Family Separation as a Violation of International Law
Devastating to the individuals involved and frequently destructive in its long-term impact on cultural groups and entire societies, the involuntary separation of families is a widespread problem that deserves increased attention as an issue of international human rights. Today, the international legal system is beginning to address the concerns of the family and the need for justice within the family, and to develop norms that in many circumstances treat involuntary family separation as a violation of international law. Its approach, however, has been fragmentary and inconsistent, viewing family separation through particular lenses, such as children's rights or privacy, without establishing a coherent framework that brings these various perspectives together. In this article, we identify and compare the emerging principles of international law that relate to the issue of family separation and elaborate on them in a way that, we hope, will help to build such a framework. Our analysis focuses on several case studies, including Australia's long history of removing Aboriginal children from their parents, recent anti-polygamy policies in France, current immigration and child welfare laws in the United States, and mass family separation in crisis situations worldwide. Each of these varied cases reflects one or more of the many facets of the problem of family separation, including the cultural significance of the family, the difficulty of defining "family," the balancing of interests and rights among different members of the family, and the balancing of these individuals' rights against the broader social, political, or economic interests of society or the state. In addition, each case tests the boundaries of possible international norms addressing this problem. Issues involving the integrity of families are difficult for international law to resolve because they involve a variety of competing values, values that are often both passionately held and deeply contested among and within cultures. These include the rights and interests of individual family members, including the special rights of children as well as the rights of adults to form relationships,
Twice traumatised: assessing the unaccompanied refugee child's right to family unity and reunification
Prepared under the supervision of Dr. Henry Ojambo at the Faculty of Law, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda
Industrial Relations in 1988
Undoubtedly, the election of the Hawke Labor Government in 1983 marked a turning point in Australian industrial relations. To a large extent industrial turbulence receded, helped along by global econ omic instability and the influence ofthe Prices and Incomes Accord between the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Council of Trade Union (ACTU). Arguably, the apparent success of the Accord owed something to a widespread concern within unions that the election of a Liberal-National Party government at the federal level would have resulted in a major pro gram of economic regulation, especially in relation to the institutions ofthe labour market. During 1988, despite an increasingly buoyant economy, the continuing influence of these economic and political conditions ensured that the level of industrial disputation remained subdued by historical stan dards, though those opposed to the nascent corporate state or centralised wage fixing may have been heartened by signs that wage restraint was fraying at the...