Create Alert Alert. Share This Paper. Background Citations. Citation Type. Has PDF. Publication Type. More Filters. Colonial America Today: U. Abstract The article systematically assesses U. Examining three core elements … Expand. View 1 excerpt, cites background. Disability and the Normal Body of the Native Citizen. View 2 excerpts, cites background. Why we gather: traditional gathering in native Northwest California and the future of bio-cultural sovereignty.
IntroductionThe concept of bio-cultural sovereignty is drawn from Native American Studies scholar Stefano Varese who explores the daily forms of biological and cultural resistance and adaptation in … Expand.
View 3 excerpts, cites background. Th is study of the sacred as a categorical tripping point at the intersection of Indigenous studies and the history of religions begins with the words of Grant Bulltail, an Apsaalooke Crow elder, … Expand. The way in which land is understood and perceived among American Indians and non-Indians is the cause for vast cultural misunderstandings and divisions between the two groups.
For American Indian … Expand. See Eric W. Atkins, Coram What? United States, U. For an excellent contemporaneous analysis of these cases, see generally Eugene V.
POST, Jan. Bush, U. Rumsfeld, U. I do not have an easy answer to this question. Bidwell, U. People of Porto Rico, U. McIntosh, 21 U. I always begin my Professional Responsibility course with Justice at Nuremberg the Spencer Tracy film about the trial of German judges 36 because it brings home the extraordinarily important precept that, as lawyers, we have a particular responsibility to further the rule of law and ensure that law enforcement is not just about might or political expediency making right.
Bell, Jr. However, the fourteenth amendment, standing alone, will not authorize a judicial remedy providing effective racial equality for blacks where the remedy sought threatens the superior social status of middle and upper class whites. For an excellent description of this film, see Major Ann B. King, Jr. The answer may well depend upon how we define success.
Legal and political systems can provide a variety of remedies, and we may gain some insight into this issue by looking at the remedies obtained in the struggle to vindicate the rights of Japanese Americans. In , those who resisted the draft from inside the camps were pardoned by President Truman.
Most immediately, they overturned the convictions at issue. The coram nobis decisions and the redress legislation also had significant symbolic value. But we are still left with the question of their seemingly limited ability to protect the rights of others going forward.
When large-scale human rights violations are at issue, the first step is often truth and acknowledgement. The Hirabayashi coram nobis opinion acknowledged historical realities that had, to that point, been distorted or omitted from the dominant narrative.
As human rights activists and critical race theorists have discussed, correcting the narrative, and thereby ensuring that the historical record reflects accurately the lived experiences of those whose rights have been violated, is of tremendous significance.
Johnson, Jr. But correcting the historical record is just one piece of the puzzle. After a wrong has been acknowledged, we get to the questions of what remedies would come closest to righting that wrong, and what actions would most effectively prevent recurrence of the injustice. This may be, at least in part, because no one has been held accountable. As Chris Iijima observed, in the congressional debates over the Civil Liberties Act, the injustice of the internment was acknowledged, but all the glowing historical references centered around.
Those who at the time of internment saw it for the injustice and outrage that it was and chose to dissent continue to be silenced and unheralded. In essence, what Americans were being told [was that] the kind of patriotism that does not resist injustice. In considering how we move forward, I would like to focus on two points. The first is that lawyering grounded in and responsive to community- based social and political movements can inspire us to develop creative options, to push the edges of the legal envelope.
The second is that we do not need to limit our thinking to currently available options, even those at the edges. Nothing prevents us from envisioning rights and remedial options outside the box. In expanding our vision of the possible, we can learn much from the dynamic and emerging field of international human rights law. Thoughtful legal experts from around the world have spent the last half-century articulating broad understandings of rights and responsibilities, and means for their implementation.
This body of law is not necessarily enforceable in US courts today, but it illustrates the potential for creative thinking about the relationship of law to justice and human dignity. The Supreme Court had given its stamp of approval to the internment by upholding the convictions of Gordon 54 See Wilke, supra note 37, at —83 referencing United States v. But these individuals and the Japanese American community knew not only that an injustice had occurred, but also that it had set a dangerous legal precedent.
Community lawyering recognizes the overlapping, interconnected— indeed organic—relationship between legal work and broader, community- based movements; it is essential to furthering justice. For an overview of the evolution of community-based lawyering, see generally Scott L. A critical element of this process is the creation of public space for the perspectives of our clients and their communities.
As the late professor Derrick Bell summarized: The narrative voice, the teller is important. The voice exposes, tells and retells, signals resistance and caring, and reiterates what kind of power is feared most—the power of commitment to change. Similarly, the human rights cases that have been brought under the Alien Tort Claims Act illustrate the importance of utilizing remedies that are theoretically available within our legal system, but rarely utilized. For a delightful explanation of this point in the context of effective legal education see Robert A.
Williams, Jr. Such claims were limited but not eliminated by Sosa v. Alvarez- Machain, U. Many lawyers and legal scholars have criticized government policies as unwise and often unconstitutional,62 but my impression is that we have relied on legal challenges and rhetorical critiques in something of a vacuum, rather than being rooted in social movements opposing the practices at issue.
The same was true, of course, at the time of the Japanese American internment. There was widespread discomfort, at least among those who considered themselves liberals, but not enough to warrant social mobilization. Perhaps a more accurate understanding of history would lead to wider awareness that the loss of constitutional rights is never limited to one target group.
If this is correct, being rooted in the communities we hope to serve is necessary but insufficient. In order to serve as catalysts for meaningful legal justice, we must also help create a legal system that more broadly encompasses community concerns. In this effort, the emerging body of international human rights law and institutions can play a vital role. This is not because international law is creating new rights, but because it articulates and, therefore, lends weight to basic concepts so often excluded from the legal arena.
This body of law can help us not only in pushing the edges of the legal envelope, but in expanding the framework of legal options in substantive ways. Utilizing International Human Rights Law American jurisprudence has been carefully honed to ensure that these remain the courts of the conqueror. The odds are weighted against those who advocate for fundamental social change.
This requires expanding our vision of both rights and remedies. In criminal cases, convictions may be overturned, as they were in the coram nobis cases. Correcting wrongful convictions is extremely important, but it does not address the months, years, or decades 66 See, e.
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