Human Rights Law Commons^™

Intersectionality's Travels To International Human Rights Law, Jens T. Theilen

Michigan Journal of International Law

Over the last two decades, references to intersectionality have become increasingly common in international human rights law. Many human rights bodies now make use of intersectionality in some form, and scholars propose more widespread and in-depth intersectional analysis as a way to better capture how human rights are realized or violated. Against the backdrop of this intersectional turn, this article scrutinizes the dynamics of intersectionality’s travels to international human rights law, asking how power structures influence where and how intersectionality can travel, and how its meaning and use change across contexts.

This article provides a bird’s-eye view of different human …

Privacy Purgatory: Why The United States Needs A Comprehensive Federal Data Privacy Law, Emily Stackhouse Taetzsch

Journal of Legislation

No abstract provided.

Enforcing International Human Rights Law Against Corporations, Barnali Choudhury

All Papers

International human rights law is generally thought to apply directly to states, not to corporations since the latter is not a subject of international law. Some domestic courts are, however, enforcing these norms against corporations in domestic settings. Canadian courts have, for instance, recognized that corporations can be liable for breach of customary international law norms while UK courts have enforced international human rights norms indirectly against corporations relying on a combination of domestic corporate and tort law.

At the same time, some states are choosing to enforce international human rights norms against corporations using regulatory initiatives. These initiatives, known …

Legal Infrastructure For Inclusive Tech Development: Artificial Intelligence In The Global South, Jake Okechukwu Effoduh, Kingsley Eze, Victor Ufot

The Transnational Human Rights Review

Artificial intelligence (AI) is impacting economic and legal orders, yet its benefits and burdens remain unevenly distributed. This paper asks whether, and under what institutional and material conditions, the Global South can secure equitable participation in the AI economy. It advances a normative claim grounded in distributive justice, drawing on Rawls, the capabilities approach, and TWAIL critiques, arguing that bridging the AI divide is not a matter of charity but a duty of international cooperation under ICESCR Articles 2(1) and 15. Methodologically, the paper combines doctrinal analysis of international human rights law with comparative assessment across six constraint domains: energy, …

Commentary - Much Ado About Nothing? The Importance Of A Decolonial Framing Of The Withdrawal Of The United States Of America From The World Health Organization, Omowamiwa Kolawole

The Transnational Human Rights Review

The withdrawal of the Unites States from the World Health Organization (WHO) has been decried as bad for global health governance and the financing of the WHO. While there are legitimate concerns around the implications of this withdrawal, it is important that the action is framed through a decolonial lens. I argue that global health scholars must not replicate paradigms that problematize the withdrawal as a loss of the global north’s leadership in global health. I argue that the withdrawal offers an opportunity to interrogate the terms upon which global solidarity is built, and to push for the normative primacy …

The Need For Corporate Guardrails In U.S. Industrial Policy, Lenore Palladino

Seattle University Law Review

U.S. politicians are actively “marketcrafting”: the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act collectively mark a new moment of robust industrial policy. However, these policies are necessarily layered on top of decades of shareholder primacy in corporate governance, in which corporate and financial leaders have prioritized using corporate profits to increase the wealth of shareholders. The Administration and Congress have an opportunity to use industrial policy to encourage a broader reorientation of U.S. businesses away from extractive shareholder primacy and toward innovation and productivity. This Article examines discrete opportunities within the …

Securities Regulation And Administrative Deference In The Roberts Court, Eric C. Chaffee

Seattle University Law Review

In A History of Securities Law in the Supreme Court, A.C. Pritchard and Robert B. Thompson write, “Securities law offers an illuminating window into the Supreme Court’s administrative law jurisprudence over the last century. The securities cases provide one of the most accessible illustrations of key transitions of American law.” A main reason for this is that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is a bellwether among administrative agencies, and as a result, A History of Securities Law in the Supreme Court is a history of administrative law in the Supreme Court of the United States as well.

Delegated Corporate Voting And The Deliberative Franchise, Sarah C. Haan

Seattle University Law Review

Starting in the 1930s with the earliest version of the proxy rules, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has gradually increased the proportion of “instructed” votes on the shareholder’s proxy card until, for the first time in 2022, it required a fully instructed proxy card. This evolution effectively shifted the exercise of the shareholder’s vote from the shareholders’ meeting to the vote delegation that occurs when the share-holder fills out the proxy card. The point in the electoral process when the binding voting choice is communicated is now the execution of the proxy card (assuming the shareholder completes the card …

Capitalism Stakeholderism, Christina Parajon Skinner

Seattle University Law Review

Today’s corporate governance debates are replete with discussion of how best to operationalize so-called stakeholder capitalism—that is, a version of capitalism that considers the interests of employees, communities, suppliers, and the environment alongside (if not before) a company’s shareholders. So much focus has been dedicated to the question of capitalism’s reform that few have questioned a key underlying premise of stakeholder capitalism: that is, that competitive capitalism does not serve these various constituencies and groups. This Essay presents a different view and argues that capitalism is, in fact, the ultimate form of stakeholderism. As such, the Essay urges that the …

The Esg Information System, Stavros Gadinis, Amelia Miazad

Seattle University Law Review

The mounting focus on ESG has forced internal corporate decision-making into the spotlight. Investors are eager to support companies in innovative “green” technologies and scrutinize companies’ transition plans. Activists are targeting boards whose decisions appear too timid or insufficiently explained. Consumers and employees are incorporating companies sustainability credentials in their purchasing and employment decisions. These actors are asking companies for better information, higher quality reports, and granular data. In response, companies are producing lengthy sustainability reports, adopting ambitious purpose statements, and touting their sustainability credentials. Understandably, concerns about greenwashing and accountability abound, and policymakers are preparing for action.

In this …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

The Marijuana Insurgency: Federalism And Social Reframing In Policy Reform, Matthew P. Cavedon

Seattle University Law Review

After fifty years of federal prohibition, marijuana reform efforts have won political and legal success. These victories hold lessons for anyone seeking to resist federal law without being able to directly affect it.

Victory can come from reframing an issue. For marijuana reform, social reframing—not formal legal analysis or material factors—provides the best explanation for how advocates achieved change. Their unconventional political tactics, akin to those used by insurgents in wartime, undercut federal prohibition by winning hearts and minds.

This is an analysis of the sociology of legal change. It is also the story of how ordinary Americans retook personal …

Constitutional Interpretation And Zombie Provisions, Michael L. Smith

Faculty Articles

The United States Constitution and state constitutions contain numerous zombie provisions, including language restricting marriage to relationships between one man and one woman, voter literacy test requirements, disqualification of atheists from serving in office or testifying as witnesses, and pervasive gendered language restricting rights and offices to men alone. Though these provisions are unenforceable due to subsequent amendment, determinations of federal unconstitutionality, or preemption by federal laws, they live on in constitutional text.

This Article addresses the danger of these zombie provisions that has, thus far, been overlooked the prospect that zombie provisions may influence the interpretation of still-living constitutional …

Is The Women's Treaty A Paper Tiger? Indian Courts' Application Of The United Nations Treaty, Amanda L. Stephens

Faculty Articles

This Article examines whether the United Nations ("U.N.") Treaty, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women ("CEDAW'), is a "paper tiger"-a law that seems powerful but is in fact weak and ineffectual. While some scholars question the Treaty's effectiveness based on statistical studies, others point to legal reforms in state parties as evidence of its success. Neither provides a nuanced middle ground by examining the CEDAW at a micro rather than a macro level. This Article fills this gap by conducting a qualitative analysis of 10 Indian judicial opinions. Specifically, the Article explores how the …

'A Very Murky Process': Embracing The Intermediacy Of International Justice And Human Rights, Richard Ashby Wilson

Faculty Articles and Papers

Wilson, Richard Ashby. 2024. “’A Very Murky Process:’ Embracing the Indeterminacy of International Justice and Human Rights.” In Philip Alston, ed., The Complexity of Human Rights: From Vernacularization to Quantification. Oxford: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Medical Research Without Consent? It's Like Deja Vu All Over Again, Lois Shepherd, Donna Chen

Indiana Law Journal

When patients seek medical care, they trust their physician to offer treatments that are in their best medical interests and to engage them in a shared decision-making process to determine the best way forward. But today, in hospitals and doctors’ offices around the country, physicians also place patients in research studies that randomly assign them to a standard of care treatment, sometimes without the patients’ knowledge or consent. In such studies, patients may receive a treatment that results in worse outcomes for them, some of which can be serious and permanent. What’s more, there are reasons to be concerned that …

Botched Bans: Analyzing Conversion Therapy Bans After A Decade Of Legal Challenges, Cameron J. Rachford

Indiana Law Journal

Despite empirical evidence documenting its harms and substantial legislative efforts to ban its practice, conversion therapy remains a tragically prevalent practice in the United States. Recently, a circuit split between the Ninth and Eleventh Circuits has developed, raising questions about the future of conversion therapy regulation. This Note takes a retrospective look at the last ten years of conversion therapy bans and related legal challenges, questions the effectiveness of enacted bans, and explores routes for more effective regulation. This Note ultimately argues that conversion therapy bans must shift their focus to the regulation of unlicensed practitioners in order to better …

Editor's Note

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Religious Clause Challenges To Early Abortion Bans, Caroline Mala Corbin

Articles

The substantive due process right to abortion is gone. But other parts of the Constitution may also protect women’s right to control their bodies and live as equals in the United States. This Essay addresses what role the two religion clauses may play in advancing reproductive autonomy. Because religion and reproduction are intertwined, the religion clauses may provide some measure of constitutional protection.

The Establishment Clause bars the government from imposing religion onto those who do not share it. It also forbids the government from taking sides in theological disputes. Early abortion bans not only favor one religious belief on …

Banned Books & Banned Identities: Maintaining Secularism And The Ability To Read In Public Education For The Well-Being Of America's Youth, Megan M. Tylenda

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

Books containing LGBTQ+ themes and characters are being removed from public school libraries at a rapid rate across the United States. While a book challenge has made it to the Supreme Court once before, the resulting singular plurality opinion left courts without a clear test to apply, ultimately leaving students’ First Amendment rights in the air. Additionally, the increasingly relaxed view of courts towards religious influence in public schools indicates that if a modern case were to reach the Supreme Court, religious challenges may be accepted, which would leave LGBTQ+ students who seek to see themselves represented in literature without …