Sentencing Children Who Kill: One Giant Leap for the US Supreme Court, One Small Step for International Human Rights Law

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 801-813
Author(s):  
B. Malkani
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-39
Author(s):  
Vera Rusinova ◽  
Olga Ganina

The article analyses the Judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada on the Nevsun v. Araya case, which deals with the severe violations of human rights, including slavery and forced labor with respect of the workers of Eritrean mines owned by a Canadian company “Nevsun”. By a 5 to 4 majority, the court concluded that litigants can seek compensation for the violations of international customs committed by a company. This decision is underpinned by the tenets that international customs form a part of Canadian common law, companies can bear responsibility for violations of International Human Rights Law, and under ubi jus ibi remedium principle plaintiffs have a right to receive compensation under national law. Being a commentary to this judgment the article focuses its analysis on an issue that is of a key character for Public International Law, namely on the tenet that international customs impose obligations to respect human rights on companies and they can be called for responsibility for these violations. This conclusion is revolutionary in the part in which it shifts the perception of the companies’ legal status under International Law. The court’s approach is critically assessed against its well-groundness and correspondence to the current stage of International law. In particular, the authors discuss, whether the legal stance on the Supreme Court of Canada, under which companies can bear responsibility for violations of International Human Rights Law is a justified necessity or a head start.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-238
Author(s):  
Matthew Dale Kim

AbstractPast studies suggest that domestic public support for compliance with international human rights law can constrain governments to comply with human rights law. But the question remains: Why does the public care about compliance? Using a series of survey experiments in South Korea and the United States, this study finds that constituents are concerned about compliance in one issue area—such as human rights—because they believe it will affect the country's reputation in other domains of international law. Cross-national survey experiments demonstrate that past noncompliance negatively affects the South Korean public's second-order beliefs about the likelihood of future compliance across different issue areas. However, past noncompliance has a limited impact on the US public's first-order beliefs across different domains.


2017 ◽  
Vol 53 (5) ◽  
pp. 721-732 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ebenezer Durojaye

This article examines the meaning and nature of sterilisation. It equally discusses the historical context of involuntary sterilisation and its likely human rights implications. More importantly, it discusses the decision of the Namibian Supreme Court in Government of Namibia v LM and argues that the court fails to consider involuntary sterilisation as a form of human rights violation, particularly violence against women. The article contends that given the attendant mental, physical and emotional trauma a woman may suffer upon undergoing forced sterilisation, this would amount to an act of violence against women as recognised under international human rights law.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 19
Author(s):  
Michael Ramsden

The US practice of targeted killings provokes difficult questions concerning the appropriate legal framework and the standards that govern such strikes. This article will argue that, in certain cases, it is necessary to examine the legality of targeted killings under international human rights law (IHRL). An explicit IHRL justification for targeted killings is important and, at present, often ignored by the US. IHRL requires any use of lethal force to be proportionate to the legitimate aim of safeguarding life and a necessary measure with no other reasonable means available to address the threat. It is possible, following a survey of human rights decision-makers, that targeted killings in exceptional circumstances are justifiable under IHRL. It is also incumbent on the US to pass domestic legislation that provides a legal basis for strikes disconnected to September 11, and also the provision of administrative and judicial review in order to provide a post-hoc check on targeted killing decisions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 113 (3) ◽  
pp. 568-574
Author(s):  
Jorge Contesse

On May 30, 2018, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Court) ordered Peru to review the presidential pardon granted to former president and dictator Alberto Fujimori, who had been convicted and imprisoned for his role in serious human rights violations. The Peruvian Supreme Court obliged and, after examining the merits of the presidential pardon through a special procedure set up to assess the pardon's conformity with international human rights law, invalidated the pardon, effectively reinstating Fujimori's imprisonment for crimes against humanity.


2008 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 562-595 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona de Londras

In December 2007 the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in its latest Guantánamo Bay cases, Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States. Interestingly, the argumentation offered in this litigation was almost exclusively domestic—international human rights law did not feature in spite of its capacity to add significantly to the weight and persuasiveness of the arguments petitioners' In respect of both the geographic scope and the content of constitutional standards, international human rights law has a well-developed body of jurisprudence that, this Article argues, ought to have been advanced by counsel for the petitioners. This Article both exposes the potentially significant international human rights law arguments that could have been advanced, and explores some possible reasons for the marginalization of this body of law. The Article concludes that this strategic decision on the part of counsel for the petitioners robbed the U.S. Supreme Court of an opportunity to assert the relevance of human rights law to the “War on Terrorism,” and to expand on the relationship between international and domestic constitutional standards and, for those reasons, is to be lamented.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document