Human Rights Law Commons^™

"How Can You Be Against Children's Rights?", Margrét María Sigurðardóttir

Societies Without Borders

No abstract provided.

15 Years As A Public Defender Of Children's Rights In Greece, George Moschos

Societies Without Borders

No abstract provided.

A Champion For Children, Reidar Hjermann Phd

Societies Without Borders

No abstract provided.

Independent Children's Rights Institutions As Facilitators Of Dialogue Between Children And The State: An Opportunity For Mutual Empowerment?, Sara Imanian Phd, Nigel Patrick Thomas Phd

Societies Without Borders

The role of independent children’s rights institutions is a multifaceted one, which can lead them to be pulled in many different directions. For most such institutions the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) provides a fundamental underpinning for their work, and many institutions place particular emphasis on Article 12 and on children’s rights to participation more generally. At the same time a principal focus of activity is on influencing law and policy in their national jurisdictions. In this paper we explore some ways in which these separate objectives can be combined in ways that challenge, or at least …

Independent Children's Human Rights Institutions 'In The Middle' Between Local And Global Perspective, Roberta Ruggiero Phd, Karl Hanson Phd

Societies Without Borders

Independent children’s human rights institutions (ICHRIs) developed rapidly worldwide over the last three decades. Their implementation was aided by the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the diffusion of participatory practices, and the growth of children’s rights advocacy. In addition, ICHRIs are supported by the emergence and subsequent consolidation of children’s rights studies as a field within academia, and the increase of political will to further develop evidence-based policies dedicated to children. This article will explore the positioning of ICHRIs between the local and the global, especially regarding trends towards decentralisation of State structures as …

Children's Ombudspersons In The United States, Brian Gran Phd

Societies Without Borders

In the one country whose national government has failed to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, offices of children’s ombudspersons have been established across the United States. This essay will describe these offices, their work and independence, and how strengthening these offices will lead to stronger enforcement of children’s rights. This essay will follow up on a proposal Howard Davidson of the American Bar Association made to establish a national office of children’s ombudsperson for the United States.

Institution Of Dowry In India: A Theoretical Inquiry, Suparna Soni Phd

Societies Without Borders

Originally conceived as a voluntary marriage gift, dowry has developed into an obligatory payment by the bride’s family to the groom’s family. Moreover, the institution of dowry has persisted even in the face of legal prohibition. Though women substantially contribute to the economic wellbeing of a family, the legitimization of dowry typically reflects the cultural bias of the marriage market, in which a woman’s value is either discounted or taken for granted. Ironically, existing studies also tend to implicitly accept this prevailing cultural bias of the marriage market. The existing literature can be categorized into two groups. While some studies …

A Logistic Regression Analysis Of Life Satisfaction Amongst African Immigrants In Hamilton, Canada, Boadi Agyekum

Societies Without Borders

Many minority immigrants currently face severe human rights violation through discrimination and racism, influencing how they rate their life satisfaction in their host destinations. This paper examines the factors that affect African immigrants’ life satisfaction in a mid-sized Canadian city. Using a combination of descriptive and multivariate methods applied on a sample survey (n=236) conducted in Hamilton, Ontario, this article investigates socio-demographic and health-related factors that predict life satisfaction amongst African immigrants, specifically, Ghanaians and Somalis. Findings suggest that Ghanaian immigrants reported greater life satisfaction than their Somali counterparts. People with residency in Canada over 10 years are more likely …

Experimenting With Credibility In Refugee Adjudication: Gaydar, Sean Rehaag, Hilary Evans Cameron

Articles & Book Chapters

Canada offers refugee protection to sexual minorities facing persecution abroad. While success rates for sexual minority refugee claims have generally been higher than the overall average at Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board, hundreds of such claims are nonetheless turned down each year. The most common reason for denying these claims is that assertions about the claimants’ sexual orientations are determined not to be credible. Scholars have raised concerns about how such credibility determinations are made. This article contributes to the critical literature in this area by exploring sexual minority refugee claim credibility assessments through an experimental study involving simulated refugee …

The Political Economy Of Nigeria’S Digital Tax Experiment, Okanga Ogbu Okanga

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In January 2020 when I first read Nigeria’s Finance Act 2019, one of the instinctive questions that came to me was “is Nigeria serious about taxing digital trade now”? There were a few reasons for this skepticism. First, the Act seeks to tax nonresident companies (NRCs) that have a “significant economic presence” (SEP) in Nigeria but then delegates the definition of that pivotal phrase. Second, I questioned how Nigeria can enforce/administer this unilateral tax, which is payable by companies outside its borders. Third, I imagined that Nigeria’s unilateral attempt to tax digital trade could undermine relations with a strategic …

Government Of Thailand & Chaiwat Limlikhitaksorn V. Wuth Boonlert & Samak Donnapee, Human Rights Institute, Lionel Blackman

Human Rights Institute

In 2019, Samak Donnapee, a retired forestry officer, and Wuth Boonlert, an indigenous human rights advocate, were prosecuted and tried for criminal defamation. The charges, brought by a government officer, Chaiwat Limlikhit-aksorn, (in his private capacity) and the Public Prosecutor, relate to Facebook posts by Samak Donnapee. The Prosecution alleged that the Facebook posts suggested that government employee Chaiwat Limlikhit-aksorn owned land that unlawfully encroached onto a national park that is also traditionally indigenous land. Wuth Boonlert was accused of sharing one of these posts with no further commentary. None of the posts named Chaiwat Limlikhit-aksorn.

Chaiwat Limlikhit-aksorn, a senior …

Incorporating Free, Prior And Informed Consent (Fpic) Into Investment Approval Processes, Kelly Dudine, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Investment approval processes are the gateway through which governments set the agenda for their country’s investment environment. Yet too often these processes fail to incorporate meaningful requirements regarding participation in decision-making by Indigenous and other affected communities, increasing the risk of under-performing and conflict-ridden investments.

Enabling meaningful participation by rights holders and obtaining and maintaining their Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) throughout different investment approval processes can help governments to fulfill their legal obligations, mitigate financial and political risk, and, ultimately, attract more sustainable land-based investments.

Featuring concrete guidance and drawing on case studies from Kenya, Liberia, Mexico, Peru, …

Modern Provisions In Investment Treaties, Jesse Coleman

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Governments are pursuing substantive and procedural reform of the international investment regime in recognition that there are fundamental, systemic, and interrelated concerns about current approaches to investment governance, and that current approaches have failed to meet their purported objectives.

A vast majority of the 1,023 publicly-known treaty-based claims have been brought under “old-generation” treaties. In 2018, for example, 60% of such claims were brought under treaties originally concluded in the 1990s or earlier, and all but one was filed under a pre-2011 treaty. These old-generation treaties include vague and far-reaching obligations for states, generally do not include any reference to …

Submission To Bonsucro Re Production Standard V5 (2019-21), Nami Patel, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In July 2020, CCSI made a formal submission to Bonsucro, an international multi-stakeholder initiative and certification scheme concerned with promoting sustainable sugar cane production. The submission formed part of consultations for Bonsucro’s draft Production Standard version 5. CCSI’s submission focused on challenges associated with implementing, and auditing for compliance with, three aspects of Bonsucro’s draft standard, namely:

• Obtaining the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of Indigenous and traditional communities when establishing or expanding sugar production operations
• Implementing transparent and participatory processes to assess, monitor, and evaluate the environmental and social impacts of new and existing projects; and
• Establishing accessible …

Complicity In The Perversion Of Justice: The Role Of Lawyers In Eroding The Rule Of Law In The Third Reich, Cynthia Fountaine

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

A fundamental tenet of the legal profession is that lawyers and judges are uniquely responsible—individually and collectively—for protecting the Rule of Law. This Article considers the failings of the legal profession in living up to that responsibility during Germany’s Third Reich. The incremental steps used by the Nazis to gain control of the German legal system—beginning as early as 1920 when the Nazi Party adopted a party platform that included a plan for a new legal system—turned the legal system on its head and destroyed the Rule of Law. By failing to uphold the integrity and independence of the profession, …

See This Empty Cage Now Corrode: The International Human Rights And Comparative Law Implications Of Sexually Violent Predator Laws, Michael L. Perlin, Heather Ellis Cucolo

Articles & Chapters

From every perspective, our sexually violent predator (SVPA) laws are a miserable failure. In this paper, we present a new approach: a turn to international human rights law as a source of rights for the population in question, and a consideration of the matter from the perspective of comparative law.

To briefly summarize, many nations have enacted laws that both mirror and contradict early developments in United States civil commitment jurisprudence. In these nations, though, challenges to community containment and preventive detention laws have been more successful when based upon international human rights law. Also, registry notification is generally far …

An Exploration Of Factors That Motivate Human Rights Workers Working In Areas With Armed Conflict In The Philippines, John Francis Hernandez, Jan Nikko Dela Paz, Ethan Cedric Chua, Mendiola Teng-Calleja

Psychology Department Faculty Publications

This study examined the experiences and motivation of human rights workers (HRWs) in areas affected by armed conflict in the Philippines. Six human rights workers from Karapatan responded to semi-structured interviews. Karapatan is a Philippine NGO whose mission is to uphold human rights and document instances of human rights violations. The results described the risks experienced by human rights workers in conflict afflicted areas in the country. Intrinsic factors that motivate HRWs to continuously engage in human rights work despite facing adverse situations include altruism; belief that they are advocating a just cause; feeling a sense of fulfillment; and strongly …

Literature Review: How U.S. Government Documents Are Addressing The Increasing National Security Implications Of Artificial Intelligence, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

This article emphasizes the increasing importance of artificial intelligence (AI) in military and national security policy making. It seeks to inform interested individuals about the proliferation of publicly accessible U.S. government and military literature on this multifaceted topic. An additional objective of this endeavor is encouraging greater public awareness of and participation in emerging public policy debate on AI's moral and national security implications..

Impact Statements: Giving A Voice To Sexual Assault Survivors, Anamika Roy

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

The Individual Right Against Binary Identify, Colin Pochie

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.