Human Rights Law Commons^™

Liberty Of Expression In Ireland And The Need For A Constitutional Law Of Defamation, Sarah Frazier

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Judicial and constitutional conservatism have allowed Irish defamation law to remain remarkably close to its English common law origins. But the common law of defamation was not designed for a modem democracy with a free press, and Ireland's libel laws have a profound effect upon freedom of expression. If Ireland is to be a modern democracy, as its constitution asserts that it is, and the European Convention on Human Rights demands, it must protect a core area of free expression in order to allow the press (without the fear of repercussion) to keep the public informed about matters of concern. …

A Comparison Of New Zealand Taxpayers' Rights With Selected Civil Law And Common Law Countries, Adrian J. Sawyer

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This article seeks to ascertain the breadth of rights that taxpayers enjoy in New Zealand in comparison with their counterparts in a number of common law and civil law jurisdictions. Such a comparison enables the wealth of experience that codification of rights in civil law countries can provide in comparison to the traditionally lower reliance on statutory protection in common law jurisdictions. From this comparative analysis common themes are distilled, as well as differences between New Zealand and various civil law and common law nations with respect to the legal position and state of taxpayers' rights. The author mounts a …

The African Human Rights Court: A Two-Legged Stool?, Makau Wa Mutua

Journal Articles

This article examines the African continental human rights system that is built on the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. It pays particular attention to the deficits of that system and argues that the establishment of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights – a judicial body meant to strengthen the protection of human rights in Africa – falls far short. It exposes the normative and structural shortcomings that render the court virtually meaningless. It concludes that the court serves very little purpose except to address the enormous human rights challenges facing Africa.

Cultural Relativism And Cultural Imperialism In Human Rights Law, Guyora Binder

Journal Articles

The "Universalism-Cultural Relativism" debate proceeds on the assumption that international human rights law requires the identification of fundamental principles of justice that transcend culture, society, and politics. Thus, the debate presumes that to assert the cultural relativity of justice is to deny the legitimacy of international human rights law. This comment challenges this presumed linkage between international human rights law and universally valid criteria of justice. Human rights standards are obviously culturally relative, and human rights law is obviously a Western institution. But so are the kind of states that human rights law sets out to restrain. The nation-state ideal …

Cannibal Democracies, Theocratic Secularism: The Turkish Version, Edip Yuksel

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

Symposium: Cannibal Democracies: Human Rights and Democracy in Turkey

The article critically examines Turkey's democratic framework, arguing that its version of democracy diverges significantly from Western models due to its unique interpretation of secularism and the disproportionate influence of the military and political elite. The analysis highlights how the Turkish Constitutional Court's frequent banning of political parties, particularly the Welfare Party in 1998, undermines democratic processes and often leads to authoritarian governance. The article contends that Turkey's Constitution, drafted under military supervision, lacks political legitimacy and contains provisions that restrict individual and group rights, perpetuating a system of oligarchy and …

Commentaries, Paul Magnarella

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

Symposium: Cannibal Democracies: Human Rights and Democracy in Turkey

Commentaries, William Pfaff

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

Symposium: Cannibal Democracies: Human Rights and Democracy in Turkey

Illuminating The Possible In The Developing World: Guaranteeing The Human Right To Health In India, Sheetal B. Shah

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Note argues that the recognition of the social right to health offers a step forward in empowering individuals to gain control over their social environments in the developing world. Part II discusses the potential of social human rights to alleviate suffering in the developing world. Social human rights recognize that the state must provide individuals with the basic social conditions necessary to live with human dignity. Part III explores the legal obligations of social rights and their current status in human rights jurisprudence. It also discusses the most pressing challenges facing implementation of social rights at the national level. …

Anticipatory Humanitarian Intervention In Kosovo, Jonathan I. Charney

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The intervention by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Kosovo during the spring of 1999 aroused controversy at the time and still provokes questions about the legality of the action, its precedential effect, and procedures for developing new international law. The participants faced a legal and moral dilemma between international law prohibitions on the use of force and the goal of preventing or stopping widespread grave violations of international human rights. This commentary seeks to chart a course for the future in light of the current legal and moral environment.

Many individuals on all sides of the Kosovo crisis …

The Northern Ireland Peace Agreement: Evolving The Principle Of Self-Determination, Paul Williams, Sabrineh Ardalan

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Central to this article is the evolution of the nature of the principle of self-determination. The main focus will be on the examination of a recent instance of state practice — the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement. In particular, the way in which the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement has given effect to the primary elements of self-determination, including democratic self-government, the protection of human rights, and the protection of minority rights will be discussed.

Superpower Attitudes Toward Indigenous Peoples And Group Rights, S. James Anaya

Publications

No abstract provided.

Affirmative Action In South Africa: Transformation Or Tokenism, Penelope Andrews

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Forum Shopping For Human Rights, Laurence R. Helfer

Faculty Scholarship

The article analyzes a growing trend in international human rights law: the submission of petitions by aggrieved individuals to multiple human rights courts, tribunals, or treaty bodies, each of which is authorized to review the petition and to determine whether the individuals? rights have been violated. Most commentators have viewed this practice of "forum shopping for human rights" as a danger to be avoided. This article questions that conventional wisdom and offers in its place a re-envisioning of the human rights petition system. Although efficiency, finality and other concerns weigh against some varieties of duplicative review, this article argues that …

Succession By Estoppel: Hong Kong's Succession To The Iccpr, Peter K. Yu

Articles

No abstract provided.

Medical Ethics And Human Rights: Legacies Of Nuremberg, George J. Annas, Michael A. Grodin

Faculty Scholarship

Many of our most important human rights documents are the product of the world's horror during the carnage of World War II. The broadest and most powerful declaration of human rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, was adopted by the membership of the new United Nations in 1948. But there are also much more specific statements of the world's aspirations for all of its inhabitants. August 1997 marked the 50th anniversary of the conclusion of the trial of Nazi physicians at Nuremberg, a trial which has been variously designated as the "Doctors' Trial" and the "Medical Case."² In …

Sexual Orientation & Human Rights In American Religious Discourse, Gerard V. Bradley

Journal Articles

Sexual Orientation & Human Rights in American Religious Discourse, edited by Saul M. Olyan and Martha Nussbaum (Oxford, 260 pp., $29.95)

The editors of this volume fear that "reasoned debate" about homosexuality is imperiled. Indeed Martha Nussbaum in her introduction reports that she was "surprised" to "discover" that she could engage in such debate with religious thinkers who take a less permissive view than she in the Colorado Amendment Two "gay-rights" litigation.

Brief Of Intervenor, Women’S Legal Education And Action Fund (Leaf), Ferrel V. Ontario, Laura Spitz

Faculty Scholarship

The issues in this appeal are whether Bill 8, An Act to Repeal Job Quotas and Restore Merit-Based Employment Practices in Ontario ("Bill 8''), contravenes section 15(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the "Charter''), and, if so, whether the contravention is justified under section I of the Charter. This brief reviews the Government's repeal of the Federal Emplyment Equity Act (EEA). This repeal impairs designated groups to the greatest extent possible by removing all of the mechanisms which are necessary to remedy systemic discrimination in employment. Additionally, where discrimination is effected by the wholesale repeal of human …

The Inevitable Collision: Affirmative Action And The Constitution, Jennifer Moore

Faculty Scholarship

This Comment, like a traditional Comment regarding affirmative action, will provide analysis pertaining to the historical events that shaped modem affirmative action policies. However, this Comment will also examine the recent settlement of Taxman v. Board of Education, a most intriguing display of political maneuvering which remains shrouded in controversy." Taxman would have presented the upreme Court with an ideal lens through which to examine the constitutionality of affirmative action. However, as a result of industrious manipulation, the Court narrowly missed that opportunity. Because a live controversy no longer exists, this Comment will focus on the Supreme Court's lost chance …

Spare The Rod, Embrace Our Humanity: Toward A New Legal Regime Prohibiting Corporal Punishment Of Children, Susan H. Bitensky

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This article proceeds from the simple premise that hitting children hurts them-even when the hitting does not rise to the level of child abuse as traditionally conceived. There is convincing evidence that corporal punishment is a hidden cruelty in child rearing that has serious adverse consequences for its victims and society at large. Yet forty-nine states permit parental corporal punishment of children and approximately half of the states permit such punishment in elementary and secondary schools The main purpose of this Article is to question the advisability of continuing the legalized status of corporal punishment of children in the United …

Confiscated Jewish Property In Vichy, France: An Attempt To Understand Through Shakespeare, Richard H. Weisberg

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

In Pursuit Of The Pursuer: British Silence During And After World War Ii From The Vantage Of Jewish Law, Norman Lamm

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Full Volume 72: Law Of Military Operations Liber Amicorum

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Shooting Down Drug Traffickers, Phillip A. Johnson

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

The Law Of War In Historical Perspective, Leslie C. Green

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents (Volume 72)

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Justice, Dignity, And Restitution Of Holocaust Victims' Assets, Alfonse D'Amato

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

In Pursuit Of Justice: Recovering Looted Assets Of European Jewry, Naphtali Lau-Lavie

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Politics Of A Strategy For Auschwitz-Birkenau, Debórah Dwork, Robert Jan Van Pelt

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Strategy For The State Museum Of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Robert Jan Van Pelt, Donald Mckay, Valerio Rynnimeri, Dereck Revington, Debórah Dwork

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Introduction (Volume 72)

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.