Transitional Justice in Housing Injustice: The Case of Housing Rights Violations Within Settler Democracies

The right to housing is recognized by international human rights treaties as an integral part of the right to an adequate standard of living. Many states have ratified these treaties and incorporated protection of some aspects of housing rights into their constitutions and domestic legislation. Other states have not enacted any legislation in recognition of housing rights, but they provide judicial remedies for violations of rights. Despite that, domestic and international reports indicate that housing rights are constantly being violated in countries across the world at different levels. This Article focuses on housing rights violations within settler democracies. Such countries share common features of housing rights violations including unequal distribution of land, forced evictions, massive expropriations, crowdedness, and housing demolitions within indigenous localities. Such violations are a result of structural and continued discriminatory spatial policies embedded in state legal and political systems. This Article asserts that housing rights violations should be addressed through the transitional justice theory and mechanisms that address the root causes of the systematic housing rights violations to prevent them from reoccurring in the future

Beyond Walls and Fences: Exploring the Legal Geography of Gated Communities in Mixed Spaces

In the last three decades, a new type of physical seclusion has appeared around the world: the gating and walling of urban and suburban spatial residences. This phenomenon, led mainly by dominant socio-economic groups, is referred to as “gated communities.” This article focuses on the legal challenges that gated communities raise in ethnocratic societies that share a legacy of segregation and of unequal distribution of land. The main argument is that, due to this legacy, the legality of gated communities and walls that separate communities generate legal debates that goes beyond classic legal claims of rights violations of non-residents of the gated communities. Rather, it touches upon the historical, geographic, and legal contexts that constructed the power relations between the groups. Based on the Critical Legal Geography approach, the article asserts that addressing these contexts by the court provides a more comprehensive view of the gated communities phenomenon and its implication on the creation of urban space and group relations. Gated communities are an opportunity for initiating wider change in spatial and social relations of groups

Beyond Walls and Fences: Exploring the Legal Geography of Gated Communities in Mixed Spaces

In the last three decades, a new type of physical seclusion has appeared around the world: the gating and walling of urban and suburban spatial residences. This phenomenon, led mainly by dominant socio-economic groups, is referred to as “gated communities.” This article focuses on the legal challenges that gated communities raise in ethnocratic societies that share a legacy of segregation and of unequal distribution of land. The main argument is that, due to this legacy, the legality of gated communities and walls that separate communities generate legal debates that goes beyond classic legal claims of rights violations of non-residents of the gated communities. Rather, it touches upon the historical, geographic, and legal contexts that constructed the power relations between the groups. Based on the Critical Legal Geography approach, the article asserts that addressing these contexts by the court provides a more comprehensive view of the gated communities phenomenon and its implication on the creation of urban space and group relations. Gated communities are an opportunity for initiating wider change in spatial and social relations of groups

Intraply fracture of fiber-reinforced composites: microscopic mechanisms and modeling

The fracture behavior parallel to the fibers of an E-glass/epoxy unidirectional laminate was studied by means of three-point tests on notched beams. Selected tests were carried out within a scanning electron microscope to ascertain the damage and fracture micromechanisms upon loading. The mechanical behavior of the notched beam was simulated within the framework of the embedded cell model, in which the actual composite microstructure was resolved in front of the notch tip. In addition, matrix and interface properties were independently measured in situ using a nanoindentor. The numerical simulations very accurately predicted the macroscopic response of the composite as well as the damage development and crack growth in front of the notch tip, demonstrating the ability of the embedded cell approach to simulate the fracture behavior of heterogeneous materials. Finally, this methodology was exploited to ascertain the influence of matrix and interface properties on the intraply toughness

Prediction of the Failure Locus of C/PEEK Composites under Transverse Compression and Longitudinal Shear Through Computational Micromechanics

The potential of computational micromechanics to predict the failure locus of a unidirectional C/PEEK composite subjected to transverse compression and longitudinal shear was established. Numerical simulations were compared with the experimental results of Vogler and Kyriakides [Vogler TJ, Kyriakides S. Inelastic behavior of an AS4/PEEK composite under combined transverse compression and shear. Part I: Experiments. Int J Plasticity 1999;15:783–806], which contain detailed information of the matrix and fiber properties as well as the failure micromechanisms during multiaxial loading. Analyses were based in the finite element analysis of a three-dimensional representative volume element of the lamina microstructure and included the main deformation and failure mechanisms observed experimentally, namely matrix shear yielding and interface decohesion. In addition, the numerical predictions of the failure locus for composites with strong and weak interfaces were compared with those obtained by current phenomenological failure models to establish the accuracy and range of validity of these criteria

A DEM model for visualising damage evolution and predicting failure envelope of composite laminae under biaxial loads

A two dimensional particle model based on the discrete element method (DEM) is developed for micromechanical modelling of fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) composite laminae under biaxial transverse loads. Random fibre distribution within a representative volume element (RVE) is considered for the micromechanical DEM simulations. In addition to predicting the stress-strain curves of the RVEs subjected to transverse compression and transverse shear stresses against the experimental testing results and other numerical modelling results, the DEM model is also able to capture the initiation and propagation of all micro damage events. Fibre distribution is found to more significantly influence the ultimate failure of composite laminae under transverse shear, while it has much less effect on the failure under transverse compression. The failure envelope of composite laminae under biaxial transverse compression and transverse shear is predicted and compared with Hashin and Puck failure criteria, showing a reasonable agreement. The predicted failure envelope is correlated with the damage evolution and the quantitative analysis of failure events, which improves the understanding of the failure mechanisms

Failure locus of polypropylene nonwoven fabrics under in-plane biaxial deformation

The failure locus, the characteristics of the stress–strain curve and the damage localization patterns were analyzed in a polypropylene nonwoven fabric under in-plane biaxial deformation. The analysis was carried out by means of a homogenization model developed within the context of the finite element method. It provides the constitutive response for a mesodomain of the fabric corresponding to the area associated to a finite element and takes into account the main deformation and damage mechanisms experimentally observed. It was found that the failure locus in the stress space was accurately predicted by the Von Mises criterion and failure took place by the localization of damage into a crack perpendicular to the main loading axis

Influence of the Loading Path on the Strength of Fiber-Reinforced Composites Subjected to Transverse Compression and Shear

The influence of the loading path on the failure locus of a composite lamina subjected to transverse compression and out-of-plane shear is analyzed through computational micromechanics. This is carried out using the finite element simulation of a representative volume element of the microstructure, which takes into account explicitly fiber and matrix spatial distribution within the lamina. In addition, the actual failure mechanisms (plastic deformation of the matrix and interface decohesion) are included in the simulations through the corresponding constitutive models. Two different interface strength values were chosen to explore the limiting cases of composites with strong or weak interfaces. It was found that failure locus was independent of the loading path for the three cases analyzed (pseudo-radial, compression followed by shear and shear followed by compression) in the composites with strong and weak interfaces. This result was attributed to the fact that the dominant failure mechanism in each material was the same in transverse compression and in shear. Failure is also controlled by the same mechanisms under a combination of both stresses and the failure locus depended mainly on the magnitude of the stresses that trigger fracture rather than in the loading path to reach the critical condition

Failure locus of fiber-reinforced composites under transverse compression and out-of-plane shear

The failure locus a fiber-reinforced composite lamina, made up of 50 vol.% of carbon fibers embedded in an epoxy matrix, is computed under transverse compression and out-of-plane shear, a stress state whose experimental reproduction is highly complex. The mechanical response was obtained by the finite element method of a representative volume element of the lamina, which explicitly takes into account the fibers and the matrix in the lamina. The actual deformation and failure mechanisms experimentally observed in the matrix, fibers and interfaces were included in the simulations through the appropriate constitutive equations. Two sets of simulations were performed, assuming that the fiber/matrix interface was either strong or weak. The corresponding failure loci were compared with those given by three failure criteria for composites (Hashin, Puck and LaRC) which provide reasonable predictions in other multiaxial stress states. The estimations of the failure criteria were largely consistent with the numerical simulations in the composites with a strong interface but overestimated the composite strength when the interface was weak because the effect of interface decohesion (which becomes dominant) was not taken into account. These results point out the need to include interface fracture in the failure criteria for composites