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,
The Criminalization Of Child Welfare In New York City: Sparing The Child Or Spoiling The Family?
The trend in child welfare has been to err on the side of protection, often considered erring on the side of the child. While this approach may have been appropriate to overcome a long history of State abstinence from involvement in the family domain, it has been under-inclusive in protecting the child’s fundamental right to a parent-child relationship. A delicate balance must be struck between family autonomy and State intervention. This balance is best achieved in the family court when the child’s best interest is represented and the family is addressed as a whole. Under traditional criminal procedure, which focuses on the parent-defendant versus the State, one of these two parties is presumed to represent the child’s best interest. This presumption effectively precludes the notion that the child may have an interest that is independent of either the parent or the State. The result has left the child voiceless, dependent on the judgment of the parent, the State or a court. This judgment will always by under-informed without input from the child. The criminal justice system, by focusing on the parent’s claims against the State and the State’s interest in child protection, is inadequate in accommodating the constitutional rights of the child to self-determination. Neglect is more appropriately adjudicated under the FCA, which considers the best interests of the child first and foremost, and which strives for family preservation.
Kitchen Conversations: Democracy in Action at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum
Abstract This article describes the Lower East Side Tenement Museum9s ongoing public dialogue on immigration, the first in the United States. As she joins facilitators in reflecting on the importance of dialogue in a democracy, museum president Ruth J. Abram explains how and why the program was initiated, the obstacles that had to be overcome, and the public reaction to it. Kitchen Conversations represents the museum9s commitment to the proposition that historic sites must function as places of civic engagement, using the history they interpret as a starting place for dialogue on related contemporary issues.