Human Rights Law Commons^™

A Critical-Inclusive Approach To Instructing On Genocide Education In The United States: Delivering An Equally Critical And Inclusive Approach To Professional Development, Cassidy S. Ernst

Master's Projects and Capstones

This paper presents a new approach to teaching the preconditions for genocide. Bringing together a number of theoretical insights from recent research, it focuses on the pedagogical value of a critical inclusive approach to genocide education. Such an approach incorporates persecuted groups commonly excluded from educational narratives, such as the experiences of homosexuals during the Holocaust. It also places genocide education within a wider framework focused on prevention and advocacy. Through utilizing a critical-inclusive approach to genocide education in the classroom, youth will be equipped with a stronger conception of genocide, genocidal ideologies, and measures that can be taken to …

Legislative Update From The 94th General Assembly: Arkansas Bills Affecting Pregnant And Postpartum Mothers, Garrett Bannister

Arkansas Law Notes

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org., the State of Arkansas was swift in restricting almost all abortions in the Natural State. Arkansas’s decision was met with plaudits from its supporters and reproval by its dissenters. In this unchartered legal territory, Arkansas’s 94th General Assembly—the first legislative session in the wake of Dobbs—has passed and proposed several bills that would provide pregnant and postpartum mothers and their children with medical and financial assistance. Specifically, these bills would provide pregnant and new mothers with health screenings, help high school-aged parents …

Sacred Spheres: Religious Autonomy As An International Human Right, Diana V. Thomson, Kayla A. Toney

Catholic University Law Review

How should courts resolve thorny human rights disputes that arise within religious groups? According to an emerging international consensus, they shouldn’t. When a case involves sensitive internal decisions by a religious organization, such as choosing who is qualified to teach the faith, courts are increasingly taking a hands-off approach. This global consensus has formed across international treaties, tribunals, and domestic courts in European and American nations. Every major human rights instrument and many international and domestic courts recognize that religious freedom must extend to religious communities, especially houses of worship and schools where believers gather to practice their faith and …

Look Away: The Impact Of The Lost Cause On Civil Rights, Social Justice And Critical Race Theory, How Storytelling And Mythology Shaped American History, Angela Downes

LSU Law Journal for Social Justice & Policy

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

LSU Law Journal for Social Justice & Policy

No abstract provided.

Prostitution And Pornography: Reforming A Perspective, Mayce Combs

Helm's School of Government Conference - 2021-2024

Happiness is a subjective emotion that can quickly be twisted by the depravity of humanity’s sinful nature. Human trafficking deprives an individual’s natural right to life, liberty, and their pursuit to happiness. Of the two divisions of human trafficking, sex trafficking, especially involving children, is the most despicable and most evolved. The United States and further the state of Virginia is a crucial player in combating human trafficking. While there are currently many successful tactics state governments and nonprofit groups are utilizing in order eliminate human trafficking there are further more intense strategies the Virginia State Government should implement. One …

Eugenics Not Eradication: How People With Disabilities Have Lost The Right To Life, Ava Standish

Helm's School of Government Conference - 2021-2024

Disability-selective abortion stems from a eugenical philosophy not a hope of eradication. Disabilities cannot be eradicated because they are not diseases. Eugenics seeks to purify society from those who are considered “inferior” and to encourage the rate of births considered “superior.” Eugenics continues today through selective abortion of children with disabilities. These children deserve the right to life guaranteed by natural rights, human rights, and the laws of the United States. Children with disabilities, particularly Down Syndrome, have lost this right to life in the United States and abroad. In the United States, 67% of children with Down Syndrome are …

Christian Influence On Roman Natural Law In The Corpus Juris Civilis, Bryce Tenberg

Helm's School of Government Conference - 2021-2024

Few civilizations have influenced the contemporary world more than the Romans, and the same can be said regarding the field of law. Today, legal foundations throughout the West are built upon the Roman legal system, with the Code of Justinian—also known as the Corpus Juris Civilis—being arguably the most influential. This work compiled and simplified centuries of Roman law to ensure a more efficient jurisprudence, and due to its survival, it would form the foundation of the modern jurisprudence. However, at the same time this work was written, the empire had changed significantly with the adoption of Christianity. This …

The Unethical Use Of Children In War, Mariana Davis

Helm's School of Government Conference - 2021-2024

This paper examines the role the nature of children has in the immorality of their use in warfare. The exploitation of children in war is a long, pervasive issue that is primarily documented in third-world countries with ongoing conflicts. This paper details the developments in the legality of the use of children in war. It expounds upon the current and historical use of child soldiers and the horrors that come with it. Evidence was taken from the consequences to the children and the nations that use them to demonstrate why this practice is unethical and immoral. This paper studies why …

Mentoring Programs: An Answer To The Cultural & Social Challenge Of Juvenile Rehabilitation, Isaiah Franqui

Helm's School of Government Conference - 2021-2024

The juvenile delinquency epidemic in the United States has been approached using many methods. This paper is an attempt to showcase one method that is often glanced over, but may provide the best solution yet. A new promising outlook for the overall well-being of juveniles within the criminal justice system is the formation of mentoring programs. These programs connect at-risk youth and/or current juvenile delinquents to a mentor who, in turn, can help shift the direction of their lives. They often take place within community centers throughout the day and can present themselves in a number of different methods. Through …

A Business Doing Pleasure: Combating Sex Trafficking By Decriminalizing Sex Work, Annalise Leonelli

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

On the night police officers pounded on Yang Song’s door, she ran to the balcony of her fourth-floor apartment, which overlooks 40th Road in Flushing, Queens. Four years earlier, she had arrived at John F. Kennedy Airport with a dream of opening a restaurant. After a waitressing job failed, as well as a short-lived Chinese fast-food venture, she took a massage therapy course. There, she learned about a “lucrative opportunity” on 40th Road.

Flushing’s underground sex economy has been notorious for years. In fact, massage parlor arrests across the United States consistently lead back to addresses in Flushing. Because …

Vertical Farming: A Bottom-Up Approach, Michael Martinez

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

The twenty-first century will require innovative solutions to address the effects of climate change. Vertical farming is one solution that could help conserve a significant amount of freshwater and reduce the agricultural industry’ s overuse of pesticides and intensive tilling practices, which contributes to soil erosion and pesticide runoff. There has been significant investment in vertical farming in every region of the United States; however, the cost to produce foods with vertical farming remains more costly than traditional farming, which is in large part due to the substantial amount of electricity needed to power all the technology required to grow …

From Hashtag To Hash Value: Using The Hash Value Model To Report Child Sex Abuse Material, Jessica Mcgarvie

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

In the summer of 2021, Apple announced it would release a Child Safety Feature (CSF) aimed at reducing Child Sex Abuse Materials (CSAM) on its platform. The CSF would scan all images a user uploaded to their iCloud for CSAM, and Apple would report an account with 30 or more flagged images to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Despite Apple’s good intentions, they received intense backlash, with many critics arguing the proposed CSF eroded a user’s privacy. This article explores the technology behind Apple’s CSF and compares it to similar features used by other prominent tech companies. …

A New Right Is The Wrong Tactic: Bring Legal Actions Against States For Internet Shutdowns Instead Of Working Towards A Human Right To The Internet (Part 1), Jay Conrad

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

A New Right is the Wrong Tactic: Bring Legal Actions Against States for Internet Shutdowns Instead of Working Towards a Human Right to the Internet (Part 1) is the first of a two-part series dealing with an increasingly prevalent threat to human rights: State-sanctioned Internet shutdowns. Part 1 details the current tactics and impacts of Internet shutdowns and which human rights are most likely to be violated by or during a shutdown. Part 2 will address the deficiencies of advocating for Internet access to be a recognized human right as a means of combatting shutdowns. Despite the popularity of this …

Treaties As A Tool For Native American Land Reparations, Hannah Friedle

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

"The only compensation for land is land."¹

Hundreds of treaties signed. Hundreds of treaties broken. The juvenile United States grew in size as independent Native nations ceded their territory through treaties. Thirsting for more land, the United States broke its promises and continued its manifest destiny westward. And what of tribes’ treaty rights to land? Some Native nations received financial compensation for treaty violations. But money is crumbs to many whose traditional homelands are still colonized.

Tribes are entitled to the land promised to them under treaties—instruments supposedly carrying the force of federal law. Land reparations are a partial …

A New Deal For A Right To Work: Confronting Racism And Inequality In The U.S., James A. Gross

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

Whites have always controlled the country’s major economic and political institutions at all levels. Starting with slavery, the enduring and pervasive dogmas of White superiority and Black inferiority, once openly asserted as “keeping Negroes in their place,” were also used to restrict Black men and women to subordinate “negro jobs.” The vast riches of the United States “were available to all who had the enterprise to take them and the good fortune to be White.”

This denial of the right to work in freely chosen endeavors continues to have immense consequences for Black men, women, and children in every aspect …

The Legacy Of Trust Promises: Native American Healthcare (Note), Hailey Trawick

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

From European colonialism to the establishment of the United States, the rights, history, and independence of Native Americans have been systematically stripped away. The American government expanded rapidly, forcibly displacing indigenous populations from their native lands and moving them to reservations with inferior resources and space. During a forced removal, often instituted by treaties between American Indian tribes and the federal government, government officials offered protection and access to resources in exchange for vast tribal land. Although treaty-making with American tribes ended over a century ago, their deleterious and often broken promises continue to haunt us.

Part I of this …

Digital Privacy For Reproductive Choice In The Post-Roe Era, Aziz Z. Huq, Rebecca Wexler

Faculty Scholarship

The overruling of Roe v. Wade has unleashed a torrent of regulatory and punitive activity restricting previously lawful reproductive options. But the turn to the expansive criminal law and new schemes of civil liability creates novel concerns, quite distinct from the pre-Roe landscape a half-century ago. Reproductive choice, and its nemesis, turn upon information. For pregnant people, deciding on a choice of medical care entails a search for advice and services. Information is at a pre­mium for them. Meanwhile, efforts to regulate abortion began with clinic closings. But they will quickly extend to civil actions and criminal indictments of patients, …

Debt And Dependence: Foreign Interference In Haiti And The Importance Of Non-State Actor Accountability, Sandra Wisner, Brian Concannon

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

Colonialist policies and lending practices by foreign states and non-state actors have led to serious and wide-spread violations of Haitian individuals’ fundamental human rights. In particular, a series of loan conditions imposed by international financial institutions and their members states left Haiti vulnerable to increased food insecurity and a severely diminished social sector. This paper proposes that the imposition of such loan conditions constitutes a violation of foreign actors’ obligations under international law respecting economic, social, cultural, and political rights, as well as their extra-territorial obligations (ETOs) to take joint and separate action to promote and respect human rights beyond …

32 Shots In The Dark: How Local Governments Can Increase Police Accountability When States Refuse To, Marcia M. Ziegler

Mercer Law Review

On March 13, 2020, Breonna Taylor was shot to death in her apartment hallway by police officers executing a search warrant. The warrant was based on a false affidavit, the executing officers acted criminally on scene, and in the aftermath, detectives spread misinformation about the case on social media. While there was some limited accountability for the officers involved, many citizens considered the official response to be lackluster. After a period of public protest, Louisville and other cities all over the country have examined options for police reform at the local level. While most law enforcement agencies operate in a …

Unidentified Deceased Persons: Who Are At-Risk?, Sarah Duncan

All Theses

This study explores the silent mass disaster of unidentified deceased persons that is occurring across the United States and identifies the individual and community level characteristics that make a person “at-risk” of becoming an unidentified deceased person within the United States. This study identifies trends-based hotspots by using data reported on the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) and comparing those trends to the gender United States population. It finds that males, and age of death between 20-64 are overrepresented and White persons are underrepresented in the unidentified deceased person sample when compared the general population. Social and human …

The Analysis Of Transitional Justice Initiatives And The Flaw Of Prosecution On The Past Human Rights Violation In Indonesia (Tanjung Priok Case), Junaedi Saibih, Elwi Danil, Kurnia Warman, Nani Mulyati

Indonesian Journal of International Law

The political transition from the New Order era to Reform Era has initiated questions to the transitional government about transitional justice initiatives. This chapter discusses the theoretical perspectives on transitional justice that have been developed by many scholars in their publications. Besides the theoretical perspectives about transitional justice, this chapter also discusses transitional justice elements, the forms, and the institution of justice in transitional regimes. The discussion in this chapter is important as a measurement of the transitional government initiatives to reach political stability and reconciling with the past. The explanation about the forms and the element of justice then …

Do College Students Have A Lack Of Awareness Around Human Trafficking?, Tessa Cavender

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Human Trafficking is an epidemic around the world, but if you ask the average person, they know little more than what is shown in media. To try to understand this, we asked the questions of whether college students also have a lack of awareness around trafficking, and if so, is education the best way to fix this? Our literature review found many professions, such as healthcare and K-12 education, are pushing for human trafficking curriculums to be implemented in their fields. To determine if this method would be effective on a college campus, five college students were interviewed to determine …

Immigration Law's Missing Presumption, Fatma Marouf

Faculty Scholarship

The presumption of innocence is a foundational concept in criminal law but is completely missing from quasi-criminal immigration proceedings. This Article explores the relevance of a presumption of innocence to removal proceedings, arguing that immigration law has been designed and interpreted in ways that disrupt formulating any such presumption to facilitate deportation. The Article examines the meaning of “innocence” in the immigration context, revealing how historically racialized perceptions of guilt eroded the notion of innocence early on and connecting the missing presumption to persistent associations between people of color and guilt. By analyzing how a presumption of innocence is impeded …

Preventing Trafficking By Protecting Refugees, Rebecca L. Feldmann

Utah Law Review

An inherent tension underlies the duty to prevent trafficking. On the one hand, nation-states are required to take border control measures aimed at preventing trafficking. At the same time, such measures must respect international obligations toward asylum-seekers and other migrants relating to the free movement of people. In the past twenty years, countries such as the United States have developed increasingly sophisticated systems designed to regulate and restrict the movement of people across borders. However, the same period has seen an increasing disregard for the human rights of the very people who are crossing those borders. In order to fully …

The Emerging Jurisprudence Of The African Human Rights Court And The Protection Of Human Rights In Africa, John M. Mbaku

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

During most of the post-independence period, many African countries have either been unwilling or unable to protect human rights or relegated this important function to a small group of poorly funded but brave and courageous non-state actors. Most importantly, some African governments have either actively engaged in human rights violations or failed to bring to justice those who have committed atrocities against their fellow citizens. In the 1970s and 1980s, many African heads of state were more concerned with national sovereignty in an effort to hide the violation of human rights committed within their jurisdictions than participating in the building, …

"Don't Be Afraid, Just Take It Easy": Genocide And Destruction In Bosnia, Thomas Sarsfield

Undergraduate Research Symposium

During the twilight hours of the Cold War, Yugoslavia was thrown into a full-blown political and economic crisis that resulted in its dissolution. Long-simmering ethnic tensions boiled over as former Yugoslav republics began declaring independence. After its secession from Yugoslavia in 1992, Bosnia and Herzegovina rapidly descended into a brutal war between Bosnian Muslim, Croat, and Serb ethnic groups. Serb troops engaged in widespread atrocities against Bosnian Muslims and Croats including mass murder, rape, and forced expulsion, which collectively amount to genocide. While UN peacekeepers were dispatched to establish safety zones in Bosnia and Herzegovina, their efforts were stymied by …

Intersectional Feminist Practice In International Justice: Sexual & Gender-Based Grimes In Ongwen, Cardozo Law Institute In Holocaust And Human Rights (Clihhr), Cardozo International And Comparative Law Review

2022–2023 Flyers

No abstract provided.

Defending The Constitutionality Of Abortion Rights, Sydney Reil, Cynthiana Desir

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

In 2018, the constitutionality of the Mississippi Gestational Act was called into question by the Jackson Women’s Health Organization. This act illegalized the majority of abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Given the constitutional right to abortion granted by Roe v. Wade and upheld by Planned Parenthood v. Casey, both the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit deemed the Act unconstitutional as a violation of that right. The State of Mississippi brought the case under the review of the United States Supreme Court in 2021, seeking …

Gender-Based Religious Persecution, Pooja R. Dadhania

Faculty Scholarship

People fleeing gender-based violence in the home face an uphill battle when seeking asylum in the United States. Through the lens of public and private spheres, this Article explores the underutilized religion ground for asylum for cases involving gender-based violence in the home—i.e., the private sphere. This Article argues that if an individual imposes a patriarchal practice on an asylum seeker in the private sphere and justifies that practice using religion, the asylum seeker’s resistance to that practice should constitute religious expression.

The religion ground protects individuals who are persecuted because of their religious beliefs and religious expression. It typically …