Japan’s Human Rights Challenge: International Parental Child Abduction

Wikimedia Commons, US Department of State

by Asafu Suzuki

     In 2009, Christopher Savoie made international headlines when he flew to Japan to forcibly take back his children, who had been “abducted” by his Japanese ex-wife in defiance of an American court order. While the incident ultimately prompted review of Japan’s child custody laws, it shed light on a serious problem that affects many international families upon the parents’ divorce.

     As international marriages become increasingly common in today’s globalized environment, so have international divorces. International divorces generally present various challenges, and custodial issues in international divorces can be particularly problematic. Difficulty arises when one parent illegally removes his or her children from their habitual residence. This phenomenon, commonly known as international parental child abduction, involves actual and potential human rights violations of all parties involved.

Can Governments Protect Sex Work to Prevent Human Trafficking?

flikr/The Intrepid Traveler

by Marie Greenman

More than a decade after the Dutch government lifted its ban on brothels, thereby decriminalizing sex work in the Netherlands, the international human rights community remains divided on whether or not the decriminalization of voluntary sex work is an effective anti-human trafficking tool.

Why is Dutch decriminalization of the regulated sex industry so controversial? There are two sets of intensely held beliefs, which center around the nature of commercial sex itself. Some see the regulation as creating a support and safety network for registered sex workers and allowing them to reclaim a sense of control over the use of their bodies. Others argue that it endorses the commodification of the human body and allows for the exploitation of disempowered and socioeconomically pressed workers.

Revolutionary Rights and the Arab Christian ‘Plight’

	Carlos Latuff, WikimediaCommons

Carlos Latuff, WikimediaCommons

by Alex Schank

 

Violent acts against Christians in the Middle East have spurred a series of calls both regionally and internationally for the protection of a vulnerable religious minority in a Muslim-dominated part of the world. Salafist attacks on churches in Egypt, the bloody Maspero clashes between the army and Coptic demonstrators, and an apparently increasingly sectarian popular uprising in Syria have raised alarm bells in international and regional Christian networks and foreign policy circuits about the plight of Middle Eastern Christians.

The notion that Christians are threatened by a changing, revolutionary Middle East is not necessarily unfounded. The blood spilled in Cairo in recent months and the armed conflict in Syria raise real concerns about the safety of all citizens, particularly ethnic and religious minorities, and all those demonstrating for their rights. Indeed, the specters of sectarian civil war and Christian persecution from the recent historical experiences of Lebanon and Iraq, respectively, seem to loom over the region.

President Obama and The Rights of the Child

ARC 530623, WikiCommons

by S. Amanda Shelton

In the wake of the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, a bill which human rights groups criticized for its broad curtailment of basic civil rights, many were left with questions about the contrast between President Obama’s human rights stance as President and his stance as a candidate and Senator. While national security, torture, and indefinite detention have been at the center of this debate, his administration’s policies on child soldiers are also fertile ground for this discussion.

On September 19, 2007, then-Senator and presidential hopeful Barack Obama co-sponsored  the Child Soldier Prevention Act of 2007. The act aimed to prevent taxpayer subsidization of the use of child soldiers by withholding U.S. military assistance to states with child soldiers in their militaries or in government-supported armed forces. The use of child soldiers is a practice that draws an estimated 250,000 children into direct armed conflict and indirect conflict support – including sexual exploitation – across the globe. 

Redisplacing the displaced in Haiti

 

flikr, Lee Cohen

By Elizabeth Gibson

When the police arrived at Haiti’s Camp Django this summer, they started negotiations by offering money to anyone willing to relocate. It went downhill from there.

                 

When earthquake refugees told the police that $125 each was not enough to find new shelter, the police grew more forceful. A man was knocked to the ground, a woman beaten. Panic set in.

“Everyone started running, so I did too, until I was out of the camp. I later called home and learned that the police broke into my shelter and kicked out my seven-year-old son,” one camp resident described.

Anti-bribery legislation under attack in the US

Flikr, jmrosenfeld

by Katie Shay

In 1977, the United States took a powerful first step in curbing global corruption by passing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The law aims to remove the incentive for bribery, and does so by creating both criminal and civil penalties for U.S. persons and certain foreign issuers who bribe foreign officials to obtain or retain business. It was intended to change the global landscape by leveling the playing field, and in many ways it has ­-- companies have taken notice, and other countries have followed suit by passing similar laws.

Recently, the Chamber of Commerce issued a report advocating for several changes to the legislation that could severely weaken the power of the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission to enforce the law by creating loopholes for companies. Senators Klobuchar (D-MN) and Coons (D-DE) are expected to introduce legislation that incorporates the Chamber’s proposals, despite opposition from human rights and anti-corruption organizations.

The Chamber says these amendments are necessary to give business more guidance as to what activities could expose them to liability under the Act.

Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer urged against amending the FCPA, and announced that the DOJ expects to publish improved guidance in the coming year, eliminating the necessity for any legislative clarifications. “[I]t took decades for the Act to become as strong an enforcement tool as it is today. Having come this far, on what I believe is a noble journey, we cannot, and should not start going backwards. On the contrary, the United States must continue leading the charge against transnational bribery.”

Bahrain's Human Rights Report Likely Absolves the GCC

By Staff Sgt Corkran F. Lee [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

by Samuel Halpert

As indicated by my last post, I’ve been eagerly awaiting the report from the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry into that country’s recent crackdown on political protests. The Commission has just released its report, and under current international law the GCC probably can’t be held accountable.