The Ladies in White, also known as “Las Damas de Blanco,” are a dissident group of women in Cuba who engage in forms of civil disobedience in opposition to Fidel and Raul Castro’s regime. The Ladies organized in 2003, after their loved ones were unjustly incarcerated for political dissidence. On March 17, 2010, one of […]
Corporate Accountability to Human Rights: The Case of the Gaza Strip
This article discusses the human rights obligations of corporations that operate in bilateral zones of conflict. It analyzes the commercial activity of Israeli corporations in the Palestinian Gaza Strip from within the framework of the evolving jurisprudence on the human rights obligations of corporations. In recent years, greater attention has been paid to the role […]
Balancing Rights or Building Rights?
In 2007, after more than 20 years of exhaustive negotiations, drafts and re-drafts between indigenous groups and member states, the United Nations (“UN”) finally adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (“Declaration”) by an overwhelming majority.
A “Bilingual” Approach to Language Rights
This Article was born out of a question posed to me by my eight-year-old son, Leo, who has been raised as a bilingual speaker of Spanish and English. Leo’s question arose in response to a proposal to eliminate the brief weekly Spanish lesson provided to the children at his public elementary school in Austin, Texas. […]
The Role of the Committee on the Rights of the Child in Interpreting and Developing International Humanitarian Law
While human rights bodies may include international humanitarian law, what are they doing with it? To what extent are they interpreting its protections under a human rights framework? Are they performing substantive or precedential analysis of IHL?
Litigating against the Forced Sterilization of HIV-Positive Women: Recent Developments in Chile and Namibia
Click here to read full article (pdf) In response to rising Human Immunodeficiency Virus (“HIV”)-infection rates, poverty, and overpopulation, some nations have resorted to a policy of forcibly sterilizing HIV-positive women in order to prevent the transmission of HIV during childbirth. Such forced sterilization violates a woman’s fundamental right to control her own body and […]