Is the Good News About Law Compliance Good News About Norm Compliance? The Case of Racial Equality

2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 351-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoltán I. Búzás
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Racial Equality ◽  
Good News ◽  
Norm Violations ◽  
Norm Compliance ◽  
Human Rights Advocacy ◽  
The Law ◽  
Compliance With The Law ◽  
Human Rights Norms

AbstractThe most important international human rights norms are legalized or codified in international treaty law. Yet pernicious practices at odds with these norms endure and sometimes even increase after legalization. According to conventional wisdom, this is because agents commit to but do not comply with international law and the underlying norms. I develop a theory of evasion to explain why norm violations persist even when states technically comply with the law. Because legalization transposes social norms into international law imperfectly, it creates gaps between laws and underlying norms. Because of these norm-law gaps, legality and normative appropriateness will diverge. States caught between opposing pressures from pro-violation and pro-compliance groups exploit this gap through what I call evasion—the intentional minimization of normative obligations that technically complies with international law but violates underlying norms. I demonstrate the theory's empirical purchase in the cases of the French expulsion of Roma immigrants and the Czech school segregation of Roma children. Under the cover of technical compliance with the law, these states violated the norm of racial equality. The argument cautions that the good news about law compliance is not necessarily good news about norm compliance, broadens our understanding of norm violators' agency, and has practical implications for human rights advocacy.

Defensive Deterrence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yishai Beer
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Practical Problem ◽  
Strategic Thinking ◽  
National Defense ◽  
Global Security ◽  
Defense Strategy ◽  
Essential Component ◽  
The Law ◽  
Compliance With The Law ◽  
The Military

This chapter deals with the lack of coherency between strategic reality—which uses deterrence as an essential strategic tool—and the prevailing law. Deterrence is a tool for enforcing compliance with the law; it promotes the containment of potential conflicts. It is pivotal in strategic thinking and, in many cases, an essential component of the national-defense strategy of law-abiding states. But although deterrence is central to the management of global security, in current international law deterrence considerations are perceived with suspicion and mistrust. It is perceived as an unlawful punitive measure. The lack of consensus on lawful deterrence, however, might create a vacuum that invites aggressors and transgressors. This chapter offers normative suggestions for introducing defensive deterrence and overcoming the practical problem of putting it into practice within the current contours of the law, by using the military professionalism criterion.

In Lieu of a Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Linarelli ◽  
Margot E Salomon ◽  
Muthucumaraswamy Sornarajah
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Current State ◽  
Neoliberal Capitalism ◽  
Transformative Potential ◽  
International Economic Law ◽  
Human Rights Norms

This chapter recaps the main themes of the volume, ie that the international law of the global economy is in a state of disorder. Claims about the justice, fairness, or benefits of the current state of international law as it relates to the global economy are fanciful. A more credible picture emerges when one considers who is protected, against what, and those relations that are valued and those that are not. Moreover, these claims above all require a suspension of a reflective attitude about what international law actually says and does. When it comes to international economic law, power is masked behind a veil of neutrality when it certainly is not neutral in the interests it protects and offends. As for international human rights law, it overlooks the ways in which it props up extreme capitalism foreclosing the possibility of transformative structural change to neoliberal capitalism. In its most radical areas, human rights norms have been blocked from making demands on the design of the global economy precisely because of their transformative potential. Among the central critiques of international law presented in this book is that international law must be justifiable to those who are subject to it.

Germany

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentin Aichele
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Direct Effect ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Public International Law ◽  
Monitoring Mechanism ◽  
International Human ◽  
Human Rights Norms

This chapter analyses the use and interpretation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in sixty-nine decisions of German federal courts between 2009 and mid-2016. German courts’ failure to be proactive in demonstrating ‘friendliness towards public international law’ when dealing with international human rights norms has been criticised. The National CRPD Monitoring Mechanism addressed problems in the application of the law. This chapter investigates the courts’ understanding of basic CRPD concepts, judicial techniques, interpretation methods and specific CRPD provisions. The importance of the concepts of self-executing provisions and direct effect is discussed. In quantitative terms, German courts have referred to the CRPD more often than any other UN international human rights instrument. Furthermore, in qualitative terms, federal courts have become more receptive towards the CRPD. However, it is clear that much of the potential for courts to use the CRPD in the realisation of the rights of persons with disabilities remains untapped.

The Obligation to Afford Reparation to Injured Individuals

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla Ferstman
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Right ◽  
Right Of Access ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter considers the consequences of breaches of human rights and international humanitarian law for the responsible international organizations. It concentrates on the obligations owed to injured individuals. The obligation to make reparation arises automatically from a finding of responsibility and is an obligation of result. I analyse who has this obligation, to whom it is owed, and what it entails. I also consider the right of individuals to procedures by which they may vindicate their right to a remedy and the right of access to a court that may be implied from certain human rights treaties. In tandem, I consider the relationship between those obligations and individuals’ rights under international law. An overarching issue is how the law of responsibility intersects with the specialized regimes of human rights and international humanitarian law and particularly, their application to individuals.

The (co)evolution of human rights advocacy: Understanding human rights issue emergence over time

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baekkwan Park ◽  
Amanda Murdie ◽  
David R Davis
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Causal Process ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Advocacy Network ◽  
Human Rights Advocacy ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
Rights Issue ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Rights Issues ◽  
Over Time

How does the discussion of human rights issues change over time? Without advocates adopting a human rights issue in the first place, international ‘shaming’ cannot occur. In this article, we examine how human rights discussions converge and diverge around new frames and new issues over time. Human rights norms do not evolve alone; their prevalence, framing, and focus are all dependent on how they relate to other norms in the advocacy community. Drawing on over 30,000 documents from dozens of human rights organizations from 1990 to 2011, we provide a temporal overview and visualization of the ebb and flow of human rights issues. Using our new dataset and state-of-the-art methods from computer science, our approach allows us to quantitatively examine (a) how new issues emerge in the advocacy network, (b) the relationship of these new issues to extant human rights advocacy and information, and (c) how the framing and specificity of these issues change over time. By focusing on the process by which a new issue gets incorporated into the work of advocates, we provide an empirical assessment of the first step in the causal process connecting shaming to improvement in human rights practices.

scholarly journals PROSECUTOR'S SUPERVISION OF LAW CONDUCTING INVESTIGATIVE (SEARCH) ACTIONS

2020 ◽  
pp. 377-386
Author(s):  
Я. Ю. Конюшенко
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Criminal Procedure ◽  
Court Decisions ◽  
Criminal Proceedings ◽  
Judicial Control ◽  
Procedure Code ◽  
The Law ◽  
Procedural Guidance ◽  
Compliance With The Law ◽  
The Relationship

The purpose of the article is to define the prosecutor's supervision over investigative (search) actions as a legal guarantee of human rights, as well as problematic issues in its implementation and to make proposals to improve the current criminal procedure legislation of Ukraine. The article defines doctrinal approaches to the concepts of "prosecutor's supervision over compliance with the law during the pre-trial investigation" and "prosecutor's procedural guidance of the pre-trial investigation" in the context of investigative (search) actions. The author came to the conclusion that the provisions of the Constitution of Ukraine, the Law of Ukraine "On the Prosecutor's Office" and the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine in terms of regulating the functions and powers of the prosecutor during the pre-trial investigation. Based on the study, it is proposed to consider procedural guidance as one of the forms of prosecutor's supervision over the pre-trial investigation, which is implemented directly by the prosecutor or a group of prosecutors who are appointed to carry it out in a particular criminal proceeding. The author also emphasizes the existence of forms of supervision of the highest level prosecutor on the legality of these actions, which are implemented through the demand and study of information on the progress and results of pre-trial investigation, criminal proceedings and certified copies of court decisions and study of compliance with criminal procedure. A number of problematic issues during the prosecutor's supervision in pre-trial criminal proceedings are outlined, which relate to the relationship between the prosecutor's supervision and judicial control over the legality of investigative (search) actions; subjects and subject of supervision of the prosecutor in this sphere; providing the prosecutor-procedural manager and prosecutors of the highest level with instructions and instructions during the investigative (search) actions. To address these issues, it is proposed to amend the current criminal procedure legislation of Ukraine. The study of the materials of criminal proceedings and the survey of the subjects of criminal proceedings indicate the existence of a number of problematic issues that exist during the implementation of the prosecutor's procedural guidance of investigative (search) actions in the context of human rights.

Part VI Human Rights and General International Law, Ch.33 Transnational Litigation: Jurisdiction and Immunities

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keitner Chimène I
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
National Courts ◽  
State Actors ◽  
Human Rights Norms

This article examines the issues of jurisdiction and immunities in transnational human rights litigation. It discusses the bases of asserting jurisdiction and highlights the problem in achieving consensus about the rules governing foreign official immunity. It analyses several relevant court cases including claims against foreign states, against current or former foreign officials and against non-state actors. This article argues that the horizontal enforcement of human rights norms by national courts carries the potential for both salutary and disruptive effects. It explains that while it can provide an avenue for victims of human rights abuses to obtain redress for their injuries, it can also interfere with the conduct of foreign relations with states that do not recognize the validity of national proceedings.

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