Human Rights Law Commons^™

Liberty And Justice For All? Protecting The Right To Privacy For Incapacitated Individuals: The Need For Comprehensive Sterilization Legislation In All Fifty States, Mindy K. Fersel

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note examines the intersection of disability rights and reproductive rights, highlighting the legal confusion and human rights violations that arise from the lack of comprehensive federal guidance on the sterilization of individuals with disabilities. While landmark Supreme Court decisions like Griswold v. Connecticut and Roe v. Wade established constitutional protections for reproductive autonomy, the legacy of cases such as Buck v. Bell and inconsistent state statutes continue to undermine the rights of individuals with disabilities. The article argues that the absence of clear legislative frameworks leaves vulnerable populations at risk of exploitation and discrimination, necessitating urgent reform to ensure …

Taking The Bloody Linen Out Of The Closet: Menstrual Hygiene As A Priority For Achieving Gender Equality, Inga T. Winkler, Virginia Roaf

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

Regular menstruation signals a woman's health and fertility. menstruation is surrounded by shame, secrecy, embarrassment, fear, humiliation, silence, taboo, and stigma. Linked to this taboo, many cultural and religious norms-often grounded in patriarchal assumptions-seek to prevent contact with menstruating women and girls in order to avoid 'contamination' or 'becoming impure'. To some extent, this perception of menstruation is a paradox, given that motherhood is glorified. However, menstruation is not perceived as feminine', and it does not conform to the stereotypical role and behavior of women. Such stereotypes require women to be beautiful and beautified, deodorized and fresh, not bloody and …

Guilty Of Homelessness: Evaluating The Criminalization Of Homelessness Through A Human Rights Framework, Cristina M. Semi

Departmental Honors Projects

Several international treaties and declarations affirm adequate housing as a fundamental human right. However, the United States, while a signatory to several of these agreements, does not recognize this right. Homelessness violates the right to housing. Moreover, homelessness often subjects individuals to additional rights violations. These additional violations often occur because governments criminalize homelessness.

Public order laws that criminalize basic life-sustaining behaviors, such as sitting, lying, and sleeping in public spaces, violate several constitutional rights when applied to unsheltered individuals experiencing homelessness. Devoid of any accommodation aside from the public streets, such individuals must necessarily perform the prohibited conduct in …

When Speech Isn't Free: Legal Barriers And Consequences Of Reporting Sexual Violence, Kevin M. Fleming

Departmental Honors Projects

Incidents of sexual violence continue to be a serious problem for society. Likewise, acts of sexual violence impose severe consequences for survivors. The consequences initially begin at the onset of the survivor’s journey to psychological recovery following the traumatic sexual assault. The consequences take on a unique set of characteristics when the survivor attempts to use the justice system to confront the perpetrator who committed the offense. These characteristics can transform an adversarial process into an isolated battle for the survivor. In the worst cases, the justice system empowers individuals who wish to silence survivors with free speech restrictions instead …

Table Of Contents, Public Interest Law Reporter

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Fixing Education Spending In Illinois Through Efficient Targeted Funding, Conor Desmond

Public Interest Law Reporter

Educational attainment has been tied to income levels, employment, health, and numerous other benefits. Economic research indicates that if we focus our funding on programs targeting children from birth to age five, the returns on the public investment will result in higher returns than if it was invested in the open market. In fact, fifteen US States spent over $400 million on pre-k education alone in 2013. Illinois spent approximately $300 million in the 2014 Fiscal year. Through this paper, it will be shown that through effective funding of programs that develop cognitive skills in children aged three to four, …

To Whom Should The Job Of Solving Inequity In School Funding Schemes Fall?, Calli Leigh Burnett

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Illinois School Funding Reform: An Overview Of District Variance, Jordan Fries

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

A Step In The Right Direction, But Sb16 Bobby Otter Comes Up Short, Ralph Martire, Bobby Otter

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

¡Peligro! Si Usted No Entiende La Etiqueta, Busque A Alguien Para Que Se La Explique A Usted En Detalle: The Need For International And Domestic Implementation Of Bilingual Pesticide Labeling To Enhance Protection Of Migrant Farmworkers In Florida, Vanessa Calcano Thomas

Florida A & M University Law Review

No abstract provided.

"Where Has Their Innocence Gone?" Addressing Child Sex Tourism, Cheryl Page

Journal Publications

If someone thinks that slavery is a thing of the past, they are simply unaware of what is going on around them. It is amazingly easy to “buy” a child. Given the incredible advances in technology and the pervasiveness of the Internet, one could obtain practically any product with a simple click of a mouse. While these technological advances have made life easier in many respects, it has also made it easier for sex predators to have access to buy and sell children. These children are exploited sexually just as easily as ordering a pizza. Children around the world are …

Mental Retardation And The Death Penalty: The Need For An International Standard Defining Mental Retardation, Allison Freedman

Faculty Scholarship

I. INTRODUCTION

Within the international community, there is a consensus against the imposition of the death penalty on individuals with mental retardation. The United States Supreme Court and several international human rights bodies have recognized that individuals with mental retardation should not be subject to the death penalty. Additionally, most countries maintain that individuals who are insane or mentally retarded are shielded from execution. However, reports of individuals with mental retardation who are facing the death penalty continue to surface.

One reason for this may be the lack of an international standard defining mental retardation. There is currently great variation …

Separation Anxiety? Rethinking The Role Of Morality In International Human Rights Lawmaking, Vijay M. Padmanabhan

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The conventional accounts of international law do a poor job accounting for human rights. International legal positivists generally argue that there is a strict separation of law and morality, with no role for moral obligation in the validation of law. But human rights practice reveals many situations in which it appears that morality is validating legal obligation. Process theorists recognize an intrinsic role for the values underlying international law in understanding its commands. But they embrace a vision of law as dialogue that fails to protect the right to self-determination that is a core value of human rights.

This Article …

The Judge And The Drone, Justin Deystone

Publications

Among the most characteristic issues in modern jurisprudence is the distinction between adjudication and legislation. In the some accounts, a judge's role in deciding a particular controversy is highly constrained and limited to the application of preexisting law. Whereas legislation is inescapably political, adjudication requires at least some form of impersonal neutrality. In various ways over the past century, theorists have pressed this conventional account, complicating the conceptual underpinnings of the distinction between law-application and lawmaking. This Article contributes to this literature on the nature of adjudication through the resuscitation of a structuralist mode of legal interpretation. In the structuralist …

Memory, Truth And Justice: A Contextualisation Of The Uses Of Photographs Of The Victims Of State Terrorism In Argentina, 1972-2012: Communicating An Intersection Of Art, Politics And History, Richard Askam

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Photographs of the victims of Argentine state terrorism from 1972 to 1983, and most prominently those of the detained-disappeared victims of the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional dictatorship (1976-1983), have had a significant role in elucidating the demands of human rights activists since the aftermath of the Trelew Massacre in 1972. In this thesis I examine the role of photographs of victims of state terrorism in the construction of unofficial, or counter, narratives critical of those produced by two dictatorships and by elected democratic administrations in the demand for truth and justice, and in the construction of social memory. I discuss …

Sex Trafficking Laws In East Tennessee, Cheryl Page

Journal Publications

There was a time in U.S. history when opponents of the trans-Atlantic slave trade had to convince the watching world that slavery was horrid and against the laws of humanity. Today, modern-day abolitionists are attempting to make a sleeping world aware that slavery still exists. There are approximately 27 million people currently enslaved in the world today. It is a problem that our own community cannot ignore, because slavery exists in East Tennessee and is thriving. Slavery in East Tennessee takes the form of sex trafficking, in which women and children are bought and sold as property for the sexual …

Preface: Policy-Oriented Jurisprudence And Contemporary American Legal Education, Tai-Heng Cheng

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

We The People: Each And Every One, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In his book series, We the People, Bruce Ackerman offers a rich description of how constitutional law comes to be changed by social movements. He also makes some normative claims about “popular sovereignty,” “popular consent,” “higher law,” and “higher-lawmaking.” In this essay, I examine these claims and find them to be both highly under-theorized and deeply problematic. Ackerman’s own presentation of what he considers to be an informal process of constitutional amendment illustrates the importance of formality in protecting the rights retained by the people. And he assumes a collective conception of popular sovereignty without considering the serious normative …

New Mexico Water Law Capsules, Stephanie Tsosie

Water Matters!

This article contains a list some of the key cases decided in the state and federal courts of New Mexico with very brief descriptions of the rulings. The finalized cases have been arranged by topic. This chapter is intended to be a quick and handy reference guide and not a thorough summary of the facts and law of each case. This year we have also included a list of water law statutes.

Water Conservation, Consuelo Bokum

Water Matters!

New Mexico always has had periods of water shortages, some far more long lasting and devastating than others. As warming temperature and changing weather patterns continue to develop, the likelihood that water shortages—like those felt throughout the state from 2010 through 2013—will occur with greater frequency. These changes can and have caused significant economic and environmental damage, and the risk of more harm will not improve unless we improve our water management significant.