World report: events of 2005

Abstract

Book DetailsHuman Rights Watch. (2012). World report 2012: Events of 2011. New York: Seven Stories Press, 676 pages, paperback, ISBN 9781609803896.Synopsis and EvaluationHuman Rights Watch is one of world's most well known and most active nongovernmental organizations dedicated to protection and promotion of rights all over globe. It monitors state compliance with international rights standards, conducting extensive on site investigations and focusing international attention on situations of severe rights abuses and violations. With divisions in Europe, USA, Americas, Africa, and Asia, organization has various programs with focus on different fields: arms; business and rights; children's rights; health and rights; international justice; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights; refugees; women's rights; etc. Its main goals are to give voice to those who are oppressed, to most marginalized and neglected, to bring justice and security, holding oppressors accountable for their crimes, laying legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted changes.The 22nd annual World Report summarizes rights conditions and key issues in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide, being outcome of extensive investigative work undertaken in 2011 by Human Rights Watch staff, usually with collaboration and close partnership with domestic rights organizations and advocates (p. 20).The book is divided into five essays, followed by country-specific chapters. In first essay, named Before Arab Spring, Unseen Thaw, Eric Goldstein assesses signs of change which were largely overlooked in Middle East and North Africa region. According to author tended to see mainly authoritarian governments, whose grip was never in doubt, even when they tolerated a controlled pluralism, cautiously independent print media, and a fragile civil society. What we undervalued were rising expectations on demand side, which subsequently fired 2011 upheavals, during which thousands of peaceful demonstrators gave their lives in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain (p. 25).In next essay, After Fall, Rachel Denber looks retrospectively into USSR's collapse 20 years ago in search of valuable lessons. Next, Benjamin Ward concludes in Europe's Own Human Rights Crisis that while many European officials see Arab Spring as the most thrilling period since fall of Berlin Wall, in Europe itself human rights are in trouble since old continent continuously demonstrates intolerance and discriminatory practices towards migrants and problematic minorities (p. 42).In her essay From Paternalism to Dignity, Shanta Rau Barriga calls for respect of rights of persons with disabilities who are often stripped of most fundamental of all rights - right to make choices about their own lives - under guise of protecting them from challenges of decision-making and living independently (p. …