Human Rights, Development, and the WTO: The Cases of Intellectual Property and Competition Policy

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has sometimes been portrayedas being at odds with the protection of human rights. This articletakes issue with this perception, both generally and with specificreference to WTO agreements/activities in the areas of intellectualproperty (IP) and competition policy. The rules and proceduresof the WTO are directly supportive of civil rights in the senseof freedom to participate in markets and freedom from arbitrarygovernmental procedures. In addition, the system contributesto development and to the realization of broader economic, social,and cultural rights, by stimulating economic growth and therebyhelping to generate the resources that are needed for the fulfilmentof such rights. The article examines various human rights andpublic interest rationales for the protection of intellectualproperty rights (IPRs). The recent amendment to the Agreementon Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)to facilitate access to medicines in the event of public healthemergencies is outlined. With respect to competition policy,such policy constitutes an important aspect of governance insuccessful market-based economies. There is a clear need forcooperative approaches to the implementation of national competitionpolicies. The appropriate scope and venue for such cooperationare a matter for further deliberation.     

当代中国视野下的工作权

当下的许多国家都在宪法或相关法律中明确规定了工作权,并对其内容、实现方式、保障机制等方面作了较为详细的规定。但我国仅在现行宪法第42条中规定了公民有劳动的权利和义务,对其实现方式、义务主体等方面的规定也较为笼统。工作权是一项基本人权,应被写进一国的宪法之中,只有这样才能更好地对其加以保护。     

Conscientious objection in reproductive health care: Analysis of Pichon and Sajous v. France

This article explores the issue of conscientious objection invoked by health professionals in the reproductive and sexual health care context and its impact on women's ability to access health services. The right to exercise conscientious objection has been recognized by many international and European scholars as being derived from the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. It is not, however, an absolute right. When the exercise of conscientious objection conflicts with other human rights and fundamental freedoms, a balance must be struck between the right to conscientious objection and other affected rights such as the right to respect for private life, the right to equality and non-discrimination, and the right to receive and impart information. Particularly in the reproductive health care context, states that allow health professionals to exercise conscientious objection must accommodate this in such a way that its exercise does not compromise women's access to health services. This article analyses the European Court of Human Rights' decision on admissibility in Pichon and Sajous v. France (2001) and argues that a balancing approach should be applied in cases of conscientious objection in the sexual and reproductive health care context.     

调解权的价值、性质与实现

本文以纠纷当事人的调解权为核心和基础,以调解权与相关国家权力的关系为视角,分析了调解权的被动性、调解权的差异性以及调解权的受支配性等特征。认为当事人之间的调解权利意识,是社会公众所昭示的公共性政策在法律领域的延伸,强调在需求多样化与多元化的今天,调解权的实现有利于维护公民的利益。     

Access to justice: a new approach using human rights standards

This article details a trial of a new approach to measuring access to justice that utilises human rights instruments as the reference point. It involves an examination of people's actual experience of the justice system using human rights standards as the benchmark. The research project selected the right to income security. The project trialled a range of methods gathering data about how people have been treated in the Australian social security system and how they would expect to be treated if there was a human right to social security in Australia. This data is assessed against the set of standards developed to measure the enjoyment of the right to social security. The trial suggests that without knowledge about human rights and legal rights, without the confidence to exercise those rights and without the capacity or capability to seek or find help it is unlikely that people will realise their rights and accordingly access to justice is placed in question. The research methodology has the potential to be a useful model to conduct further access to justice research.     

WHAT DOES ACCESS TO JUSTICE REQUIRE? — OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO INVOKE THE UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

Persons with disabilities have a right to effective access to justice under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). This article provides insights on the parameters of that right, including a close examination of the history and text of Article 13, which directly addresses access to justice and other relevant UNCRPD provisions. In addition to the UNCRPD, this article discusses implementation guidance from the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, including its guidelines for State Party reports and jurisprudence. The initial reports by eleven States Parties — Argentina, Azerbaijan, China, Costa Rica, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Hungary, Mexico, Peru and Turkmenistan — are also considered. The Committee’s feedback regarding implementation of Article 13 by these eleven States parties is critiqued for being limited and inconsistent. This article then attempts to clarify what effective access to justice actually requires. It does so by focusing on the insights that can be drawn from implementation of Article 13 since the UNCRPD was adopted as well as implementation guidance from the Conference of States Parties, the International Disability Alliance, the World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry and the National Center for Access to Justice. This article concludes with recommendations on how the Committee can improve its guidance on access to justice to help ensure that equal rights will not be illusory for persons with disabilities.     

Charter rights & health care funding: a typology of Canadian health rights litigation

Canadian health consumers have increasingly relied on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to demand certain therapies and reasonably timely access to care. Organizing these cases into a 5-part typology, we examine how a rights-based discourse affects allocation of health care resources. First, successful Charter challenges can, in theory, lead to courts granting and enforcing positive rights to therapies or to timely care. Second, courts may grant a right to certain health services; however, subsequently government fails to deliver on this right. Third, successful litigation may create negative rights, i.e. rights to access care or private health insurance without government interference. Fourth, consumers can fail in their legal pursuit of a right but galvanize public support in the process, ultimately effecting the desired policy changes. Lastly, a failed lawsuit can stifle an entire advocacy campaign for the sought-after therapies. The typology illustrates the need to examine both legal and policy outcomes of health right litigation. This broader analysis reveals that the pursuit of health rights seems to have caused largely a regressive rather than progressive impact on Canadian Medicare.     

Social Movements and the Politics of Bureaucratic Rights Enforcement: Insights from the Allocation of Disability Rights in France

While research on legal mobilization shows how social movements contribute to the definition and implementation of rights, it remains excessively centered on litigation to the detriment of administrative rights enforcement. This article maps out how street‐level bureaucracies impact rights enforcement by distinguishing between allocation, access, and process, and analyzes how social movements intervene in these three aspects. It then focuses on allocation, using the case of French disability policy to analyze the forms of advocacy deployed by movement actors who take part in the rights allocation process at the local level. The article argues that conformity to institutional norms derives not so much from a pressure to conform as from the knowledge and experience of the limited means locally available to make rights effective. Further, it shows how advocacy is reframed from the defense of individual claims to a role of scrutiny and control of the bureaucratic allocation of rights.     

财产权的宪法地位评析

我国现行宪法对财产权的规定具有主体多元化、财产权对象明确、实现方式多样及救济手段概括等特征 ;同时还存在财产权主体地位不平等、对公民财产权宪法地位不明确、公民财产权保障不充分及公有财产权保障规定不全面等问题。在我国 ,全面评价财产权的宪法地位必须协调好公有财产权与私人财产权的关系 ,同时还需要健全、完善与国情相适宜的宪法监督制度     

Comparing the access conditions for minimum income support in four EU member states for national,EU and non-EU citizens

This research analyses the conditions imposed on national, EU and non-EU citizens who wish to access minimum income (MI) benefits within four EU Member States, specifically within Finland, France, Ireland and Spain. The primary aim is to identify and compare the required MI access conditions. Furthermore, focus is given to the residence requisites, which are discussed in relation to relevant supranational regulations in order to detect possible multilevel implications. The paper concludes with the identification of different MI conditions, such as stricter age requisites in France and Spain. Moreover, the study of national cases allows for consideration of how the EU social protection floor works at the national level. In this regard, the restrictions that affect EU/EEA migrant jobseekers and economically inactive population groups who wish to access MI in Finland, France and Ireland show the limits of the EU minimum social assistance floor, only recognised for EU/EEA migrant workers. Finally, implications arise according to human rights instruments such as the European Social Charter, which demands that social assistance shall not be confined to nationals or to certain categories of foreigners, allowing for comparison between the different personal scopes of the equal treatment principle required by the distinct supranational levels.     

Chinese Practice in Public International Law: 2006 (I)

This part of the Survey covers materials reflecting Chinesepractice in 2006 relating to: I. Subjects under discussion atthe ILC (Shared natural resources; responsibility of internationalorganizations; reservation to treaties; unilateral acts of states;effects of armed conflicts on treaties; obligation to extraditionor prosecution; fragmentation of international law); II. Internationalhuman rights law (general commitment on human rights; collectivehuman rights, including right of self-determination, right todevelopment; civil and political rights, including freedom ofreligion, freedom of expression, issue of organ transplants;economic, social and cultural rights, including right to food,right to health; human rights of aliens, including freedom ofpress of foreign correspondents, rights of refugees; human rightsof special groups, including rights of ethnic minorities, rightsof indigenous peoples, rights of women, rights of children,rights of immigrants, rights of persons with disabilities, rightsof older persons; implementation of international human rightslaw, including the establishment of UN Human Rights Council,review of mandates and mechanisms of UN Human Rights Council,the implementation of human rights instruments, human rightsdialogue and corporation; human rights situation in foreigncountries, including Myanmar, Middle East; human rights andinternational trade); III. International humanitarian law.     

Two Rights of Free Speech

My main argument in this paper is that the right to freedom of expression is not a single right, complex as it may be, but spans two separate rights that I label the right to speak and the right to hear. Roughly, the right to speak stands for the right of a person to express freely whatever they wish to communicate to some other persons or to the public at large. The right to hear stands for the right to have free and unfettered access to any kind of content that has been communicated by others. The right to speak and the right to hear are two separate rights, grounded in different kinds of interests. I try to show that this division of rights and their respective rationales can be utilized to explain how we think about some of the limits of the right to freedom of expression, particularly in the context of conflicts between the right to speak and the right to hear, conflicts that are rather pervasive. I also argue, though perhaps less conclusively, that in thinking about the limits of freedom of expression, an exclusive focus on the harm principle would be misguided. There is no reason to deny that speech is often harmful, sometimes very much so, but the prevention of harm is not sufficient to justify legal prohibition, at least not in this case.     

Access and allocation: rights to water,sanitation and hygiene

This paper provides a decadal review of earth system governance (ESG) literature surrounding access and allocation to water, sanitation and hygiene. ‘access and allocation’ is one of five analytical problems, and ‘water’ a cross-cutting theme, identified in the ESG science and implementation plan (Biermann et al. 2010). A focused review of ESG and related literature reveals that the ESG literature is very robust in relation to access to water, sanitation and hygiene as a human right. However, the ESG literature lacks a robust, independent consideration of the right to hygiene or sanitation or its linkage and costs vis-à-vis other rights. There is no criteria for resolving competing demands on finite freshwater resources, as well as procedures for balancing rights. It is unclear how a transformed nuanced narrative of water access and allocation rights will address vulnerability and social inequality within this new balancing act.

     

INTERNATIONAL PARENTAL CHILD ABDUCTION: WHY WE NEED TO EXPAND CUSTODY RIGHTS PROTECTED UNDER THE CHILD ABDUCTION CONVENTION

The Child Abduction Convention, an international treaty, protects custody rights internationally among its member states by providing a remedy of return in cases where a child was wrongfully removed in violation of a parent's custody right. There is no such remedy for the violation of a parent's access (or visitation) rights. A ne exeat clause in a child custody agreement restrains a custodial parent from removing a child from a predetermined jurisdiction (such as a particular country) and can be issued when there is a risk that the custodial parent might flee to another country with the child(ren). Currently there is a circuit split within the United States as to whether a ne exeat right coupled with the right of access should equal a protected custody right under the Convention. Most international courts protect the ne exeat right under the Convention; however some do not. A ne exeat right should convey a protected custody right for policy reasons. The beneficial implications of a ne exeat right creating a protected custody right under the Child Abduction Convention clearly outweigh the detriments. While there is no instant solution to the inconsistencies among various courts in interpreting the Child Abduction Conventions’ scope in regard to a ne exeat right, there are ways to resolve the problem. If consistency in judicial interpretation cannot be achieved, a movement needs to be initiated to create a protocol to the Child Abduction Convention to further explain the scope of custody rights and ne exeat rights under the Convention.     

论患者权利类型

患者权利类型的确定是构建患者权利保护体系的理论基础，应分为两大类：患者作为“人”在医疗领域所享有的个体权利和作为“公共卫生体系使用人”的集体权利。前者是患者在接受医疗服务过程中基本人权的实现，包括人格尊严权、不受歧视的权利、私生活和秘密被尊重的权利、生命健康权、获得有质量的医疗服务的权利等。后者则包括患者群体通过自己的社团——患者组织——在卫生法规决策过程中的介入权、在卫生机构中的代表权、在卫生监督部门中的参与权等等，与国家公权力机关共同实现卫生领域的民主，以构建和谐的医患关系及促进医疗水平提高。在现有立法、司法及理论对患者个人权利已逐步承认并加强保障的情况下，认识患者集体权利的实现具有更强的理论意义及实践价值。     

关于构建我国用益物权体系的思考--以三个物权法草案的设计比较为线索

三个物权法草案关于用益物权体系设计的基本指导思想和研究路径基本一致,代表了目前我国用益物权研究的水平。但三个物权法草案对传统与现实、外国经验与中国国情、整理与创新、结构与内容把握的程度不同,其设计的用益物权体系的结构亦同中有异。笔者认为,建立一个科学完善的用益物权体系,应体现以下基本要求:充分反映我国现实生活的需要,具有现实基础和国情特色;用益物权的概念应当体现其质的规定性,界定科学;用益物权的种类应当具有概括性和特定性;用益物权的体系应具有系统性和开放性。在现阶段,我国的应以现实的土地物权利用关系为基础,以房屋和资源的物权利用关系为补充,以使用权为基础概念构建用益物权体系,按土地的用途不同设立建设用地使用权、农用地使用权、地役权、空间使用权;以房屋的物权利用不同设立典权和居住权;另设资源特许使用权。     

Environment Rights versus Environmental Wrongs: Forum over Substance?

Beginning with the 1972 Stockholm Declaration, there have been a number of international proclamations of a human right to a clean environment, both implicit and explicit. The highpoint of this movement towards an internationally recognized substantive right to a clean environment came with the 1992 Rio Declaration. This movement has continued forward in regional and specialized regimes – for example with respect to water and indigenous rights. There has also been a parallel move towards recognition of what can be considered procedural rights, which require public access to information, participation in decision making, and access to justice in environmental matters. This article argues that further development and use of these procedural rights will not only provide opportunities to protect environmental rights, but can also further the development of a substantive right to a clean environment.     

个人发展权探究

个人发展权的实现以生存权与自由权利为保障、以个人能力的扩展与个性的充分发挥为导向,平等地参与发展及公平地分享发展成果是实现个人发展权的主要手段。发展权的个体性特征既有其理论基础也有其现实意义,个人发展权的实现以集体发展权实现为基础,但集体发展权并不必然带来个人发展权的实现。     

论发展权的实现途径

发展权既是一项国际人权,同时也是一项国内人权.作为国际人权,为保障发展权的实现,各国应努力创造一个有利于发展权实现的国际环境.作为国内人权,国家应采取积极的措施来保障和促进发展权的实现.包括设立促进与保护人权的国家专门机构;完善立法;完善宪法审查和宪法诉讼制度.     

自我救济的权利

权利救济是在权利被侵害后对权利的恢复、修复、补偿、赔偿或对侵权的矫正,它是一项实现权利的权利,争取权利的权利。权利救济是自我救济的权利,即权利人或权利主体对其权利的自我判断和自我实现的资格和能力。私力救济、公力救济和自力救济,是自我救济权利的三种外在表现形式。从自我救济权利出发,当代权利救济问题的实质是以自我救济权利为基点整合公力救济和自力救济。塑造合格的权利主体、倡导司法节制观和建构正义的社会结构有助于权利救济理论在中国的发展。