"Judicial restraint" chez le Conseil

Today the Conseil constitutionnel rejected a challenge to French law that prohibits same-sex marriage.
Plaintiffs identified only as Corinne C. et Sophie H. had contended that Articles 75 and 144 of the Code Civil (in English here) -- each of which designates that the couple to be married will be compsed of a man and a woman -- denied them rights and liberties guaranteed by the French Constitution.
Invoked was Article 6 of the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (available here in the original French), which, in English translation, sets out the principle of equality:

Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its foundation. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally eligible to all dignities and to all public positions and occupations, according to their abilities, and without distinction except that of their virtues and talents.

The 6-man, 2-woman Conseil (prior posts here, here, and here) articulated as its basis for sustaining the ban on same-sex marriage a structural / separation-of-powers / judicial restraint argument. It's an argument that American constitutionalists will find rather familiar.
Pivotal was ¶9 of the 11-paragraph judgment styled Mme Corinne C. et autre [Interdiction du mariage entre personnes de même sexe]. Per loose translation by this 'Grrl, ¶9 repeated the gist of Article 6 quoted above, then continued with additional considerations:

► The principle of equality is not contravened by legislation that regulates different situations in different fashions, nor by certain inequalities adopted in the general interest, provided that the resulting difference in treatment bears a direct relationship to the goal underlying the legislation;
► In maintaining the principle according to which marriage is the union of a man and a woman, the legislature, exercising power granted by Article 34 of the Constitution, has deemed that the difference of situation between same-sex and opposite-sex couples can justify different family law rules;
► It is not for the Conseil constitutionnel to substitute its judgment for that of the legislator respecting the nature of this difference of situation;
► For these reasons, the complaint is dismissed.

With that, it would seem, French marriage-equality advocates must move chez le Parlement.

DADT no. Child brides yes. DREAM not.

The headline presents one way to read recent doings in Congress. The latest developments:

► Repeal of "don't ask don't tell," the military policy regarding gays and lesbians (prior posts available here). Having cleared the final congressional hurdle yesterday, the repeal legislation's now on the President's desk.
► House blockage Thursday of the International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act of 2010, which, as we posted, earlier had won unanimous approval in the Senate.
► Yesterday's failure to secure Senate as well as House passage of the DREAM Act; that is, the the path to citizenship for some young, undocumented immigrants. Full name: Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act of 2010.

Still on the Senate's docket, today and until the upper chamber adjourns: New START.

Child marriage, abroad & at home

Pending in the U.S. House of Representatives is a bill to combat child marriage around world.
The International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act of 2010 (S. 987) unanimously passed the Senate 11 days ago. The bill finds, inter alia:

Child marriage, also known as 'forced marriage' or 'early marriage', is a harmful traditional practice that deprives girls of their dignity and human rights.

and:

Child marriage as a traditional practice, as well as through coercion or force, is a violation of article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states, 'Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of intending spouses'.

Citing the frequency with which under-18 girls (girls in particular, though elsewhere the bill mentions boys, too) marry, in countries like "Niger, Chad, Mali, Bangladesh, Guinea, the Central African Republic, Mozambique, Burkina Faso, and Nepal," the bill would:
► Authorize the U.S. President to work with "multilateral, nongovernmental, and faith-based organizations" to develop a child-marriage-prevention strategy that includes "education, health, income generation, changing social norms, human rights, and democracy building"; and
► Require that information about the nature and prevalence of child marriage be included in the annual Country Reports published by the U.S. Department of State.
No word on when such legislation might be taken up in the House.
Movement in that direction received a notable boost last week, in a Washington Post op-ed published jointly by Mary Robinson (right), formerly the President of Ireland and the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa, and winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize. Members of The Elders group established by former the South African President and Nobel Peace Prizewinner, the 2 wrote:

As members of an independent group of leaders who were asked by Nelson Mandela to use our influence to address major causes of human suffering, we have never been involved in supporting a specific piece of legislation before, but we believe that investing in efforts to prevent child marriage is critical to global development and the achievement of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals. We applaud the Senate for passing this forward-looking legislation and urge the House of Representatives to follow suit.

Against the backdrop of these recent legislative efforts, an item discovered in the Library of Congress archives jumped out.
A captivating account of early 20th C. "women's editions" published by the mainstream U.S. press included the Louisville Courier-Journal clipping at left, entitled "Black List of States". Listed was the legal limit "at which fathers, brothers, and husbands have placed the age at which a little girl may consent to her ruin" -- that is, the age at which she could become a child bride in the United States.
In all but 3 states (Colorado, Kansas, and Wyoming), the age was under 18.
The youngest age of legal consent?
7 years, in Delaware.
The date?
1895, just 53 years before adoption of the Universal Declaration to which the pending legislation refers.

Go On! State Responsibility & Intimate Violence

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia and other events of interest)
Our readers in the United Kingdom and environs might be interested in the following event, at London's Chatham House, on international law and intimate violence:
The Principles of State Responsibility and Systemic Intimate Violence, Wednesday, 22 September 2010, 17:00 to 18:30.
Featuring:
► Professor Bonita Meyersfeld, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, School of Law and Head of the law school's Gender, Centre for Applied Legal Studies, who will: argue that systemic intimate violence is an appropriate concern for international law; survey important recent legal developments at the UN, European, inter-American, and Pan-African levels; and discuss her new book on this subject, Domestic Violence and International Law (2010).
► Gauri van Gulik (left), Women's Rights Division, Human Rights Watch, who will respond from the perspective of a practitioner working on these issues.
To register, e-mail amartin@chathamhouse.org.uk, stating your name and professional affiliation. Members should include their membership number.

U.S. court overturns state marriage ban

An e-mail just received from my Law Librarian, Erin Murphy, identifies the pith of the trial court judgment against Proposition 8, the voter initiative that made a prohibition on same-sex marriage part of California's Constitution. (Prior IntLawGrrls posts available here.) With a hat tip to Erin, here's the money quote by U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker, Northern District of California:

'Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California constitution the notion that opposite sex couples are superior to same sex couples.'

By those words and many others contained in the 138-page ruling in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, available in pdf here, Walker ruled that the ban on same-sex marriage violates the equal protection and due process guarantees of the U.S. Constitution. (photo credit)

In a curious aside to unsuccessful efforts to have the Perry trial televised -- on which IntLawGrrl Kathleen A. Doty posted -- the court webpage includes not only links to the ruling, but also to YouTube videos of evidence to which the ruling refers.

More litigation sure to follow.

On July 8

On this day in ...
... 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed into law An Act to punish and prevent the Practice of Polygamy in the Territories of the United States and other places, and disapproving and annulling certain Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah. (map credit) The statute made plural marriage a federal crime punishable by up to 5 years in prison. Preoccupied with the Civil War, Lincoln chose not to enforce the act. Enforcement would await later, postwar legislation.


(Prior July 8 posts are here, here, and here.)

Steps forward for Irish same-sex couples

(Delighted to welcome back alumna Siobhán Mullally, who contributes this guest post)

The Dáil (left), the lower house of Parliament in Ireland, has passed legislation giving formal legal recognition to same-sex relationships for the first time.
The Civil Partnership Bill 2010 passed last Thursday evening without a vote, support coming from all (or most) parts of the political spectrum. It now must be considered by the Seanad.
Under the terms of the Bill, marriage-like benefits will be extended to gay and lesbian couples across a range of areas including property, succession, maintenance, pensions. Further legislation is due to extend benefits in the fields of social welfare and tax.
The status of civil partnership will not provide rights and privileges equivalent to marriage, which remains open only to different sex couples. This distinction has remained because it is deemed necessary to safeguard the protection given to marriage in Article 41(3) of the Irish Constitution (right), which states in part:

The State pledges itself to guard with special care the institution of Marriage, on which the Family is founded, and to protect it against attack.

The constitutional text does not, however, make any reference to marriage as being exclusively open to different sex couples. Rather, it is legislative and judicial interpretation of the constitutional text that has presumed this exclusionary stance. Much of the debate on the Civil Partnership bill has touched upon the inequalities that will persist on introduction of this new status, and upon the failure to provide for the rights of children within such partnerships.
Despite these shortcomings, the Civil Partnership Bill has been heralded by many as a mark of progress, a contribution to what Minister for Justice, Mr Dermot Ahern, describes as a ‘modern code,’ that marks a break from a past in which sexual orientation discrimination was commonplace. Included within that modern code are the:
► Employment Equality and Equal Status Acts 2000-2004, which prohibit discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation; and
► Prohibition on Incitement to Hatred Act, 1989, which includes homophobic incitement within its scope.
Introducing the Bill, the Minister for Justice noted that it was now time to add to the legal protections in place against discrimination and exclusion, and to officially recognize and affirm same-sex relationships so as to bring to an end the legacy of prejudice and inequality.
Granting official recognition and affirmation brings with it the question of whether a ‘conscientious exemption’ clause should be granted to those whose religious belief and affiliations do not allow for affirmation or even tolerance of same sex relationships.
A proposed legislative amendment, allowing for such an exemption clause, was dismissed, despite last minute interventions by the Irish Bishops’ conference, who argued that the failure to provide for such a clause was unconstitutional, given the limits imposed on freedom of conscience and on social and civil freedom in religious matters. In response, John Gormley, the Minister for Environment and Green Party representative, criticized the Church’s attempt to exert influence on the legislative process, which he noted was reminiscent of earlier eras of ‘church interference’. The debate on conscience exemption, and its swift dismissal, reflects the changing relationship between Church and State in Ireland, and the waning influence of religion in matters of gender, sexuality and family.
The passing of the Civil Partnership Bill follows on from the judgment that a Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (left) rendered on June 24th in Schalk and Kopf v Austria.
The applicants had complained that the absence of same-sex marriage in Austria violated their European Convention rights, both under Article 12 (right to marry) and Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) in conjunction with Article 8 (right to private and family life). They appealed to the Court to interpret the Convention (below right) in light of present-day conditions, and not to restrict the application of Article 12 to different-sex couples. The Court rejected their argument, noting the absence of a European consensus on same-sex marriage. Importantly, however, drawing on Article 9 of the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights, the Court took the view that the right to marry was not necessarily confined to marriage between different-sex couples. It nonetheless concluded that:
► The question of whether or not to allow same-sex marriage fell to be determined by national law; and
► States continued to enjoy a wide margin of appreciation on this question.
The Court’s judgment left open the question of whether the absence of any form of relationship recognition for same-sex couples might be a violation of the European Convention.
Significantly, the Court’s judgment extends the scope of Article 8. At paragraph 94, it finds for the first time that same-sex couples enjoy not only a right to ‘private life’, but also ‘family life’:

[T]he Court considers it artificial to maintain the view that, in contrast to a different-sex couple, a same-sex couple cannot enjoy “family life” for the purposes of Article 8. Consequently the relationship of the applicants, a cohabiting same-sex couple living in a stable de facto partnership, falls within the notion of “family life”, just as the relationship of a different-sex couple in the same situation would.

Strong dissenting judgments were entered specifically on the Court’s finding of no violation of Article 14 (non-discrimination), suggesting the possibility of change in the future.
For the moment, the Court’s judgment is unlikely to assist the campaign for marriage equality in Ireland. However, it does challenge existing Irish case-law, including the October 2009 judgment in McD v L, in which the Irish Supreme Court found that ‘de facto’ same-sex couples did not enjoy family life within the meaning of Article 8 of the Convention.
Small steps forward!

On June 24

On this day in ...
... 1995 (15 years ago today), world leaders gathered in San Francisco to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the post-World War II conference that ended with the signing of the U.N. Charter on June 26, 1945. A San Francisco Chronicle article published on this day attributed the Charter's opening, "We the Peoples," to drafters' desire to

inspire people to support the United Nations and help the charter last, as it has for a half-century.

Among the world leaders wide awake in the wee hours of that San Francisco morning was Archbishop Desmond Tutu, whom live Johannesburg TV showed celebrating at an Irish pub with Ireland-born Maggie King and other South Africans as they watched South Africa win the Rugby World Cup -- playing on its home field in its 1st such international tournament since the end of apartheid. Hours later Maggie, whose mother is the subject of a prior post, celebrated again -- this time below a mast flying the Jolly Roger and a plaque honoring Harry Bridges at the Fishermen’s and Seamen’s Memorial Chapel (left), for the marriage of her brother, Peter O'Neill, to yours truly at bayside midsummer nuptials pictured here. It was, according to the Chron, the hottest day of San Francisco's century. The following 15 years, equally magical!

(Prior June 24 posts here, here, and here.)

Nuff said

(Taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)

'Marriage is a right which extends fundamentally to all persons, whether they're capable of producing children, incarcerated or behind in their child-support payments. ...
'Why don't those same values apply to gay couples and lesbian couples loving one another?'

-- Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker (below right), U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, questioning counsel for proponents of Proposition 8, the initiative that amended California's Constitution to outlaw same-sex marriages. Walker's query came in the course of yesterday's closing arguments in the federal trial that commenced 6 months ago at the U.S. courthouse in San Francisco. Plaintiffs in Perry v. Schwarzenegger -- among them the couple above, Kristin Perry and Sandra Stier of Berkeley -- allege that this new provision of the state constitution violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. (credit for 2009 AP photo by Jeff Chiu) (Prior IntLawGrrls posts on events in California here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).The case is now submitted, and litigants await Walker's decision.

On January 30

On this day in ...
... 1018, 15 years of war between Henry II, the Holy Roman Emperor, and a Polish Great Duke known as Bolesław I the Brave ended by signature of the treaty, the Peace of Bautzen, at Schloß Ortenburg (left) atop the Saxony city for which the treaty is named. As with many accords of the day, peace depended on a division of disputed lands and the claiming as wife of the daughter of another noble family -- in this case Oda von Meißen, who'd become Queen of Poland.

(Prior January 30 posts are here and here.)

Prop 8 trial: No YouTube, but still real-time

As I posted at the time, last May the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, which limited marriage to a man and a woman. That validation of the voter-approved initiative moved the challenge to federal court.
Trial in the case brought under the U.S. Constitution, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, got under way this week at the federal courthouse in San Francisco (above).
With the onset of the trial came a U.S. Supreme Court ruling of "impermissible" respecting a request for a YouTube live or delayed broadcast. Yesterday the Court confirmed its refusal to allow broadcasting by a 5-4 vote. One thus might think the only option is to march down to the courthouse.
Wrong.
For those of you interested in following the trial in real time, there's a range of blogs and tweets emanating from the courtroom:
► For close to real-time blogging, check out Prop8trialtracker.
► For anti-Prop 8 folks tweeting from the gallery, follow NCLRights, AmerEqualRights, FedcourtJunkie, and RickJacobs on Twitter.
► For pro-Prop 8 coverage, follow protectmarriage, also on Twitter.
Happy reading.

On December 16

On this day in ...

... 1904 (105 years ago today), France's Parliament passed a statute repealing Article 298 of the Penal Code, which had forbidden a couple found to have committed adultery subsequently to marry one another.

(Prior December 16 posts are here and here.)

A glimmer of hope . . .

On Wednesday, UNAIDS and the World Health Organization released a report on the AIDS epidemic. Much of the news is grim: in 2008, over 33 million people worldwide were living with HIV, nearly 3 million people were newly infected with HIV, and an estimated 2 million people died of AIDS, including nearly 300,000 children under the age of 15. While these numbers are of great concern, they represent a continuing decline in new HIV infections and HIV-related mortality. New HIV infections were 30% lower than at the epidemic's peak in 1996, and HIV-related deaths were 10% lower than at their peak in 2004. The number of children newly infected with HIV has dropped by nearly 20% since 2001, in part due to the significant increase in services to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission (from 10% in 2004 to 45% in 2008).
The continued spread of HIV has a significant gender dimension, which UNAIDS aims to address through two of its central goals for 2009 to 2011. First, UNAIDS seeks to prevent mothers from dying and babies from becoming infected with HIV. Its suggested strategies include the reduction of unwanted pregnancies among HIV-positive women, the provision of antiretroviral drugs (which can decrease the risk of mother-to-child transmission from 30-35% to 1-2%) during pregnancy and delivery as well as appropriate treatment, care, and support for mothers living with HIV.
UNAIDS also sees stopping violence against women and girls as a crucial component of ending the AIDS epidemic. This focus is particularly crucial in sub-Saharan Africa, where women account for approximately 60% of estimated HIV infections, "not only [because of] their greater physiological susceptibility to heterosexual transmission, but also to the severe social, legal and economic disadvantages they often confront." The report highlights a study from Lesotho finding that sexual and physical violence against women are key components of that country's AIDS epidemic. Unsurprisingly, the risk of contracting HIV is even higher for marginalized groups, including girls and young women and female sex workers, and in the United States, African-American women, who are more than 19 times more likely to contract HIV than Caucasian women. The social stigma that attaches to women who contract HIV may in turn lead to greater marginalization including divorce at a time when they may be in dire need of financial and emotional support. Here's hoping that the holistic approach prescribed by UNAIDS is pursued with vigor by those committed to ending the spread of HIV/AIDS.

'Nuff said

(Taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)

'There is a void in the English language .... Every one has been put in an embrassing position by ignorance of the status of some woman. To call a maiden Mrs. is only a shade worse than to insult a matron with the inferior title Miss. Yet it is not always easy to know the facts.'

--unsigned article published on November 10, 1901, in The Sunday Republican of Springfield, Massachusetts, and quoted in etymologist Ben Zimmer's recent column on the origin of the honorific "Ms." According to Zimmer, the term began not as the icon of feminism it's become (Exhibit A: the magazine at right), but rather as a simple (albeit not-clear-how-to-pronounce) matter "of simple etiquette and expediency."

On November 13

On this day in ...

... 1960, entertainers Sammy Davis Jr. and May Britt got married (below right). The New York Times' announcement said nothing about the diverse ancestries of the couple; elsewhere, however, that fact drew much attention. As explained at this website:

Although interracial marriages had existed for centuries, the long-segregated American populace was largely reluctant to acknowledge, much less celebrate, marriage between people of different races. In fact, the wedding of this African-American man to a white woman from Sweden was still technically illegal in 31 of the United States. The wedding sparked death threats and demonstrations. Davis, who had broken numerous color barriers as a performer, unwittingly broke another when he very publicly married the woman he loved, despite the difference in the color of their skin.

Notwithstanding that the country is now governed by a President born the following year to another interracial couple, and that the Supreme Court held antimiscegenation laws unconstitutional in 1968 (and here), an incident this autumn reminds that in some pockets of America, issues persist.


(Prior November 13 posts are here and here.)

Law & forced & arranged marriages

(My thanks to IntLawGrrls for the opportunity to guest post on my work on forced marriage and transnational arranged marriage.)

My article called ‘Choice, Culture and the Politics of Belonging: The Emerging Law of Forced And Arranged Marriage’, recently published at 72 Modern Law Review 331 (2009), generally reflects my interest in the construction of the female citizen subject in legal discourse. (photo credit)

The majority of reported victims of forced marriage in the United Kingdom are young women of South Asian Muslim origin. Because of this fact, the forced marriage project must be read critically against the background of a wider politics of British Muslim belonging, which is linked to the counter-terrorism and social cohesion agendas. This politics operates to exclude some British Muslims from full membership in the ‘we group’ of British citizens. The ground for exclusion is that of ‘excessive’ or ‘difficult’ culture. Those British Muslim who are presented as most bound up in cultural practice, I argue, have become the British citizen’s ‘other’, and are subject to law’s discipline on that basis.

I trace the developing construction of the act of forcing another to marry as the exemplar performance of difficult culture, and as the exemplar rejection of British values – particularly the value of autonomy – in the major policy statements on forced marriage prevention.

Within the article are two points of critique:

► First, the focus on culture borne of the present need for the politics of belonging to define its other as a ‘cultural’ other leads to an effective culturisation of forced marriage. This means that much effective work has been done to tackle the considerable ‘internal cultural’ obstacles to exit from an unwanted marriage. The third-party and secondary-offender provisions of Lord Lester of Herne Hill QC's Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007 are excellent examples. A focus on culture also, doubtless, sparked the involvement of specialist women’s organisations such as Southall Black Sisters in the drafting of the initial bill, and this is a good thing.

On the other hand, I argue that the focus on culture has been almost entirely to the exclusion of other socio-economic factors which also contribute to the difficulty of ‘exit’.

So, for instance, it is very telling that, at the same time that the Forced Marriage Act was being birthed, many specialist women’s refuges and domestic violence services – the support organisations which are invaluable to women seeking to leave a difficult family situation – were struggling to remain open for lack of adequate government funding. The focus on culture served to hide the state’s contribution to women’s oppression.

► A second point flows from the influence of the politics of belonging on the forced marriage project. We might imagine that, in this arena, the relative (particularly the father, because a deeply gendered construction of the violence of forced marriage is at play) who forces a young woman into marriage occupies the most precarious position in the schema of British Muslim citizenship. But some perhaps counter-intuitive exclusions also take place when, particularly in the new immigration legislation:

• the often vulnerable immigrating spouse in a transnational marriage is reduced to perpetrator status, by virtue of his or her ‘foreign’ culture; or
  
• the young British Muslim citizen is the subject of wide-ranging protective intervention which has the effect of disciplining those who choose ‘with’ culture and in favour of transnational arranged marriage.

Questions arise about who is ‘permitted’ to occupy the ‘victim slot’ in the forced marriage debate, and about whether the right to make certain marital choices, and to claim that right from a position of victimhood if it is denied, carry a ‘duty’ to make the ‘more British’ choice. Since the article was written, an idealised forced marriage victim has begun to emerge in media coverage of the issue. This is reflected in the newspapers’ presentation of the case of Dr. Humayra Abedin, a British National Health Service physician. Hers is one of the first of 23 successful applications so far under the new Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007. (credit for photo of Abedin, center, with her solicitor, Anne-Marie Hutchinson, left)

What does the forced marriage project tell us about the citizenship of British Muslim women who do not sufficiently fit the model of victimhood: young, English-speaking, educated, thoroughly ‘Westernised’? Is there another subject position which they can legitimately occupy?

On September 17

On this day in ...
... 1939 (70 years ago today), Mary Shanthi Dairiam (right) was born in Malaysia. She earned bachelor's and master's degrees in English Literature from the University of Madras, India, and then, decades later in 1991, an M.A. in Gender and Development from the University of Sussex in England. (photo credit) She served as Executive Director of International Women Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific from 1993 to 2004, and since has been active in other NGOs, in governmental organizations, and in the U.N. system. A sampling: member of the CEDAW Committee, 2005-2008, CEDAW Committee Rapporteur 2007-2008; member of the Gender Equality Task Force of the U.N. Development Programme; member, National Advisory Council on Women, Malaysia. Her publications include The Practice of Child Marriage in South Asian Countries: A Gross Form of Gender Based Discrimination and a Violation of Human Rights (2006).

(Prior September 17 posts are here and here.)

On May 17

On this day in ...
... 2004 (5 years ago today), Massachusetts became the 1st state in the United States to legalize same-sex marriage. The New York Times' story began:

Hundreds of gay and lesbian couples streamed into city halls from Boston to the Berkshires on Monday as Massachusetts became the first state to allow same-sex marriages.
Weddings were held on a hill overlooking a park, in churches and synagogues, in the shoebox quarters of justices of the peace, and on a Christmas tree farm with peacocks, pigs, turkeys and Icelandic sheep nearby.

States today permitting such marriages are Connecticut, Vermont, Iowa, and Maine -- making the issue a likely grilling-point for the next Supreme Court nominee, as the Washington Post reports in today's paper:

[I]n the two weeks since Justice David H. Souter announced his retirement, Maine also legalized same-sex marriage, becoming the fifth state to do so; the New Hampshire legislature sent a marriage-equality bill to the governor; the New York State Assembly approved gay-marriage legislation; and the District of Columbia voted to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.

California, as we've posted, has gone there and, for now at least, back again.

... 1959 (50 years ago today), "at a televised ceremony in the Sierra Maestra," Fidel Castro, who in February had been appointed Prime Minister of Cuba, announced an agrarian reform law that resulted in massive redistribution of large landholdings. "The declaration of agrarian reform," according to a political science text, "began the revolutionary transformation of Cuba's economy and, as a consequence, of Cuban society." (credit for Cuban government photo of Castro signing the new law)

(Prior May 17 posts are here and here)

"Nationalize" International Human Rights in the United States

Ever since the start of the global financial and economic crisis, debates and charges have raged about whether the U.S. should nationalize certain industries such as banking and financial services or auto production.
But IntLawGrrls often point out that other debates should also draw our attention to “nationalization,” or, more accurately, U.S. adherence to international human rights law (Photo: Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, first Chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights, holding a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (Credit: UN Photo, 1949)) :
►the public release of more “torture memos”;
►the prosecution of those who committed, ordered, or provided official justification for torture;
►the rights of immigrant workers, refugees, and their families who are subjected to raids and detention;
►same-sex marriage and the civil rights and civil liberties of gay, lesbian, and transgendered people;
►rights to housing and food even (especially) during a time of economic crisis;
►access to universal physical and mental health care and related rights;
►ending race, gender, age, disability, and other forms of discrimination;
►protecting workers' rights to living wages, fair and safe working conditions, and collective bargaining while pursuing environmental, social, and economic sustainability;
►deciding whether or not to participate in the recently concluded UN Durban Review Conference on Racism;
►ensuring transparency and participation by those most affected by a disaster (whether economic or “natural”) to recovery strategies and plans (see posts on Hurricane Katrina and human rights impact of disaster); and
►ratifying core international human rights instruments such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (neither the U.S. nor Somalia (where juveniles are used in piracy networks) has ratified the CRC), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Their Families, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (see our series on disability rights), among others.
These issues and controversies each bear important relationships to building “human rights culture” in the United States.
Rather than assume that human rights protections are intended only for those outside our borders, those in the United States must see human rights instead as a common heritage and as vibrant criteria that could help guide such “internal” discussions.
Discussions about the meaning and implementation of human rights must not be confined to international law classrooms or ornate palace assemblies in which only accredited diplomats may enter.
Human rights must become part of every schoolchild’s curriculum (see link to Human Rights Education Association here) and domestic legal and policy agendas. Ideally, international human rights standards provide an important framework for interpretation, monitoring, and implementation of law in the service of social justice.
Of course, merely teaching and learning the existing standards, or adopting new ones in treaties or constitutions, will not “solve” such debates without a commitment to making them real on the ground.
As previously posted here, some groups are calling for the U.S. Civil Rights Commission to be made-over into a newly-energized Civil Rights and Human Rights Commission. Such national commissions and ombudspersons do not replace courts or legislators, but they can remind us of our international obligations and act as a crucial independent monitor and voice for “nationalizing international human rights” (Title inspired by a recent magazine article. See Jeri Zeder, "Nationalize International Human Rights" Northeastern Law Magazine (Spring 2009)).

... and counting ...

(Occasional sobering thoughts.) With news about pirates dominating mainstream media these days -- do check out IntLawGrrl Beth Van Schaack's excellent post on law and piracy -- it seems a good time to reflect on the consequences of more conventional, and lethal, conflicts in which the United States is involved.
Notwithstanding President Barack Obama's stated plan to take 12,000 U.S. troops out of Iraq by September, violence continues apace but political integration drags -- a situation evident in stories this week on the latest suicide bombing and the latest obstacles to establishing local governance structures.
In Afghanistan, meanwhile, some maintain that Pakistan's promise to allow some sharia law imperils Afghans' security -- even as, yesterday, there were protests challenging a new marriage law as a threat to Afghan women's security. (Photo slide show here.) The Associated Press reported from Kabul:

Dozens of young women braved crowds of bearded men screaming 'dogs!' on Wednesday to protest an Afghan law that lets husbands demand sex from their wives. Some of the men picked up small stones and pelted the women. 'Slaves of the Christians!' chanted the 800 or so counter-demonstrators, a mix of men and women. A line of female police officers locked hands to keep the groups apart.

With challenges in these countries well in mind, here is the casualty count in the 8 weeks since our last post:

Iraq Body Count reports that between 91,403 and 99,794 Iraqi women, children, and men have died in the conflict in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, representing an increase of between 721 and 777 deaths in the last 8 weeks. According to the U.S. Defense Department, 4,273 American servicemembers have been killed in Iraq. Total coalition fatalities: 4,591 persons. That's 28 servicemember deaths in the last 8 weeks, all of them Americans.

As for the conflict in Afghanistan, military casualties in Afghanistan stand at 678 Americans and 453 other coalition servicemembers. That's an increase of 25 and 27, respectively, in the last 8 weeks, and a total servicemember casualty count of 1,131.