international human rights

unc law's 12th annual student-organized conference on race, class, gender and ethnicity was held yesterday --lots of food for thought.

using an international human rights framework to look at domestic legal issues is a fairly new idea, and one that is fascinating. there are serious hurdles, including the fact that international treaties have these pesky little non-self-executing clauses (rendering them unenforceable), even when they have been ratified.

still, there is reason for hope. it may be possible to use them in the legal arena as evidence of international standards. i am also interested in the idea that they can be used with the public -- maybe it will be useful to understand human rights violations as things which happen not only in countries like iran, china, but here. we think we always wear the white hats.

also intriguing was this concept, offered, i think, by mark gibney of unca during q/a: human rights-based education of young children. wow -- that could make a difference. my brain has gone bounding off into summer democracy camp or something, where kids could actually go off together, learn about basic human rights, and create rules and a societal structure for enforcing them, etc. and play it out -- really give them power within human rights framework -- see how it works and how complicated it is, get them thinking, participating -- is anyone doing this?