Natural Law Commons^™

A Response To Harel, Hope, And Schwartz, John M. Finnis

Journal Articles

A seminar held in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in December 2012 discussed critical comments by Alon Harel, Simon Hope, and Daniel Schwartz on themes and theses in Human Rights and Common Good, volume III of Collected Essays of John Finnis (Oxford University Press, 2011). Revised versions of these comments, and of the response I gave at this seminar, are now published in the Jerusalem Review of Legal Studies. The Response retains the informal and engaged character of this very good academic occasion. Section I considers Harel’s thesis that judicial review of legislation can be defended because my “in-authenticity” …

El Derecho Naturaly Ia Constitución De Los Estados Unidos = Natural Law And The United States Constitution, Robert S. Barker

Barker Papers

En la Declaración de lndependencia de los Estados U nidos, los Fundadores proclamaron su fe en Dios y en el Derecho Natural. Once años después, otro grupo de Fundadores se reunieron para diseñar un instrumento que fortaleciera la unión entre los Estados. Su obra -la Constitución de los Estados Unidos- es una aplicación práctica de los principios del Derecho Natural invocados en la Declaración de lndependencia.

El Derecho Natural de los Fundadores de la Constitución es el Derecho Natural clásico - tradicional de la civilización griega - romana - cristiana, basado en Dios, y no el Derecho Natural de …

Is The Failure To Respond Appropriately To A Natural Disaster A Crime Against Humanity - The Responsibility To Protect And Individual Criminal Responsibility In The Aftermath Of Cyclone Nargis, 38 Denv. J. Int'l L. & Pol'y 227 (2010), Stuart K. Ford

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

On May 2 and 3, 2008, Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar, devastating large portions of the Irrawaddy Delta and creating the potential for a massive humanitarian crisis. Yet, the Myanmar government rejected aid from some countries, limited the amount of aid entering the country to a fraction of what was needed, and strictly controlled how that aid was distributed The United Nations and many governments criticized Myanmar's response to the Cyclone as inadequate and inhumane, and senior politicians from a number of countries discussed whether the situation justified invoking the "responsibility to protect" doctrine This article explores several questions, including: (1) …

The Essence Of Human Rights: A Religious Critique, Gordon Butler

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Hart Avec Kant: On The Inseparability Of Law And Morality, David G. Carlson

Articles

The article critiques H.L.A. Hart's The Concept of Law from a Kantian perspective, arguing that Hart's separation thesis between law and morality is untenable. Hart's internal point of view, a cornerstone of his jurisprudence, is revealed to be indistinguishable from morality, undermining his effort to separate law from moral considerations. The analysis contends that Hart's theory ultimately collapses into a Kantian framework, where law and morality share a common form, challenging the foundational principles of legal positivism.

Breaking The Deadlock: Toward A Socialist-Confucianist Concept Of Human Rights For China, David E. Christensen

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Note offers an alternative perspective on international human rights that seeks to bypass the dead-end universalist-cultural relativist debate, and proposes a concept of human rights that is harmonious with the modern collectivist and socialist Chinese order. Since human rights protect dignity, this study finds the source of human dignity in China in society, not in nature. This analysis opens the door to the development of a meaningful set of guaranteed individual rights for a socialist state and a Confucian order.

Rights, Communities, And Tradition, Brian Slattery

Articles & Book Chapters

This paper argues that there is a close connection between basic human rights and communal bonds. It criticizes the philosophical views of Alan Gewirth and Alasdair MacIntyre, which in differing ways deny this connection.

On Human Rights: The Use Of Human Right Precepts In U.S. History And The Right To An Effective Remedy In Domestic Courts, Jordan J. Paust

Michigan Journal of International Law

Early in the history of the United States, human rights, then often termed the "rights of man," were understood to be those natural, unalienable rights of all persons that no government on earth could deny - rights that are a part of law, whether written or unwritten, and that free and democratic governments are formed to further and to protect. As Alexander Hamilton recognized in 1775, "the sacred rights of mankind... are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature… and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power." Yet, as Hamilton must have known, …

European Integration Through Fundamental Rights, Jochen Abr. Frowein

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The conception of fundamental rights as natural rights of human beings developed in European legal thinking mainly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and also Immanuel Kant should be mentioned. But it was in the new world that the principles of fundamental human rights were first put into practice. A little more than ten years after the first American declarations, the "Declaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen" was adopted in Paris; it remains part of French constitutional law today. But, unlike the development in the United States, the French guarantees could not be enforced …

Human Rights Bibliography, Igor L. Kavass

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

It would be a mistake to assume that the concept of human rights as an ethical precept is an invention of recent origin. The shelves of libraries throughout the world are filled with books which either endeavor to define the inalienable rights of individuals or record the sad history of their constant and relentless abuse. Many of the world's greatest literary creations, from the Greek drama onward, chronicle man's cruelty to man. What is more effective in evoking a feeling of indignation about the perversity of human misery and suffering than the unforgettable books of writers with such culturally and …