Human Rights Law Commons^™

Cruel And Unusual Punishments And The Constitutional Status Of The Idea Of Progress, R. George Wright

FIU Law Review

To this point, we have developed some idea of what progress might have meant to the constitutional Framers, ratifiers, and later judges. We need not attempt the fruitless task of doing any precise head count of the variations of the concrete meaning, perceived likelihood, or value of progress among those parties. Doubtless some persons were more optimistic than others.178 But we need only assume that enough constitutional Framers, ratifiers, and judicial interpreters sufficiently shared any mainstream understanding of progress. Any such constitutional legitimacy of the idea, or the multiple ideas, of progress licenses the language of progress embraced in Trop.

Comparing Access To Land: Drawing Parallels In Diverse Jurisdictions, Helena Alviar Garcia, Anamaría Muñoz Rincón

FIU Law Review

By exploring the intersection between transitional justice initiatives and transformative constitutionalism, this article proposes that fruitful comparative study covering similarities and differences between diverse definitions of property—challenges and possibilities of accessing it and the main characteristics of the disputes over it—in four jurisdictions can be advanced. A close examination of the classic liberal paradigm framing the transitional process reveals the ways in which a progressive and justice-driven understanding of property falls short in all the countries considered. To examine this, we look at how property clauses, substantively and procedurally, are construed in transformative constitutions sitting at the heart of the …

Leaning Into Absence: Lessons From Kony, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

This article begins with the confirmation of charges decisions undertaken by the International Criminal Court in the Kony case. These proceedings struggled with the reality of in absentia. This article addresses the high absentee rate among individuals against whom the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants and notes the stark presence of absence in the ICC’s work as well as within the enforcement of international criminal law at large. This article suggests that international criminal lawyers lean into the prevalence of absence and reboot predominant collective thinking. One path forward is to truly and warmly embrace transitional …

Rescued Before He Was Born – Dan Subotnik’S Journey In Utero Out Of Nazi-Occupied Europe, Olivia Mattis

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Elusive Nexus Standard: Differing Approaches To The Asylum Nexus Standard As Applied To Religious Persecution Perpetrated By Gangs, Chloe Schalit

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

In 2015, Ms. Odalis Mireida Chicas-Machado, the secretary of an evangelical church in El Salvador, started getting harassed by members of the MS-13 gang during her walks to and from the church. Chicas-Machado believed that the harassment began because the gang considered her to be an enemy due to her work spreading the message of God to young people who otherwise might have joined the gang. Approximately one year after the harassment commenced, gang members threatened Chicas-Machado with death if she refused to alert the gang when police cars drove by a local store. The gang sought out Chicas-Machado for …

Who Makes The Jury? Demographics And Decision-Making In The Jury Process., Ana B. Pons

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Within the American judicial system, juries have played a central role in promoting representation and fairness in the courtroom. However, limited information exists on whether prosecutorial decisions during jury selection, jury composition, or jury behavior differ based on the sex, race/ethnicity, type of case, political ideology, or geographic location of potential jurors. Following PRISMA guidelines, this scoping review synthesizes 48 peer-reviewed articles published between the 1940s and 2026 to examine whether prosecutorial decision-making and jury outcomes vary based on the sex, race/ethnicity, type of case, political ideology, or geographic location of potential jurors. Findings indicated that men are disproportionately selected …

The Price Of Labor: The Kafala System And Human Rights Violations, Susana El Souki El Assal

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The present research analyzes the Kafala sponsorship system and how it impacts the rights and lives of migrant workers in Middle Eastern and Arab Gulf countries. The Kafala system connects a worker's legal status to their employer, providing companies with significant power over their employees' occupations, movements, and ability to leave the nation. Although some governments as well as businesses maintain that the system promotes economic growth and provides important labor, many studies reveal that it can result in exploitation, such as passport seizure, postponed wages, unsafe working conditions, and reduced freedom. The objective of this study is to understand …

Beyond The Rings: Housing Inequalities In Olympic Host Cities, Audrey Hansen

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

The note argues that hosting the Olympic Games consistently leads host cities to violate their citizens' right to adequate housing through displacement, gentrification, and the criminalization of homelessness. By analyzing historical patterns and current preparations for the 2028 Los Angeles Games, the analysis contends that the traditional single-city hosting model is unsustainable and harmful.

Integrating Human Rights Into State And Federal Court Litigation, Lauren E. Bartlett

All Faculty Scholarship

Human rights have never been more important in the United States as they are today. After more than 10 years of dormancy, the seminal work that guides public interest attorneys in incorporating human rights work has been finally updated. The Human Rights in the U.S. Handbook for Public Interest Attorneys is a handbook that provides practical direction to public interest attorneys, including clinical law teachers, legal aid attorneys, public defenders, and others, on how to use human rights in their everyday work. The Handbook invaluably advises attorneys on best practices for using human rights arguments before U.S. state and federal …

An International Framework For Marriage Promotion, Jessica Tueller

Faculty Articles

Governments across the globe lately have been raising the alarm about declining marriage rates and adopting a wide variety of measures to increase these rates. This article presents a framework, distilled from human rights law, for assessing whether such measures are in keeping with States’ international obligations to eliminate all forms of coercion and discrimination in their policies and practices concerning diverse family structure and composition. The framework draws clear boundaries between measures that are permissible under human rights law and measures that are prohibited by human rights law. It also provides a tool for evaluating marriage-promotion measures that, although …

The Durability Of Protections Against Abuse At Interpol Amidst Rising Authoritarian Pressures, Kristina Daugirdas

Articles

Over centuries and across continents, authoritarian governments have demonstrated a large appetite for international cooperation to target political opponents across borders. In 1851, the “first modern police organization”—the Police Union of German States, whose members included Austria and Prussia—was established “with the express purpose of policing the political opposition of established autocratic regimes.” During the 1970s and early 1980s, military regimes in South America participated in a secret scheme known as Operation Condor to coordinate their efforts to suppress subversion. A recent analysis of twenty-nine “hard authoritarian” regional organizations found that twenty-five were engaged in police cooperation. The Shanghai Cooperation …

Can – And Should – The Un Charter Be Saved?, Steven Ratner

Articles

World leaders from Canada’s Mark Carney to Germany’s Friedrich Merz have announced the demise of the international rules that provided some degree of order to international relations since the Second World War.2 The immediate cause is clear to them and others – a seeming abandonment of international law, and the UN Charter in particular, by the United States government, its chief architect and advocate. The U.S. actions and rhetoric over Venezuela and Iran – wars the United States has started – as well as Greenland and Ukraine seem to have confirmed the worst about the future of international law.

Marital Status And Human Rights, Jessica Tueller

Faculty Articles

Although human rights law has established a clear prohibition on discrimination based on marital status, this prohibition is vastly underutilized. This Article argues that increased attention to human rights law's prohibition on marital status discrimination, accompanied by clearer, more consistent, and more robust analysis of this phenomenon, is needed to ensure that everyone whether they choose to remain unmarried or to marry, whether they file for divorce or are widowed-continues to have and enjoy the same human rights and fundamental freedoms as any other person throughout their lifetime. This Article specifically recommends a focus on harmful marital status stereotypes that …

Examining Reproductive Equity In The Post-Roe United States, Yali Pang, Anna Grace Causey, Nakeina E. Douglas-Glenn, Research Institute For Social Equity Rise

Research Institute for Social Equity

Four years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, state-level variation in reproductive rights policy is associated with substantial geographic inequities in access to abortion and reproductive health care across the United States. The adoption of restrictive or protective reproductive rights policies is closely tied to legislative control, underscoring the political drivers of reproductive inequity. The evidence suggests that advancing reproductive equity will require coordinated national, state, and local response to strengthen healthcare infrastructure, reduce economic barriers, and establish durable legislative protections for reproductive rights.

Religious Freedom Without Material Autonomy: Property Dispossession And The Containment Of Religion In Socialist Macedonia, 1945-1958, Aleksandar Spasenovski

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

This article examines the relationship between religious freedom and property rights in socialist Macedonia within Yugoslavia between 1945 and 1958. It argues that the formal constitutional recognition of religious freedom did not necessarily guarantee the institutional autonomy of religious communities. Through a legal-historical analysis of federal Yugoslav and Macedonian legislation, implementing regulations, and administrative mechanisms, the article shows how agrarian reform, nationalization of private economic enterprises, expropriation, and the nationalization of rental buildings and construction land progressively reduced the material foundations of religious organizations. The central claim is that property was one of the clearest indicators of the practical scope …

The Asexual Assumption, Faith K. Whatley-Blaine, Michael S. Sinha

All Faculty Scholarship

Inclusion-focused dating shows such as ‘Love on the Spectrum’ feature individuals with developmental or neurological disabilities on a quest for love. Despite the focus on disability representation, these shows perpetuate stigma against the disabled community by fostering an infantilizing portrayal of individuals with disabilities. This portrayal undermines the premise of encouraging meaningful romantic relationships and reinforces the stigmatizing association of asexuality with disability. This framing aligns with the broader societal narrative that individuals with disabilities are incapable of or lack interest in participating in romantic relationships or physical intimacy.

The stigma that associates asexuality with disability extends beyond mere entertainment, …

Cedaw's General Recommendation No. 37: A Sweeping Reconceptualization Of Women’S Rights In The Climate Crisis And A Tool To Assess State’S Compliance With Them, Ingrid Nifosi-Sutton

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

INTRODUCTION: Climate change is one of the most formidable challenges of our time that threatens our way of life and the very existence of humankind. While climate change has negative impacts on all persons, it affects women and girls disproportionately. During floods and severe storms fueled by climate change, for example, women are more likely to die than men because they lack access to essential information on how to survive in these emergencies. In certain regions of the world—such as Sub-Saharan Africa—women smallholder farmers are bearing the brunt of climate change because, in the aftermath of droughts, these women have …

Kim Gyeong-Seok And The Origins Of Northeast Asia’S Corporate Accountability Movement For War And Colonialism, Timothy Webster

Faculty Scholarship

Campaigns to review Japan’s wartime legacy and legal liability have recurred throughout postwar Japan. While most of these efforts have targeted the Japanese government, an important subset of actors has also focused on the role of Japanese corporations. And perhaps no one played a larger role in directing attention towards Japan, Inc. than Kim Gyeong-seok, a Korean forced laborer in the 1940s turned redress activist in the 1990s. As described in this Article, Kim’s 1991 lawsuit against Nihon Kokan launched the corporate accountability piece of the reparations project, an endeavor that continues to create ripples even now. The Article briefly …

Democratizing Restitution: Trust As An Equitable Approach To Competing Claims On Cultural Heritage Objects, Britta Redwood

Articles

As formerly colonized states began to win their independence in the mid-twentieth century, a growing chorus of voices called on museums in London, Paris, Berlin, and other European cities to return objects taken during the colonial period. Having largely ignored these requests until recently, museums throughout Europe and the United States have begun negotiating returns of these objects to their rightful owners. There is a growing recognition among Western cultural institutions that continuing to hold cultural heritage objects taken under conditions of coercion or violence is morally untenable. More recently, some scholars have argued for a human rights approach to …

Kedudukan Putusan Peradilan Etik Sebagai Keputusan Tata Usaha Negara: Studi Kasus Gugatan Hakim Konstitusi Anwar Usman, Satrio Febriyanto

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

As an effort to concretize ethics, there is a process of formalizing ethics into a set of rules through a code of ethics. The code of ethics needs institutional enforcement instruments so that it can be effectively applied through ethical trials. Ethical courts, as institutions that adjudicate violations of the code of ethics, have the authority to issue decisions as a follow-up to cases of violations of the code of ethics that they handle. In carrying out its duties, ethical courts use ethical and moral analysis to assess the appropriateness of an action. This analytical approach differs from legal decisions …