Human Rights and Disability: The International Context

The human rights approach to disability is part of the human rights movement that has developed over the latter half of the 20th century. The increasing international attention to human rights issues has lead to a number of significant international human rights commitments in the areas of disability. Examples of these achievements are reviewed, and some recently proposed strategies for enforcing the human rights of people with disabilities, to ensure international commitments are respected and meaningful at the local level, are described

Labour rights in Peru and the EU trade agreement: compliance with the commitments under the sustainable development chapter

European Union (EU) trade policy has become increasingly contested and politicised. Citizens and politicians have become more and more concerned about the human rights and sustainable development implications of free trade. The European Commission in its ‘Trade for All’ Strategy has recognized the need for a more value-based trade policy. In the same vein, the EU has included a chapter on Trade and Sustainable Development in recent free trade agreements. However, there is still much uncertainty about the specifics of these legal commitments and about their implementation in practice. In this study, we aim to assess the labour rights commitments in the EU-Peru-Colombia agreement, with a specific focus on Peru and the agricultural sector. Based on an analytical framework that summarises the labour-related commitments of the sustainable development Title into three categories – upholding ILO Core Labour Standards, non-lowering domestic labour law, and promoting civil society dialogue – we conclude that Peru has failed to comply in a number of areas. We also make recommendations for the EU and civil society and suggestions for more profound and systematic research

How Strongly Should We Protect and Enforce International Law?, University of Chicago Law School Workshop, March 2006

Observers of international law are obsessed with trying to explain and predict why and when states comply with international law. Doing so, they have consistently overlooked a logically preceding, but no less important, question: To what extent should states perform their international commitments? Put differently, how strongly should we protect and enforce international law? Worrying as much about over-enforcement of international law as under-enforcement of international law, this article offers a theory of relative normativity. This theory is driven by efficiency, effectiveness and legitimacy concerns rather than a hierarchy of values. It makes distinctions between how international law allocates entitlements, how it protects entitlements and how it reacts when rules of protection are broken (back-up enforcement). My central claim is that, much like domestic law, international law is best protected on a sliding scale between strict inalienability and simple liability. From that perspective, both what I call European \u27absolutism\u27 and American \u27voluntarism\u27 must be avoided as extreme and homogeneous normative frameworks

Exiting Treaties

This Article analyzes the under-explored phenomenon of unilateral exit from international agreements and intergovernmental organizations. Although clauses authorizing denunciation and withdrawal from treaties are pervasive, international legal scholars and international relations theorists have largely ignored them. This Article draws upon new empirical evidence to provide a comprehensive interdisciplinary framework for understanding treaty exit. It examines when and why states abandon their treaty commitments and explains how exit helps to resolve certain theoretical and doctrinal puzzles that have long troubled scholars of international affairs