Human Rights Law Commons^™

The Grand Maple Dream: Fulfilled, Fading Or Failed?: Filipino Women Nurses In Manitoba And Their Struggles Against Harassment And Discrimination, Emily Sanchez Salcedo

Center for Business Research and Development

The Philippines is a tiny archipelago in Southeast Asia with over one hundred million people wallowing in a third world economy kept afloat for decades by Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW). In 2017, OFWs collectively sent home cash remittances amounting over $28 billion—roughly $645 million came from Filipinos in Canada. This amount is the eleventh biggest contributor to the Philippine economy (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, 2018).

On the other hand, the Philippines has become the top country for new immigrants to Canada in recent years, surpassing India and China (Friesen, 2018). According to the 2016 Census of Population Program, there are …

Maine's "Act To Protect Traditional Marriage And Prohibit Same-Sex Marriages": Questions Of Constitutionality Under State And Federal Law, Jennifer B. Wriggins

Maine Law Review

In 1997, Maine's Legislature passed “An Act to Protect Traditional Marriage and Prohibit Same-Sex Marriages” (Act). The summary attached to the bill states that the bill “prohibits persons of the same sex from contracting marriage.” The bill was the verbatim text of an initiative petition. Civil marriage in Maine and other states is regulated by state statute, and marriage regulation is generally considered to be within the state's police power. However, the state's power to regulate marriage is subject to constitutional limitations. I maintain that “heightened scrutiny” should be applied to the Act because the Act creates a gender-based classification, …

The Broad Implications Of The First Nation Caring Society Decision: Dealing A Death-Blow To The Current System Of Program Delivery On-Reserve & Clearing The Path To Self-Government, Naiomi Metallic

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

On January 26, 2016, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (the “Tribunal”) released a watershed decision in a complaint spearheaded by the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, its Executive Director, Dr. Cindy Blackstock, and the Assembly of First Nations (the “Caring Society” decision). The complaint alleged that Canada, through its Department of Indigenous and Northern Affairs (“INAC” or the “Department”), discriminates against First Nations children and families in the provision of child welfare services on reserve. In its decision, the Tribunal found that INAC’s design, management and control of child welfare services on reserve, along with its …

Trapped: Cycles Of Violence And Discrimination Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, And Transgender Persons In Guyana, Ashley Binetti Armstrong

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Human rights fact-finding aims to uncover and describe human rights concerns to expose both the abuses themselves and the factors that enable their perpetuation. Giving voice to survivors and victims is central to the fact-finding methodology: After all, “. . . if one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country . . . [o]ne goes to the unprotected – those, precisely, who need the law’s protection most – and listens to their testimony.”

Through Georgetown Law’s Fact-Finding Practicum, the Human Rights Institute works with a small group of students on a cutting-edge human rights …

India’S Revised Model Bit: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back?, Jesse Coleman, Kanika Gupta

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In December 2015, the Indian government approved the final text of its revised model bilateral investment treaty (BIT). Shortly thereafter, in February 2016, India published a joint interpretative statement to clarify its understanding of certain treaty provisions found in existing Indian treaties. These recent developments in Indian investment treaty policy are products of a multi-year review process ,prompted at least in part by the 2011 finding against India in the White Industries claim - the first such known finding against the state – and by several notices of dispute received following the determination in that case.

Justice Blackmun And Individual Rights, Diane P. Wood

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Of the many contributions Justice Blackmun has made to American jurisprudence, surely his record in the area of individual rights stands out for its importance. Throughout his career on the Supreme Court, he has displayed concern for a wide variety of individual and civil rights. He has rendered decisions on matters ranging from the most personal interests in autonomy and freedom from interference from government in life’s private realms, to the increasingly complex problems posed by discrimination based upon race, sex, national origin, alienage, illegitimacy, sexual orientation, and other characteristics. As his views have become well known to the public, …

Immigrating While Trans: The Disproportionate Impact Of The Prostitution Ground Of Inadmissibility And Other Provisions Of The Immigration And Nationality Act On Transgender Women, Luis Medina

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Evicted: The Socio-Legal Case For The Right To Housing, Lisa T. Alexander

Faculty Scholarship

Matthew Desmond's Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City is a triumphant work that provides the missing socio-legal data needed to prove why America should recognize housing as a human right. Desmond's masterful study of the effect of evictions on Milwaukee's urban poor in the wake of the 2008 U.S. housing crisis humanizes the evicted, and their landlords, through rich and detailed ethnographies. His intimate portrayals teach Evicted's readers about the agonizingly difficult choices that low-income, unsubsidized tenants must make in the private rental market. Evicted also reveals the contradictions between "law on the books" and "law-in-action." Its most …

Disability Rights In The Age Of Uber: Applying The Americans With Disabilities Act Of 1990 To Transportation Network Companies, Rachel Reed

Georgia State University Law Review

Within the past year, individual plaintiffs and disability rights organizations have initiated a number of lawsuits against Uber, and similar companies like Lyft, alleging violations of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (Title III). In each of these cases, the plaintiffs’ success turns on affirmatively answering one significant threshold question: Whether Uber, or a similar entity, falls within the scope of Title III. Traditional taxi companies fall squarely within the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990’s (ADA) coverage under 42 U.S.C. § 12184 (§ 12184), which governs private companies that provide transportation services. Given the similarities …

The Door Has A Tendency To Swing Shut: The Saga Of Aboriginal Peoples' Equality Claims, Naiomi Metallic

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This paper tracks the history of Aboriginal peoples' equality complaints against the state. From the time Aboriginal people started to bring discrimination complaints before the courts, there have been significant obstacles that have operated to effectively — and sometimes even explicitly — prevent Aboriginal peoples from advancing pressing discrimination complaints against governments. Although there have been changes made in the law over time to attempt to eliminate such barriers, what we see is a pattern where new obstacles crop up to replace the old ones. Over and over, Aboriginal peoples see the door to equality open up only to have …

Gender Discrimination And Statelessness In The Gulf Cooperation Council States, Betsy L. Fisher

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Using the Gulf Cooperation Council countries as a case study, this Article outlines the ways in which gender and birth status discrimination create new cases of statelessness. These occur when women are legally unable to convey their nationality to their children. This Article studies gender and birth status discrimination in nationality laws and in civil registration, family, and criminal law in each GCC state: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Ending statelessness will require these states to end discrimination against women and non-marital children in all of its forms in law and practice.

Confronting Race And Collateral Consequences In Public Housing, Ann Cammett

Seattle University Law Review

Access to affordable housing is one of the most critical issues currently facing low-income families. In many urban areas, rising costs, dwindling economic opportunity, and gentrification have foreclosed access to previously available rental stock and contributed to a crisis in housing. For African Americans lingering economic disparities arising from generations of forced racial segregation and the disproportional impact of mass incarceration have magnified these problems. In this Article I explore legal barriers to publicly subsidized housing, a “collateral consequence” of criminal convictions that increasingly serves as a powerful form of housing discrimination. Evictions, denial of admission, and permanent exclusion of …

The Thirteenth Amendment, Disparate Impact, And Empathy Deficits, Darrell A.H. Miller

Seattle University Law Review

Modern civil rights policy is, as the late Justice Scalia warned, at “war.” On the one hand, some laws, like Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) and the Fair Housing Act, can impose liability for decisions due to their racial impacts rather than their racial motivation. Defendants in such cases can always respond that the challenged decision (a test, a criterion, an allocation) is necessary in some legally cognizable sense; but the courthouse doors open with the prima facie case of disparate impact. On the other hand, the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, ever since …

A Positive Right To Free Labor, Rebecca E. Zietlow

Seattle University Law Review

This Article seeks to resurrect a lost thread in our civil rights tradition: the idea that workers have a positive right to free labor. A positive right to free labor includes the right to work for a living wage free of undue coercion and free from discrimination based on immutable characteristics. Not merely the negative guarantee against the state’s infringement on individual equality and liberty, a positive right to free labor is immediately enforceable against state and private parties. A positive right to free labor is rooted in the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude …

Police Misconduct - A Plaintiff's Point Of View, Fred Brewington

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Criminal Prosecution And Section 1983, Barry C. Scheck

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

How To Screen For Success In Employment Law Cases, Robert M. Rosen

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Nela Touro Conference 1999 Selected Second Circuit Cases Of Interest, Lawrence Solotoff

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Nurturing Wings Or Clipping Them Off: The Philippine Approach To Female Labor Migration And A Potentially Redeeming Role For The Commission On Human Rights, Emily Sanchez Salcedo

Center for Business Research and Development

The large-scale migration of Filipino workers started in the 1970’s as inadequate local employment and livelihood opportunities pointed to overseas opportunities in the booming economy of oil-rich countries in the Middle East. Though initially dominated by male construction workers and seafarers, female migrant workers, mostly in the health care professions, in domestic services and in the entertainment industry, followed suit and, in the most recent available statistical report, have even slightly outnumbered the men. As of the end of 2014, 50.43% of the 2.32 million overseas Filipino workers are women. Collectively, these overseas workers sent about 27 billion dollars in …

The 'New Selma' And The Old Selma: Arizona, Alabama, And The Immigration Civil Rights Movement In The Twenty-First Century, Kristina M. Campbell

Journal Articles

In his unfinished manuscript, “The Politics of Expulsion: A Short History of Alabama’s Anti-Immigrant Law, HB 56,” the late Raymond A. Mohl, Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, directly and succinctly identified the true nature of the motivations behind the passage of HB 56 in the Alabama legislature. Professor Mohl observed that “nativist fears of large numbers of ethnically different newcomers, especially over job competition and unwanted cultural change, sometimes referred to as “cultural dilution,” provided political cover for politicians who sought to control and regulate immigration within state borders, but also to push illegal …

Australians' "Right" To Be Bigoted: Protecting Minorities' Rights From The Tyranny Of The Majority, Jillian Rudge

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) is a federal statute prohibiting behavior that offends, insults, humiliates, or intimidates people based on their race, nationality, ethnicity, or immigration status. It appropriately limits the right to freedom of expression where the exercise of that right encroaches on other, equally fundamental rights to equality and freedom from discrimination. The RDA is one of Australia’s few human rights laws focused on fighting racism. It is especially important for protecting the rights of minorities since Australia lacks a constitutional or federal bill of rights. Unfortunately, in 2014 and 2015, conservative politicians called for a repulsion of …

The Case For Lgbt Equality: Reviving The Political Process Doctrine And Repurposing The Dormant Commerce Clause, Terri R. Day, Danielle Weatherby

Brooklyn Law Review

As a reaction to the Supreme Court’s historic marriage equality decision earlier this summer, many Southern state legislators opposing the trend toward LGBT-protective laws have proposed legislation that would essentially prohibit municipalities from carving out new antidiscrimination protections for the LGBT community. Conservative Senator Bart Hester spearheaded the passing of one of these “anti” antidiscrimination laws in Arkansas, and states like Texas, West Virginia, Michigan, and Oklahoma are not far behind. These “Hester-type laws” are strikingly similar to the Colorado amendment struck down by the Romer v. Evans Court 20 years ago. Both the Colorado amendment and the new wave …

Review Of "Young And Gay: Jamaica’S Gully Queens” Produced And Directed By Christo Geoghegan Of Vice News, Shaneda Destine

Societies Without Borders

No abstract provided.

Unmistakably Clear: Human Rights, The Right To Representation, And Remedial Voting Rights Of People Of Color, Matthew H. Charity

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Supreme Court Should Not Gut Fair Housing Protections, Lauren Carasik

Media Presence

No abstract provided.

The Americans With Disabilities Act At 25: The Highest Expression Of American Values, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Enacted in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a watershed piece of legislation which enshrines in law a social promise of equality and inclusion into all facets of life, while offering an inspiring model that much of the world has come to embrace. This editorial launches JAMA’s theme issue on the 25th anniversary of the ADA by detailing the Act’s history, main provisions, and far-reaching impacts on health, providing a context for the three Original Investigations and six scholarly Viewpoints that make up the theme issue. The editorial begins with a discussion of the ADA’s history, highlighting …

Coercing Justice? Exploring The "Aspirations And Practice" Of Law As A Tool In Struggles Against Social Inequalities, Karen Schucher

PhD Dissertations

This dissertation examines the role of law as a tool in struggles against social inequalities, by tracing the history of Ontario’s human rights legislation and enforcement from the enactment of fair practices statutes in the 1950s through the restructuring of the enforcement regime in 2006. Ontario was the first Canadian province to pass anti-discrimination legislation and to establish a human rights commission enforcement process. This legislation and the commission enforcement process were the models for all other Canadian jurisdictions.

The dissertation approaches the role of law through the framework of tensions between the “aspirations” and the “practices” of law. On …

License To Discriminate: How A Washington Florist Is Making The Case For Applying Intermediary Scrutiny To Sexual Orientation, Kendra Lacour

Seattle University Law Review

Over the past few decades, the debate over sexual orientation has risen to the forefront of civil rights issues. Though the focus has generally been on the right to marriage, peripheral issues associated with the right to marriage—and with sexual orientation generally—have become more common in recent years. As the number of states permitting same-sex marriage—along with states prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation—increases, so too does the conflict between providers of public accommodations and those seeking their services. Never is this situation more problematic than when religious beliefs are cited as the basis for denying services to …

A Comparative Analysis Of Unconscious And Institutional Discrimination In The United States And Britain, Leland Ware

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Role Of The Judiciary In The European Union's (De)Segregation Of Roma Students, Lindsey M. Green

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.