United Nations System Part 5

Collapse and Reconstruction of a Judicial System: The United Nations Missions in Kosovo and East Timor
Hansjürg Strohmeyer
American Journal of International Law
Volume 95, Number 1, January 2001 p.46

RACIAL RELEASES, INVOLUNTARY SEPARATIONS, AND EMPLOYMENT AT-WILL
Donna E. Young
Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review
Volume 34, Number 2, January 2001 p.351

Professor Donna E. Young contributes to a lively and increasingly heated debate about the appropriate role of law in regulating the workplace. Since the end of the nineteenth century, the employment at-will doctrine has been the foundation for legal regulation of the employment relationship. According to the doctrine, so long as employer and employee have entered into an employment relationship and no time period has been specified for that relationship, then each party is entitled to terminate the relationship at any time, for any reason, without notice. The rule thus presumes an equality of bargaining strength between employer and employee. The doctrine’s simplicity obscures its most troubling feature — it’s contribution to a system of employment regulation that perpetuates societal inequalities between the races, sexes, and classes. In recent years, the at-will doctrine has been criticized for adopting the erroneous assumption that those with the power to quit enjoy the same advantage in the employment relationship as those with the power to fire. Against increasing hostility to the rule, however, there has emerged a spirited defense in the law and economics literature. The author is firmly on the side of the critics. However, she differs from her fellow critics in several fundamental respects. First, Professor Young has chosen to place people of color at the center of her analysis; up to now they have been relegated to the margins of the academic dialogue on employment at-will. This is perplexing since intuition suggests and recent studies confirm that people of color are much more likely to be discharged from employment than Whites. She argues that the employment at-will doctrine works in tandem with ineffectual antidiscrimination laws to facilitate these dismissals by shielding employers from having to justifying terminations. Second, Professor Young contends that placing people of color at the center of the analysis makes apparent the shortcomings of a “just cause”scheme that employment at-will critics have presented as an alternative to the at-will presumption; studies have found that in the federal employment sector in which just cause requirements are the norm, people of color are still more likely than Whites to be involuntarily dismissed. Third, she argues that the United States stands virtually alone among Western industrialized nations in its failure to furnish its workers adequate job security; she argues that American lawmakers should emulate Canada’s employment regulation as a model for law reform. Fourth, Professor Young offers her solution, which is that the law ought to require mandatory notice or pay in lieu of notice; she argues that a minimum notice requirement would have the effect of compensating those victims of discriminatory discharge who cannot rely on current antidiscrimination laws to protect them. Professor Young intends Racial Releases to challenge commonly held notions about the appropriate legal regulation of the employment relationship in the context of the social and economic inequality which currently permeates the American workplace.

WOMEN’S HUMAN RIGHTS IN IRAN: WHAT CAN THE INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS SYSTEM DO?
Maryam Javaherian
Santa Clara Law Review
Volume 40, Number 3, 2000 p.819

Islam is the basis of law in Iran. With the intent of preserving the teachings of Islam, the government of Iran strictly regulates the freedom of all Iranians-especially women. For example, under the law, women have half the value of men. Men and women are segregated in many facets of society, including Education and receiving medical care. Women’s dress is also strictly regulated, with all women having to wear the hejab. Women are severely punished without Due Process , including receiving lashings and stonings, if they don’t follow the law. Women’s access to employment is also considerably limited. While these injustices continue, Iran is obligated under various international human rights Treaties to guarantee women their human rights. Under these human rights Treaties and various United Nations devices, the U.N. has monitored the status of women’s rights in Iran for a number of years. However, little has changed. This comment briefly describes the development and the current status of women’s rights in Iran. It also explains International human rights law and the treaties and devices that apply to Iran. This comment then analyzes whether the status of women’s rights in Iran violates International human rights law and whether the U.N. attempts at monitoring and improving such conditions have been effective. The author concludes that the current status of women’s rights in Iran clearly violates international human rights law and that the current U.N. system of enforcing and monitoring human rights fails to adequately ensure Iran’s compliance with its human rights obligations. The author proposes that legal and social techniques, such as restructuring the existing international human rights system and promoting the development of non-governmental organizations in Iran, are necessary to improve the status of women’s rights in Iran.

Author: international