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,
Violating Women: Rights Abuses in the Welfare Police State
The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program subordinates recipients to a series of requirements, sanctions, and stacked incentives aimed at rectifying their personal choices and family practices. In exchange for welfare, TANF recipients must surrender or compromise their vocational freedom, sexual privacy, and reproductive choice, as well as the right to make intimate decisions about how to be and raise a family. As TANF's foremost objective is to restore the patriarchal family, numerous provisions promote marriage and paternal headship while frustrating childbearing and child-raising rights outside of marriage. Implementation decisions and a new wave of welfare reform underscore the centrality of marriage in welfare policy. The current thrust of welfare policy en courages poor mothers to be dependent on men, punishes them for independence, and withholds the material recognition necessary to sustain independence.
The lights that failed: European international history, 1919-1933
PART I: THE RECONSTRUCTION OF EUROPE, 1918-1929 1. The Hall of Mirrors: Peacemaking in the West 2. Distant Frontiers: Peacemaking in the East 3. Revolution from the Left: The Soviet Union and the Post-War Settlement 4. The Primacy of Economics: Reconstruction in Western Europe, 1919-1924 5. The Primacy of Nationalism: Reconstruction in Eastern and Central Europe 6. Revolution from the Right: Italy, 1919-25 7. The Geneva Dream: The League of Nations and Post-War Internationalism 8. New Dawn? Stabilisation in Western Europe after Locarno 9. Faltering Reconstruction: Cracks in the Locarno Facade 10. Troubled Waters: Uncertainties in Italy, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union 11. Faltering Internationalism: Disarmament and Security after Locarno Conclusion: Europe Reconstructed? PART II: THE HINGE YEARS, 1930-1933 12. The Diplomacy of the Depression: Economics and Foreign Policy 13. Beyond Europe: The Manchurian Crisis 14. The Poisoned Chalice: The Pursuit of Disarmament Conclusion: The Hinge Years Appendices Select Bibliography