Talking with Women about Community Healing in Uganda and Sierra Leone

Featuring voices on international law, policy and practic

From Nation State to Failed State: International Protection from Human Rights Abuses by Non-State Agents

In her seminal 1951 work The Origins of Totalitarianism, the political philosopher Hannah Arendt examined historical developments in Europe during the period between the two World Wars and declared that the transformation of the state from an instrument of the law into an instrument of the nation had been completed. While Arendt focused on threats to individual and minority rights posed by the repressive nation-state, her critique also identified the complicity of an international legal system that accorded undue deference to sovereign prerogative. The collapse of the League of Nations, the ascendancy of the Nazi Party in Germany, and the ravages of the Holocaust in the 1930s and 1940s graphically demonstrate the legal, political and human costs of totalitarian nationalism. Within this historical framework, the brutal tendencies of fascism are exposed: the totalitarian state dedicates its leadership, its institutions, and particularly its security forces to the annihilation of those who do not belong to the nation. But is fascism, conceived as state-centered ultra-nationalism, the ultimate threat to human rights, or are non-state sponsored abuses of human dignity of comparable concern

The Alchemy of Exile: Strengthening a Culture of Human Rights in the Burundian Refugee Camps in Tanzania

This Article suggests that our analysis of U.S. immigration policy should also be informed by a broader consideration of the experiences of immigrants and refugees in other parts of the world, including those who will never come to the United States. As we examine the moral, legal, and pragmatic imperatives behind the evolution of U.S. immigration policy, we should bear in mind the historical, political, economic, and cultural realities facing developing countries that host refugees from within their own regions. For some observers, such a global perspective might support calls for greater receptivity to immigrants in the United States. For others it may suggest the need for scholars and policy makers to more effectively address the root causes of migration, including the impacts of economic globalization, poverty, armed conflict, political repression, and political change in diverse countries and localities throughout the world. Enhanced attention to humanitarian assistance, poverty alleviation, and human rights protections for refugees in regions such as East Africa, the setting for this Article, will allow the United States to participate more actively in conflict resolution in the developing world. Such constructive interventions may also have a creative impact on the political, socio-economic, and human dynamics that bring many immigrants and refugees to the United States

Engendering Peace and Justice after Armed Conflict: A Call for Qualitative Research among Women\u27s Community Networks

Transitional justice refers to a variety of mechanisms established to help postconflict societies account for the war and build the peace, including war crimes tribunals, truth and reconciliation commissions, and reparations programs. The framework of transitional justice, while responsive to local actors and local realities, was largely constructed by external actors, including foreign states, international organizations, non-governmental agencies, advocates, and academics working in the fields of human rights and rule of law promotion. The gender dilemma for global and local transitional justice practitioners is the increasing awareness that most women in war-affected countries have not been well-served by the considerable analysis, resources, and programming devoted to post-conflict transition. Too often, women are worse off in the period after armed conflict than they were during the war, due to heightened risks of physical violence, deepening social misery, or extreme political marginalization. This paper argues for a rethinking of the logic, rhetoric, and direction of transitional justice so that it better serves the whole society, women and men alike. It offers one approach to this re-envisioning by proposing qualitative research among women engaged in grassroots peacebuilding working within country-specific contexts

Corporate Culpability Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines

This Article examines the use of corporate culpability in the Federal Sentencing Guidelines and addresses three major questions: In light of the traditional unimportance of culpability in corporate criminal law, is corporate culpability an appropriate concern of the Guidelines? If so, how is corporate culpability best conceptualized? Finally, how do the Guidelines understand corporate culpability, and how close do they come to embodying this most satisfying theory? Part I of the Article discusses the principal reasons why culpability has been important at the trial and sentencing of individual criminals, and argues that similar reasons justify concern with culpability in the sentencing of corporate offenders. Although culpability is not the only important factor in corporate sentencing, Part I concludes, it is a legitimate concern of the Guidelines. Part II sets out three alternative conceptions of corporate culpability, those implicit in the two prevailing theories of corporate criminal liability-the doctrine of respondent superior and the doctrine of Section 2.07 of the Model Penal Code-and a third conception that has received considerable support from scholars of corporate crime. Part II argues that it is this third conception, termed the corporate character theory, that provides the most adequate understanding of corporate culpability, and that this theory is particularly well-suited for use in the sentencing of organizational criminals. Finally, Part III explores the use of culpability by the organizational guidelines themselves, and contends that they employ a conception of corporate culpability that is closely related to the corporate character theory. In addition, it attempts to show how the adoption of the corporate character theory allows the Guidelines to pursue a wider range of sentencing aims than is traditional in the sentencing of corporations. Although this Article argues that culpability is a legitimate consideration in corporate criminal sentencing, it does not contend that it is the only factor, or even that it trumps all others. Ultimately, the success of the organizational guidelines depends not merely on their treatment of culpability, but on their ability to achieve the entire range of sentencing goals. In some cases, achievement of these goals may require that corporate culpability be ignored. This paper does not attempt to determine whether the Guidelines in fact accomplish all the objectives of corporate sentencing. Its aim is more modest: to show that the Sentencing Commission\u27s deference to corporate culpability is not misplaced, and that, to the extent that culpability is important, the Guidelines accurately assess it

Simple Justice: Humanitarian Law as a Defense to Deportation

Each year, thousands of persons fleeing situations of military conflict in their home countries are denied refuge in the United States. These denials result in part from an asylum adjudication process that requires applicants to show that they are persecuted on an individualized basis, rather than that they fear generalized conditions of violence. Jennifer Moore explores the development of the humanitarian law defense to deportation, which seeks to compel immigration courts to recognize and apply international humanitarian law. Part I describes the evolution of the humanitarian law argument in immigration courts. Part II considers the relationship between humanitarian law and human rights law, and the possibilities for grounding defenses to deportation on international human rights law. The article concludes in Part III with an evaluation of the prospects for the future development of the humanitarian law defense, in light of recent legislative efforts to provide temporary refuge to certain classes of civil war victims

The Responsibility to Protect in the Ebola outbreak

When the UN General Assembly endorsed the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in 2005, the members of the United Nations recognized the responsibility of states to protect the basic human and humanitarian rights of the world’s citizens. In fact, R2P articulates concentric circles of responsibility, starting with the individual state’s obligation to ensure the well-being of its own people; nested within the collective responsibility of the community of nations to assist individual states in meeting those obligations; in turn encircled by the responsibility of the United Nations to respond if necessary to ensure the basic rights of civilians, with military means only contemplated as a last resort, and only with the consent of the Security Council

Humanitarian protection for unaccompanied children from Central America

We are approaching World Humanitarian Day, an occasion to honor the talents, struggles, and sacrifices of tens of thousands of humanitarian workers serving around the world in situations of armed conflict, political repression, and natural disaster

Sense of Belonging in Online Learning Environments

A student’s sense of belonging has emerged as a critical factor that contributes to student learning and success. Inspired by LaPointe and Reisetter (2008), this pilot study addressed experiences with a sense of belonging, importance of a sense of belonging, and the value and efficacy of an online learning community.https://griffinshare.fontbonne.edu/edd-projects-2020/1000/thumbnail.jp

Freedom from Detention for Central American Families

August 19th is World Humanitarian Day, declared by the UN General Assembly in 2008, out of a growing concern for the safety and security of humanitarian workers who are increasingly killed and wounded in direct military attacks or infected by disease when helping to combat global health pandemics