Human Rights Law Commons^™

Mercenaries And Other Ways Of Breaking The Law: Why Our Blood Should Boil, Judith Blau

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Among the many consequences of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the absence of investigative journalism and critical reflection in the U.S. is, perhaps, the most troubling; though we are now seeing a reversal of this trend. Jeremy Scahill has been one of the brightest and best examples of this reversal, relentlessly pursuing a trail of wrongdoing involving the U.S. government and private corporations.

Can The Next American President Switch The Tracks?, Harry Kreisler

Human Rights & Human Welfare

For decades the Washington mantra has been privatization. As Secretary of Defense in Bush 41’s administration and as CEO of Haliburton, Dick Cheney was influential in the application of this idea to defense policy. Now as Vice President of the United States, he and his coterie of followers have taken the idea to a new level. According to Jeremy Scahill, the United States has reached a tipping point in waging the Iraq war, with dire consequences for defense policy, democratic accountability, and the global perception of who we are and what we stand for.

Private Military Industry And The Laws Of War, Mahmood Monshipouri

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The “war on terrorism,” according to Jeremy Scahill, has led to the most privatized war in the history of the United States of America: the war in Iraq, waged partially by private security contractors who are, for the most part, accountable to no higher legal-political authority. This brings us to an obvious question: Is this type of warfare an imperative part of counterterrorism?

Rooting The Privatization Of War In A Broader Political Context, Ali Wyne

Human Rights & Human Welfare

On the issue of military outsourcing, I think that it would be valuable to place Jeremy Scahill’s research and critique in a broader context.

June Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“On Israel, America and AIPAC” by George Soros. New York Review of Books. April 12, 2007.

Geopolitics Or Human Rights?, Judith Blau

Human Rights & Human Welfare

George Soros’ article, “On Israel, America and AIPAC” serves as a sobering reminder that the human rights revolution is constantly being scuttled by geopolitics that not only sideline human rights, but more devastatingly undermine their premises. I happen to agree with him that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is a major obstacle to the U.S. normalizing relations with any country in the Middle East, including and especially Israel. AIPAC is something of a misnomer because it is a coalition, not a committee, and some of its key members include neo-cons, as Soros mentions, as well as Christian evangelicals. …

Should Supporters Of Israel Embrace An "Open Society"?, Harry Kreisler

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Organizations, such as lobbies, must adapt to changes in their environment or they risk mission failure and possible extinction. Adaptation requires new ideas, new constituencies, and rigorous self-analysis. A vigorous internal debate raises the possibility of corrections in course as an organization navigates through its changing environment.

Engagement As A Way Toward Peace, Mahmood Monshipouri

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The Bush administration’s active support for the Israeli government is counterproductive in its refusal to recognize a Palestinian unity government which includes Hamas. A great majority of American Jews have called for Israel to withdraw from the territories occupied in 1967 and support the creation of a Palestinian state. A hard-line minority of politicians in the United States, along with their affiliated media networks and think-tanks, have continued to dominate the main Jewish lobbying group, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Aipac's Good Intentions Undermine Israel's Interests, Ali Wyne

Human Rights & Human Welfare

While the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is nominally pro-Israel, its advice undermines Israel’s interests. It does not encourage Israel to make concessions, but rather recommends that Israel ignore the reformists within and outside of it. The folly of such counsel becomes apparent when one recognizes that Israel’s current strategy cannot be sustained.

May Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency” by Mahmood Mamdani. London Review of Books. March 8, 2007.

The Moral Vocabulary Of Violence, David L. G. Rice

Human Rights & Human Welfare

What is at stake in labeling a particular incidence of large-scale violence “genocide”? Mahmood Mamdani rightly argues that “genocide” is an insufficient description of the conflict in Darfur. I would suggest that the problematic nature of that terminology goes back to its inception after World War II. Activists have inherited the concept of “genocide” from a particular historical moment. Now, “ genocide” carries unique moral weight in the discourse of international politics. When violence against civilians has been widely accepted as a necessary outcome of the preservation of peace, activists find it necessary to imagine a worse evil than the …

Missing The Point, Colin Thomas-Jensen

Human Rights & Human Welfare

“What would happen if we thought of Darfur as we do of Iraq, as a place with a history and politics—a messy politics of insurgency and counterinsurgency?” (§4). This is the most telling question posed by Professor Mahmood Mamdani in “The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency.” The implication is that the growing public demand for strong international action—military or otherwise—to halt the atrocities in Darfur is somehow unwarranted because people have failed to understand that the systematic crimes against humanity committed against civilians in Darfur (and indeed Iraq) are an inevitability of “the messy politics of insurgency and …

Politics Of Naming And Politics Of Responsibility, Rhoda Howard-Hassmann

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Mahmood Mamdani is right to complain that the American—and international—public is unaware of the political complexity of the Darfur conflict. He is also right to point out that selective or inconsistent uses of the terms “genocide,” “civil war,” and “insurgency” can mask covert, or even overt, political agendas. His comparison of Darfur to Iraq is telling. And he is right to point out that even with the best of humanitarian intentions, the presentation of a simplified version of Darfur, in which “Arabs” persecute “Africans,” can play into the “war on terror,” insofar as, in the minds of at least some …

The Return Of Moral Equivalence, J. Peter Pham

Human Rights & Human Welfare

During the latter stages of the Cold War, one school of ethical analysis, ultimately labeled as “moral equivalence” by the late Jeane Kirkpatrick, measured Western liberal democracies against utopian standards in a radical critique which redefined the political discourse, erasing distinctions between the Soviet Union and its satellites on the one hand and the United States and its allies on the other.

Human Rights And The War On Terror: Complete 2005 - 2007 Topical Research Digest, Jack Donnelly, Simon Amajuru, Susannah Compton, Robin Davey, Syd Dillard, Amanda Donahoe, Charles Hess, Sydney Fisher, Kelley Laird, Victoria Lowdon, Chris Maggard, Alexandra Nichols, Travis Ning, Toni Panetta, Greg Sanders, James Smithwick, Angela Woolliams, Chris Saeger, Sarah Bania-Dobyns, Eric Dibbern, David Gillespie, Latife Bulur, Katie Friesen, Arika Long, Arianna Nowakowski, Joel R. Pruce

Human Rights & Human Welfare

“9/11 changed everything.” Not really. In fact, there has been far more continuity than change over the past six years in both international and domestic politics. Nonetheless, human rights often have been harmed—although not by terrorism but by “the war on terror.”

Keynote Address: Indigenous Peoples And Their Mark On The International Legal System, S. James Anaya

Publications

No abstract provided.

U.S. Asylum Law Out Of Sync With International Obligations: Real Id Act, Victor P. White

San Diego International Law Journal

Focusing on defensive asylum applications, this Comment examines whether certain provisions of REAL ID violate due process and international obligations to asylum seekers. Part I situates REAL ID within the historical context of nearly a decade of restrictive U.S. immigration law and over two decades of Executive Orders aimed at deterring a mass exodus of asylum seekers from reaching U.S. shores. Part II provides an overview of the U.S. asylum system and argues that the system produces inconsistent and sometimes arbitrary results, indicating that segments of the system do not satisfy international obligations. Part III outlines three provisions of REAL …

Superstition-Based Injustice In Africa And The United States: The Use Of Provocation As A Defense For Killing Witches And Homosexuals, Jennifer Dumin

ExpressO

This Article examines two different instances where strong cultural and religious beliefs suggest that an individual is justified in taking another’s life. Focusing primarily on South Africa and the United States, it argues that the rationale used to defend those who kill suspected witches and those who kill suspected homosexuals is the same – merely because a criminal holds a belief that the victim is evil, the criminal is somehow entitled to a lesser punishment. In the United States, those who readily recognize the absurdity of the witchcraft defense may have some difficulty in recognizing the same level of absurdity …

Conflicts Diamonds: U.S. Responsibility And Response, Edward R. Fluet

San Diego International Law Journal

This Article will examine U.S. and international efforts to combat the trade in conflict diamonds. Specifically, this article will detail their failures and examine the need for U.S. backed legislation to prevent the conflict diamond trade more effectively. This article proceeds as follows: Part I will examine the effect of the conflict diamond trade on those caught in the grip of civil war and terrorism. Part II will analyze international efforts to curtail conflict diamonds trade, specifically examining international support of the Kimberley Process. Part III and IV will examine the United States'efforts to regulate conflict diamonds and the inherent …

Mara Salvatrucha (Ms-13) And Ley Anti Mara: El Salvador's Struggle To Reclaim Social Order, Juan J. Fogelbach

San Diego International Law Journal

MS-13 poses a threat to both Salvadorians and Americans. It is a gang that must be cooperatively contained; it will not be controlled by a simplistic burden-shifting policy that leaves El Salvador, a developing country, to unilaterally deal with the problem. This paper will argue that: (1) the deportation of gang members, which results in the arbitrary deaths of thousands of innocent Salvadorians who have no legal recourse amounts to a grave violation of human rights; (2) deportation of gang members to a society where they are likely to be killed by vigilante death squads, or in prison fires and …

The North Korean Nuclear Crisis: Past Failures And Present Solutions, Morse Tan

ExpressO

North Korea has recently announced that it has developed nuclear weapons and has pulled out of the six-party talks. These events do not emerge out of a vacuum, and this article lends perspective based on an interdisciplinary lens that seeks to grapple with the complexities and provide constructive approaches based on this well-researched understanding. This article analyzes political, military, historical, legal and other angles of this international crisis.

Past dealings with North Korea have been unfruitful because other nations do not recognize the ties between North Korean acts and its ideology and objectives. For a satisfactory resolution to the current …

Aiding Whom? Competing Explanations Of Middle-Power Foreign Aid Decisions, Bethany Barratt Phd

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Paper presented at International Studies Association annual meeting Honolulu, Hawaii March 2005. I thank Sabine Carey, Christian Erickson, Scott Gartner, Miroslav Nincic, Steve Poe, and Randolph Siverson for excellent feedback on earlier versions of this research, and Richard Tucker for generously providing the Similarity of UN Policy Positions data.

This paper may be freely circulated in electronic or hard copy provided it is not modified in any way, the rights of the author not infringed, and the paper is not quoted or cited without express permission of the author. The editors cannot guarantee a stable URL for any paper posted …

The United States And Economic And Social Rights: Past, Present…And Future?, Daniel J. Whelan

Human Rights & Human Welfare

There is probably no other topic in the field of human rights that is more difficult to talk about clearly than economic and social rights. The language surrounding economic and social goods as rights claims is often muddled and confusing, lacks precision, and is difficult to grasp. What does it mean, for example, to have a right to the “highest attainable standard of mental and physical health,” for example? What is “highest”? What about “attainable standard”? What is included in “mental and physical health?” Should health care be free-of-charge? Should the state provide it? Would we have to go court …

Human Rights And The War On Terror: Introduction, Jack Donnelly

Human Rights & Human Welfare

War rarely is good for human rights. The decision of the United States to launch a “global war on terror” in response to the suicide airplane bombings in New York and Washington has had predictably negative human rights consequences. In combating a tiny network of violent political extremists, human rights have in various ways, both intentional and unintentional, been restricted, infringed, violated, ignored, and trampled in many countries, sometimes severely.

La Vida Considerada Como Cosa: Un Error Norteamericano Fundamental, Richard Stith

Law Faculty Publications

El autor explica un error fundamental que puede subyacer a la aprobación, por el Tribunal Supremo norteamericano en el año 2000, del aborto durante el parto. Este error consiste en concebir la vida física como una mera cosa, como algo que puede existir sin que haya un ser humano que la viva. En cuanto al aborto, el error radica en la confusión entre desarrollo y construcción (del feto), confusión debida en parte a ciertas creencias medievales ya superadas por la ciencia moderna. En la segunda mitad del artículo, el autor sostiene que un error semejante puede proporcionar fácilmente un argumento …

Profitable Proposals: Explaining And Addressing The Mail-Order Bride Industry Through International Human Rights Law, Vanessa Brocato

San Diego International Law Journal

This Article looks at the MOBI in the United States through the lens of international human rights. Part II will describe the MOBI. Part III will evaluate the MOBI within an international human rights framework. Part IV will examine current U.S. legislation relating to the MOBI. Part V suggests strategies for addressing the MOBI. Nations will not be able to solve the problem independently because the MOBI is a transnational phenomenon. Conducting a critique of marriage brokers in a human rights context can help place problems caused by the MOBI at the forefront of international debate. Applying current human rights …

Invasion Of The Clones: Animal Cloning And The Potential Implications On The Future Of Human Cloning And Cloning Legislation In The United States, The United Kingdom, And Internationally, Adrienne N. Calhoun

ExpressO

Cloning is an area of science that changes daily; with advances being made constantly. This technology has caused great controversy in the United States and across the world. The issue has raised religious, ethical, technical and legal concerns. This paper is broken into four parts in order to best address the complex area of cloning technology. Part one will be a review of the history of the science of cloning and the history of animal cloning. Part two will be a discussion of the risks and benefits of cloning. Part three will address ethical and religious concerns surrounding human cloning. …

Internationally Protected Human Rights: Fact Or Fiction?, Paul J. Magnarella

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Theory and Reality in the International Protection of Human Rights by J. Shand Watson. Ardsley, New York: Transnational Publishers, 1999. 340pp.

and

The Mobilization of Shame: A World View of Human Rights by Robert F. Drinan, S.J. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. 256pp.

The Human Right To Housing: Making The Case In U.S. Advocacy, Maria Foscarinis, Brad Paul, Bruce Porter, Andrew Scherer

Articles & Chapters

American anti-poverty advocates are increasingly focusing on expressing homelessness as a violation of fundamental human rights. Conceptualizing homelessness as a human rights violation can help add legal content to advocacy goals, and help build support for the housing resources, policy changes, and improved legal protective measures needed to ensure access to housing.

This article explores the right to housing in domestic and international law, how to evaluate compliance with the right in the United States, and how to employ legal strategies in support of claims to the right. Theauthors review the status of international law in U. S. law and …

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

In this and the next issue of the New England Journal of Public Policy we will look at issues of war in the twentieth century; at how the nature and purpose of war have changed; at how evil stalks the human condition, how we forget, most likely because we want to forget. Some truths are too terrible to bear. They require us to ask questions of ourselves that our psyches are not equipped to answer and so they close down for the sake of our survival. Had we slaughtered dumb animals in the manner in which we slaughtered ourselves during …