Toddlers, Tiaras and the Law

“On any given weekend, on stages across the country, little girls and boys parade around wearing makeup, false eyelashes, spray tans and fake hair to be judged on their beauty, personality and costumes. … From hair and nail appointments, to finishing touches on gowns and suits, to numerous coaching sessions or rehearsals, each child preps for their performance. But once at the pageant, it’s all up to the judges and drama ensues when every parent wants to prove that their child is beautiful.” (“About Toddlers & Tiaras”, The Learning Channel).

If the parent’s quest to prove her child’s superior beauty is, indeed, the point of beauty pageants, French parents may soon need to find alternative ways of doing so. The New York Times reports that the French upper house this week passed a women’s rights bill that includes a ban on beauty pageants for children under the age of 16; the measure now goes to the lower house for discussion.

Continue ReadingToddlers, Tiaras and the Law

American Exceptionalism – Your Thoughts?

American Exceptionalism – Your Thoughts?

Statute of LibertyBy now I imagine most readers have read Vladimir Putin’s New York Times op-ed, published yesterday. In the piece addressed to the American people and their political leaders, the Russian President argues against military intervention in Syria and urges adherence to the United Nations Charter to “preserv[e] law and order in today’s complex and turbulent world … to keep international relations from sliding into chaos.”

Putting the debate on the morality and legality of a possible US strike against Syria to one side, I found the final paragraph of the op-ed most striking:

My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.”

Continue ReadingAmerican Exceptionalism – Your Thoughts?

A Right to Adoption?

Two significant developments in Russia’s approach to the adoption of Russian children to foreigners have taken place this year. In January, a Russian law prohibiting American citizens from adopting Russian children took effect, thereby bringing to an end, at least for now, the longstanding and generally robust history of Russia-U.S. adoptions (between 1995 and 2011, almost 60,000 Russian children were adopted by American citizens). And just this week, the Russian Parliament approved a bill banning adoptions of Russian children to foreign same-sex couples. These laws can be expected to have, in the short-term, a discernible impact on the adoption prospects for the 100,000 or so Russian children resident in institutions.

The ban on American adoptions is known colloquially in Russia as the Dima Yakovlev Bill, named for a 21-month-old Russian boy adopted to American parents in 2008 and re-named Chase Harrison. Less than six months after his adoption, Chase died of hyperthermia after unintentionally being left in a car by his adoptive father. In a case that became highly politicized in Russia, the father was acquitted of involuntary manslaughter by a Circuit Court judge in Fairfax County, Virginia, in December 2008. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs shortly thereafter issued a statement on the acquittal, expressing deep anger at the “flagrantly unjust ruling,” and implying a connection between Chase Harrison’s status as a Russian adoptee, and the lack of adequate punishment for his death.

Russia’s decision to ban American adoptions is at first glance a policy response to Russia-U.S. adoptions, such as Chase’s, that have gone wrong – Russia claims that a total of twenty Russian adoptees have been killed, whether intentionally or otherwise, by American adoptive parents. However the law is more commonly referred to in the U.S. as the “Anti-Magnitsky Law.”

Continue ReadingA Right to Adoption?