In this issue, academics, professionals, and students explore the role that
international legal systems can play in addressing pandemics. This issue
then turns to modern versions of age-old problems: refugee rights and
sovereignty. New technologies, varied conflicts, and climate changes
require new solutions, or at least newly imagined ways of using our
existing systems. In a time when the world is holding a magnifying glass to
systems of oppression around the globe, a human rights-based approach is
crucial in reaching agreements about disputed territory and ethnic conflict.
Yet, in addressing these large-scale global questions, we cannot ignore
those individuals who have been historically erased or ignored by society.
As India implements an imperfect law protecting the rights of transgender
individuals, we see progress towards gender equality despite the law’s
shortcomings. In Mexico, we see that international systems are not always
fit to address violations of individual rights, despite the modern human
rights legal regime’s attempt to bridge that gap. The Student Columns and
Regional Systems articles continue on this theme — individuals are
harmed, and legal systems should prevent the harm, or, at the very least,
provide effective remedy for it.
To read more, click here for Volume 24, Issue 3 (Spring 2021).