de la Rasilla del Moral on Bartolomé De Las Casas: A Radical Humanitarian in the Age of the Great Encounter @hartpublishing

Ignacio de la Rasilla del Moral, Wuhan University, Institute of International Law, is publishing Bartolomé De Las Casas: A Radical Humanitarian in the Age of the Great Encounter in The Faces of Human Rights (Kasey McCall-Smith, Jan Wouters, and Felipe Gomez Isa, eds., Hart Publishing 2019). Here is the abstract.

Few lives may be as propitious to an understanding of the biographical genre as a way of addressing a larger historical theme than the life of the greatest advocate for justice and freedom for the Amerindian peoples in the sixteenth century. For generations, the life and works of Bartolomé de las Casas have served as lenses to look through at events and processes unleashed by the ‘great encounter’. Deeply intertwined with what came to be known as the ‘duda indiana’ (the ‘Indian Doubt’) among Spanish intellectual and political elites, were three interwoven dimensions that situate the praxis and theory of de las Casas’ life and work within the theological, moral and legal debates triggered by the Spanish Conquest of America. Traditionally, this has been considered as the birthdate of international law and, for some, building on the Lascasian legacy, of contemporary human rights law too.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

Farrell and Hughes on Magna Carta and the Invention of "British Rights" @routledgebooks

Michelle Farrell, University of Liverpool, School of Law and Social Justice, and Edel Hughes, University of Limerick, are publishing Magna Carta and the Invention of 'British Rights' in Human Rights in the Media: Fear and Fetish (Michelle Farrell, Eleanor Drywood, and Edel Hughes, Routledge, 2018) (forthcoming).

In this chapter we argue that the antipathy towards human rights, and the Human Rights Act in particular, that is evident in certain sections of the media and political establishment, lies partly in its relationship with the European, and, therefore, foreign or ‘alien’, system of human rights protection. Somewhat paradoxically though, those who are most trenchant in their criticisms of the Human Rights Act nevertheless stress that Britain is a nation founded upon human rights. Through the lens of the Magna Carta we examine the invention of the tradition of British rights and how the Charter has been co-opted by those who seek to foment opposition to the Human Rights Act and, albeit to a lesser extent, by those who seek to defend the Act by demarcating a clear line of history between the Charter and the Act. Both approaches, we suggest, serve to crowd out the space required for a rational critique of rights.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

Todres on The Trump Effect, Children, and the Value of Human Rights Education @jtodres

Jonathan Todres, Georgia State University College of Law, is publishing The Trump Effect, Children, and the Value of Human Rights Education in volume 56 of the Family Court Review (2018). Here is the abstract.

Since launching his presidential campaign, Donald Trump's rhetoric has often been divisive as well as demeaning of selected groups. This article examines the impact of Trump's rhetoric on children and their communities and explores the role that human rights education can play in responding to Trump and forging broader support for human rights. The article reviews the research on human rights education and considers how human rights education can be embedded in broader efforts to educate children. Using children's literature as a case study, the article argues for the importance of mainstreaming human rights education and meeting children where they are, in order to foster greater recognition of and respect for the rights of all individuals.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

McGuinness on Presidential Human Rights Talk

Margaret E. McGuinness, St. John's University, School of Law, is publishing Presidential Human Rights Talk in volume 56 of the Washburn Law Review (2018). Here is the abstract.

In response to Professor Harold Hongju Koh's March 2017 keynote at Washburn University, "The Trump Administration and International Law," this essay examines the diplomatic and political rhetoric deployed by past presidents in support of human rights to argue that such "presidential human rights talk" represented an important element of U.S. human rights policy and promoted the transnational transmission of human rights norms. President Trump's complete abandonment of presidential human rights talk signals an end to what remains of American "human rights exceptionalism." Combined with Trump's "America First" approach to foreign policy, which rejects the value of the international institutions the U.S. helped build and sustain over the past 70 years, the end of presidential human rights talk may also mark the end of U.S. human rights diplomacy.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Zinos on Fundamental Rights in Early American Case Law: 1789-1859

Nicholas Zinos, Mitchell Hamline School of Law, is publishing Fundamental Rights in Early American Case Law: 1789-1859 in volume 7 of the British Journal of American Legal Studies (2018). Here is the abstract.

Fundamental Rights Law is a ubiquitous feature of modern American jurisprudence. Where did the term “Fundamental Rights” come from, and how was it applied in early American case law? This article outlines the genesis of fundamental rights law in early 17th century England and how this law developed and was applied over time. The English Bill of Rights of 1689 was the first attempt to codify these rights in English law. When the English legal system emigrated to America along with the early American colonists, it included the English conception of fundamental rights. The framers of the United States Constitution incorporated and expanded these rights. Early American Case law kept strictly within this tradition for the most past, and used the term “fundamental rights” usually for rights which had long been recognized in Anglo-American society. This article notes the concordance between the application of fundamental rights in early American case law and the long tradition of fundamental rights which ripened in the Anglo-American legal tradition.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

ICYMI: Heritage, Culture, and Rights (Andrew Durbach and Lucas Lixinski, eds., Hart Publishing, 2017) @hartpublishing

ICYMI: Heritage, Culture, and Rights (Andrea Durbach and Lucas Lixinski, eds., Hart Publishing, 2017).

Cultural heritage law and its response to human rights principles and practice has gained renewed prominence on the international agenda. The recent conflicts in Syria and Mali, China's use of shipwreck sites and underwater cultural heritage to make territorial claims, and the cultural identities of nations post-conflict highlight this field as an emerging global focus. In addition, it has become a forum for the configuration and contestation of cultural heritage, rights and the broader politics of international law. The manifestation of tensions between heritage and human rights are explored in this volume, in particular in relation to heritage and rights in collaboration and in conflict, and heritage as a tool for rights advocacy. This volume also explores these issues from a distinctively legal standpoint, considering the extent to which the legal tools of international human rights law facilitate or hinder heritage protection. Covering a range of issues across Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and Australia, this volume will be of interest to people working in human rights, heritage studies, cultural heritage management and identity politics around the world.

 

CFP: The Body and Human Rights: A Symposium to be Held at Friends House, Kings Cross, London, February 12, 2018 @Bruneluni @DimitriosGian

From the mailbox (via the ever-vigilant Thom Giddens!):

 CALL FOR PAPERS
 The Body and Human Rights

A symposium to be held at
Friends House, 173-177 Euston Rd, Kings Cross, London NW1 2BJ on Monday 12 February, 2018

 Hosted by Brunel University London's Global Lives Research Centre, Knowing Our  Rights research project, and Britain in Europe think tank.
Convened by Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos and Meredith Jones
 In recent decades the body has become a major area of research across many disciplines, especially in the arts and social sciences. Feminist scholars have made important interventions in the ways that bodies are represented, managed, regulated, treated medically, and modified. Simultaneously, human rights scholars have engaged with challenging questions of how the human body should be legally understood and defined, and what may legitimate the State to become involved with individual choices about what to do with one's body (or how individuals might protect their autonomy from state invasions). This symposium will draw together these two areas. We invite scholars from any discipline to submit abstracts for 15-minute papers that address the body and human rights. Topics may include (but are by no means limited to):

Refugee Bodies and Borders
Transgender Issues
Abortion / Contraception
Body Modifications
Healthcare / Surgery
Euthanasia
Slavery
Egg harvesting / sperm donation
Incarceration
Torture
 Please send titles and brief abstracts for consideration to meredith.jones@brunel.ac.uk by Wednesday 10 January.

Niezen on Street Justice: Graffiti and Claims-Making in Urban Public Space @mcgillu @LAWMcGill

Ronald Niezen, McGill University Faculty of Law, has published Street Justice: Graffiti and Claims-Making in Urban Public Space. Here is the abstract.

It is getting increasingly difficult to avoid the notion that justice claims are not limited to the formal venues of law or even the public accountability processes of journalism, but are also expressed in everyday activities of public outreach. We can see this outreach in informal efforts toward mass communication, in graffiti and Internet communication (and connections between the two, as we will see) oriented toward passers by and browsers, consumers of information, the possible-to-convince sympathizers of the plights of others. This non-professional realm of justice claims tells us something about the extent to which justice is experienced and expressed outside the law, but at the same time through the influence of law. Human rights in particular can be seen as a source of inspiration and expression of new and emerging forms of rights-consciousness and the public expression of grievance. This consciousness, in turn, relates to the popular dynamics of human rights lobbying and a corresponding awareness of humanity as a reference point for what is fair, equitable, and honorable, grounded as they are in the “soft” processes of persuasion and mass influence.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Tourkochoriti on Comparative Rights Jurisprudence: A Essay on Methodologies @IoannaTourkocho @HarvardLaw

Ioanna Tourkochoriti, Harvard Law School; National University of Ireland, Galway, School of Law, is publishing Comparative Rights Jurisprudence: An Essay on Methodologies in Law and Method. Here is the abstract.

This paper discusses three approaches that can be helpful in the area of comparative rights jurisprudence, oriented in reference to three different kinds of studies that are possible in that area. To a large extent the methods for a comparative legal research depend on the research question and the goal of the researcher. First, a comparative law study may focus on the sociocultural context that led to the elaboration of differences or similarities in the protection of rights. In this respect a study of comparative law is by definition an interdisciplinary study. Second, a comparative law approach can be a normative enterprise. It can focus on engaging in a philosophical analysis enlightened by the differences or similarities in the regulation of rights, in order to propose concrete solutions for the regulation of a right. Third, a comparative law approach can combine both elements of the two previously mentioned approaches. It can aim at studying the sociopolitical frame that led to the emergence of legal rules and challenge them in the cases where it seems that there is some flagrant injustice in the application of rules upon concrete cases of human rights. It may aim to reach a "reflective equilibrium" between and the is and the ought. This means that it can engage in a study that can be articulated as a back and forth movement from the differences in the operation of legal rules to how they should be operating. The paper discusses further the challenges that the researcher faces in her attempt to use these methodologies and how these challenges can be overcome. These challenges arise in the selection of cases that are appropriate for comparison, in assuring comparability. What is at stake is the question of commensurability. If what motivates a comparative law study is the search for principles of justice the researcher needs to persuade that her methodological approach serves her aim. Second, challenges emerge for the comparatist concerning the research question that she uses, her theoretical framework and her criteria of evaluation. Furthermore, these challenges concern the validity of the interpretative schemata that she refers to or that she creates in order to interpret the legal phenomena she is studying. These interpretative schemata may be defined by conscious and unconscious bias. To some extent it is impossible to the researcher to transcend the subjectivity of her perspective. Nevertheless, there is a moral obligation for the researcher to make an effort to transcend this bias. Interdisciplinary collaboration as well as collaboration with scholars whose background was formed in the foreign legal system under study can help transcend these challenges. Another concern for the comparativist is the danger of being trapped in the relativity of her background which would prevent her from thinking critically on the object of her study. The solution to the problem comes from the reflection on the just character of the rules that is implicit in any attempt to compare legal rules. The inherent normative dimension of the law can help transcend the circumstances that define the subjectivity of the researcher. The law as a normative discipline has its own constraints of justifiability. The researcher is led to transcend her conditioning in a context that provides to her a frame of evaluation and to think in abstracto about principles of justice that can be accepted intersubjectively. The comparatist who studies legal rules inevitably transcends her horizon and is led to think about the justness of the legal rules she is studying.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link. 

Selkälä and Rajavuori on Traditions, Myths, and Utopias of Personhood @TSelkl @Ger_Law_Journal @UniTurku

Toni Selkälä and Mikko Rajavuori, both of the University of Turku Faculty of Law, have published Traditions, Myths, and Utopias of Personhood: An Introduction at 18 German Law Journal 5 (2017) 18 German Law Journal 1017 (2017). Here is the abstract.

Legal personhood continues to serve an important role in the legal system. The millennial distinction of persons and things, while often unarticulated, is an essential building block of all legal relations. This introduction to persons and things outlines the past tradition, draws on present myths, and construes a utopia of which the articles on this special issue will comment, clarify, and criticize. The tradition of personhood has been well-established in recent academic commentary on personhood. Often construed as a gradual evolution and expansion from its modest original scope covering only adult male heads of household to present universal human personhood, the concept of legal person is tightly connected to the rule of law and the emergence of human rights. On this tradition, personhood is reserved an emancipatory role: Personhood is a legal fiction that sets everyone on an equal footing before the law. Also, due to its fictional character, collective human enterprises from state to corporation are donned with personhood as tools for realization of humane personhood. As such, the tradition serves an important part in perception of law and justice as ultimately egalitarian and often blind. Recent interest in legal personhood has come to criticize the traditional narrative, claiming that it construes a myth concealing the fact that law remains profoundly discriminatory and unjust partly because of the way legal personhood is defined. A range of new entities commanding some or all features of a legal person — such as animals, cyborgs, and fetuses — are left outside legal protection due to their wanting personhood. Clinging on ideas equating humans to persons lead to affronts of morality in name of legality, the critics of the traditional narrative argue. According to them, rather than maintaining a material bind to a human being, a legal person should be a concept of art reserved to an artificial bundle of rights that can be allocated to anyone or anything. As truly artificial, legal personhood would better serve justice by providing rights to everyone and everything unlike the traditional account. The utopia proposed by this introduction as well as by all of the articles forming this special issue pushes both the tradition and its critics to their limits. The utopia, on the one hand, argues for a fully material account of personhood where all things stand initially on an equal footing and, on the other hand, demands that also artificiality takes itself seriously in its denouncement of any material bind. We argue that such a utopia will better highlight the functions personhood serves in law and allows for a reevaluation of our appreciation of things.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Rossner, Tait, McKimmie, and Sarre on Courtroom Design and the Presumption of Innocence @meredithrossner @blakemckimmie @UniversitySA

Meredith Rossner, London School of Economics & Political Science, David Tait, University of Western Sydney College of Arts, Blake McKimmie, University of Queensland, and Rick T. Sarre, University of South Australia School of Law, have published The Dock on Trial: Courtroom Design and the Presumption of Innocence at 44 Journal of Law and Society 317 (2017). Here is the abstract.

This article examines the place of the criminal dock in courtroom design. Challenges to the use of the dock have been based upon the inability of the defendants to hear effectively, to communicate with counsel, to maintain their dignity, and to benefit from the presumption of innocence. Increasingly courts are incorporating secure docks, where defendants are partially or completely surrounded by glass (or in some countries, metal bars). To what extent do these changes and modifications undermine the right to the presumption of innocence? We present the results of an experimental mock jury study that was designed to test whether the placement of the accused influences jurors’ perceptions. We find that jurors are more likely to convict defendants when they are located in a traditional dock or a secure dock, compared to sitting next to their counsel at the bar table. We conclude by discussing the implications for trial procedures, counsel communications, and courtroom design.

The full text is not available from SSRN.

Bijl on Human Rights and Anticolonial Nationalism In Sjahrir's "Indonesian Contemplations"

Paul Bijl has published Human Rights and Anticolonial Nationalism in Sjahrir's Indonesian Contemplations at 29 Law & Literature 247 (2017). Here is the abstract.

In 1945 and under the pseudonym Sjahrazad, Indonesia's first prime minister Sutan Sjahrir and his wife Maria Duchâteau published a book in Dutch entitled Indonesian Contemplations about Sjahrir's exile to and incarceration in the 1930s in the Dutch colonial concentration camp Boven-Digoel. Through an analysis of the book's critique of the legal spatialities of the Dutch empire and its imagination of the space of the Indonesian nation-state, this article makes a double argument: on the one hand, for the importance of scholarly analyses of Indonesian writing on the Dutch colonial-legal project and, on the other, against the idea that national liberation and international human rights were mutually exclusive in anticolonial nationalism.

Download the article from the website at the link.

Literature and Human Rights: The Law, the Language and the Limitations of Human Rights @degruyter_lit

New in paperback from de Gruyter:

Literature and Human Rights: The Law, the Language and the Limitations of Human Rights Discourse (Ian Ward, ed., 2017) (to be released July 26, 2017)

This very interesting volume includes essays by Maria Aristodemou, Daniela Carpi, Jeanne Gaakeer, Ian Ward, and many other scholars. Available in hardcover, paperback, and ebook.

Are These the Principles We're Looking For? Watching "Star Wars" and Thinking About International Relations

Roy Lee discusses international law, policy, and human rights lessons we can draw from Star Wars, here, in a column for Jurist. Mr. Lee is Legislative Counsel, Law Officers of the Crown, Guernsey, Channel Islands, UK.

Selected readings about Star Wars, law, and the practice of law, below:



Omar Ha-Redeye, Star Wars, Like All Things, Is Legal, at Slaw, December 27, 2015.

Timothy D. Peters, 'The Force' As Law: Mythology, Ideology and Order in George Lucas's Star Wars, 36 Australian Feminist Law Journal 125-143 (2012).

Cass Sunstein,  The World According To Star Wars (Dey Street Books, 2016).

Evan Weinberger, May the Law Be With You: Become a Legal Jedi With Star Wars, at LAW360, May 31, 2016.



And for fun:

If Star Wars Launched a Law Firm, at Above the Law, August 23, 2012.

Star Wars: Law and Order(short: parody opening credits)

A New Book on Heritage, Culture, and Rights, Edited by Andrea Durbach and Lucas Lixinski (Hart Publishing) @hartpublishing @IntHeritageLaw @UNSWLaw

New from Hart Publishing:

Heritage, Culture and Rights: Challenging Legal Discourses (Andrea Durbach and Lucas Lixinski, eds., 2017). Here is a description from the publisher's website of the book's contents.

Cultural heritage law and its response to human rights principles and practice has gained renewed prominence on the international agenda. The recent conflicts in Syria and Mali, China’s use of shipwreck sites and underwater cultural heritage to make territorial claims, and the cultural identities of nations post-conflict highlight this field as an emerging global focus. In addition, it has become a forum for the configuration and contestation of cultural heritage, rights and the broader politics of international law.

The manifestation of tensions between heritage and human rights are explored in this volume, in particular in relation to heritage and rights in collaboration and in conflict, and heritage as a tool for rights advocacy. This volume also explores these issues from a distinctively legal standpoint, considering the extent to which the legal tools of international human rights law facilitate or hinder heritage protection. Covering a range of issues across Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and Australia, this volume will be of interest to people working in human rights, heritage studies, cultural heritage management and identity politics around the world.

 

Human Rights and Personal Self-Defense in International Law: A New Book by Jan Arno Hessbruegge @JanHessbruegge @OUP

Jan Arno Hessbruegge, New York Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, has published Human Rights and Personal Self-Defense in International Law (Oxford University Press, 2017). Here from the publisher's website is a description of the book's contents.

While an abundance of literature covers the right of states to defend themselves against external aggression, this is the first book dedicated to the right to personal self-defense in international law. Drawing on his extensive experience as a human rights practitioner and scholar, Dr. Hessbruegge sets out in careful detail the strict requirements that human rights impose on defensive force by law enforcement authorities, especially police killings in self-defense. The book also discusses the exceptional application of the right to personal self-defense in military-led operations, notably to contain violent civilians who do not directly participate in hostilities. Human rights also establish parameters on how broad or narrow the laws can be drawn on self-defense between private persons. Setting out the prevailing international standards, the book critically examines the ongoing trend to excessively broaden self-defense laws. It also refutes the claim that there is a human right to possess firearms for self-defense purposes. In extraordinary circumstances, the right to personal self-defence sharpens human rights and allows people to defend themselves against the state. Here the author establishes that international law gives individuals the right to forcibly resist human rights violations that pose a serious risk of significant and irreparable harm. At the same time, he calls into question prevailing state practice, which fails to recognize any collective right to organized armed resistance even when it constitutes the last resort to defend against genocide or other mass atrocities.

Corcos on How Some SF Presents AI's Claim to the Right to Life and Self-Determination @lpcprof

Christine A. Corcos, Louisiana State University Law Center, is publishing More Human Than Human: How Some SF Presents AI's Claims to the Right to Life and Self-Determination in the Oxford Journal of Socio-Economic Studies, Hilary Term 2017. Here is the abstract.

If even the least self-aware human being has the right to life, simply because it exists, then could AI at some point also claim that right? Or can human-created AI, simply because it is human-created, simply never legitimately put forward such a right? The idea that human beings, because they are human, create and become the norm for such decisions is one that it is difficult to overcome, but it is one that philosophers, lawyers, and artists wrestle with. It is also one that we see depicted in many science fiction films and television series. Thus, who defines what personhood is becomes an important question. What happens if AI develops sentience, and emotions? What happens if AI develops personhood? We are only now beginning to consider whether such creations, having equivalent or greater intelligence and abilities than their creators, should have the same, or qualified liberties and privileges. If we do consider that question, what test should we apply to determine whether these artificial beings should have such rights? Some legal regimes, such as the European Union, are already beginning to take such questions seriously.

Download a draft of the essay at the link.

Forthcoming from Hart Publishing: Heritage, Culture, and Rights: Challenging Legal Discourses @hartpublishing

Forthcoming from Hart Publishing: Heritage, Culture and Rights: Challenging Legal Discourses (Andrea Durbach and Lucas Lixinski, eds.; 2017). Here is a description of the book's contents.

Cultural heritage law and its response to human rights principles and practice has gained renewed prominence on the international agenda. The recent conflicts in Syria and Mali, China's use of shipwreck sites and underwater cultural heritage to make territorial claims, and the cultural identities of nations post-conflict highlight this field as an emerging global focus. In addition, it has become a forum for the configuration and contestation of cultural heritage, rights and the broader politics of international law. The manifestation of tensions between heritage and human rights are explored in this volume, in particular in relation to heritage and rights in collaboration and in conflict, and heritage as a tool for rights advocacy. This volume also explores these issues from a distinctively legal standpoint, considering the extent to which the legal tools of international human rights law facilitate or hinder heritage protection. Covering a range of issues across Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and Australia, this volume will be of interest to people working in human rights, heritage studies, cultural heritage management and identity politics around the world.

 

First International Conference on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, February 8-10, 2017, St. Mary's University, London

Centre for the Study of Modern Slavery International Conference

Wednesday 8th February 2017

First International Conference on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking

Where: St Mary’s University, Twickenham, London
When: Wednesday 8th – Friday 10th February 2017
With the aim of using research to fill the knowledge and evidence gaps experienced by policymakers and practitioners, the conference will provide a space to promote debate and encourage collaboration on addressing the subject of human trafficking and modern slavery, with contributions from UK and international experts. Discussions between policymakers, practitioners and researchers will identify evidence gaps and tailor research to these needs.
Wednesday afternoon will begin with the official launch of the Centre by a Senior Cabinet member, followed by a high-level panel that discusses the current state of the response to modern slavery, both in the UK and globally, with a view to how we move forward.
On Thursday morning, we begin with a scene setting panel, where different government departments will outline their priorities and key evidence gaps. The subsequent panels will then focus on where research is going and identify areas for further examination.
Panels focus on:

• Victim identification and care
• Targeting perpetrators
• Partnership approaches
• Definitional challenges
• Corporate responsibility
• Labour exploitation

The Home Office Modern Slavery Research team will also host a workshop with Chief Scientific Adviser Professor Bernard Silverman to discuss improving the evidence base on modern slavery offenders

Speakers

• Mr Kevin Hyland, Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner for the UK
• Caroline Haughey, Barrister, Independent Review of the Modern Slavery Act, 2016
• Professor Bernard Silverman, Chief Scientific Adviser, Home Office
• Kate Roberts, Human Trafficking Foundation
• Professor Kokunre Agbontaen-Eghafona, University of Benin, Nigeria
• James Cockayne, United Nations University
• Monique Villa, Thompson Reuters Foundation
• Mick Clarke, Chief Executive, The Passage, London

Download the full agenda (PDF)
Tickets for the conference can be booked online. For further information please contact sasha.jesperson@stmarys.ac.uk.

Engineering Ethics and Star Wars @scifipolicy @BoingBoing

The ethics of the Death Star. Discussion at BoingBoing, from SciFi Policy.