Alison Dundes Renteln

Visual Religious Symbols and the Law

Religious symbols evoke strong emotional responses, particularly those that are visual. This article considers a set of cases in which members of ethnic minority groups challenge policies denying them the right to wear symbols important for the maintenance of their social identities. Among the controversies considered are those concerning religious headgear and hair as well as the kirpan, the Sikh ceremonial dagger. The number of disputes involving religious garb and hairstyles demonstrates how visual religious symbols are often perceived as threatening. By analyzing selected cases in which religious minorities experience discrimination, this study reveals the precarious nature of religious liberty in democratic systems. Careful consideration of the religious symbols of minority groups may help avoid ethnocentric assessments and cross-cultural misunderstandings.

Sex selection and reproductive freedom

Abstract The emergence of new technologies for determining the sex of children again brings to the forefront the disquieting preference for male offspring evidenced in most societies. After a brief discussion of the cultural underpinnings of this predilection, I examine three societies where the use of selective abortion is well documented: India, South Korea, and China. The relevance of these data for abortion policy in the United States is discussed. Following this is an evaluation of some of the biological, social, and psychological arguments for and against the use of sex selection. The paper then turns to the central question: whether or not the state ought to regulate sex selection, including both pre- and post-conception techniques. After reviewing the arguments in favor of regulation, the essay concludes that regulation would jeopardize the very rights it was designed to protect.

Cultural Rights and Culture Defense: Cultural Concerns

This article examines debates in political theory, international law, and the social sciences generally regarding the nature and scope of cultural rights. Cultural rights – the most understudied of all human rights – remain controversial, for reasons explored in this article. After identifying several key conceptual questions, the focus shifts to the protection of these rights in legal process and the types of difficulties that may arise when courts must wrestle with the analysis of sometimes unfamiliar claims. When individuals and groups attempt to follow cultural traditions accepted in their countries of origin but that are apparently prohibited in their new homelands, they may raise cultural defenses to explain the motivations for their actions. Defendants invoke the defense in a wide variety of contexts and in many countries. To afford insight into the nature of these disputes, a few of the more famous cases are described here. Although general principles of law and the explicit protection of culture in international human rights treaties appear to require the consideration of culture in legal proceedings, the extent of this protection remains unclear. Ultimately, the question is how much weight cultural rights deserve if their protection risks violating the rights of others, such as women and children.

Cultural Law: Cultural Law: An Introduction

The Cultural Dimension of the Legal Process Legal issues may lead multiple lives. They can be political, economic, social, historical, or cultural. Normally, the particular classification of an issue, in the abstract, is not so important. What is important, however, is to understand how a particular nonlegal dimension may condition the analysis of an issue and the appropriate response to it. Gaining this understanding is a matter not only of viewpoint or specialized information but also of professional skill. It is a skill that is best acquired by gaining a comprehensive understanding of the manifold ways in which a particular dimension of human experience – for our purposes, the cultural dimension – affects the legal process. The first two chapters in this book address the problem of cultural conflict, the interaction of culture and law, a working definition of cultural law, and the characteristics of both culture and law. The remaining chapters examine the interaction of culture and law in specific contexts of cultural expressions, practices, and activities such as art, traditional knowledge, sports, and religion.

Cultural Law: Cultural Material: Rectification, Criminal Justice, and Dispute Resolution

Introduction Claims for the return or restitution of cultural heritage are of central importance on both domestic and international levels of cultural heritage law. On the domestic level, for example, the historical and cultural identity of tribal and other indigenous groups may be at stake in efforts to reclaim significant artifacts from museums, art galleries, and private collections. On the international level, the recovery of stolen cultural material, whose value is estimated to be more than

Constructing Civil Liberties: Discontinuities in the Development of American Constitutional Law

3 billion annually, requires substantial diligence by customs officials and cooperation among governments, private institutions, and individuals. Obligations to return cultural material to territories of origin date back at least to Greek and Roman times. Until recently, those obligations were addressed almost exclusively to military-related problems of plunder, the spoils of warfare, and occupation. For example, the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, followed by the reparation provisions of the Treaties of Versailles and Saint-Germain after the First World War, underscored the illegality of military plunder and articulated the remedy for victim states. Twenty-five years later, during the Second World War, a leading scholar, urging moderation in dealing with the Germans after the war, referred to the Treaty of Saint Germain. Its provisions for the return of historical and cultural material took account, on a reciprocal basis, of the cultural heritage of both the victor, Italy, and the loser, Austria: [The Treaty] stated, however incompletely, the reasonable principle that historical material belongs, wherever possible, to the land of its birth; and though it might prove highly impracticable to carry this principle through to its ultimate conclusion, the mere fact of its enunciation on reciprocal terms , while the smoke of the battle and revenge still clung to Europe, was a noble signal of growth.

International Human Rights: Universalism versus Relativism

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International human rights : universalism versus relativism

Introduction The Development of International Human-Rights Standards The Concept of Human Rights Relativism Revisited A Cross-Cultural Approach to Validating International Human Rights The Case of Retribution Tied to Proportionality