International Humanitarian Law Commons^™

Forced Marriage As A Harm In Domestic And International Law, Catherine Dauvergne, Jenni Millbank

All Faculty Publications

This article reports on our analysis of 120 refugee cases from Australia, Canada, and Britain where an actual or threatened forced marriage was part of the claim for protection. We found that forced marriage was rarely considered by refugee decision makers to be a harm in and of itself. This finding contributes to understanding how gender and sexuality are analysed within refugee law, because the harm of forced marriage is experienced differently by lesbians, gay men and heterosexual women. We contrast our findings in the refugee case law with domestic initiatives in Europe aimed at protecting nationals from forced marriages …

Honor Killings And The Construction Of Gender In Arab Societies, Lama Abu-Odeh

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Article discusses the regulation and adjudication of honor killings in the Arab world and traces the distributive and disciplinary impact of such regulation/adjudication on Arab men and Arab women's sexuality. In the afterword, the Article outlines the transformative effect of Islamicization of culture in the Arab world in the past twenty years on the practice of honor and killings committed in its name.

Panacea Or Pathetic Fallacy? The Swiss Ban On Minarets, Lorenz Langer

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

On November 29, 2009, Swiss voters adopted a ballot initiative introducing a constitutional ban on the construction of minarets. This Article provides a thick description of the minaret vote's context. A legal analysis addresses the implications of the ban under national, regional, and international normative frameworks. The Article argues that the ban is irreconcilable with the Swiss constitutional bill of rights and several international human right provisions. In Switzerland, however, respect for the vox populi potentially trumps any concern over conflicting international obligations, and there is no effective judicial review of initiatives. This lack of judicial review is partly a …

A Model Copyright Exemption To Serve The Visually Impaired, Patrick Hely

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Copyright law presents visually impaired persons with serious barriers to access of the written word. A recent international effort seeks to remove these barriers to access, in limited instances, by allowing the creation of accessible formats of copyrighted works. While bodies like the World Blind Union--through several South American states--have presented draft treaties to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), to date the interested parties have not found a mutually agreeable solution. This Note surveys international intellectual property law as it relates to the problem, draws a comparison to the humanitarian concerns entangled with international patent law, and tracks the …

Missed Opportunity: Congress's Attempted Response To The World's Demand For The Violence Against Women Act, Brenton T. Culpepper

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The Supreme Court's decision in U.S. v. Morrison struck down, as a violation of the Commerce Clause, § 13,981 of the Violence Against Women Act, that provided a private right of action for victims of gender-motivated violence to assert against their abusers. However, § 13,981 should have been affirmed as implementing legislation designed to fulfill U.S. obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and customary international law. Recognizing § 13,981 as implementing legislation serves as a foundation for the United States to restore itself as a legitimate human rights leader capable of both appreciating its own international …

Teaching International Law: Lessons From Clinical Education: Introductory Remarks, Richard J. Wilson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Inter-American System, Claudia Martin

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

"With Faces Hidden While The Walls Were Tightening": Applying International Human Rights Standards To Forensic Psychology, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

Although there are now robust bodies of literature in both Alaw and psychology and in international human rights law, there has been remarkably little written about the specific relationship between forensic psychology and international human rights standards (and about the relationship between mental disability law and such standards in general). Attention is paid when it appears that state psychiatry or psychology is used as a tool of political oppressions e.g., in the former Soviet Union or in China, but the literature is strangely silent on questions dealing with the extent to which forensic psychology practice comports withinternational human rights norms. …

On Being Accountable In A Kaleidoscopic World, Edith Brown Weiss

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this lecture, the author explores the concept of accountability in the changing world in which international law operates, and to draw upon my own recent experience chairing the Inspection Panel at the World Bank. In doing so, I want especially to recognize the concerns of poor people and bring their plight into the discussion of accountability.

The world today differs sharply from that when the United Nations was formed, some 65 years ago. In that world, there were only 51 states, few international organizations, a nascent global civil society, only 2 billion people, many of whom lived under colonialism …