Transnational Law Commons^™

Reconceptualizing The Boundaries Of "Humanitarian" Assistance: "What's In A Name" Or "The Importance Of Being 'Earnest'"?, 40 J. Marshall L. Rev. 195 (2006), Surabhi Ranganathan

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

The United States As Global Sheriff: Using Unilateral Sanctions To Combat Human Trafficking, Janie Chuang

Michigan Journal of International Law

By situating the U.S. rise to dominance in historical and political context, this Article underscores the significance of U.S. unilateralism for international anti-trafficking law and policy.

Sexual Labor And Human Rights, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Jane E. Larson

UF Law Faculty Publications

In this Article, we engage the current human rights debate that dichotomizes prostitution either as a modern form of slavery or as the exercise of the right to work. This framework effectively sets up a coercion/consent polarity. These poles raise fundamental human rights issues; both the prohibition against slavery and the right to work are matters addressed by and central to the international human rights paradigm. Yet we argue in this Article that the human rights issues raised by prostitution cannot properly be studied nor moved towards meaningful resolution in the context of the prevailing polarity. Prostitution in its current …

Counter-Rejoinder: Justice Vs. Justiciability?: Normative Neutrality And Technical Precision, The Role Of The Lawyer In Supranational Social Rights Litigation, Tara J. Melish

Journal Articles

An important debate is currently underway in the inter-American human rights system involving the proper approach litigators, adjudicators, and advocates should take to supranational litigation of economic, social and cultural rights. Centered on questions of jurisdiction and the proper characterization and limits of justiciability, its resolution has tremendous implications for the tools available to on-the-ground advocates, their real-world effectiveness and sustainability in adjudicatory and advocacy contexts alike, and the rationalization of the system's developing jurisprudence over the long-term.

This article book-ends a trilogy of pieces appearing in the NYU Journal of International Law and Politics by two sets of authors, …

Rethinking The "Less As More" Thesis: Supranational Litigation Of Economic, Social And Cultural Rights In The Americas, Tara J. Melish

Journal Articles

In their 2005 law review article Less as More: Rethinking Supranational Litigation of Economic and Social Rights in the Americas, James Cavallaro and Emily Schaffer argue for a "rethinking" of strategies to advance economic, social and cultural rights in the Americas. They posit that to achieve higher rates of real-world protection for such rights, social rights advocates should do two things: first, bring less litigation and, second, frame any marginal litigation that is pursued as violations of classic civil and political rights. According to the authors, this recommended course will increase the "legitimacy" of the litigation and lead to higher …

Taking The Stand: The Lessons Of The Three Men Who Took The Japanese American Internment To Court, Lorraine K. Bannai

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

A Question Of Justice: The Wto, Africa, And Countermeasures For Breaches Of International Trade, 38 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1153 (2005), Nsongurua J. Udombana

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Global Sex Trafficking And The Trafficking Victims Protection Act Of 2000: Legislative Responses To The Problem Of Modern Slavery, Rosy Kandathil

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Human trafficking is becoming the fastest growing criminal activity in the world. Generally, trafficking is defined as the transportation of persons across international borders for labor purposes, by means of force, fraud, or coercion. Commerce directly related to human slavery yields approximately $7-$10 billion a year, trailing only behind drugs and weapons trade for international profit. According to recent congressional findings, over 700,000 human beings are trafficked across international borders each year, including approximately 50,000 women and children into the United States. Women and girl children are the primary targets for sexual exploitation into prostitution, pornography, sex tourism, and other …

Traveling The Boundaries Of Statelessness: Global Passports And Citizenship, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Matthew Hawk

UF Law Faculty Publications

An independent global citizenship without a local component and in the absence of the much-feared global government creates two concerns. One, an individual may imperil the rights of others, without a structure that can impose sanctions for the heinous conduct. Two, an individual's rights may be imperiled, and there may be no entity to provide protection. This essay proposes a model of a formal global citizenship that will alleviate these concerns and prove both practically and theoretically feasible. The model flows from the concept of dual or multiple nationality and offers global citizenship only as an elective nationality. Such citizenship …

Regional Economic Arrangements And The Rule Of Law In The Americas: The Human Rights Face Of Free Trade Agreements, Stephen J. Powell

UF Law Faculty Publications

We have addressed the widespread criticism that international trade rules are insensitive to basic human rights and that globalization has done little with its enormous power to preserve exhaustible natural resources and otherwise promote sustainable development, to alleviate the gap between rich and poor, to encourage states to grant their citizens basic human rights contained in the U.N. Covenant on Human Rights and other treaties, to resolve the often conflicting policies underlying essential human rights and trade goals, and, in general, to integrate trade and critical human rights law on the global front.

Our focus in this Essay is on …

Human Rights And Bioethics: Formulating A Universal Right To Health, Health Care, Or Health Protection?, George P. Smith, Ii

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Codifying, and then implementing, an international right to health, health care, or protection is beset with serious roadblocks--foremost among them being contentious issues of indeterminacy, justiciability, and progressive realization.

Although advanced--and to some degree recognized under the rubric of a social or cultural entitlement within the law of human rights and, more particularly, the U.S. Declaration on Human Rights, together with International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, and presently UNESCO's Draft Declaration on Universal Norms on Bioethics--attainment of such a universal right to …

Direct Vs. Indirect Obligations Of Corporations Under International Law, Carlos Manuel Vázquez

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

International law today addresses the conduct of private corporations in a variety of areas. With very few exceptions, however, international law regulates corporate conduct indirectly--that is, by requiring states to enact and enforce regulations applicable to corporations and other non-state actors. Only a small number of international legal norms--primarily those relating to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and forced labor--apply directly to non-state actors. Scholars have argued forcefully that international law should move in the direction of directly imposing obligations on corporations. These arguments overlook important aspects of the problem. If international legal norms were extended to corporations and backed …

The Right Of States To Repatriate Former Refugees, James C. Hathaway

Articles

Armed conflict often results in the large-scale exodus of refugees into politically and economically fragile neighboring states. The burdens on asylum countries can be extreme, and may only be partly offset by the arrival of international aid and protection resources. Moreover, difficulties inherent in the provision of asylum have been exacerbated in recent years by the increasing disinclination of the wealthier countries that fund the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and most other assistance agencies to meet the real costs of protection. In such circumstances, it is unsurprising that as conflicts wind down, host countries ordinarily seek to …

United Nations Norms On The Responsibilities Of Transnational Corporations And Other Business Enterprises With With Regard To Human Rights: The International Community Asserts Binding Law On The Global Rule Makers, 37 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1205 (2004), Julie Campagna

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Relationship Of Imf Structural Adjustment Programs To Economic, Social, And Cultural Rights: The Argentine Case Revisited, Jason Morgan-Foster

Michigan Journal of International Law

Perhaps as important as what this Note is, is what it is not: Economic theories abound concerning the causes of the Argentine crisis, some of which directly analyze the IMF's causal connection to the Argentine catastrophe. A Note on this subject would be one of economic theory, not international human rights law. While at certain points in the analysis of the human rights implications of SAPs, it will become difficult to avoid some speculation of economic theory, it is not the primary focus of this Note. Rather than implicate the IMF as part of the cause of the crisis, this …

Palestinian Refugees And Their Legal Status: Rights, Politics, And Implications For A Just Solution, Susan M. Akram

Faculty Scholarship

The Palestinian refugee problem is one of the longest-lasting refugee crises in the world——now exceeding fifty-three years——without a real solution in sight. Although at its core a political problem, the Palestinian refugee crisis is also a problem of legal distortion: Palestinian refugees fall into a legal lacuna that sets them outside minimal international protections available for all other refugee groups in the world. This paper provides background to the legal anomaly that sets Palestinian refugees apart; discusses the legal, practical, and political implications of that status; and proposes a framework and mechanisms aimed at promoting a rights-based solution for the …

Dealing With International Aids: A Case Study In The Challenges Of Globalization, 35 J. Marshall L. Rev. 381 (2002), John G. Culhane

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Who Should Watch Over Refugee Law?, James C. Hathaway

Articles

We simply cannot afford to sell out the future of refugee protection in a hasty bid to establish something that looks, more or less, like an oversight mechanism for the Refugee Convention.

Feeling The Heat Of Human Rights Branding: Bringing Transnational Corporations Within The International Human Rights Fence, Robert Mccorquodale

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Human Rights Standards and the Responsibility of Transnational Corporations edited by Michael K. Addo. The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1999. 384pp.

Law, Culture, And Equality - Human Rights' Influence On Domestic Norms: The Case Of Women In The Americas, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

This essay originated with a panel on Alternatives to the Regular Courts that took place during the first Legal and Policy Issues in the Americas conference sponsored by the University of Florida Levin College of Law. Some of the possible alternatives to the courts, in the trade field, that have been discussed include mediation, arbitration, constitutional courts and binational dispute panels. This essay reflects upon another alternative to domestic courts that progressively and increasingly is also being invoked in the trade context: international and regional human rights regimes.

I specifically will review the Inter-American Human Rights System to ascertain the …

Human Rights And International Mutual Legal Assistance: Resolving The Tension, Robert Currie

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

If indeed, as has been said, "it is fashionable nowadays to discuss the problems that arise from the application of general human rights to extradition", then it is also true that human rights concerns are increasingly being raised with regard to other forms of international criminal co-operation as well. As compliance with international human rights norms has become the subject of greater scrutiny by both States and international adjudicative bodies, concerns have been raised regarding their application to the various processes by which States aid each other in combating transnational crime. Prosecuting authorities are presented with problems of how the …

The Issue Of The Legal Validity Of Using Economic Sanctions To Enforce Human Rights, Thomas Hailu

LLM Theses and Essays

The international legal regime as it pertains to human rights is neither as established nor as definitive as it appears. It suffers from many disadvantages, the first and most important of which is the fact that the international legal regime has never been capable of effectively enforcing its rules or instituting appropriate remedies for its breaches. Some states have attempted to make up for this inability on behalf of international law by undertaking an enforcement mechanism either unilaterally or multilaterally; economic sanctions are often regarded as valuable tools of enforcement to be used against countries which are allegedly engaged in …

(Dis)Assembling Rights Of Women Workers Along The Global Assembly Line: Human Rights And The Garment Industry Symposium: Political Lawyering: Conversations On Progressive Social Change, Laura Ho, Catherine Powell, Leti Volpp

Faculty Scholarship

Some observers would like to explain away sweatshops as immigrants exploiting other immigrants, as "cultural, or as the importation of a form of exploitation that normally does not happen here but occurs elsewhere, in the "Third World." While the public was shocked by the discovery at El Monte, garment workers and garment worker advocates have for years been describing abuses in the garment industry and have ascribed responsibility for such abuses to manufacturers and retailers who control the industry. Sweatshops, like the one in El Monte, are a home-grown problem with peculiarly American roots. Since the inception of the garment …

Anti-Essentialism, Relativism, And Human Rights , Tracy E. Higgins

Faculty Scholarship

Confronted with the challenge of cultural relativism, feminism faces divergent paths, neither of which seems to lead out of the woods of patriarchy. The first path, leading to simple tolerance of cultural difference, is too broad. To follow it would require feminists to ignore pervasive limits on women's freedom in the name of an autonomy that exists for women in theory only. The other path, leading to objective condemnation of cultural practices, is too narrow. To follow it would require feminists to dismiss the culturally distinct experiences of women as false consciousness. Yet to forge an alternative path is difficult, …

International Health Law, International Travel Restrictions, And The Human Rights Of Persons With Aids And Hiv, 1 Touro J. Transnat'l L. 285 (1990), Michael L. Closen, Mark E. Wojcik

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Index, Michigan Journal Of International Law

Michigan Journal of International Law

Index of terms used in this volume.

International Human Rights Forums: A Means Of Recourse For Refugees, Amy Young-Anawaty

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article explores the possibility of using some of the other international agreements to secure the rights of asylum seekers. These treaties belong to the relatively new body of international law- human rights law- which gives broad protection to individuals everywhere regardless of status. In a significant development for international law, 12 institutions and procedures have been established internationally and regionally to monitor the enforcement of these human rights agreements. Several of these institutions, by virtue of treaty or statute, even possess the competence to hear complaints about states' violations of human rights. Insofar as the claims of refugees fall …

Exiting From The Soviet Union: Emigrés Or Refugees?, Zvi Gitelman

Michigan Journal of International Law

One of the most dramatic developments in the Soviet Union during the past decade has been the mass emigration of citizens, mostly of Jewish, German, and Armenian nationality. Emigration from the USSR had not been permitted, except for a tiny handful, since the early 1920s, although in the aftermath of World War II several hundred thousand Soviet citizens managed to remain in the West. These were either prisoners of war, slave laborers, Nazi collaborators, or simply people who took advantage of wartime chaos to flee the Soviet Union. But between 1971 and the end of 1980, over 300,000 Soviet citizens …

Refugees And Refugee Law In A World In Transition, Atle Grahl-Madsen

Michigan Journal of International Law

In country after country a political polarization is growing, a movement away from the center-to the right and to the left. In states with a less than stable political structure, coups d'etat and strongmen are commonplace. International law is broken as a matter of convenience. The media are filled with news of interventions, aggressions, even warfare. Human rights are frequently trodden under foot. And we are faced with a rising wave of xenophobia.

Entry And Exclusion Of Refugees: The Obligations Of States And The Protection Function Of The Office Of The United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees, Guy S. Goodwin-Gill

Michigan Journal of International Law

Refugee problems today tend to have one factor in common-the huge numbers of people involved. But whether it is a case of one or of a mass of individuals, each arriving asylum seeker represents a challenge to established principles of state sovereignty. International jurists once wrote of the free movement of persons between nations, unhampered by passport and visa control. Since the late nineteenth century, however, the principle most widely accepted has been that each state retains exclusive control- an absolute discretion- over the admission to its territory of foreign nationals, refugees or not. Although in practice many countries concede …