The Breakthrough

Abortion and Human Rights for Women in Argentina Barbara Sutton (bio) and Elizabeth Borland (bio) introduction Legal abortion is one among several dimensions of a reproductive justice agenda, and yet it continues to be at the center of controversy in many places around the world. While in countries such as the United States abortion is legal but contested,1 in places such as Argentina, abortion is largely illegal, with few exceptions.2 Despite its criminalization, it is estimated that up to 522,000 abortions take place annually in Argentina.3 Abortion is also a leading cause of maternal mortality, and the clandestinity of the practice especially hurts the most destitute women.4 In this context, women's movement and feminist activists in Argentina have long advocated for the legalization of abortion. Their cause gained momentum in the last decade. Unlike the more narrow emphasis on "choice" that has been prevalent in the United States and other contexts,5 and critiqued by scholars and activists advocating for "reproductive justice,"6 abortion rights activists in Argentina have included expansive frames in their discursive repertoire, even as they concentrate on legalizing abortion. One of these expansive frames pertains to the notion of human rights. The proliferation of human rights discourse as a recognized and shared language across national borders and cultures—for example, as evidenced by international human rights treaties—suggests the need to examine how this frame works in practice and whether it has local resonance in different national contexts. According to Elizabeth Jay Friedman, from a feminist perspective, part of the power of the human rights frame derives from its ability to "provide legitimacy to political demands, given both its political acceptance and its 'machinery,' or instruments for its realization."7 Furthermore, the notion that "women's rights are human rights" was increasingly deployed in the global arena during the 1990s and is still being invoked in prominent activist spaces in different locales, including the 2017 Women's March on Washington.8 Still, [End Page 27] as we shall see, this frame is not without critics, including among feminists who have taken issue with its usefulness both philosophically and in terms of its concrete application in specific national contexts.9 Thus the question emerges: Is the human rights frame useful or viable when it comes to articulating long-standing feminist demands such as abortion rights? If so, in which circumstances? In the case of Argentina, why have abortion rights activists chosen to incorporate the language of human rights as an important component of their discursive repertoire? Within Argentina, the movement for abortion rights needs to be situated in the context of broader struggles for social justice, democracy, and gender and sexuality rights. In the last two decades several progressive laws were passed in Argentina, including legislation on sexual and reproductive health (2002), comprehensive sex education (2006), ending violence against women (2009), marriage equality (2010), and self-determination of gender identity (2012). These changes followed a historic turning point marked by a severe economic and political crisis in 2001, when a variety of social movements were agitating for new and old demands.10 However, despite legislative progress on matters of sexual and reproductive rights, legalizing abortion has proven more difficult to achieve. This article examines activist efforts to decriminalize and legalize abortion, paying special attention to the strategic use of a human rights frame. The prominent coalition to demand the legalization and decriminalization of abortion in Argentina is the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion, launched in 2005.11 By its tenth anniversary the Campaign had the support of more than three hundred organizations as well as countless individuals from all walks of life. Groups in the coalition include political parties, labor organizations, academic institutions, human rights groups, and many more. Activists characterize the Campaign as plural (comprising a diversity of individuals, social sectors, and political ideologies), federal (reaching the various regions of the country), self-organized (not directed by any external entity), and democratic (with the main direction of the Campaign determined through plenary meetings and collective discussion). The Campaign's key slogan, which has unified it when tensions and disagreement have arisen, is: "Sex education...

Restricting NGOs: From Pushback to Accommodation

Women’s rights have become a focal point in a series of international conferences that have resulted in significant political commitments to human rights and gender equality. Women still face many challenges in their daily lives, including in the workplace. This research aims to provide an analysis of the position of working women in Indonesia and Thailand who experience discrimination in the workforce. By comparing a series of legal regulations that each of these countries has, particularly regarding the protection of female labour. Economic growth, which is also supported by the increasing participation of women in the workforce, is a strong reason why protection for women in the workplace must be prioritized by both countries. This research uses a normative legal method, which is a research method that involves investigating literature or secondary materials, namely laws regulated based on the rules contained in legislation or law used as a guide for behaviour in the daily lives of society. To complement the results of the writing, a qualitative approach is also used. The issues to be addressed in this study are the forms of legal regulations that govern female workers in Indonesia and Thailand to prevent discrimination, the role of law in promoting the empowerment of women working in Indonesia and Thailand, and the legal status of victims of discrimination against female workers in Indonesia and Thailand. The results of the research indicate that there are still many shortcomings in both countries in protecting their respective female workers. The role of the regulations provided by both Indonesia and Thailand has its own role in the effort to ensure protection for women in the workforce. Starting from regulations regarding wages, working hours, leave rights, and protection for women experiencing discrimination or harassment in the workplace. These regulations are made with the intention to be implemented in every field of work, both formal and informal, for women working in Indonesia and Thailand. The position of victims of discrimination in the workplace in both Indonesia and Thailand still faces various kinds of very concerning challenges. Despite the existence of a series of regulations specifically for this protection, they still do not receive justice commensurate with the authorities. Women victims of discrimination must continue to fight to ensure that they receive fair justice.

Racial Profiling

Police abuses have been brought into the limelight recently due to the killing of George Floyd and many other African Americans in the United States. This has led to various protests in other countries, recalling decades of police brutality and abuses. The police exist to serve the community's good, ensure law and order, foster the protection of human lives and properties, and help prevent crime. When police officers deviate from the purpose for which they are set up, abuses arise. In spite of the noble aims for which the police exist, there are police officers that have engaged in abusive practices, thus impeding their services. Police history seems to be rooted in a systematic culture of dehumanization and abuse. Police training and formation have privileged tactics and strategic training to the near negligence of moral character formation in police officers. This paper problematises this issue and argues through critical analytic and hermeneutic methods for the imperative of ethics in curbing police abuses. The paper finds that police abuses are global, and there is police impunity everywhere. It concludes, among other recommendations that police abuses can be restrained through ethical formation of police officers to respect the human dignity and rights of the citizens.

Can international law protect abortion rights? Drawing from past work on domestic mechanisms that give international law teeth, we argue that a strong civil society composed of women's groups and groups concerned with women's rights leads the government to comply with its international human rights commitments to women, specifically their right to abortion. Unlike that past work, though, we draw attention to the ways in which civil society can leverage the depth of their government's international legal commitment. Highly legalized commitments—those characterized by higher obligation, precision, and delegation—should help groups mobilize and give them access to international legal forums that can credibly threaten the government. Based on this argument, we expect countries that have ratified the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women's Optional Protocol, a highly legalized treaty, to protect women's rights to abortion when women's civil society participation is high. Estimating several statistical models to test our expectations, the results lend credence to the argument. Highly legalized commitments allow civil society actors to hold governments accountable to those commitments leading to more liberalized abortion rights protections.

Age discrimination in the workplace: The more things change ….

Counter-Culture, Hegemony and Human Rights: Rights and Resistance under the Cold War

Police abuse affects people who inject drugs (PWID), including those with HIV, and negatively impacts care engagement. This cross-sectional study evaluated police abuse among PWID receiving MOUD (medication for opioid use disorder) living with HIV and associations with HIV treatment adherence and receipt of NGO services. We assessed lifetime and past six-month rates of police abuse among a cohort of Ukrainian PWID with HIV receiving MOUD (n = 190) from August to September 2017. Logistic regression models evaluated associations between past six-month police abuse and past 30-day antiretroviral therapy (ART) adherence, and past six-month NGO service receipt. Almost all (90%) participants reported lifetime police abuse: 77% reported physical violence and 75% reported paying the police to avoid arrest. One in four females (25%) reported police-perpetrated sexual violence. Recent police abuse was reported by 16% of males and 2% of females and was not associated with ART adherence (aOR: 1.1; 95% CI:0.3–5.0) or NGO service receipt (aOR: 3.4; 95% CI:0.6–18.3). While lifetime police abuse rates were high, few participants reported recent police abuse, which was not linked to care engagement. These trends should encourage the Ukrainian government for public health-public safety partnerships and legal interventions to eliminate human rights violations against PWID living with HIV.

Latin Women Take the Helm

Distress of human rights expansion entered the era of international relations and foreign policy of countries as a debate in international dimensions after World War II. Global declaration of human rights and all mechanisms of United Nations practically highlighted the globalization of human rights. After cold war and the emergence of new international system, many capabilities generated for international cooperation in the field of expansion of human rights idea. In addition, foreign policy of countries dealt with this matter. In this direction, Liberalism and English school are very important. English school believes that international societies of governments are not immoral units and are represented by individuals that inevitably have moral stance. International society based on moral principles. These principles to pluralist branch of school include a kind of minor morals i.e. in the form of agreement among governments regarding principles that provide the possibility of coexistence and cooperation in the direction of common interests. These principles to solidarity-oriented branch include rich ethics i.e. universal moral principles such as supporting human rights. In contrast, Liberalism theories believe according to this fact that society should lack external pressure and obligation, they clearly remind a unique position in human rights. They try to normalize realist world and develop human rights at international level for example, humanism intrusion largely implies international liberal though against governments sovereignty and the establishment of liberal order in the world. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2016.v7n3s3p371

During the Cold War era, the traditional Westphalian understanding of sovereignty protected the right of governments to deal with human rights as they saw fit within the borders of their own state. Despite the existence of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Bill of Human Rights, the international community made no serious effort to force signatory states to respect the obligations associated with those documents. A lack of international consensus on what those obligations were and how to prioritize different sets of rights compounded the problem. (1) With the end of the Cold War, Western states--particularly the United States--aggressively promoted the spread of liberal economic values and practices and argued that these economic values would facilitate the spread of associated political and social ideals. European states also began linking human rights considerations to economic and trade agreements, at least rhetorically. Some governments pushed back against this Western pressure, giving rise to the Asian values which centred on the claim of some leaders that people preferred being governed by soft authoritarian, collectivist-oriented states rather than the individualist, liberal democratic structures advocated by the West. This governmental effort at staking out a distinctive position towards human rights faltered in the wake of the Economic Crisis of 1997-99. (2) The development of the Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN) provides an interesting example of how the debate between state sovereignty versus human rights (and democracy) has evolved in the Asia-Pacific region. The principle of Westphalian state sovereignty is the cornerstone of ASEAN's institutional structure. While other regional organizations have provisions to intervene in the affairs of member states under extraordinary conditions, ASEAN still refuses to take this step. (3) Nonetheless, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, there are indications that ASEAN is shifting its approach towards state sovereignty. The ASEAN Charter speaks of the need for member states to respect human rights and protect and promote democracy. In October 2009, ASEAN launched the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) to monitor the human rights conduct of its member states. The AICHR is currently working on developing an ASEAN Declaration on Human Rights, in what human rights NGOs have criticized as a highly secretive process. (4) The AICHR developed an ASEAN Declaration on Human Rights, in what NGOs criticized as a highly secretive process. The AICHR presented the Declaration to ASEAN in November 2012. The Declaration has been criticized by human rights groups for being too deferential to state power. (5) In 2010, ASEAN created the ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC). These developments were accompanied by a number of other measures designed to enhance human rights in Southeast Asia. (6) This paper argues that ASEAN's recent shift towards creating a more robust regional human rights regime is less substantive than it appears. The central argument is that ASEAN's moves towards promoting human rights are an important part of a larger regional strategy to rejuvenate and re-legitimize ASEAN. The growth of democracy and the spread of international norms of human rights have had some effect in the region. However, these influences are relatively minor and outweighed by the domestic political and economic requirements of the member states. The paper is divided into three parts. Part one examines the history of the regional human rights debate leading to the emergence of the AICHR. The paper argues that ASEAN's fairly abrupt shift towards supporting the AICHR reflected the member states' political interest in revitalizing ASEAN. The second part of the paper considers the possibilities that ASEAN's shift was due to pressure from the West or a desire on the part of ASEAN states to emulate the presumed human rights orientation of the Western powers. …

The creation of the human rights system with the adoption in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1981 of the Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (African Charter) under the auspices of the former Organization of Unity (OAU) and its entry into force on 21 October 1986, a culmination of the yearning of many civil society and human rights organisations have a home-grown human rights mechanism that works promote and protect the human rights of the peoples of Africa. It is now common knowledge that the 1961 International Commission of Jurists' African Conference on the Rule of one of the early fires in this regard. One of the resolutions of the conference (the famous Law of Lagos) in effect the creation of a human rights court under a proposed African Convention on Human Rights, which was lay down the basis for future efforts for the establishment of rules and mechanisms for the regional promotion and protection of human rights in Africa, and to give full effect the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Granted that it took 20 years after the Law of Lagos for the Charter that sets the tone for a regional human rights regime be adopted, its adoption a welcome development. During the early period of this development, the Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (African Commission) the only organ mandated under the Charter to: 1) engage in promoting human rights; 2) protect human rights; 3) examine state reports; and 4) provide interpretation of the Charter. As part of its protection mandate, the Commission innovated the hearing of individual complaints for human rights violations brought it by victims of such violations or their representatives.

The Law of Peoples

Problem setting. The current state of affairs in society requires increased attention to the protection of human and citizen rights and freedoms. Martial law, as a legal regime, causes significant changes in the functioning of state institutions and society in general, endangering the basic rights and freedoms of citizens. Under such circumstances, it is especially important to develop and implement innovative approaches to ensuring the protection of human rights, which would take into account the specifics of the state of war and, at the same time, act as guarantors of compliance with the basic principles of the rule of law. This requires not only the reform of the legislation, but also the introduction of new technologies and methods that will allow more effective protection of citizens’ rights even in difficult conditions. Innovative approaches should be based on an increased level of awareness and training of both state bodies and civil society regarding mechanisms for the protection of rights in wartime. Analysis of recent researches and publications. Important aspects of the issue of innovative approaches to the protection of human and civil rights and freedoms have been studied by R. Shai, S. Husarov, O. Gilyaka, V. Kovalenko. However, despite the considerable experience in this area, the issue of introducing innovations to protect human rights and freedoms has not been fully explored. Purpose of the research is a comprehensive study of the features of innovative approaches to the protection of human and citizen rights and freedoms under martial law. This involves an analysis of the latest technologies, legal mechanisms and organizational solutions that can be effectively used to protect civil rights in emergency situations. In addition, the article examines the challenges and prospects of implementing these innovative approaches in the context of Ukrainian realities, in particular, taking into account socio-economic and legal aspects. Article’s main body. The research materials are: 1) normative and legal support for the protection of human and citizen rights and freedoms under martial law, including international conventions, domestic laws and by-laws; 2) works of domestic and foreign authors who conduct scientific and practical research in the field of human rights, innovative technologies and methods of protecting rights in armed conflicts. In the research process, the following scientific methods were used: theoretical generalization and grouping – to characterize the components of the system of protection of human and citizen rights and freedoms in the conditions of martial law and functions related to ensuring security; the method of formalization, analysis and synthesis – for the study of the domestic and the needs for the protection of rights in the conditions of martial law; comparative analysis – to develop different strategies and approaches to the protection of human and citizen rights in the conditions of martial law. The generalization of the results was used to formulate conclusions and develop recommendations for improving the system of protection of rights and freedoms in similar conditions. Conclusions and prospects for the development. The protection of human rights under martial law is a complex and multifaceted task that requires an integrated approach, including legal, administrative and socio-economic processes. The war caused and continues to cause a lot of grief, destroying everything in its path, the most valuable of which is human life and health. The main goal currently remains the issue of effective protection of a person and a citizen from external dangers lurking in modern Ukrainian society. This study aims to analyze approaches to the protection of human rights under martial law, determine their effectiveness and outline ways of improvement. Special attention is paid to the study of international experience and the possibility of its adaptation to modern Ukrainian conditions. As a result, it is planned to develop recommendations for the implementation of innovative approaches that will contribute to strengthening the legal protection of citizens in the conditions of martial law, increasing the level of their security and well-being.