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Human Rights, Mineral Rights and Corporate Social Responsibility ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
This view of the company is often described under the concept of corporate social responsibility. This Paper assesses the nature of corporate social responsibility in Ghana primarily focusing on the mining industry. The Paper outlines the various human rights and mineral rights in Ghana and the effects of mining on human ...
Incorporating Human Rights into the Sustainability Agenda: A Commentary on "Corporate Responsibility to Respect Human Rights and Business Schools' Responsibility to Teach It"
Andrew, Jane
In her commentary of McPhail's 2013 article "Corporate Responsibility to Respect Human Rights and Business Schools' Responsibility to Teach It: Incorporating Human Rights into the Sustainability Agenda," Jane Andrew begins by highlighting a number of McPhail's primary arguments. She points out that McPhail sets out to achieve two things…
Human rights responsibilities of pharmaceutical companies in relation to access to medicines.
Lee, Joo-Young; Hunt, Paul
Although access to medicines is a vital feature of the right to the highest attainable standard of health ("right to health"), almost two billion people lack access to essential medicines, leading to immense avoidable suffering. While the human rights responsibility to provide access to medicines lies mainly with States, pharmaceutical companies also have human rights responsibilities in relation to access to medicines. This article provides an introduction to these responsibilities. It briefly outlines the new UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and places the human rights responsibilities of pharmaceutical companies in this context. The authors draw from the work of the first UN Special Rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of health, in particular the Human Rights Guidelines for Pharmaceutical Companies in Relation to Access to Medicines that he presented to the UN General Assembly in 2008, and his UN report on GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). While the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights are general human rights standards applicable to all business entities, the Human Rights Guidelines for Pharmaceutical Companies consider the specific human rights responsibilities of one sector (pharmaceutical companies) in relation to one area of activity (access to medicines). The article signals the human rights responsibilities of all pharmaceutical companies, with particular attention to patent-holding pharmaceutical companies. Adopting a right-to-health "lens," the article discusses GSK and accountability. The authors argue that human rights should shape pharmaceutical companies' policies, and provide standards in relation to which pharmaceutical companies could, and should, be held accountable. They conclude that it is now crucial to devise independent, accessible, transparent, and effective mechanisms to monitor pharmaceutical companies and hold them publicly accountable for their human rights responsibilities. © 2012 American
Data Rights and Responsibilities: A Human Rights Perspective on Data Sharing.
Harris, Theresa L; Wyndham, Jessica M
A human-rights-based analysis can be a useful tool for the scientific community and policy makers as they develop codes of conduct, harmonized standards, and national policies for data sharing. The human rights framework provides a shared set of values and norms across borders, defines rights and responsibilities of various actors involved in data sharing, addresses the potential harms as well as the benefits of data sharing, and offers a framework for balancing competing values. The right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications offers a particularly helpful lens through which to view data as both a tool of scientific inquiry to which access is vital and as a product of science from which everyone should benefit. © The Author(s) 2015.
Grassroots responsiveness to human rights abuse: history of the Washtenaw Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights.
Sanders, Laura; Martinez, Ramiro; Harner, Margaret; Harner, Melanie; Horner, Pilar; Delva, Jorge
The purpose of this article is to discuss how a community agency based in Washtenaw County, the Washtenaw Interfaith Coalition for Immigration Rights (WICIR), emerged in response to increasing punitive immigration practices and human rights abuses toward the Latino community. The article discusses how WICIR is engaged in advocacy, community education on immigration issues, and political action toward a more humane immigration reform. Detailed examples of human rights abuses and the WICIR activities described in response to the abuses serve as illustrations of social work advocacy, education, and policy formulation that affect the general public, policymakers, and law enforcement officials.
A Commentary on "Corporate Responsibility to Respect Human Rights and Business Schools' Responsibility to Teach It"
Everett, Jeff
In this commentary on "Corporate Responsibility to Respect Human Rights and Business Schools' Responsibility to Teach It" (McPhail 2013), the author discusses how McPhail's paper examines human rights teaching principles, the question of why corporations and business schools should respect and teach human rights, and how business…
FCJ-195 Privacy, Responsibility, and Human Rights Activism
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Becky Kazansky
Full Text Available In this article, we argue that many difficulties associated with the protection of digital privacy are rooted in the framing of privacy as a predominantly individual responsibility. We examine how models of privacy protection, such as Notice and Choice, contribute to the 'responsibilisation' of human rights activists who rely on the use of technologies for their work. We also consider how a group of human rights activists countered technology-mediated threats that this 'responsibilisation' causes by developing a collective approach to address their digital privacy and security needs. We conclude this article by discussing how technological tools used to maintain or counter the loss of privacy can be improved in order to support the privacy and digital security of human rights activists.
Legal response to human rights challenges of multinational ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
Nnamdi Azikiwe University Journal of International Law and Jurisprudence ... Hence, the subject matter of business and human rights is a trending issue at the ... The paper finds that the response is poor and the consequence is the increase in ...
Connecting Corporate Human Rights Responsibilities and State Obligations under the UN Guiding Principles
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Buhmann, Karin
Taking its point of departure in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP), this chapter discusses the complementarity between Pillars One on the State Duty to Respect and Pillar Two the Corporate Responsibility to Respect Human Rights. It does this through HRDD and communicat......Taking its point of departure in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP), this chapter discusses the complementarity between Pillars One on the State Duty to Respect and Pillar Two the Corporate Responsibility to Respect Human Rights. It does this through HRDD...
Are drug companies living up to their human rights responsibilities? The Merck perspective.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Geralyn S Ritter
Full Text Available BACKGROUND TO THE DEBATE: The human rights responsibilities of drug companies have been considered for years by nongovernmental organizations, but were most sharply defined in a report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, submitted to the United Nations General Assembly in August 2008. The "Human Rights Guidelines for Pharmaceutical Companies in relation to Access to Medicines" include responsibilities for transparency, management, monitoring and accountability, pricing, and ethical marketing, and against lobbying for more protection in intellectual property laws, applying for patents for trivial modifications of existing medicines, inappropriate drug promotion, and excessive pricing. Two years after the release of the Guidelines, the PLoS Medicine Debate asks whether drug companies are living up to their human rights responsibilities. Sofia Gruskin and Zyde Raad from the Harvard School of Public Health say more assessment is needed of such responsibilities; Geralyn Ritter, Vice President of Global Public Policy and Corporate Responsibility at Merck & Co. argues that multiple stakeholders could do more to help States deliver the right to health; and Paul Hunt and Rajat Khosla introduce Mr. Hunt's work as the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of health, regarding the human rights responsibilities of pharmaceutical companies and access to medicines.
Are drug companies living up to their human rights responsibilities? Moving toward assessment.
Gruskin, Sofia; Raad, Zyde
The human rights responsibilities of drug companies have been considered for years by nongovernmental organizations, but were most sharply defined in a report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, submitted to the United Nations General Assembly in August 2008. The "Human Rights Guidelines for Pharmaceutical Companies in relation to Access to Medicines" include responsibilities for transparency, management, monitoring and accountability, pricing, and ethical marketing, and against lobbying for more protection in intellectual property laws, applying for patents for trivial modifications of existing medicines, inappropriate drug promotion, and excessive pricing. Two years after the release of the Guidelines, the PLoS Medicine Debate asks whether drug companies are living up to their human rights responsibilities. Sofia Gruskin and Zyde Raad from the Harvard School of Public Health say more assessment is needed of such responsibilities; Geralyn Ritter, Vice President of Global Public Policy and Corporate Responsibility at Merck & Co. argues that multiple stakeholders could do more to help States deliver the right to health; and Paul Hunt and Rajat Khosla introduce Mr. Hunt's work as the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of health, regarding the human rights responsibilities of pharmaceutical companies and access to medicines.
Are drug companies living up to their human rights responsibilities? The Merck perspective.
Ritter, Geralyn S
The human rights responsibilities of drug companies have been considered for years by nongovernmental organizations, but were most sharply defined in a report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, submitted to the United Nations General Assembly in August 2008. The "Human Rights Guidelines for Pharmaceutical Companies in relation to Access to Medicines" include responsibilities for transparency, management, monitoring and accountability, pricing, and ethical marketing, and against lobbying for more protection in intellectual property laws, applying for patents for trivial modifications of existing medicines, inappropriate drug promotion, and excessive pricing. Two years after the release of the Guidelines, the PLoS Medicine Debate asks whether drug companies are living up to their human rights responsibilities. Sofia Gruskin and Zyde Raad from the Harvard School of Public Health say more assessment is needed of such responsibilities; Geralyn Ritter, Vice President of Global Public Policy and Corporate Responsibility at Merck & Co. argues that multiple stakeholders could do more to help States deliver the right to health; and Paul Hunt and Rajat Khosla introduce Mr. Hunt's work as the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of health, regarding the human rights responsibilities of pharmaceutical companies and access to medicines.
Exploring Responsibility. Public and Private in Human Rights Protection
Bexell, Magdalena
The theory and practice of international relations are replete with dilemmas related to the distribution of responsibility for human rights protection. Institutionalized notions of public and private empower and shape knowledge of what the spheres of responsibility signify for different kinds of actors. This study examines how the public-private distinction is manifested in controversy concerning the character of corporate social responsibility. The study develops a conceptual framework cente...
Regulating corporate social and human rights responsibilities at the UN plane
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Buhmann, Karin
Globalisation's unprecedented growth and transborder activities of business coupled with increasing awareness of the impact of business on societies and human rights has resulted in demands for the international society to regulate corporate social and human rights responsibilities. This not only...... challenges traditional notions of duty bearers under international law, but also calls for novel approaches for the United Nations (UN) to implement central parts of the Charter's human rights aims and to address corporate behaviour in a state-centred international law-making order that lacks the willingness...... businesses' impact on human rights. The pattern of using these forms suggests an institutionalisation of reflexive regulation as a regulatory process drawing on public-private regulation, and of an emerging UN based 'Global Administrative Law' in order to meet regulatory challenges in living up to the human...
Grassroots Responsiveness to Human Rights Abuse: History of the Washtenaw Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights
Sanders, Laura; Martinez, Ramiro; Harner, Margaret; Harner, Melanie; Horner, Pilar; Delva, Jorge
The purpose of this article is to discuss how a community agency based in Washtenaw County, the Washtenaw Interfaith Coalition for Immigration Rights (WICIR), emerged in response to increasing punitive immigration practices and human rights abuses toward the Latino community. The article discusses how WICIR is engaged in advocacy, community…
The human rights responsibilities of multinational tobacco companies
Crow, M
This article explores various strategies which could be used to hold the tobacco industry accountable for human rights violations precipitated by its conduct. First, a brief overview of the international human rights regime and the tobacco related jurisprudence issued by human rights treaty bodies is provided. The article then explains how tobacco control advocates could promote more systematic consideration of governments' tobacco related human rights violations by reconceptualising the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in the language of rights. The feasibility of using the existing human rights framework to target the tobacco industry directly is analysed with the conclusion that this approach has serious limitations. Emerging human rights norms, which have greater potential to affect the industry's conduct, are presented. Finally, given the questionable authoritativeness of these norms, alternative ways that they could be employed to hold tobacco companies accountable for the rights related consequences of their activities are proposed. PMID:16046696
Response to "The Shaky Legal Foundations of the Global Human Rights Education Project"
Tibbitts, Felisa
This article is a response to "The Shaky Legal Foundations of the Global Human Rights Education Project," an article written by Barend Vlaardingerbroek, in which Vlaardingerbroek characterizes current practices of human rights education (HRE) as having an overriding agenda of activism, one that can draw on an ideologically-driven…
Health and Human Rights: New challenges for social responsiveness
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Leslie London
. Finally, it is shown how the portfolio of social responsiveness activities in the health and human rights envelope has offered significant and novel mutual benefits to the University and the community.
Corporate Social Responsibility and Human Rights
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Buhmann, Karin
rather than public regulation. The UN Global Compact and the UN Norms on human rights responsibilities for transnational and other corporations are discussed as examples of changes in international UN based regulation of corporations in relation to CSR topics, and as examples of network governance......Taking its point of departure in the aims of the United Nations, the article discusses challenges to international law making and the UN in the relatively immediate future in view of the increasing role and influence of corporations. This is done addressing challenges posed by globalisation......, in particular with regard to the appropriateness of past and present ideas of duty holders, modes of regulation, and law making, to deliver the aims of the UN; International law making and actors in this process; and a changing character of law and legal regulation, towards deregulation and private regulation...
From responsible robotics towards a human rights regime oriented to the challenges of robotics and artificial intelligence
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Liu, Hin-Yan; Zawieska, Karolina
impulse by proposing a complementary set of human rights directed specifically against the harms arising from robotic and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The relationship between responsibilities of the agent and the rights of the patient suggest that a rights regime is the other side...... to act responsibly. This subsists within a larger phenomenon where the difference between humans and non-humans, be it animals or artificial systems, appears to be increasingly blurred, thereby disrupting orthodox understandings of responsibility. This paper seeks to supplement the responsible robotics...
Corporate Responsibility to Respect Human Rights and Business Schools' Responsibility to Teach It: Incorporating Human Rights into the Sustainability Agenda
McPhail, Ken
The Preamble to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UNDHR) calls on every organ of society to teach and educate for the promotion of the rights it contains. However, few if any business schools have any systematic or critical human rights content in their accounting and business curricula. This oversight is increasingly problematic as…
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Full Text Available The adoption in 1948 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide seemed to open a new era in the international scenario in which these kind of practices apparently are left in the historic past. Reality has shown us that this international instrument was not enough to face arbitrary measures of some Governments. Nevertheless, genocide actions continuing to be performed, and in order to decrease human suffering, "humanitarian intervention" was thought as a response to the ineffectiveness of the Security Council which also brought along arbitrary actions in its invocation, discrediting it. Before the reiterated calls of the Secretary General of the United Nations to prevent and detain massive violations to human rights, an effort has been made in order to standardizing a type of interventions that can respond to massive violations of human rights. This has been called Responsibility to Protect.
Europe's Shifting Response to HIV/AIDS: From Human Rights to Risk Management.
Smith, Julia
Despite a history of championing HIV/AIDS as a human rights issue, and a rhetorical commitment to health as a human right, European states and institutions have shifted from a rights-based response to a risk management approach to HIV/AIDS since the economic recession of 2008. An interdisciplinary perspective is applied to analyze health policy changes at the national, regional, and global levels by drawing on data from key informant interviews, and institutional and civil society documents. It is demonstrated that, in the context of austerity measures, member states such as the UK and Greece reduced commitments to rights associated with HIV/AIDS; at the regional level, the EU failed to develop rights-based approaches to address the vulnerabilities and health care needs of key populations affected by HIV/AIDS, particularly migrants and sex workers; and at the global level, the EU backtracked on commitments to global health and is prioritizing the intellectual property rights of pharmaceutical companies over the human rights of people living with HIV/AIDS. The focus within and from the EU is on containment, efficiency, and cost reduction. The rights of those most affected are no longer prioritized.
Mobilization and Counter-mobilization Against LGBT Rights. Conservative Responses to the Recognition of Human Rights
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Jairo Antonio López Pacheco
Full Text Available This article analyzes the counter-mobilization against the institutionalization of lgbt rights in Colombia and Mexico. From an analytical framework that integrates the dimension of mobilization and counter-mobilization in the conflicts for rights, we show that the conservative reaction in Colombia and Mexico is a coordinated and active response against the conquests of sexual minorities, led by the churches, which has slowed the progress of effective recognition of human rights. We have identified similar strategies of mobilization of demand frameworks, mobilization structures and collective action repertories in both cases that have raised the political costs of institutional changes through two mechanisms of conflict: street and electoral activism and institutional activism.
Human rights in global supply chains: Corporate social responsibility and public procurement in the European Union
Outhwaite, Opi; Martin-Ortega, Olga
The global supply chains of multinational enterprises are complex and multi-tiered, often involving many stages of production and spanning several jurisdictions. Important questions remain about how to ensure that human rights are respected in these supply chains, including how multinational enterprises are to exercise the responsibility to respect human rights in their supply chains and the role that can be played by states in protecting human rights outside of their borders. This article fo...
Education in Responsibility in Order to Secure Human Rights in Times of Crisis
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Michaël Merrigan
Full Text Available Education in and awareness about human rights is generally seen as one of the less contentious elements of citizenship education. However, it would seem that, for the concept of human rights to have a real impact in today's world, theoretical knowledge of human rights standards should be complemented by an understanding of the ethical concept of individual responsibility. This concept could, moreover, prove to be a valuable tool in conceiving creative answers to some of the consequences of the crisis Europe has been facing. This crisis has affected especially the protection and realisation of socio-economic rights, as many States were left with increasingly less budgetary space to meet increasingly urgent societal demands. Over the last few decades, and already prior to the current crisis, many have called for a greater stress on 'duties and responsibilities', as it was perceived that 'rights-talk' alone did not provide all the answers. From a legal perspective, as well as from the side of human rights advocacy groups, however, these appeals were often met with scepticism and hostility. In answer to the often justified criticism, it is essential to make a distinction between the 'legal', the 'moral' and the 'ethical' realms. While an unnuanced greater focus on moral duties is potentially dangerous, education based on the proposed notion of ethical 'responsibility' would seem, on the contrary, essential for the survival of human rights and, hence, of the democratic society.
"Taking the human out of human rights" human rights or group rights?
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Bojanić Petar
Full Text Available What interest me are the reasons why "human" or "human rights" could be important or possibly most important in constituting a group (hence the introduction of the complicated word "group" and "group right(s" in the subtitle. If I had to justify the existence of the latest debates on nature, justification and universality of human rights, on their distinction from other normative standards, on the philosophy and (legal foundation of human rights, on "Human Rights without (or with Foundations" (Raz, Tasioulas, Besson, then I would immediately conclude that this "process of grandiose concretization" of a complete fabrication is far from over. Despite the innumerable pacts and international conventions established after World War II, the slew of obligations to which states have agreed in the last few decades, the establishment of rights to secession or humanitarian intervention it is as if the constitution of classification of basic human rights and their universality is far from over. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 43007
Are (Should) Human Rights (Be) Universal?
Howard, Rhoda E.
Believes that the purpose of human rights is to change many culturally ingrained habits and customs that violate the dignity of the individual. Expounds the differences between cultural relativism and cultural absolutism. States that "weak" cultural relativism is sometimes an appropriate response to human-rights violations. (CMK)
Land administration, planning and human rights
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Enemark, Stig; Hvingel, Line Træholt; Galland, Daniel
The people-to-land relationship is dynamic and changes over time in response to cultural, social, and economic development. Land policies, institutions and land administration systems are key tools aimed at governing this relationship. Such tools will normally include the means for allocating...... and controlling rights, restrictions and responsibilities in land – often termed RRRs. Each of the RRRs encompasses a human rights dimension that should be seen and unfolded as more than just political rhetoric. This paper attempts to analyse the aspect of human rights in relation to land administration systems...... with a special focus on less developed countries struggling to build adequate systems for governing the RRRs in land. In doing so, the paper conceives planning as a key function and means of land administration systems by which human rights should be underpinned in solving concrete land issues....
Damned if you do, damned if you don't? The Lundbeck case of pentobarbital, the guiding principles on business and human rights, and competing human rights responsibilities.
Buhmann, Karin
In 2011 it emerged that to induce the death penalty, United States authorities had begun giving injections of pentobarbital, a substance provided by Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck. Lundbeck's product pentobarbital is licensed for treatment of refractory forms of epilepsy and for usage as an anaesthetic, thus for a very different purpose. The Lundbeck case offers a difficult, but also interesting Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) dilemma between choices facing a pharmaceutical company to stop the distribution of a medical substance in order to avoid complicity in human rights violations, or to retain distribution of the substance in order not to impede access to the medicine for those patients who need it. The dilemma arose at a time when the United Nations (UN) Secretary General's Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, Professor John Ruggie, was finalizing a set of Guiding Principles to operationalize recommendations on business and human rights that he had presented to the UN Human Rights Council in 2008. The article discusses the dilemma in which Lundbeck was placed in from the perspective of the Guiding Principles on business and human rights and the 2008 Protect, Respect, Remedy UN Framework. The analysis seeks to assess what guidance may be gauged from the Guiding Principles in relation to the dilemma at hand and discusses the adequacy the Guiding Principles for dealing with acute human rights dilemmas of conflicting requirements in which a decision to avoid one type of violation risks causing violation of another human right. The article concludes by drawing up perspectives for further development of guidance on implementation of the UN Framework that could be considered by the newly established Working Group on Business and Human Rights and related UN bodies. © 2012 American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics, Inc.
Ryan, Natasha
Abstract Following an increase in Roma migration under the European "freedom of movement" laws, Swedish municipalities initiated more than 80 evictions of informal Roma settlements on the grounds of poor sanitation between 2013 and 2016. These evictions echo policies from earlier in the 20th century, when Roma living in Sweden were often marginalized through the denial of access to water and sanitation facilities. The recent Swedish evictions also follow similar government actions across Europe, where Roma settlements are controlled through the denial of access to water and sanitation. However, access to water and sanitation—central aspects of human health—are universal human rights that must be available to all people present in a jurisdiction, regardless of their legal status. The evictions described here violated Sweden's obligations under both European and international human rights law. More positive government responses are required, such as providing shelters or camping sites, setting up temporary facilities, and directly engaging with communities to address water and sanitation issues. The authors conclude by providing guidance on how states and municipalities can meet their human rights obligations with respect to water and sanitation for vulnerable Roma individuals and informal settlements in their communities. PMID:29302163
Are drug companies living up to their human rights responsibilities? The perspective of the former United Nations Special Rapporteur (2002-2008.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Paul Hunt
Full Text Available BACKGROUND TO THE DEBATE: The human rights responsibilities of drug companies have been considered for years by nongovernmental organizations, but were most sharply defined in a report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, submitted to the United Nations General Assembly in August 2008. The "Human Rights Guidelines for Pharmaceutical Companies in relation to Access to Medicines" include responsibilities for transparency, management, monitoring and accountability, pricing, and ethical marketing, and against lobbying for more protection in intellectual property laws, applying for patents for trivial modifications of existing medicines, inappropriate drug promotion, and excessive pricing. Two years after the release of the Guidelines, the PLoS Medicine Debate asks whether drug companies are living up to their human rights responsibilities. Sofia Gruskin and Zyde Raad from the Harvard School of Public Health say more assessment is needed of such responsibilities; Geralyn Ritter, Vice President of Global Public Policy and Corporate Responsibility at Merck & Co. argues that multiple stakeholders could do more to help States deliver the right to health; and Paul Hunt and Rajat Khosla introduce Mr. Hunt's work as the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of health, regarding the human rights responsibilities of pharmaceutical companies and access to medicines.
Are drug companies living up to their human rights responsibilities? The perspective of the former United Nations Special Rapporteur (2002-2008).
Hunt, Paul; Khosla, Rajat
The human rights responsibilities of drug companies have been considered for years by nongovernmental organizations, but were most sharply defined in a report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, submitted to the United Nations General Assembly in August 2008. The "Human Rights Guidelines for Pharmaceutical Companies in relation to Access to Medicines" include responsibilities for transparency, management, monitoring and accountability, pricing, and ethical marketing, and against lobbying for more protection in intellectual property laws, applying for patents for trivial modifications of existing medicines, inappropriate drug promotion, and excessive pricing. Two years after the release of the Guidelines, the PLoS Medicine Debate asks whether drug companies are living up to their human rights responsibilities. Sofia Gruskin and Zyde Raad from the Harvard School of Public Health say more assessment is needed of such responsibilities; Geralyn Ritter, Vice President of Global Public Policy and Corporate Responsibility at Merck & Co. argues that multiple stakeholders could do more to help States deliver the right to health; and Paul Hunt and Rajat Khosla introduce Mr. Hunt's work as the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of health, regarding the human rights responsibilities of pharmaceutical companies and access to medicines.
Human Rights in the Fourth Decade of the HIV/AIDS Response: An Inspiring Legacy and Urgent Imperative.
Enoch, Jamie; Piot, Peter
More than 35 years since the HIV/AIDS pandemic began, HIV continues to cause almost two million new infections each year, and the "end of AIDS" by 2030 remains elusive. 1 Violations of human rights continue to fuel high rates of new infections among key populations and a generalized epidemic in much of sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile, as political shifts worldwide threaten not only HIV funding but also progress toward the globalization of human rights, civil society mobilization and advocacy founded firmly on human rights principles have a more vital role to play than ever. Encouragingly, there are numerous examples of successful integration of human rights-based approaches into HIV prevention and treatment initiatives, and evidence increasingly demonstrates that norms enshrining the respect, protection, and fulfillment of human rights can translate into improved public health. 2 This essay will succinctly trace the historic emergence of human rights as an issue at the heart of the HIV/AIDS response; it will then provide examples of progress and setbacks in recent years and consider the potential for rights promotion to address the structural drivers of HIV. Finally, it will consider how the primacy of human rights in HIV/AIDS has affected other fields of global health and will highlight the continuing imperative to work with civil society to protect and promote human rights to reduce the burden of HIV/AIDS.
Canning, Cynthia
The faculty of Holy Names High School developed an interdisciplinary human rights program with school-wide activities focusing on three selected themes: the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in conjunction with Human Rights Week; Food; and Women. This article outlines major program activities. (SJL)
Corporate Social Responsibility, social contract, corporate personhood and human rights law: Understanding the emerging responsibilities of modern corporations
Amao, O
Copyright @ 2008 Olufemi Amao. The social contract theory has been advanced as a theoretical basis for explaining the emerging practice of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by corporations. Since the 17th century the social contract concept has also been used to justify human rights. The concept is the constitutional foundation of many western states starting with England, US and France. Business ethicists and philosophers have tried to construct and analyse the social responsibility o...
A tool for improving the management of social and human rights risks at project sites: The Human Rights Sphere
van der Ploeg, Lidewij; Vanclay, Frank
This paper identifies and addresses the challenges of implementing the corporate responsibility to respect human rights in practice at project sites. To support on-ground operational staff, we offer the Human Rights Sphere (HRS), a practical tool we developed from empirical research in three
A tool for improving the management of social and human rights risks at project sites : The Human Rights Sphere
van der Ploeg, Lidewij; Vanclay, Frank
This paper identifies and addresses the challenges of implementing the corporate responsibility to respect human rights in practice at project sites. To support on-ground operational staff, we offer the Human Rights Sphere (HRS), a practical tool we developed from empirical research in three
Chinese Human Rights Guidance on Minerals Sourcing
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Buhmann, Karin
in the minerals sector and due diligence to ensure socially responsible sourcing of minerals with a particular focus on human rights, the guidelines refer to international human rights standards and are designed to be consistent with guidance issued by the OECD. The article discusses the Chinese guidelines...
Extraterritorial Human Rights Obligations
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Amsinck Boie, Hans Nikolaj; Torp, Kristian
adequately be addressed without including the approach to the problem taken in practice; Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR. The book therefore draws upon the concept of CSR and the approaches developed here and discusses whether states may utilize the CSR-based concept of human rights due diligence...
Pursuing the Right to an Effective Remedy for Human Rights ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
MJM Venter
Dec 19, 2017 ... effective remedy for a human rights violation.1 In other words, a victim of a human ... authorities to take responsibility; the absence of legislative ... shall be entitled to compensation from that other person". 3 .... Put in a practical and comparative perspective, there is a great ...... See also Beyleveld 1995 Public.
Human Rights Texts: Converting Human Rights Primary Source Documents into Data.
Fariss, Christopher J; Linder, Fridolin J; Jones, Zachary M; Crabtree, Charles D; Biek, Megan A; Ross, Ana-Sophia M; Kaur, Taranamol; Tsai, Michael
We introduce and make publicly available a large corpus of digitized primary source human rights documents which are published annually by monitoring agencies that include Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, and the United States Department of State. In addition to the digitized text, we also make available and describe document-term matrices, which are datasets that systematically organize the word counts from each unique document by each unique term within the corpus of human rights documents. To contextualize the importance of this corpus, we describe the development of coding procedures in the human rights community and several existing categorical indicators that have been created by human coding of the human rights documents contained in the corpus. We then discuss how the new human rights corpus and the existing human rights datasets can be used with a variety of statistical analyses and machine learning algorithms to help scholars understand how human rights practices and reporting have evolved over time. We close with a discussion of our plans for dataset maintenance, updating, and availability.
Radiation pollution: present and future perplexities about human rights
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Kumar, Raj; Bharti, Mukesh
Out of the several pollutions included in environmental pollution, the radiation pollution is also a part of this, which is most damageable and serious for the society. Historical evidences reveal about the devastating effects of radiation pollution on human being. No form of pollution exists in the world which influences the human race with its devastating affects for more than one generation except radiation pollution. The radiation pollution affects human health in several ways. It is a man made problem and also affects human rights of masses for which state are responsible ultimately. The radiation pollution affects a big spectrum of human rights. The sources of radiation pollution and its impact on human health may be different according to the sources. These sources may be classified as electronic goods, Nuclear tests, Nuclear war, Reactors and thermal plants etc. Although we have some legal provisions to handle the problem of radiation pollution but there is no specific laws available for the protection and promotion of human rights from radiation pollution in the lights of international human rights principles. At present, there is no human right oriented policy framework is available to protect and promote the human rights of the radiation pollutions sufferers. The paper explores Present and Future Perplexities about Human Rights. It also tells about the available legal framework, state obligations and judicial responses for radiation pollution. The paper concludes with some suggestions in the light of present and future perplexities about human rights. (author)
45 CFR 98.34 - Parental rights and responsibilities.
... 45 Public Welfare 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Parental rights and responsibilities. 98.34 Section 98.34 Public Welfare DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES GENERAL ADMINISTRATION CHILD CARE AND DEVELOPMENT FUND Program Operations (Child Care Services)-Parental Rights and Responsibilities § 98.34...
International criminal tribunals and human rights law: Adherence and contextualization
Zeegers, K.J.
Given their mandate to prosecute persons responsible for the most atrocious of human rights violations, International Criminal Tribunals (ICTs) are generally hailed as welcome enforcers of international human rights law: a new instrument in the toolkit of human rights protectors. However, ICTs
A Culture Of Health And Human Rights.
Mariner, Wendy K; Annas, George J
A culture of health can be seen as a social norm that values health as the nation's priority or as an appeal to improve the social determinants of health. Better population health will require changing social and economic policies. Effective changes are unlikely unless health advocates can leverage a framework broader than health to mobilize political action in collaboration with non-health sector advocates. We suggest that human rights-the dominant international source of norms for government responsibilities-provides this broader framework. Human rights, as expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and enforceable treaties, require governments to assure their populations nondiscriminatory access to food, water, education, work, social security, and a standard of living adequate for health and well-being. The policies needed to realize human rights also improve population health, well-being, and equity. Aspirations for human rights are strong enough to endure beyond inevitable setbacks to specific causes. Project HOPE—The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc.
Employing human rights frameworks to realize access to an HIV cure.
Meier, Benjamin Mason; Gelpi, Adriane; Kavanagh, Matthew M; Forman, Lisa; Amon, Joseph J
The scale of the HIV pandemic - and the stigma, discrimination and violence that surrounded its sudden emergence - catalyzed a public health response that expanded human rights in principle and practice. In the absence of effective treatment, human rights activists initially sought to protect individuals at high risk of HIV infection. With advances in antiretroviral therapy, activists expanded their efforts under international law, advocating under the human right to health for individual access to treatment. As a clinical cure comes within reach, human rights obligations will continue to play a key role in political and programmatic decision-making. Building upon the evolving development and implementation of the human right to health in the global response to HIV, we outline a human rights research agenda to prepare for HIV cure access, investigating the role of human rights law in framing 1) resource allocation, 2) international obligations, 3) intellectual property and 4) freedom from coercion. The right to health is widely recognized as central to governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental responses to the pandemic and critical both to addressing vulnerability to infection and to ensuring universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support. While the advent of an HIV cure will raise new obligations for policymakers in implementing the right to health, the resolution of past debates surrounding HIV prevention and treatment may inform claims for universal access.
The Accountability of Armed Groups under Human Rights Law
Fortin, K.M.A.
The starting point for this NWOI funded Ph.D. research is the observation that although UN accountability mechanisms are increasingly holding armed groups 'accountable' under human rights law, the legal basis for the responsibility of armed groups under human rights law remains controversial
Non-communicable diseases and human rights: Global synergies, gaps and opportunities.
Ferguson, Laura; Tarantola, Daniel; Hoffmann, Michael; Gruskin, Sofia
The incorporation of human rights in health policy and programmes is known to strengthen responses to health problems and help address disparities created or exacerbated by illness yet this remains underexplored in relation to non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Aiming to understand existing synergies and how they might be further strengthened, we assessed the extent to which human rights are considered in global NCD policies and strategies and the degree of attention given to NCDs by select United Nations human rights mechanisms. Across global NCD policies and strategies, rhetorical assertions regarding human rights appear more often than actionable statements, thus limiting their implementation and impact. Although no human rights treaty explicitly mentions NCDs, some human rights monitoring mechanisms have been paying increasing attention to NCDs. This provides important avenues for promoting the incorporation of human rights norms and standards into NCD responses as well as for accountability. Linking NCDs and human rights at the global level is critical for encouraging national-level action to promote better outcomes relating to both health and human rights. The post-2015 development agenda constitutes a key entry point for highlighting these synergies and strengthening opportunities for health and rights action at global, national and local levels.
Education in Responsibility in Order to Secure Human Rights in Times of Crisis
Merrigan, Michaël
Education in and awareness about human rights is generally seen as one of the less contentious elements of citizenship education. However, it would seem that, for the concept of human rights to have a real impact in today's world, theoretical knowledge of human rights standards should be complemented by an understanding of the ethical concept of…
Human Rights and Religious Education in the Contentious Context of Conflict-Troubled Societies: Perspectives from Human Rights Education
Zembylas, Michalinos
This article explores some of the tensions that are created from the entanglement of religion and human rights and offers a possible response to these tensions in the context of religious education in conflict-troubled societies. It is suggested that a historicised and politicised approach in religious education in conjunction with human rights…
The Human Rights Philosophy: Support and Opposition among Undergraduate Social Work Students
Steen, Julie A.; Mann, Mary; Gryglewicz, Kim
In response to the rising importance of human rights, social work student attitudes toward human rights and the effect of human rights course content on these attitudes were assessed. Descriptive results from a sample of 77 students pointed to a few areas of low support for the human rights philosophy, specifically rights related to mental…
Accountability for the human right to health through treaty monitoring: Human rights treaty bodies and the influence of concluding observations.
Meier, Benjamin Mason; De Milliano, Marlous; Chakrabarti, Averi; Kim, Yuna
Employing novel coding methods to evaluate human rights monitoring, this article examines the influence of United Nations (UN) treaty bodies on national implementation of the human right to health. The advancement of the right to health in the UN human rights system has shifted over the past 20 years from the development of norms under international law to the implementation of those norms through national policy. Facilitating accountability for this rights-based policy implementation under the right to health, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) monitors state implementation by reviewing periodic reports from state parties, engaging in formal sessions of 'constructive dialogue' with state representatives, and issuing concluding observations for state response. These concluding observations recognise the positive steps taken by states and highlight the principal areas of CESCR concern, providing recommendations for implementing human rights and detailing issues to be addressed in the next state report. Through analytic coding of the normative indicators of the right to health in both state reports and concluding observations, this article provides an empirical basis to understand the policy effects of the CESCR monitoring process on state implementation of the right to health.
ISSUES OF COMPATIBILITY HUMAN RIGHTS AND ISLAM: The Experience of Egypt and Indonesia
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Sus Eko Ernada
Full Text Available This paper describes the plurality of Muslim responses to the modern conception of human rights, drawing in particular on Muslim interpretations of key human rights issues in the discourse of human rights and Islam -women's rights, religious freedom and minority rights, and corporal punishment- in Egypt and Indonesia. The case studies of Egypt and Indonesia point to wide range of responses among Muslims to these issues, but also suggest that Islam is not incompatible with the modern conception of human rights. This paper argues that on the issues of human rights, Muslims do not share a single, monolithic stance. Instead, there is a variety of arguments based on various Islamic schools of thought and Islamic religious groups. As a result, the issues of human rights and their implementation have elicited a wide range of responses among Muslims.
Gaay Fortman, B. de
Human rights reflect a determined effort to protect the dignity of each and every human being against abuse of power. This endeavour is as old as human history. What is relatively new is the international venture for the protection of human dignity through internationally accepted legal standards
Philosophical foundations of human rights
Liao, Matthew S
What makes something a human right? What is the relationship between the moral foundations of human rights and human rights law? What are the difficulties of appealing to human rights? This book offers the first comprehensive survey of current thinking on the philosophical foundations of human rights. Divided into four parts, this book focusses firstly on the moral grounds of human rights, for example in our dignity, agency, interests or needs. 'Secondly, it looks at the implications that different moral perspectives on human rights bear for human rights law and politics. Thirdly, it discusses specific and topical human rights including freedom of expression and religion, security, health and more controversial rights such as a human right to subsistence. The final part discusses nuanced critical and reformative views on human rights from feminist, Kantian and relativist perspectives among others. The essays represent new and canonical research by leading scholars in the field. Each part is comprised of a set...
Foucault and Human Rights: Seeking the Renewal of Human Rights Education
Zembylas, Michalinos
This article takes up Foucault's politics of human rights and suggests that it may constitute a point of departure for the renewal of HRE, not only because it rejects the moral superiority of humanism--the grounding for the dominant liberal framework of international human rights--but also because it makes visible the complexities of human rights…
Human Rights and/or Market Logic: Neoliberalism, Difficult Knowledge, and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights
Milne, Heather
The Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) has been plagued by controversy since before its construction even began. Outcries regarding perceived oversights in the museum's programming and objections to the cost of construction, curatorial development, and staffing have erupted frequently in local media. Critical analyses of public responses to…
Frydenlund, Knut; And Others
Eleven articles examine human rights in Europe. Topics include unemployment, human rights legislation, role of the Council of Europe in promoting human rights, labor unions, migrant workers, human dignity in industralized societies, and international violence. Journal available from Council of Europe, Directorate of Press and Information, 67006…
Human rights in patient care: a theoretical and practical framework.
Cohen, Jonathan; Ezer, Tamar
The concept of "human rights in patient care" refers to the application of human rights principles to the context of patient care. It provides a principled alternative to the growing discourse of "patients' rights" that has evolved in response to widespread and severe human rights violations in health settings. Unlike "patients' rights," which is rooted in a consumer framework, this concept derives from inherent human dignity and neutrally applies universal, legally recognized human rights principles, protecting both patients and providers and admitting of limitations that can be justified by human rights norms. It recognizes the interrelation between patient and provider rights, particularly in contexts where providers face simultaneous obligations to patients and the state ("dual loyalty") and may be pressured to abet human rights violations. The human rights lens provides a means to examine systemic issues and state responsibility. Human rights principles that apply to patient care include both the right to the highest attainable standard of health, which covers both positive and negative guarantees in respect of health, as well as civil and political rights ranging from the patient's right to be free from torture and inhumane treatment to liberty and security of person. They also focus attention on the right of socially excluded groups to be free from discrimination in the delivery of health care. Critical rights relevant to providers include freedom of association and the enjoyment of decent work conditions. Some, but not all, of these human rights correspond to rights that have been articulated in "patients' rights" charters. Complementary to—but distinct from—bioethics, human rights in patient care carry legal force and can be applied through judicial action. They also provide a powerful language to articulate and mobilize around justice concerns, and to engage in advocacy through the media and political negotiation. As "patients' rights" movements and
Human rights and multinational firm returns
Dag, Nihat; Eije, Henk von; Pennink, Bartjan
Corporate social responsibility receives increased attention in economic analysis and research, but the knowledge of the effect of ethical issues on company performance is still in its infancy. In this paper we attempt to measure the impact of the human rights issue with an event study. In
The Discourse on Human Rights and the International Regime of Human Rights
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Eyassu Gayim
Full Text Available The international regime of human rights governs the kinds of freedoms, liberties, benefits, autonomy and protection which human beings are entitled to, what kind of obligations we have in this connection and what the roles of states are in recognizing and protecting these rights. Yet, the sources, foundation and justifications for these rights and who we are by nature to deserve some rights has been contentious over the centuries, not least because we live in social context, which requires balancing rights by meeting the broader community interests: political order, stability, and satisfying the general welfare. This paper re-visits the major contentious positions in the discourse on human rights for purposes of explaining how the international community has navigated when shaping the contours of the international regime of human rights. Has this regime endorsed, rejected or avoided some of these positions? Does it follow a clear political ideology?
Responding to Globalization and Urban Conflict: Human Rights City Initiatives
Jackie Smith
Expanding globalization and urbanization have intensified the threats to human rights for many vulnerable groups and have restricted resources available to the primary guarantors of these rights—local authorities. Human rights cities initiatives are bottom-up efforts to advance human rights implementation in local contexts. They are emerging around the world in response to the global pressures on cities that intensify urban inequality and conflict. In this article I discuss how global changes...
Refining the Rules of the Game: The Corporate Responsibility to Respect Human Rights
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Justine Nolan
Full Text Available The growth of transnational corporations over the past few decades has been paralleled by concerns to find ways of regulating the deleterious impacts on human rights by the ever-increasing number of companies whose corporate tentacles stretch across national boundaries and beyond the reach of traditional corporate control mechanisms. The steady evolution of a global social expectation that companies should respect international human rights standards, combined with the occasional foray by states in adopting an expansive approach to protecting rights, is changing the nature and possibility of developing a firmer basis for corporate accountability for human rights. What we are witnessing is a process of re-regulation whereby state and non-state actors are utilizing a combination of public and private regulation to improve the framework for corporate rights compliance. The regulation of corporate activity with respect to human rights requires a multiplicity of stakeholders and a very nuanced mix of public and private regulation that may be difficult to replicate easily across different sectors, states and cultural boundaries.
Human Rights, Positive Obligations, and Measures to Prevent Human Trafficking in the UK
Turner, Ian David
Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights is freedom from slavery. A key feature of this right is the obligation it imposes on states such as the UK to prevent violations of the freedom, such as the trafficking in human beings, by third parties. This piece finds that the UK's response to its duties in preventing human trafficking is patchy but concludes that this will be much improved with its new Modern Slavery Bill 2014-15.
Repressing the Foreign Fighters Phenomenon in Western Europe: Towards an Effective Response Based on Human Rights
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Christophe Paulussen
Full Text Available This Research Paper explores how the foreign fighters phenomenon and terrorism more generally is repressed in Western Europe. It looks at a few specific repressive measures announced or adopted by France and the Netherlands, as well as criticism expressed against these proposals and measures. In addition to these two detailed analyses, references will also be made to other developments in Western Europe which appear to be indicative of a more general trend in which human rights increasingly seem to be put on the back seat when countering the phenomenon of foreign fighters and terrorism more generally. In the final section, a number of concluding thoughts and recommendations will be offered which explain why only a response based on human rights will be effective in countering this global problem in the long run.
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Vuksanović Mlrjana
Full Text Available The paper deals with the structure, mechanisms, practices and perspectives of the Human Rights Council, the UN body that, at universal level is the most important body in this area. Introductory section provides for a brief overview of the origins of human rights and the work of the Commission on Human Rights, in whose jurisdiction were questions of human rights before the establishment of the Council. After the introductory section the author gives an analysis of the structure, objectives, mandate and main procedures for the protection of human rights within the united Nations. In the final section the authorpoints out the advantages of this authority and criticism addressed to it, with emphasis on the possibility and the need for its reform.
Evolving International Practices for Protection of Human Rights- the UN Human Rights Advisory Panel and EU Human Rights Review Panel
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Remzije ISTREFI
Full Text Available This article analyses the unique development of the international human rights non judicial protection mechanism in Kosovo. Since 1999 Kosovo has been placed under international supervision carried out by international organizations, namely the United Nations and the European Union. The UN's Mission in Kosovo (UNMK was unprecedented both in scope and structural complexity. After the Declaration of Independence by Kosovo authorities on 17 February 2008, the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo EULEX took over to assist and support the Kosovo authorities in the rule of law area, specifically in the areas of the police, the judiciary and customs. The UNMIK's extensive mandate and EULEXs limited executive powers in practice have affected human rights of Kosovars as a consequence of the UNMIK and EULEX actions and inactions in the course of exercise of their mandates. This study will try to reveal the processes that lead to establishment of these two unique international human rights Panels and their impact on human rights protection of individuals under international administration. The main question to be addressed is if these two human rights panels are providing the adequate remedy for addressing human rights violations by international actors in a post conflict Kosovo.
Human rights of persons with mental disabilities. The European Convention of Human Rights.
Gostin, L O
It is not necessary to recount the numerous charters and declarations ... to understand human rights.... All persons are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Everyone ... is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in the international human rights instruments without discrimination, such as the rights to life, liberty, security of the person, privacy, health, education, work, social security, and to marry and found a family. Yet, violations of human rights are a reality to be found in every corner of the globe.
People who use drugs, HIV, and human rights.
Jürgens, Ralf; Csete, Joanne; Amon, Joseph J; Baral, Stefan; Beyrer, Chris
We reviewed evidence from more than 900 studies and reports on the link between human rights abuses experienced by people who use drugs and vulnerability to HIV infection and access to services. Published work documents widespread abuses of human rights, which increase vulnerability to HIV infection and negatively affect delivery of HIV programmes. These abuses include denial of harm-reduction services, discriminatory access to antiretroviral therapy, abusive law enforcement practices, and coercion in the guise of treatment for drug dependence. Protection of the human rights of people who use drugs therefore is important not only because their rights must be respected, protected, and fulfilled, but also because it is an essential precondition to improving the health of people who use drugs. Rights-based responses to HIV and drug use have had good outcomes where they have been implemented, and they should be replicated in other countries. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Pragmatic Challenges to Human Rights
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Schaumburg-Müller, Sten
Pragmatism offers a platform for posing relevant questions. This article uses a pragmatic point of departure to question a natural law conception of human rights and to take a closer look at three pressing human rights problems: The human rights situation in states with little or no state capacity......; the revision and adaptation of human rights law; and the not straightforward relationship betweemn human rights and democracy....
Human rights at work: Physical standards for employment and human rights law.
Adams, Eric M
This review focuses on the human rights dimensions of creating and implementing physical standards for employment for prospective and incumbent employees. The review argues that physical standards for employment engage two fundamental legal concepts of employment law: freedom of contract and workplace human rights. While the former promotes an employer's right to set workplace standards and make decisions of whom to hire and terminate, the latter prevents employers from discriminating against individuals contrary to human rights legislation. With reference to applicable human rights legislative regimes and their judicial interpretation in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, this review demonstrates the judicial preference for criterion validation in testing mechanisms in the finding of bona fide occupational requirements. With particular attention to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Meiorin, this review argues that an effective balance between workplace safety and human rights concerns can be found, not in applying different standards to different groups of individuals, but in an approach that holds employers to demonstrating a sufficient connection between a uniform physical standard of employment and the actual minimum requirements to perform the job safety and efficiently. Combined with an employer's duty to accommodate, such an approach to lawful physical standards for employment conceives of worker and public safety and workplace diversity as emanating from a shared concern for human rights.
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G. Braulik
Full Text Available If one compares the articles of the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" dated December 10th, 1948, with the regulations of the book of Deuteronomy, one detects a surprising abundance of correspondences, or at least of similar tendencies, between them. As the social theorists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the architects of the catalogue of Human Rights, knew the Scripture very well. References to Deuteronomy are historically well probable and factually hardly coincidental. Deuteronomy rightly boasts about its social laws (4:8 that are unique in the Ancient Near East. The paper orientates itself to the short formula of Human Rights and at the same time to the normative basic character of each human right, as it is formulated in the first article of the declaration: "liberty", "equality", "fraternity". Each of these basic categories are concretised in terms of several Deuteronomic regulations and prove themselves to be central matters of concern within the YHWH religion. Finally, it is outlined how the connection between Deuteronomy and modem expressions of human rights might be explained, and further it is shown what actually makes up the peculiarity of biblical thinking on human rights.
de Baets, Antoon; Wright, James
In this article, six basic debates about human rights are clarified from a historical perspective: the origin of human rights as moral rights connected to the natural law doctrine and opposed to positive rights; the wave of criticism of their abstract and absolute character by nineteenth-century
Visual graphics for human rights, social justice, democracy and the ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
The value of human rights in a democratic South Africa is constantly threatened and often waived for nefarious reasons. We contend that the use of visual graphics among incoming university visual art students provides a mode of engagement that helps to inculcate awareness of human rights, social responsibility, and the ...
International Security Presence in Kosovo and its Human Rights Implications
Istrefi, Remzije
In this article I will examine the powers and activities of NATO-led Kosovo forces (KFOR) and their impact on human rights protection in Kosovo. Through this examination, I seek to answer the following questions: which KFOR actions affected the human rights of Kosovars? Does KFOR carry out responsibilities and abide by the obligations normally imposed upon nation-states? And is there a solution available when the alleged violator is KFOR? KFOR is responsible for carrying out military tasks an...
Multinational corporations and infectious disease: Embracing human rights management techniques.
Salcito, Kendyl; Singer, Burton H; Weiss, Mitchell G; Winkler, Mirko S; Krieger, Gary R; Wielga, Mark; Utzinger, Jürg
Global health institutions have called for governments, international organisations and health practitioners to employ a human rights-based approach to infectious diseases. The motivation for a human rights approach is clear: poverty and inequality create conditions for infectious diseases to thrive, and the diseases, in turn, interact with social-ecological systems to promulgate poverty, inequity and indignity. Governments and intergovernmental organisations should be concerned with the control and elimination of these diseases, as widespread infections delay economic growth and contribute to higher healthcare costs and slower processes for realising universal human rights. These social determinants and economic outcomes associated with infectious diseases should interest multinational companies, partly because they have bearing on corporate productivity and, increasingly, because new global norms impose on companies a responsibility to respect human rights, including the right to health. We reviewed historical and recent developments at the interface of infectious diseases, human rights and multinational corporations. Our investigation was supplemented with field-level insights at corporate capital projects that were developed in areas of high endemicity of infectious diseases, which embraced rights-based disease control strategies. Experience and literature provide a longstanding business case and an emerging social responsibility case for corporations to apply a human rights approach to health programmes at global operations. Indeed, in an increasingly globalised and interconnected world, multinational corporations have an interest, and an important role to play, in advancing rights-based control strategies for infectious diseases. There are new opportunities for governments and international health agencies to enlist corporate business actors in disease control and elimination strategies. Guidance offered by the United Nations in 2011 that is widely embraced
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Krivokapić Boris
Full Text Available In the first part of the paper, the author points out that, unlike in the past, in our time human rights developed into a fair legal institution, and even a special system. They are formulated and protected both internally and internationally. The second part deals with the approach according to which human rights are part of the so-called. natural law. The author notes that the theory of natural law can not be accepted for many reasons. It is pure construction, which is far from reality, and besides it is unnecessary. Law and thus human rights as a part of it, is a social creation, developing along with the society itself, whereby, in the longer term, advanced norms in the matter of human rights replace obsolete ones. Life and human needs are the ones who impose such development. In the third part the writer notes that since under human rights one can have in mind various things, at least such a special concept and, on the other hand, specific rights, it is not possible to give a single answer to what is the nature of human rights. It is even harder as human rights, have a variety of dimensions - legal, philosophical, ideological, political, economic, social, educational, etc. However, he gives his view of the main characteristics of the modern concept of human rights. In the fourth part, the author notes that, speaking not about the concept, but human rights as such, their main characteristics are that they are: 1 source - belong to anyone on the grounds that he is a human being (general rights or a member specific vulnerable groups (special rights; 2 universal - belong to everyone or all members of vulnerable groups, without any discrimination based on personal characteristics, and on the other hand, the most important such rights shall be recognized in all states; 3 inalienable - one can not give up or else share his basic human rights, such as the right to life, the right to vote, etc.; 4 somewhat different - although, in principle, all
Urgensi Perlindungan Hukum Bagi Pembela Hak Asasi Manusia (Human Rights Defender) Di Indonesia
Rahayu, Rahayu
Human rights defenders are they working and having activities dealing with any effort to promote human rights. They stand in the front tine of struggle and dignifying human rights to utter the victims of human rights violation (the voice of the voiceless). Their existence is obviously recognized in United Nations' Genera! Assembly Nr. 53/144 on "Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organ of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights an...
Human Rights: The Essential Reference.
Devine, Carol; Hansen, Carol Rae; Wilde, Ralph; Bronkhorst, Daan; Moritz, Frederic A.; Rolle, Baptiste; Sherman, Rebecca; Southard, Jo Lynn; Wilkinson, Robert; Poole, Hilary, Ed.
This reference work documents the history of human rights theory, explains each article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, explores the contemporary human rights movement, and examines the major human rights issues facing the world today. This book is the first to combine historical and contemporary perspectives on these critical…
International Security Presence in Kosovo and its Human Rights Implications
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Istrefi Remzije
Full Text Available In this article I will examine the powers and activities of NATO-led Kosovo forces (KFOR and their impact on human rights protection in Kosovo. Through this examination, I seek to answer the following questions: which KFOR actions affected the human rights of Kosovars? Does KFOR carry out responsibilities and abide by the obligations normally imposed upon nation-states? And is there a solution available when the alleged violator is KFOR? KFOR is responsible for carrying out military tasks and for 'shouldering' UNMIK and local security forces in some civilian peace-building tasks. In the course of the exercise of its mandate, there were alleged complaints of human rights violations by KFOR. The legal implications of these alleged complaints against KFOR (inactions will also be discussed.
Human Rights: Its Meaning and Practice in Social Work Field Settings.
Steen, Julie A; Mann, Mary; Restivo, Nichole; Mazany, Shellene; Chapple, Reshawna
The goal of the study reported in this article was to explore the conceptualizations of human rights and human rights practice among students and supervisors in social work field settings. Data were collected from 35 students and 48 supervisors through an online survey system that featured two open-ended questions regarding human rights issues in their agency and human rights practice tasks. Responses suggest that participants encountered human rights issues related to poverty, discrimination, participation/self-determination/autonomy, violence, dignity/respect, privacy, and freedom/liberty. They saw human rights practice as encompassing advocacy, service provision, assessment, awareness of threats to clients' rights, and the nature of the worker-client relationship. These results have implications for the social work profession, which has an opportunity to focus more intently on change efforts that support clients' rights. The study points to the possibilities of expanding the scope of the human rights competency within social work education and addressing the key human rights issues in field education. © 2016 National Association of Social Workers.
Building Prevention to Protect: The Inter-American Human Rights System
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Carlos Portales
Full Text Available The article explores the way that the Inter-American human rights system assumes the "responsibility to protect" in the context of serious violations of human rights that can be characterized as war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and ethnic cleansing. The essay describes how the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights have responded to such situations by using the ample powers granted to them by the OAS member states. The authors consider that these organs have been some of the most effective tools with which this region has confronted such situations by seeking system has contributed to building democratic regimes in the majority of the countries of the hemisphere. This has been crucial to avoiding serious violations of human rights such as those mentioned above, which would have required urgent international intervention to overcome.
Human Rights and Human Function
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Mohsen Javadi
Full Text Available This paper firstly explores some theories of Human Rights justification and then assents to the theory that Human Rights is based on justified moral values. In order to justify moral values, Aristotle's approach called "Function Argument" is reviewed. Propounding this argument, the writer attempts to show that all analysis of human identity will directly contribute to the man's view of his rights. Not only Human rights is really determined by human function or human distinguishing characteristic i.e. human identity, but in the world of knowledge the proper method to know human rights is to know human being himself. n cloning violates man's rights due to two reasons: damage of human identity and violation of the right to be unique. Attempting to clarify the nature of human cloning, this article examines the aspects to be claimed to violate human rights and evaluates the strength of the reasons for this claim. این مقاله پس از بررسی اجمالی برخی از نظریههای توجیه حقوق بشر، نظریة ابتنای آن بر ارزشهای اخلاقی موجّه را میپذیرد. دربارة چگونگی توجیه ارزش اخلاقی، رویکرد ارسطو که به «برهان ارگن» موسوم است، مورد بحث و بررسی قرار میگیرد. مؤلف با طرح این برهان میکوشد نشان دهد ارائه هرگونه تحلیل از هویت انسان در نگرش آدمی به حقوق خود تأثیر مستقیم خواهد گذاشت. حقوق آدمی نه فقط از ناحیة کارویژه یا فصل ممیز وی (هویت انسان تعیّن واقعی میگیرد، بلکه در عالم معرفت هم راه درست شناخت حقوق بشر، شناخت خود انسان است.
Human Rights versus Corporate Rights: Life Value, the Civil Commons and Social Justice
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John McMurtry
Full Text Available
This analysis maps the deepening global crisis and the principles of its resolution by life-value analysis and method. Received theories of economics and justice and modern rights doctrines are shown to have no ground in life value and to be incapable of recognizing universal life goods and the rising threats to them. In response to this system failure at theoretical and operational levels, the unifying nature and measure of life value are defined to provide the long-missing basis for understanding the common interest, human rights and social justice—that is, the universal life necessities of humanity across cultures and the evolving civil commons infrastructures to ensure them. In contrast, the treaty-imposed corporate rights system miscalled "globalization" is structured to predate life means and support systems at all levels with no accountability beyond itself. Only the logic of life value, human rights and life-protective law, it is concluded, can comprehend or govern this inherently life-blind and cumulatively eco-genocidal regime.
Human Rights versus Corporate Rights: Life Value, the Civil Commons and Social Justice
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John McMurtry
Full Text Available This analysis maps the deepening global crisis and the principles of its resolution by life-value analysis and method. Received theories of economics and justice and modern rights doctrines are shown to have no ground in life value and to be incapable of recognizing universal life goods and the rising threats to them. In response to this system failure at theoretical and operational levels, the unifying nature and measure of life value are defined to provide the long-missing basis for understanding the common interest, human rights and social justice—that is, the universal life necessities of humanity across cultures and the evolving civil commons infrastructures to ensure them. In contrast, the treaty-imposed corporate rights system miscalled "globalization" is structured to predate life means and support systems at all levels with no accountability beyond itself. Only the logic of life value, human rights and life-protective law, it is concluded, can comprehend or govern this inherently life-blind and cumulatively eco-genocidal regime.
Respecting the right to access to medicines: Implications of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights for the pharmaceutical industry.
Moon, Suerie
What are the human rights responsibilities of pharmaceutical companies with regard to access to medicines? The state-based international human rights framework has long struggled with the issue of the human rights obligations of non-state actors, a question sharpened by economic globalization and the concomitant growing power of private for-profit actors ("business"). In 2011, after a six-year development process, the UN Human Rights Council unanimously endorsed the Guiding Principles advanced by the UN Secretary General's Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, John Ruggie. The Ruggie Principles sought to clarify and differentiate the responsibilities of states and non-state actors-in this case, "business" -with respect to human rights. The framework centered on "three core principles: the state duty to protect against human rights abuses by third parties, including business; the corporate responsibility to respect human rights; and the need for more effective access to remedies." The "Protect, Respect, and Remedy" Framework emerged from a review of many industrial sectors operating from local to global scales, in many regions of the world, and involving multiple stakeholder consultations. However, their implications for the pharmaceutical industry regarding access to medicines remain unclear. This article analyzes the 2008 Human Rights Guidelines for Pharmaceutical Companies in relation to Access to Medicines advanced by then-UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, Paul Hunt, in light of the Ruggie Principles. It concludes that some guidelines relate directly to the industry's responsibility to respect the right to access to medicines, and form a normative baseline to which firms should be held accountable. It also finds that responsibility for other guidelines may better be ascribed to states than to private actors, based on conceptual and practical considerations. While not discouraging the pharmaceutical industry from making additional
Speaking Truth to Power: Women's Rights as Human Rights
Crocco, Margaret Smith
The author considers the treatment of women's rights as human rights in the social studies curriculum. She discusses the role of the United Nations in promoting women's rights since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. She also reviews the treatment of women's rights within social studies curriculum today through a…
The Problems of Interpretation of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in the European Court of Human Rights
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Ivanets Ivan Petrovich
Full Text Available According to the clause 1 of Article 32 of the European Convention for the protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 1950 (hereinafter referred to as the European Convention or the Convention the competence of the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter referred to as the Court or the Court extends to all issues of interpretation and application of the Convention and its protocols. Thus, the European Convention makes the Court the only tool of the way of understanding of the rights and freedoms protected by it. Interpretation of the provisions of Convention lies in the basis of the Court activity as immovable clod that stands guard for protection of human rights, and that is a place where the State is directly responsible before a human.
Flowers, Nancy
Presents a human rights glossary that includes definitions of basic terms, treaties, charters, and groups/organizations that have been featured in previous articles in this edition of "Update on Law-Related Education"; the human rights terms have been compiled as part of the celebration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights…
Between Rights and Realities: Human Rights Education for Immigrant and Refugee Youth in an Urban Public High School
Bajaj, Monisha; Canlas, Melissa; Argenal, Amy
This article presents data from a two-year ethnographic case study to explore how immigrant and refugee youth in the United States made sense of participation in a weekly human rights club after school. Three types of student responses to human rights education are exemplified through the profiles of students. The article offers new insights on…
Girls' and Boys' Reasoning on Cultural and Religious Practices: A Human Rights Education Perspective
de Wet, Annamagriet; Roux, Cornelia; Simmonds, Shan; ter Avest, Ina
Human rights play a vital role in citizens' political, religious and cultural life (Wang 2002, 171). Due to the prominence of human rights in the everyday life of citizens, including those of South Africa, human rights education has been included in many school curricula. Human rights education aims to develop responsible citizens who "inter…
Berman, Howard R.
The international community has developed a system of human rights law relevant to many areas of legal encounter, which American law schools have been slow to incorporate into curricula. Teaching human rights law provides an opportunity for law schools to enrich the learning process and contribute creatively to the respect for rights in society.…
Discursive Framings of Human Rights
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
What does it mean to be a subject of human rights? The status of the subject is closely connected with the form and rhetoric of the framing discourse, and this book investigates the relationship between the status of the subject and the form of human rights discourse, in differing aesthetic...... and social contexts. Historical as well as contemporary declarations of rights have stressed both the protective and political aspects of human rights. But in concrete situations and conflictual moments, the high moral legitimacy of human rights rhetoric has often clouded the actual character of specific...... interventions, and so made it difficult to differentiate between the objects of humanitarian intervention and the subjects of politics. Critically re-examining this opposition – between victims and agents of human rights – through a focus on the ways in which discourses of rights are formed and circulated...
An African Perspective on Human Rights.
Shiman, David
Presents a series of classroom activities comparing differing views of human rights in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the African Charter on Human and People's Rights. Includes excerpts from the African Charter on Human and People's Rights and the full text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (CFR)
Human Rights and Cultural Identity
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John-Stewart Gordon
Full Text Available Universal human rights and particular cultural identities, which are relativistic by nature, seem to stand in conflict with each other. It is commonly suggested that the relativistic natures of cultural identities undermine universal human rights and that human rights might compromise particular cultural identities in a globalised world. This article examines this supposed clash and suggests that it is possible to frame a human rights approach in such a way that it becomes the starting point and constraining framework for all non-deficient cultural identities. In other words, it is possible to depict human rights in a culturally sensitive way so that universal human rights can meet the demands of a moderate version of meta-ethical relativism which acknowledges a small universal core of objectively true or false moral statements and avers that, beyond that small core, all other moral statements are neither objectively true nor false.
The Humanities, Human Rights, and the Comparative Imagination
McClennen, Sophia A.
In her paper "The Humanities, Human Rights, and the Comparative Imagination" Sophia A. McClennen argues that understanding the relationship between culture and human rights depends on humanist perspectives attentive to the relationship between storytelling and identity, mass culture and ideology, text and audience, critical thinking and engaged citizenship. After briefly considering how the divide between the humanities and human rights advocates developed and how it might best be overcome, s...
Beyond Study Abroad: A Human Rights Delegation to Teach Policy Advocacy
Gammonley, Denise; Rotabi, Karen Smith; Forte, Janett; Martin, Amanda
Advancement of human rights is a core competency in the social work curriculum. Presented is a model to teach policy practice from a human rights perspective based on a violence-against-women delegation visit to Guatemala. Postdelegation policy advocacy responses included White House and State Department briefings on the problems, including…
Holzhacker, Ron
"Gay Rights are Human Rights" may have begun as a slogan chanted in the street, but academics and human rights organizations began to use the international human rights frame systematically in the 1990s to argue for universal human rights to fully apply to LGBT persons. This framing gradually began
The Ebola Virus and Human Rights Concerns in Africa.
Durojaye, Ebenezer T; Mirugi-Mukundi, Gladys
In the wake of the Ebola virus disease (EVD) that is ravaging parts of Africa certain measures are being taken by governments to prevent the spread of the epidemic within their borders. Some of these measures are drastic and may likely have implications for the fundamental rights of individuals. The EVD outbreaks have brought to the fore again the tension between public health and human rights. This article discusses the origin and mode of transmission of the EVD and then considers the human rights challenges that may arise as a result of states' responses to the disease in Africa.
3 CFR 8464 - Proclamation 8464 of December 9, 2009. Human Rights Day, Bill of Rights Day, And Human Rights...
... culture is unique, certain rights are universal: the freedom of people—including women and ethnic and... 3 The President 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Proclamation 8464 of December 9, 2009. Human Rights Day, Bill of Rights Day, And Human Rights Week, 2009 8464 Proclamation 8464 Presidential Documents...
Communication rights: Fundamental human rights for all.
McLeod, Sharynne
The right to communicate includes the right to "freedom of opinion and expression" and rights and freedoms "without distinction of … language". The 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a time to celebrate and reflect on communication as a human right, particularly with respect to Article 19 and its relationship to national and international conventions, declarations, policies and practices. This review profiles articles from the special issue of International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology (volume 20, issue 1) addressing communication rights from four perspectives: (1) communication rights of all people; (2) communication rights of people with communication disabilities; (3) communication rights of children and (4) communication rights relating to language. Divergent perspectives from across the globe are considered. First-hand accounts of people whose right to communicate is compromised/upheld are included and perspectives are provided from people with expertise and advocacy roles in speech-language pathology, audiology, linguistics, education, media, literature and law, including members of the International Communication Project. Three steps are outlined to support communication rights: acknowledge people - adjust the communication style - take time to listen. Future advocacy for communication rights could be informed by replicating processes used to generate the Yogyakarta Principles.
Women's rights are human rights : The practice of the United Nations Human Rights Committee and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
van Leeuwen, F.C.|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/265778646
'Women's rights are human rights!' This notion may seem self evident, as the international system for the promotion and the protection of human rights that was installed under the auspice of the United Nations (UN) builds on the idea of equality in dignity and rights of men and women. Yet, as was
Biotechnology and human rights.
Feuillet-Le Mintier, B
Biotechnology permits our world to progress. It's a tool to better apprehend the human being, but as well to let him go ahead. Applied to the living, biotechnologies present the same finality. But since their matter concerns effectively the living, they are the sources of specific dangers and particularly of that one to use the improvements obtained on the human to modify the human species. The right of the persons has to find its place to avoid that the fundamental rights of the human personality shall undergo harm. This mission assigned to the right of the persons is as so much invaluable that the economical stakes are particularly important in the domain of the biotechnologies.
Kingdom, covenant, and human rights
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Koos Vorster
Full Text Available This research revisits the idea of a Christian perspective on human rights. Departing from a hermeneutics of trust, this article considers the concept of human rights from the perspective of revelation history. Revelation history departs from the consent of the parts of Scripture, irrespective of differences in dating, original languages, canonical differentiation, cultural, social and historical contexts. Scripture offers a theological unity consisting of various topics which are developed continuing and purposeful throughout the biblical revelation. Two of the major topics in Scripture as they are revealed by a revelation historical survey are the concepts kingdom of God and the covenant of God with God's people. In this article these two concepts will be used as a foundation for a Christian theory of human rights both as legal human rights and moral human rights. The central theoretical argument of this investigation is that both the concepts kingdom and covenant are essentially about justice and relationships – the justice of the kingdom and the relation between God and humankind, the relation between people and the relation between humans and creation. These relations are the essence of the rights people have, vis-à-vis the authority of the day and other people. These rights, which deal with the orderly maintenance of relationships, can be formalised in legal human rights and should be nurtured and protected by the civil authorities. Christians and churches as moral agents in society have the calling to promote the idea of human rights in constitutional democracies.
From the rights of man to the human rights: Man - nation - humanity
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Zaharijević Adriana
Full Text Available The insistence on the fact that human rights and the rights of man (codified in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, respectively are not one and the same, which could be deduced from the notion of man common to both terms, is the key thesis of this text. By developing this motive, I try to determine the following: that the notion of man, by definition inclusive and abstractly non-discriminative term, is in fact established on tacit exclusions in the time of its inception (Enlightenment revolutinary era, and it was only upon these exclusions that the term man could have signified "the free and equal". Although the parallel or simultaneous evolution and implementation of the rights of man and national rights might seem contradictory, I seek to demonstrate that this paradox is only ostensible, arguing that the notion of man is itself limited and exclusionary, and is therefore compatible with the exclusivity which is the conditio sine qua non of nation. The consequences of nationalism - World Wars, primarily - proved that the conception of liberty and equality, based on the conception of fraternity of men (white European males, and of partial democracy pretending to be universal, cannot be maintained any further. Codification of universal human rights represents a reaction to this internal discrepancy inasmuch as it is a reaction to the destructiveness of all kinds of nationalisms. The notion of life, developed in this text, corresponds to the fundamental requirement for the right to life (as the first and the most basic of all human rights, which no longer belongs to "man", but to everyone.
African Philosophy of Education as a Response to Human Rights ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
It is argued that Ubuntu in becoming – with reference to the thoughts of Giorgio Agamben – can counteract human rights violations. In this way, Ubuntu, as an instance of African philosophy of education, can respond more positively to genocide, tribal conflict and wars, and the rape and abuse of women and children on the ...
Human Rights Here and Now: Celebrating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Flowers, Nancy, Ed.
Although December 10, 1998, marked the 50th anniversary of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), most people living in the United States remain unaware of this document, the foundation stone of all human rights. Intended for use by both community groups and teachers in elementary and secondary schools, this educational…
Child rights, right to water and sanitation, and human security.
Pink, Ross
The article explores the intersection between child rights, water scarcity, sanitation, and the human security paradigm. The recognition of child rights has been advanced through the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international legal instruments, while water rights are increasingly affirmed in international law and through the historic July 2010 United Nations General Assembly resolution that strengthened the legal foundation for water security and human rights. Yet there remains a development gap in terms of child access to clean and secure water sources for basic human development needs. The human security paradigm provides a legal and humanitarian foundation for the extension of child rights related to water and sanitation. Copyright © 2012 Pink.
Oil companies and human rights
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Chandler, Geoffrey
This article highlights the need for oil companies in the future to take into account human rights in corporate decision making. The influence oil companies can bring to bear on government violating human rights, excuses for not voicing condemnation of abuses, and the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights are discussed. (UK)
Teaching Human Rights from Below: Towards Solidarity, Resistance and Social Justice
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Melissa Canlas
Full Text Available In this article, we discuss our approaches, pedagogies, and practices for a weekly human rights club that serves immigrant and refugee youth. The research team is involved in a research collaboration with a public high school in a large urban area on the West Coast. In this article, we discuss some of our curricular and pedagogical strategies and students' responses to lesson plans and activities that aimed to build solidarity, resistance to dominant and assimilative narratives, and action towards social justice. Our approach focuses on intersecting a transforamtive human rights perspective with the praxes of critical pedagogies and social justice. This article discusses a radical approach to teaching Human Rights along three key themes: student-centered human rights pedagogy, cultural wealth and HRE, and students' articulation of human rights language into action.
Tourism And Environment: Toward Promoting Sustainable Development Of Tourism: A Human Rights Perspective
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Ni Ketut Supasti Dharmawan
Full Text Available Tourism activities in era globalization bring positive and negative impacts especially for the host countries destination. To minimize the negative impacts it is very important to always promote the sustainable development of tourism including from a human rights perspective. This paper will discuss concerning who have responsibility to promote a human rights related with sustainable development of tourism. To explore the topic in this article, Author will study both international human rights instruments and environmental convention as well as the soft law regarding the tourism sector such as the UN WTO Global Code Of Ethics. The Law No. 10 Year 2009 concerning Indonesia Tourism Law is also part of legal material studied in this paper. There are national, international legal instruments of the human rights as well as UNWTO Global Codes of Ethics which can be utilized to promote sustainable tourism through human rights perspective. It is considered that all stakeholders have responsibility to promote sustainable development of tourism.
Human Rights Discourse in the Sustainable Development Agenda Avoids Obligations and Entitlements
Williams, Carmel; Blaiklock, Alison
Our commentary on Forman et al paper explores their thesis that right to health language can frame global health policy responses. We examined human rights discourse in the outcome documents from three 2015 United Nations (UN) summits and found rights-related terms are used in all three. However, a deeper examination of the discourse finds the documents do not convey the obligations and entitlements of human rights and international human rights law. The documents contain little that can be used to empower the participation of those already left behind and to hold States and the private sector to account for their human rights duties. This is especially worrying in a neoliberal era. PMID:27285518
Pursuing the Right to an Effective Remedy for Human Rights ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
Undoubtedly, global and regional human rights instruments clearly entrench the right to an effective remedy for a human rights violation. The substantive nature of the right to an effective remedy makes it relevant to the realisation of the right to equality as well as the right to equal protection under the law. Cameroon, as a ...
Artificial intelligence and robot responsibilities: innovating beyond rights.
Ashrafian, Hutan
The enduring innovations in artificial intelligence and robotics offer the promised capacity of computer consciousness, sentience and rationality. The development of these advanced technologies have been considered to merit rights, however these can only be ascribed in the context of commensurate responsibilities and duties. This represents the discernable next-step for evolution in this field. Addressing these needs requires attention to the philosophical perspectives of moral responsibility for artificial intelligence and robotics. A contrast to the moral status of animals may be considered. At a practical level, the attainment of responsibilities by artificial intelligence and robots can benefit from the established responsibilities and duties of human society, as their subsistence exists within this domain. These responsibilities can be further interpreted and crystalized through legal principles, many of which have been conserved from ancient Roman law. The ultimate and unified goal of stipulating these responsibilities resides through the advancement of mankind and the enduring preservation of the core tenets of humanity.
Human Rights and Public Education
Bowring, Bill
This article attempts a contrast to the contribution by Hugh Starkey. Rather than his account of the inexorable rise of human rights discourse, and of the implementation of human rights standards, human rights are here presented as always and necessarily scandalous and highly contested. First, I explain why the UK has lagged so far behind its…
Mihr, A.
Urban governance on the basis of human rights can help to set up problem solving mechanisms to guarantee social peace, economic growth and political participation.If states both integrate more in international or regional human rights regime and give more autonomy to urban governments and local
The human rights and the terrorism
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Hamidreza Rafiei Fanood
Full Text Available Regarding Human rights has been emphasized by governments through universal declaration human rights and its violations faced the global reaction in any case. From this perspective; the necessity of observing human rights against terrorism has been emphasized by many resolutions of the General Assembly, the Security Council and many regional resolutions. But, today especially after the September 11 events and America unilateral attacks by resorting to human rights and of course by considering the lack of international agreement on the norms, strategies and principles of human rights, the campaign against terrorism has started on the basis of its obligations, regardless to existing norms. So it would be said that today; the war against terrorism more than any other terrorist attacks threatens the security and human rights. However, human rights framework has never prevented effective and legitimate actions to the terrorist attacks. In other words; in the human right framework, there is no conflict with the campaign against terrorism, it emphasizes on identifying and fighting and even it guarantees the effectiveness of such a fight. As a result, Human rights violations at the expense of security, certainly associated with the destruction of both.
Human Rights, Human Needs, Human Development, Human Security
Gasper, Des
Human rights, human development and human security form increasingly important, partly interconnected, partly competitive and misunderstood ethical and policy discourses. Each tries to humanize a pre-existing and unavoidable major discourse of everyday life, policy and politics; each has emerged within the United Nations world; each relies implicitly on a conceptualisation of human need; each has specific strengths. Yet mutual communication, understanding and co-operation are deficient, espec...
Fundamental Human Rights under the Nigerian Constitution: Right ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
It is almost tempting to apologise for returning to the subject of human rights, but the temptation ought to be resisted. The question of the recognition and protection of Human rights, a perennial, worldwide problem since the immediate aftermath of the Second World War in particular, has played a leading role in international, ...
Teachers and Human Rights Education
Osler, Audrey; Starkey, Hugh
Why do teachers need to be familiar with human rights? In multicultural societies, whose values take precedence? How do schools resolve tensions between children's rights and teachers' rights? Campaigners, politicians and the media cite human rights to justify or challenge anything from peaceful protest to military action. The phrase "human…
Human rights to in vitro fertilization.
Zegers-Hochschild, Fernando; Dickens, Bernard M; Dughman-Manzur, Sandra
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (the Court) has ruled that the Supreme Court of Costa Rica's judgment in 2000 prohibiting in vitro fertilization (IVF) violated the human right to private and family life, the human right to found and raise a family, and the human right to non-discrimination on grounds of disability, financial means, or gender. The Court's conclusions of violations contrary to the American Convention on Human Rights followed from its ruling that, under the Convention, in vitro embryos are not "persons" and do not possess a right to life. Accordingly, the prohibition of IVF to protect embryos constituted a disproportionate and unjustifiable denial of infertile individuals' human rights. The Court distinguished fertilization from conception, since conception-unlike fertilization-depends on an embryo's implantation in a woman's body. Under human rights law, legal protection of an embryo "from conception" is inapplicable between its creation by fertilization and completion of its implantation in utero. © 2013.
Teaching Human Rights: Confronting the Contradictions
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John L. Hammond
Full Text Available Teaching human rights means taking on a series of controversies over what human rights are, how they are determined, and how they are (or are not upheld. The "possession paradox" is that often human rights are declared but many, or even most, people do not actually enjoy them. In teaching human rights we must convey both the promise of human rights and the discrepancy between that promise and their fulfillment. I review a number of controversies in the current application of human rights, many of which arise from that discrepancy. I then suggest the use of literary works and simulation games that can sometimes convey meanings more effectively than expository material.
Human trafficking in Germany: strengthening victim's human rights
Follmar-Otto, Petra; Rabe, Heike
The first study - "A human rights approach against human trafficking - International obligations and the status of implementation in Germany" - analyses how the prohibition of human trafficking and the resulting state obligations are anchored in human rights. The more recent specialised international agreements on human trafficking and law-making in the European Union are then presented. The emphasis is on the Council of Europe Convention, which professes to treat human trafficking in a human...
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Carlos Villán Durán
Full Text Available The international codification of the human right to peace was brought to the United Nations by civil society organizations. The draft declaration submitted to the States has a holistic nature, is very rooted in the international human rights law, and considers peace as the absence of all forms of violence (Santiago Declaration on the Human Right to Peace of 10 December 2010. A working group appointed by the UN Human Rights Council should achieve a new and consensual text to bridge the existing gap between developed and developing States in this field, the former being more supportive of the thesis maintained by civil society.
Tarantola, D; Mann, J
HIV/AIDS is a health problem that is inseparable from individual and collective behavior and social forces, particularly linked with societal respect for human rights and dignity. In its second decade, the HIV/AIDS pandemic continues to thrive. Where organized communities have access to adequate information, education, and services, the incidence of infection has begun to decline. Elsewhere, HIV continues to reach new populations and new geographic areas. Lessons learned in more than a decade of prevention work point to new directions for expanding national responses, at a time when the UNAIDS program, to be launched in January 1996, offers opportunities for innovative, broad-based, coordinated, and expanded global action. Prevention activities have shown that the spread of HIV can be effectively reduced. Public health interventions, including providing information and applying prevention methods, reduce the probability of infection, the risk of transmission, and the chances of not accessing appropriate care or support once infection has set in. These are proximal interventions that yield the short-term benefits of the decline of incidence and improved quality and duration of life for those infected. Societal vulnerability translates today into the focus the pandemic has on individuals, communities, and nations that are disadvantaged, marginalized, or discriminated against for reasons of gender, age, race, sexual orientation, economic status, or cultural, religious, or political affiliation. A fully expanded response to HIV/AIDS requires a combination of risk-reduction (proximal) and contextual interventions--those directed at reducing vulnerability through social change to enable people to exert control over their own health. Contextual actions can be implemented in the short term (changing laws, policies, practices that discriminate, promoting human rights, developing the most vulnerable communities) and in the long term (cultural changes, gender equality in
Advancing palliative care as a human right.
Gwyther, Liz; Brennan, Frank; Harding, Richard
The international palliative care community has articulated a simple but challenging proposition that palliative care is an international human right. International human rights covenants and the discipline of palliative care have, as common themes, the inherent dignity of the individual and the principles of universality and nondiscrimination. However, when we consider the evidence for the effectiveness of palliative care, the lack of palliative care provision for those who may benefit from it is of grave concern. Three disciplines (palliative care, public health, and human rights) are now interacting with a growing resonance. The maturing of palliative care as a clinical specialty and academic discipline has coincided with the development of a public health approach to global and community-wide health problems. The care of the dying is a public health issue. Given that death is both inevitable and universal, the care of people with life-limiting illness stands equal to all other public health issues. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) includes the right to health care and General Comment 14 (paragraph 34) CESCR stipulates that "States are under the obligation to respect the right to health by, inter alia, refraining from denying or limiting equal access for all persons, ... to preventive, curative and palliative health services." However, these rights are seen to be aspirational-rights to be achieved progressively over time by each signatory nation to the maximum capacity of their available resources. Although a government may use insufficient resources as a justification for inadequacies of its response to palliative care and pain management, General Comment 14 set out "core obligations" and "obligations of comparable priority" in the provision of health care and placed the burden on governments to justify "that every effort has nevertheless been made to use all available resources at its disposal in order to satisfy, as
Human rights abuses and concerns about women's health and human rights in southern Iraq.
Amowitz, Lynn L; Kim, Glen; Reis, Chen; Asher, Jana L; Iacopino, Vincent
Although human rights abuses have been reported in Iraq, the full scope of these abuses has not been well documented. To assess the prevalence of human rights abuses since 1991 in southern Iraq, along with attitudes about women's health and human rights and women's rights and roles in society, to inform reconstruction and humanitarian assistance efforts in Iraq. Cross-sectional, randomized survey of Iraqi men and women conducted in July 2003 using structured questionnaires. Three major cities in 3 of the 9 governorates in southern Iraq. A total of 1991 respondents representing 16 520 household members. Respondent demographics, information on human rights abuses that occurred among household members since 1991, women's health and human rights, opinions regarding women's rights and roles in society, and conditions for community health and development. Respondents were a mean age of 38 years and were mostly of Arab ethnicity (99.7% [1976/1982]) and Muslim Shi'a (96.7% [1906/1971]). Overall, 47% of those interviewed reported 1 or more of the following abuses among themselves and household members since 1991: torture, killings, disappearance, forced conscription, beating, gunshot wounds, kidnappings, being held hostage, and ear amputation, among others. Seventy percent of abuses (408/586) were reputed to have occurred in homes. Baath party regime-affiliated groups were identified most often (95% [449/475]) as the perpetrators of the abuses; 53% of the abuses occurred between 1991 and 1993, following the Shi'a uprising, and another 30% between 2000 and the first 6 months of 2003. While the majority of men and women expressed support for women's equal opportunities for education, freedom of expression, access to health care, equality in deciding marriage and the number and spacing of children, and participation in community development decisions, there was less support among both men and women for women's freedom of movement, association with people of their choosing, and
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Landorf, Hilary
A study of human rights prepares students for their role as global citizens and their study of practices in the world's countries that relate to the rights of human beings. Today, when one talks of human rights it is usually with reference to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). It is the task of teachers to give students the…
Translating Human Rights Principles into Classroom Practices: Inequities in Educating about Human Rights
Robinson, Carol
The overarching aim of this paper is to explore how key principles inherent in human rights declarations and conventions are translated into practices associated with human rights education within school contexts. It is argued that this translation from discourse to practice opens up the potential for children and young people to encounter…
Heads of household programme in Argentina: a human rights-based policy?
Colina, Jorge; Giordano, Osvaldo; Torres, Alejandra; Cárdenas, Marcelo
This study analyses the consultative councils (CC) of the Argentinian conditional cash transfer heads of household programme as an institutional innovation directed to put into practice some of the principles of the human rights' approach for eradicating poverty. Since the main responsibilities assigned to the CCs coincided with some of the main principles of the human rights' approach, the research is focused on how CCs responded in practice. Using a case study methodology we show that even when, in theory, the CCs incorporate some of the principles of the human rights' approach to the programme, they deviated from this purpose due to a persistent phenomenon in the social policy arena in developing countries: political clientelism. Policy recommendations are formulated in order to deal with clientelism in the framework of the human rights' approach.
Seeking asylum in Australia: immigration detention, human rights and mental health care.
Newman, Louise; Proctor, Nicholas; Dudley, Michael
The article aims to discuss the impact of mandatory detention and human rights violations on the mental health of asylum seekers and the implications for psychiatrists and health professionals. Advocacy for human rights and engagement in social debate are core ethical and professional responsibilities. Clinicians need to maintain a focus on ethical obligations.
The Political Sociology of Human Rights
Nash, Kate
The language of human rights is the most prominent 'people-centred' language of global justice today. This textbook looks at how human rights are constructed at local, national, international and transnational levels and considers commonalities and differences around the world. Through discussions of key debates in the interdisciplinary study of human rights, the book develops its themes by considering examples of human rights advocacy in international organisations, national states and local...
C. Walker-Said and J. D. Kelly (eds), Corporate Social Responsibility? Human Rights in the New Global Economy (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2015), 392 pp
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Whelan, Glen
Book review of: Charlotte Walker-Said and John D. Kelly (eds), Corporate Social Responsibility? Human Rights in the New Global Economy (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2015), 392 pp.......Book review of: Charlotte Walker-Said and John D. Kelly (eds), Corporate Social Responsibility? Human Rights in the New Global Economy (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2015), 392 pp....
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Carlos López Dawson
Full Text Available In the formation of a new Constitution the constituents will require to know or reach an agreement on the nature of human rights; then, to determine how the State will enforce the respect to those rights. To do so, it is necessary to resort to the history and evolution of these rights, and the present work aims to contribute to an efficient productive debate about the nature of human rights, so that citizens can decide on the understanding that this is a thoughtful democratic and humanistic founded decision. The analysis is in the actual technical-ideological republican system which correspond to the current state of international law
Human Dignity – Constitutional Principle of Fundamental Human Rights
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Lucian Pop
Full Text Available As a constitutional principle of the human rights, the human dignity is a supreme value, a norm and a right, thus that the reconfiguration of protection standards of fundamental human rights is made by cohesion of the legal, social and moral dimensions of human dignity. With this article, the author argues that legal meaning, social meaning and moral meaning of human dignity, are centerpiece of protection of freedom under law.
Scientific Freedom and Human Rights
Munoz, Elisa
As part of her ongoing work monitoring issues at the intersection of science and human rights, Ms. Munoz has highlighted violations of academic freedom in Serbia and Iran, the denial of visas and travel licenses to U.S. and Cuban scientists, interference with scientific freedom in Brazil, Mexico, Russia, and the Ukraine, the use of organs from executed prisoners in China, legislation jeopardizing women's health in Iran, and the closure of centers for the treatment of torture survivors in Turkey. Such violations contravene international human rights principles listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights covenants. Ms. Munoz will describe current violations of scientific freedom and the relevant international principles on which these freedoms rest.
Human Rights in Indonesian Constitutional Amendments
Kharlie, Ahmad Tholabi
Human Rights in Indonesian Constitutional Amendments. Indonesian constitutional amendments incorporated human rights principles into the Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia 1945 (UUD NRI), especially in the second amendment in 2000. Under that amendment, the UUD NRI currently stipulates human rights principles as provided for in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). However, there are some important notes, which at its core is a lack of emphasis on the vision and mission of ...
Visual Graphics for Human Rights, Social Justice, Democracy and the Public Good
Nanackchand, Vedant; Berman, Kim
The value of human rights in a democratic South Africa is constantly threatened and often waived for nefarious reasons. We contend that the use of visual graphics among incoming university visual art students provides a mode of engagement that helps to inculcate awareness of human rights, social responsibility, and the public good in South African…
A Revised Guide for Improving Teacher Education in Human Rights.
Phi Delta Kappa, Bloomington, IN. Commission of Education, Human Rights, and Responsibilities.
This document serves as a guide for teacher education institutions and programs designed to prepare educators for meeting their responsibilities in the area of human rights and human relations. This second edition of the guide represents a substantial modification of the original guide, and includes many activities, experiences, and suggestions…
Human rights-based approach to unintentional injury prevention.
MacKay, J Morag; Ryan, Mark Andrew
Unintentional injury remains an important global public health issue, and efforts to address it are often hampered by a lack of visibility, leadership, funding, infrastructure, capacity and evidence of effective solutions. The growing support for a socioecological model and a systems approach to prevention-along with the acknowledgement that injury prevention can be a byproduct of salutogenic design and activities-has increased opportunities to integrate unintentional injury prevention into other health promotion and disease prevention agendas. It has also helped to integrate it into the broader human development agenda through the Sustainable Development Goals. This growing support provides new opportunities to use a human rights-based approach to address the issue. The human rights-based approach is based on the idea that all members of society have social, economic and cultural rights and that governments are responsible and accountable for upholding those rights. It incorporates a systems approach, addresses inequity and places an emphasis on the most vulnerable corners of humanity. It also leverages legal statutes and provides organisations with the opportunity to build existing international goals and benchmarks into their monitoring efforts. This paper describes the approach and highlights how it can leverage attention and investment to address current challenges for unintentional injury. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.
Human dignity according to international instruments on human rights
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José Pablo Alzina de Aguilar
Full Text Available According to international instruments on human rights, the dignity of the human person is the foundation of human rights, and both human dignity and human rights are inherent to the human being, universal and inviolable. This understanding of human dignity is not a fruitless truism, but the solid foundation on which to build a world community under the rule of the new ius gentium: the International Law for Humankind. Moreover, it is the clue to answer many questions raised by the new world of globalization and of the exponential growth of international rules.Consequently, there is a need to a common doctrine on a notion of human dignity which will allow the implementation and adjudication of the aforementioned instruments, at the service of the human person and in conformity with the juridical conscience which they reflect. Philosophy of Law concepts which can be traced back to Aristotle provide that notion. According to these concepts, the demanding nature of "human dignity" sustains the notion of "legal personhood", and both notions pertain to the realm of Law and Right, not of Morale and Values. Thus, human dignity and human rights are and must be, respectively, a basic principle and a necessary part of any Law system, including international law
Humanity and Social Responsibility, Solidarity, and Social Rights.
Ahola-Launonen, Johanna
This article discusses the suggestion of having the notion of solidarity as the foundational value for welfare scheme reforms. Solidarity is an emerging concept in bioethical deliberations emphasizing the need for value-oriented discussion in revising healthcare structures, and the notion has been contrasted with liberal justice and rights. I suggest that this contrast is unnecessary, flawed, and potentially counterproductive. As necessary as the sense of solidarity is in a society, it is an insufficient concept to secure the goals related to social responsibility. The discussion on solidarity is also based on a questionable sense of nostalgia. Furthermore, solidarity and liberal justice share essential objectives concerning welfare schemes; therefore, the question arises whether the proper comparison should in the first place be within justice and solidarity.
The Functions of Selected Human Rights Institutions and Related Role-Players in the Protection of Human Rights in Zimbabwe
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Howard Chitimira
Full Text Available Various violations of the human rights of ordinary people and human rights defenders have been reported in Zimbabwe since the late 1980s. It is widely acknowledged that such violations have been perpetrated mostly by the government through its different organs for political and other related reasons. Human rights violations were also easily committed against ordinary people and human rights defenders because there was no Constitution that adequately protected such people's fundamental human rights (including their civil and political rights and their socio-economic rights in Zimbabwe. Given this background, the article discusses the protection of human rights in Zimbabwe, in the light of the Zimbabwe Constitution Amendment Act 20 of 2013 (Zimbabwe Constitution 2013. This is done in order to investigate whether the promotion, protection, enforcement and respect for human rights in Zimbabwe has now improved. To this end, the functions of selected national human rights institutions and other related role-players, namely civil society, the judiciary, the law enforcement organs and the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, are briefly discussed first. Secondly, the functions of selected regional and international institutions, namely the Southern African Development Community, the African Union and the United Nations are discussed in relation to the protection of human rights in Zimbabwe. Thereafter, concluding remarks and possible recommendations that could be utilised to combat human rights violations and enhance the protection of human rights in Zimbabwe are provided.
Brockett, Charles
To establish an objective conception of human rights, one must first identify basic needs intrinsic to all people and then determine whether these needs are or can be hierarchically ordered. Many scholars have conducted research on the concept of human needs, particularly in the area of human rights. Among these scholars are Abraham H. Maslow…
Where Public Health Meets Human Rights
Kiragu, Karusa; Sawicki, Olga; Smith, Sally; Brion, Sophie; Sharma, Aditi; Mworeko, Lilian; Iovita, Alexandrina
Abstract In 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) initiated a process for validation of the elimination of mother-to-child transmission (EMTCT) of HIV and syphilis by countries. For the first time in such a process for the validation of disease elimination, WHO introduced norms and approaches that are grounded in human rights, gender equality, and community engagement. This human rights-based validation process can serve as a key opportunity to enhance accountability for human rights protection by evaluating EMTCT programs against human rights norms and standards, including in relation to gender equality and by ensuring the provision of discrimination-free quality services. The rights-based validation process also involves the assessment of participation of affected communities in EMTCT program development, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation. It brings awareness to the types of human rights abuses and inequalities faced by women living with, at risk of, or affected by HIV and syphilis, and commits governments to eliminate those barriers. This process demonstrates the importance and feasibility of integrating human rights, gender, and community into key public health interventions in a manner that improves health outcomes, legitimizes the participation of affected communities, and advances the human rights of women living with HIV. PMID:29302179
Accommodating the Right to Development in Kosovo: A Human Rights Perspective
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Remzije Istrefi
Full Text Available The right to development is the right of individuals and peoples to an enabling environment for development that is equitable, sustainable, and participatory and in accordance with the full range of human rights and fundamental freedoms. A wide range of international law on development exists, and numerous Declarations and Programs of Action from the UN World Conferences have been proclaimed. Nevertheless, due to its nature and its legal status the right to development continues to be one of the most contested rights in academic and political circles. The conflicting interpretation of the right to development and its contested legal status affects realization of development to which every human person is entitled by virtue of the right to development. But, if the right to development is read through the human rights "lenses", it can result in an interpretation that can be most helpful for its realization in practice. The relevance of interpretation of the right to development as a human right becomes imperative in transitional society such as the one in Kosovo where the environment continues to encounter legal and structural obstacles to development. In light of this situation the present paper analyses the relationship between human rights and development, the relevance of development in post conflict society and its impact on overcoming the transition and securing a lasting peace.
Human Rights in the World Health Organization: Views of the Director-General Candidates.
Meier, Benjamin Mason
Before the 2017 election of the Director-General of WHO, and given the importance of human rights to global health governance through WHO, Health and Human Rights asked the three final candidates for their views on human rights, WHO's human rights mandate, and the role of human rights in WHO programming. These questions were developed by the author in collaboration with Audrey Chapman, Lisa Forman, Paul Hunt, Dainius Pūras, Javier Vasquez and Carmel Williams. Based on responses to these questions from each of the three candidates, this Perspective was originally published online on April 26, 2017. On May 23, 2017, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was elected Director-General and will begin his five-year term on July 1, 2017.
Training medical students in human rights: a fifteen-year experience in Geneva
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Philippe Chastonay
Full Text Available Background: Training health professionals in the field of human rights has long been advocated by the United Nations. Over the past decade some medical schools have introduced health and human rights courses, yet by far not all. This paper describes the objectives and the content of the Health and Human Rights program developed at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva. Methods: The health and human rights program was developed through the identification of the course objectives, contents, and educational modalities using consensus techniques, and through a step by step implementation procedure integrating multiple evaluation processes. Results: Defined objectives included the familiarization with the concepts, instruments and mechanisms of human rights, the links between health and human rights, and the role of health professionals in promoting human rights. The content ultimately adopted focused on the typology of human rights, their mechanisms of protection, their instruments, as well as social inequalities and vulnerable groups of the population. The implementation proceeded through a step by step approach. Evaluation showed high satisfaction of students, good achievement of learning objectives, and some academic and community impact. Conclusions: High interest of students for a human rights course is encouraging. Furthermore, the community projects initiated and implemented by students may contribute to the social responsibility of the academic institution.
Sexual rights as human rights: a guide to authoritative sources and principles for applying human rights to sexuality and sexual health.
Miller, Alice M; Kismödi, Eszter; Cottingham, Jane; Gruskin, Sofia
This Guide seeks to provide insight and resources to actors interested in the development of rights claims around sexuality and sexual health. After engaging with the vexed question of the scope of sexual rights, it explores the rules and principles governing the way in which human rights claims are developed and applied to sexuality and sexual health, and how that development is linked to law and made a matter of state obligation. This understanding is critical to policy and programming in sexual health and rights, as it supports calling on the relevant range of human rights, such as privacy, non-discrimination, health or other universally accepted human rights, as well as demanding the action of states under their international and national law obligations to support sexual health. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Mental Health Functioning in the Human Rights Field: Findings from an International Internet-Based Survey.
Joscelyne, Amy; Knuckey, Sarah; Satterthwaite, Margaret L; Bryant, Richard A; Li, Meng; Qian, Meng; Brown, Adam D
Human rights advocates play a critical role in promoting respect for human rights world-wide, and engage in a broad range of strategies, including documentation of rights violations, monitoring, press work and report-writing, advocacy, and litigation. However, little is known about the impact of human rights work on the mental health of human rights advocates. This study examined the mental health profile of human rights advocates and risk factors associated with their psychological functioning. 346 individuals currently or previously working in the field of human rights completed an internet-based survey regarding trauma exposure, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), resilience and occupational burnout. PTSD was measured with the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist-Civilian Version (PCL-C) and depression was measured with the Patient History Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). These findings revealed that among human rights advocates that completed the survey, 19.4% met criteria for PTSD, 18.8% met criteria for subthreshold PTSD, and 14.7% met criteria for depression. Multiple linear regressions revealed that after controlling for symptoms of depression, PTSD symptom severity was predicted by human rights-related trauma exposure, perfectionism and negative self-appraisals about human rights work. In addition, after controlling for symptoms of PTSD, depressive symptoms were predicted by perfectionism and lower levels of self-efficacy. Survey responses also suggested high levels of resilience: 43% of responders reported minimal symptoms of PTSD. Although survey responses suggest that many human rights workers are resilient, they also suggest that human rights work is associated with elevated rates of PTSD and depression. The field of human rights would benefit from further empirical research, as well as additional education and training programs in the workplace about enhancing resilience in the context of human rights work.
Mental Health Functioning in the Human Rights Field: Findings from an International Internet-Based Survey.
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Amy Joscelyne
Full Text Available Human rights advocates play a critical role in promoting respect for human rights world-wide, and engage in a broad range of strategies, including documentation of rights violations, monitoring, press work and report-writing, advocacy, and litigation. However, little is known about the impact of human rights work on the mental health of human rights advocates. This study examined the mental health profile of human rights advocates and risk factors associated with their psychological functioning. 346 individuals currently or previously working in the field of human rights completed an internet-based survey regarding trauma exposure, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD, resilience and occupational burnout. PTSD was measured with the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist-Civilian Version (PCL-C and depression was measured with the Patient History Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9. These findings revealed that among human rights advocates that completed the survey, 19.4% met criteria for PTSD, 18.8% met criteria for subthreshold PTSD, and 14.7% met criteria for depression. Multiple linear regressions revealed that after controlling for symptoms of depression, PTSD symptom severity was predicted by human rights-related trauma exposure, perfectionism and negative self-appraisals about human rights work. In addition, after controlling for symptoms of PTSD, depressive symptoms were predicted by perfectionism and lower levels of self-efficacy. Survey responses also suggested high levels of resilience: 43% of responders reported minimal symptoms of PTSD. Although survey responses suggest that many human rights workers are resilient, they also suggest that human rights work is associated with elevated rates of PTSD and depression. The field of human rights would benefit from further empirical research, as well as additional education and training programs in the workplace about enhancing resilience in the context of human rights work.
Human Rights in The Monotheistic Religions : Justification of Human Rights in the perspective of monotheistic religion according to Human Rights Theories
Ali, Sadaqat
The discourse of human rights has been very prominent in the post-world wars which led various international organizations and institutes to generate awareness on this subject and pave a path for implementation of fundamental human rights in the world. Many theories have been coined and proliferated in the world to look the matter more seriously. The question mark on the role of religion in this regard has led the discussion sidelining divinely revealed monotheistic religions. Thus, religions...
Critical Theory of Human Rights
Rensmann, Lars; Thompson, Michael J.
International human rights have become an important global norm that has increasingly been incorporated into international law and global conventions. Human rights are a key reference point of mobilizations by diverse groups and international nongovernmental organization (INGOs) in global publics
Remembering a sociology of Human Rights
Levy, Daniel; Sznaider, Natan
A sociology of human rights sounds almost like a contradiction in terms. Sociology is about social groups, about particular experiences, about how people, embedded in space and time, make sense of their lives and give meaning to their world. It deals with power and interest and the social bases of our experiences. On the other hand, human rights are about human beings in general, without temporal or spatial references, not about groups and their boundaries. Human rights are about humanity, lo...
Misconceptions about Human Rights and Women's Rights in Islam
Syed, Khalida Tanvir
This paper aims to clarify three current misconceptions about the Islamic faith and issues of human rights and women's rights in the West. The first misconception is that Muslims are terrorists because they believe in Jihad. It is factually the case that Islamic teachings stress the value of peace and prosperity for all human beings. The second…
Business and human rights: from soft law to hard law?
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Ramona Elisabeta Cîrlig
Full Text Available Over the last decades the international community turned its attention towards the impact that businesses have on human rights, and the role they can play in furt hering human rights protection, in light of the lead role they play in globalization, and the increasingly vocal allegations of human rights violations directed against some multinationals. These developments triggered some action at the United Nations, an d at the European Union level, and led to the development of international soft law in this area, moving slowly towards binding instruments. This paper explores the evolution of business and human rights, presents the current international non-binding instruments, as well as some states' binding initiatives in this area, and highlights the tendency to move from soft law to hard law, to leave the realm of voluntary corporate responsibility for the one of pure accountability. In this context, several solutions are debated by scholars: from a binding treaty, or a series of narrower treaties focused on specific areas, to a Model Law which could be used by states to enact laws imposing obligations on businesses within their jurisdictions, or even adding human rights in the international investment agreements and making use of the international arbitration as an enforcement mechanism.
Disability in a Human Rights Context
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Theresia Degener
Full Text Available The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD is a modern human rights treaty with innovative components. It impacts on disability studies as well as human rights law. Two innovations are scrutinized in this article: the model of disability and the equality and discrimination concepts of the CRPD. It is argued that the CRPD manifests a shift from the medical model to the human rights model of disability. Six propositions are offered why and how the human rights model differs from the social model of disability. It is further maintained that the CRPD introduces a new definition of discrimination into international public law. The underlying equality concept can be categorized as transformative equality with both individual and group oriented components. The applied methodology of this research is legal doctrinal analysis and disability studies model analysis. The main finding is that the human rights model of disability improves the social model of disability. Three different models of disability can be attributed to different concepts of equality. The medical model corresponds with formal equality, while the social model with substantive equality and the human rights model can be linked with transformative equality.
The Human Rights Act: What are the implications for older people?
Help the Aged is launching a report outlining the terms of the Human Rights Act and its implications both for older people themselves and for public bodies responsible for providing services to them. Tessa Harding, head of policy at Help the Aged said: 'The Human Rights Act is an important turning point for older people. Not only does it establish key rights of individuals to freedom from inhuman and degrading treatment, to private and family life and so on; it also prohibits discrimination in accessing these rights.We expect older people and their advocates to use the Act to ensure greater fairness and equality in our society.'
Teaching Strategy: Using the Human Rights Poster.
Update on Law-Related Education, 1998
Describes a lesson focusing on a human-rights poster that provides visual reinforcement of the second article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that enforces freedom from discrimination. Presents students with examples of human-rights situations to assist them in understanding that all people are entitled to human rights. (CMK)
Property Rights, Restrictions and Responsibilities
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Enemark, Stig
more to a social, ethical commitment or attitude to environmental sustainability and good husbandry. This paper provides an overall understanding of the concept of land administration systems for dealing with rights, restrictions and responsibilities in future spatially enabled government. Finally......Land Administration Systems are the basis for conceptualizing rights, restrictions and responsibilities related to people, policies and places. Property rights are normally concerned with ownership and tenure whereas restrictions usually control use and activities on land. Responsibilities relate...
'Gay Rights are Human Rights: The framing of new interpretations of international human rights norms'
Holzhacker, Ron
The purpose of this chapter is to explore the development of the framing of the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons and sexual orientation and gender identity in terms of a human rights paradigm. This decades-long process involved many actors, from within academia, gay
'Gay Rights are Human Rights: The framing of new interpretations of international human rights norms'
Holzhacker, Ron
The purpose of this chapter is to explore the development of the framing of the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons and sexual orientation and gender identity in terms of a human rights paradigm. This decades-long process involved many actors, from within academia, gay
Human rights, ideology and population policies.
Colombo, B
Only too often ideology means fanaticism, intolerance, even violence, but the term can be used also to denote sets of preconceptions and presuppositions which act as a stimulus and a guide to scientific innovation, particularly in the field of social science. This sort of insight into the realities of life and the world is a contribution to knowledge and the search for truth, also in the field of human rights. These are taken in the paper as those rights whose infringement constitutes a "vulnus" of the essential characteristics of human beings and those which assume the role of a basic safeguard of them. The meaning of the insistence on the human rights theme in the United Nations system is briefly touched upon, but the main effort is spent in trying to find a firm base for both fundamental rights and duties, shown as strictly and simmetrically linked. Various examples of population policies - broadly defined as governmental interventions influencing demographic variables - are then examined in the light of the basic principles laid down in the said effort. The fields taken up in succession for consideration are international and internal migration, mortality, marriage, fertility in countries at different stages of demographic transition, and growth. Rather than trying an extensive coverage of the whole horizon, a line of critical and deep thought about typical problematic themes is preferred. One of the main conclusions which may be quoted is a statement according to which the problem remains wide open of discovering acceptable ways aiming at a modification of fertility patterns which combine a reduction of the average family size with the maintenance of its variability in order to respect free and responsible individual choices. How important and urgent this task is, is underscored by the observations advanced in the final section of the paper including a meditation on the limits that human sexuality appears to have imposed on itself.
Human Rights in National Administrative Law
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Næsborg-Andersen, Ayo
rights law is visible in the case-law of institutions performing reviews of Danish administrative decisions. The book consists of three parts. The first part contains the introduction, research question, methodological considerations and delimitations. The second part is an in-depth look at the theory...... developed using the theory of legal capability and communication theories. Discussing new ways of analysing the application of human rights, this book is relevant for scholars and professionals primarily working with human rights law, but also administrative law, both nationally and internationally.......Human rights are increasingly debated in the public sphere, yet discussions of human rights law are traditionally all but invisible in the discussions on national administrative law. This is at least the case in Denmark. This book sets out to analyse if, and in what way, the application of human...
Human rights, State Violence and Political Resistance
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Signe Larsen
Full Text Available This article investigates Hannah Arendt's and Giorgio Agamben's critiques of human rights and argues that the two thinkers share a blind spot with regard to the radical potentials of human rights. The problem is that they do not break with two fixed imaginaries which still haunt liberal democracies: (1 the historical essentialist understanding of human rights and (2 nation-states and individuals as the principal loci for political rights, power, and action. Based on the work of Jacques Rancière, Costas Douzinas, and Étienne Balibar this article argues that human rights can be thought of as a constituent part of a radical political praxis and resistance movement. If human rights are thought of as a praxis of "right-ing" (Douzinas or a "dissensus" (Rancière, which both contest the current "distribution of the sensible," a new "cosmopolitics of human rights" can be imagined where human rights are conceived as a borderline concept (Balibar.
Human rights violations against sex workers: burden and effect on HIV.
Decker, Michele R; Crago, Anna-Louise; Chu, Sandra K H; Sherman, Susan G; Seshu, Meena S; Buthelezi, Kholi; Dhaliwal, Mandeep; Beyrer, Chris
We reviewed evidence from more than 800 studies and reports on the burden and HIV implications of human rights violations against sex workers. Published research documents widespread abuses of human rights perpetrated by both state and non-state actors. Such violations directly and indirectly increase HIV susceptibility, and undermine effective HIV-prevention and intervention efforts. Violations include homicide; physical and sexual violence, from law enforcement, clients, and intimate partners; unlawful arrest and detention; discrimination in accessing health services; and forced HIV testing. Abuses occur across all policy regimes, although most profoundly where sex work is criminalised through punitive law. Protection of sex workers is essential to respect, protect, and meet their human rights, and to improve their health and wellbeing. Research findings affirm the value of rights-based HIV responses for sex workers, and underscore the obligation of states to uphold the rights of this marginalised population. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
(Public) Health and Human Rights in Practice.
Annas, George J; Mariner, Wendy K
Public health's reliance on law to define and carry out public activities makes it impossible to define a set of ethical principles unique to public health. Public health ethics must be encompassed within--and consistent with--a broader set of principles that define the power and limits of governmental institutions. These include human rights, health law, and even medical ethics. The human right to health requires governments not only to respect individual human rights and personal freedoms, but also, importantly, to protect people from harm from external sources and third parties, and to fulfill the health needs of the population. Even if human rights are the natural language for public health, not all public health professionals are comfortable with the language of human rights. Some argue that individual human rights--such as autonomy and privacy--unfairly limit the permissible means to achieve the goal of health protection. We argue that public health should welcome and promote the human rights framework. In almost every instance, this will make public health more effective in the long run, because the goals of public health and human rights are the same: to promote human flourishing. Copyright © 2016 by Duke University Press.
Education on human rights and healthcare: evidence from Serbia.
Vranes, Aleksandra Jovic; Mikanovic, Vesna Bjegovic; Vukovic, Dejana; Djikanovic, Bosiljka; Babic, Momcilo
Ensuring and enforcing human rights in patient care are important to promote health and to provide quality and appropriate healthcare services. Therefore, continued medical education (CME) is essential for healthcare professionals to utilize their sphere of influence to affect change in healthcare practice. A total of 123 participants attended three CME courses. Course topics covered: (i) the areas of human rights and healthcare, (ii) rights, obligations and responsibilities of healthcare professionals in relation to human rights and the rights of patients, (iii) healthcare of vulnerable groups and (iv) access to essential medical services. Evaluation of the CME courses involved two components: evaluation of participants' performance and the participants' evaluation of the teaching process. The participants were assessed at the beginning and end of each course. Each of the courses was evaluated by the participants through a questionnaire distributed at the end of each course. Descriptive statistics was used for data interpretation. Knowledge of the healthcare professionals improved at the end of all the three courses. The participants assessed several aspects of the courses, including the course topics, educational methods, the course methods, organization, duration and dynamics as well as the physical environment and the technical facilities of the course, and rated each very highly. Our results corroborate the importance and necessity of courses to heighten awareness of the state of current healthcare and human rights issues to increase the involvement of healthcare professionals both locally and globally. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: firstname.lastname@example.com.
A Local Response to the Global Human Rights Standard: The "Ubuntu" Perspective on Human Dignity
Murithi, Tim
Some African leaders have made the argument that the promotion of an international human rights standard is a strategy that is used and abused by hypocritical Western governments to justify their intervention into the affairs of African countries. The tacit objective behind this articulation is the desire to avoid an external evaluation or…
The Accountability Turn in Third Wave Human Rights Fact-Finding
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Federica D'Alessandra
Full Text Available Whereas the characteristics of human rights fact-finding largely vary depending on the typology and scope of the entity that carries it out, consensus seems to be developing that a common set of challenges to human rights fact-finding exists. This is especially so when carried out under United Nations auspices. For example, it has long been acknowledged that the very nature of the institution, sitting as it does at the crossroads of international politics, as well as the seemingly irresolvable tension between calls for human rights protection on the one hand, and State sovereignty on the other, present some structural challenges to human rights fact-finding. Furthermore, issues of coordination between the United Nations and other institutions (such as international governmental and non-governmental organisations, or international tribunals, as well as what some have called a 'lack of institutional memory' arguably often feature as regular traits among fact-finding mechanisms. In recent years, a further set of challenges has been added to the mix by additional requirements, featuring increasingly often in mandates, that instruct fact-finding mechanisms to make further determinations of facts (concerning, 'e.g.', the identity of those most responsible for the violations being documented, or the existence of an armed conflict and even consider questions of law ('e.g.' the qualification of the violations as crimes under international law. Building on an expanding body of scholarship on the subject, as well as the author's own experience with fact-finding efforts sitting at the intersection between traditional international human rights law and international criminal justice, this article argues: (i that human rights fact-finding has evolved in three waves; (ii that the third wave of human rights fact-finding is characterised by an "accountability turn"; and that (iii this turn has brought about an additional set of challenges to the
Human Rights Discourse in the Sustainable Development Agenda Avoids Obligations and Entitlements Comment on "Rights Language in the Sustainable Development Agenda: Has Right to Health Discourse and Norms Shaped Health Goals?".
Williams, Carmel; Blaiklock, Alison
Our commentary on Forman et al paper explores their thesis that right to health language can frame global health policy responses. We examined human rights discourse in the outcome documents from three 2015 United Nations (UN) summits and found rights-related terms are used in all three. However, a deeper examination of the discourse finds the documents do not convey the obligations and entitlements of human rights and international human rights law. The documents contain little that can be used to empower the participation of those already left behind and to hold States and the private sector to account for their human rights duties. This is especially worrying in a neoliberal era. © 2016 by Kerman University of Medical Sciences.
The right to health of prisoners in international human rights law.
Lines, Rick
This paper explores the health rights of prisoners as defined in international law, and the mechanisms that have been used to ensure the rights of persons in detention to realise the highest attainable standard of health. It examines this right as articulated within United Nations and regional human rights treaties, non-binding or so-called soft law instruments from international organisations and the jurisprudence of international human rights bodies. It explores the use of economic, social and cultural rights mechanisms, and those within civil and political rights, as they engage the right to health of prisoners, and identifies the minimum legal obligations of governments in order to remain compliant with human rights norms as defined within the international case law. In addressing these issues, this article adopts a holistic approach to the definition of the highest attainable standard of health. This includes a consideration of adequate standards of general medical care, including preventative health and mental health services. It also examines the question of environmental health, and those poor conditions of detention that may exacerbate health decline, disease transmission, mental illness or death. The paper examines the approach to prison health of the United Nations human rights system and its various monitoring bodies, as well as the regional human rights systems in Europe, Africa and the Americas. Based upon this analysis, the paper draws conclusions on the current fulfilment of the right to health of prisoners on an international scale, and proposes expanded mechanisms under the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment to monitor and promote the health rights of prisoners at the international and domestic levels.
The Human Rights of Minority Women:
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Ravnbøl, Camilla Ida
. These challenges go beyond the Romani issue only and into larger issues of women and minorities. It raises questions as to whether the historical separation between categories of gender and race/ethnicity within the international community in practice has become a gap that isolates Romani women from the human...... rights attention that they claim. It is argued that in order to strengthen the validity of human rights in the lives of Romani women, as a framework that ensures their full and equal protection, special attention needs to be given to interrelated grounds and forms of discrimination. "Intersectionality......This article explores the complexities surrounding the human rights of minority women. With analytical focus on Romani women in Europe it seeks to contribute with new insight into the grey areas of rights issues, where groups within special rights categories share different human rights concerns...
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Buhmann, Karin
This article analyses the United Nations (UN) Guidelines on Business and Human Rights adopted in 2011 by the UN Human Rights Council from the perspective of transnational business governance interactions (TBGI) analytical framework.1 The article identifies and discusses dimensions of interaction...... in several areas of relevance to transnational business governance interaction and indicates the relevance of the TBGI approach to public regulatory transnational business governance initiatives. The analysis of the Guiding Principles as interactional transnational business governance suggests that this form...
Judge rejects appeal by oilsands giant, human rights case to proceed
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Syncrude Canada has lost its bid to be dropped from a human rights case filed by a Sikh man who claims to have been fired for having a beard. Syncrude has argued that it was not responsible for firing the man in 2003, maintaining that the electrician was employed by another contractor to work at an expansion project in Fort McMurray. The Sikh man has argued that his religion forbids him from shaving his beard. Syncrude believes that beards are a safety hazard, and workers are required to wear a tight-fitting mask that protects them against gas leaks. The man claims that supervisors took him to one side on his first day at Syncrude to explain the company's policy, and that he offered to buy himself a different type of mask made especially for people with beards and/or eyeglasses. A union steward presented his request to management, but it was rejected. Under Alberta's human rights act, Syncrude must prove that accommodating a worker's needs would cause undue hardship for the company. Human rights advocates have suggested that Syncrude is not honouring human rights legislation in the province. As one of Alberta's largest employers, the question of Syncrude's responsibility in the case is crucial.
Human and Citizen Rights Guarantees While Providing Information Security
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Serhii Yesimov
Full Text Available With the development of information and communication technologies, issues of providing information security are becoming more and more aggravated. These are crimes related to the use of electronic computers, systems and computer networks and telecommunication networks, the propaganda of separatism and extremism, etc. While providing information security in the digital environment, the role of technical and legal human rights guarantees, due to technical means of protection, is increasing. Relying on the developers of technical means of protection determines the difference between the aforesaid concepts and the traditional approach to ensuring the protection of human and citizen rights, in which responsibilities are put on information intermediaries, owners of confidential information. Technical guarantees of human rights are a necessary component of ensuring information security, but the effectiveness of the application is provided in conjunction with the legal guarantees of human rights, as evidenced by the tendency to recognize the principles of inviolability of privacy on the basis of design decisions in the law of the European Union as legal acts. Providing information security is a legitimate goal of establishing constraints of human rights, since it can be correlated with the norms of international law. The establishment of constraints of human rights is permissible in order to attain other objectives–ensuring state security, public order, health, rights and freedoms of the person in the information sphere. The legitimacy of this goal is determined by its compliance with the objectives envisaged by international agreements ratified in an established order. The article examines the impact of the use of technical means in the field of providing information security in the aspect of following the fundamental human and civil rights in Ukraine, taking into account the legislation of the European Union and the decision of the European Court
Who is Responsible for Future Teachers' Training on Human Rights in the Faculties of Education?
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Elkin Darío Agudelo Colorado
Full Text Available DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17227/01234870.41folios103.116 This reflection article, derived from a research process about social representations of Human Rights in a group of students, explores the process of knowledge and experience that undergraduate students from Universidad Distrital have during their training process to become teachers. It shows how the field of social representation originates in the daily life experiences of students (both in the university and beyond where they become aware of Human Rights violation experiences. They begin to question the meaning, significance, usefulness and purpose of rights in the contexts of societies like Colombia and particularly, in a Faculty dedicated to the teacher training. Likewise, the lack of a political will to make Human Rights Education (HRE more visible and tangible in the curricula for future teachers is questioned, as well as the educational projects in Faculties of Education. Finally, the paper suggests some key ideas to enhance future teachers' training from a HRE perspective.
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Jefferson, Andrew M.; Gaborit, Liv Stoltze
Drawing on participatory action research conducted in Sierra Leone, Kosovo and the Philippines, Human Rights in Prisons analyses encounters between rights-based non-governmental organisations and prisons. It explores the previously under-researched perspectives of prison staff and prisoners...
APA efforts in promoting human rights and social justice.
Leong, Frederick T L; Pickren, Wade E; Vasquez, Melba J T
This article reviews the American Psychological Association's (APA) efforts in promoting human rights and social justice. Beginning with a historical review of the conceptualizations of human rights and social justice, the social challenges that have faced the United States over time are discussed in relation to the APA's evolving mission and strategic initiatives enacted through its boards, committees, and directorates. From early efforts on the Board for Social and Ethical Responsibility in Psychology and the Board of Ethnic Minority Affairs to the establishment of the Public Interest Directorate, the APA's efforts to address these human rights and social justice challenges through its task force reports, guidelines, and policies are described. Specifically, issues related to diversity and underrepresentation of minority group members and perspective within the APA, as well as women's issues (prochoice, violence against women, sexualization of young girls, human trafficking) were central to these efforts. These minority groups included racial and ethnic minority groups; immigrants and refugees; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and queer individuals; and those with disabilities. Later attention shifted to broader social justice challenges within a public health perspective, such as AIDS, obesity, and violence. Also included is a brief discussion of the Hoffman Report. The article ends with a discussion of future directions for the APA's efforts related to human rights and social justice related to health disparities, violent extremism, social inequality, migration, cultural and racial diversity, and an evidence-based approach to programming. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).
Is inclusive education a human right?
Gordon, John-Stewart
In this article, I question the general idea that inclusive education--i.e., to teach all students in one class--is a moral human right. The following discussion shows that the widespread view in disability studies that there is a moral human right to inclusive education can be reasonably called into question by virtue of the proposed counter arguments, but without denying that inclusive education is of utmost importance. Practically speaking, the legal human right to inclusive education is of great practical value for impaired students, and for their basic right to be free from discrimination in education, since their concern thereby gains great legal and moral force. But, theoretically speaking, this particular human right lacks an attainable consensus concerning proper moral justification. © 2013 American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics, Inc.
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Buhmann, Karin
This article analyses the United Nations (UN) Guidelines on Business and Human Rights adopted in 2011 by the UN Human Rights Council from the perspective of transnational business governance interactions (TBGI) analytical framework.1 The article identifies and discusses dimensions of interaction...... and components of regulatory governance which characterize the Guiding Principles, focusing in particular on rule formation and implementation. The article notes that the Guiding Principles actively enrolled other actors for the rule-making process, ensuring support in a politically and legally volatile field...
US Human Rights Conduct and International Legitimacy
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Keating, Vincent Charles
Did the Bush administration fundamentally harm the international human rights system through its rejection of human rights norms? This is the central question explored within US Human Rights Conduct and International Legitimacy, which analyses the practices of legitimacy between the Bush...... nations have followed in America's footsteps, and that the Bush administration's deviation from international norms has served to reaffirm worldwide commitment to human rights....
Web Resources for Teaching about Human Rights
Merryfield, Merry M.; Badang, Germain; Bragg, Christina; Kvasov, Aleksandr; Taylor, Nathan; Waliaula, Anne; Yamaguchi, Misato
The study of human rights is inseparable from social studies. Beyond the basic political, economic, and social freedoms and rights spelled out in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, hundreds of specialized topics have developed that demonstrate the complex nature of human rights in the twenty-first-century world--environmental exploitation…
Human rights literacy: Moving towards rights-based education and ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
Our theoretical framework examines the continual process of moving towards an open and democratic society through the facilitation of human rights literacy, rights-based education and transformative action. We focus specifically on understandings of dignity, equality and freedom, as both rights (legal claims) and values ...
Solidarity and the Encapsulated and Divided Histories of Health and Human Rights
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Su-Ming Khoo
Full Text Available This article examines the central but neglected principle of solidarity in human rights, health and bioethics, a concept subject to contention, evasion and confusion. It addresses the general ambivalence toward solidarity within law, philosophy and politics by discussing solidarity's co-evolution with inegalitarian encapsulations and divisions of human rights. It argues that a renewed conception of solidarity is essential to meet increasingly salient ethical demands, as gender equality and the individualization of responsibilities coincide with deficits of care and collective responsibility. Questions of embodiedness, (interdependence, care and asymmetry are neglected by dominant liberal approaches, but are key to rethinking solidarity.
The Existence of Human Rights Court as a National Effort to Eliminate the Severe Violation of Human Rights in Indonesia
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- Junaedi
Full Text Available The law on human rights court has brought the new hopes for certain people have suffered because of the human rights violation happened in the past government (before the law enacted in the years of 2000. The demand of justice has been made by victims, the families of victims and other sympathetic parties by bringing those who have violated human rights in the past. The demand for justice does not only focus on human rights violations, which occurred in the past but also similar human rights violations that will occur in the future. The existence of a permanent Human Rights Court seems to imply that human rights will be upheld and protected. The resolution of past human rights violations via a conflict approach is preferable for the national reconciliation. The resolution of past human rights violations through extra-judicial organizations is an advanced step towards resolving the case, whereas a conflict approach can be used to settle the case. The existence of the Human Rights Law provides a new frontier in implementing the principle of restorative justice in the approach of case settlement. It is hoped that such restorative justice can create a political balance between the past and the future.
Human rights literacy: Moving towards rights-based education and ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
Edu-HRight Research Unit, Faculty of Education Sciences, North-West University Potchefstroom Campus, ... Finally, recommendations are made regarding human rights and rights-based .... serve as guidelines for our actions and attitudes.
Human Rights Discourse in the Sustainable Development Agenda Avoids Obligations and Entitlements Comment on "Rights Language in the Sustainable Development Agenda: Has Right to Health Discourse and Norms Shaped Health Goals?"
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Carmel Williams
Full Text Available Our commentary on Forman et al paper explores their thesis that right to health language can frame global health policy responses. We examined human rights discourse in the outcome documents from three 2015 United Nations (UN summits and found rights-related terms are used in all three. However, a deeper examination of the discourse finds the documents do not convey the obligations and entitlements of human rights and international human rights law. The documents contain little that can be used to empower the participation of those already left behind and to hold States and the private sector to account for their human rights duties. This is especially worrying in a neoliberal era.
A Rejoinder to Commentaries on "Corporate Responsibility to Respect Human Rights and Business Schools' Responsibility to Teach It"
McPhail, Ken
Encouragingly, Professors Andrew and Everett broadly agree with McPhail (2013) that the emerging business and human rights discourse could add to our critical understanding of sustainability and, as such, should have a place within business schools' curricula. Professor Everett, however, cautions that the potential of the business and human rights…
Malaysia's Human Rights Performance: Assessment of its First Session of Universal Periodic Review in the United Nations Human Rights Council
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Ying Hooi Khoo
Full Text Available Since its inception, the Universal Periodic Review (UPR has been subjected to a substantial amount of criticism. The mechanism began functioning in 2008, however there have been little made known about the roles and functions of the UPR. This article explicitly examines the first UPR process of Malaysia in 2009, in order to illustrate how the mechanism operates in practice by highlighting the engagement of Malaysia government with the stakeholders, the follow-up process and the main issues concerned. This article argues that in spite of the excellent diplomacy skills that portrayed by the Malaysian government in the UPR session, the human rights situation in the country has not been improved much. This paper seeks to determine how effective the UPR has been at encouraging human rights reforms nationally by analyzing and assessing the implementation actions of Malaysian government in response to their accepted UPR recommendations.
Human rights: implications for patients and staff.
Dreezen, I; Nys, H
Originating from wider declarations of fundamental human rights, individual human rights in the field of health care, also called patients' rights, have been elaborated, developed and implemented by most international organisations, including the European Union and the World Health Organisation. The Council of Europe is however, particularly prominent in its work in the field of human rights, having drawn up a number of vital international treaties, among them and most importantly the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, which strengthens internationally the legal position of the patient and the research subject in setting a minimum level of protection in respect of individual human rights and health and is binding upon the member states that have ratified it. Nonetheless, it needs to be examined to see if the European Union would be a better alternative to regulate these patients' rights.
Right to Development and Right to the City : A Proposal of Human Rights Categories Universal as assumptions Citizenship
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Alessandra Danielle Carneiro dos Santos Hilário
Full Text Available This article discusses the Right to the City, in a conceptual dimension and wide, and his dialectical relationship with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and its universalism and cultural relativism categories. The Right to the City (RtC is capitula- ted as one of the categories of the Human Right to Development from the compartments on Human Rights to descend from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Linked to this assumption, the discussion of universalism and cultural relativism theories bring to the fore important questions and considerations as to RtC condition, since in its current design and trampled by an evil legacy of neoliberalism, this right has demonstrated the need for authoritative action of the State, given the nature of fundamental human right of the third dimension. Through RtC, boasts up of economic, social and cultural rights, requiring a positive action of the state as compliance guarantee this human right. In this bias, relevant are discussions about the concept of law, morality, liberalism, effectiveness and universality of human rights theories and cultural relativism in dialectic with the RtC and its complexity. It starts from the assumption that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other statements which have descended universality (despite criticism, however, this har- vest, it is imperative closer examination of the concept, forecast, guarantee and effective- ness fundamental human rights, which may lead to a mixed application of universalistic and relativistic theories when analyzed from the perspective of these institutes. The Hu- man Right to Development (RtD presupposes notions of environmental sustainability and economic democracy, with qualified participation of social subjects (wide citizenship, seen continuous and articulated perspective as guiding the development process.
Children's rights, international human rights and the promise of ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
Children's rights, international human rights and the promise of Islamic legal theory. ... Law, Democracy & Development ... law but also religion and ethics, thus offering a multidimensional approach covering the total personality of the child.
The place of human rights and the common good in global health policy.
Tasioulas, John; Vayena, Effy
This article offers an integrated account of two strands of global health justice: health-related human rights and health-related common goods. After sketching a general understanding of the nature of human rights, it proceeds to explain both how individual human rights are to be individuated and the content of their associated obligations specified. With respect to both issues, the human right to health is taken as the primary illustration. It is argued that (1) the individuation of the right to health is fixed by reference to the subject matter of its corresponding obligations, and not by the interests it serves, and (2) the specification of the content of that right must be properly responsive to thresholds of possibility and burden. The article concludes by insisting that human rights cannot constitute the whole of global health justice and that, in addition, other considerations-including the promotion of health-related global public goods-should also shape such policy. Moreover, the relationship between human rights and common goods should not be conceived as mutually exclusive. On the contrary, there sometimes exists an individual right to some aspect of a common good, including a right to benefit from health-related common goods such as programmes for securing herd immunity from diphtheria.
Human rights from the grassroots up: Vermont's campaign for universal health care.
McGill, Mariah
In 2008, the Vermont Workers' Center launched the "Healthcare Is a Human Right Campaign," a grassroots campaign to secure the creation of a universal health care system in Vermont. Campaign organizers used a human rights framework to mobilize thousands of voters in support of universal health care. In response to this extraordinary grassroots effort, the state legislature passed health care legislation that incorporates human rights principles into Vermont law and provides a framework for universal health care. The United States has often lagged behind other nations in recognizing economic, social, and cultural (ESC) rights, including the right to health. Nonetheless, activists have begun to incorporate ESC rights into domestic advocacy campaigns, and state and local governments are beginning to respond where the federal government has not. Vermont serves as a powerful example of how a human rights framework can inform health care policy and inspire grassroots campaigns in the United States. This three-part article documents the Vermont Workers' Center campaign and discusses the impact that human rights activity at the grassroots level may have on attitudes towards ESC rights in the United States. The first part describes the Vermont health care crisis and explains why the center adopted international human rights principles for their campaign. The article then goes on to discuss the three-year campaign and analyze the health care reform bill that the Vermont legislature passed. Finally, the article discusses the campaign's local and national impact. Copyright © 2012 McGill.
The Significance of UNESCOs Universal Declaration on the Human Genome & Human Rights
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Shawn H.E. Harmon
Full Text Available Modern medical research, particularly genetic research, is changing the nature of medicine. Concerns surrounding these changes and their potential negative impact on human rights led UNESCO to spearhead collaboration by experts in the creation of an international instrument intended to provide guidance for the promotion of bioethics and the protection of human rights in the genetic context. The result was the Universal Declaration of the Human Genome and Human Rights. This article briefly highlights the scientific and social setting into which the Declaration was injected. This is followed by a consideration of the drafting body (the IBC so as to assess whether UNESCO was the appropriate body to lead this project. The process by which the Declaration was created is also considered so as to assess whether it represents an example of ethical and democratic drafting. Finally, the substantive content of the Declaration is considered and measured against the pre-existing regime so as to assess whether it represents an intelligible and coherent response to the concerns raised capable of offering guidance now and into the future. By assessing these procedural and substantive matters, one can draw some tentative conclusions about the utility and significance of the Declaration.
Human Rights Arrangement on Indonesian Law
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S. Masribut Sardol
Full Text Available Article 1 paragraph (3 of the Constitution of 1945 (UUD 1945 stated that Indonesia is a Rule of Law. One feature of the Rule of Law is the existence of human rights in the state administration. Indonesia, since independence on August 17, 1945 has asserted the defense of human rights as stated in the opening clause and in the torso of the 1945 Constitution Article 27-34. In the era of reform, on the Government of President Habibie, the President and the Parliament ratified the UN convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading human dignity into Law number 5 of 1998. Then the MPR also publishes the statutes of MPR No. XVII/MPR/1998 on Human Rights, which was followed up with the appearance of Law No. 39 of 1999 on human rights. In accordance with the law in Indonesia based on the sort of Law No. 12 of 2011, the actual products that have been issued by the Government (the MPR, DPR and President that follow up the substance of Human Rights in the Constitution with established Assembly and the law is already correct. But when the MPR then does the second amendment to the Constitution on August 18, 2000 by adding a special article chapters and contains about Human Rights (as mentioned in Chapter X-A section 28 A-J, have made the complexity hierarchy of law in Indonesia because it is not in accordance with the substance of article 7 of Law No. 12 of 2011. How To Cite: Sardol, S. (2014. Human Rights Arrangement on Indonesian Law. Rechtsidee, 1(1, 85-100. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.21070/jihr.v1i1.105
Prolegomena of Human Rights. Historical Roots and Globalization
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Ana-Alina Dumitrache-Ionescu
Full Text Available The paper Prolegomena of Human Rights. Historical Roots and Globalization analyses the complexity of the history of human rights which revolve around an incessant struggle for the awareness of the value of the human being. It is the history which defends the man, the human being, regarded individually or collectively, who was subjected in the course of time to some atrocities and abuses, confronting itself with exploitation, discrimination, oppression, slavery, torture and even extermination. Moreover, the historical evolution of human rights knows halting places in which the concepts of human rights are accompanied by ambiguity, by different meanings for different people and vary in accordance with the context. By way of resemblance, the problem of human rights in the context of globalization which transforms human rights into rights of the global citizen, rights which acquire new dimensions and significances imposed by the economic, politic and social changes specific of globalization is approached in this paper. The global vision of the new human rights involves both the opportunity to have a say when they are infringed for example, when they are subjected to torture or terror, and where human rights abuses are carried out by the people, for example, trafficking in human beings. (Ritzer, & Dean, 2015, p. 115
Sovereignty transformed: a sociology of human rights.
Levy, Daniel; Sznaider, Natan
This paper examines how global interdependencies and the consolidation of a human rights discourse are transforming national sovereignty. Social researchers frequently address the supremacy of state sovereignty and the absoluteness of human rights as mutually exclusive categories. However, rather than presupposing that a universal rights discourse is necessarily leading to the demise of sovereignty, we suggest that an increasingly de-nationalized conception of legitimacy is contributing to a reconfiguration of sovereignty itself. Through the analytic prism of historical memories - which refers to shared understandings specific pasts carry for present concerns of a political community - we provide an explanatory factor for the salience of human rights norms as a globally available repertoire of legitimate claim making. While states retain most of their sovereign functions, their legitimacy is no longer exclusively conditioned by a contract with the nation, but also by their adherence to a set of nation-transcending human rights ideals. Legitimacy is mediated by how willing states are to engage with 'judicial memories' of human rights abuses and their articulation in cosmopolitan legal frames. Empirically, we focus on war crime trials and how legal inscriptions of memories of human rights abuses are recasting the jurisdiction of International Law. The readiness of states to engage with rights abuses is becoming politically and culturally consequential, as adherence to global human rights norms confers legitimacy.
Human rights and mass disaster: lessons from the 2004 tsunami.
Weinstein, H M; Fletcher, L E; Stover, E
This paper describes the results of an investigation into how the December, 2004 tsunami and its aftermath affected the human rights of the survivors. Teams of researchers interviewed survivors, government officials, representatives of international and local nongovernmental organisations, UN officials, the military, police, and other key informants in India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Indonesia, and Thailand. We also analysed newspaper articles, reports released by governments, UN agencies, NGOs, and private humanitarian aid groups, and we examined the laws and policies related to survivors' welfare in the affected countries. We found worsening of prior human rights violations, inequities in aid distribution, lack of accountability and impunity, poor coordination of aid, lack of community participation in reconstruction, including coastal redevelopment. Corruption and preexisting conflict negatively impact humanitarian interventions. We make recommendations to international agencies, states, and local health service providers. A human rights framework offers significant protection to survivors and should play a critical role in disaster response.
Ritual male infant circumcision and human rights.
Jacobs, Allan J; Arora, Kavita Shah
Opponents of male circumcision have increasingly used human rights positions to articulate their viewpoint. We characterize the meaning of the term "human rights." We discuss these human rights arguments with special attention to the claims of rights to an open future and to bodily integrity. We offer a three-part test under which a parental decision might be considered an unacceptable violation of a child's right. The test considers the impact of the practice on society, the impact of the practice on the individual, and the likelihood of adverse impact. Infant circumcision is permissible under this test. We conclude that infant circumcision may be proscribed as violating local norms, even though it does not violate human rights.
Joshua, I A; Dangata, Y Y; Audu, O; Nmadu, A G; Omole, N V
In Nigeria, just like in many other parts of the world, one of the most extensively discussed issues on the public agenda today is the increase in prison population. The aims of imprisonment are protection, retribution, deterrence, reformation and vindication. Investigations revealed that the prison services have been,neglected more than any other criminal justice agency in Nigeria. For example, most of the prisons were built during the colonial era for the purpose of accommodating a small number of inmates. Human Rights are the basic guarantees for human beings to be able to achieve happiness and self-respect; consequently, in most jurisdictions, the Human Rights Act confirms that these Rights do not stop at the prison gates. However, most States fail to meet the Human Rights obligations of their prisoners. As regards to health, for example, every prison should have proper health facilities and medical staff to provide dental and psychiatric care among others. This article discusses the Nigerian Prison System and challenges, trends and the related Human Rights and Ethical issues in Nigerian prisons. Some of the unmet needs of Nigerian prisoners which include, inter alia, living in unwholesome cells, delayed trial of inmates, lack of voting rights, access to information, lack of conjugal facilities for married prisoners, poor and inadequate nutrition, poor medical care, torture, inhumane treatment and the need to protect prisoners in a changing world. The present report has policy implications for reforming prison services in Nigeria, and countries that sing from the same song sheet with Nigeria on prison services, to conform to the Fundamental Human Rights of prisoners in the 21St century.
Human rights approach to health.
Haigh, Fiona
Adopting human rights approach to health carries many benefits, because it emphasizes the equality of all persons and their inherent right to health as the foundation of the health care system. It also argues that promotion and protection of health are fundamentally important social goals, focuses particularly on the needs of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable communities, balances individual needs with the common good, and so forth. However, it also raises some practical issues, such as organization of interdisciplinary education and work, and different use of the language, which often goes unacknowledged. The relationship between human rights and health is a reciprocal one, and can be beneficial or harmful. For the relationship to be beneficial and successful, the differences between human rights and public health approach to health, centered around the perspective taking, attitudes, and abilities of health professionals, need to be acknowledged and reconciled, and the need for interdisciplinarity adequately fulfilled.
Women's Rights, Human Rights, and Duties: From Domination to Partnership
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Lester R. Kurtz
Full Text Available The idea of women's rights as human rights can facilitate our identifying the causes, consequences, and potential remedies for the current quagmire in which we find themselves, but it needs some reformulation. To the traditional understandings of human rights, I add four conceptual tools: (1 Mahatma Gandhi's idea of the counterparts of rights and duties, (2 Eisler's concept of partnership (as opposed to dominator societies, (3 Johan Galtung's expansion of our conception of violence to include its structural and cultural forms, and, finally, (4 the literature on nonviolence as a path to mobilization and transformation that resists existing social structures and builds new ones.
Human Rights in the Humanities
Harpham, Geoffrey
Human rights are rapidly entering the academic curriculum, with programs appearing all over the country--including at Duke, Harvard, Northeastern, and Stanford Universities; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the Universities of Chicago, of Connecticut, of California at Berkeley, and of Minnesota; and Trinity College. Most of these…
Interpreting the International Right to Health in a Human Rights-Based Approach to Health
Hunt, Paul
Abstract This article tracks the shifting place of the international right to health, and human rights-based approaches to health, in the scholarly literature and United Nations (UN). From 1993 to 1994, the focus began to move from the right to health toward human rights-based approaches to health, including human rights guidance adopted by UN agencies in relation to specific health issues. There is a compelling case for a human rights-based approach to health, but it runs the risk of playing...
Victims' rights are human rights: The importance of recognizing victims as persons
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Wemmers Jo-Anne
Full Text Available In this paper the author argues that victims' rights are human rights. Criminal law typically views victims as witnesses to a crime against the state, thus shutting them out of the criminal justice process and only allowing them in when they are needed to testify. This is a major source of dissatisfaction for victims who seek validation in the criminal justice system. Victims are persons with rights and privileges. Crimes constitute violations of their rights as well as acts against society or the state. While human rights instruments, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, do not mention crime victims specifically, a number of rights are identified, which can be viewed from the victim's perspective. As individuals with dignity, victims have the right to recognition as persons before the law. However, such rights are only meaningful if they can be enforced.
NGO Duties in Relation to Human Rights
Philips, J.P.M.|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/298979446
This paper investigates the moral duties that human rights NGOs, such as Amnesty International, and development NGOs, such as Oxfam, have in relation to human rights – especially in relation to the human right to a decent standard of living. The mentioned NGOs are powerful new agents on the global
The International Human Rights Muddle.
Machan, Tibor R.
Discusses confusion about the meaning of human rights in the United States. Suggests that welfare rights usurp the more traditional freedom rights of the founding fathers. Contrasts American interpretations with those of the Soviet Union. Journal availability: see SO 507 190. (KC)
Examining Human Rights in a Global Context.
Francis, Greg; Inoue, Keiko; Orrick, Stefanie
The United Nations' founding in 1945 and the 1948 adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reflected the international community's growing commitment to the protection and recognition of what is now referred to as human rights. Despite increased international attention, human rights violations continue to occur at the local, regional,…
Protection of asylum seekers and illegal migrants human rights: Practice of the European Court of Human Rights
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Đukanović Anđela
Full Text Available Protection of asylum seeker and Illegal migrants human rights, has often been difficult due to the need of states to regulate unwanted migration flows. European Court of Human Rights plays an important role in protecting the rights of these individuals, through a set of human rights. Requests for interim measures under Rule 39 of the Rules of Court also have great importance. In cases involving illegal migrants and asylum-seekers, Court was often in difficult position, given the contradictions that could arise from the protection of human rights and the legitimate aim of the Contracting States to control the entry, residence and expulsion of aliens. Recent Courts judgment in case of M. S. S. against Belgium is particularly important, because of its remarkable influence on the perception of a common asylum system in the EU, as well as the judgment in the case of Jama Hirsi and Others v. Italy.
Venkatapuram, Sridhar; Bell, Ruth; Marmot, Michael
The article examines the convergences and contrasts between social epidemiology, social medicine, and human rights approaches toward advancing global health and health equity. The first section describes the goals and work of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health. The second section discusses the role of human rights in the Commission's work. The third section evaluates, from the perspective of social epidemiology, two rights-based approaches to advancing health and health equity as compared to a view that focuses more broadly on social justice. The concluding section identifies four areas where social epidemiologists, practitioners of social medicine, and health and human rights advocates can and must work together in order to make progress on health and health equity. PMID:21178186
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Buhmann, Karin
This article analyses the United Nations (UN) Guidelines on Business and Human Rights adopted in 2011 by the UN Human Rights Council from the perspective of Transnational Business Governance Interactions (TBGI) analytical framework (Eberlein et al. 2014). The article identifies and discusses...... that the UN Guiding Principles are unique in several respects of relevance to transnational business governance interaction and indicate the relevance of the TBGI approach to public regulatory transnational business governance initiatives. The analysis of the Guiding Principles as interactional transnational...... business governance suggests that this form of governance offers prospects for public institutions as a means towards regulating global sustainability concerns....
Human Rights Act, 12 February 1987.
This document reprints major provisions of the Yukon's (Canada) 1987 Human Rights Act. The Act furthers the public policy that every individual is free and equal in dignity and rights, seeks to discourage and eliminate discrimination, and promotes the underlying principles of Canadian and international human rights instruments. Part 1 contains a Bill of Rights that protects the right to freedom of: 1) religion and conscience, 2) expression, 3) assembly and association, and 4) to enjoyment and disposition of property. Part 2 prohibits discrimination based on ancestry (including color and race), national origin, ethnic or linguistic background or origin, age, sex (including pregnancy), and marital or family status. Discrimination is also prohibited when offering services, goods, or facilities to the public; in connection with employment; in connection with membership in trade unions or trade, occupational, or professional associations; and in negotiation or performance of public contracts. The Bill of Rights lists reasonable causes for discrimination as well as exemptions, including preferential treatment for organization or family members or employment in a private home. Special programs and affirmative action programs are specifically not considered discrimination under this Act. The Act sets forth rules for providing equal pay for work of equal value and creates a Yukon Human Rights Commission to promote human rights and assist adjudication of complaints.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Lia-Alexandra BALTADOR
Full Text Available This paper aims to contribute to a constructive debate on human rights. The two World Wars of the last century brought about the creation of the United Nations aimed "to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small". Only three years later the Universal Declaration of the Human Rights was elaborated and promoted by the UN, considered to be the foundation of international human rights law. Today, as globalization brings all closer together in a "global village", one can see that there are many ways to perceive and guarantee human rights, in different states, but also within different states. Poverty, illiteracy, censorship, cruel treatment and even the lack of guarantee for the right to life are, unfortunately, the norm for many people of the world. Such observations bring up questions regarding the legitimacy, universality and coherence of human rights.
Nutrition, health and human rights.
Brundtland, G H
This paper presents the speech delivered by Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director-General of WHO, on issues related to nutrition from a health and a human rights perspective. According to Brundtland, nutrition is a universal factor that both affects and defines the health of all people. It affects not only growth and physical development of a child, but also his cognitive and social development. However, inequity, poverty, underdevelopment, as well as inadequate access to food, health and care still exist which have resulted to the deaths of millions of children and left many more suffering from diseases. Poverty has also been identified as the main obstacle to the attainment of health. The existence of structural poverty and ill health eventually leads to poor development, which includes poor nutrition, poor health, and poor human rights. The impact of poverty on health is further worsened by discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, language, or religion. To address this issue, the WHO will renew their focus on the political and legal links between health and human rights. A human rights perspective provides the international community with an opportunity to support the development of public health policies and practices that promote healthy nutrition as a center of all social and economic development.
[Human dignity, human rights and bioethics: what is the connection?].
Andorno, Roberto
Human rights are closely related to the notion of human dignity, to such a point that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to promote them without appealing, at least implicitly, to the idea that each individual has intrinsic worth simply by virtue of being human. This relationship between dignity and rights is even stronger in the field of bioethics, which deals directly with some of the most basic human rights, such as the rights to life and to physical integrity. It is therefore not by chance that the international norms relating to bioethics give a central role to the concept of human dignity. However, one should not expect from dignity more than it can offer; dignity is a "principle", not a "rule"; it embodies a fundamental value, but it alone does not determine the content of a particular decision.
10 CFR 851.20 - Management responsibilities and worker rights and responsibilities.
... 10 Energy 4 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Management responsibilities and worker rights and... Program Requirements § 851.20 Management responsibilities and worker rights and responsibilities. (a... workers of their rights and responsibility by appropriate means, including posting the DOE-designated...
Public health nursing, ethics and human rights.
Ivanov, Luba L; Oden, Tami L
Public health nursing has a code of ethics that guides practice. This includes the American Nurses Association Code of Ethics for Nurses, Principles of the Ethical Practice of Public Health, and the Scope and Standards of Public Health Nursing. Human rights and Rights-based care in public health nursing practice are relatively new. They reflect human rights principles as outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and applied to public health practice. As our health care system is restructured and there are new advances in technology and genetics, a focus on providing care that is ethical and respects human rights is needed. Public health nurses can be in the forefront of providing care that reflects an ethical base and a rights-based approach to practice with populations. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Food Prints on Human Rights Law Paradigms
Meulen, van der B.M.J.; Ratescu, I.
This article discusses the interaction between the development of the doctrine on human rights, in general, and on the right to food, in particular. In 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which listed the rights that were considered to
Biomedicine and international human rights law: in search of a global consensus.
Andorno, Roberto
Global challenges raised by biomedical advances require global responses. Some international organizations have made significant efforts over the last few years to establish common standards that can be regarded as the beginning of an international biomedical law. One of the main features of this new legal discipline is the integration of its principles into a human rights framework. This strategy seems the most appropriate, given the role of "universal ethics" that human rights play in our world of philosophical pluralism. In addition to the general standards that are gradually being established, a widespread consensus exists on the urgency of preventing two specific procedures: human germ-line interventions and human reproductive cloning. PMID:12571724
The Right To Appeal For The Social Insurance As A Human And Constitutional Right
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Selita Mirela
Full Text Available Magna Carat is a highly significant document that found the way into the rights and the constitutions. Magna Carat is a symbol of human and constitutional rights. Social insurance is part of the social security and the recognition of social security as a basic human right is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948 at the Palais de Chaillot, Paris and furthermore the European Conventions on Human Rights, specially the article 6.
Transformative combinations: women's health and human rights.
Yamin, A E
From the human rights perspective proposed in this article, a woman's good or ill health reflects more than biology or individual behaviors; it reflects her enjoyment (or lack thereof) of fundamental human rights that enable her to exercise basic power over the course and quality of her life. The "structural" view of health that such a human rights perspective suggests is concerned first with identifying the effects of social, economic, and political relations on women's health and then with promoting "interventions" aimed at transforming the laws, institutions, and structures that deny women's rights and well-being. Yet, traditional human rights law and practice have been limited to narrowly defined abuses by public officials against individuals that fail to capture the most pervasive denials of women's rights, which, though rooted in systematic discrimination, are frequently played out in so-called "private" institutions, primarily within the family. The experiences of women's health advocates in addressing complex women's health issues makes it clear that women's lack of access to economic and political power in the public sphere creates the conditions under which they are discriminated against and physically and sexually abused in the private sphere. Combining the pragmatic understanding of women's health professionals with an expansive conception of human rights norms has the potential to transform the fields of women's health and human rights.
Re-Envisioning Human Rights in the Light of Arendt and Rancière: Towards an Agonistic Account of Human Rights Education
Zembylas, Michalinos
This article takes up Arendt's "aporetic" framing of human rights as well as Rancière's critique and suggests that reading them together may offer a way to re-envision human rights and human rights education (HRE)--not only because they make visible the perplexities of human rights, but also in that they call for an agonistic…
On Setting Priorities among Human Rights
Philips, Jos
Should conflicts among human rights be dealt with by including general principles for priority setting at some prominent place in the practice of human rights? This essay argues that neither setting prominent and principled priorities nor a case-by-case approach are likely to be defensible as
The evolution of human rights in World Health Organization policy and the future of human rights through global health governance.
Meier, B M; Onzivu, W
The World Health Organization (WHO) was intended to serve at the forefront of efforts to realize human rights to advance global health, and yet this promise of a rights-based approach to health has long been threatened by political constraints in international relations, organizational resistance to legal discourses, and medical ambivalence toward human rights. Through legal research on international treaty obligations, historical research in the WHO organizational archives, and interview research with global health stakeholders, this research examines WHO's contributions to (and, in many cases, negligence of) the rights-based approach to health. Based upon such research, this article analyzes the evolving role of WHO in the development and implementation of human rights for global health, reviews the current state of human rights leadership in the WHO Secretariat, and looks to future institutions to reclaim the mantle of human rights as a normative framework for global health governance. Copyright © 2013 The Royal Society for Public Health. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
US Human Rights Conduct and International Legitimacy
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Keating, Vincent Charles
Did the Bush administration fundamentally harm the international human rights system through its rejection of human rights norms? This is the central question explored within US Human Rights Conduct and International Legitimacy, which analyses the practices of legitimacy between the Bush...... nations have followed in America's footsteps, and that the Bush administration's deviation from international norms has served to reaffirm worldwide commitment to human rights....... administration, states, and international organizations in cases of torture, habeas corpus, and rendition. Vincent Keating argues that despite the material power of the United States, there is little evidence that the Bush administration gravely damaged international norms on torture and habeas corpus as few...
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Jorgen S. Nielsen
Full Text Available One of the areas of conflict between Islam and the West in today's world is the concern for human rights. This has sometimes been criticized in the Muslim world as a form of neo-imperialism. It is therefore necessary to understand the various dimensions of human rights, and the various phases through which this concern has grown. In the earliest form, it was an assertion of the rights of the landed aristocracy against those of the monarch. The French revolution, with its emphasis on "liberty, equality and fraternity," for all individuals, provided another dimension. There were many occasions on which individual and organized religion came into conflict during the Middle Ages. The experience of World War II, particularly the atrocities of the Nazis, led to the internationalization of individual rights.
Globalisation and health inequalities: can a human rights paradigm create space for civil society action?
London, Leslie; Schneider, Helen
While neoliberal globalisation is associated with increasing inequalities, global integration has simultaneously strengthened the dissemination of human rights discourse across the world. This paper explores the seeming contradiction that globalisation is conceived as disempowering nations states' ability to act in their population's interests, yet implementation of human rights obligations requires effective states to deliver socio-economic entitlements, such as health. Central to the actions required of the state to build a health system based on a human rights approach is the notion of accountability. Two case studies are used to explore the constraints on states meeting their human rights obligations regarding health, the first drawing on data from interviews with parliamentarians responsible for health in East and Southern Africa, and the second reflecting on the response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa. The case studies illustrate the importance of a human rights paradigm in strengthening parliamentary oversight over the executive in ways that prioritise pro-poor protections and in increasing leverage for resources for the health sector within parliamentary processes. Further, a rights framework creates the space for civil society action to engage with the legislature to hold public officials accountable and confirms the importance of rights as enabling civil society mobilization, reinforcing community agency to advance health rights for poor communities. In this context, critical assessment of state incapacity to meet claims to health rights raises questions as to the diffusion of accountability rife under modern international aid systems. Such diffusion of accountability opens the door to 'cunning' states to deflect rights claims of their populations. We argue that human rights, as both a normative framework for legal challenges and as a means to create room for active civil society engagement provide a means to contest both the real and the
Human Rights, Human Needs, Human Development, Human Security - Relationships between four international human discourses.
D.R. Gasper (Des)
markdownabstractAbstract: Human rights, human development and human security form increasingly important, partly interconnected, partly competitive and misunderstood ethical and policy discourses. Each tries to humanize a pre-existing and unavoidable major discourse of everyday life, policy and
Human rights, health and the state in Bangladesh
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Rahman Redwanur M
Full Text Available Abstract Background This paper broadly discusses the role of the State of Bangladesh in the context of the health system and human rights. The interrelation between human rights, health and development are well documented. The recognition of health as a fundamental right by WHO and subsequent approval of health as an instrument of welfare by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR and the International Covenant on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights (ICSECR further enhances the idea. Moreover, human rights are also recognized as an expedient of human development. The state is entrusted to realize the rights enunciated in the ICSECR. Discussion In exploring the relationship of the human rights and health situation in Bangladesh, it is argued, in this paper, that the constitution and major policy documents of the Bangladesh government have recognized the health rights and development. Bangladesh has ratified most of the international treaties and covenants including ICCPR, ICESCR; and a signatory of international declarations including Alma-Ata, ICPD, Beijing declarations, and Millennium Development Goals. However the implementation of government policies and plans in the development of health institutions, human resources, accessibility and availability, resource distribution, rural-urban disparity, the male-female gap has put the health system in a dismal state. Neither the right to health nor the right to development has been established in the development of health system or in providing health care. Summary The development and service pattern of the health system have negative correlation with human rights and contributed to the underdevelopment of Bangladesh. The government should take comprehensive approach in prioritizing the health rights of the citizens and progressive realization of these rights.
Identity and the Hegemony of Universal Human Rights
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Tony Evans
Full Text Available Human rights are commonly portrayed as a narrative that passes through several chapters before reaching its inevitable conclusion. This narrative begins with the horror of Nazism, moves to the centrality of human rights in the UN Charter, eulogizes the Universal Declaration, celebrates the achievements of standard setting as set out in the major covenants, offers detailed analysis of methods of monitoring and, finally, speculates on the future of compliance. This narrative is sustained, firstly, by 'naturalist' foundationalism and, secondly, by a widely held assumptions about the move towards 'settled norms' in the contemporary world order. Although some pessimism is voiced over continued reports of torture, genocide, structural economic deprivation, disappearances, ethnic cleansing, political prisoners, the suppression of trade union rights, gender inequality, religious persecution, and many other violations of internationally agreed human rights, most commentators and activists tacitly adopt an optimistic stance that envisages a future rights based international order. The still prevalent naturalist account of human rights, together with a narrative that boasts 'settled norms', suggests that the human rights regime represents a final 'truth' about the essential nature of all humankind; a common identity that describes the individual in an increasingly globalized world. This paper interrogates the 'naturalist-settled norm' account of human rights from the perspective of power and knowledge. It begins by distinguishing between the international human rights regime and the global discourse of human rights. The former adopts a legal approach, where the neutral, value-free, unbiased and impartial nature of the law is tacitly accepted. The latter refers to human rights as social, political and economic practice, and must therefore include an account of power. From this perspective, the discourse of human rights might be said to
Protestant Origins of Human Rights Challenged
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Mogens Chrom Jacobsen
Full Text Available This paper will challenge common views about Protestantism as the originator or foremost promoter of human rights. The idea of a Protestant origin is launched by Georg Jellinek and disputed by Emile Boutmy. The idea is still current and John Witte can thus claim that Protestantism was in part a human rights movement. The point of departure for this strain of thinking is religious toleration, which is seen as a particularly Protestant achievement. We will argue that a more precise notion of what 18th-century human rights were and a closer look at mainstream Protestant political philosophy will tell another story.
Human Rights, Human Needs, Human Development, Human Security : Relationships between four international 'human' discourses
D.R. Gasper (Des)
textabstractHuman rights, human development and human security form increasingly important, partly interconnected, partly competitive and misunderstood ethical and policy discourses. Each tries to humanize a pre-existing and unavoidable major discourse of everyday life, policy and politics; each
Human rights barriers for displaced persons in southern Sudan.
Pavlish, Carol; Ho, Anita
This community-based research explores community perspectives on human rights barriers that women encounter in a postconflict setting of southern Sudan. An ethnographic design was used to guide data collection in five focus groups with community members and during in-depth interviews with nine key informants. A constant comparison method of data analysis was used. Atlas.ti data management software facilitated the inductive coding and sorting of data. Participants identified three formal and one set of informal community structures for human rights. Human rights barriers included shifting legal frameworks, doubt about human rights, weak government infrastructure, and poverty. The evolving government infrastructure cannot currently provide adequate human rights protection, especially for women. The nature of living in poverty without development opportunities includes human rights abuses. Good governance, protection, and human development opportunities were emphasized as priority human rights concerns. Human rights framework could serve as a powerful integrator of health and development work with community-based organizations. Results help nurses understand the intersection between health and human rights as well as approaches to advancing rights in a culturally attuned manner.
Human Rights, Diversity, and Citizenship Education
Banks, James A.
The 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a propitious time for educators to examine its implications for educating citizens in multicultural nation states. The author argues that students must experience democratic classrooms and schools that reflect their cultures and identities to internalize human rights values,…
The human rights approach to climate change
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Toft, Kristian Høyer
are instrumentally applied as a solution to what could be called the "justice problem" in climate negotiations. In order to assess the degree to which human rights could be a useful approach to the justice problem with regard to to climate change, four major issues need to be examined. First...... presently and in the future, needs to be elucidated, as well as (b) the human rights principles that are at stake, and (c) the duties and duty holders involved. Third, the human right to emit greenhouse gases needs to be clarified in the context of subsistence rights and equal per capita emission rights...
The human factor: enhancing women's rights.
Steinzor, N
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN in 1948, declares that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, and that everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person. In practice, however, far from everyone has these rights, especially women. Many women worldwide have neither the awareness of nor access to family planning methods with which they could regulate their fertility and childbearing. Thus deprived of their reproductive freedom, these women cannot pursue education, employment, and other life options which would otherwise be readily available to them were they not saddled with poor reproductive health and too many children. Expanded choices enhance the status of women, which in turn helps them to reduce fertility rates and stabilize population growth. The author discusses how the wide range of cultural and social norms, and economic and political systems worldwide make it very difficult and complex to actually implement universal human rights.
Teachers' Pedagogical Perspectives and Teaching Practices on Human Rights in Cyprus: An Empirical Exploration and Implications for Human Rights Education
Zembylas, Michalinos; Charalambous, Constadina; Charalambous, Panayiota
This paper describes a qualitative study that explored the understandings of human rights, pedagogical perspectives and practices in human rights teaching of three Greek-Cypriot elementary teachers. The study revealed some significant challenges in human rights teaching that seemed to be common for all three participating teachers. First, all of…
Identifying structural barriers to an effective HIV response: using the National Composite Policy Index data to evaluate the human rights, legal and policy environment
Gruskin, Sofia; Ferguson, Laura; Alfven, Tobias; Rugg, Deborah; Peersman, Greet
Introduction Attention to the negative effects of structural barriers on HIV efforts is increasing. Reviewing national legal and policy environments with attention to the international human rights commitments of states is a means of assessing and providing focus for addressing these barriers to effective HIV responses. Methods Law and policy data from the 171 countries reporting under the Declaration of Commitment from the 2001 United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS were analyzed to assess attention to human rights in national legal and policy environments as relevant to the health and rights of key populations such as people who inject drugs, men who have sex with men and sex workers. Results Seventy-eight governments and civil society in 106 countries report the existence of laws and policies which present obstacles to accessing HIV services for key populations. Laws and policies which positively affect access to HIV-related services, in and of themselves constituting structural interventions, were also reported. The dissonance between laws and how this impacts the availability and use of HIV-related services deserve greater attention. Conclusions Recognition of the harms inherent in laws that constitute structural barriers to effective HIV responses and the potential positive role that a supportive legal environment can play suggests the need for legal reform to ensure an enabling regulatory framework within which HIV services can be effectively delivered and used by the populations who need them. Moving beyond laws and policies, further efforts are required to determine how to capture information on the range of structural barriers. Teasing apart the impact of different barriers, as well as the structural interventions put in place to address them, remains complicated. Capturing the impact of policy and legal interventions can ultimately support governments and civil society to ensure the human rights of key populations are protected in
[Human values and respect of human rights in oppressive conditions].
Bomba, J
Human rights, an issue of political debates in the last decades, listed in the United Nations Declaration of 1946 are rooted in the humanistic tradition of philosophy and religion. The UN declared their universal character and made state organizations responsible for their observation. Among all human rights that for freedom is usually perceived as crucial. Psychiatry developed in Europe primarily a caring function. The medical model developed in psychiatry through the 19th c. supplied the criteria for medical diagnosis of mental disturbance, and elaborated a system of treatment which included long term hospitalization. Medicalization of psychiatry (recently coming back) is a force which gives courage to those who suffer, to their families, and to professionals as well. This power however, can be easily abused, when a psychiatrist adopts a position of someone who knows better that which is good for his/her patient. Legal regulations of the circumstances of psychiatric treatment, especially treatment against the patient's will should prevent the abuse of the mentally disturbed person's right for freedom. The goal is usually achieved by clear description of clinical and other conditions under which a person can be committed, and by establishing the committed person's right to claim the decision to be unjust. Poland is a country without legal regulation in the area of mental health (there are only administrative acts). For more than sixty years several projects on mental health law have been worked on. The last one which came to the Sejm (parliament) in 1980 was withdrawn by the "Solidarity" Trade Union. At present, the membership of Poland in international organizations makes an introduction of mental health law an obligation. Having no legal regulation, Polish psychiatry has been a self-regulating system. It is worth to note that even in the hard Stalinist period (1947-1956) there was no abuse of psychiatry for political reasons. The main reason for Polish
48 Human Rights in and around Cuba
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Gustafsson, Jan
The article takes point of department in the current reform process in Cuba and its perspectives regarding human rights. To understand the background of the fundamental human rights' problems in Cuba, an analysis of the 'constituting dichotomy' is included and discussed in relation to its represe...... representation in the film, 'Strawberry and Chocolate'. The further perspectives for human rights in Cuba in relation to other Developments in Latin America constitutes the last part....
Human rights reasoning and medical law: a sceptical essay.
Wall, Jesse
I am sceptical as to the contribution that human rights can make to our evaluation of medical law. I will argue here that viewing medical law through a human rights framework provides no greater clarity, insight or focus. If anything, human rights reasoning clouds any bioethical or evaluative analysis. In Section 1 of this article, I outline the general structure of human rights reasoning. I will describe human rights reasoning as (a) reasoning from rights that each person has 'by virtue of their humanity', (b) reasoning from rights that provide 'hard to defeat' reasons for action and (c) reasoning from abstract norms to specified duties. I will then argue in Section 2 that, unless we (a) re-conceive of human rights as narrow categories of liberties, it becomes (b) necessary for our human rights reasoning to gauge the normative force of each claim or liberty. When we apply this approach to disputes in medical law, we (in the best case scenario) end up (c) 'looking straight through' the human right to the (disagreement about) values and features that each person has by virtue of their humanity. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Laura-Cristiana SPĂTARU-NEGURĂ
After last year's analysis regarding the European Union's commitment to fight against the human beings trafficking, we have considered to further explore the human beings trafficking approach in the European Court of Human Rights case-law, the most developped regional jurisdiction on human rights. Surprisingly, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms does not make an express reference to the human beings trafficking. However, we have to bear in mind...
The Human Right of Home Education
Donnelly, Michael P.
Homeschooling is legal and growing in many countries but is virtually forbidden by law in Germany and a few others. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has reviewed and upheld this ban. Is home education a human right? How do these courts employ their jurisprudence of proportionality to find banning home education does not violate relevant…
Coronial law and practice: a human rights perspective.
Freckelton, Ian; McGregor, Simon
Coronial law and practice inevitably impact upon the human rights of those affected by deaths. It is important that such rights be incorporated in how death investigations, up to and including coronial inquests, take place. This article explores the significant impact of the jurisprudence emanating from the European Court of Human Rights, as well as the application of such law by the courts of the United Kingdom and potentially in other countries. It argues that viewing the work of coroners through the lens of human rights is a constructive approach and that, although in the coronial legislation of Australia and New Zealand, many human rights, especially those of family members, and civil liberties are explicitly protected, there remain real advantages in reflecting upon compliance with human rights by death investigation procedures and decision-making.
Global bioethics and human rights in an African context: A reformed theological discourse on global bioethics as a new human rights ethos
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A.L. Rheeder
Full Text Available The 2005 UNESCO Universal Declaration of Bioethics and Human Rights (UDBHR is specifically aimed at Africa and developing countries from other regions. The acceptance of this UNESCO instrument shows that global bioethics and human rights have become part of the bioethics discourse of today. It is clear that there is a certain affinity between human rights and bioethics, which makes such a link desirable. The value of this link lies in the fact that human rights facilitate a normative universal expansion of bioethical principles. The human rights framework provides bioethical principles with some authority and political influence, an instrument that can protect people in our broken context. Human rights practice and a reformed understanding of natural law both show that humanity can reach consensus on ethical principles such as those found in the UDBHR. Consensus on the theoretical foundation of human rights is not a prerequisite for the successful utilisation of these principles.
Human rights in occupational therapy education: A step towards a more occupationally just global society.
Crawford, Emma; Aplin, Tammy; Rodger, Sylvia
Education on human rights will place occupational therapists in a strong position to address societal inequities that limit occupational engagement for many client groups. The imminent changes to the Minimum Standard for the Education of Occupational Therapists engender efforts towards social change and will require university-level human rights education. This education might enhance the profession's influence on disadvantaging social structures in order to effect social change. To contribute to the evidence base for social change education in occupational therapy, this research aims to understand the knowledge, skills, confidence and learning experiences of occupational therapy students who completed a human rights course. Final year occupational therapy students responded to questionnaires which included listing human rights, a human rights scale measuring knowledge and confidence for working towards human rights, and open questions. Numbers of rights listed, knowledge scores and confidence scores were calculated. Responses to the open questions were thematically analysed. After completing a human rights course, students had good knowledge and moderate confidence to work with human rights. Three themes were identified including 'learning about human rights', 'learning about structural, societal and global perspectives on occupational engagement' and 'learning how occupational therapists can work with groups, communities and populations: becoming articulate and empowered'. Human rights education fosters the development of occupational therapists who are skilled, knowledgeable, confident and empowered to address occupational injustices, according to these research findings. To develop a more occupationally just global society, education that considers iniquitous social structures and human rights is necessary. © 2016 Occupational Therapy Australia.
Teaching about Human Rights and American Indians.
Harvey, Karen D.
Presents a flexible lesson plan integrating teaching about human rights into the existing curriculum about American Indians. Asserts that American Indians have the right to maintain their cultural ways and connects that subject to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Includes three lists of resources and references. (MJP)
Human rights and the challenges of science and technology: Commentary on Meier et al. "Translating the human right to water and sanitation into public policy reform" and Hall et al. "The human right to water: the importance of domestic and productive water rights".
Marks, Stephen P
The expansion of the corpus of international human rights to include the right to water and sanitation has implications both for the process of recognizing human rights and for future developments in the relationships between technology, engineering and human rights. Concerns with threats to human rights resulting from developments in science and technology were expressed in the early days of the United Nations (UN), along with the recognition of the ambitious human right of everyone "to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications." This comment explores the hypothesis that the emerging concepts most likely to follow recognition of the human right to water primarily involve issues of science and technology, such as access to medicines or clean and healthy environment. Many threats to human rights from advances in science, which were identified in the past as potential, have become real today, such as invasion of privacy from electronic recording, deprivation of health and livelihood as a result of climate change, or control over individual autonomy through advances in genetics and neuroscience. This comment concludes by urging greater engagement of scientists and engineers, in partnership with human rights specialists, in translating normative pronouncements into defining policy and planning interventions.
Human Rights under the Ethiopian Constitution: A Descriptive ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
This article summarizes human rights under the Ethiopian Constitution (mainly surrounding Chapter 3 of Constitution and related constitutional provisions on human and democratic rights), and forwards some insights. It, inter alia, covers various aspects of the application and interpretation of human rights provisions, ...
Development of society and human rights and freedom
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Vilić Dragana
Full Text Available This paper examines the direct connection between the development of human society and progress in the realization of and respect for human rights and freedoms, as well as a number of problems that stand in the way for their full realization. The Company to its characteristics should allow the free development of man to protect his rights, freedom and autonomy. On the other hand, an individual has an active role in building a society whose form is: economic development, permanent democratization of social relations, development and dissemination of human rights and freedoms, the existence of the rule of law and so on. Degree of respect for human rights and freedoms measured level of development achieved and the characteristics of democracy in a society. The main causes of their violations and neglect, as well as the social climate and miles of contributing to this are: domination of one ideology, cultural closeness, economic underdevelopment and the like. As an example, of vulnerable groups in the realization of human rights can be given: the poor, women, children, immigrants, same-sex oriented persons, etc. The paper presents the view Alain Touraine in the development of human society and, related to it, the development of human rights, who was going in the direction of the transformation of rights from abstract to concrete rights, with particular emphasis on cultural rights.
Human Rights within Education: Assessing the Justifications
McCowan, Tristan
While respect for human rights has long been endorsed as a goal of education, only recently has significant attention been paid to the need to incorporate rights within educational processes. Current support for human rights within education, however, has a variety of motivations. This paper provides a theoretical exploration of these diverse…
The Institute of Commissioner for Human Rights in the Republic of Peru
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Dariya V. Teplyakova
Full Text Available The presented article is devoted to the analysis of the basic principles of development, formation and activity of the institute of rhe Commissioner for Human Rights in the Republic of Peru. This Latin American state only 65 years ago took the democratic pass. Thirteen various constitutions were accepted in the meantime, and only the last constitution of 1993 could proclaim really democtratic principles of a state regime. The constitution recognizes a wide range of personal, socio-economic and political rights and freedoms of individuals. One of the guarantees of their implementation in practice is establishment of the institute of the Commissioner for Human Rights (in the Peruvian legislation referred to "The defender of the people" [Defensor del pueblo (spanish], which is regulated by chapter 11 of the Political Constitution of 1993, and also by the Organic Act on the Human Rights Protection Agency № 26520 of August 4, 1995. The represented article analyzes the role and the significance of the institute of Human Rights Commissioner in the Republic of Peru on the basis of Peruvian organic legislation. The research paper investigates the procedure for forming this institution, demonstrates the process of electing the Commissioner for Human Rights as well as the appointment of his two deputies. Particular emphasis is laid upon the scope of the Ombudsman's responsibility and his cooperation with other state authorities in the Republic of Peru, including National Congress, along with the value of annual and emergency reports of Human Rights Commissioner to the State's legislative Authority. Special attention is paid to the procedure of consideration of citizen' complaints by the Human Rights Protection Agency. Annually the Commissioner for Human Rights submits the report on activities over the expired year to the Members of Congress, published in the official publication "El Peruano", which contains the report on the number and type of the
Human rights: common meaning and differences in positioning
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Willem Doise
Full Text Available Human rights are defined as normative social representations embedded in institutional juridical definitions. Research findings show that human rights can be studied as normative social representations implying a degree of common understanding across cultures together with organized differences within and between cultures. Important factors in modulating individual positioning in the realm of human rights are experiences of social conflict and injustice, beliefs about the efficiency of various social actors to have rights enforced and attitudes of liberalism or collectivism. On the other hand, an ethnocentric use of human rights is well documented and has been experimentally studied. Generally, concerns about these rights expressed by citizens of Western countries become much stronger when non-Western countries are involved, whereas violations of these rights in their own country are often not severely condemned.
Perception of human rights temperature of community in persons with severe mental illnesses
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Barnadin Shibu
Full Text Available Background: Despite the rights of persons with mental illnesses (PwMI are protected by law in India, human rights of PwMI is being violated in many ways. There is dearth of literature on the human rights of PwMI in India. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted to understand the perceived human rights temperature of community in PwMI. Data were collected from PwMI (diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder, and symptomatically stable for 3 years seeking outpatient psychiatric treatment from private psychiatric hospitals and clinics in Kozhikode (Calicut district of Kerala state, India. Data were collected using "Taking the Human Rights Temperature of Your Community" which was modified and validated in Indian population and a sociodemographic schedule which was prepared by the researchers. Results: The majority were males (54.2%. Mean duration of illness as 10.42 ± 6.43 years. Mean score of the human rights temperature was 68.31 ± 5.95. Perceived major concerns in the areas of career opportunity (59.5%, discrimination in hiring for work (61.3%, help and care in development of PwMI (64.5%, equal opportunity to avail treatment and cost incurred in it (60.5%, involvement in decision making (46.7%, and responsiveness of the community when any rights violation happens (44.9%. Conclusion: Human rights of PwMI are a major concern. Functioning of the mental health authority and legal aid clinics has to be strengthened to address rights issues of PwMI.
An Overview of Human Rights and Intellectual Property Protection
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Maysa Said Bydoon
Full Text Available The purpose of this article is to discuss the legal framework of human rights and intellectual property in terms of state obligations to afford a protection for both human rights and intellectual property. The relationship between intellectual property and human rights, under bilateral, regional and multilateral treaties, is a matter of concern. In focusing on the relationship between intellectual property and human rights, this article argues that there are many challenges on the wide use of Intellectual property rights that given possible conflict between intellectual property and human rights.
75 FR 75615 - Helsinki Human Rights Day, 2010
... Helsinki Human Rights Day, 2010 By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation This year... states with respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms within states. With the signing of the Act... occasion also spurred courageous human rights activists in Eastern Europe to form citizens' groups to press...
Human Rights and Democratization of the Media
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Abner Barrera Rivas
Full Text Available This article analyzes the relationship between the freedom of the press, conceived and practiced by the big media, and the human right to an independent and truthful information, as understood and proposed by some international treaties, agreement, conventions and declarations concerning freedom of opinion and freedom of expression as human rights. For this reason are taken into account the controversies aroused by media and some progressive governments in South America in the past fifteen years. The article presents and analyzes arguments advanced with respect to human rights that civil society demands when receiving the information, and the rights big media's owners hold. Given that private media companies' priority is profit, the information becomes, then, just another consumer product. It is concluded that this situation is a real problem for the education and configuration of a democratic society, and the proposal is to democratize media to protect the human rights of all.
The Right to Freedom of Association in the Workplace: Australia's Compliance with International Human Rights Law
Hutchinson, Zoé
The right to freedom of association in the workplace is a well established norm of international human rights law. However, it has traditionally received insubstantial attention within human rights scholarship. This article situates the right to freedom of association at work within human rights discourses. It looks at the status, scope and importance of the right as it has evolved in international human rights law. In so doing, a case is put that there are strong reasons for states to comply...
Facing negative reactions to sexuality education through a Multicultural Human Rights framework.
Paiva, Vera; Silva, Valeria N
Sexuality education, its protocols and planning are contingent on an ever-changing political environment that characterizes the field of sexuality in most countries. In Brazil, human rights perspectives shaped the country's response to the AIDS epidemic, and indirectly influenced the public acceptability of sexuality education in schools. Since 2011, however, as multiple fundamentalist movements emerged in the region, leading to recurrent waves of backlashes in all matters related to sexuality, both health and educational policies have begun to crawl backwards. This article explores human rights-based approaches to health, focusing on a multicultural rights-based framework and on productive approaches to broadening the dialogue about sustained consent to sexuality education. Multicultural human rights (MHR) approaches are dialogical in two domains: the communication process that guarantees consent and community agreements and the constructionist psychosocial-educational methodologies. In its continuous process of consent, the MHR approach allowed for distinct values translation and diffused the resistance to sexuality education in the participant schools/cities, successfully sustaining notions of equality and protection of the right to a comprehensive sexuality education that does not break group solidarity and guarantees acceptability of differences. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Human rights and global business: the evolving notion of corporate civil responsibility
Bachmann, Sascha-Dominik
Global market participation of corporations often leads to a conflict of duties: the duty to its customers and shareholder to "do business" vs. the duty to protect the populations affected by these business operations. Today, in a reality where gross human rights violations are not only committed by states and individuals but increasingly by multinational corporations (MNCs) by aiding and abetting the actual perpetrators in the states where MNCs operate, the global recession has aggravated th...
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Only a Foundation.
Reichert, Elisabeth
Explains provisions contained within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, tracing historical beginnings of human rights to 1945, detailing events after 1945 up to the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations, and explaining essential terminology used in describing human rights instruments that have been…
Health and human rights a South African perspective.
Naidoo, Sudeshni
General statements of basic entitlements are established as a guide for potential laws and regulations protecting human rights. Human rights are those claimed to belong to every individual regardless of nationality or position within society. The historical evolution of human rights relative to health in the Republic of South Africa is discussed.
Human Rights and the African Renaissance | Acheampong | African ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
This article examines the idea of African renaissance in relation to the teaching of human rights in African schools. It explores the connection between the African Renaissance and human rights, and whether there is a specific African concept of human rights. In the light of these discussions, the article sketches a perspective ...
Poverty, disability and human rights
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Beatriz Martínez Ríos
Full Text Available It is estimated that persons with disabilities represent 15% of the world population. There is a strong link between poverty and disability. Population with disabilities is among the most disadvantaged and discriminated. However, development economic theories have forgotten essential matters about this population, contributing towards their invisibility and poverty. The Capability Approach from a Human Rights based approach brings us a new dimension. The extraordinary costs that arise from a disability and from the psychological, physical and social barriers that persons with disabilities face, contribute to their poverty, lack of freedom and vulneration of human rights, as put forward by current studies on this subject. International co-operation becomes a very valuable tool to be used for the promotion of the rights of persons with disabilities and overcoming poverty.
Human rights and the right to abortion in Latin America.
Zúñiga-Fajuri, Alejandra
The scope of this study is to question the fact that in some countries in Latin America (Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and the Dominican Republic) abortion is still forbidden in all situations. Even after all the debate on this thorny issue, the theory of human rights is not often used in the defense of abortion. This is clearly related to the pervasive, albeit unspoken belief that, due to their condition, pregnant women inherently lose their full human rights and should surrender and even give up their lives in favor of the unborn child. This article seeks to show that an adequate reading of the theory of human rights should include abortion rights through the first two trimesters of pregnancy, based on the fact that basic liberties can only be limited for the sake of liberty itself. It also seeks to respond to those who maintain that the abortion issue cannot be resolved since the exact point in the development of the embryo that distinguishes legitimate from illegitimate abortion cannot be determined. There are strong moral and scientific arguments for an approach capable of reducing uncertainty and establishing the basis for criminal law reforms that focus on the moral importance of trimester laws.
Human rights and the right to abortion in Latin America
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Alejandra Zúñiga-Fajuri
Full Text Available The scope of this study is to question the fact that in some countries in Latin America (Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and the Dominican Republic abortion is still forbidden in all situations. Even after all the debate on this thorny issue, the theory of human rights is not often used in the defense of abortion. This is clearly related to the pervasive, albeit unspoken belief that, due to their condition, pregnant women inherently lose their full human rights and should surrender and even give up their lives in favor of the unborn child. This article seeks to show that an adequate reading of the theory of human rights should include abortion rights through the first two trimesters of pregnancy, based on the fact that basic liberties can only be limited for the sake of liberty itself. It also seeks to respond to those who maintain that the abortion issue cannot be resolved since the exact point in the development of the embryo that distinguishes legitimate from illegitimate abortion cannot be determined. There are strong moral and scientific arguments for an approach capable of reducing uncertainty and establishing the basis for criminal law reforms that focus on the moral importance of trimester laws.
The Human Right to Leisure in Old Age: Reinforcement of the Rights of an Aging Population.
Karev, Iris; Doron, Israel Issi
The right to leisure is recognized as a human right under the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The actual meaning and material content of this human right is subject to debate. The aim of this study is to examine the extent and the context to which this human right is specifically recognized with regard to older persons. Methodologically, this study textually analyzed 17 different international older persons' human rights documents. The findings reveal that in the majority of these documents there is no reference to the right to leisure. In the remaining documents, the right to leisure is mostly referred to indirectly or in a narrow legal construction. These findings support the notion that despite the growing body of knowledge regarding the importance of meaningful leisure in old age-and its empowering and anti-ageist nature-this knowledge has not transformed into a legal human rights discourse.
National Award for Human Rights Education in 2008
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Mariê Luise Campos
Full Text Available In 2008, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights completed 60 years of existence. To commemorate this date, the Ministry of Education, the Special Secretariat for Human Rights of the Presidency, the Organization of Iberoamerican States with the sponsorship and implementation of the SM Foundation, created the National Award for Human Rights Education.
Perspective: Economic Human Rights: The Time Has Come!
Mittal, Anuradha
Maintains that the high poverty levels in the United States implies that the goals of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) have not yet transformed the reality of U.S. citizens. Describes the national campaign called "Economic Human Rights: The Time Has Come!" that combats the violations of basic human rights like poverty.…
The golden triangle of human dignity: human security, human development and human rights
Gaay Fortman, B. de
The success or failure of processes of democratization cannot be detached from processes of development related to the aspirations of people at the grassroots. Human rights, in a more theoretical terminology, require human development in order to enhance human security.
Inconvenient Human Rights: Water and Sanitation in Sweden's Informal Roma Settlements.
Davis, Martha F; Ryan, Natasha
Following an increase in Roma migration under the European "freedom of movement" laws, Swedish municipalities initiated more than 80 evictions of informal Roma settlements on the grounds of poor sanitation between 2013 and 2016. These evictions echo policies from earlier in the 20th century, when Roma living in Sweden were often marginalized through the denial of access to water and sanitation facilities. The recent Swedish evictions also follow similar government actions across Europe, where Roma settlements are controlled through the denial of access to water and sanitation. However, access to water and sanitation-central aspects of human health-are universal human rights that must be available to all people present in a jurisdiction, regardless of their legal status. The evictions described here violated Sweden's obligations under both European and international human rights law. More positive government responses are required, such as providing shelters or camping sites, setting up temporary facilities, and directly engaging with communities to address water and sanitation issues. The authors conclude by providing guidance on how states and municipalities can meet their human rights obligations with respect to water and sanitation for vulnerable Roma individuals and informal settlements in their communities.
Teaching Human Rights? "All Hell Will Break Loose!"
Cassidy, Claire; Brunner, Richard; Webster, Elaine
Human rights education is a prominent concern of a number of international organisations and has been dominant on the United Nations' agenda for the past 20 years. The UN Decade for Human Rights Education (1995-2004) has been followed by the World Programme for Human Rights Education (2005-ongoing) and the recently adopted UN Declaration on Human…
social work and human rights in zimbabwe
African Journals Online (AJOL)
The place of the social work profession on the human rights arena is beyond doubt. .... Human Rights and the Media Institute of Southern Africa. THE NEXUS ..... Becket, C.; 2006 Ethics and values in social work 3rd Edition. Basingstoke: ...
Human rights, politics, and reviews of research ethics.
Beyrer, Chris; Kass, Nancy E
Although the human rights movement and the sphere of research ethics have overlapping principles and goals, there has been little attempt to incorporate external political and human rights contexts into research ethics codes or ethics reviews. Every element of a research ethics review--the balance of risks and benefits, the assurance of rights for individual participants, and the fair selection of research populations--can be affected by the political and human rights background in which a study is done. Research that at first seems to be low in risk may become high in risk if implemented in a country where the government might breach the confidentiality of study results or where results might be used to deport a refugee group. Researchers should determine whether research could or should be done by consulting human rights organisations and, when possible, a trusted colleague, to learn the background political context and human rights conditions of the settings in which they propose to do research.
The Teaching of Patriotism and Human Rights: An Uneasy Entanglement and the Contribution of Critical Pedagogy
Zembylas, Michalinos
This article examines the moral, political and pedagogical tensions that are created from the entanglement of patriotism and human rights, and sketches a response to these tensions in the context of critical education. The article begins with a brief review of different forms of patriotism, especially as those relate to human rights, and explains…
Of sweatshops and subsistence: Habermas on human rights
Ingram, David
In this paper I argue that the discourse theoretic account of human rights defended by Jürgen Habermas contains a fruitful tension that is obscured by its dominant tendency to identify rights with legal claims. This weakness in Habermas's account becomes manifest when we examine how sweatshops diminish the secure enjoyment of subsistence, which Habermas himself (in recognition of the UDHR) recognizes as a human right. Discourse theories of human rights are unique in tying the legit...
Human rights of the mentally ill in Indonesia.
Nurjannah, I; Mills, J; Park, T; Usher, K
The mentally ill are vulnerable to human rights violations, particularly in Indonesia, where shackling is widespread. The aim of this study was to understand the provision of mental health care in Indonesia, thereby identifying ways to improve care and better support carers. Grounded theory methods were used. Study participants included health professionals, non-health professionals and individuals living with a mental disorder who were well at the time (n = 49). Data were collected through interviews conducted in 2011 and 2012. The core category of this grounded theory is 'connecting care' a term coined by the authors to describe a model of care that involves health professionals and non-health professionals, such as family members. Four main factors influence care-providers' decision-making: competence, willingness, available resources and compliance with institutional policy. Health professionals are influenced most strongly by institutional policy when deciding whether to accept or shift responsibility to provide care. Non-health professionals base their decisions largely on personal circumstances. Jointly-made decisions can be matched or unmatched. Unmatched decisions can result in forced provision of care, increasing risks of human rights violations. Generalization of this grounded theory is difficult as the research was conducted in two provinces of Indonesia. Institutional policy was important in the process of connecting care for the mentally ill in Indonesia and needs to be underpinned by legislation to protect human rights. Strengthening mental health legislation in Indonesia will allow nurses to connect care more effectively. © 2014 International Council of Nurses.
Bridging international law and rights-based litigation: mapping health-related rights through the development of the Global Health and Human Rights Database.
Meier, Benjamin Mason; Cabrera, Oscar A; Ayala, Ana; Gostin, Lawrence O
The O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, the World Health Organization, and the Lawyers Collective have come together to develop a searchable Global Health and Human Rights Database that maps the intersection of health and human rights in judgments, international and regional instruments, and national constitutions. Where states long remained unaccountable for violations of health-related human rights, litigation has arisen as a central mechanism in an expanding movement to create rights-based accountability. Facilitated by the incorporation of international human rights standards in national law, this judicial enforcement has supported the implementation of rights-based claims, giving meaning to states' longstanding obligations to realize the highest attainable standard of health. Yet despite these advancements, there has been insufficient awareness of the international and domestic legal instruments enshrining health-related rights and little understanding of the scope and content of litigation upholding these rights. As this accountability movement evolves, the Global Health and Human Rights Database seeks to chart this burgeoning landscape of international instruments, national constitutions, and judgments for health-related rights. Employing international legal research to document and catalogue these three interconnected aspects of human rights for the public's health, the Database's categorization by human rights, health topics, and regional scope provides a comprehensive means of understanding health and human rights law. Through these categorizations, the Global Health and Human Rights Database serves as a basis for analogous legal reasoning across states to serve as precedents for future cases, for comparative legal analysis of similar health claims in different country contexts, and for empirical research to clarify the impact of human rights judgments on public health outcomes. Copyright © 2012 Meier, Nygren
Global Production, CSR and Human Rights: The Courts of Public Opinion and the Social License to Operate
Wheeler, Prof. Sally
This paper takes at its starting point the responsibility placed upon corporations by the United Nations' Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework as elaborated upon by the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights to respect human rights. The overt pragmatism and knowledge of the complex business relationships that are embedded in global production led John Ruggie, the author of the Framework, to adopt a structure for the relationship between human rights and business that built on the ex...
Procedural abortion rights: Ireland and the European Court of Human Rights.
Erdman, Joanna N
The Irish Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act seeks to clarify the legal ground for abortion in cases of risk to life, and to create procedures to regulate women's access to services under it. This article explores the new law as the outcome of an international human rights litigation strategy premised on state duties to implement abortion laws through clear standards and procedural safeguards. It focuses specifically on the Irish law reform and the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, including A. B. and C. v. Ireland (2010). The article examines how procedural rights at the international level can engender domestic law reform that limits or expands women's access to lawful abortion services, serving conservative or progressive ends. Copyright © 2014 Reproductive Health Matters. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Teaching Strategy: Human Rights Around the World and at Home.
Manson, Patrick
Presents a lesson on human rights for middle and secondary school students in which they identify human rights, cite examples of human-rights abuses and affirmations, and relate actions to the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Explains that students identify human-rights issues globally and at home. (CMK)
Human rights education (HRE) and transnational activism
Mihr, A.; Schmitz, Hans-Peter
Transnational human rights activism occupies today a significant place in the practice and scholarship of current global affairs. This article reviews the past successes and limits of this activism and suggests Human Rights Education (HRE) as a strategic tool currently underutilized by activists and
The object of "Rights" : third world women and the production of global human rights discourse
Hua, Julietta Y.
The US "women's rights as human rights" doctrine continues to represent campaigns for international women's rights through the stories and images of Asian, African, and Latin American women. As both the idea of global human rights, and the place of women within the context of international human rights discourse become more powerful in framing a U.S. national identity, it seems that only certain issues (located in Other places that are always assumed to be "behind") come to define the US wome...
Protecting Socio-Economic Rights Through the European Convention on Human Rights : Trends and Developments in the European Court of Human Rights
E. Palmer (Ellie)
textabstractThis article is concerned with jurisprudential trends and developments in the protection of socio-economic rights through the interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). It focuses on the potential to gain access to health care and welfare services, and the
Arguments for the Normative Validity of Human Rights
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Pedersen, Esther Oluffa
. The philosophical conceptions of law, justice and right stated by Hobbes and Rousseau and in the Declaration will be discussed in connection with two seminal criticisms. By excluding women from politics, Olympe de Gouge objected, the Declaration contradicted the universal understanding of human rights. Jeremy......The paper highlights clashes between different conceptions of right, law and justice crystalizing in the French Declaration of Human and Civic Rights from 1789 and the criticisms it aroused. Hobbes' Leviathan (1651) and Rousseau's Social Contract (1762) are discussed as important predecessors...... Bentham protested against the Declaration's core idea of inalienable human rights....
We "Must" Integrate Human Rights into the Social Studies.
O'Brien, Ed
Asserts that educators need to teach about human rights issues, such as social and economic rights, in the social studies curriculum because these issues are disregarded throughout the country. Defines human rights, discusses the importance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), and provides two lessons. (CMK)
Sovereignty, human rights, and international migrations
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Rossana Rocha Reis
Full Text Available This article discusses the relationship between sovereignty and human rights concerning the elaboration of immigration policies. It deals with the role of the State in international migrations, the effects of the development of an international human rights legislation over the immigration question, and finally discusses the idea that the increasing international migration is leading the State to lose control over its population and territory, two central features of the sovereignty concept.
The human right to water: the importance of domestic and productive water rights.
Hall, Ralph P; Van Koppen, Barbara; Van Houweling, Emily
The United Nations (UN) Universal Declaration of Human Rights engenders important state commitments to respect, fulfill, and protect a broad range of socio-economic rights. In 2010, a milestone was reached when the UN General Assembly recognized the human right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation. However, water plays an important role in realizing other human rights such as the right to food and livelihoods, and in realizing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. These broader water-related rights have been recognized but have not yet been operationalized. This paper unravels these broader water-related rights in a more holistic interpretation of existing international human rights law. By focusing on an emerging approach to water services provision--known as 'domestic-plus' services--the paper argues how this approach operationalizes a comprehensive range of socio-economic rights in rural and peri-urban areas. Domestic-plus services provide water for domestic and productive uses around homesteads, which challenges the widespread practice in the public sector of planning and designing water infrastructure for a single-use. Evidence is presented to show that people in rural communities are already using their water supplies planned for domestic uses to support a wide range of productive activities. Domestic-plus services recognize and plan for these multiple-uses, while respecting the priority for clean and safe drinking water. The paper concludes that domestic-plus services operationalize the obligation to progressively fulfill a comprehensive range of indivisible socio-economic rights in rural and peri-urban areas.
Teaching the History of Human Rights and "Humanitarian" Interventions
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Mary Nolan
Full Text Available This article explores how I teach about human rights and so-called humanitarian interventions to MA and Ph.D. students. The course has three main themes or foci. First, what are human rights and why have the social and economic human rights laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights been so neglected or rejected, especially by the U.S. Second, how has American foreign policy used and abused human rights. Third, why have liberal or humanitarian interventions of a militarized sort become so prevalent since the end of the Cold War and why are they so damaging. The goal is to get students to look critically at the meaning and uses of human rights, about which many display a naive enthusiasm.
Human Rights Education before the Challenges of the Emerging Human Rights of the 21st Century
Gloria Ramirez
This article examines Human Rights Education vis-a-vis the challenges of the emerging human rights of the 21st century. It discusses the difficult situation of HRE in the uncertain and insecure times of globalization and permanent violence particularly after the September 11 attacks. In spite of these unfavorable circumstances, it can be concluded that HRE has gained ground in the agenda of NGO´s to become a demand formulated hand in hand with the fight for democracy and peace. Due to the fac...
Human and peoples' rights: social representations among Cameroonian students.
Pirttilä-Backman, Anna-Maija; Kassea, Raul; Sakki, Inari
Social representations of human and peoples' rights were studied among Cameroonian university students (N = 666) with a questionnaire based on the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and Duties. The respondents were asked how important and how well realized they regarded the 39 human and peoples' rights to be. A 13-factor model provided the best fit with Cameroonian students' perceptions of human and peoples' rights. Taken as a whole, our results are in line with previous quantitative studies on human rights, confirming structural similarity but also country-specific variation in the aggregation of specific rights. Moreover, our data showed that Cameroonian students value human and peoples' rights highly (M = 6.18), whereas their fulfillment is not regarded as highly (M = 5.09). Same law for all, equality and freedom, and right to work and living were highly appreciated but lowly realized rights. Higher than average in importance and realization were right to education and self-fulfillment, right to marriage and property, peoples' social and political basic rights and right to life and safety. Low in importance and realization were peoples' right to their country's natural resources and independence, right to meetings, and right to express opinion. Women appreciated the rights more than men and thought of their rights as better realized compared to men. We suggest that when women say that their rights are better fulfilled than men do, it is in comparison with the older generation, who are still very dependent on men. Nowadays, thanks to education and urbanization, young women have wider choices or opportunities for marriage and jobs. Men may feel frustrated in the context of political liberalization because the freedoms are more theoretical than fulfilled; the economic crises and cultural changes have hindered their economic domination and their prerogatives.
Global human rights awareness, education and democratization
Mihr, A.
The 1990s was the era of human rights awareness, democratic transitions, and growing involvement of international organizations and the nongovernmental sector in human rights education (HRE). The UN Decade for HRE from 1995–2004 was not only born out of the initiatives and pressures of
Making a human right to tobacco control: expert and advocacy networks, framing and the right to health.
Reubi, David
This article addresses the proliferation of human rights in international public health over the last 20 years by examining recent attempts at framing the global smoking epidemic as a human rights problem. Rather than advocating in favour or against human rights-based approaches, the article purports to understand how and why such approaches are being articulated and disseminated. First, it argues that the representation of the global smoking epidemic as a human rights issue has been the product of a small, international network of public health experts and lawyers: the human rights and tobacco control collective or community (HTC). The article describes in particular the HTC's membership, its style of thinking and its efforts to articulate and disseminate human rights-based approaches to tobacco control. Second, the article argues that the aim of the HTC when framing tobacco control as a human rights issue was not to generate public attention for and the political will to tackle the global smoking epidemic, as the literature on framing and human rights presupposes. Instead, as the article shows, the HTC framed tobacco control as a human rights problem to tap into the powerful, judicial monitoring and enforceability mechanisms that make up international human rights.
World Heritage Protection and the Human Right to Development: Reconciling Competing or Complimentary Narratives Using a Human Rights-Based Approach (HRBA?
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Josephine Gillespie
Full Text Available In the pursuit of the protection of places worthy of World Heritage designation, controls are placed on human activities. Regulations are put in place to curb the extent to which these places of heritage significance might be compromised by inappropriate human uses. For the most part, this conservation exercise takes the form of a regulatory regime that, in reality, imposes localized restrictions on how people interact with the protected site. Such restrictions can come at considerable expense to pre-existing users, and arguably, in some instances, these restrictions may also act to simultaneously restrict "rights". These rights arise by virtue of a raft of international and regional commitments to human rights that, in essence, aim to preserve human dignity for all. This paper explores the nexus between conservation and development through a "rights" paradigm. Arguably, it is untenable to sustain a situation in which heritage trumps user-rights without due regard for some of the rights articulated within the human rights narrative. Heritage protection must be seen as a question of balance wherein conservation, development and rights are reconciled. It is argued that the adoption of a human rights-based approach (HRBA to conservation may aid in the reconciliation of these goals.
The Human Right to Equal Access to Health Care
M. San Giorgi (Maite)
textabstractThe right to equal access to health care is a fundamental principle that is part of the human right to health care. For victims of a violation of the human right to equal access to health care it is important that a judicial or quasi-judicial human rights body can adjudicate their
Health and Human Rights in Karen State, Eastern Myanmar.
Davis, William W; Mullany, Luke C; Shwe Oo, Eh Kalu; Richards, Adam K; Iacopino, Vincent; Beyrer, Chris
Decades of conflict in eastern Myanmar have resulted in high prevalence of human rights violations and poor health outcomes. While recent ceasefire agreements have reduced conflict in this area, it is unknown whether this has resulted in concomitant reductions in human rights violations. We conducted a two-stage cluster survey of 686 households in eastern Myanmar to assess health status, access to healthcare, food security, exposure to human rights violations and identification of alleged perpetrators over the 12 months prior to January 2012, a period of near-absence of conflict in this region. Household hunger (FANTA-2 scale) was moderate/high in 91 (13.2%) households, while the proportion of households reporting food shortages in each month of 2011 ranged from 19.9% in December to 47.0% in September, with food insecurity peaking just prior to the harvest. Diarrhea prevalence in children was 14.2% and in everyone it was 5.8%. Forced labor was the most common human rights violation (185 households, 24.9%), and 210 households (30.6%) reported experiencing one or more human rights violations in 2011. Multiple logistic regression analysis identified associations between human rights violations and poor health outcomes. Human rights violations and their health consequences persist despite reduced intensity of conflict in eastern Myanmar. Ceasefire agreements should include language that protects human rights, and reconciliation efforts should address the health consequences of decades of human rights violations.
Towards a Human Rights Culture in Social Work Education.
Werkmeister Rozas, Lisa; Garran, Ann Marie
A human rights perspective must be embedded in the institutions, organisations or agencies where social work students find themselves. This paper will focus on one particular strategy that could be helpful to the process of solidifying a commitment to human rights for our students. Using a pedagogical tool from a school of social work in the USA originally developed to combat the social injustice of racism, the example transcends the academic institution and offers a solid link in connecting human rights, social justice and social work. Using the construct of critical realism, we argue that, for social work programmes to take steps towards an explicit commitment to human rights, not only must human rights be infused throughout the curriculum, but educators must provide opportunities for making more overt the links between human rights principles, social justice and social work. By addressing behaviours, tendencies and attitudes, students then acquire not only the skills and deeper understanding, but they internalise the motivation and commitment to broaden their human rights frame. In the process of developing a more firm commitment to human rights, we must not be limited to the walls of the academy, but rather extend beyond to our field agencies, organisations and communities.
Towards a Human Rights Culture in Social Work Education
Werkmeister Rozas, Lisa; Garran, Ann Marie
A human rights perspective must be embedded in the institutions, organisations or agencies where social work students find themselves. This paper will focus on one particular strategy that could be helpful to the process of solidifying a commitment to human rights for our students. Using a pedagogical tool from a school of social work in the USA originally developed to combat the social injustice of racism, the example transcends the academic institution and offers a solid link in connecting human rights, social justice and social work. Using the construct of critical realism, we argue that, for social work programmes to take steps towards an explicit commitment to human rights, not only must human rights be infused throughout the curriculum, but educators must provide opportunities for making more overt the links between human rights principles, social justice and social work. By addressing behaviours, tendencies and attitudes, students then acquire not only the skills and deeper understanding, but they internalise the motivation and commitment to broaden their human rights frame. In the process of developing a more firm commitment to human rights, we must not be limited to the walls of the academy, but rather extend beyond to our field agencies, organisations and communities. PMID:27559204
Human rights, public health and medicinal cannabis use.
Bone, Melissa; Seddon, Toby
This paper explores the interplay between the human rights and drug control frameworks and critiques case law on medicinal cannabis use to demonstrate that a bona fide human rights perspective allows for a broader conception of 'health'. This broad conception, encompassing both medicalised and social constructionist definitions, can inform public health policies relating to medicinal cannabis use. The paper also demonstrates how a human rights lens can alleviate a core tension between the State and the individual within the drug policy field. The leading medicinal cannabis case in the UK highlights the judiciary's failure to engage with an individual's human right to health as they adopt an arbitrary, externalist view, focussing on the legality of cannabis to the exclusion of other concerns. Drawing on some international comparisons, the paper considers how a human rights perspective can lead to an approach to medicinal cannabis use which facilitates a holistic understanding of public health.
Protection of the right to privacy in the practice of the European Court of Human Rights
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Mladenov Marijana
Full Text Available The right to privacy is a fundamental human right and an essential component of the protection of human autonomy and freedom. The development of science and information systems creates various opportunities for interferences with physical and moral integrity of a person. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the precise content of the right to privacy. The European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms guarantees this right under Article 8. The European Court of Human Rights did not precisely define the content of the right to privacy and thereby the applicants could bring different aspects of life into the scope of respect for private life. According to the Court, the concept of privacy and private life includes the following areas of human life: the right to establish and maintain relationships with other human beings, protection of the physical and moral integrity of persons, protection of personal data, change of personal name, various issues related to sexual orientation and transgender. The subject of this paper is referring to previously mentioned spheres of human life in the light of interpretation of Article 8 of the Convention.
Human rights in the energy sector: where are we going?
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Wright, Jim [KBC Advanced Technologies, Surrey (United Kingdom)
There is considerable guidance and tools to avoid and remediate adverse Human Rights impacts; Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), specific Human Right Impact Assessments or stand alone assessments across the whole spectrum of Human Rights. However the oil and gas sector has yet to address Human Rights risks in a comprehensive manner. In 2011 the Special Representative of the Secretary-General issued Guiding Principles (GP) to implement the United Nations 'Protect, Respect and Remedy' Framework. A survey of Human Rights performance against GP16 by the largest International Oil Companies (IOCs) and National Oil Companies (NOCs) shows a dichotomy with most (93%) of IOCs having a Human Rights Policy, approved at the highest level and available via the www to the general public (compliant with GP16) whilst 27% of NOCs have a Policy, of which, 9% are GP16 compliant. When service companies are included, only 23% are GP16 compliant. Only 8% provide Human Rights training. Human Rights in 41% of new projects are assessed via an EIA process, 18% via a specific Human Rights process, and 41% do not focus on Human Rights at all. Most companies do not have a Human Rights grievance mechanism. Whilst the IOCs are performing well the rest of the oil and gas sector, including the NOCs and service companies, are under-performing. The apparent reliance on the EIA process to Protect, Respect and Remedy Human Rights may be inadequate as the delivery of EIA is: still heavily biased toward environment compared to social and health impacts; they are time consuming and the Human Rights landscape can change during the EIA process; and the EIA disclosure process may expose vulnerable people to abuse. The oil and gas sector needs to address the record of poor compliance and develop and integrate some of the widely available Human rights tools. (author)
Human right education and the Nigerian child: implications for ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
This paper examines the concept of human right to education as listed in Article 26 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights of December 1948. Human right is viewed as natural or moral law which has the force of conscience. The declaration is directed at the right to formal Western education in Nigeria, rather ...
Oriental Culture and Human Rights Development
African Journals Online (AJOL)
Leon Wessels
Universality is much more than the determination by a majority at a particular moment ..... accepted human rights and not only the favourite rights of any particular .... sole breadwinners, caring for children and taking important decisions on.
Accommodating the Right to Development in Kosovo: A Human Rights Perspective
Remzije Istrefi
The right to development is the right of individuals and peoples to an enabling environment for development that is equitable, sustainable, and participatory and in accordance with the full range of human rights and fundamental freedoms. A wide range of international law on development exists, and numerous Declarations and Programs of Action from the UN World Conferences have been proclaimed. Nevertheless, due to its nature and its legal status the right to development continues t...
Human rights, public health and medicinal cannabis use
Bone, Melissa; Seddon, Toby
This paper explores the interplay between the human rights and drug control frameworks, and critiques case law on medicinal cannabis use to demonstrate that a bona fide human rights perspective allows for a broader conception of 'health'. This broad conception, encompassing both medicalised and social constructionist definitions, can inform public health policies relating to medicinal cannabis use. The paper also demonstrates how a human rights lens can alleviate a core tension between the St...
Gender Equality, Citizenship and Human Rights
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
reflect upon challenges to gender equality, citizenship, and human rights in their respective societies; it combines theoretical insights with empirically grounded studies. The volume contextualises feminist political theory in China and the Nordic countries and subsequently puts it into a global......This comparative volume examines the ways in which current controversies and political, legal, and social struggles for gender equality raise conceptual questions and challenge our thinking on political theories of equality, citizenship and human rights. Bringing together scholars and activists who...
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Laura-Cristiana SPĂTARU-NEGURĂ
Full Text Available After last year's analysis regarding the European Union's commitment to fight against the human beings trafficking, we have considered to further explore the human beings trafficking approach in the European Court of Human Rights case-law, the most developped regional jurisdiction on human rights. Surprisingly, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms does not make an express reference to the human beings trafficking. However, we have to bear in mind that the Convention is a living instrument, its interpretation being made in the light of the present-day conditions. Thus, taking into consideration the global threat of this phenomenon, it is more obvious than ever that the Convention could not neglect this issue.
Human Rights and Health Services
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Skitsou, Alexandra; Bekos, Christos; Charalambous, George
Background: It has been observed that health services provided to certain patients in Cyprus do not fully meet their human rights. Objective: This study was conducted to identify the main shortcomings of the Health System in Cyprus. Methodology: The relevant administrative decisions of the Ombuds......Background: It has been observed that health services provided to certain patients in Cyprus do not fully meet their human rights. Objective: This study was conducted to identify the main shortcomings of the Health System in Cyprus. Methodology: The relevant administrative decisions...... and their families to be essential. Conclusions: The paper concludes that implementing guidelines in accordance with international best practices, the establishment of at-home treatment and nursing facilities, counseling the mentally ill in a way that promotes their social integration and occupational rehabilitation......, ongoing education of health professionals along with relevant education of the community and the broad application of triage in the emergency departments will all contribute to delivering health services more effectively. Keywords: Cyprus, health services, patient rights...
Remembering a sociology of Human Rights
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Levy, Daniel
Full Text Available A sociology of human rights sounds almost like a contradiction in terms. Sociology is about social groups, about particular experiences, about how people, embedded in space and time, make sense of their lives and give meaning to their world. It deals with power and interest and the social bases of our experiences. On the other hand, human rights are about human beings in general, without temporal or spatial references, not about groups and their boundaries. Human rights are about humanity, located in the world and connected to an inviolable nature. Global media representations, among others, create new cosmopolitan memories, providing new epistemological vantage points and emerging moral-political interdependencies. As such, memories of the Holocaust contribute to the creation of a common European cultural memory based on the abstract notion of human rights. Sociologically, a theory of human rights has to show how universal and particular memories co-exist, are reconciled etc. and what it means for the recognition of the "other", and the broadening of circles of solidarity.Una sociología de los derechos humans suena casi como un oxímoron. La sociología se fija en los grupos sociales, en las experiencias particulares, y en cómo las personas, marcadas por el espacio y el tiempo, dan sentido a sus vidas y atribuyen un significado al mundo. Trata del poder, el interés y la base social de nuestras experiencias. Contrariamente, los derechos humanos se refieren a humanos en general, sin referencias temporales ni espaciales, y no a grupos y sus límites. Los derechos humanos tratan de la humanidad, ubicado en el mundo y conectado con su naturaleza inviolable. Representaciones mediáticas globales, entre otras, crean memorias cosmopólitas nuevas, disponiendo nuevos puntos de vista epistemológicos y interdependencias morales-políticas emergentes. Así, las memorias del Holocausto contribuyen a la creación de una memoria cultural europea com
Animal rights, animal minds, and human mindreading.
Mameli, M; Bortolotti, L
Do non-human animals have rights? The answer to this question depends on whether animals have morally relevant mental properties. Mindreading is the human activity of ascribing mental states to other organisms. Current knowledge about the evolution and cognitive structure of mindreading indicates that human ascriptions of mental states to non-human animals are very inaccurate. The accuracy of human mindreading can be improved with the help of scientific studies of animal minds. However, the scientific studies do not by themselves solve the problem of how to map psychological similarities (and differences) between humans and animals onto a distinction between morally relevant and morally irrelevant mental properties. The current limitations of human mindreading-whether scientifically aided or not-have practical consequences for the rational justification of claims about which rights (if any) non-human animals should be accorded.
LGBT rights versus Asian values: de/re-constructing the universality of human rights
Lee, Po-Han
Law, especially from the international human rights regime, is a direct reference on which minority groups rely when it comes to 'non-discrimination'. Drawing upon LGBT rights in Taiwan, as well as Hong Kong and Singapore, this article – through an application of K.H. Chen's (2010) Asia as Method – critically reviews how global LGBT politics interact with local societies influenced by Confucianism. Along a perpetual competition between the universalism and cultural relativism of human rights,...
Do cultural diversity and human rights make a good match?
Donders, Yvonne
The link between cultural diversity and human rights was clearly established by the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, adopted by the member states of UNESCO in 2001, which holds that "the defence of cultural diversity is … inseparable from respect for human dignity" and that it "implies a commitment to human rights and fundamental freedoms." The UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, adopted in 2005, states that "cultural diversity can be protected and promoted only if human rights and fundamental freedoms … are guaranteed" (Article 2[1]). The precise relationship between cultural diversity and human rights, however, is not clarified and thus leaves room for further exploration. This contribution analyses the issues surrounding the relationship between cultural diversity and human rights, in particular cultural rights. Firstly, it addresses general human rights issues such as universality and cultural relativism and the principles of equality and non-discrimination. Secondly, it explores the scope of cultural rights, as well as the cultural dimension of human rights. Thirdly, several cases are discussed in which human rights were invoked to protect cultural interests, confirming the value of cultural diversity. Finally, some concluding remarks are presented, indicating which areas require attention in order to further improve the promotion and protection of human rights in relation to cultural diversity.
An Overview of Human Rights, Good Governance and Development ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
An Overview of Human Rights, Good Governance and Development. ... African Research Review ... The paper also addresses the economic and social effect of such human rights violations on national development as well as the effect of using communication to solve the problem of human rights violations and corruption.
Key populations and human rights in the context of HIV services rendition in Ghana.
Laar, Amos; DeBruin, Debra
In line with its half century old penal code, Ghana currently criminalizes and penalizes behaviors of some key populations - populations deemed to be at higher risk of acquiring or transmitting Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Men who have sex with men (MSM), and sex workers (SWs) fit into this categorization. This paper provides an analysis of how enactment and implementation of rights-limiting laws not only limit rights, but also amplify risk and vulnerability to HIV in key and general populations. The paper derives from a project that assessed the ethics sensitivity of key documents guiding Ghana's response to its HIV epidemic. Assessment was guided by leading frameworks from public health ethics, and relevant articles from the international bill of rights. Ghana's response to her HIV epidemic does not adequately address the rights and needs of key populations. Even though the national response has achieved some public health successes, palpable efforts to address rights issues remain nascent. Ghana's guiding documents for HIV response include no advocacy for decriminalization, depenalization or harm reduction approaches for these key populations. The impact of rights-restricting codes on the nation's HIV epidemic is real: criminalization impedes key populations' access to HIV prevention and treatment services. Given that they are bridging populations, whatever affects the Ghanaian key populations directly, affects the general population indirectly. The right to the highest attainable standard of health, without qualification, is generally acknowledged as a fundamental human right. Unfortunately, this right currently eludes the Ghanaian SW and MSM. The paper endorses decriminalization as a means of promoting this right. In the face of opposition to decriminalization, the paper proposes specific harm reduction strategies as approaches to promote health and uplift the diminished rights of key populations. Thus the authors call on Ghana to remove impediments to
Promotion of Human Rights in the Republic of Kosovo
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MSc. Albulena Ukimeraj
Full Text Available Fundamental rights and freedoms are constitutional category of democratic states whereas the standards for guaranteeing these rights have been determined in the highest international acts of the United Nations. Promotion of equality and compliance with human rights initially originated in social developments in antiquity period. The Greek philosophy represented by world class philosophers Plato and Aristotle, created the foundation for complying with these rights which still serve as principles in the modern times and democratic developments. In later stages of social developments, despite the progress, compliance with human rights in the slavery era but even in the medieval times was faced with many challenges. Meanwhile, the development of the modern world, as an enlightening historic moment, it is the French Revolution, which was of course preceded by important documents in the history of development and advancement of human rights such as: Magna Carta Libertatum and the US Constitution. The reason for addressing this topic consists in the fact that these fundamental rights and freedoms are parts of constitutions of many countries including Kosovo, which are proclaimed and protected by different acts and norms, however they continue to be infringed either by individuals or institutions. Thus, with the aim of promotion of human rights and legal basis related to them in the Republic of Kosovo, this paper will elaborate development of human rights and the legal infrastructure for protection and compliance of human rights in a chronological manner by providing conclusions on the promotion of human rights in the Republic of Kosovo.
The human right to science: An old right with a great future
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Mikel Mancisidor
Full Text Available When we talk about the human right to science, many may think that we are speaking about a new right, recently created to face the challenges that science and technology generate in our society of the 21st century. However, the right to science is already enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948 and in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966. We can find it even earlier in the inter-American regional system, particularly, in the Charter of the Organization of American States (1948 and in the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man (1948. Few know that, in fact, the Latin American countries in general and Chile in particular played a crucial role in the universal recognition of this right. The first part of the article explains the history of the right to science and its international legal recognition. In a second chapter, we will study its current institutional situation within the United Nations and, finally, in the third chapter, we will analyze the characteristics of this right, its normative content, elements and type of obligations that it creates.
76 FR 7695 - Iranian Human Rights Abuses Sanctions Regulations
... DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY Office of Foreign Assets Control 31 CFR Part 562 Iranian Human Rights... Iranian Human Rights Abuses Sanctions Regulations, 31 CFR part 562 (the ``Regulations''), to implement E.O...--IRANIAN HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES SANCTIONS REGULATIONS Subpart A--Relation of This Part to Other Laws and...
Democracy and Human Rights: Concepts, Measures, and Relationships
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Todd Landman
Full Text Available The empirical literature on democracy and human rights has made great strides over the last 30 years in explaining (1 the variation in the transition to, consolidation of, and quality of democracy; (2 the proliferation and effectiveness of human rights law; and (3 the causes and consequences of human rights across many of their categories and dimensions. This work has in many ways overcome the 'essentially contested' nature of the concepts of democracy and human rights conceptually, established different measures of both empirically, and developed increasingly sophisticated statistical and other analytical techniques to provide stronger inferences for the academic and policy community. This article argues that despite these many achievements, there remain tensions between conceptualisations of democracy and human rights over the degree to which one includes the other, the temporal and spatial empirical relationships between them, and the measures that have been developed to operationalize them. These tensions, in turn, affect the kinds of analyses that are carried out, including model specification, methods of estimation, and findings. Drawing on extant theories and measures of both, the article argues that there must be greater specificity in the conceptualisation and operationalization of democracy and human rights, greater care in the development and use of measures, and greater attention to the kinds of inferences that are made possible by them.
The United States and the universality of human rights.
Chomsky, N
The United States takes a highly relativistic stance toward the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It regards the socio-economic rights and the right to development as without status; exempts itself from all provisions of the Declaration by failing to sign the conventions designed to implement these provisions; and unilaterally qualifies its support of civil and political rights. Leading recipients of U.S. aid have traditionally included regimes with atrocious human rights records. Those struggling for human rights should have no illusions about the systems of power and their servants.
Globalization, human rights, and the social determinants of health.
Chapman, Audrey R
Globalization, a process characterized by the growing interdependence of the world's people, impacts health systems and the social determinants of health in ways that are detrimental to health equity. In a world in which there are few countervailing normative and policy approaches to the dominant neoliberal regime underpinning globalization, the human rights paradigm constitutes a widely shared foundation for challenging globalization's effects. The substantive rights enumerated in human rights instruments include the right to the highest attainable level of physical and mental health and others that are relevant to the determinants of health. The rights stipulated in these documents impose extensive legal obligations on states that have ratified these documents and confer health entitlements on their residents. Human rights norms have also inspired civil society efforts to improve access to essential medicines and medical services, particularly for HIV/AIDS. Nevertheless, many factors reduce the potential counterweight human rights might exert, including and specifically the nature of the human rights approach, weak political commitments to promoting and protecting health rights on the part of some states and their lack of institutional and economic resources to do so. Global economic markets and the relative power of global economic institutions are also shrinking national policy space. This article reviews the potential contributions and limitations of human rights to achieving greater equity in shaping the social determinants of health.
Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples
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Garth Nettheim
Full Text Available The paper begins by noting the low level of reference to Indigenous Australians in the Commonwealth Constitution at the start of Federation, and goes on to discuss the limits to what was achieved by the 1967 amendments. The situation represents a marked contrast with the USA and Canada in terms of treaties and constitutional recognition. In Australia, particularly during the period of the 'Reconciliation' process in the 1990s, important steps were taken by Indigenous Australians to identify items of 'unfinished business' in a 'Statement of Indigenous Rights'. But there has been limited progress to meet these aspirations. And Australian law still lacks a tradition of recognition of human rights generally, let alone Indigenous rights. International law, too, largely lacked recognition of human rights, generally prior to the adoption in 1945 of the Charter of the United Nations. The brief references in the Charter were subsequently developed in a range of declarations and of treaties. These applied to people generally, with scant reference to Indigenous peoples. But, since the 1970s, there has been growing international recognition of the rights of Indigenous peoples under existing declarations and treaties. Since the 1990s, in particular, the UN system has established specific mechanisms for addressing such issues. On 13 September 2007, the General Assembly finally adopted a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Human Rights and Religion in the English Secondary RE Curriculum
Bowie, Robert
The relationship between religion and human rights is an ambiguous and complex one, but there are academic, moral and political arguments for the inclusion of human rights in religious education (RE). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights advocates education in human rights and the English school curriculum aims to encourage a commitment to…
Pattern Analyses Reveal Separate Experience-Based Fear Memories in the Human Right Amygdala.
Braem, Senne; De Houwer, Jan; Demanet, Jelle; Yuen, Kenneth S L; Kalisch, Raffael; Brass, Marcel
Learning fear via the experience of contingencies between a conditioned stimulus (CS) and an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US) is often assumed to be fundamentally different from learning fear via instructions. An open question is whether fear-related brain areas respond differently to experienced CS-US contingencies than to merely instructed CS-US contingencies. Here, we contrasted two experimental conditions where subjects were instructed to expect the same CS-US contingencies while only one condition was characterized by prior experience with the CS-US contingency. Using multivoxel pattern analysis of fMRI data, we found CS-related neural activation patterns in the right amygdala (but not in other fear-related regions) that dissociated between whether a CS-US contingency had been instructed and experienced versus merely instructed. A second experiment further corroborated this finding by showing a category-independent neural response to instructed and experienced, but not merely instructed, CS presentations in the human right amygdala. Together, these findings are in line with previous studies showing that verbal fear instructions have a strong impact on both brain and behavior. However, even in the face of fear instructions, the human right amygdala still shows a separable neural pattern response to experience-based fear contingencies. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT In our study, we addressed a fundamental problem of the science of human fear learning and memory, namely whether fear learning via experience in humans relies on a neural pathway that can be separated from fear learning via verbal information. Using two new procedures and recent advances in the analysis of brain imaging data, we localized purely experience-based fear processing and memory in the right amygdala, thereby making a direct link between human and animal research. Copyright © 2017 the authors 0270-6474/17/378116-15$15.00/0.
Introduction: Radical Teaching About Human Rights Part II
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Michael Bennett
Full Text Available In our introduction to the first of these two issues of Radical Teacher devoted to "Radical Teaching About Human Rights," we cautioned that all forms of Human Rights Education (HRE are not radical. The problem, we pointed out, with rights discourse is that it can mask the politics of how rights are defined, whose rights are recognized, and how they are enforced. This problem becomes evident when HRE is bound up with a neoliberal, or worse than neoliberal, perspective that points fingers at others and rallies troops for supposedly humanitarian interventions while eliding the role of the United States as an imperializing settler colonial state. Fortunately, we have once again received several essays that seem to us to be aware of this danger and provide admirable examples of radical teaching about human rights.
Boundaries and restrictions of "The right to life" according to the European Court of Human Rights (Article 2 of ECHR jurisprudence
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Pjereta Agalliu
Full Text Available The first substantial right of the European Convention on Human Rights (henceforth referred to as the Convention is the right to life, set out in Article 2. This right was the first one to be attached to this Convention, because human life is more important than any other right. If one is deprived of the right to life in an arbitrary manner, all other rights are illusionary. Being a fundamental right, it is protected by a number of national and international 1 instruments and the most important one, which has made it most relevant in the aspect of legislative theory, but also as part of the application of the right to life, is the Convention. Based on the European Court of Human Rights' (henceforth referred to as the Court caselaw, we manage to determine the boundaries and the restrictions of the right to life. This paper includes findings which relate to the concept of the right to life, the protection and guarantees that the Convention offers, Article 2 of the Convention in particular, and the criteria for the restrictions applying on the right to life. The active obligation of the state bears a special importance in this matter, along with the definition of the boundaries and restrictions of the right to life and the boundaries and restrictions applying to the obligations of the Adhering States to guarantee the protection of life and their responsibility in those cases recognized by the Convention when this right is restricted.
Women's Rights in Human Rights Systems: Past, Present and Future ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
Abstract. In the 2009 Dullah Omar Memorial Lecture, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay contextualises many of the issues facing women that were raised in earlier articles.
The World War II Era and Human Rights Education
Waters, Stewart; Russell, William B., III
International revulsion at the violation of human rights during World War II helped spark a global movement to define and protect individual human rights. Starting with the creation of war crimes tribunals after the war, this newfound awareness stimulated a concerted international effort to establish human rights for all, both in periods of war…
Human Rights Education: Is Social Work behind the Curve?
Steen, Julie A.; Mathiesen, Sally
This article presents a descriptive assessment of human rights education within schools of social work and law. A review of course titles and descriptions within MSW programs and law programs was conducted for identification of human rights content. The results suggest a dearth of human rights content in social work curricula and a great disparity…
Economic sanctions as human rights violations: reconciling political and public health imperatives.
Marks, S P
The impact of economic sanctions on civilians has frequently been studied by public health specialists and specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN). This commentary explores some of the difficulties of the claim that sanctions constitute violations of human rights. The deprivation suffered by civilian populations under sanctions regimes often are violations of economic, social, and cultural human rights; however, the attribution of responsibility for those violations to the "senders" of sanctions (the UN Security Council or the US government, for example) is difficult to sustain, particularly in light of the efforts made by these entities to provide for humanitarian exemptions and humanitarian aid. A more productive approach to avoiding civilian harm is to prefer, as a matter of policy, arms embargoes, severing of communications, and international criminal prosecutions over trade embargoes. Promising recommendations have been formulated regarding "smart sanctions," which target regimes rather than people, and "positive sanctions" in the form of incentives. Health and human rights professionals have specific and important tasks in implementing such a restructured approach to sanctions.
The Right of the Child to Information: The Role of Public Libraries in Human Rights Education.
Koren, Marian
Information and education are crucial for child development. The child's right to information and education protect human values and the human dignity of the child. Formal and non-formal forms of education by parents, friends, schools, and libraries should be based on human rights. The United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child…
Sex differences in the brain response to affective scenes with or without humans.
Proverbio, Alice Mado; Adorni, Roberta; Zani, Alberto; Trestianu, Laura
Recent findings have demonstrated that women might be more reactive than men to viewing painful stimuli (vicarious response to pain), and therefore more empathic [Han, S., Fan, Y., & Mao, L. (2008). Gender difference in empathy for pain: An electrophysiological investigation. Brain Research, 1196, 85-93]. We investigated whether the two sexes differed in their cerebral responses to affective pictures portraying humans in different positive or negative contexts compared to natural or urban scenarios. 440 IAPS slides were presented to 24 Italian students (12 women and 12 men). Half the pictures displayed humans while the remaining scenes lacked visible persons. ERPs were recorded from 128 electrodes and swLORETA (standardized weighted Low-Resolution Electromagnetic Tomography) source reconstruction was performed. Occipital P115 was greater in response to persons than to scenes and was affected by the emotional valence of the human pictures. This suggests that processing of biologically relevant stimuli is prioritized. Orbitofrontal N2 was greater in response to positive than negative human pictures in women but not in men, and not to scenes. A late positivity (LP) to suffering humans far exceeded the response to negative scenes in women but not in men. In both sexes, the contrast suffering-minus-happy humans revealed a difference in the activation of the occipito/temporal, right occipital (BA19), bilateral parahippocampal, left dorsal prefrontal cortex (DPFC) and left amygdala. However, increased right amygdala and right frontal area activities were observed only in women. The humans-minus-scenes contrast revealed a difference in the activation of the middle occipital gyrus (MOG) in men, and of the left inferior parietal (BA40), left superior temporal gyrus (STG, BA38) and right cingulate (BA31) in women (270-290 ms). These data indicate a sex-related difference in the brain response to humans, possibly supporting human empathy.
SHARI'A, INDIGENOUS WISDOM AND HUMAN RIGHTS: A Brief Review of Human Rights Enforcement in the Context of Indonesian History
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JM. Muslimin
Full Text Available This article deals with the analysis of how human rights discourses have been articulated in the landscape of Indonesia's history. The paper argues that the idea of Shari'aization can undermine the search for the common ground in building the discourses of human rights. The history of Indonesia can be classified into three eras: pre-colonial, post-colonial and reform era. Along the history, the spirit of human rights enforcement grows from, and interacts with, Islam and local culture. The language and expression take various forms in accordance with socio-cultural contexts and challenges. However, the essence of the enforcement is rooted in the universal values: freedom from oppression, fear, discrimination and gender inequality. In the future, smart dialogue, sharp debate and sincere discussion between 'local' symbolic expression and universal standardization are still needed. In addition, the gap can be narrowed also by responding actual violation of human right as it is indicated by Indonesian history: history of social consensus.
Evolving International Practices for Protection of Human Rights- the UN Human Rights Advisory Panel and EU Human Rights Review Panel
Remzije ISTREFI
This article analyses the unique development of the international human rights non judicial protection mechanism in Kosovo. Since 1999 Kosovo has been placed under international supervision carried out by international organizations, namely the United Nations and the European Union. The UN's Mission in Kosovo (UNMK) was unprecedented both in scope and structural complexity. After the Declaration of Independence by Kosovo authorities on 17 February 2008, the European Union Rule ...
Rights and responsibilities in Darfur
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Katherine Reyes
Full Text Available A combined UN-military-police-humanitarian initiative hasbeen promoting civic rights and responsibilities among IDPsin order to increase security throughout Kalma camp and itssurroundings.
International human rights and cultural diversity: a balancing act
Donders, Y.
It is broadly agreed that international human rights law and cultural diversity have a mutually interdependent and beneficial relationship. Many human rights, such as the rights to freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, as well as the rights to take part in cultural life
Measuring the Impact of the Human Rights on Health in Global Health Financing.
Davis, Sara L M
In response to new scientific developments, UNAIDS, WHO, and global health financing institutions have joined together to promote a "fast-track" global scale-up of testing and treatment programs. They have set ambitious targets toward the goal of ending the three diseases by 2030. These numerical indicators, based on infectious disease modeling, can assist in measuring countries' progressive realization of the right to health. However, they only nominally reference the catastrophic impact that human rights abuses have on access to health services; they also do not measure the positive impact provided by law reform, legal aid, and other health-related human rights programs. Drawing on experience at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which has incorporated expanded stakeholder consultation and human rights programming into its grants, the article argues that addressing human rights barriers to access is often an ad hoc activity occurring on the sidelines of a health grantmaking process that has focused on the scale-up of biomedical programs to meet global health indicators. To ensure that these biomedical programs have impact, UN agencies and health financing mechanisms must begin to more systematically and proactively integrate human rights policy and practice into their modeling and measurement tools. Copyright © 2015 Davis. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Menneskerettighedernes Æstetik /The Aesthetics of Human Rights
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
The idea of this thematic issue on "The Aesthetics of Human Rigths" of the journal "Academic Quarter" is to focus on the staging of human rights in popular culture and fine arts and in different media and genres.......The idea of this thematic issue on "The Aesthetics of Human Rigths" of the journal "Academic Quarter" is to focus on the staging of human rights in popular culture and fine arts and in different media and genres....
BODIL BEGTRUP AND THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS Individual agency, transnationalism and intergovernmentalism in early UN human rights
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Midtgaard, K.
The article investigates the individual agency of the little studied transnational, Bodil Begtrup, in the subfields of women's and minority rights, and refugee and asylum policy. Begtrup fulfilled many roles - as state representative, expert advisor, member of the United Nations' Commission...... on the Status of Women, and president of a national NGO. This article shows how Begtrup enjoyed wide room for manoeuvre in the subfield of women's rights, and acted in this as a transnational norm entrepreneur and process entrepreneur advocating women's rights as an integral part of human rights and forging...... the change of the institutional design of the UN human rights institutions. In the subfield of minority rights, refugee and asylum policy, Begtrup acted under tight governmental control because the issue at hand was subject to national interest and domestic party politics. Her agency in the two subfields...
Learning from our apartheid past: human rights challenges for health professionals in contemporary South Africa.
Baldwin-Ragaven, L; London, L; De Gruchy, J
Central to South Africa's democratic transformation have been attempts to understand how and why human rights abuses were common under apartheid. In testimony to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission evidence has emerged of a wide range of past complicity in human rights abuses by health professionals and their organisations. This has presented a major challenge to the health sector to develop ways to operationalize a commitment to human rights in the future. This paper argues that only after a process of self-reflection, both personal and institutional, which enables a thorough and accurate analysis of why things went so wrong, can the health sector effectively move forward. The authors' perspective draws on the submission to the TRC Health Sector Hearings by the Health and Human Rights Project in 1997, which provides a systemic and case-based analysis of the health sector's role in human rights abuses under apartheid. However, human rights responses have to take account of a changing national and global terrain in which human rights issues are no longer as morally absolute as previously encountered, and in which seemingly insuperable resource constraints, inimical economic policies, and the demobilization of civil society, are serious obstacles. Moreover, the politics of transformation has generated expediencies that threaten to rewrite history in ways that fundamentally cheapen human rights. To address this contradiction, the authors propose a set of objectives that places accountability of health professionals in a human rights framework. These objectives are intended to give substance to the main tasks facing the health sector--to develop and infuse the capacity to recognise and integrate both the 'new' and traditional human rights dilemmas, and to effect personal and institutional transformation. A matrix is presented, linking these objectives to key role players in the health sector and identifying activities specific for each role player. As the health
Human Rights and National Poverty Reduction Strategies: Conceptual framework for human rights analysis of poverty reduction strategies and reviews of Guatemala, Liberia and Nepal
Sakiko Fukuda-Parr
Poverty is an important human rights concern. Human rights are claims that people have for social arrangements to guarantee their substantive freedoms; poverty reflects failures in these social arrangements and in the actions of duty bearers. It is the poorest people in society --- those with low incomes, education, insecure health, and political power --- who are most vulnerable to severe abuse of their human rights in multiple areas. At the same time, it is lack of human rights protection t...
The Ebola Virus and Human Rights Concerns in Africa
African Journals Online (AJOL)
AJRH Managing Editor
Sep 3, 2015 ... Keywords: Ebola, Public Health, human right. Résumé ... Mots clé : Ebola, de santé publique, droit humain. Introduction ... public health and human rights. This article .... Political Rights (ICCPR)21 and the International.
Advancement of human rights standards for LGBT people through the perspective of international human rights law
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Lucie Cviklová
Full Text Available The article addresses the issue how various religious and legal systems cope with current developments that undermine binary opposition of man and woman including definition of their sexual and cultural identities. More concretely, it tries to explain, how concrete societies and legislations deal with claims of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transsexuals (LGBT that claim broader recognition. It elucidates differences among Western provisions and policies of the relevant legal bodies such as the General Assembly of the United Nations, the European Court of Human Rights and the Supreme Court concerning these issues. It also points to the nature and real impact of international civil society forces such as Yogyakarta principles that formulate extension of rights concerning lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transsexuals. On the basis of comparison of various legal and religious discourses it explains current practices of direct and indirect discrimination and in some non-European national systems even extra-judicial killings, torture and ill-treatment, sexual assault, rape and other violations of human rights. When emphasizing substantial differences among current European states and non-European ones concerning policies toward lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people (LGBT, it shows current tendencies of advancement in the field by common policies of Council of Europe, recent judgments issued by the European Court of Human Rights as well as civil society efforts such as Yogyakarta principles. Swedish standards have been introduced in order to emphasize existing progressive attitudes to LGBT people concerning gay marriages and adoption procedures.
Where Public Health Meets Human Rights: Integrating Human Rights into the Validation of the Elimination of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV and Syphilis.
Kismödi, Eszter; Kiragu, Karusa; Sawicki, Olga; Smith, Sally; Brion, Sophie; Sharma, Aditi; Mworeko, Lilian; Iovita, Alexandrina
In 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) initiated a process for validation of the elimination of mother-to-child transmission (EMTCT) of HIV and syphilis by countries. For the first time in such a process for the validation of disease elimination, WHO introduced norms and approaches that are grounded in human rights, gender equality, and community engagement. This human rights-based validation process can serve as a key opportunity to enhance accountability for human rights protection by evaluating EMTCT programs against human rights norms and standards, including in relation to gender equality and by ensuring the provision of discrimination-free quality services. The rights-based validation process also involves the assessment of participation of affected communities in EMTCT program development, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation. It brings awareness to the types of human rights abuses and inequalities faced by women living with, at risk of, or affected by HIV and syphilis, and commits governments to eliminate those barriers. This process demonstrates the importance and feasibility of integrating human rights, gender, and community into key public health interventions in a manner that improves health outcomes, legitimizes the participation of affected communities, and advances the human rights of women living with HIV.
Towards new human rights in the age of neuroscience and neurotechnology.
Ienca, Marcello; Andorno, Roberto
Rapid advancements in human neuroscience and neurotechnology open unprecedented possibilities for accessing, collecting, sharing and manipulating information from the human brain. Such applications raise important challenges to human rights principles that need to be addressed to prevent unintended consequences. This paper assesses the implications of emerging neurotechnology applications in the context of the human rights framework and suggests that existing human rights may not be sufficient to respond to these emerging issues. After analysing the relationship between neuroscience and human rights, we identify four new rights that may become of great relevance in the coming decades: the right to cognitive liberty, the right to mental privacy, the right to mental integrity, and the right to psychological continuity.
Human rights literacy: Moving towards rights-based education and transformative action through understandings of dignity, equality and freedom
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Anne Becker
Full Text Available The twentieth century has been characterised by the proliferation of human rights in the discursive practices of the United Nations (Baxi, 1997. In this article, we explore the continual process of rights-based education towards transformative action, and an open and democratic society, as dependent upon the facilitation of human rights literacy in teacher training. Our theoretical framework examines the continual process of moving towards an open and democratic society through the facilitation of human rights literacy, rights-based education and transformative action. We focus specifically on understandings of dignity, equality and freedom, as both rights (legal claims and values (moral action across horizontal and vertical applications, considering the internalisation and implementation of dignity, equality and freedom towards transformative action. Our analysis of data stemming from a project funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF entitled 'Human Rights Literacy: A quest for meaning', brought student-teachers' understandings into conversation with the proposed theoretical framework. In terms of understandings related to dignity, equality and freedom, participants seemingly understand human rights either as legal interests, or alternatively, as they pertain to values such as caring, ubuntu, respect, human dignity and equality. Legal understandings primarily focus on the vertical application of the Bill of Rights (RSA, 1996a and the role of government in this regard, whereas understandings related to the realisation of values tended to focus on the horizontal applications of particularly dignity and equality as the product of the relation between self and other. We conclude the article by linking the analysis and the theoretical framework to education as a humanising practice within human rights as a common language of humanity. In so doing, we argue that human rights literacy and rights-based education transcend knowledge about human
Mapping Progress : Human Rights and International Students in Australia
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Andrew Jakubowicz
Full Text Available The rapid growth in international student numbers in Australia in the first decade of the 2000s was accompanied by a series of public crises. The most important of these was the outbreak in Melbourne Victoria and elsewhere of physical attacks on the students. Investigations at the time also pointed to cases of gross exploitation, an array of threats that severely compromised their human rights. This paper reviews and pursues the outcomes of a report prepared by the authors in 2010 for Universities Australia and the Human Rights Commission. The report reviewed social science research and proposed a series of priorities for human rights interventions that were part of the Human Rights Commission's considerations. New activity, following the innovation of having international students specifically considered by the Human Rights Commission, points to initiatives that have not fully addressed the wide range of questions at state.
Sexual Orientation, Human Rights, and Corporate Sponsorship of the Sochi Olympic Games: Rethinking the Voluntary Approach to Corporate Social Responsibility
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Jeffrey A Van Detta
Full Text Available Multi-national enterprises (MNEs have provided substantial sponsorship for the Sochi Winter Olympic Games despite a host-country government that has recently enacted stunningly harsh legislation aimed at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex (LGBTI communities within Russia. This is a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR problem. Should Europe address it through voluntary corporate compliance, Europe's historically preferred mode of promoting CSR? Or should Europe reconsider whether it can more effectively promote CSR compliance legislatively – and if so, by what kind of legislation? To honor the explicit and increased protections of human rights against sexual orientation discrimination in the Treaty of Amsterdam and the Charter of Fundamental Human Rights, more than voluntary, good intentions are needed. Particularly since the United States has effectively bowed out of enforcing CSR through the American federal courts, there now exists a regulatory lacuna that the European Commission is best situated to fill through the precision offered by judicious rulemaking. The article ultimately proposes an approach that combines the public-pressure engine that fuels voluntary CSR with public disclosures mandated by law to optimize the information and mobilization of public opinion and pressure – factors particularly noteworthy given the powerful "branding" benefits that MNEs seek through Olympic sponsorship.
Functional asymmetry between the left and right human fusiform gyrus explored through electrical brain stimulation.
Rangarajan, Vinitha; Parvizi, Josef
The ventral temporal cortex (VTC) contains several areas with selective responses to words, numbers, faces, and objects as demonstrated by numerous human and primate imaging and electrophysiological studies. Our recent work using electrocorticography (ECoG) confirmed the presence of face-selective neuronal populations in the human fusiform gyrus (FG) in patients implanted with intracranial electrodes in either the left or right hemisphere. Electrical brain stimulation (EBS) disrupted the conscious perception of faces only when it was delivered in the right, but not left, FG. In contrast to our previous findings, here we report both negative and positive EBS effects in right and left FG, respectively. The presence of right hemisphere language dominance in the first, and strong left-handedness and poor language processing performance in the second case, provide indirect clues about the functional architecture of the human VTC in relation to hemispheric asymmetries in language processing and handedness. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
The Society's Involvement in the Defense of Human Rights
Gerjuoy, Edward
The history of the Society's involvement in the defense of human rights, a history of which the Society can be proud, will be summarized; the summary will include illustrative specific APS human rights defense actions in illustrative specific cases. As will be emphasized, the aforesaid involvement has been primarily through the activities of the APS Committee on International Freedom of Scientists (CIFS). It is noteworthy-and one of the reasons the Society can be proud-that CIFS is charged with ``monitoring concerns regarding human rights for scientists,'' not solely for physicists, and that CIFS indeed has sought to protect the human rights of nonphysicists.
The Evolution of the Right of Individuals to Seise the European Court of Human Rights
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Kjeldgaard-Pedersen, Astrid
The year 2009 was a milestone for the European Court of Human Rights ("ECtHR" or "the Court") in at least two ways. On the bright side, the Court can celebrate its 50th anniversary and its continuous role as principal promoter of human rights in the now 47 Member States of the Council of Europe...... ("CoE" or "the Council"). However, 2009 was also the year in which the number of pending cases before the Court passed the disturbing 100,000 benchmark. Paradoxically, the main reason for both the Court's success and its current crisis is the right of petition of individuals. The present article...... contains a detailed inquiry into the coming into existence of this central feature of the control machinery of European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms ("ECHR" or "the Convention") that was labelled a breakthrough in the field of human rights as well as in general...
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Isabela, STANCEA
Full Text Available The detailed analysis of the institution of human rights and fundamental freedoms is necessary to know its role. The promotion of the human condition in the world leads to the innovative interpretation of this institution. The existence of so many international legal instruments aims towards a better protection of the human rights in contemporary society. The issue of human rights has occupied an important role within the states, human rights violations being a common concern, especially in the former communist states. The issue of human rights in Romania has emerged and developed very early. The changes made in Romania by the revolution of 22 December 1989 caused an intense process of amending the legislation in order to be correlated with the international standards. Within European states human rights observance has acquired great importance, a matter which will be emphasised in the future as well. The European Court of Human Rights ensures the guarantee of respecting human rights in Europe, having as legal instrument the European Convention on Human Rights.
Discourses of Roma Anti-Discrimination in Reports on Human Rights Violations
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Chloë Delcour
Full Text Available In an effort to understand the paradox between the expansion of inclusion projects for the Roma and their persisting exclusion, this article explores human rights practice in order to grasp the complexity of meanings of inclusion negotiated in this practice. In this way, we scrutinize whether there are limiting factors within the inclusionary discourse itself. Specifically, we analyze the discourse in transnational judicial, political and civil society actors' reports on violations of human rights against Roma. A strong shared tendency to frame the violations in terms of discrimination can be discerned in the reports, demonstrating a dominant concept in the human rights discourse for Roma. However, a framing analysis of the underlying assumptions of this concept shows that not all three actors offer the same solutions for obtaining non-discrimination, which can partly explain the limited impact of the ostensibly strong and inclusive anti-discrimination discourse. In contrast, the actors do share a negative attribution of responsibility to the nation states, but the effectiveness of this shared discursive claim can be questioned. This article illustrates how inclusion discourses are actually quite complex to grasp and so it substantiates the need for greater critical understanding of such discourses in further research.
Arguments for the Normative Validity of Human Rights. Philosophical Predecessors and Contemporary Criticisms of the 1789 French Declaration of Human and Civic Rights
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Esther Oluffa Pedersen
Full Text Available The paper highlights clashes between different conceptions of right, law and justice crystalizing in the French Declaration of Human and Civic Rights from 1789 and the criticisms it aroused. Hobbes' Leviathan (1651 and Rousseau's Social Contract (1762 are discussed as important predecessors. The philosophical conceptions of law, justice and right stated by Hobbes and Rousseau and in the Declaration will be discussed in connection with two seminal criticisms. By excluding women from politics, Olympe de Gouge objected, the Declaration contradicted the universal understanding of human rights. Jeremy Bentham protested against the Declaration's core idea of inalienable human rights.
The Shaky Legal Foundations of the Global Human Rights Education Project
Vlaardingerbroek, Barend
School students should be taught about the law and this includes rights education. The global human rights education (HRE) project focuses on universal human rights and has a strongly utopian orientation, drawing as it does on international declarations and principles of human rights law. International human rights law is, however, at best a…
Hegel's justification of the human right to non-domination
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Westphal Kenneth R.
Full Text Available 'Hegel' and 'human rights' are rarely conjoined, and the designation 'human rights' appears rarely in his works. Indeed, Hegel has been criticised for omitting civil and political rights all together. My surmise is that readers have looked for a modern Decalogue, and have neglected how Hegel justifies his views, and hence just what views he does justify. Philip Pettit (1997 has refocused attention on republican liberty. Hegel and I agree with Pettit that republican liberty is a supremely important value, but appealing to its value, or justifying it by appeal to reflective equilibrium, are insufficient both in theory and in practice. By reconstructing Kant's Critical methodology and explicating the social character of rational justification in non-formal domains, Hegel shows that the republican right to non-domination is constitutive of the equally republican right to justification (Forst 2007 - both of which are necessary requirements for sufficient rational justification in all non-formal domains, including both claims to rights or imputations of duties or responsibilities. That is the direct moral, political and juridical implication of Hegel's analysis of mutual recognition, and its fundamental, constitutive role in rational justification. Specific corollaries to the fundamental republican right to non-domination must be determined by considering what forms of illicit domination are possible or probable within any specific society, in view of its social, political and economic structures and functioning.
Human Rights Education: The Promise of the Third Millennium?
Baxi, Upendra
The 20th century could be characterized as the "Age of Rights." Never before has there been such progress and interest in human rights standards. To ensure this progress, human rights education (HRE) needs to look at the world history of the struggles for rights and against tyranny and injustice. The notions of HRE originated in the text…
Reconciling female genital circumcision with universal human rights.
Gordon, John-Stewart
One of the most challenging issues in cross-cultural bioethics concerns the long-standing socio-cultural practice of female genital circumcision (FGC), which is prevalent in many African countries and the Middle East as well as in some Asian and Western countries. It is commonly assumed that FGC, in all its versions, constitutes a gross violation of the universal human rights of health, physical integrity, and individual autonomy and hence should be abolished. This article, however, suggests a mediating approach according to which one form of FGC, the removal of the clitoris foreskin, can be made compatible with the high demands of universal human rights. The argument presupposes the idea that human rights are not absolutist by nature but can be framed in a meaningful, culturally sensitive way. It proposes important limiting conditions that must be met for the practice of FGC to be considered in accordance with the human rights agenda. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Profiles of four women. Health and human rights activists.
Reiner, L; Sollom, R
This article briefly profiles four women physicians working for health and human rights around the world. Dr. Ruchama Marton, an Israeli psychiatrist and activist for peace in the Middle East, is a founder of Physicians for Human Rights/Israel. Dr. Jane Green Schaller is a US pediatrician whose 1985 trip to South Africa initiated her human rights involvement, which includes the founding of Physicians for Human Rights. Dr. Judith van Heerden, a primary care physician in South Africa, has worked for reform of prison health care, to establish hospice care, and, most recently, for acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) education for medical students. Dr. Ma Thida, the only physician not interviewed for this article, is currently held in a Burmese prison because of her work on behalf of the National League for Democracy. The profiles suggest the breadth of human rights work worldwide and are a testament to what physicians can do.
Assessing human rights impacts in corporate development projects
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Salcito, Kendyl, E-mail: email@example.com [Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, P.O. Box, CH-4002 Basel (Switzerland); University of Basel, P.O. Box, CH-4003 Basel (Switzerland); NomoGaia, 1900 Wazee Street, Suite 303, Denver, CO 80202 (United States); NewFields, LLC, Denver, CO 80202 (United States); Utzinger, Jürg, E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com [Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, P.O. Box, CH-4002 Basel (Switzerland); University of Basel, P.O. Box, CH-4003 Basel (Switzerland); Weiss, Mitchell G., E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com [Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, P.O. Box, CH-4002 Basel (Switzerland); University of Basel, P.O. Box, CH-4003 Basel (Switzerland); Münch, Anna K., E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com [Emerging Pathogens Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32610 (United States); Singer, Burton H., E-mail: email@example.com [Emerging Pathogens Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32610 (United States); Krieger, Gary R., E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com [NewFields, LLC, Denver, CO 80202 (United States); Wielga, Mark, E-mail: email@example.com [NomoGaia, 1900 Wazee Street, Suite 303, Denver, CO 80202 (United States); NewFields, LLC, Denver, CO 80202 (United States)
Human rights impact assessment (HRIA) is a process for systematically identifying, predicting and responding to the potential impact on human rights of a business operation, capital project, government policy or trade agreement. Traditionally, it has been conducted as a desktop exercise to predict the effects of trade agreements and government policies on individuals and communities. In line with a growing call for multinational corporations to ensure they do not violate human rights in their activities, HRIA is increasingly incorporated into the standard suite of corporate development project impact assessments. In this context, the policy world's non-structured, desk-based approaches to HRIA are insufficient. Although a number of corporations have commissioned and conducted HRIA, no broadly accepted and validated assessment tool is currently available. The lack of standardisation has complicated efforts to evaluate the effectiveness of HRIA as a risk mitigation tool, and has caused confusion in the corporate world regarding company duties. Hence, clarification is needed. The objectives of this paper are (i) to describe an HRIA methodology, (ii) to provide a rationale for its components and design, and (iii) to illustrate implementation of HRIA using the methodology in two selected corporate development projects—a uranium mine in Malawi and a tree farm in Tanzania. We found that as a prognostic tool, HRIA could examine potential positive and negative human rights impacts and provide effective recommendations for mitigation. However, longer-term monitoring revealed that recommendations were unevenly implemented, dependent on market conditions and personnel movements. This instability in the approach to human rights suggests a need for on-going monitoring and surveillance. -- Highlights: • We developed a novel methodology for corporate human rights impact assessment. • We piloted the methodology on two corporate projects—a mine and a plantation. �
Assessing human rights impacts in corporate development projects
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Salcito, Kendyl; Utzinger, Jürg; Weiss, Mitchell G.; Münch, Anna K.; Singer, Burton H.; Krieger, Gary R.; Wielga, Mark
Human rights impact assessment (HRIA) is a process for systematically identifying, predicting and responding to the potential impact on human rights of a business operation, capital project, government policy or trade agreement. Traditionally, it has been conducted as a desktop exercise to predict the effects of trade agreements and government policies on individuals and communities. In line with a growing call for multinational corporations to ensure they do not violate human rights in their activities, HRIA is increasingly incorporated into the standard suite of corporate development project impact assessments. In this context, the policy world's non-structured, desk-based approaches to HRIA are insufficient. Although a number of corporations have commissioned and conducted HRIA, no broadly accepted and validated assessment tool is currently available. The lack of standardisation has complicated efforts to evaluate the effectiveness of HRIA as a risk mitigation tool, and has caused confusion in the corporate world regarding company duties. Hence, clarification is needed. The objectives of this paper are (i) to describe an HRIA methodology, (ii) to provide a rationale for its components and design, and (iii) to illustrate implementation of HRIA using the methodology in two selected corporate development projects—a uranium mine in Malawi and a tree farm in Tanzania. We found that as a prognostic tool, HRIA could examine potential positive and negative human rights impacts and provide effective recommendations for mitigation. However, longer-term monitoring revealed that recommendations were unevenly implemented, dependent on market conditions and personnel movements. This instability in the approach to human rights suggests a need for on-going monitoring and surveillance. -- Highlights: • We developed a novel methodology for corporate human rights impact assessment. • We piloted the methodology on two corporate projects—a mine and a plantation. • Human
Lozano, Marina; Estalrrich, Almudena; Bondioli, Luca; Fiore, Ivana; Bermúdez de Castro, José-Maria; Arsuaga, Juan Luis; Carbonell, Eudald; Rosas, Antonio; Frayer, David W
Fossil hominids often processed material held between their upper and lower teeth. Pulling with one hand and cutting with the other, they occasionally left impact cut marks on the lip (labial) surface of their incisors and canines. From these actions, it possible to determine the dominant hand used. The frequency of these oblique striations in an array of fossil hominins documents the typically modern pattern of 9 right- to 1 left-hander. This ratio among living Homo sapiens differs from that among chimpanzees and bonobos and more distant primate relatives. Together, all studies of living people affirm that dominant right-handedness is a uniquely modern human trait. The same pattern extends deep into our past. Thus far, the majority of inferred right-handed fossils come from Europe, but a single maxilla from a Homo habilis, OH-65, shows a predominance of right oblique scratches, thus extending right-handedness into the early Pleistocene of Africa. Other studies show right-handedness in more recent African, Chinese, and Levantine fossils, but the sample compiled for non-European fossil specimens remains small. Fossil specimens from Sima del los Huesos and a variety of European Neandertal sites are predominately right-handed. We argue the 9:1 handedness ratio in Neandertals and the earlier inhabitants of Europe constitutes evidence for a modern pattern of handedness well before the appearance of modern Homo sapiens. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Documenting human rights violations against sex workers in Kenya.
Lukera, MaryFrances
The human rights of sex workers are an increasing concern for prominent women's rights organizations such as the Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA). As FIDA-Kenya's MaryFrances Lukera writes, documenting human rights abuses against sex workers is critical to responding to Kenya's HIV epidemic.
Human rights and intellectual disabilities in an era of 'choice'.
Fyson, R; Cromby, J
Efforts to uphold and promote the human rights of people with intellectual disabilities (ID) are being affected by the increasing emphasis on 'choice' in the delivery of social care services. While rights presume subjects or selves to whom they apply, there is a disconnect between the subjects presumed within human rights frameworks and the variable capacities of a heterogeneous ID population. This disconnect is amplified by choice discourses which characterise current service provision based upon neoliberal ideologies. Conceptual assumptions and theoretical positions associated with human rights in relation to people with ID are critically examined. The analysis results in an argument that current conceptualisations of personhood in relation to human rights exclude people with ID. The adverse effects of this exclusion are exacerbated within services which emphasise the permissive rights associated with a neoliberal agenda of 'choice' over protective rights. In order to ensure that the human rights of people with ID are upheld, neoliberal emphases on choice need to be tempered and a more nuanced and inclusive notion of personhood in relation to universal human rights needs to be adopted. © 2012 The Authors. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research © 2012 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, MENCAP & IASSID.
Integrating People with Disabilities: Their Right--Our Responsibility
Isaac, Rebecca; Raja, B. William Dharma; Ravanan, M. P.
A full understanding of disability recognizes that it has a powerful human rights dimension and is often associated with social exclusion, and increased exposure and vulnerability to poverty. Disability is a human rights issue. The World Bank (1999) report points out that one in five of the world's poorest are disabled, for whom access to basic…
Mainstreaming Human Rights Education: What's Radical About That?
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Rosemary Ann Blanchard
Full Text Available One of the most radical ways of teaching about universal human rights and international humanitarian law would be to teach about these fundamental internationally-recognized standards for humane interpersonal conduct to every child who enters school in the United States. American illiteracy about human rights and humanitarian law standards contributes to the climate in which the United States preaches human rights to it's perceived opponents while refusing to apply universally recognized hr and ihl principles to itself. From the failure to incorporate into the American educational structure the cultural and linguistic rights of Indigenous peoples and ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities to the refusal to submit to the same standards of international humanitarian law which apply to all combatants, U.S. political and military leaders have been able to rely on the unfamiliarity of most Americans with the fundamental principles of human rights and international humanitarian law to insulate them from effective public scrutiny and meaningful challenge. This article describes efforts to mainstream human rights education at all levels of public education so it becomes a part of the educational experience of every child and, thus, part of the background of every adult. The risks of having HRE co-opted are dwarfed by the risks of having HRE sidelined.
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Leticia Carranza-Peña
Full Text Available This qualitative research article presents the relationship between human rights and peace in high school. The importance of the study centers on human relations as expressed through the language and behavior of teachers and students during daily coexistence at school. The materials used (stationery and technological supports were those needed for academic classroom work. The process was based on ethnography for peace, stemming from observation and structured interviews; the results show the nuances that oscillate between the presence and absence of human rights and peace, since peaceful practices exist, but so do violent ones that hamper healthy coexistence. The conclusions point to the establishment of transversal school projects to bring about respect for human rights, in order to foster a peaceful atmosphere in school through the collective.
Militarization, human rights violations and community responses as determinants of health in southeastern Myanmar: results of a cluster survey.
Davis, William W; Mullany, Luke C; Schissler, Matt; Albert, Saw; Beyrer, Chris
The Myanmar army and ethnic armed groups agreed to a preliminary ceasefire in 2012, but a heavy military presence remains in southeastern Myanmar. Qualitative data suggested this militarization can result in human rights abuses in the absence of armed engagements between the parties, and that rural ethnic civilians use a variety of self-protection strategies to avoid these abuses or reduce their negative impacts. We used data from a household survey to determine prevalence of select self-protection activities and to examine exposure to armed groups, human rights violations and self-protection activities as determinants of health in southeastern Myanmar. Data collected from 463 households via a two-stage cluster survey of conflict-affected areas in eastern Myanmar in January 2012, were analyzed using logistic regression models to identify associations between exposure to state and non-state armed groups, village self-protection, human rights abuses and health outcomes. Close proximity to a military base was associated with human rights abuses (PRR 1.30, 95 % CI: 1.14-1.48), inadequate food production (PRR 1.08, 95 % CI: 1.03-1.13), inability to access health care (PRR 1.29, 95 % CI: 1.04-1.60) and diarrhea (PRR 1.15, 95 % CI: 1.05-1.27. Direct exposure to armed groups was associated with household hunger (PRR1.71, 95 % CI: 1.30-2.23). Among households that reported no human rights abuses, risk of household hunger (PRR 5.64, 95 % CI: 1.88-16.91), inadequate food production (PRR 1.95, 95 % CI: 1.11-3.41) and diarrhea (PRR 2.53, 95 % CI: 1.45-4.42) increased when neighbors' households reported experiencing human rights abuses. Households in villages that reported negotiating with the Myanmar army had lower risk of human rights violations (PRR 0.91, 95 % CI: 0.85-0.98), household hunger (PRR 0.85, 95 % CI: 0.74-0.96), inadequate food production (PRR 0.93, 95 % CI:0.89-0.98) and diarrhea (PRR 0.89, 95 % CI:0.82-0.97). Stratified analysis suggests that self
Freedom of the Press In the Scope of Human Rights
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Sri Ayu Astuti
Full Text Available Freedom of expression and press freedom is the embodiment of the recognition of human rights. Freedom of expression is also the existence of press to disclose the news with honesty and do not get a pressure to deliver the news to the public space, which in news production is known as a work of journalism. Now the press has gained freedom of expression in the news production process which is guaranteed in the state constitution. Although Article 28 of the Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia 1945 does not point directly at the press, However, Article 28 F emphasis on processing and storage as well as ownership, excavations to information. It also contains provisions on the freedom of expression of others, which should be valued and respected. It shows equality for everyone in his position before the law in accordance with Article 27 1945 Constitution, which emphasizes the recognition of constitutional rights that belong to every person in the state of law in the Republic of Indonesia. Thus the press, which have freedom of expression in the writings of journalistic works are required to be responsible for the published news. So as not to face the legal issues and criminalization, then press should perform tasks and functions to enforce ethics as the precautionary principle when processing the news and broadcast it to the public space, as well as upholding human rights. How To Cite: Astuti, S. (2014. Freedom of the Press In the Scope of Human Rights. Rechtsidee, 1(1, 101-118. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.21070/jihr.v1i1.96
Tensions and Dilemmas about Education in Human Rights in Democracy.
Magendzo, Abraham
Asserts that incorporating human rights issues into the curriculum causes tensions, especially in nations with histories of military dictatorships. Describes human rights education in Chile and other Latin American nations. Discusses whether human rights should be a separate curriculum subject or integrated into all courses. (CFR)
Logical Relation of Human Rights and Religion
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Mohammad Hossein Talebi
Full Text Available Before establishing any kind of rights for human being, the man should be first known. The best approach to know human being is to utilize the knowledge and teachings that God has given us as the Creator of man. He knows better than anyone else the man whom He has created. This article tries to show that the Man who has (human rights is not that human being as we are used to know him by popular experimental view, but is an existent that is constantly moving on the path of absolute perfection with the aim of achieving the status of the perfect man. To prove this, at this writing, first the concept of right has been studied with an epistemological and ontological look, and look then the concepts of human and religion will be considered.and investigated. Finally, different kinds of the rights of right owners, which one of these rights is human rights, are discussed. Human rights are those rights that belong to every individual because he/she is a human being. -free framework, which has constituted the basis of mainstream conceptions of Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Criticizing the deontological view, this article defends the teleological approach toward the universality of human rights, based on contemporary philosophical hermeneutics specially Paul Ricoeur's outlook. I argue that this approach can provide the philosophical requirements for interaction between the universality of human rights on one hand and the cultural and local contents of various societies on the other hand and offers a "thick" conception of human rights principles. قبل از اثبات هر نوع حق برای بشر باید ابتدا بشر را شناخت. بهترین شیوه شناسایی بشر استفاده از معارفی است که خدای متعال به عنوان خالق بشر در اختیار ما قرار داده است. او بهتر از هرکس بشری را که ساخته است میشناسد. این مقاله درصدد �
Human Rights Education: Imaginative Possibilities for Creating Change
Bajaj, Monisha
Background/Context: Human rights education has proliferated in the past four decades and can be found in policy discussions, textbook reforms, and grassroots initiatives across the globe. This article specifically explores the role of creativity and imagination in human rights education (HRE) by focusing on a case study of one non-governmental…
A Narratable Self as Addressed by Human Rights
Adami, Rebecca
The paper extends the critique in earlier research of human rights as exclusive of otherness and difference by introducing the work of Adriana Cavarero (2000) on a "narratable self." Hence, the formation of human rights is thus about the relations between different narratable selves, not just Western ones. A narrative learning, drawing…
Human Rights and History Education: An Australian Study
Burridge Nina; Buchanan, John; Chodkiewicz, Andrew
The place of education for and about human rights within the school curriculum remains contested and this paper reports on the first national cross-sectoral investigation of its place in Australian curricula and more specifically in national and state History curriculum documents. Opportunities for the inclusion of human rights based studies were…
Working together for health and human rights.
Sidel, V W
The right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being is being denied to vast numbers of people all over the world through increasing disparities in income and in wealth. In the name of economic development, a number of international and national policies have increased the grossly uneven distribution of income, with ever-growing numbers of people living in poverty as well as in increasing depths of poverty. Globalization, crippling levels of external debt, and the 'structural adjustment' policies of international agencies have expanded the numbers and the suffering of people living in poverty and have resulted in the neglect of government-funded social programs, of regulations protecting the environment, and of human development. Access to medical care, an essential element in the protection of health, is difficult for many, including the 44 million people in the United States who lack insurance coverage for the cost of medical care services. Working together for health and human rights also requires promotion of the right to peace. The right to life and health is threatened not only by the existence and active deployment of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and anti-personnel landmines, but also other weapons. The twentieth century has been the bloodiest in human history, with an estimated 250 wars, more than 110 million people killed, countless people wounded and at the least 50 million refugees. Health workers must work together with people in our communities for the promotion of health and human rights, which, in Sandwell and elsewhere, are inextricably intertwined.
Discrimination against women and the human rights of women
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Žunić Natalija
Full Text Available This paper investigates the concept of the human rights of women and its connection with the phenomenon and the instances of discrimination against women. Discrimination against women, its social visibility and the fight against it, within the idea of the rights and the equality of women, are a source of many theoretical debates. Academic discussions and a powerful influence of the women's movement have brought about the establishment and the exercise of the human rights of women at different levels of the public and the private spheres of society, as a substantial part of the universal regime of human rights.
Putting a Face to a Name: Visualising Human Rights
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Vera Mackie
Full Text Available In this essay, I focus on a text which attempts to deal with human rights issues in an accessible media format, Kälin, Müller and Wyttenbach's book, The Face of Human Rights. I am interested in this text as an attempt to translate between different modes of communicating about human rights, which we might call the academic mode, the bureaucratic mode, the activist mode and the popular media mode. There are significant gaps between the academic debates on human rights, the actual language and protocols of the bodies devoted to ensuring the achievement of basic human rights, the language of activists, and the ways in which these issues are discussed in the media. These issues are compounded in a transnational frame where people must find ways of communicating across differences of language and culture. These problems of communicating across difference are inherent to the contemporary machinery of the international human rights system, where global institutions of governance are implicated in the claims of individuals who are located in diverse national contexts. Several commentators have noted the importance of narrative in human rights advocacy, while others have explored the role of art. I am interested in analysing narrative and representational strategies, from a consciousness that texts work not only through vocabulary and propositional content, but also through discursive positioning. It is necessary to look at the structure of texts, the contents of texts, and the narrative strategies and discursive frameworks which inform them. Similar points can be made about photography, which must be analysed in terms of the specific representational possibilities of visual culture.
Human rights and conventionality control in Mexico
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Azul América Aguiar-Aguilar
Full Text Available The protection of human rights in Mexico has, de jure, suffered an important change in the last years, given a new judicial interpretation delivered by the National Supreme Court of Justice that allows the use of conventionality control, which means, that it allows federal and state judges to verify the conformity of domestic laws with those established in the Inter-American Convention of Human Rights. To what extent domestic actors are protecting human rights using this new legal tool called conventionality control? In this article I explore whom and how is conventionality control being used in Mexico. Using N-Vivo Software I reviewed concluded decisions delivered by intermediate level courts (Collegiate Circuit Courts in three Mexican states. The evidence points that conventionality control is a very useful tool especially to defenders, who appear in sentences claiming compliance with the commitments Mexico has acquired when this country ratified the Convention.
Building Human Rights, Peace and Development within the United Nations
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Christian Guillermet Fernández
Full Text Available War and peace have perpetually alternated in history. Consequently, peace has always been seen as an endless project, even a dream, to be in brotherhood realized by everyone across the earth. Since the XVII century the elimination of war and armed conflict has been a political and humanitarian objective of all nations in the world. Both the League of Nations and the United Nations were conceived with the spirit of eliminating the risk of war through the promotion of peace, cooperation and solidarity among Nations. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the subsequent human rights instruments were drafted with a sincere aspiration of promoting the value of peace and human rights worldwide. International practice shows the close linkage between the disregard of human rights and the existence of war and armed conflict. It follows that the role of human rights in the prevention of war and armed conflict is very important. Since 2008 the Human Rights Council has been working on the 'Promotion of the Right of Peoples to Peace.' Pursuant resolutions 20/15 and 23/16 the Council decided firstly to establish, and secondly to extend the mandate of the Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG aimed at progressively negotiating a draft United Nations declaration on the right to peace. The OEGW welcomed in its second session (July 2014 the approach of the Chairperson-Rapporteur, which is basically based on the relationship between the right to life and human rights, peace and development.
Human rights and correctional health policy: a view from Europe.
Rogan, Mary
Purpose Correctional healthcare should promote the protection of human rights. The purpose of this paper is to bring a discussion of human rights into debates on how such policy should be best organized. Design/methodology/approach The paper achieves its aim by providing an analysis of European prison law and policy in the area of prison health, through assessing decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, as well as policies created by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture. Findings The paper describes the position of the European Court of Human Rights on the topics of access to healthcare, ill health and release from prison, mental illness in prison, and the duty to provide rehabilitative programming for those seeking to reduce their level of "risk." It also argues that human rights law can be a source of practical reform, and that legal frameworks have much to offer healthcare leaders seeking to uphold the dignity of those in their care. Originality/value This paper will provide a rare example of the engagement of human rights law with correctional health policy. It provides practical recommendations arising out of an analysis of European human rights law in the area of prisons.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights: 40th Anniversary.
Adams, Juanita, Ed.
December 10, 1988, marks the 40th anniversary of the adoption by the United Nations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration represents the first comprehensive, global statement on basic human rights, embracing many of the values long held by U.S. citizens; and it urges all peoples and all nations to promote respect for the…
Teaching "Islam and Human Rights" in the Classroom
Muedini, Fait A.
This article discusses my approach to teaching a course on Islam and human rights. I begin by examining the attention Islam has received in the media and classroom. Then, I discuss how I structure lectures on Islam and human rights, the various readings associated with the lectures, as well as common themes discussed in class that include but are…
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Full Text Available In our country existed and exists still a constant concern to respect and guarantee human rights and fundamental freedoms, especially after 1989, when Romania became a member or acceding to international or regional treaties and conventions enshrining such rights. Taking into consideration the importance of respecting human rights, we consider that is necessary to research how they are secured in Romania, because only when these guarantees are known by their beneficiaries and those involved in their protection, actions which affect these values of humanity can be avoided. In human rights, rules of international law have priority over those entered in the domestic law if they contain provisions which may be interpreted differently on the same matter, unless the Constitution or national laws contain more favourable provisions.
A Collaborative Media Production Project on Human Rights: Bridging Everyday and Media Education
Haydari, Nazan; Kara, Mustafa
Given the importance of media institutions and universities as spaces of knowledge productions, development of "critical media pedagogy" becomes crucial for the establishment of a responsible and ethical media environment. Drawing from the collaborative project of The First Step into Human Rights: I do not do it!--A Short Film Project on…
A potential Human Rights Act in Queensland and inclusion of the right to health.
Brolan, Claire E; Herron, Lisa; Carney, Anna; Fritz, Eva M; James, Judy; Margetts, Miranda
To identify the level of public support for a Human Rights Act for Queensland (HRAQ) and for inclusion of the right to health by participants in a public inquiry process. We reviewed the 492 written submissions to the Legal Affairs and Community Safety Committee's Inquiry into a potential HRAQ and the transcripts documenting the public hearings held by the Committee in 2016. A total of 465 written submissions were analysed; 419 (90%) were for a HRAQ. More than 80% of the 'for' submissions advocated the right to health's inclusion. At the seven public hearings, 72 persons made verbal submissions and most supported a HRAQ. Five major themes were identified in our synthesis of the public hearing transcripts. Three related specifically to health and human rights: 1) the need to consider the holistic health and human rights of Indigenous Queenslanders and Indigenous Queensland communities; 2) instilling a human rights culture in Queensland; and 3) access to health care and the underlying determinants of health. The other two themes related to the conduct of the Inquiry: 4) the importance of community participation in developing a HRAQ; and 5) concerns about the public consultation processes. This study found strong support in the majority of submissions for the Queensland Parliament to draft and enact a HRAQ, and for the inclusion of the right to health in such legislation. Implications for public health: The Queensland Parliament's enactment of a HRAQ that expressly included the right to health would increase the accountability and transparency of government health (and related) decision making and resource allocation, and would better identify and address health inequities across the state. This Act is imperative for improving the health and wellbeing of all Queenslanders, particularly rural and remote and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Queenslanders. © 2017 The Authors.
Human Rights in Sino-American Relations
National Research Council Canada - National Science Library
Day, Jana
.... Key among these has been human rights, which both countries view differently. Whereas the United States emphasizes individual civil and political liberties, the People's Republic of China (PRC...
Interdependence, Human Rights and Global Health Law.
Viens, A M
The connection between health and human rights continues to play a prominent role within global health law. In particular, a number of theorists rely on the claim that there is a relation of interdependence between health and human rights. The nature and extent of this relation, however, is rarely defined, developed or defended in a conceptually robust way. This paper seeks to explore the source, scope and strength of this putative relation and what role it might play in developing a global health law framework.
Human rights and democracy in a global context: decoupling and recoupling
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Samantha Besson
Full Text Available Human rights and democracy have been regarded as a mutually reinforcing couple by many political theorists to date. The internationalisation of human rights post-1945 is often said to have severed those links, however. Accounting for the legitimacy of international human rights requires exploring how human rights and democracy, once they have been decoupled or disconnected, can be recoupled or reunited across governance levels (vertically and maybe even at the same governance level (horizontally albeit beyond the state. The article does so in three steps. The first prong of the argument is dedicated to presenting the moral-political nature of human rights and their relationship to political equality and, hence, their inherent legal nature from a democratic theory perspective. The second section of the article then draws some implications for the domestic or international levels of legal recognition and specification of human rights by reference to their legitimation within the domestic democratic community. It explains the mutual relationship between human rights and citizens' rights and where international human rights draw their democratic legitimacy from. In the third and final section, the author discusses potential changes in the nature and legitimacy of international human rights once political structures beyond the state become more democratic, and human rights and democracy are being recoupled again at various levels of governance. The European Union being one of the most advanced examples of post-national political integration, recent developments in the regime of human rights protection within the EU are discussed in this new light. In a final step, the transposition to the global level of the argument developed in the European case is assessed and the author flags issues for further research on what democratic theorists should hope for in the new global order.
Medical humanitarianism, human rights and political advocacy: the case of the Israeli Open Clinic.
Gottlieb, Nora; Filc, Dani; Davidovitch, Nadav
In the context of neo-liberal retrenchments humanitarian NGOs have become alternative healthcare providers that partially fill the vacuum left by the welfare state's withdrawal from the provision of services to migrants and other marginalized populations. In many cases they thus help to build legitimacy for the state's retreat from social responsibilities. Human rights organizations play an important role in advocating for migrants' rights, but in many cases they represent a legalistic and individualized conceptualization of the right to health that limits their claims for social justice. This paper analyzes the interactions and tensions between the discourses of medical humanitarianism, human rights and political advocacy using the example of an "Open Clinic" run by an Israeli human rights organization as a case-study: In 2007 dramatically increasing patient numbers provoked an intense internal debate concerning the proposal to temporarily close the "Open Clinic" in order to press the government to take action. Based on protocols from internal meetings and parliamentary hearings and in-depth interviews, we have analyzed divergent contextualizations of the Clinic's closure. These reflect conflicting notions regarding the Clinic's variegated spectrum of roles--humanitarian, political, legitimizing, symbolic, empowering and organizational--and underlying conceptualizations of migrants' "deservingness". Our case-study thus helps to illuminate NGOs' role in the realm of migrant healthcare and points out options for a possible fruitful relationship between the divergent paradigms of medical humanitarianism, human rights and political advocacy. Copyright © 2011. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
The Human Right to Access Electricity
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Tully, Stephen
Electricity access is already well established within the framework of human rights, either as an implicit attribute of a pre-existing right (such as non-discrimination or sustainable development) or explicitly in the context of eliminating discrimination against women. There is also broad acknowledgement by states of the desirability of eliminating energy poverty - for all, but particularly for the rural poor, and women. (author)
Human rights advances in women's reproductive health in Africa.
Ngwena, Charles G; Brookman-Amissah, Eunice; Skuster, Patty
The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights recently adopted General Comment No 2 to interpret provisions of Article 14 of the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights Women. The provisions relate to women's rights to fertility control, contraception, family planning, information and education, and abortion. The present article highlights the General Comment's potential to promote women's sexual and reproductive rights in multiple ways. The General Comment's human rights value goes beyond providing states with guidance for framing their domestic laws, practices, and policies to comply with treaty obligations. General Comment No 2 is invaluable in educating all stakeholders-including healthcare providers, lawyers, policymakers, and judicial officers at the domestic level-about pertinent jurisprudence. Civil society and human rights advocates can use the General Comment to render the state accountable for failure to implement its treaty obligations. Copyright © 2015 International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
[Ethics, inequality, poverty and human rights in psychiatry].
Pérez De Nucci, Armando M
This article aims to show the existence of important failures in the field of Human Rights and equal possibilities in health. Human rights are analyzed an developed in the field of public and social health in our country. Ethics is the main field proposed to reach solutions in the context on EPEP (Etica para la erradicación de la pobreza).
Human rights on the thin red line between universality and relativity
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Avramović Dragutin
Full Text Available Human rights represent an open legal and political concept with a very wide value variable. Academic discussions on human rights nature have mostly commenced after the World War II during the trend of human rights internationalization, reaching their climax after the Cold war. This paper examines actual theories on human rights, from those accepting them as universal, up to those marking another pole, favoring idea of absolute relativity of human rights. The author asserts that the most acceptable should be a middle solution, standing of moderate relativism or position of relative universalism of human rights. He claims that only a very limited circle of basic, 'substantial' human rights, having been accepted through an intercultural consensus, may pretend to be treated as universal. Out of that narrow sphere, there are many other human rights whose meaning and interpretation depend strongly upon concrete cultural context. The author points that in those cases it is important to respect a relativistic discourse and that the only solution should be explored within an intercultural and inter-civilizational dialogue, where non-western values should be equally treated as the western ones.
Human Rights-Based Approaches to Mental Health: A Review of Programs.
Porsdam Mann, Sebastian; Bradley, Valerie J; Sahakian, Barbara J
The incidence of human rights violations in mental health care across nations has been described as a "global emergency" and an "unresolved global crisis." The relationship between mental health and human rights is complex and bidirectional. Human rights violations can negatively impact mental health. Conversely, respecting human rights can improve mental health. This article reviews cases where an explicitly human rights-based approach was used in mental health care settings. Although the included studies did not exhibit a high level of methodological rigor, the qualitative information obtained was considered useful and informative for future studies. All studies reviewed suggest that human-rights based approaches can lead to clinical improvements at relatively low costs. Human rights-based approaches should be utilized for legal and moral reasons, since human rights are fundamental pillars of justice and civilization. The fact that such approaches can contribute to positive therapeutic outcomes and, potentially, cost savings, is additional reason for their implementation. However, the small sample size and lack of controlled, quantitative measures limit the strength of conclusions drawn from included studies. More objective, high quality research is needed to ascertain the true extent of benefits to service users and providers.
Towards Human Rights in South African Schools: An Agenda for Research and Practice.
Kruss, Glenda
Develops a taxonomy of four kinds of situations in which race and other grounds for discrimination become the focus of school-level controversy surrounding equality and equity. Examines the kinds of responses and discourses South African schools use to engage with the policy discourse of desegregation and human rights and establishes an agenda for…
Human rights and faith: a 'world-wide secular religion'?
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Henri Féron
Full Text Available While human rights are meant to represent a secular morality, there are surprising parallels to be drawn with religions. Perhaps most striking is the realization that human rights are actually based on faith, as was already recognized at the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This dependence on faith has deep implications for the way we understand and propagate them, because it puts rights in situations of epistemological stalemate vis-à-vis other cultural, religious, or ideological moral systems. This paper proposes to compare human rights doctrine to a religion to identify potential threats to its long-term credibility, and how to address them. In particular, it explains why coercive propagation of rights risks degenerating into a form of self-contradictory fundamentalism. Ultimately, the article argues for a return to the values of tolerance and mutual respect that rights actually stand for.
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Alexandre Marinho Pimenta
Full Text Available The theme of Human Rights is now consensual even in the counter-ideologies of the contemporary world. In support of mainly on theory and cultural criticism of slovenian Slavoj Zizek and the marxist theory, from a review of the literature, this article of exploratory nature, aims demonstrate how the Human Rights are today a liberal consensus and ideological very useful for capitalist hegemony of the post-cold war. Perceives the risk of advocating the theme of Human Rights as central to emancipatory education and training for it.
Human rights for women: battles of culture and power.
Poulsen, K
In Africa, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) focussing on human rights have mushroomed during the past 10-15 years, and, with several of these organizations run by and for women, it is possible to find free legal aid for women in almost every capital city. The collapse of the extended family and, thus, the framework for customary law has meant that women are faced with problems of maintenance and widows with problems of inheritance. Customary law and the protection it afforded women and children has also been weakened by a poverty-driven shift in urban areas from a focus on community support to a focus on individual survival. The vacuum left by this change in legal and social structure is being filled by the human rights NGOs. Paradoxically, in the face of such change, a static, communal, and neutral concept of "culture" was held out by African state representatives at the 1993 UN Conference on Human Rights to justify their opposition to the acceptance of the crosscultural legitimacy of human rights, especially for women. While these arguments were being aired at the Conference, African NGOs were vigorously using examples of the marginalization of women to promote the opposite view. The most important aspect of these conflicting views is which group has the most power and resources to voice its interpretation of the situation. With most African countries governed by a dual system of laws, customary law and common or civil law (left over from colonialism), human rights groups are working to instill human rights principles into common law through the ratification of international conventions. Thus, persons in need could be viewed not as victims but as individuals entitled to enforceable and universal rights. Misuse of the term "culture" can marginalize women even as it is being promoted as a protective device for women. A more useful view of culture is as something which transcends traditional boundaries and locates people and institutions in the global community
Chinese State-owned Enterprises and Human Rights
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Whelan, Glen; Muthuri, Judy N.
encouraging them to concentrate on only some human rights (i.e., economic, social, and cultural rights) within their national and intra-organizational environment. The article concludes by identifying a number of ways in which our conceptual framework and empirical findings can inform future research....
Big Brother's Little Helpers: The Right to Privacy and the Responsibility of Internet Service Providers
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Yael Ronen
Full Text Available Following the 2013 revelations on the extent of intelligence gathering through internet service providers, this article concerns the responsibility of internet service providers (ISPs involved in disclosure of personal data to government authorities under the right to privacy, by reference to the developing, non-binding standards applied to businesses under the Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework. The article examines the manner in which the Framework applies to ISPs and looks at measures that ISPs can take to fulfil their responsibility to respect the right to privacy. It utilizes the challenges to the right to privacy to discuss some aspects of the extension of human rights responsibilities to corporations. These include the respective roles of government and non-state actors, the extent to which corporations may be required to act proactively in order to protect the privacy of clients, and the relevance of transnational activity.
Introduction to Special Issue: The Human, Human Rights and DNA Identity Tests
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Vaisman, Noa
might these new ways of imagining the subject shape present and future human rights law and practice? The papers examine a variety of scientific technologies—personalized medicine and organ transplant, mitochondrial DNA replacement, and scaffolds and regenerative medicine—and their implications for our......This special issue examines the diverse realities created by the intersection of emerging technologies, new scientific knowledge, and the human being. It engages with two key questions: how is the human being shaped and constructed in new ways through advances in science and technology? and how...... conceptualization of the human subject. Each is then followed by a commentary that both brings to light new dimensions of the original paper and presents a new theoretical take on the topic. Together these papers offer a serious challenge to the vision of the human subject at the root of human rights law. Instead...
Specific features of human rights guaranteed by the Aarhus Convention
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Etinski Rodoljub
Full Text Available The Aarhus Convention legally articulates basic human needs to live in the environment adequate for human health and well-being and to engage in protection and improvement of the environment. It recognized and protected a general human right to adequate environment and three particular rights in environmental matters - to information, to public participation in decision-making and to justice. The Aarhus Convention introduced innovative approach to human rights protection in relation to transboundary issues and legal standing.
The Transformative Potential of Human Rights in Conflict Resolution
Parlevliet, M.; Fuentes Julio, C.; Drumond, P.
This chapter discusses the relevance of considering human rights in the context of conflict resolution interventions and processes, arguing that doing so can enhance the transformative potential of such efforts. It contends that incorporating a human rights perspective in our analysis of and
Reconciling Universality and Particularity through a Cosmopolitan Outlook on Human Rights
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Rebecca Adami
Full Text Available Human rights are today criticized as not compatible with different cultural values and the debate has circulated around Asian values and Islamic values as in dichotomy with human rights as universal ethics (Ignatieff, 2003. The theoretical dichotomy between universality and particularity is questioned pragmatically in this paper through a historical study. The working process of drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR in 1946-48, which included thousands of people, is explored as a cosmopolitan space in which individuals from different cultural contexts met to negotiate human rights through cultural narratives. The process where particular values were negotiated with universal notion on human rights resulted in a common proclamation (UDHR without a common philosophical or ideological ground. This paper puts forth a thesis that human rights discourse can work as a cosmopolitan space, in which particular value systems meet in processes characterized by conflict and cohesion. Hence human rights can be understood as a master narrative compatible with different conflicting cultural narratives (Gibson & Somers, 1994.
Climate change: The need for a human rights agenda within a framework of shared human security
Gasper, Des
textabstractThis edited volume publishes as a special issue of the quarterly social science journal Social Research, a collection of articles on Human Rights and the Global Economy. The topics addressed are Human Rights and Economy Policy; Global Poverty and the Obligations of Rich Countries; Human Rights, Climate Change and Global Justice; and Corporations and Human Rights Obligations. This issue contains the edited proceedings of the November 2011 conference at the New School, where experts...
Food Security and Human Rights in Indonesia
Hadiprayitno, I.
Food is crucial to an adequate standard of living. The acknowledgement of the right to food in government policies is fundamental to the protection of human dignity, particularly in relation to food insecurity. It allows the right-holder to seek redress and hold government accountable for
The Legal Framework Of Human Rights Crime As An Extraordinary Crime
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Dedy Siswadi
Full Text Available Abstract This research reviews the legal framework of human rights crime as an extraordinary crime as an approach in the settlement of criminal cases. The outcomes of the research indicate that modern human rights law developed out of customs and theories that established the rights of the individual in relation to the state. Disagreements regarding human rights violations which can only be done by the state and its agents or can also be done by non-government units still exist at the moment. As it turns out in practice however it has certain weaknesses particularly in legislation concerning serious crimes of human rights both as ius constituendum and ius constitutum still needs to be improved especially in the implementation of human rights on judiciary system. Therefore serious crimes against human rights are included as an extraordinary crime. The handling of the cases was incredible and special has become a logical consequence to be included as an extraordinary crime.
Public Participation in Times of Privatisation: A Human Rights Analysis
Temperman, Jeroen
markdownabstract__Abstract__ Privatisation may not only affect the enjoyment of the right to public participation itself, but might also impact other substantive rights. This article charts some of the ramifications of privatisation in relation to individual human rights as enshrined in international human rights conventions, with a particular focus on the impact privatisation has on the right to public participation. The right to public participation can be seen as both an example of a funda...
Human rights and access to AIDS treatment in Mozambique | Høg ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
This article explores key issues related to the agitation for human rights in Mozambique and its weak performance power. I define human rights in the context of HIV/AIDS as well as rights-based approaches to development and health. Based on fieldwork, I describe and analyse how human rights are received and applied in ...
75 FR 60567 - Blocking Property of Certain Persons With Respect to Serious Human Rights Abuses by the...
... Order 13553 of September 28, 2010 Blocking Property of Certain Persons With Respect to Serious Human Rights Abuses by the Government of Iran and Taking Certain Other Actions By the authority vested in me as..., or responsible for ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, the commission of serious human...
Human rights in patient care and public health-a common ground.
Peled-Raz, Maya
Medical law and public health law have both served extensively as instruments of health protection and promotion-yet both are limited in their effect and scope and do not sufficiently cover nor supply a remedy to systematic, rather than anecdotal, mistreatments in the health care system. A possible solution to this deficiency may be found in the human rights in patient care legal approach. The concept of human rights in patient care is a reframing of international human rights law, as well as constitutional thought and tools, into a coherent approach aimed at the protection and furthering of both personal and communal health. It applies human rights discourse and human rights law onto the patient care setting while moving away from the narrow consumeristic view of health care delivery. By applying human rights in patient care approach, both national and international courts may and should serve as policy influencing instruments, protecting the rights of the most vulnerable and prejudiced against groups, which are want of a remedy through traditional patients' rights legal schemes.
Corruption and Human Rights Law in Africa (2016 Hart Publishing, Oxford)
Willard T Mugadza
This contribution reviews the book by Kolawole Olaniyan on corruption and human rights law in Africa. The book, Corruption and Human Rights Law in Africa, provides a framework for complementarity between promoting and protecting human rights and combatting corruption in Africa.
Thinking About Education in Human Rights from an Ethical and Controversial Perspective
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Abraham Magendzo
Full Text Available This paper delves into the relationship between the education in human rights and ethics from a controversial perspective. It is a direction that seeks to help people become active and participatory citizens in a pluralistic democracy. Three fundamental ethical principles are analyzed, and they allow teaching human rights through controversy: Human rights: a global ethics of human rights; human rights: an ethical minimum; human rights and moral pluralism. This article proposes to relate human rights education with the critical-dialogical pedagogy. In this perspective are identified four critical inquiry tools that serve to develop different dimensions for a critical understanding in the social sphere: the approach of the problem, the reflexive skepticism, the multiperspectivity, and systemic thinking.
ISLAM AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN INDONESIA: An Account of Muslim Intellectuals' Views
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Ahmad Nur Fuad
Full Text Available The issue of Islam and human rights has become important issue in Indonesia at least since the last two decades. Indonesian Muslims have developed two different approaches to human rights: in complete agreement with the declaration of universal human rights; and in resistance to that declaration and developing understanding that Islam encompasses human rights values. The article argues for its part that human rights are not absolutely universal, because they are based chiefly on Western values, structures, ethics and morality. For that, it is reasonable to question their universality. The present article focuses on how Indonesian Muslim intellectuals conceive of human rights and Islamic values as they perceive the two. Specifically, it focuses on four principal issues in human rights discourse: freedom of opinion, religious freedoms, rights of women, and criminal law. The authors reveal in the conclusion that although some Indonesian Muslim intellectuals admit that universal human rights are truly universal, they still see differences in certain cases, due to differencesin socio-cultural background. They have tried to affect a synthesis between the universality and particularity of both Islamic and universal human rights in order to make both fit within the Indonesian context.
Pain management: a fundamental human right.
Brennan, Frank; Carr, Daniel B; Cousins, Michael
This article surveys worldwide medical, ethical, and legal trends and initiatives related to the concept of pain management as a human right. This concept recently gained momentum with the 2004 European Federation of International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) Chapters-, International Association for the Study of Pain- and World Health Organization-sponsored "Global Day Against Pain," where it was adopted as a central theme. We survey the scope of the problem of unrelieved pain in three areas, acute pain, chronic noncancer pain, and cancer pain, and outline the adverse physical and psychological effects and social and economic costs of untreated pain. Reasons for deficiencies in pain management include cultural, societal, religious, and political attitudes, including acceptance of torture. The biomedical model of disease, focused on pathophysiology rather than quality of life, reinforces entrenched attitudes that marginalize pain management as a priority. Strategies currently applied for improvement include framing pain management as an ethical issue; promoting pain management as a legal right, providing constitutional guarantees and statutory regulations that span negligence law, criminal law, and elder abuse; defining pain management as a fundamental human right, categorizing failure to provide pain management as professional misconduct, and issuing guidelines and standards of practice by professional bodies. The role of the World Health Organization is discussed, particularly with respect to opioid availability for pain management. We conclude that, because pain management is the subject of many initiatives within the disciplines of medicine, ethics and law, we are at an "inflection point" in which unreasonable failure to treat pain is viewed worldwide as poor medicine, unethical practice, and an abrogation of a fundamental human right.
Nonegalitarian Social Responsibility for Health: A Confucian Perspective on Article 14 of the UNESCO Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights.
Fan, Ruiping
This essay offers a Confucian evaluation of Article 14 of the UNESCO Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, with a focus given to its statement that "the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being." It indicates that "a right to health" contained in the statement is open to two different interpretations, one radically egalitarian, another a decent minimum. It shows that Confucianism has strong moral considerations to reject the radical egalitarian interpretation, and argues that a Confucian nonegalitarian health distribution ethics of differentiated and graded love and obligation can reasonably be supported with a right to the decent minimum of health at the international level.
Nonegalitarian Social Responsibility for Health: A Confucian Perspective on Article 14 of the UNESCO: Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights.
Fan, Ruiping
This essay offers a Confucian evaluation of Article 14 of the UNESCO Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, with a focus given to its statement that "the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being." It indicates that "a right to health" contained in the statement is open to two different interpretations, one radically egalitarian, another a decent minimum. It shows that Confucianism has strong moral considerations to reject the radical egalitarian interpretation, and argues that a Confucian nonegalitarian health distribution ethics of differentiated and graded love and obligation can reasonably be supported with a right to the decent minimum of health at the international level.
Economic Justice: Necessary Condition for Human Rights.
Cloud, Fred
Economic justice means taking the personhood of poor people into account; respecting their needs, personal ambitions, rights, and dignity; and affording equal opportunity and equal access to education, health care, housing, and jobs. Examples of injustice to minority groups are provided, citing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (SLD)
Palliative Care and Human Rights: A Decade of Evolution in Standards.
Ezer, Tamar; Lohman, Diederik; de Luca, Gabriela B
Human rights standards to address palliative care have developed over the last decade. This article aims to examine key milestones in the evolution of human rights standards to address palliative care, relevant advocacy efforts, and areas for further growth. The article provides an analysis of human rights standards in the context of palliative care through the lens of the right to health, freedom from torture and ill treatment, and the rights of older persons and children. Significant developments include the following: 1) the first human rights treaty to explicitly recognize the right to palliative care, the Inter-American Convention on the Rights of Older Persons; 2) the first World Health Assembly resolution on palliative care; 3) a report by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture with a focus on denial of pain treatment; 4) addressing the availability of controlled medicines at the UN General Assembly Special Session on the World Drug Problem. Development of human rights standards in relation to palliative care has been most notable in the context of the right to health, freedom from torture and ill treatment, and the rights of older persons. More work is needed in the context of the rights of children, and human rights treaty bodies are still not consistently addressing state obligations with regards to palliative care. Copyright © 2017 American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Translating the human right to water and sanitation into public policy reform.
Meier, Benjamin Mason; Kayser, Georgia Lyn; Kestenbaum, Jocelyn Getgen; Amjad, Urooj Quezon; Dalcanale, Fernanda; Bartram, Jamie
The development of a human right to water and sanitation under international law has created an imperative to implement human rights in water and sanitation policy. Through forty-three interviews with informants in international institutions, national governments, and non-governmental organizations, this research examines interpretations of this new human right in global governance, national policy, and local practice. Exploring obstacles to the implementation of rights-based water and sanitation policy, the authors analyze the limitations of translating international human rights into local water and sanitation practice, concluding that system operators, utilities, and management boards remain largely unaffected by the changing public policy landscape for human rights realization. To understand the relevance of human rights standards to water and sanitation practitioners, this article frames a research agenda to ensure that human rights aspirations lead to public policy reforms and public health outcomes.
The cultural dimension of economic activities in international human right jurisprudence
Donders, Y.; Vadi, V.; de Witte, B.
Cultural diversity and human rights are mutually linked: human rights protect and promote cultural diversity while cultural diversity also forms an important aspect of the enjoyment of human rights. Cultural diversity and the economy are also increasingly connected, for example through cultural
Macro- and Micro-Political Vernaculizations of Rights: Human Rights and Abortion Discourses in Northern Ireland.
Pierson, Claire; Bloomer, Fiona
How abortion is dealt with in law and policy is shaped through the multiple political and societal discourses on the issue within a particular society. Debate on abortion is constantly in flux, with progressive and regressive movements witnessed globally. This paper examines the translation of human rights norms into discourses on abortion in Northern Ireland, a region where abortion is highly restricted, with extensive contemporary public debate into potential liberalization of abortion law. This paper emanates from research examining political debates on abortion in Northern Ireland and contrasts findings with recent civil society developments, identifying competing narratives of human rights with regard to abortion at the macro- and micro-political level. The paper identifies the complexities of using human rights as a lobbying tool, and questions the utility of rights-based arguments in furthering abortion law reform. The paper concludes that a legalistic rights-based approach may have limited efficacy in creating a more nuanced debate and perspective on abortion in Northern Ireland but that it has particular resonance in arguing for limited reform in extreme cases.
On the Concept of Fundamental Human Right to Favourable Environment
Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database
Blahož, Josef
Roč. 150/1, č. 12/3 TLQ (2011), s. 170-180 ISSN 0231-6625 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z70680506 Keywords : European Court of Human Right * the human rights idea and the right to environment * constitutional law Subject RIV: AG - Legal Sciences
Religious Human Rights and Peace Interrelationship between Human Rights and Peace
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Carl Wellman
Full Text Available This paper assumes the author's conceptual analysis of rights as complexes of Hohfeldian positions that confer dominion on the right-holder in face of one or more second parties and his theory of moral reasons as essentially social dual-aspect practical reasons, both explained in previously published books. It analyses the international human right to have or adopt a religion or belief of one's choice and the international human right to manifest one's religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching as liberties of individual human beings protected by duties of non-interference and immunities from extinction holding against State Parties. It then identifies their moral grounds, the most important moral justifications for recognizing and maintaining these religious human rights in international law. It suggests that these are analogous moral religious human rights and some of the morally proper purposes of international law, including the promotion of international peace. It explains how the problematic human rights to change one's religion or belief and to proselytize one's religion or belief can be derived from the more basic human rights to have or adopt a religion or belief and to manifest one's religion or belief respectively. It examines the reasons that many deny these rights and argues that, correctly interpreted, they are morally justified. Finally it reexamines the question as to whether the human rights to have or adopt a religion or belief and to manifest one's religion or belief do more to threaten or to promote peace. It argues that although these human rights threaten peace to a limited extent, on balance they would, if universally respected, protect and enhance both internal and international peace even more. It concludes that there are two important relations between these religious human rights and peace. Both would be conducive to peace were they universally respected. And this fact is one of the
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Larsen, Øjvind
written about philanthropy from a political, sociological, anthropological and managerial perspective. However, an essential question remains: what does philanthropy mean? In a Greek context, philanthropy is connected to a friendly act towards one's owns close connections such as family or fellow citizens......, and normally utilized to promote one's own prestige in the city-state. In Roman context, universal humanism, humanitas, was invented. This universal perspective was also supported by Christianity. It is this universal concept of philanthropy which is the foundation for the different philanthropic traditions...... in Germany, England, France and USA. In each tradition is developed special features of the concept of philanthropy. The four traditions are summarized in the UN universal human rights, which has become the common normative reference for global philanthropy. In this way philanthropy has become, in a modern...
Political sociology of human rights
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Mahdi Kazemi
Full Text Available The dominant approach in the field of human rights is Legal attitude. Legal attitude more than anything else on the identification and recognition of human rights by the government is focused. At the same time, governments are the biggest violators of human rights norms. Despite the gap between the legal obligations of states and the real world, legal analysis of this gap is not possible. Therefore, in the era of inflation of rights, according to Louis Henkin , transition needs based approach to the protection of human rights is justified. Social sciences, especially political sociology may be, to identify obstacles to the realization of human rights in different societies and operate it is used. Since the main subject of political sociology "explores the relationship between state and society" is, knowledge can be produced in the field of political sociology in understanding the inability of governments establishing human rights norms and effective ways to fix it. Therefore, it can be said that human rights political sociology focus on: how to advance the state of human rights in a society and its institutionalization and consolidation within all relationships and political processes. رهیافت مسلط در حوزه مطالعات حقوق بشر، نگرش حقوقی است.نگرش حقوقی بیش از هرچیز بر شناسایی و به رسمیت شناختن حقوق بشر توسط دولتها متمرکز است.در عین حال، دولتها خود بزرگترین ناقضین هنجارهای حقوق بشری میباشند. با وجود شکاف میان تعهدات حقوقی دولتها و جهان واقعی، تحلیل حقوقی از این شکاف ممکن نیست. لذا، در عصر تورم حقوق به تعبیر هنکین، نیازمند گذار از رهیافت مبتنی بر توجیه به حفاظت از حقوق بشر هستیم. علوم اجتماعی بویژه جامعه �
The Social Studies Should Include More Discussion of International Human Rights.
Torney, Judith V.
Students need more exposure to the concept of human rights. They need to know The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the subsequent covenants. Also, they need to know that substantial agreement exists in the international community about what constitutes human rights. (Author/KC)
The Dakar conference on Namibia and human rights
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J. D. van der Vyver
Full Text Available The international conference on "Namibia and Human Rights" that took place in Dakar, Senegal on 5 to 8 January 1976 was, to the best of my knowledge, the idea of dr Karel Vasak in his capacity as president of the International Institute of Human Rights of Strasbourg, France, who planned the conference - again to the best of my knowledge - in close collaboration with mr Seán MacBride, the United Nations Commissioner for Namibia. The Government of the Republic of Senegal acted as host for the conference, the conference was formally sponsored by mr Seán MacBride, and it was officially organized by the International Institute of Human Rights. The International Commission of Jurists and the International Association of Democratic Lawyers also lent their support to the organizers of the conference.
Scott, Rosamund
Although there is no right to abort in English law but rather abortion is a crime, the lawful grounds for which are instantiated in the Abortion Act 1967 (as amended by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990), the regulation of abortion is sometimes perceived as being fairly 'liberal'. Accordingly, the idea that aspects of English law could be criticised under the European Convention on Human Rights, with which the UK must comply following the Human Rights Act 1998, may seem unlikely. Indeed, English law is compatible with the consensus amongst contracting states that abortion should be available on maternal health grounds. However, analysis of the UK's negative obligations under Article 8 shows that section 1(1)(a) of the Act is problematic as it operates in the first trimester. Further, given the European Court of Human Rights' emphasis on the reduced margin of appreciation once a state has legalised abortion to some degree and its jurisprudence relating to a state's positive obligations, the analysis shows that, while English law may not be problematic in relation to the lack of guidelines relating to the lawful grounds for abortion, it may well be in relation to the lack of a formal system for the review of any two doctors' decision not to grant a termination. Notwithstanding the morally serious nature of the decision to abort, the analysis overall raises questions about the need for at least some degree of abortion law reform, particularly in relation to the first trimester, towards a more autonomy-focused, though time-limited, rights-based approach. PMID:26546800
Human Rights and Values Education: Using the International Standards.
Reardon, Betty A.
Asserts that, in teaching about human rights, the international standards should be the fundamental core of the content and values to be communicated. Recommends that teachers should use the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the standard by which the actions of individuals and governments should be compared. (CFR)
Commentary on community-led total sanitation and human rights: should the right to community-wide health be won at the cost of individual rights?
Bartram, Jamie; Charles, Katrina; Evans, Barbara; O'Hanlon, Lucinda; Pedley, Steve
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set out to halve the proportion of the population without access to basic sanitation between 1990 and 2015. The slow pace of progress has lead to a search for innovative responses, including social motivation approaches. One example of this type of approach is 'Community-led Total Sanitation' (CLTS). CLTS represents a major shift for sanitation projects and programmes in recognising the value of stopping open-defecation across the whole community, even when the individual toilets built are not necessarily wholly hygienic. However, recent publications on CLTS document a number of examples of practices which fail to meet basic ethical criteria and infringe human rights. There is a general theme in the CLTS literature encouraging the use of 'shame' or 'social stigma' as a tool for promoting behaviours. There are reported cases where monetary benefits to which individuals are otherwise entitled or the means to practice a livelihood are withheld to create pressures to conform. At the very extreme end of the scale, the investigation and punishment of violence has reportedly been denied if the crime occurred while defecating in the open, violating rights to a remedy and related access to justice. While social mobilisation in general, and CLTS in particular, have drastically and positively changed the way we think about sanitation, they neither need nor benefit from an association with any infringements of human rights.
The future of human rights impact assessments of trade agreements
Walker, S.M.
The Future of Human Rights Impact Assessments of Trade Agreements develops a methodology for human rights impact assessments of trade agreements and considers whether there is any value in using the methodology on a sustained basis to ensure that the human dimensions of international trade are taken
Negative Emissions Technologies, the Paris Agreement, and the Need for a Human-Rights Based Approach
Burns, W. C. G.
The new Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change contemplates that its prospective Parties will balance emissions and sinks by 2050 as a means to effectuate the goal of holding temperature increases to well below 2°C from pre-industrial levels, as well as the more aspirational goal of holding temperature increases to 1.5°C. Most of the IPCC's AR5 scenarios that achieve these objectives contemplate the large-scale deployment of so-called "negative emissions technologies," with an emphasis on bioenergy and carbon capture and storage (BECCS), and to a lesser degree afforestation. BECCS could assuredly help society avoid passing critical climatic thresholds, or address overshoot scenarios in this century and beyond. However, it could also profound implications for food production, the status of forests, access to lands for livelihoods by vulnerable populations, and the integrity of critical ecosystems. This, in turn could have serious ramifications for human rights of some of the world's most vulnerable populations, including the rights to food, water, livelihoods and the benefits of biodiversity. The Preamble to the Paris Agreement acknowledges the need to take into consideration the potential impact of responses to climate change, providing that "Parties should, when taking action to address climate change, respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights." This presentation will outline how application of a human rights-based approach to assessing such options could help to reconcile the objectives of ameliorating potential climatic impacts while protecting the human rights of potentially affected individuals and groups. This will include the potential role of Human Rights Impacts Assessments and potential configuration of HRIAs at the national and international level. It will also briefly suggest how to operationalize this approach within the Paris Agreement framework, including institutional
National Insecurity and Human Rights: Democracies Debate Counterterrorism
Brysk, Alison; Shafir, Gershon
Human rights is all too often the first casualty of national insecurity. How can democracies cope with the threat of terror while protecting human rights? This timely volume compares the lessons of the United States and Israel with the "best-case scenarios" of the United Kingdom, Canada, Spain, and Germany. It demonstrates that threatened democracies have important options, and democratic governance, the rule of law, and international cooperation are crucial foundations for counterterror policy.
Small places: the home-coming of human rights in the Netherlands
Oomen, B.M.
Human rights as Eleanor Roosevelt famously said, begin in small places: 'Unless they have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere'. In this inaugural lecture on the sociology of human rights, Barbara Oomen sets out a model for understanding how human rights acquire meaning in such places.
No Space. Nowhere. Refugees and the Problem of Human Rights in Arendt and Ricœur.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Hille Haker
Full Text Available In the wake of the recent global refugee and migration crisis, Hannah Arendt's defense of the right to have political rights has become prominent again. Her work is read as an early reminder that the internationally promoted human rights regime may be merely a rhetorical reference, without the will or international authority for political action. I examine Arendt's analysis in its historical context and then turn to consider Ricœur's understanding of human rights. The capability to respond to and to be held accountable by others marks Ricœur's ethics of responsibility. He agrees with Arendt that legal authority must rest upon power (Macht and not domination (Herrschaft, but he insists that the undercurrent of common power is the moral capability of an agent. The essay examines the ramifications of Ricœur's ethics for the current crisis of refugees and migration, and it argues that he offers, at the same time, a correction useful for the ethical foundation of human rights.
Human Rights Engagement and Exposure: New Scales to Challenge Social Work Education
McPherson, Jane; Abell, Neil
Objectives: Advancing human rights is a core competency of U.S. social work education; yet, human rights attitudes and behaviors have never been measured in the social work literature. Thus, this article describes the development and initial validation of two scales, Human Rights Engagement in Social Work (HRESW) and Human Rights Exposure in…
The Birth of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Cooper, Michael
Outlines the history of the ideals and enactment of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Includes a discussion of the origins of the concept of human rights, the impact of World War II, the role of nongovernmental organizations, and the process of drafting and adopting the UDHR. (DSK)
Reconceptualizing Social Work Behaviors from a Human Rights Perspective
Steen, Julie A.
Although the human rights philosophy has relevance for many segments of the social work curriculum, the latest version of accreditation standards only includes a few behaviors specific to human rights. This deficit can be remedied by incorporating innovations found in the social work literature, which provides a wealth of material for…
Professionalizing a Global Social Movement: Universities and Human Rights
Suarez, David; Bromley, Patricia
Research on the human rights movement emphasizes direct changes in nation-states, focusing on the efficacy of treaties and the role of advocacy in mitigating immediate violations. However, more than 140 universities in 59 countries established academic chairs, research centers, and programs for human rights from 1968-2000, a development that…
Toward a Critical-Sentimental Orientation in Human Rights Education
Zembylas, Michalinos
This paper addresses one of the challenges in human rights education (HRE) concerning the conceptualization of a pedagogical orientation that avoids both the pitfalls of a purely juridical address and a "cheap sentimental" approach. The paper uses as its point of departure Richard Rorty's key intervention on human rights discourse and…
Human Rights Education and the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme
Froman, Nica
In 2003, the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP)--a program implemented in thousands of schools globally--introduced a human rights course (Makivirta, 2003). This curriculum is the first of its kind to hold potential widespread influence on human rights education in the formal education sector. In this study, I analyze the…
"Are women's rights human rights? A view on women's political participation in Vietnam
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Trung, P.T.
Full Text Available This paper tries to examine whether women's rights are human rights by looking at the case of women's political participation in Vietnam. Beginning with the concept of private life and public life which are defined separately for women and men by the patriarchal system, then the framework of CEDAW, particularly Article 7, is used to assess how women have been enjoying their rights to participate in the political system of Vietnam both in laws and practice. At the same time, the effectiveness of CEDAW is proven in promoting member states to follow and implement its regulations accordingly. Although the paper is written based on available research and reports, and limited only in the area of women's political participation but it also points out some rooted causes of seeing women's rights separately from human rights. Further preliminary is needed to conduct widely in different aspects of women's rights in order to reaffirm strongly that women should also enjoy their status of human being.
China and Africa: Human Rights Perspective
African Journals Online (AJOL)
significant concept behind that of power and sovereignty is national interest. ..... of whom deny that modern states have a moral or legal authority to represent them in ... protection of human rights based on cultural relativism would then only be.
The Social and Local Construction of Human Rights. Reflections from the Perspective of the Right to Education in Mexico
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Víctor Alfonzo Zertuche Cobos
Full Text Available The present article constitutes a critical reflection on human rights from the social-legal field in Mexico. Its purpose is to provide a discussion on a current legal and institutional reality, that is, the right to education in human rights based on one of the most important constitutional reforms in recent years in the field of human rights: the reform of June 2011. This reform, by the article 1° and 3° of the Constitution, introduced a public policy (proposed to the National Development Plan 2013-2018, along with the National Human Rights Program 2014-2018 within the federal public administration whose object is to implement the teaching of human rights at the national level. In this proposal, we observe two effects, one positive and one negative, inscribed only in the institutional or official dimension of the Mexican State, from which is derived a third positive effect for the social or local sphere, that is to say, for the space where the popular sectors or cultural minorities live. Therefore, it is in this social or local sphere where the third positive effect of the national public policy would take place to rethink the counter-hegemonic and alternative use of the right to education in human rights, from where would be possible the social-local construction or reconstruction of human rights that the present and future society requires with some urgency.
Evaluation of Human Rights Violations in Student Personnel ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
A five point Likert scale instrument, Students Legal Rights Protection Questionnaire (SLRPQ) was used for data collection and analyzed using the population (one sample t-test), at .05 level of significance. The finding was that there is significant violation of secondary school students' rights (right to dignity of human person, ...
Climate Change, Human Rights, and Social Justice.
Levy, Barry S; Patz, Jonathan A
The environmental and health consequences of climate change, which disproportionately affect low-income countries and poor people in high-income countries, profoundly affect human rights and social justice. Environmental consequences include increased temperature, excess precipitation in some areas and droughts in others, extreme weather events, and increased sea level. These consequences adversely affect agricultural production, access to safe water, and worker productivity, and, by inundating land or making land uninhabitable and uncultivatable, will force many people to become environmental refugees. Adverse health effects caused by climate change include heat-related disorders, vector-borne diseases, foodborne and waterborne diseases, respiratory and allergic disorders, malnutrition, collective violence, and mental health problems. These environmental and health consequences threaten civil and political rights and economic, social, and cultural rights, including rights to life, access to safe food and water, health, security, shelter, and culture. On a national or local level, those people who are most vulnerable to the adverse environmental and health consequences of climate change include poor people, members of minority groups, women, children, older people, people with chronic diseases and disabilities, those residing in areas with a high prevalence of climate-related diseases, and workers exposed to extreme heat or increased weather variability. On a global level, there is much inequity, with low-income countries, which produce the least greenhouse gases (GHGs), being more adversely affected by climate change than high-income countries, which produce substantially higher amounts of GHGs yet are less immediately affected. In addition, low-income countries have far less capability to adapt to climate change than high-income countries. Adaptation and mitigation measures to address climate change needed to protect human society must also be planned to protect
Clara Staples
This paper will firstly examine the International framework of human rights law and its guidelines for safeguarding the right to freedom of speech in the press. Secondly, it will describe the constitutional and other legal rights protecting freedom of speech in Indonesia and assess their compatibility with the right to freedom of speech under the International human rights law framework. Thirdly it will consider the impact of Indonesia's constitutional law and criminal and civil law, includin...
Teaching Human Rights through Global Education to Teachers in Pakistan
Sadruddin, Munir Moosa
Pakistan is home to religious and cultural ideologies that greatly support the values of human rights. Nevertheless, the multilayered philosophies of human rights in Pakistan have at times heightened clashes and bred a culture of tension among higher education learners. Ideological filters in national education policies have removed human rights…
Carl Cohen's 'kind' arguments for animal rights and against human rights.
Nobis, Nathan
Carl Cohen's arguments against animal rights are shown to be unsound. His strategy entails that animals have rights, that humans do not, the negations of those conclusions, and other false and inconsistent implications. His main premise seems to imply that one can fail all tests and assignments in a class and yet easily pass if one's peers are passing and that one can become a convicted criminal merely by setting foot in a prison. However, since his moral principles imply that nearly all exploitive uses of animals are wrong anyway, foes of animal rights are advised to seek philosophical consolations elsewhere. I note that some other philosophers' arguments are subject to similar objections.
Discrimination against women and the human rights of women
Žunić Natalija
This paper investigates the concept of the human rights of women and its connection with the phenomenon and the instances of discrimination against women. Discrimination against women, its social visibility and the fight against it, within the idea of the rights and the equality of women, are a source of many theoretical debates. Academic discussions and a powerful influence of the women's movement have brought about the establishment and the exercise of the human rights of women at different...
Strengthening Community Land Rights and Responses to ...
International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)
Strengthening Community Land Rights and Responses to Involuntary Displacement Caused by Development Projects in Zimbabwe ... The construction of hydro-electric dams and other large mining and agricultural projects, for example, have led to negative consequences due to weak land tenure rights and a more general ...
Human Rights Education in Canada: Results from a CTF Teacher Survey
Froese-Germain, Bernie; Riel, Rick; Theoret, Pauline
The United Nations has placed a high priority on human rights education. Building on the foundation laid by the UN Decade for Human Rights Education (1995-2004), the UN General Assembly launched the World Programme for Human Rights Education in December 2004 "as a global initiative, structured in consecutive phases, to advance the…
Health and Human Rights : In Search of the Legal Dimension
Toebes, Brigit
Abstract: – This paper explores the legal contours of the field of 'health and human rights' as a new and emerging field of human rights law. After an analysis of its conceptual foundations, it explains illustrates how health and human rights evolved from a phase of standard-setting to a field that
Health and human rights in today's fight against HIV/AIDS
Stemple, Lara
The development of the health and human rights framework coincided with the beginning of the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS. Since then, the international community has increasingly turned to human rights language and instruments to address the disease. Not only are human rights essential to addressing a disease that impacts marginalized groups most severely, but the spread of HIV/AIDS itself exacerbates inequality and impedes the realization of a range of human rights. Policy developments of the past decade include the United Nations (UN) Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights' General Comment on the 'Right to Health', the UN Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS, and the UN's International Guidelines on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights, among others. Rights-related setbacks include the failure of the Declaration and its 5-year follow-up specifically to address men who have sex with men, sex workers, and intravenous drug users, political restrictions placed on urgently needed US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) funds, and the failure of many countries to decriminalize same-sex sex and outlaw discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS. Male circumcision as an HIV prevention measure is a topic around which important debate, touching on gender, informed consent and children's rights, serves to illustrate the ongoing vitality of the health and human rights dialogue. Mechanisms to increase state accountability for addressing HIV/AIDS should be explored in greater depth. Such measures might include an increase in the use of treaty-based judicial mechanisms, the linking of human rights compliance with preferential trade agreements, and rights requirements tied to HIV/ AIDS funding. PMID:18641463
Retrospective of the human rights situation in Croatia through legislation and judicial practice, with emphasis on minority rights
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Lončar Semina
Full Text Available Since the establishment of new states of former Yugoslavia, the Republic of Croatia led discriminatory legislative and judicial policies towards minorities, politically 'unsuitable' and families of mixed ethnic structure, with the aim of creating ethnically pure Croatian. For this purpose, brought a series of racist and discriminatory laws, some of which had a retroactive effect and apply, all to existing state: deportation of over 350,000 citizens, the confiscation of over 30,000 apartments, the suspension of payments of pensions over 33,000 users, mining and destruction of over 78,000 residential and farm buildings in private ownership, and other damages... caused solely due to ethnicity - legalized. In addition to the illegal seizure of property, are members of minority status and the laws reduced civil rights, and which further worsened their position in Croatia. The legislative policy is followed synchromesh and jurisprudence, so that damaged and disenfranchised people are not even legal way was able to obtain their material status and rights were before the war, as well as Croatian citizens, and had made in Croatia. Unfortunately, the institutions of the European Court of Human Rights, which many believed, proved a failure, because it is generally rejected all claims for refund compensation or restoration - not believing that the Croatian courts violate any law, or that the damage caused prior to November 1997th, ie, until the signing of the Convention, Croatia is not responsible. Since Croatian independence until today, discrimination against minorities (mostly by Serbian, although under pressure from the international community an improved law - in practice, remained present in almost all spheres of life. In addition to Serbian, has problems and the Albanian minority, which Croatia is denied issuance of work permits, and thus the right to stay, and deportation orders from the economic crisis, the structure of human rights extended to all
Advancing the sexual and reproductive health and human rights of women living with HIV: a review of UN, regional and national human rights norms and standards.
Khosla, Rajat; Van Belle, Nuna; Temmerman, Marleen
The right to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) is an essential part of the right to health and is dependent upon substantive equality, including freedom from multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination that result in exclusion in both law and practice. Nonetheless, general and specific SRH needs of women living with HIV are often not adequately addressed. For example, services that women living with HIV need may not be available or may have multiple barriers, in particular stigma and discrimination. This study was conducted to review United Nations Human Rights Council, Treaty Monitoring Bodies and Special Rapporteur reports and regional and national mechanisms regarding SRH issues of women living with HIV. The objective is to assess areas of progress, as well as gaps, in relation to health and human rights considerations in the work of these normative bodies on health and human rights. The review was done using keywords of international, regional and national jurisprudence on findings covering the 2000 to 2014 period for documents in English; searches for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and national judgments were also conducted in Spanish. Jurisprudence of UN Treaty Monitoring Bodies, regional mechanisms and national bodies was considered in this regard. In total, 236 findings were identified using the search strategy, and of these 129 were selected for review based on the inclusion criteria. The results highlight that while jurisprudence from international, regional and national bodies reflects consideration of some health and human rights issues related to women living with HIV and SRH, the approach of these bodies has been largely ad hoc and lacks a systematic integration of human rights concerns of women living with HIV in relation to SRH. Most findings relate to non-discrimination, accessibility, informed decision-making and accountability. There are critical gaps on normative standards regarding the human rights of women living with
Scott, Rosamund
Although there is no right to abort in English law but rather abortion is a crime, the lawful grounds for which are instantiated in the Abortion Act 1967 (as amended by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990), the regulation of abortion is sometimes perceived as being fairly 'liberal'. Accordingly, the idea that aspects of English law could be criticised under the European Convention on Human Rights, with which the UK must comply following the Human Rights Act 1998, may seem unlikely. Indeed, English law is compatible with the consensus amongst contracting states that abortion should be available on maternal health grounds. However, analysis of the UK's negative obligations under Article 8 shows that section 1(1)(a) of the Act is problematic as it operates in the first trimester. Further, given the European Court of Human Rights' emphasis on the reduced margin of appreciation once a state has legalised abortion to some degree and its jurisprudence relating to a state's positive obligations, the analysis shows that, while English law may not be problematic in relation to the lack of guidelines relating to the lawful grounds for abortion, it may well be in relation to the lack of a formal system for the review of any two doctors' decision not to grant a termination. Notwithstanding the morally serious nature of the decision to abort, the analysis overall raises questions about the need for at least some degree of abortion law reform, particularly in relation to the first trimester, towards a more autonomy-focused, though time-limited, rights-based approach. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press.
Informal Justice Systems: Charting a Course for Human Rights-Based Engagement
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Kerrigan, Fergus; McKay, Anne Louise; Kristiansen, Annali
engagement with informal justice systems can build greater respect and protection for human rights. It highlights the considerations that development partners should have when assessing whether to implement programmes involving informal justice systems, the primary consideration being that engagement......Providing accessible justice is a state obligation under international human rights standards, but this obligation does not require that all justice be provided through formal justice systems. If done in ways to respect and uphold human rights, the provision of justice through informal justice...... systems is not against human rights standards and can be a mechanism to enhance the fulfilment of human rights obligations by delivering accessible justice to individuals and communities where the formal justice system does not have the capacity or geographical reach. This study seeks to identify how...
strategies for implementing human rights education in nigeria
African Journals Online (AJOL)
Human rights education is one of the new courses introduced into the school curriculum. It improves the ... tolerance, gender equality and friendship ... protecting the rights of the subjects. (Beitxer ... They also help to provide guidelines and.
Human rights and the right to health in Latin America: the Two Faces of One Powerful Idea
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Alicia Ines Stolkiner
Full Text Available During the past decade the discussion of human rights has reappeared in the field of health, replacing the technocratic approaches of the previous period which had centered on cost-effectiveness. The focus on rights in public policies, with its emphasis on international norms for social rights, has influenced primary health care (PHC strategy and fostered the return of PHC to its original role as guarantor of the right to health.3 As human rights became increasingly global, they once again occupied a central place in World Health Organization (WHO documents and in government attitudes. The revival of human rights discourse occurred at a time when neoliberalism was being discredited intellectually. It coincided with the appearance of governments critical of the hegemonic model of the 1990s, the restructuring of geopolitical alliances, and a crisis of world capitalism affecting its central core. Various trends have co-existed within this process; the attempt to establish more just societies runs parallel to the search for a new way to legitimize power, given the loss of consensus over the neoliberal model. This dual aspect of the inclusion of human rights in the political arena demands a careful analysis of the various discourses and the proposals with which they are associated.
Strategies for Implementing Human Rights Education in Nigeria ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
Strategies for Implementing Human Rights Education in Nigeria. ... the social and emotional development of the child and by introducing democratic values. It helps learners to develop attitudes of solidarity across issues and nations. Human ...
Concept of environment, sustainable development and respect for human rights
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Urjana ÇURI
Full Text Available The insistence on the definition of environmental protection is an aspiration which has served as prerequisites to the implementation of human rights in a global economic crises. European Regional System has traditionally been focused on the protection of civil and political rights. In the wake of environmental risks that imply the violation of human rights, the emphasis has been placed more on the social, economic and cultural. Collective mechanisms to appeal to the United Nations and the European Court of Human Rights, gave a number of decisions on matters implicating environmental laws and policies. What is to be noted, is the evolution of the guarantees provided under the European Convention on Human Rights, which refers to a substantial understanding of environmental protection, and also including procedural aspects related to the protection of the right to life, privacy, property, information and effective means of appeal. This evolution has been launched by the growing need for states to take preventive measures and policies to the requirements for a balanced sustainable economic development, avoiding environmental risks that imply the violation of human rights. Proportionality in the protection of the interests in this respect creates a context for a fair trial, but also promotes an open and constructive dialogue between judges and lawmakers to protect the public interest.
Fed up with the right to food? : The Netherlands' policies and practices regarding the human right to adequate food
Hospes, O.; Meulen, van der B.M.J.
There is no one in this world who would deny the importance of access to adequate food for every human being. In fact, access to food has been declared a human right in 1948 with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In spite of the right to food to be more than half a century old, many are not
Rights & Responsibilities. Personnel Management Module.
Barker, Gale; And Others
This module on rights and responsibilities is intended to introduce the hospitality manager or supervisor to sound personnel management practices that comply with the law. The material is presented in a self-instructional format in seven sections. At the beginning of each section is a statement of the objectives that will be achieved as a result…
Impact of Globalization on the Right to Health as an Instance of Human Rights
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Jayashree Palande
Full Text Available Since the advent of globalization, the issue of human rights - especially right to health- and their violation through the process of globalization was discussed. These impotent rights are affected both in positive and negative way by the globalization. Present study scrutinizes these effects and concludes that globalization is functioning as a double edged-sword in this regards.
Intellectual property rights and detached human body parts.
Pila, Justine
This paper responds to an invitation by the editors to consider whether the intellectual property (IP) regime suggests an appropriate model for protecting interests in detached human body parts. It begins by outlining the extent of existing IP protection for body parts in Europe, and the relevant strengths and weaknesses of the patent system in that regard. It then considers two further species of IP right of less obvious relevance. The first are the statutory rights of ownership conferred by domestic UK law in respect of employee inventions, and the second are the economic and moral rights recognised by European and international law in respect of authorial works. In the argument made, both of these species of IP right may suggest more appropriate models of sui generis protection for detached human body parts than patent rights because of their capacity better to accommodate the relevant public and private interests in respect of the same.
Images of Struggle: Teaching Human Rights with Graphic Novels
Carano, Kenneth T.; Clabough, Jeremiah
The authors explore how graphic novels can be used in the middle and high school social studies classroom to teach human rights. The article begins with a rationale on the benefits of using graphic novels. It next focuses on four graphic novels related to human rights issues: "Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds" (Speigelman…
Human rights in childbirth, narratives and restorative justice: a review.
Lokugamage, A U; Pathberiya, S D C
This review describes the emerging global debate on the role of human rights childbirth. It is also tailored to a UK perspective in view of the Montgomery v. Lanarkshire [2015] legal ruling and it implications to practice. We can never underestimate the power of humane care on health. The compassion and evidence based medicine agenda in healthcare is interconnected with human rights in healthcare, feeding into the principles of decision making and patient centred care. When this has not happened and there is been healthcare conflict, the power of storytelling serves to connect disparate parties to their common humanity. Narratives are an important aspect of restorative justice processes and we suggest that this could be beneficial in the field of human rights in childbirth.
School-Based Human Rights Education: Young Bahrainis' Knowledge and Understanding
Eid, Fatima H.
The growing interest in Human Rights Education (HRE) is linked in this paper to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC, 1989). The linkage between citizenship education and HRE is also highlighted, along with the necessary critiques of human rights pronouncements regarding the situation of HRE in Bahrain while the challenges ahead in…
The life and times of religion and human rights
Gaay Fortman, B. de; Salih, Mohamed
Seen from a human perspective and as communal protection of human dignity, human rights are universal challenges to which all major traditions of the human family have subscribed. However, ways and means as to the realisation of this universal human ideal have been subject to controversy because of
Advancing sexual health through human rights: the role of the law.
Kismödi, Eszter; Cottingham, Jane; Gruskin, Sofia; Miller, Alice M
Since the International Conference on Population and Development, definitions of sexuality and sexual health have been greatly elaborated alongside widely accepted recognition that sexual health requires respect, protection and fulfilment of human rights. Considerable progress has also been made in enacting or changing laws that affect sexuality and sexual health, in line with human rights standards. These measures include legal guarantees against non-discrimination and violence, decriminalisation of consensual sexual conduct and guaranteeing availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of sexual health information and services to all. Such legal actions have had positive effects on health and specifically on sexual health, particularly for marginalised populations. Yet in all regions of the world, laws still exist which jeopardise health, including sexual health, and violate human rights. In order to ensure accountability for the rights and health of their populations, states have an obligation to bring their laws into line with international, regional and national human rights standards. These rights-based legal guarantees, while insufficient alone, are essential for effective systems of accountability, achieving positive sexual health outcomes and the respect and protection of human rights.
Globalization, transnationalism and the effectiveness of human rights
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Regiane Nistler
Full Text Available The objective of this research is to analyze the effectiveness of human rights in this era, as the phenomenon of globalization triggered the notion of transnationalism. This study starts by demonstrating the consequences of this phenomenon, such as the lessening of border importance between countries and the alteration of legitimatizing legal structures. Furthermore, important considerations should be highlighted when exploring the important issue of human rights, especially when examining regional systems of protection – among them the African, American, and European systems. This paper finalizes its thesis with the simultaneous use of case studies and theoretical research. In the end, having effective human rights protection in the modern age implies not only an efficient and outstanding protection of the private sector but it should be the State's objective even if transnational actors are not efficient. Finally, in regards to this paper´s method, this research uses the inductive method while also using literature review.
The universality of human rights: some pending questions
African Journals Online (AJOL)
Sidi Omar
Cultural relativism, in brief, is the assertion that human values, far from being ... that particular human rights are like ‗essentially contested concepts' in which there ... There are obviously enough philosophical, ethical and legal arguments for ...
Human Rights in the Context of Cultural Diversity
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Emilian Ciongaru
Full Text Available The human rights understood in the sense of fundamental inalienable rights are therefore considered as universal – they apply to everything and egalitarian exist in two ways: as natural or legal rights, both in the rights doctrine in the international practice within the international law, the global and regional institutions, in the state policies and the activities of non from all over the world regardless of peoples' cultures. manage the ethnic-cultural communities living on the territory of a state often contributes, in fact, to the separation and not to the reunion of peoples, the ideological and political factors acting rather as division factors whereas the affective spiritual connection exists only between the states having deep similarities. For this purpose, serving justice having as a goal the pres on the social feelings of humanity.
Terrorism against Human Rights: Reflections in the light of the Evolution
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Rubens Sotero
Full Text Available Departing from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we will inquire if there are human rights for terrorists. Initially, we will defend the claim that the Declaration guarantees such rights to terrorists and we will show its consequences. Then we will seek an objective foundation for human rights based on the theory of evolution of species; as such a foundation is missing, we will show some consequences of the lack of this objective foundation.
European Court of Human Rights : Milisavljević v. Serbia
Voorhoof, Dirk
The European Court of Human Rights has recently found that the Republic of Serbia has acted in breach of the right to freedom of expression by convicting a journalist for insult of a well-known human rights activist. The ECtHR emphasises that criminal prosecution for insult of public figures is likely to deter journalists from contributing to the public discussion of issues affecting the life of the community. More than 10 years after the journalist lodged an application with the Court, the E...
Liability for gross human rights violations: from criminal to civil remedies
LL.D. The starting point of this research is the observation that the protection of human rights and the prevention of human rights atrocities can only take place through a universal system of different means of accountability which create enough deterrence for the future state or individual offender. This research consists of four parts: Part A explores and outlines the different existing ways and means of traditional human rights protection under the international and regional human righ...
The non-linear development of the right hemispheric specialization for human face perception.
Lochy, Aliette; de Heering, Adélaïde; Rossion, Bruno
The developmental origins of human adults' right hemispheric specialization for face perception remain unclear. On the one hand, infant studies have shown a right hemispheric advantage for face perception. On the other hand, it has been proposed that the adult right hemispheric lateralization for face perception slowly emerges during childhood due to reading acquisition, which increases left lateralized posterior responses to competing written material (e.g., visual letters and words). Since methodological approaches used in infant and children typically differ when their face capabilities are explored, resolving this issue has been difficult. Here we tested 5-year-old preschoolers varying in their level of visual letter knowledge with the same fast periodic visual stimulation (FPVS) paradigm leading to strongly right lateralized electrophysiological occipito-temporal face-selective responses in 4- to 6-month-old infants (de Heering and Rossion, 2015). Children's face-selective response was quantitatively larger and differed in scalp topography from infants', but did not differ across hemispheres. There was a small positive correlation between preschoolers' letter knowledge and a non-normalized index of right hemispheric specialization for faces. These observations show that previous discrepant results in the literature reflect a genuine nonlinear development of the neural processes underlying face perception and are not merely due to methodological differences across age groups. We discuss several factors that could contribute to the adult right hemispheric lateralization for faces, such as myelination of the corpus callosum and reading acquisition. Our findings point to the value of FPVS coupled with electroencephalography to assess specialized face perception processes throughout development with the same methodology. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Human dignity and human rights in bioethics: the Kantian approach.
Rothhaar, Markus
The concept of human dignity plays an important role in the public discussion about ethical questions concerning modern medicine and biology. At the same time, there is a widespread skepticism about the possibility to determine the content and the claims of human dignity. The article goes back to Kantian Moral Philosophy, in order to show that human dignity has in fact a determinable content not as a norm in itself, but as the principle and ground of human rights and any deontological norms in biomedical ethics. When it comes to defining the scope of human dignity, i.e., the question which entities are protected by human dignity, Kant clearly can be found on the "pro life"-side of the controversy. This, however, is the result of some specific implications of Kant's transcendental approach that may be put into question.
Human Rights Literacy: Moving towards Rights-Based Education and Transformative Action through Understandings of Dignity, Equality and Freedom
Becker, Anne; de Wet, Annamagriet; van Vollenhoven, Willie
The twentieth century has been characterised by the proliferation of human rights in the discursive practices of the United Nations (Baxi, 1997). In this article, we explore the continual process of rights-based education towards transformative action, and an open and democratic society, as dependent upon the facilitation of human rights literacy…
What Does It Mean to Understand Human Rights as Essentially 'Triggers for Intervention'?
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Hawre Hasan Hama
Full Text Available Traditional theories of human rights regard human rights to be equivalent to universal moral rights. They also claim that human rights are justified by an appeal to some valuable aspect of human nature. These approaches, however, have been strongly challenged by the political theory of human rights. The latter derived from John Rawls's conception of human rights in his famous work, Law of Peoples, argues that human rights are not equivalent to our universal moral rights, but are a subset of those rights: they are those rights that once violated lead to an erosion of state sovereignty, thus acting as 'triggers for intervention'. This article mainly discusses the political conception of human rights to explain this question; what does it mean to understand human rights in the ways that their violations lead to intervention? Furthermore, the article strongly argues that such understanding of human rights is neither accurate nor helpful for reasons that will be mentioned in chapter two.
Belief, motivational, and ideological correlates of human rights attitudes.
Crowson, H Michael; DeBacker, Teresa K
Many people believe that an informed and thoughtful citizenry is essential to the maintenance of democratic ideals within the United States and the spread of those ideals abroad. Since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the evidence that Americans consider issues of human dignity and rights when making judgments about the U.S. government's war on terror has been mixed. In our study, we assessed the relative contributions of ideological, belief, and cognitive-motivational factors to the prediction of human rights and civil liberties attitudes. Individuals scoring high on measures of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and the belief that the structure of knowledge is simple were the most likely to support restrictions on human rights and civil liberties as part of the war on terror. In a subsequent regression analysis, individuals scoring higher on personal need for structure or exhibiting lower levels of epistemological belief complexity tended to score higher on RWA. Additionally, men were generally more likely to support restrictions on rights and liberties and to score higher on RWA than were women.
International Security, Development, and Human Rights: Policy Conversion or Conflict?
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Miao-ling Lin Hasenkamp
Full Text Available This article uses an institutional network governance approach to explore the overlapping dimension of the policy fields between security, development, and human rights, reflected in the US and German provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs in Afghanistan. The past two decades have witnessed a gradually changing paradigm in academic and policy debates regarding the questions of the normative basis of world order and possibilities for tackling imminent threats to security and peace (i.e. intra-state armed conflicts, failed states, terrorism, poverty, and deepening inequality. The introduction of concepts such as "human security" and "the right to humanitarian intervention/responsibility to protect (R2P" as well as critical examinations of peace-, nation-, and state-building missions (PNSB have led to a relativist tendency of state sovereignty and a changing attitude regarding how to address the intersection of security, development, and human rights. Despite this shift, the policy commitments to integrating these policy considerations remain puzzling. How have they been redefined, conceptualized, and put into practice? I argue that an integrated conceptual approach has facilitated the redefinition of common policy goals, principles, and the mobilization of resources. At the same time, civil and military cooperation, as demonstrated in the multifunctional work of PRTs, has been Janus-headed—permanently caught in an ongoing tension between the war on terror and short-term stability operation on the one hand and long-term durable peace and development on the other. The misunderstanding of its interim character, the dynamics of Afghan environment, the blurring of policy lines, and the differences between national PRT models have made it difficult to systematically assess the efficiency and legitimacy of each policy frame and program.
Humans, Fish, and Whales: How Right Whales Modify Calling Behavior in Response to Shifting Background Noise Conditions.
Parks, Susan E; Groch, Karina; Flores, Paulo; Sousa-Lima, Renata; Urazghildiiev, Ildar R
This study investigates the role of behavioral plasticity in the variation of sound production of southern right whales (Eubalaena australis) in response to changes in the ambient background noise conditions. Data were collected from southern right whales in Brazilian waters in October and November 2011. The goal of this study was to quantify differences in right whale vocalizations recorded in low background noise as a control, fish chorus noise, and vessel noise. Variation in call parameters were detected among the three background noise conditions and have implications for future studies of noise effects on whale sound production.
Interdisciplinary Teaching of Theatre and Human Rights in Honors
Szasz, Maria
Since spring 2012, the author has taught a 300-level Theatre and Human Rights class in the University of New Mexico Honors College. One of the centerpieces of honors education is careful research and thorough analysis of what is taught and why it is taught. In creating the honors class Theatre and Human Rights, the author explored how she would…
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Carlos Arevalo
Full Text Available All companies, regardless of the sector they belong to, can positively or negatively impact human rights. Governments are increasingly aware of the benefits that free trade brings their nations, which has led them to do whatever is necessary to attract foreign investment, even if it means to act against the interests of their own people. The power relationship between corporations and states generates a tension derived from their nature: while the objective of states is the welfare of its members, the purpose of corporations is profit. It is in the crack generated by the collision of powers and purposes between these two actors, that this article is intended to raise the discussion on the need to establish an international framework for corporate liability for human rights violations. To achieve its goal, the article will analyze the opportunities and obstacles raised by the exercise of extraterritorial jurisdiction in the American context and its relationship with the developments in the business and human rights field.
The Role of National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) and Regional Networks in Promoting Human Rights and Health related to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) in Southeast Asia
Holzhacker, Ronald
The UN is increasingly a place where a critical discussion about human rights and sexual orientation and gender identity is taking place. An important institutional component of the UN system of protection of human rights is the creation of National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs). The regional
The Role of Education in Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right
Dhillon, Pradeep
Education lies at the heart of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR): "Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms". However, when education is mentioned in the philosophical literature on human rights, or even within…
Human rights: eye for cultural diversity
Donders, Y.M.
The relationship and interaction between international human rights law and cultural diversity is a current topic, as is shown by the recent debates in The Netherlands on, for instance, the proposed ban on wearing facial coverage, or burqas, and the proposed ban on ritual slaughter without
Gender, human rights and cultural diversity
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Kastrup, Marianne C
and the elucidation of their symptom manifestations, as well as effective therapeutic interventions, which clearly show how human rights issues are linked to research and clinical psychiatry. The analyses of how different ethnic groups use psychiatric services, epitomize how important it is to pay attention to gender...
The human right to sustainable development in solidarity with Nature
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Anya Teresa Parrilla Díaz
Full Text Available This article addresses the issue of human development as a universal right subjected to the welfare of Nature. Nature is presented as supporter of life and supplier of the essential resources needed to achieve a complete human development. In light of the global ecological crisis, the author proposes sustainable development as the central framework for a new human development that can be fairer to Nature and to mankind. The challenge of sustainable human development consists in viewing Nature from an ethical perspective of human rights and solidarity.
Psychiatry and human rights: a difficult relationship, but with a growing potential.
Jarab, Jan
Persons with psychosocial disabilities (mental health problems) are under the protection of the new United Nations Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The CRPD brings a human rights-based approach to disability: it challenges paternalistic views by emphasizing the person as a rights-holder, an active subject, and not just a passive object of care. It also represents a challenge to mainstream human rights movements and mechanisms who have long paid insufficient attention to human rights of persons with (psychosocial) disabilities. It is increasingly understood that human rights of persons with psychosocial disabilities (mental health problems) should not be seen in the narrow perspective, as if the only issue was the most controversial one, that is, deprivation of liberty. In many areas, reform-minded psychiatrists have themselves initiated human rights-friendly reforms. For instance, efforts to implement article 19 of the CRPD—independent living and inclusion in the community—are increasingly becoming part of the mainstream in mental health care. There is potential for further synergy between mental health professionals and human rights activists in looking at the whole range of civil, political, economic, and social rights listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—realizing that all these rights apply also to persons with psychosocial disabilities, and working together towards removing real-life obstacles to their enjoyment.The building of bridges between the two different types of expertise should be encouraged. In this regard, psychiatry would benefit from more cooperation across borders as well as with international human rights bodies, non-governmental organizations and persons with psychosocial disabilities themselves
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Full Text Available Human rights protection within the European Community and the European Union has developed judicially, the human rights being protected by the Community Courts as general principles of Community law. The Treaty of Maastricht and the Treaty of Amsterdam have codified the Community law within the area of human rights. The codification of European Union's concept of human rights in a single document was realized by adopting the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, on 7 December 2000 in Nice, whose provisions acquired legally binding under the Treaty of Lisbon.
Brazilian Human Rights Policy Strategy in the First Lula Government
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Wellington Lourenço de Almeida
Full Text Available This article analyzes the political consequences of the general strategy that guided key federal human rights programs from 2003-2006. The first part of the text discusses issues considered to be central for a consideration of the trajectory of human rights in Brazil, beginning with the authoritarian regime (1964-1985. The objective is to locate the victories and defeats that marked attempts to affirm more advanced standards of promotion and protection of human rights in Brazilian society. The second portion analyzes the promotion of this agenda in the first government of President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva. The sources used were official government documents, texts organized by specific segments of civil society and academic articles. In conclusion, it presents the main impasses of this agenda and the criticisms of the economist visions that weaken the integrated concept of human rights that guide the essay.
International human rights for mentally ill persons: the Ontario experience.
Zuckerberg, Joaquin
This article is part of a working project which assesses Ontario's mental health legislation and practice vis-à-vis international human rights standards. The paper focuses on procedural safeguards provided by the major international human rights instruments in the field of mental health law such as the UN Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness (MI Principles) and the European Convention on Human Rights as interpreted by the European Human Rights Court. In analysing Ontario's compliance with international standards, the paper will explore some problems arising from the implementation of the legislation with which the author is familiar with from his experience as counsel for the Consent and Capacity Board. The paper aims to generate discussion for potential reforms in domestic legal systems and to provide a methodology to be used as a tool to assess similar mental health legislation in other local contexts.
Human rights violations in organ procurement practice in China.
Paul, Norbert W; Caplan, Arthur; Shapiro, Michael E; Els, Charl; Allison, Kirk C; Li, Huige
Over 90% of the organs transplanted in China before 2010 were procured from prisoners. Although Chinese officials announced in December 2014 that the country would completely cease using organs harvested from prisoners, no regulatory adjustments or changes in China's organ donation laws followed. As a result, the use of prisoner organs remains legal in China if consent is obtained. We have collected and analysed available evidence on human rights violations in the organ procurement practice in China. We demonstrate that the practice not only violates international ethics standards, it is also associated with a large scale neglect of fundamental human rights. This includes organ procurement without consent from prisoners or their families as well as procurement of organs from incompletely executed, still-living prisoners. The human rights critique of these practices will also address the specific situatedness of prisoners, often conditioned and traumatized by a cascade of human rights abuses in judicial structures. To end the unethical practice and the abuse associated with it, we suggest to inextricably bind the use of human organs procured in the Chinese transplant system to enacting Chinese legislation prohibiting the use of organs from executed prisoners and making explicit rules for law enforcement. Other than that, the international community must cease to abet the continuation of the present system by demanding an authoritative ban on the use of organs from executed Chinese prisoners.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Human Rights Year, so designated by the United Nations, is now coming to an end. The full text of the Universal Declaration, proclaimed in 1946, is given as a reminder of its ideals. In 1966 Covenants for acceptance by States were drawn up and opened for signature. (author)