Human Rights Law Commons^™

Rule Of Law And International Human Rights, Vincent J. Samar

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

This article reviews the field of international human rights with particular attention to the way that the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, the Human Rights Committee, and local domestic courts operate to resolve human rights cases. It first notes what internationally recognized human rights there are and the sources that give rise to them. It then explains how relativism enters human rights decision-making, especially at the domestic court level, in part because a common grounding for the human rights propounded was never adopted. Even at the level of the International Court of Justice, its failure to include …

Section 230 And The Right To Remove Vaccine Misinformation, Michael A. Cheah

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

Recognizing its clear propensity to cause serious public harm, many online platforms have restricted vaccine misinformation. This essay argues that these platforms are protected from liability when they remove such content under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The essay conducts a textual and policy-based analysis of the "publisher" immunity conferred by Section 230(c) (1) and the immunity for restricting objectionable materials under Section 230(c)(2) and concludes that both protect the removal of vaccine misinformation. The essay further argues that repealing Section 230 will not encourage platforms to combat vaccine misinformation as some policymakers have suggested. That is because …

Developing Standards For Gender-Responsive Human Rights Due Diligence, Constance Z. Wagner, Nancy Kaymar Stafford

All Faculty Scholarship

This article addresses the current state of gender-responsive human rights due diligence (GR-HRDD) standards and advocates for greater attention to be paid to women’s human rights in the due diligence process. The 2011 United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) created a global framework for recognizing, preventing, and addressing the risk of adverse impacts of human rights violations linked to business activities. The responsibility of businesses to respect human rights under the UNGPs includes implementing a human rights due diligence process. Although the UNGPs do not provide guidance on the process for integrating women’s rights into human …

Targeted Killing, Mary Ellen O'Connell

Book Chapters

From the Introduction

Targeted killing is the intentional use of lethal force by government authorities to kill selected persons not in the government’s custody. This is also a definition of assassination. It is widely accepted that assassination violates the right to life. For this reason, the term ‘targeted killing’ came into use in place of assassination to convey a perception of legality.

Fundamental Rights And Fundamental Relationships: The Family In Comparative Constitutional Law, Paolo G. Carozza

Book Chapters

The chapter is part of the Proceedings of the 2022 Plenary Session
The Family as a Relational Good: the Challenge of Love
27-29 April 2022
Pierpaolo Donati (editor)
Acta 23, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City, 2023

How International Justice Can Succeed In Ukraine And Beyond, Leila Nadya Sadat, Christopher Hale

Scholarship@WashULaw

Depictions of gruesome and heartbreaking mass atrocities resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have injected discussions of war crimes trials into common discourse the world over. World leaders and government spokespersons in major capitols now field a steady stream of media questions on how crimes in Ukraine will be confronted. An unprecedented number of States Parties (41) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) referred the crimes in Ukraine to the ICC Prosecutor for investigation, and a video statement from the last living prosecutor of the Nuremberg era, 102-year-old Ben Ferencz, was played at one of the most-watched United Nations …

Coming Debates To Advance New Treaty On Crimes Against Humanity Will Require Skillful Leadership, Leila Nadya Sadat, Akila Radhakrishnan

Scholarship@WashULaw

The resolution adopted recently at the United Nations General Assembly’s legal committee on draft articles for a treaty on crimes against humanity creates a two-year process for debate and discussion of the proposal within the committee. This opens the door for the possible adoption of a new, critically needed, global treaty on crimes against humanity within the next three or four years. Such a treaty would close several gaps in the legal architecture of atrocity crimes — particularly the legal obligation to prevent crimes against humanity, a duty not imposed by complementary regimes, including the Rome Statute of the International …

Reckoning With Structural Racism In Legal Education: Methods Toward A Pedagogy Of Antiracism, Doron Samuel-Siegel

Law Faculty Publications

There is an empty quality to much of what passes as “diversity, equity, and inclusion” work in legal education. Despite a robust body of scholarship on teaching law consistent with the goals of antiracism, many legal educators struggle to put theory into practice. This Article responds to that struggle, offering a holistic, methodical approach to a pedagogy of antiracism whose goal is twofold: create conditions in which racially minoritized students learn to their full potential, free from the harms of traditional legal education; and equip all students, regardless of identity, to contribute to the dismantlement of structural racism. Absent such …

Torture In Our Schools?, Leila Nadya Sadat

Scholarship@WashULaw

America’s kids are not okay. As gun violence surges and politicians dither, school shootings are traumatizing a generation of youth. While only one manifestation of America’s gun violence crisis, school shootings are shocking in their ferocity, the senseless and random nature of the violence, and their impact upon millions of young, captive, and vulnerable individuals. This Essay makes the claim that the suffering of America’s school children from uncontrolled gun violence may be significant enough in scale and kind to rise to the level of ill-treatment under international law, violating U.S. treaty obligations and customary international law. If so, their …

On Crimes Against Humanity, Protect The Un Sixth Committee’S Integrity With Action, Leila Nadya Sadat, Akila Radhakrishnan

Scholarship@WashULaw

Enthusiasm for negotiating and adopting a new global treaty on the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity has been growing since the issuance of a model draft treaty 16 years ago, particularly after the United Nations International Law Commission (ILC) submitted a final set of draft articles to the General Assembly on Aug. 5, 2019. Although paragraph 42 of the ILC’s report recommended the “elaboration of a convention by the General Assembly or by an international conference of plenipotentiaries on the basis of the draft articles,” progress on this important treaty has stalled in the U.N. General Assembly’s Sixth …

Do The Safeguards In The Victorian Assisted-Dying Legislation Adequately Account For The Experiences Of Other Nations?, Heath Harley-Bellemore

Theses

In 2017 the Victorian State Parliament passed the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017, making it the first Australian jurisdiction since 1996 to pass assisted dying legislation. The Victorian model was hailed by the Government of Victoria as the ‘safest and most conservative in the world’, and had the benefit of drawing on over 20 years of voluntary assisted dying experiences of other jurisdictions for its development. This thesis examines the experiences of other jurisdictions and how they informed the development of the Victorian model. It examines available data, reports, and criticisms of international experiences and applies them to the Victorian …

Water Privatization And The Case For A Public Model, Jessica Wang

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

The note examines the risks associated with privatizing water systems, focusing on cases in Flint, Michigan, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. It argues that privatization can undermine public rights, exacerbate inequalities, and lead to environmental injustice. The analysis highlights the failure of regulatory oversight and advocates for stronger legal frameworks to protect vulnerable communities.

A Human Rights Approach To Cultural Property: Repatriating The Yaqui Maaso Kova, Kristen A. Carpenter

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

The article argues that current legal frameworks for repatriating cultural property, such as the 1970 UNESCO Convention, are insufficient because they are state-centric and fail to address the rights and interests of Indigenous Peoples. It advocates for a human rights approach, emphasizing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, to remedy past injustices and ensure the repatriation of sacred objects like the Yaqui Maaso Kova. This approach prioritizes Indigenous Peoples' rights to religion, culture, and self-determination over state interests.

Academy On Human Rights And Humanitarian Law Articles On Human Rights And States Of Emergency: Unexpected Crisis And New Challenges: Prologue, Claudio Grossman, Robert K. Goldman

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

We are pleased to write this prologue for the special issue of the American UniversityInternationalLaw Review featuring the winning papers from the 2021 Human Rights Essay Award, sponsored by the Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law of American University Washington College of Law.

Platform-Enabled Crimes: Pluralizing Accountability When Social Media Companies Enable Perpetrators To Commit Atrocities, Rebecca Hamilton

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Online intermediaries are omnipresent. Each day across the globe, the corporations running these platforms execute policies and practices that serve their profit model, typically by sustaining user engagement. Sometimes, these seemingly banal business activities enable principal perpetrators to commit crimes. Online intermediaries, however, are almost never held to account for their complicity in the resulting harms. This Article introduces the concept of platformenabled crimes into the legal literature to highlight the ways in which the ordinary business activities of online intermediaries enable the commission of crime. It then focuses on a subset of platform-enabled crimes—those in which a social media …

Yes, Alito, There Is A Right To Privacy: Why The Leaked Dobbs Opinion Is Doctrinally Unsound, Nancy C. Marcus

Faculty Scholarship

On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court released the final Dobbs majority opinion, which is substantially identical to the draft opinion. Consequently, the critique contained in this essay applies equally to the final Dobbs opinion.

On May 2, 2022, a draft majority opinion dated February 2022 and authored by Justice Alito in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was leaked to the public. This Essay addresses the doctrinal infirmities of the underlying analysis of the draft Dobbs opinion, as well as the resulting dangers posed for the protection of fundamental privacy rights and liberties in contexts even beyond abortion.

The …

Solving The Settlement Puzzle In Human Rights Litigation, William J. Aceves

Faculty Scholarship

In human rights litigation, there are no formal standards to guide lawyers and their clients when they are considering whether to settle a case. Moreover, there is a paucity of published data on human rights settlements. This Article provides a quantitative assessment of recorded settlements in human rights cases litigated under the Alien Tort Statute and Torture Victim Protection Act. It examines both confidential and public settlements. It then considers how and why these cases settled. Finally, this Article proposes a set of standards for assessing proposed settlements. When cases involve fundamental rights and individuals have suffered immeasurable harms, litigants, …

Data Privacy, Human Rights, And Algorithmic Opacity, Sylvia Lu

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Decades ago, it was difficult to imagine a reality in which artificial intelligence (AI) could penetrate every corner of our lives to monitor our innermost selves for commercial interests. Within just a few decades, the private sector has seen a wild proliferation of AI systems, many of which are more powerful and penetrating than anticipated. In many cases, AI systems have become “the power behind the throne,” tracking user activities and making fateful decisions through predictive analysis of personal information. Despite the growing power of AI, proprietary algorithmic systems can be technically complex, legally claimed as trade secrets, and managerially …

Bias And Biometrics: Regulating Corporate Responsibility And New Technologies To Protect Rights, Erika George

Faculty Scholarship

A growing body of literature has documented the ways in which algorithms and new technology are being deployed in ways that discriminate and violate human rights. The regulatory environment is still evolving, but not as rapidly as new technologies are being introduced by private corporations and implemented in public settings. Governments are using AI in immigration and asylum determinations and law enforcement, arenas where racism and xenophobia can often arise. In the aftermath of the racial justice uprisings following the murder of George Floyd, some technology firms pledged to reconsider providing surveillance technology to police without protections in place. This …

'Are We Doing The Right Thing?' Utilising Security Governance To Reform The Us Drone Program, Jane Minson

Theses

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, for counterterrorism purposes by the United States within its targeted killing program has been deeply controversial. Used in each presidential administration since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, drones have sparked debate, in part due to their contribution to civilian deaths; their killing of high-value terrorist targets including, on at least one occasion, a US citizen; and the heightened secrecy that has surrounded the program with little formal oversight and, as such, little accountability. This thesis uses this contextual framework – with a particular focus on the administration of President Barack …

Introduction: International Law And Inequalities, Diane Desierto

Journal Articles

Equality is both a premise and a promise (or at least much lip service is paid to such) of today’s international law. Customary international law and instruments such as the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other foundational treaties of the multilateral system are premised on the equality of states, the right to self-determination and the fundamental equality of human beings. With the era of decolonization, international law also became a battleground for material equality. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, (economic in-)equality once again entered the limelight in a number of disciplines, not …

'Indirect Pathways Into Practice': Philippine Internationally Educated Nurses And Their Entry Into Ontario's Nursing Profession, Lualhati Marcelino

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

While there are several studies that highlight the quantitative and statistical profiles of internationally educated nurses (IENs) from the Philippines who migrate to countries throughout Asia, the Middle East, Europe, the United States and Canada, there is little research that delves deeply into the qualitative review and analysis of their experiences in their own words. This study addresses that gap by applying the transnational feminist concept of “global care chains” in a single case study design that explores the experience of nurses who migrated to Ontario through permanent and temporary immigration streams and were interviewed in 2011 to 2012 to …

Covax: A Primer To International Efforts In Vaccine Distribution And Inequities, Diane Desierto

Journal Articles

I have a slightly different view from Dr. Oke in regard to his doubts regarding the utility of a waiver. To the extent that the precedent that we are looking at is whether or not there could be a waiver for countries that lack domestic manufacturing capabilities, to instead import a cheaper generic drug of the Covid vaccines that could be produced in other countries, mainly the particular hubs, such as in India and China, that is still an open question, and part of the proposal that is up before the TRIPS council involves that dimension and that aspect of …

Principles For Responsibility Sharing: Proximity, Culpability, Moral Accountability, And Capability, Michael W. Doyle, Janine Prantl, Mark J. Wood

Faculty Scholarship

In this Essay, we explore how responsibility based on culpability, moral accountability, and capability can improve the current regime that rests on responsibility by proximity. In doing so, we draw on the 2017 Model International Mobility Convention (MIMC), a model convention drafted by a commission of independent experts and currently supported as a project of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.

Perempuan Pekerja Migran Non-Reguler: Konflik Hukum Dalam Pengaturan Perdagangan Orang Dan Penyelundupan Orang, Sriwiyanti Eddyono

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

This paper analyzes the extent to which Indonesian law regulates the position and protection of irregular women migrant workers and the implication of the arrangement of law for irregular women migrant workers who experience human trafficking and people smuggling. This paper follows up on field findings on human trafficking in the Kalimantan border which was carried out in 2018-2019. This paper finds that there are complications in the regulation on laws and regulations, related to the regulation of Irregular Migrant Workers. Even though the law which is based on international conventions explicitly regulates Non-Regular Migrant Workers (Migrant Workers Convention 1990) …

مبدأ الضرورة العسكرية، وانتهاكات قواعد القانون الدولي الإنساني دراسة تطبيقية على مخالفة "إسرائيل" لمبدأ الضرورة العسكرية خلال حرب (مايو2021م)., إياد محمد أبو مصطفى ماجستير

Journal of Al-Azhar University – Gaza (Humanities)

الملخص :

إنَّ التسليم بالاستناد إلى حالة الضرورة أثناء النزاعات المسلحة، كاستناد يُخرج سلوك المقاتل عن التصرفات المسموح بها أصبح أمرًا معترفًا به، غير أنَّ تجريد هذه الحالة من الشروط اللازمة لأعمالها، والضوابط الواجبة لتقييدها خاصة قيدي: "التناسب، والتمييز" أمر لا يمكن السماح به مهما كانت الظروف والمتغيرات الحاصلة في تطوير العلاقات بين الدول، ويُعدُّ هذا المبدأ متغيرًا بطبيعته غير القابلة للضبط أو التحديد بشكل واضح، الأمر الذي جعل هذا المبدأ ذريعة لدى الدول لانتهاك قواعد القانون الدولي الإنساني؛ ومن أهمها: دولة الاحتلال التي قامت بانتهاكه ومخالفة شروطه، وعدم مراعاة قيوده خلال حرب (مايو 2021م) على قطاع غزة.

وخَلُص البحث …

Critical Essays On Disability Rights Jurisprudence: Combating Exclusion, Embracing Inclusion, Sanjay Jain

Books

This book is a collection of high quality research papers contributed by eminent academicians, philosophers and jurists. Its main objective is to disseminate and spread awareness about rights of persons with disabilities. The book also provides useful inputs to activists, lawyers, jurists and academicians to evolve empowerment strategies for recognition, promotion and protection of rights of persons with disabilities. Besides the Indian scenario, the book also explores developments in disability rights in countries like Nepal, Sri Lanka and USA, thereby broadening the horizon of the field. It features high quality articles focusing on international law standards of Human Rights of …

Submission Of Amicus Curiae Observations In The Case Of The Prosecutor V. Dominic Ongwen, Erin Baines, Kamari M. Clarke, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

The important questions laid out by the Appeals Chamber in this case highlight the need for the proper delineation and interplay between mental illness and criminal responsibility under international law. Specifically, this case represents a watershed moment for the Appeals Chamber to set a framework for adjudicating mental illness in the context of collectivized child abuse and trauma. This is especially true for former child soldiers who occupy both a victim and alleged perpetrator status.

Amici Curiae Observations On Sexual- And Gender-Based Crimes, Particularly Sexual Slavery, And On Cumulative Convictions Pursuant To Rule 103 Of The Rules Of Procedure And Evidence, Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum

Amicus Briefs

Sexual slavery is not a “form” of enslavement; rather, all acts of a sexual nature, including control over sexuality, sexual integrity and sexual and reproductive autonomy, constitute indicia of the exercise of powers of ownership of enslavement in all its forms. Consequently, enslavement as a crime against humanity is not “in the abstract entirely encompassed within sexual slavery.” To avoid entering cumulative convictions for separately enumerated crimes that do not each have a distinct element from the other, and to avoid a continuation of a discriminatory application of the law, amici suggest that, in the interests of justice, the …

Imf's Loan Conditionality: Negative Consequences In The Borrower Country And The Burden Of Responsibility, Sara Mohamed Osama Abdalla Atta

Theses and Dissertations

People often think that IFIs, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are prominent players in the global economy by providing funds to countries in need of development and sustainment of welfare, unfortunately these institutions can cause devastating effects in the borrower country. The harsh conditionality of the IMF plays a huge role in the negative economic consequences incumbent upon the borrower country. Meanwhile, the lack of legal remedies for private individuals suffering from the conditionality aggravates the consequences for these people. On the one hand, conditionality may strain the economy of the borrower country which leads …