a tool to assess human rights impact.

The tool will enable any human rights organization to assess how it is doing in areas that are essential …

International Surrogacy Arrangements: A Human Rights Case, Marisa Araújo

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The scientific development in Artificial Reproductive Technology (ART), especially IFV solutions, are promoting the development of our reproductive options. Surrogacy is now one of these solutions and new ethical and legal problems arise.

Domestic Laws have the most different positions. If there are countries that admit surrogacy arrangements, even commercial ones like the Florida State in the USA (and the particular case of India); others criminalize these procedures and others, like the UK (and Portugal), have a middle term position.

Considering the frontier zone in which surrogacy takes its place, the debate is more exuberant since the concrete legal solution …

Using A Human Rights Framework For Regulating The Internet Of Things: The Critical Role Of Human Rights Advocacy, Adam Todd

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the billions of technical devices around the globe that connect to and communicate through the Internet. These devices collect, store and share vast amounts of valuable data. With the advent of 5G (fifth generation cellular network technology), IoT is expected to grow even more dramatically over the coming decade and likely to change our lives in ways we have yet to imagine.

IoT holds the promise of advancing human rights by facilitating the technology that can lead to a healthier, cleaner, and more sustainable environment, and greater access to education, better healthcare, capital, …

Rights In Small Places? Participation, Rights And Power In Northern Ireland, Nicola Browne

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

That a disconnect exists between ordinary people and the world of human rights academia, NGOs and INGOs and the marginalised communities they are intended to serve is undisputed. As the years preceding and following the financial crash have been characterised by increased economic inequality and concentration of power and influence in the hands of a ever-shrinking coterie of elites, human rights as a tool of change have seemed increasingly legalistic, irrelevant and divorced from the people. A case study will be presented of Belfast based rights organisation (Participation and the Practice of Rights - PPR) set up to develop and …

Delinking The "Human" From Human Rights: Artificial Intelligence, Transhumanism And The Future Of Human Rights, A. Kayum Ahmed

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Human rights discourses are deeply embedded in an epistemic anthropocentricism that centers the human in human rights. However, conceptions of what constitutes the human are being eroded through the development of artificial intelligence, bio-hacking and transhumanism, all of which, support the emergence of new kinds of humans.These emergent humans include the enhanced human who possesses abilities that compel us to reconsider the parameters of humanness, as well as computer systems that demonstrate characteristics thought of as uniquely human. The blurring of the divide between human and machine therefore compels us to reconsider our understanding of the human in human rights, …

Rehumanization Among Veterans Of The Yugoslav Wars: Rethinking Reconciliation And Post-Conflict Justice, Jordan N. Kiper

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Rehumanization is a central element in powerful social movements after war. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork in the Balkans, I consider the convergence and divergence between notions of rehumanization found in human rights literature and the role of rehumanization among veterans in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia. Rehumanization plays a prominent role among these veterans because of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which has had varied social effects on Balkan communities. By supporting the ICTY, veteran associations have vetted themselves of potential war criminals, and thereby developed overlapping justice discourses that converge on the notion of reconciliation. There are …

Human Rights Litigation And Anti-Sodomy Laws In Kenya And Botswana, Andrew Novak

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In May 2019, the Kenya High Court is expected to rule on Sections 162 and 165 of the penal code, which criminalize consensual sex between two adult men. Similarly, the Botswana High Court will rule on its equivalent penal code provisions, Sections 164 and 165, in June 2019. Regardless of the outcomes of these decisions, both will contribute to a global “judicial dialogue” on the constitutionality of anti-sodomy laws. In jurisdictions as diverse as Northern Ireland, Belize, Singapore, South Africa, the United States, and most recently India, courts around the world have considered whether anti-sodomy laws violate the rights to …

“Water Is A Human Right”: Exploring The Paradox Of Framing Water As A Human Right In A Hostile Political Climate, Sabrina Kozikis

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Many communities across the United States experience challenges in accessing clean and affordable water. In response, civil society and grassroots organizations are using a human rights framework to advocate for safe and affordable services for all. This is a curious trend, given that the United States is a country in which human rights, specifically socio-economic rights, are not recognized as relevant for domestic policy and even met with hostility. This study explores this tension: why do civil society actors, grassroots organizers, and national level advocates in the United States use a human rights framework to advocate for access to clean …

Innovative Collaboration To Further Community Self-Determination, Matthew Currie, Amaha Sellassie

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The built urban environment is the product of more than a century of policy decisions that have both intentionally discriminated and have had the effect of discriminating, against African Americas, immigrants, the work class, low income individuals and other undesirables. While more than fifty years have passed since the passage of civil rights legislation in the United States, individuals in today’s cities are living out our discriminatory legacy.

In Dayton, Ohio, a new movement has risen from the community to disrupt the legacy of de jure and de facto discrimination by the collaborative efforts of the impactive individuals, neighborhood leaders, …

Fiscal Citizenship: How Can Tax Efficiency And Isonomy Aid In The Promotion Of Economic Rights, Social Participation, Political Accountability, And Cultural Diversity?, Gustavo Voeroes Dénes

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

According to the World Inequality Report 2018 (WID 2017), Brazil is one of the few countries that has not recently displayed an increase in income inequality, having instead sustained it on persistently very high levels, actually composing the world’s “inequality frontier”. While such levels of inequality may be partly attributed to poor distribution of property rights, human capital endowments, and specificity of labor relations, a significant part of it is undoubtedly due the national fiscal system’s reduced distributive capacity, compromised by one the worst taxation systems in the world. Occupying the 184th position out of 190 countries in the World …

How Can Human Rights Activism Help Tackle Economic Inequality? Lessons From Mining Affected Communities In South Africa, Allison Corkery

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The dramatic rise in socioeconomic inequality produced by neoliberal globalisation has provoked a crisis of confidence in the human rights community and inspired a wave of debate about whether human rights have anything meaningful to offer in advancing economic justice. The pessimistic view argues human rights are inadequate for challenging socioeconomic inequality because they are too closely aligned to Western liberalism and too uncritical of the rise of capitalism. The more optimistic view does not dismiss these critiques entirely. It argues that they are only valid for particular (arguably dominant) types of human rights praxis, however. Failing to acknowledge this …

The Human Right To A Healthy Environment: Pushing The Boundaries In The Inter-American System, Sarah Dávila-Ruhaak

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The connection between the environment and human rights is not a surprising one. The enjoyment of human rights depends on a person’s ability to live free from interference and to have his or her rights protected. The interdependence of human rights and the protection of the environment is manifested in the full and effective enjoyment of the rights to life, highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, adequate standard of living, adequate food, clean water and sanitation, housing, culture, freedom of expression and association, information and education, participation, effective remedies, and the rights of indigenous peoples. Without adequate access …

Human Rights, Environmental Justice, Social Justice, Faith Values And Ethics: Building Stronger Partnerships For The Common Good By Understanding The Differences, Theresa Harris, Leanne M. Jablonski, Sarah Fortner, Malcolm Daniels

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Partnerships between human rights practitioners, local communities, scientists, engineers, and health professionals have shown potential to address deeply rooted, systemic human rights concerns. These collaborations are essential for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and for engaging the perspectives and expertise of all constituents. However, even when the individuals in these partnerships or the organizations they represent have common goals, their motivations, analyses, and solutions often come from different perspectives. Members of good will can inadvertently alienate one another when attempting to work together. The fields of human rights, social justice, environmental justice, and ethics have each developed their …

Deep Fakes: Preserving Truth & Human Rights In An Era Of Truth Decay, Virginia Kozemczak

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Lawmakers, technology companies, and the general public are increasingly concerned about the prevalence of “deep fake” videos. Often shared on social media platforms, these digitally altered videos are made possible with recent advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Although altered and faked media content is not necessarily a new issue, images and videos can now be altered quickly, cheaply, and more convincingly than ever before. An underlying concern is that platforms will be overwhelmed with believable deep fakes, leaving Internet users struggling to discern fact from fiction. Yet a future in which no one call tell what is real …

Decolonizing Human Rights: Sovereignty. Disruption. Tactics., A. Kayum Ahmed

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Despite its emancipatory potential, human rights remains locked in a form of epistemic coloniality that defers to Euro-American knowledge and reinforces anthropocentric exceptionalism. In order to employ human rights as a source of emancipation, human rights must itself be emancipated—it must be decolonized. Drawing on the notion of 'decoloniality' as a framework that advances radical possibilities by delinking from structural racism, patriarchy and class embedded in capitalism and Western modernity, a typology of human rights as sovereignty, disruption, and tactics is developed as a way of understanding human rights from the position of the colonized.

Does The Right To Equality Extend To Economic And Social Rights?, Gillian Macnaughton

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

We are familiar with ‘equality before the law' and ‘one-person-one-vote’ as standards of the right to equality in international and domestic law. These standards address equality of civil and political rights. This paper considers whether the right to equality in international human rights law extends to economic and social rights as well. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and human rights.” On its face, this article appears to require equality of all rights – including economic and social rights. Yet, many human rights scholars maintain that …

The Virtue Of Vulnerability: Mindfulness And Well-Being In Law Schools And The Legal Profession, Nathalie Martin

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the role of vulnerability in transforming individual relationships, particularly the attorney-client relationship. In this essay, Martin argues that broadening our expressions can improve our client relations and decrease the likelihood that when that inevitable mistake occurs, we will be sued for it. Also, based upon virtue ethics, that practicing vulnerability is also virtuous and thus worthwhile in and of itself.

This essay starts by describing the traits people look for in lawyers as well as evidence that clients often feel that their lawyers are less than human. Then examines how legal education contributes to this problem by …

The Second International Conference On Climate, Nature, And Society: Selected Conference Excerpts, Nadia B. Ahmad

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Promise And Challenge Of Humanitarian Protection In The United States: Making Temporary Protected Status Work As A Safe Haven, Andrew I. Schoenholtz

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

The humanitarian program Congress created in 1990 to allow war refugees and those affected by significant natural disasters to live and work legally in the United States has only partially achieved its goals. More than 400,000 individuals have received temporary protected status (TPS). In many cases, the crisis ended, along with temporary protection. However, in about half of the designated nationalities—including the largest groups—conflict and instability continued, making this humanitarian protection program anything but temporary. Unfortunately, Congress did not provide the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with the tools it needed to address such long-term crises. That was purposeful—Congress worried …

Private Prisons, Private Governance: Essay On Developments In Private-Sector Resistance To Privatized Immigration Detention, Danielle C. Jefferis

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Privacidad Digital En Ecuador: El Papel De La Vigilancia, La Jurisprudencia Y Los Derechos Humanos, Giselle Valdez

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Este documento es un estudio de caso sobre la privacidad digital en Ecuador, cómo se protege y cómo se debe mejorar las protecciones. Comienzo presentando la falta de privacidad de la persona en Ecuador, a través de la reciente violación de datos y las tecnologías de vigilancia en todo el país desde China. Luego, para analizar la jurisprudencia y la falta de protección de la privacidad en la ley, hago la transición a un análisis legal de la privacidad de datos en Ecuador a través de la Constitución de 2008. Cuando establezco que falta privacidad digital en Ecuador, demuestro una …

Agricultural Investments: A Primer For Host Government Lawyers And Local Lawyers In Private Practice, Tehtena Mebratu-Tsegaye

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Attracting investment in agriculture has been a key policy goal of governments in the global south. Development partners have supported these policies. But what do governments hope to achieve by attracting investment in the agricultural sector? Why are companies interested in investing? What is in it for local communities? And what is the role of lawyers? This primer provides an introduction to some of the key issues that arise in the negotiation of contracts linked to investments in agriculture, and practical guidance for how to approach common issues. Section 1 of this primer outlines the typical goals of three important …

Dehumanization, Immigrants, And Equal Protection, Reginald Oh

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article is divided into three parts. Part I explores the concept of dehumanization and its central role in the subordination of marginalized groups. Part II discusses the equal protection doctrine of suspect classes by analyzing key decisions by the Court and its reasoning for whether or not to consider a particular group as a suspect class. Part II also argues that the decision in Brown v. Board of Education regards racial segregation in public schools as a form of racial dehumanization and provides the doctrinal basis to consider dehumanization a central factor in determining suspect class status. Part III …

Pensaba Que Te Había Olvidado: El Daño Duradero De La Trauma Que Viene De Tortura En La Dictadura Chilena, Antonia Mcdonnell Capossela

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Research question: Is there a more useful model to characterize the torture that was implemented in Chile using the context of theory and history to establish an in-depth understanding of the symptomology and effects of the experience of torture survivors?

Objective: The general objective of this study is to establish the origin of the methods of torture used during the Pinochet dictatorship and use these results to suggest a model of reparations that is more wholistic. The specific objectives are to understand the intervention and instruction by the CIA in Chile, to study the testimonies of torture during the dictatorship …

“Para Nunca Más Vivirlo, Nunca Más Negarlo”: El Legado De Violencia Sexual Durante La Dictadura, Isabel De La Torre

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Research Question: What are the mental health effects of sexual political violence against women during the dictatorship and during the current socio-political movement?

Objectives: The general objective of this study is to identify how sexual political violence has been used in Chile against women and to analyze its consequences on the mental health of survivors. More specifically, this study attempts to investigate the mechanisms sexual political torture during the dictatorship and now, visibilize the unique damages to mental health caused by this type of violence, and analyze the dictatorial legacy in regards to sexual violence and the current socio-political climate. …

Population Law And Policy: From Control And Contraception To Equity And Equality, Victoria Mather

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

The Struggle For Marriage Equality And The Need To Focus On Transgender Rights In Taiwan, M. Bob Kao

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

Marriage equality has been the primary focus of LGBTQ rights activists in Taiwan for the past decade. After numerous setbacks, same-sex marriage was finally legalized in May 2019 by the Taiwanese Constitutional Court's decision finding that limiting marriage under the Civil Code as solely between a man and a woman was unconstitutional on grounds that it violated the principles of equality and the freedom of marriage. Moving forward, while ensuring marriage equality is enforced in practice, LGBTQ rights activists in Taiwan must strategize their next steps, including combating other types of discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation and advocating …