Instructions
Read each question carefully to understand precisely what it asks of you, before you tackle the question. Please use proper references for each answer.
Questions
QUESTION 1. Identify and explain at least five legal, and at least five political, factors that can limit or diminish effective accountability for perpetrators of the atrocity crimes specified under Articles 6, 7, and 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998) [ISBN No. 92-9227-227-6]. https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/RS-Eng.pdf
QUESTION 2.With reference to the ‘Right to Health’ under Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) [United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 993, p. 3], outline and illustrate the meanings of, and differences between and across, the following three statements:
a) States have obligations to Respect the right to health. b) States have obligations to Protect the right to health. c) States have obligations to Fulfill the right to health.
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Publications/Factsheet31.pdf
QUESTION 3. Below (overleaf), that is, the bordered/boxed text, is an extract from Justice Alito’s Opinion in Thomas E. Dobbs, et al. v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization et al. (United States Supreme Court) [on writ of certiorari to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit], June 24, 2022
Discuss this portion of the Opinion, focusing on what you consider to be the merits and demerits of Justice Alito’s arguments as regards autonomy and women’s human rights.
Justice Alito Opinion: C . 1. Instead of seriously pressing the argument that the abortion right itself has
deep roots, supporters of Roe and Casey contend that the abortion right is an integral part of a broader entrenched right. Roe termed this a right to privacy, 410 U. S., at 154, and Casey described it as the freedom to make “intimate and personal choices” that are “central to personal dignity and autonomy,” 505 U. S., at 851. Casey elaborated: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” Ibid. The Court did not claim that this broadly framed right is absolute, and no such claim would be plausible. While individuals are certainly free to think and to say what they wish about “existence,” “meaning,” the “universe,” and “the mystery of human life,” they are not always free to act in accordance with those thoughts. License to act on the basis of such beliefs may correspond to one of the many understandings of “liberty,” but it is certainly not “ordered liberty.”
Ordered liberty sets limits and defines the boundary between competing interests. Roe and Casey each struck a particular balance between the interests of a woman who wants an abortion and the interests of what they termed “potential life.” Roe, 410 U. S., at 150 (emphasis deleted); Casey, 505 U. S., at 852. But the people of the various States may evaluate those interests differently. In some States, voters may believe that the abortion right should be even more extensive than the right that Roe and Casey recognized. Voters in other States may wish to impose tight restrictions based on their belief that abortion destroys an “unborn human being.” Miss. Code Ann. §41–41–191(4)(b). Our Nation’s historical understanding of ordered liberty does not prevent the people’s elected representatives from deciding how abortion should be regulated.
Nor does the right to obtain an abortion have a sound basis in precedent. Casey relied on cases involving the right to marry a person of a different race, Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967); the right to marry while in prison, Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987); the right to obtain contraceptives, Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972), Carey v. Population Services Int’l, 431 U.S. 678 (1977); the right to reside with relatives, Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494 (1977); the right to make decisions about the education of one’s children, Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925), Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923); the right not to be sterilized without consent, Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 U.S. 535 (1942); and the right in certain circumstances not to undergo involuntary surgery, forced administration of drugs, or other substantially similar procedures, Winston v. Lee, 470 U.S. 753 (1985), Washington v. Harper, 494 U.S. 210 (1990), Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165 (1952). Respondents and the Solicitor General also rely on post-Casey decisions like Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) (right to engage in private, consensual sexual acts), and Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S.
644 (2015)
2 (right to marry a person of the same sex). See Brief for Respondents 18; Brief for United States 23–24.
These attempts to justify abortion through appeals to a broader right to autonomy and to define one’s “concept of existence” prove too much. Casey, 505 U. S., at 851. Those criteria, at a high level of generality, could license fundamental rights to illicit drug use, prostitution, and the like. See Compassion in Dying v. Washington, 85 F.3d 1440, 1444 (CA9 1996) (O’Scannlain, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc). None of these rights has any claim to being deeply rooted in history. Id., at 1440, 1445.What sharply distinguishes the abortion right from the rights recognized in the cases on which Roe and Casey rely is something that both those decisions acknowledged: Abortion destroys what those decisions call “potential life” and what the law at issue in this case regards as the life of an “unborn human being.” See Roe, 410 U. S., at 159 (abortion is “inherently different”); Casey, 505 U. S., at 852 (abortion is “a unique act”). None of the other decisions cited by Roe and Casey involved the critical moral question posed by abortion. They are therefore inappropriate. They do not support the right to obtain an abortion, and by the same token, our conclusion that the Constitution does not confer such a right does not undermine them in any way. 2…
QUESTION 4. This question comprises five sub-questions. Answer all the five
sub-questions “a” to “e
a. In your own words, describe the concept of ‘Universal Jurisdiction’.
b. Why is customary international law important for the effectiveness of international humanitarian law? Give at least three reasons.
c. In your own words, describe the relationship between the concepts of ‘Dignity’ and ‘Human Rights’.
d. What does it mean when we say that certain very serious human rights violations rise to the level of becoming crimes under international law? Explain with examples.
e. According to Ian Buruma, as quoted by Neier, in The International Human Rights Movement: A History, Princeton University Press, 2020, at p. 149, when the activist Wei Jingsheng was put on trial following his arrest in March 1979 for his “Democracy Wall” manifestos and other actions –
“One of the most indelible images of human dignity is that of Wei Jingsheng reading his defense statement…The photograph is simple with no great dramatic action. Wei stands in the foreground, looking young and thin, fragile almost, in his shabby convict’s clothes, one buttonless sleeve hanging loosely around a slender wrist. His shaven convict’s head and calm, studious expression make him resemble an earnest monk. Behind him is a blur of faces…”
Outline and enumerate the methods that human rights advocates such as Wei Jingsheng use and have used to advance human rights law and human rights protection.
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