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Feminist approaches to sexuality and law scholarship
No full textSexuality and Law scholarship is a new and developing field but, like most legal scholarship, it is dominated by masculine concerns and methodologies. This article explains why research that ignores feminist concerns and methodologies will be incomplete and inaccurate, and suggests questions that should be asked of resources to ensure a complete and accurate coverage of the topic. Rosemary Auchmuty is Professor of Law at the University of Reading. She writes on gender and sexuality issues, property law, legal history and girls’ fiction
Analysing Judgments from a Feminist Perspective
No full textThis article, by Rosemary Hunter, is based on a presentation given at the national training day on Law, Gender and Sexuality: Sources and Methods in Socio-Legal Research in May 2014, jointly sponsored by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, the Socio-Legal Studies Association and the British Library. She begins by describing the uses of judgments as sources within feminist research on judging, and then outlines three different methods of analysis employed within this research: quantitative analysis, qualitative analysis, and the newest method, that of rewriting judgments. Rosemary Hunter is Professor of Law and Socio-Legal Studies at Queen Mary, University of London, where she teaches family law, feminist jurisprudence and research methods. Her research focuses on family law processes, access to justice, and feminist judging. She was one of the organisers of the UK Feminist Judgments Project, and is the current chair of the Socio-Legal Studies Association
The impact of legal aid cuts on access to justice in the UK
No full textLawyers would argue that this is an epochal moment for access to justice in the UK. Time will judge in due course; for now it worth simply setting a marker down to capture what has passed. The date to note is 1 April 2013: this was when the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO), an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom, came into affect. LASPO changed the landscape of civil legal aid in England and Wales not only in how and by whom legal aid was administered; LASPO profoundly altered what remained within scope for legal aid, taking private family law disputes such as divorce and child custody, immigration, housing, debt and social welfare and employment out of the provision of legal aid save for those cases where ‘domestic violence is involved, life or liberty are at stake or people risk losing their home’ (BBC 2013). The cuts were introduced with the aim to shave off £350 million from the £2 billion civil and criminal legal aid budget, primarily in civil legal aid with proposals for eventual cuts in criminal legal aid. For a nation in financially difficult times following the banking crisis of 2008 and subsequent recession, the retrenchment of the public services was bitter surgery the nation would have to endure. Why would the provision of legal aid be immune from excision
Las reclamaciones de James J. O'Kelly al parlamento británico por la fuga de José Maceo hacia Gibraltar
No full textIn 1882, José Maceo, one of the leaders of the rebel side in the first Cuban War of Independence, known as the "10 Years War" (1868-1878), along with two comrades had managed to escape from incarceration in Cadiz, fled to Tangier in North Africa and there boarded a steamer for Gibraltar on route to the United States. However, once landed in Gibraltar, then a British colony, they were brought before the Chief of Police who, despite their protestations that they were political prisoners and in contravention of British law and international treaties, handed them over to the Guardia Civil. All three were subsequently re-imprisoned.
This injustice, which was to cause a great deal of embarrassment to the Liberal government of William Gladstone, would probably have been quickly forgotten if it were not for the persistence of an Irish Nationalist Member of Parliament, James Joseph O'Kelly.
O'Kelly, a member of the Fenian Brotherhood, had worked as a journalist in Cuba during the 10 Years War and had narrowly escaped being hanged by the Spanish colonists who accused him of fighting for the rebels. He saw parallels between the Spanish occupation of Cuba and the British in Ireland and used his campaign to obtain justice for the rebel General to attack what he saw as his main enemy, the British Empire.
This chapter, based on material from the British National Archives, examines James Joseph O'Kelly's intervention in this episode in Cuban history and will discuss the wider implications of international solidarity in the face of nineteenth century imperialis
Shifting sands: a paradigm change in the development discourse on women’s human rights and empowerment
No full textInternational human rights declarations, conventions and protocols such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), are universally recognised as constituting the basis for demanding and achieving gender equality. They ‘set a vision of a world where there is justice’ (Cornwall 2015) and today it is widely acknowledged that the normative approach to development should be rights based, even if it’s not the norm in practice. This discord is particularly evident in the women’s rights development discourse. Securing women’s empowerment has increasingly been dominating the international development agenda, but many consider the model being disseminated as de-radicalised, removed from its feminist activist roots and pursuing an apolitical ideology (Cornwall and Molyneux 2006). This in turn promotes and supports a very narrow definition of empowerment; one that does not seek wholesale substantive and transformative change for women and society, but seems to be content to work within and even embrace the existing socio-economic framework
Mary Magdalen and the Imagery of Redemption: Reception and Revival in Fifteenth-Century Tyrol
No full textIn 1384 a host miracle occurred in the Alpine church of Sankt Oswald in Seefeld. The perpetrator was publically humiliated and forced to repent for his sins, but the legend of his affront was to have lasting legacy in the visual culture of the church. While certain artworks have received critical attention for their retranslation of events, a fifteenth-century mural cycle depicting the life of Mary Magdalen, Christianity’s most perfect penitent, in the choir has been overlooked. This article analyses the cycle’s reception of local history and the importance of the Trecento visual strategies revived for particular effect. In doing so, it accords the seemingly archaic paintings an active role in the framing of the miracle for patron, parish and pilgrims attracted by the power of divine transformation and the promise of redemption
Pliny/Trajan and the Poetics of Empire
No full textA series of recent articles have challenged literal and realist readings of the tenth book of Pliny the Younger's Letters. This article builds on these to suggest some poetic effects of this addition to the collection
Human rights and the new(ish) digital paradigm
No full textTo call the internet and its accompanied increase in computing capabilities a ‘new’ phenomenon would be something of a misnomer – the internet has been in development since the 1960s, and became publically available in August 1991. However, the globalisation of communications, associated erosion in state borders and dizzying acceleration of technological advancement over the past two decades have fundamentally changed the citizen-state relationship, introducing new actors, new platforms, new opportunities and new threats.
Whilst it is beyond the scope of the chapter to define this new(ish) digital paradigm, several characteristics are highlighted. First, the weakening of the nation state both as a concept and as a geographical entity with borders that can be protected physically. Second, the ascendance of new global actors that dwarf nation states in budget, reach and technological know-how. Third, the creation of a globalised communications infrastructure (the internet!) that is multi-channel and subject to rapid flux. Fourth, the exponential increase in computing capabilities, which opens up new possibilities for data capture and analysis- from big data to social network analysis. As noted by Kaku ‘Today, your cell phone has more computer power than all of NASA back in 1969, when it placed two astronauts on the moon’ (2011, 21). This (thoroughly incomplete) chapter is intended to stimulate further thought and debate with regards to applying this new(ish) digital paradigm to our understanding of human rights and the ways in which human rights def
Domestic incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in the Marshall Islands
No full textThe United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (‘Convention’) and its Optional Protocol were adopted on 13 December 2006, and were opened for signature on 30 March 2007.1 It was described as ‘the highest number of signatories in history to a UN Convention on its opening day’.2 Unfortunately, this was less inclusive of the Asia-Pacific countries: the region was considered to have the lowest rate of signatures and ratification of the Convention (UNESCAP 2015). Only three countries in the Pacific (Australia, New Zealand and Vanuatu ) have signed the convention at the time it was opened for signature, while most of the Pacific Islands countries became a state party some years later. The Republic of the Marshall Islands (‘Marshall Islands’) is the most recent Pacific island state to become a party to the Convention on 17 March 2015.
This paper gives an account of the domestic incorporation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in the Marshall Islands. It is a personal reflection with some critiques and comments on some of the work involved in the process of translation of the Convention into domestic law. It first looks at the accession to the international convention; second, it reviews the formulation of policy which drives legislative measures and social policies; third, it discusses the legislative review and compliance process to finetune the national legislative framework; and fourth, it describes the adoption of a comprehensive non-discriminatory law in compliance with the Convention