International Law Commons^™

The Unconstitutionality Of Oklahoma's Sq 755 And Other Provisions Like It That Bar State Courts From Considering International Law, Penny M. Venetis

Cleveland State Law Review

This paper will discuss SQ 755's many legal deficiencies, focusing primarily on its constitutional infirmities. First, SQ 755 is a clear violation of the Supremacy Clause of Article VI of the U.S. Constitution. The prohibition on looking to international law requires that Oklahoma courts disregard U.S. treaty obligations, and the law of nations (also known as customary international law), which are all binding on American courts. Second, SQ 755 unconstitutionally limits a state's duty to give full faith and credit to the judicial decisions of other states. The law is clear that no state has the authority to condition its …

International Civil Religion: Respecting Religious Diversity While Promoting International Cooperation, Amos Prosser Davis

UC Law SF International Law Review

International civil religion grounds moral claims that permeate and transcend traditional religious paradigms. Given the inevitability of international interactions - interactions that cross geographic, religious, and cultural boundaries - our global society is in need of a universally endorsable framework that undergirds the United Nations international human rights regime. International civil religion provides that framework.

Numerous scholars and moral theorists have incrementally discerned the parameters of civil religion including, inter alia, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Alexis de Tocqueville, Robert Bellah, Martin Marty, and Harold Berman. The tenets of international civil religion infuse the diplomatically drafted United Nations covenants and conventions on human …

Prosecuting Heads Of State: Evolving Questions Of Venue - Where, How, And Why?, Masaya Uchino

UC Law SF International Law Review

This note surveys the different venues in which heads of state can be prosecuted. Heads of states have been tried in domestic courts, international criminal tribunals, and special "hybrid" courts. Each of these venues has a distinct set of procedures that provides different boundaries and rules for prosecutors and courts that are charging or trying a case. This note highlights how these differences can significantly impact the outcome of prosecutors' attempts to hold a head of state accountable for his crimes. To illustrate this, this note examines three very different examples of head of state prosecutions: Alberto Fujimori in Peru, …

The Power Of Definition: Brazil's Contribution To Universal Concepts Of Indigeneity, Jan Hoffman French

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This article builds on discussions about the potential benefits and difficulties with developing a universal definition of indigenous peoples. It explores the spaces made available for theorizing indigeneity by the lack of a definition in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted in 2007. Specifically, this article addresses the challenge presented by the diversity of groups claiming indigenous status in Brazil. To what extent do distinct cosmologies and languages that mark Amazonian Indians as unquestionably indigenous affect newly recognized tribes in the rest of Brazil who share none of the indicia of authenticity? This article theorizes …

Counting The Costs Of A Global Anglophonic Hegemony: Examining The Impact Of U.S. Language Education Policy On Linguistic Minorities Worldwide, Stephen M. Harper

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

As the need for efficient communication between global participants in academia, business, and politics has grown in recent decades, English has quickly become the dominant universal language in these arenas. Language policy scholars have noted, however, that the rapid spread of English could present a substantial threat to the linguistic diversity of the world, as some scholars have estimated that as many as fifty percent of the world's languages will be extinct by the end of the twenty-first century. This Note argues that the United States' current stance in the area of language education will contribute to this global language …

Teachers' Religious Garb As An Instrument For Globalization In Education, Caitlin S. Kerr

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Nebraska and Pennsylvania currently have laws in place that prohibit public school teachers from wearing religious garb. This Note applies the appropriate constitutional framework-a balancing test-in order to determine the propriety of a religious garb statute. Courts have upheld the statutes in light of perceived government endorsement of teachers' religion and feared impact on impressionable young children. However, both of these concerns are exaggerated and misplaced. Rather, a court must consider the demands a newly globalized world places on effective education for tomorrow's global citizens.

Respect My Authority: Analyzing Claims Of Diminished U.S. Supreme Court Influence Abroad, Aaron B. Aft

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This paper critiques the argument that the U.S. Supreme Court is losing influence among national and constitutional courts worldwide as a result of its nonparticipation in the emerging judicial globalization. It does so, inter alia, by reviewing two examples of how U.S. authority is cited abroad, and concludes that arguments of diminished influence appear overstated, and that changes in U.S. judicial influence are not likely due to attitudes toward citation of foreign law.

Values To Be Added To An "Eastphalia Order" By The Emerging China, Chang-Fa Lo

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Eastphalia Emerging?: Asia, International Law, and Global Governance, Symposium. Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Bloomington, Indiana, 2009

Introduction: Human Rights And Legal Systems Across The Global South Symposium, Christiana Ochoa, Shane Greene

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Human Rights and Legal Systems Across the Global South, Symposium, Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Bloomington, Indiana. 9-10 April 2010.

To The Orphaned, Dispossessed, And Illegitimate Children: Human Rights Beyond Republican And Liberal Traditions, Siba N. Grovogui

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

After the Helsinki Accords, the collapse of the Soviet Union and its empire, and the collapse of states in Africa and elsewhere, many in the West have come to envisage the enforcement of human rights as a practical matter. Human rights are thus incorporated in normative regimes under the rubrics of either the rule of law or the responsibility to protect to be held against the purveyors of violence. I do not discount the normative underpinnings of the related stands taken today by states and transnational and national civil society organizations. I wish to insist on the futility of envisaging …

Democracy, Gender Equality, And Customary Law: Constitutionalizing Internal Cultural Disruption, Susan H. Williams

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Customary law often includes gender discriminatory rules that violate women's rights under constitutional equality guarantees. Dialogic democracy theory offers valuable tools that can help a legal system both to protect customary law and to protect the equality of its women citizens. By focusing on the need for challenge and on the dialogue within the cultural community, the legal system can create incentives and conditions to support the capacity of women to shape the customary law of their own communities. This approach is necessary because legal rights for women, when imposed by the larger society, often result in backlash within minority …

The Human Right To Health And Hiv/Aids: South Africa And South-South Cooperation To Reframe Global Intellectual Property Principles And Promote Access To Essential Medicines, Erika George

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The HIV/AIDS pandemic has had a devastating and disproportionate impact in countries of the Global South. The experience of an individual infected with HIV in Africa is very different than that of an individual infected with HIV in America. Life expectancy varies sharply. The ability or inability to access medicines essential for treatment accounts for much of the variance. This article examines how the rhetoric of human rights used in the context of South Africa's AIDS crisis resonated across the Global South, resulted in a powerful social movement for access to medicines, and contributed to important changes in international intellectual …

African Customary Law, Customs, And Women's Rights, Muna Ndulo

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The sources of law in most African countries are customary law, the common law and legislation both colonial and post-independence. In a typical African country, the great majority of the people conduct their personal activities in accordance with and subject to customary law. Customary law has great impact in the area of personal law in regard to matters such as marriage, inheritance and traditional authority, and because it developed in an era dominated by patriarchy some of its norms conflict with human rights norms guaranteeing equality between men and women. While recognizing the role of legislation in reform, it is …

The Maria Da Penha Case And The Inter-American Commission On Human Rights: Contributions To The Debate On Domestic Violence Against Women In Brazil, Paula Spieler

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This article aims to demonstrate the contributions of the Maria da Penha case and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) Report of 2001 to the debate on domestic violence against women in Brazil, with special emphasis to the adoption of the Maria da Penha Law. The IACHR was the first international human rights organ to bring to light the problem. Beside contributing to internal changes, this case has great relevance as it was the first one of domestic violence analyzed by the Inter-American Commission. It revealed the systematic pattern of violence against women in the country.

Human Rights and …

"Cultural Fatigue": The State And Minority Rights In Botswana, Jacqueline Solway

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The circulation and intersection of supranational rights, discourses, and practices with local struggles have contributed to victories, disappointments, and in many instances, new articulations and understandings of rights for local people. In Botswana, the everincreasing interaction of minority groups with international institutions, laws and conventions, nongovernmental groups (NGOs), and the Botswana courts has created a dialectic that continues to reshape vernacular rights discourses. The state has also been a party in this evolving dialectic and has found new means of intervening in the process. The Botswana state prides itself on its liberal practices and has received international acclaim as a …

Ethnographies Of Indigenous Exclusion In Western Mexico, Guillermo De La Peña

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

In 1992 and 2001, the National Congress of Mexico approved several amendments to the constitution concerning the legal status and rights of indigenous peoples. However, the specific institutional aspects and practical implications of these changes were left to state legislatures, which have responded slowly and unevenly. A particular problem has been the lack of a clear definition of what indigenous political representation means for the different levels of the Mexican government. This article uses ethnographic materials collected in the state of Jalisco to document certain forms of exclusion and violations of citizen rights that relate to voids and ambiguities in …

Abuse Of Power And Corruption In Kenya: Will The New Constitution Enhance Government Accountability, Migai Akech

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This article suggests that corruption in the Kenyan government is largely an institutional problem, rather than a cultural one. It attributes such corruption to the predominance of arbitrary power, especially in the statutory (as opposed to constitutional) order. The statutory order grants executive, legislative, and judicial actors broad powers without establishing effective procedural mechanisms to circumscribe their exercise. In the absence of effective regulation, law often aids the abuse of power and corruption. Although the new constitution establishes principles and mechanisms that may enhance government accountability, the statutory order must be aligned with the values and principles of this new …

Globalization And The Institutional Dynamics Of Global Environmental Governance, Tun Myint

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This paper is concerned with globalization and the institutional dynamics of global environmental governance. How do the phenomena of globalization shape the study of the institutional dimensions of global environmental governance, and how do these phenomena influence the practicality of law and state-centric politics? These questions guide the direction of this paper and its aim to advance theories and research methods for the study of the dynamics of institutions for governance. By synthesizing the conceptual findings of the literature, this paper develops an analytical framework of globalization and analytical themes to advance the systematic study of the dynamics of institutions, …

Autochthony, Citizenship, And Exclusion - Paradoxes In The Politics Of Belonging In Africa And Europe, Peter Geschiere

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Our world seems to be globalizing, yet in practice, it is marked more than ever by what Tania Murray Li calls "a conjuncture of belonging." The notion of autochthony plays a special role in this obsession with belonging as some sort of primordial claim: How can one belong more than if one is born from the soil itself? Since the 1990s, the notion has played a key role in politics in several parts of Africa. Yet, its spread has now become truly global. Comparisons with other parts of the world show that this notion retains its apparently "natural"s elf-evidence and, …

Speeches: Transitional Justice, Peace, And Prevention: University Of Baltimore Law School October 26, 2010, Juan E. Méndez

University of Baltimore Law Review

No abstract provided.