Human Rights Law Commons^™

The Politics Of Freedom Of Expression In Turkey, Danya Hamad

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Reckoning: Dialogue About Racism, Antiracists, And Business & Human Rights, Erika George, Jena Martin, Tara Van Ho

Faculty Articles

Video of George Floyd's death sparked global demonstrations and prompted individuals, communities and institutions to grapple with their own roles in embedding and perpetuating racist structures. The raison d'tre of Business and Human Rights (BHR) is to tackle structural corporate impediments to the universal realization of human rights. Yet, racism, one of the most obvious of such barriers, has been a blind spot for BHR. While the field has contended with gender inequality, there have only been tokenistic nods to intersectional harms caused by business activities. The failure to address racism seriously undermines both the promise of BHR generally and …

Defining The Relationships: "Cause, Contribute, And Directly Linked To" In The Un Guiding Principles On Business And Human Rights, Tara Van Ho

Faculty Articles

According to the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, businesses owe remediation when they "cause" or "contribute to" a human rights impact, but not when they are only "directly linked to" it. These terms determine when a victim is entitled to seek remediation from a business, but they have largely been ignored in existing scholarship. This article investigates the meaning of "cause, contribute, and directly linked to", revealing confusion and uncertainty before proposing a new system, built on existing authoritative guidance, for interpreting the terms and determining when businesses owe remediation for their human rights impacts.

Coercive Interventions In Pregnancy: Law And Ethics, Debra Debruin, Mary Faith Marshall

Journal of Health Care Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Social Justice As A Necessary Guide To Public Health Disaster Response, Stephen S. Hanson

Journal of Health Care Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Covid-19 On A Damaged System: How The Pandemic Exacerbated The Violation Of International Human Rights In The United States Immigration Detention Facilities, Alyson Sutton

Law in a Post-Pandemic World

This blog post highlights several issues within immigration detention facilities in the United States that violate International Human Rights Laws and how the pandemic further exacerbated them.

Submission To The Toronto Police Services Board’S Use Of New Artificial Intelligence Technologies Policy- Leaf And The Citizen Lab, Suzie Dunn, Kristen Mj Thomasen, Kate Robertson, Pam Hrick, Cynthia Khoo, Rosel Kim, Ngozi Okidegbe, Christopher Parsons

Reports & Public Policy Documents

We write as a group of experts in the legal regulation of artificial intelligence (AI), technology-facilitated violence, equality, and the use of AI systems by law enforcement in Canada. We have experience working within academia and legal practice, and are affiliated with LEAF and the Citizen Lab who support this letter.

We reviewed the Toronto Police Services Board Use of New Artificial Intelligence Technologies Policy and provide comments and recommendations focused on the following key observations:

1. Police use of AI technologies must not be seen as inevitable
2. A commitment to protecting equality and human rights must be integrated …

Adult Capacity And Decision Making Act Review, Sheila Wildeman

Reports & Public Policy Documents

The Adult Capacity and Decision-making Act is for adults who can’t make some or all decisions for themselves because of a learning disability, mental illness, brain injury or other reasons. This law respects the rights of adults to make their own decisions, while allowing someone else to help make important decisions for them when they can’t.

You can read the results of the review in the Report on the Review of the Adult Capacity and Decision-making Act.

In 2021, government consulted with Nova Scotians about the Adult Capacity and Decision-making Act. The results of the consultation informed the review. You …

Necessary Coverage For Authentic Identity: How Bostock Made Title Vii The Strongest Protection Against Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Denial Of Gender-Affirming Medical Care., Jennifer A. Knackert

Marquette Law Review

In June 2020, the United States Supreme Court held that Title VII

protection from discrimination on the basis of sex extended to LGBTQ+

employees. The Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia decision dealt with three

separate cases where LGBTQ+ employees had been fired from their jobs based

on either their sexual orientation or gender identity. While the shared issue in

these cases had to do with employee termination, the textualist argument

presented by the Court leads many legal scholars to believe that the holding

would be applicable to other areas of employment discrimination covered by

Title VII such as employer-sponsored healthcare …

Duress In Immigration Law, Elizabeth A. Keyes

Seattle University Law Review

The doctrine of duress is common to other bodies of law, but the application of the duress doctrine is both unclear and highly unstable in immigration law. Outside of immigration law, a person who commits a criminal act out of well-placed fear of terrible consequences is different than a person who willingly commits a crime, but American immigration law does not recognize this difference. The lack of clarity leads to certain absurd results and demands reimagining, redefinition, and an unequivocal statement of the significance of duress in ascertaining culpability. While there are inevitably some difficult lines to be drawn in …

From The Spectacular To The Everyday: International Law, Violence And The Agenda For Women, Peace And Security, Christine M. Chinkin

Book Chapters

This article looks at the conceptions of violence within WPS and thus within these diverse international legal regimes as they relate to women and girls. It first examines the regulation of inter-state violence, both legal recourse to the use of force and constraints upon the means and methods of warfare. It then outlines how state obligations to prevent and punish violence against women were brought into human rights law in the early 1990s, primarily by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee). The WPS resolutions are then summarised, focusing on provisions for the prevention of …

Taking Exception To Assessments Of American Exceptionalism: Why The United States Isn't Such An Outlier On Free Speech, Evelyn Aswad

Faculty Articles

One of the most significant challenges to human freedom in the digital age involves the sheer power of private companies over speech and the fact that power is untethered to existing free speech principles. Heated debates are ongoing about what standards social media companies should adopt to regulate speech on their platforms. Some have argued that global social media companies, such as Facebook and Twitter, should align their speech codes with the international human rights law standards of the United Nations (“U.N.”). Others have countered that U.S.-based companies should apply First Amendment standards. Much of this debate is premised on …

Destruction Of Cultural Heritage As A Violation Of Human Rights: Application Of The Alien Tort Statute, Emily T. Behzadi

Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, armed conflicts around the world have occasioned widespread destruction of cultural heritage sites. From the demolition of Palmyra in the Syrian Arab Republic to the destruction of Sufri Shrines in Mali, the intentional despoliation of these important cultural heritage sites is not only an uncontroverted violation of international law but a form of cultural genocide. The destruction of cultural heritage profoundly impacts citizenry on a local, national, and global level. Cultural heritage is an expression of fundamental and universally recognized human rights, including rights to freedom of expression, freedom of thought, freedom of conscience and religion, and …

Table Of Contents

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents.

'Act Normal Or Leave': When Law And Culture Collide, Heidi R. Gilchrist

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Sex Discrimination In Healthcare: Section 1557 And Lgbtq Rights After Bostock, Amy Post, Ashley Stephens, Valarie K. Blake

Law Faculty Scholarship

Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) banned sex discrimination in health care. In June of 2020, however, the Trump administration finalized a rule that explicitly removed sexual orientation and gender identity from Section 1557’s safeguards. That same month, the Supreme Court held that sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination are forms of sex discrimination for purposes of Title VII employment discrimination in Bostock v. Clayton County. Following the Court’s decision in Bostock, this Article argues that sex discrimination under Section 1557 necessarily encompasses gender identity and sexual orientation discrimination.

Nature's Rights, Christiana Ochoa

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Do forests and rivers possess standing to sue? Do mountain ranges have substantive rights? A recent issue of The Judges’ Journal, a preeminent publication for American judges, alerts the bench, bar, and policymakers to the rapidly emerging “rights of nature,” predicting that state and federal courts will increasingly see claims asserting such rights. Within the United States, Tribal law has begun to legally recognize the rights of rivers, mountains, and other natural features. Several municipalities across the United States have also acted to recognize the rights of nature. United States courts have not yet addressed the issue, though in 2017, …

Covid-19’S Impact On Human Trafficking: The Invisible Industry In New Hampshire, Brittany Dunkle

Honors Theses and Capstones

Human trafficking is a modern-day form of slavery that operates on the premise of exploitation, such as forced prostitution and labor, and organ trafficking. This is a global industry resulting in billions. Despite the current global pandemic, COVID-19, putting a halt to many livelihoods around the world, human trafficking will persist, but in conditions that are potentially more harmful for the victims. Victims of trafficking are in an increasingly vulnerable position, and it is important to establish possible mechanisms to protect as many victims and potential victims as possible. Typical risk factors (i.e., poverty, state’s interest vs. individual interest, unemployment) …

In The Name Of Public Health: Misoprostol And The New Criminalization Of Abortion In Brazil, Mariana Prandini Assis, Joanna Erdman

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This article explores the criminal regulation of misoprostol as a controlled drug in Brazil as a new form of abortion criminalization. A qualitative analysis of Brazilian case law shows how the courts use a public health rhetoric of unsafe abortion to criminalize the distribution of misoprostol in the informal sector. Rather than an invention of the local bench, this judicial rhetoric reflects global public health discourse and policy on unsafe abortion and the double life of misoprostol as both an essential medicine and a controlled drug. In contrast to previous studies, the article shows that abortion criminalization is not the …

Book Review: Amal Clooney & Philippa Webb, The Right To A Fair Trial In International Law (Oup, 2020), Robert Currie

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Good lawyering, then, is required to maintain the fairness of trials, but good lawyering requires effective tools that can assist counsel in helping the contours of fairness be made apparent and cognizable before domestic courts. Translating international human rights law for the purposes of domestic application, in particular, is by no means an easy task, but this new text – The Right to a Fair Trial in International Law – provides lawyers with a formidable resource.