YALE HUMAN RIGHTS & DEVELOPMENT LAW JOURNAL

This article focuses on the adverse effects of health-care services user fees on maternal health, providing a human rights perspective. Complications during childbirth and pregnancy are a main source of death and disability among women of reproductive age, particularly in developing countries. User fees were introduced in the 1980s and promoted by the World Bank as a solution to under-funded public health care services that would improve efficiency and equity by increasing revenues. The authors argue that the user fees have an adverse impact on maternal

The author argues that local officials who failed to adequately prevent and investigate femicides in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, could be held civilly liable in the U.S. under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS). International victims of human rights abuses have used the ATS to bring civil suits in U.S. courts against governmental officials and multinational corporations for a range of abuses. The author argues that aiding and abetting liability should be allowed to remain as a form of third-party liability available under the ATS, but would not be sufficient to hold the Mexican officials

The author argues that there should be greater state intervention in marriage, in particular, in the context of Commonwealth African states. Traditionally, customary law in many African nations restricts women's property rights and reproductive rights, and unequal power relations in the home can lead to gender-based violence. The author argues that the state has a dual obligation to promote equality and women's rights within intimate relationships, and these goals are best served by increased state regulation of marriage. The author argues that within the

The author discusses issues of land reform and gender equality in the context of post- genocide Rwanda. Prior to land reforms in 1999 that gave women the same property rights as men, Rwandan women were not allowed to inherit or own land, and only had secondary property rights through their fathers or husbands. The author argues that despite these legal changes, there are still major social obstacles to gender equality that are manifested through resistance to granting equal inheritance rights to daughters and sons, adherence to assumptions of female

Using refugee camps in Guinea in 2002 as a case study, the author discusses how refugee women are frequently subject to sexual violence and sexual exploitation whiling lacking means to address these fundamental rights violations. It was found that the operation and structure of the Guinean refugee camps systematically disadvantaged women, made them dependent on men for assistance, and left them vulnerable to sexual violence. Although various governmental and non-governmental organizations worked together to fulfill state-like functions in the Guinean refugee

The author examines the impact of the Migrant Workers Convention on women migrant workers. She advocates an intersectional approach which combats discrimination by considering multiple forms of subordination faced by victims rather than a single variable. She then analyzes human rights violations and discriminatory labour practices experienced by female migrant workers through the lens of intersectionality, and looks at how relevant human rights treaties can be invoked to better protect their rights. She argues that the international community's sole