Migrant Domestic Workers in the UK: Enacting Exclusions, Exemptions, and Rights

Human rights law has begun to address the inequalities and exclusions that structure the domain of domestic work. The “everyday” of exclusions from employment law and social security, and precarious migration status, had, until recently, attracted only limited attention. This article examines the reforms introduced in the Overseas Domestic Workers (ODW) visa regime in the United Kingdom. The move towards a more precarious migration status for migrant domestic workers marks a rejection of the reforms secured through sustained political activism. It also highlights the contingency and instability of political moments that secure progressive change for migrants, and the enduring limits of human rights law

The Rights of the Child, Immigration and Article 8 in the Irish Courts

In recent times, the Irish courts have found themselves faced with a variety of cases on Article 8 protections for migrant families. The cases mainly concern the right of non-Irish national parents to remain in Ireland with their citizen child. A common thread within many of the cases on Article 8 issues is the focus the courts have given, not on the best interests of the child, but the good behaviour or otherwise of the parent and the state's interest in immigration control. The Irish Courts have formulated disputes within migration law and families as surrounding the states near unqualified right to control the entry and exit of aliens versus the qualified and heavily circumscribed rights of non-Irish nationals to enjoy family life within the State with their citizen child. Where Article 8 has been utilised by the Irish courts, there has been a very expansive reading given to the needs of the State to ensure integrity of its immigration system. With the ever more increasing case load in relation to asylum and migration, the courts have noted the anxiousness of states in relation to immigration matters. In this respect, courts have been prepared to restrict the interpretation of certain rights as a means of appeasing state fears in relation to the immigration control and human rights protections.25/10/13 R

Double Jeopardy: Domestic Workers in Diplomatic Households and Jurisdictional Immunities

The scope of diplomatic immunity and rights claims by domestic workers in diplomatic households have been the subject of a series of cases in U.S. and U.K. courts in recent years. Parallel to these cases is a related but distinct body of case law on the immunities of states and possible exceptions to immunity claims that arise in the sphere of employment relations. Against this background, international law on state and diplomatic immunities has become increasingly fragmented and uncertain in its scope and application. This Article examines the evolving laws of diplomatic and state immunity as they apply to the employment of domestic workers, with particular reference to the evolving case law in the United Kingdom and the United States. The picture that emerges is a fragmented one, suggesting continuing uncertainty on the part of courts and tribunals when faced with immunity claims. This fragmentation and, at times, dissonance go to the heart of competing views of the purpose of international law and its declared values. The case law and evolving human rights norms examined here reveal a willingness to question the scope and purpose of immunity claims. What remains, however, is a tangled web of state and diplomatic immunity laws, with limited and often highly contested exceptions that pose significant difficulties for domestic workers who seek effective remedies for their claims

Human Rights in Ireland 2006

2006 saw a significant number of changes to the criminal law in Ireland with human rights law and a changing system of criminal justice increasingly coming into conflict. These changes culminated with the appointment, during 2006, of a Criminal Law Review Group, mandated to assess whether a ‘rebalancing’ of rights was needed as between victim and accused in the Irish legal system. Much of the ‘rebalancing’ agenda had already borne fruit in legislative changes introduced throughout the year.TS 11.09.1

Toward a conceptualization of retrohippocampal contributions to learning and memory

A wealth of data supports the notion that the hippocampus binds objects and events together in place and time. In support of this function, a cortical circuit that includes the retrosplenial cortex (RSC) and various structures in the parahippocampal region is thought to provide the hippocampus with essential information regarding the physical and temporal context in which the object/event occurs. However, it remains unclear if and how individual components of this so-called \u27where\u27 circuit make unique contributions to processing context-related information. Here we focus on the RSC and the postrhinal cortex (POR; homologous with parahippocampal cortex (PHC) in primates), two of the most strongly interconnected components of the where pathway and the foci of an increasing amount of recent research. Much of the behavioral evidence to date suggests that RSC and POR/PHC work closely together as a functional unit. We begin by briefly reviewing studies that have investigated the involvement of RSC and POR/PHC in contextual and spatial learning, both of which involve learning associations and relationships between the individual stimuli that compose an environment (i.e., where information). However, we propose that potential differences have been overlooked because most studies to date have relied on behavioral paradigms and experimental approaches that are not well suited for distinguishing between different aspects of information processing. We then consider the anatomical differences between RSC and POR/PHC and emerging behavioral evidence that gives rise to a working model of how these regions may differentially contribute to hippocampal-dependent learning and memory. We then discuss experimental designs and behavioral methods that may be useful in testing the model. Finally, approaches are described that may be valuable in probing the nature of information processing and neuroplasticity in the myriad of local circuits that are nested within the where pathway