Human Rights Law Commons^™

The Perils Of Privatization: Exploring The Side Effects Of Privatized Correctional Health Care In Favor Of A Public Delivery Model, Peyton Holahan

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

On July 16, 2020, Judge Roslyn Silver of the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona set a trial between Arizona’s Department of Corrections and a class of Arizona’s prisoners alleging grossly inadequate health care in the state’s prison system. Arizona, like more than half of the states in the U.S., has outsourced prison health care to private correctional healthcare providers. While correctional healthcare providers win states over with promises of cost-effective care and limited liability, ever since the emergence of the correctional healthcare industry in the 1970s, problems with privatized health care in jails and prisons have persisted, …

Stop Threatening Nails With Wrenches: Why Military Contractor Misdeeds Abroad Should Be Handled Using The Uniform Code Of Military Justice Rather Than The Current Civilian First Strategy, Gwendolyn Savitz

Articles, Chapters in Books and Other Contributions to Scholarly Works

Many legal violations by military contractors are never addressed through the legal system. This is despite Congress having enacted two laws that attempt to hold contractors accountable for crimes committed abroad. The reason for this gap is that the military has adopted a civilian-first strategy where the primary choice of prosecution is delegated to the Department of Justice. This is a mistake. This article explains why the civilian-first strategy has been so unsuccessful and how the military can appropriately move to a military-first strategy. Doing so would provide the military better control over the Total Force, which is particularly important …

Approaches To Sea Level Rise And International Law: A Comparative View Of Emerging Policy Responses By The African And The Americas Regions, Charles Chernor Jalloh

Articles

No abstract provided.

Introduction To The International Law Commission's Work On Sea Level Rise In Relation To International Law, Bogdan Aurescu, Nilufer Oral

American University International Law Review

BOGDAN AURESCU:

Thank you so much for the presentation. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to everybody—in accordance with the respective time that you are speaking. I am very honored to be invited to this conference, and I am also very honored that I am sharing this presentation together with my good colleague and friend, Nilüfer Oral. We are both co-chairs of the Study Group on Sea-Level Rise in Relation to International Law of the International Law Commission, together with the other colleagues, some of them I think are attending this session online, Patrícia Galvão-Teles and Juan José Ruda …

Into The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death: War Crimes Committed In Service Of Russia's Crusade To Destroy Ukraine, Chris Galarza

American University National Security Law Brief

When Russian tanks rolled across the border into Ukraine during the early morning of February 24, 2022, most in the American defense and diplomatic establishment were shocked and sure the war would be over in a few days. Credible open-source tactical and strategic analysis predicted that Ukraine’s regular military forces would be defeated in “days or weeks” as long as Russian military forces were determined to pursue their objectives. The United States Government was so sure that Kyiv was under imminent threat of capture that they offered to evacuate President Volodymyr Zelenskyy so that he could rule from exile, rather …

The Curtailment Of Constitutional Rights And Mechanisms Of Social Control In The People's Republic Of China: Hubei Province Case At The Onset Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Fabio Ratto Trabucco

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This paper analyzes the curtailment of constitutional rights arising from the implementation of emergency measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic in China’s Hubei Province, which was not at all counterbalanced by introducing new forms of due constitutional protection. Likewise, high expectations cannot be set on pre-existing means of constitutional safeguards since the Chinese government clearly refused to establish new or different safeguarding procedures nor did it deem it necessary to establish ad hoc courts in order to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper is laid out as follows: (1) fundamental rights in a contemporary socialist state: an overview; (2) containment …

“The Cruelty Is The Point”: Using Buck V. Bell As A Tool For Diversifying Instruction In The Law School Classroom, Tiffany C. Graham

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Next 100 Years Of International Intellectual Property: Integrating Human Rights And Corporate Social Responsibility, J. Janewa Osei-Tutu

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Public Voice Of The Defender, Russell M. Gold, Kay L. Levine

Articles

For decades police and prosecutors have controlled the public narrative about criminal law. The news landscape features salacious stories of violent crimes while ignoring the more mundane but far more prevalent minor cases that clog the court dockets. Defenders, faced with overwhelming caseloads and fear that speaking out may harm their clients, have largely ceded the opportunity to offer a counternarrative based on what they see every day. Defenders tell each other about the overuse of pretrial detention, intensive pressure to plead guilty, overzealous prosecutors, cycles of violence, and rampant constitutional violations-all of which inflict severe harm on defendants and …

The Human Environment: Awakening To The Indomitable Cuban Spirit--Government, Culture, And People, Berta Hernández-Truyol

FIU Law Review

My thoughts are to write about The Human Environment. I will address the recent events concerning the increased silencing of dissent and the criminal law reforms that prohibit peaceful gatherings.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Universal Forms Of Influence: Support For Women On Boards, Cindy A. Schipani, Paula J. Caproni

Seattle University Law Review

There are various efforts underway to increase gender diversity on corporate boards, including legislation in California, a recent SEC approved comply or explain rule for companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange, and efforts by institutional investors such as State Street and BlackRock to recognize the value diversity brings to corporate decisionmaking. Although some of these efforts are being contested in the courts, many companies have begun to comply with these initiatives.

This Article is organized as follows. Part I provides an overview of several efforts to increase gender diversity on boards along with numerous research studies showcasing the benefits …

How Firms Turn Middle Managers Into Diversity Leaders, Alexandra Kalev, Frank Dobbin

Seattle University Law Review

In 2007, the Conference Board published a piece calling middle managers “the biggest roadblock to diversity and inclusion” for standing in the way of change efforts. Today, many chief diversity officers report that they have failed both to diversify middle management and to get middle managers involved in promoting inclusion. We explore popular diversity programs that create “paper” or “symbolic” principles for achieving diversity (diversity policy statements and guidelines for hiring, promotion, and discharge), as well as programs that engage middle managers in promoting diversity (special recruitment and mentoring programs, and diversity task forces). “Paper” policies often fall flat, but …

“Statistics Are Human Beings With The Tears Wiped Away”: Utilizing Data To Develop Strategies To Reduce The Number Of Native Americans Who Go Missing, Lori Mcpherson, Sarah Blazucki

Seattle University Law Review

On New Year’s Eve night, 2019, sixteen-year-old Selena Shelley Faye Not Afraid attended a party in Billings, Montana, about fifty miles west of her home in Hardin, Montana, near the Crow Reservation. A junior at the local high school, she was active in her community. The party carried over until the next day, and she caught a ride back toward home with friends in a van the following afternoon. When the van stopped at an interstate rest stop, Selena got out but never made it back to the van. The friends reported her missing to the police and indicated they …

Investment Bankers And Inclusive Corporate Leadership, Afra Afsharipour

Seattle University Law Review

Few major deals happen without the engagement and advice of investment bankers. Whether a company is undertaking an initial public offering or engaging in a large merger or acquisition deal, investment bankers play a central role in advising corporate executives. Successful investment bankers are devoted to cultivating relationships with executives. And these relationships place bankers in a position to earn tens of millions in fees for their advisory and service roles in connection with corporate dealmaking. Investment bankers’ constant endeavors to nurture relationships with executives, while also maximizing their own ability to enhance fees, commonly leads to allegations of double-dealing, …

Beyond The Business Case: Moving From Transactional To Transformational Inclusion, Jamillah Bowman Williams

Seattle University Law Review

While workplace diversity is a hot topic, the extent to which the diversity management movement has effectively improved intergroup relations and reduced racial inequality remains unclear.1 Despite large investments in diversity and inclusion training and other company wide initiatives, historically excluded groups remain vastly underrepresented in leadership and the most lucrative careers, such as finance, law, and technology. This calls the efficacy of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts into question, particularly with respect to reducing racial inequality in the workplace.

This Article explains why it is time for organizational leaders to move beyond the transactional case for diversity and …

#Metoo And The Corporation In Popular Culture, Brenda Cossman

Seattle University Law Review

#MeToo’s initial virtual explosion in the fall of 2017 was very much about Hollywood, with famous actresses speaking out against famous producers, media moguls and celebrities, exposing the ubiquity of sexual harassment and sexual violence in and around the entertainment industry. Since then, #MeToo has made its way into Hollywood representations without much irony. Films and television shows have explicitly taken up the #MeToo themes, exploring issues of sexual harassment and violence and its afterlives. Many television shows, from the relaunched version of Murphy Brown to Brooklyn Nine-Nine to The Good Fight have incorporated #MeToo themes into episodes exploring the …

“What’S Past Is Prologue”: The Story Of The Sale Of The University Of Puget Sound School Of Law To Seattle University, Annette E. Clark

Seattle University Law Review

When the Seattle University Law Review editorial staff invited me to write an updated history of the Seattle University School of Law in honor of our 50th anniversary, I planned to start the narrative with the year 1989, which was where the prior written history (authored by former Law Library Director Anita Steele and published by the Law Review) had left off. It also happens to be the year when I graduated from this law school and joined the tenure-track faculty, so 1989 seemed like a propitious place to begin. However, as I began to do the research necessary to …

Army Commander’S Role—The Judge, Jury, & Prosecutor For The Article 15, Anthony Godwin

Seattle University Law Review

Service members in the armed forces are bound by a different set of rules when compared to other U.S. citizens. Some of the normal safeguards and protections that civilians enjoy are much more restrictive for military service members, and this is generally for a good reason. Such restrictions are partly due to the complex demands and needs of the United States military. Congress and the President have entrusted military commanders with special powers that enable them to handle minor violations of law without needing to go through a full judicial proceeding. Non-judicial punishments (NJP), also known as Article 15s, are …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

A Synthesis Of The Science And Law Relating To Eyewitness Misidentifications And Recommendations For How Police And Courts Can Reduce Wrongful Convictions Based On Them, Henry F. Fradella

Seattle University Law Review

The empirical literature on perception and memory consistently demonstrates the pitfalls of eyewitness identifications. Exoneration data lend external validity to these studies. With the goal of informing law enforcement officers, prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys, judges, and judicial law clerks about what they can do to reduce wrongful convictions based on misidentifications, this Article presents a synthesis of the scientific knowledge relevant to how perception and memory affect the (un)reliability of eyewitness identifications. The Article situates that body of knowledge within the context of leading case law. The Article then summarizes the most current recommendations for how law enforcement personnel should—and …

The Post-Shelby Southern Struggles, Marla Zappa

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Virtually Inaccessible: Resolving Ada Title Iii Standing In Click-And-Mortar Cases, Saxon S. Kagume

Emory Law Journal

As the electronic age has taken hold of the global community, and digital devices have become the mainstay of human interaction, new accessibility barriers have emerged for people with disabilities. Although most courts now conclude virtual inaccessibility is an injury cognizable under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, great ambiguity surrounds the injury-in-fact requirement of Article III standing in online accessibility cases. Despite pleading for elucidation and clarifying principles, federal district courts have been left to navigate the uncharted territory of the digital injury-in-fact inquiry with exiguous guidance from higher courts. The resultant confusion in the federal courts …

Collective Data Rights And Their Possible Abuse, Asaf Lubin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Right To A Healthy Environment And The Global South, Carmen G. Gonzalez

Faculty Publications & Other Works

This essay explores the implications of the right to a healthy environment for the long-standing criticisms of international human rights law as a project and product of the Global North. It examines the Southern origins of the right to a healthy environment and its interpretations in regional human rights tribunals. The essay analyzes the responses offered by this evolving jurisprudence to various objections to human rights-based approaches to environmental protection. These include the human rights-based framework’s individualism, anthropocentrism, failure to address transboundary harm, and failure to challenge the economic law instruments that perpetuate environmental degradation.

Book Review L Boats In A Storm: Law, Migration, And Decolonization In South And Southeast Asia, 1942–1962 By Kalyani Ramnath (Stanford University Press 2023), Anwesha Ghosh

Articles

Kalyani Ramnath’s Boats in a Storm undertakes the formidable task of retelling the histories of decolonisation in India, Burma, Malaya, and Ceylon using characters who would rarely fit the description of conventional historical actors. Ramnath departs from the rich political and diplomatic histories that celebrate the independence of nation states from the yoke of imperial rule. Instead, she focuses on the ways in which these states, with their newly re-instituted legislative, juridical, and bureaucratic regimes, wreaked havoc on the lives of itinerant migrants who straddled between ‘homes’ and places of work across the Bay of Bengal and eastern Indian Ocean …

Human Rights, Human Duties: Making A Rights-Based Case For Community-Based Restorative Justice,, Aparna Polavarapu

Scholarly Works

Restorative justice is often framed as an alternative to the criminal legal system, and thus justifications of restorative justice tend to be rooted in the language of the criminal system. However, this approach limits our way of thinking about the practice of restorative justice, especially non-state, community-based practices. This Article argues for an independent, rights-based justification to support these community-based practices. By offering an in-depth analysis originating from a rights-based perspective, this Article engages with two underdeveloped areas of scholarly literature and suggests a new way of thinking about the day-to-day practice of restorative justice through a human rights lens. …

Nestlé V. Doe: A Death Knell To Corporate Human Rights Accountability?, Phillip Ayers

Seattle University Law Review

The Supreme Court in Nestlé v. Doe held that foreign plaintiffs who claimed to be victims of overseas tortious conduct by corporate defendants had no jurisdiction to sue in federal courts using the Alien Tort Statute. This Comment looks at the history of the Alien Tort Statute, from its inspiration, long dormancy, and recent reinvigoration beginning in the 1980s. The Comment then explores the background of Nestlé and its issues with child slavery in its cocoa supply chain. From there, the Comment analyzes the Nestlé v. Doe decision, and posits an alternative outcome. Finally, this Comment looks for a new …

Blood On The Tracks, Thomas D. Russell

Seattle University Law Review

Streetcars were the greatest American tortfeasors of the early twentieth century, injuring approximately one in 331 urban Americans in 1907. This empirical study presents never-before-assembled data concerning litigation involving streetcar companies in California during the early twentieth century.

This Article demonstrates the methodological folly of relying upon appellate cases to describe the world of trial court litigation. Few cases went to trial. Plaintiffs lost about half their lawsuits. When plaintiffs did win, they won very little money. Regarding the bite taken out of the street railway company, the Superior Court was a flea.

Professor Gary Schwartz and Judge Richard Posner …

Ambulatory Versus Fixed Baselines Under The Law Of The Sea, Sean Murphy

American University Law Review

When “diving” into consideration of sea-level rise issues, one finds various “pools” of international law that are perfectly suited for answering some of the issues we are addressing. For example, Professor Galvão Teles spoke about the protection of persons in the event of sea-level rise. There are, of course, various aspects of human rights law and international law relating to disasters that can be employed to resolve some of the concerns in that regard. It is just a question of applying that law to a new, factual phenomenon.

Having said that, there are some areas where existing international law is …