Welcome to the BLOG of our project – POLARIS.
This blog will publish comments, analysis and short papers dealing with social rights protection in national, international and supranational contexts, in order to foster the debate and scientific reflection on the challenges to socio-economic rights in our times.
Contributions from Master Students at the University of Milan are particularly welcome! If you want to contribute, write to antonia.baraggia@unimi.it
By Niccolò Nobile, Student, Università degli Studi di Milano
Globalization may be defined as “the totality and velocity of connections and interactions – be they economic, political, social, cultural – that are sometimes beyond the control or even the knowledge of government and other authorities”[1]. So globalization is, first and foremost, a matter of interactions.
What about global interactions in the legal field? There is no doubt that globalization has fostered this kind of interactions nurturing the coexistence of different legal forms in the same social field, at both national and supranational level. Scholars tend to refer to this phenomenon as legal pluralism.
Closing his remarks at the National Defense University, Mr. Haas observed: “Globalization is a reality, not a choice or a policy. But how we respond to it is a matter of choice and of policy”[2] . It could be drafted an analogy between globalization and legal pluralism: the latter is, as a matter of fact, a reality that challanges legal systems at both national and supranational level.
Continue reading “Legal Pluralism in Comparative Perspective”Walterbiagio Lo Gerfo, MA Student, Università degli Studi di Milano
Europe is nowadays characterised by strong inequalities between EU citizens and migrants in relation to the entitlement to and enjoyment of fundamental rights. As a matter of fact, many immigrants and refugees living in the European continent find it difficult to fully enjoy their social and economic rights. Despite a sufficient human rights protection regime, many migrants struggle to socially integrate due to legal and bureaucratic barriers in various European countries.
Continue reading “The right to education for irregular migrants. Entitlement to school education across Europe”Angelina Scialla, MA Student, Università Statale di Milano
“Where nation-states fail to take responsibility, we must act.”
(Vice-mayor of Athens, 2018)
In recent times, cities and local authorities have been recognised as crucial for the implementation and protection of human and social rights of migrants, especially those with an irregular status. Their intervention has interested a vast number of domains, from education to freedom of movement and social participation. The focus of this article will be two of the most fundamental social rights, those to housing and healthcare. They could be considered particularly essential as the need for a safe shelter and the treatment of any ongoing health issue are among the first concerns for any migrant upon arrival.
Continue reading “Cities and Municipalities – How local authorities can protect the social rights of migrants with irregular status”By Giulia Botta, P.h.D. Student, Università degli Studi di Milano
The judgement on the Nubian Rights Forum and Others v. Attorney General case has been issued on 30 January 2020 by the High Court of Kenya, after that petitions were filed in September 2019 by three civil society organisations – the Nubian Rights Forum, the Kenya Commission on Human Rights and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights. The case, initiated in February 2019, concerns a challenge to the constitutionality of the government’s National Integrated Identity Management System (NIIMS), a biometric ID scheme also known as Huduma Namba[1], recently introduced in Kenya.
Continue reading “Biometric Data and the Right to Privacy in Kenya: Nubian Rights Forum and Others v. Attorney General Case”Ecenur Demir – LLM Graduate, University of Milan
The right to health is one of the main rights that are placed in international human rights treaties, however its formulation under international law is comparatively new.[1] As Marks puts it, “the right has given a formal recognition in law and policy that people are entitled to and the State must ensure that they have an opportunity to lead a healthy life.”[2] As of the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (hereinafter the CRC)[3] in which the most radical formulation of the rights of the child was given, the Committee on the Rights of the Child (hereinafter the CRC Committee) reflected that the rights enshrined in the CRC are indivisible and interrelated whilst considering the different cultural, social, economic and political realities of individual States. Hence, the CRC Committee interprets the right to health as “not only important in and of itself but also the realisation of the right is indispensable for the enjoyment of all the other rights in the Convention.”[4]
Continue reading “Children’s Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health”