Abuse Of Human Rights Research Articles

The Struggle for Memory and Justice in Mexico

The debate about public memory has intensified in Mexico in a time of widespread violence and human rights abuses, particularly in the context of the guerra contra el narco (war against drug cartels) that began in 2006. Confronting government narratives that criminalize victims of enforced disappearance and criminal violence, and the state’s failure to bring the perpetrators to justice, families of victims and other activists have led a struggle for truth, justice, memory and reparations. Through diverse memorial interventions across the country, they call attention to the continuities in state violence over time, and the need for memorial spaces that transform the structural conditions underlying different forms of violence and state neglect.

The role of athlete commissions in addressing sport-related human rights abuses: a case study of the Commonwealth Games Federation Athletes Advisory Commission

Athlete commissions have an important role to play in addressing sport-related human rights abuses. This article will explore this by examining the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) which made constitutional changes and created its first athlete representation body in 2017—the CGF Athletes Advisory Commission (AAC). These governance and legal changes empowered athletes to be part of the CGF leadership. Under the new governance structure, the Chair of the AAC is a voting member of the CGF Executive Board. The AAC met for the first time in 2018. In 2020, they launched their strategy (CGF Media Release 13 May 2020. https://thecgf.com/news/cgf-athletes-advisory-commission-launch-new-strategy. Accessed 28 October 2021) which seeks to uphold and live the Commonwealth Sport values of humanity, equality and destiny. The strategy identifies the Commonwealth athletes as agents of change, advocates for integrity and ambassadors for respect, impartiality and non-discrimination. How realistic is this ambition? The CGF itself, Commonwealth Sports Ministers and Commonwealth Member Countries have all adopted zero tolerance policies towards human rights violations (See The Commonwealth Consensus Statement on Promoting Human Rights in and through Sport 27 October 2020. https://thecommonwealth.org/sites/default/files/inline/CW%20Consensus%20Statement-ADOPTED%20v2.pdf. Accessed 28 October 2021 and The CGF Transformation 2022 Refresh 3 September 2019 Page 31. https://thecgf.com/sites/default/files/2019-10/CGF_TRANSFORMATION%2022_BROCHURE_FINAL_16-08-19_LOW%20RES.pdf. Accessed 28 October 2021). The authors will speak to the current Chair of the AAC and the previous Chair of the AAC to ask some pertinent questions around what impact the 2020 AAC strategy can have in safeguarding participants from sport related human rights abuses. The interview will explore policy change, governance reforms and long terms strategies which can maximize the role of athletes in protecting, respecting and fulfilling the human rights of not just athletes but all involved in the delivery of the Commonwealth Sport movement.

Mothering Practices and Human Rights Abuses of Girls in Marginalized Contexts: Examining the Moral Culpability of Women who Abuse Children

The form of gender-based violence (GBV) analysed in this article relates to ‘harmful traditional practices’ (HTPs) detrimental to the health and well-being of girls. In response to calls to action from the international community, many states are enacting laws and regulations against HTPs. Scholars argue that criminal justice reform is a vital component of efforts to reduce HTPs. While this article supports establishing mechanisms to address violence against girls, I question whether criminalization is a suitable strategy. HTPs, although classified as GBV, have distinctive features. Their prevalence hinges on ideas surrounding ethnicity and/or religion in addition to the fact that women work directly and indirectly to sustain these violent practices. The developing contemporary understanding of HTPs within and without legal systems, to the degree that it focuses on perpetrators of abuse, ignores the role of women in the production and reproduction of HTPs. Criminalization of HTPs will have a disproportionate effect on mothers. This article seeks to question and understand the dilemma of determining the ‘moral culpability’ or responsibility of mothers who support and participate in violence against girls. Using postmodern feminism, I argue that a genuine commitment to protecting children requires an approach that accounts for the growing significance of culture, not only in defining action but also providing cultural components that play a role in the decisions of mothers.

A Glass Half Full: Critical Assessment of EU Regulation 2017/821 on Conflict Minerals

Abstract EU Regulation 2017/821, bound to enter into force in early 2021, is the most recent legislative initiative aiming to sever the links between minerals trade, conflict dynamics and human rights abuses. The Regulation, which is meant to complement US legislation on conflict minerals, creates requirements for direct importers of 3TG in the EU and preludes to the establishment of a list of responsible EU smelters and refiners. While marking a historic step forward in the global efforts to curb conflict minerals trade, the Regulation presents some critical aspects. These include the exact definition of its geographical scope, its limitation to the 3TG metals and minerals and, most importantly, the exemption from its binding provisions of all downstream companies. While the functioning and effectiveness of the Regulation, as well as its possible unintended social and economic consequences on producing countries, will become clearer after its entry into force, this article provides an interim assessment of its strengths and weaknesses. The article starts by putting the Regulation in the context of global efforts to curb trade in conflict minerals, and addresses the ongoing debate on the possible adverse economic and social consequences of this type of legislation (Section 2). It then analyses the contents of the Regulation, critically focusing attention, in particular, on its hybrid combination of binding and voluntary measures, and on its scope of application (Section 3). In Section 4, an interim appraisal of the Regulation is carried out by highlighting both its undeniable potential and the shortcomings that might hamper its effectiveness in achieving its stated goals. Finally, Section 5 summarizes the article’s conclusions in the light of the likely adoption by the EU, in the near future, of a cross-sectoral mandatory human rights due diligence instrument.

Poetry, protest, and environment: human and nonhuman rights in Nigerian literature

ABSTRACT Since its inception, Nigerian poetry in English has always been characterized by protest in nature. Beyond its aesthetic scope, it has been critical of socio-political and environmental problems that have bedevilled the nation. This paper is concerned with such literary instrumentalism; the use of poetry by Nigerian writers, living in Nigeria, as an instrument against abuses of human and environmental rights. The theoretical framework that is employed is drawn from the notions of protest writing in Africa and ideas of postcolonial ecocriticism. This will provide a context that brings the fate of humans and nonhumans together under the weight of a failed home government and multinational capitalism in contemporary Nigeria. This study will trace the development of literary and political events in Nigeria, followed by a textual analysis of selected poems. Attention will also be paid to the growth of environmental legislation in Nigeria since the colonial period. This article concludes by arguing that in the absence of an effective or practical legal framework, poetry remains one of the most significant instruments for highlighting the violation of human and environmental rights. As such, the study benefits contemporary scholarship by drawing attention to the social dimension of poetry – and the arts generally – as well as the role literature plays in foregrounding environmental crises in postcolonial societies.

Business and Human Rights: A P&O Ferries Case-Study

Business and Human Rights:A P&O Ferries Case-Study KD Ewing (bio) Quite by chance, I was completing a section of my Human Rights at Work course at King's College London. The section in question was on 'Business and Human Rights', and formed part of the Human Rights at Work (LLM) course. One of the themes covered in the latter section of the course is the obligation of businesses to comply with Human Rights obligations and the multiple sources of that obligation. And then came the P&O announcement like a bolt from the blue, once again raising big questions about the effectiveness of soft law instruments as a means of ensuring that big business behaves in a socially responsible way. Business enterprises 'should respect human rights' Pre-eminent amongst these sources are the UN General Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) approved in 2011 (the so-called 'Ruggie principles' after their author). These seek to impose obligations on governments to protect against human rights abuses; on corporations to respect internationally recognised human rights; and on States to 'ensure as part of their duty to protect against business-related human rights abuse' that those affected have access to an effective remedy. The principles require national governments to develop an action plan to promote their implementation, which the British government proudly claims to be the first to have done. This can be found on the BEIS website, with the government's implementation document claiming implausibly that 'the promotion of business, and the respect for human rights, go hand in hand'. Not only that: 'The 'golden thread' of safeguards in society that are good for human rights–democratic freedoms, the rule of law, good governance, transparency, property rights and civil society–also provide fertile conditions for private sector led growth'. The question that then arises is what is meant by human rights for this purpose? To which human rights do these obligations apply? The position could not be clearer or more expansive. According to the UNGPs, they apply to the 'international bill of rights' (meaning the UN Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), as well as the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles at Work. It is not necessary to go into these in great detail here; they are easily accessible on the web. So what are the obligations on the part of the government to comply with principles which have now been endorsed by the G7 as part of the currency of globalisation? First they have a duty to 'prevent, investigate, punish and redress' human rights abuses. Secondly they should set out 'an expectation that all business enterprises domiciled in their territory and/or jurisdiction respect human rights throughout their operations'. Thirdly, they should enforce laws that are aimed at or have the effect of requiring business enterprises to respect human rights'. Special obligations arise specifically in relation to those businesses which are supported by the State or have contracts with the State. One other obligation which is worth noting in light of press reports that a Department of Transport was notified by P&O in advance of the announcement, yet did nothing to stop it, but on the contrary appeared to condone the company's decision. This is the principle that states should ensure that government departments that shape business practices are aware of and observe the State's human rights obligations when fulfilling their mandates. This includes providing relevant information, training and support, raising questions about the training and support of the DoT official, whose responsibility when circulating details of P&O's decision was to raise a red flag not to flash a green light. A duty to 'identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for' So far as the company itself is concerned, the Guiding Principles impose multiple human rights obligations. They must avoid causing adverse human rights impacts in their activities, and address such impacts when they occur, and in order to do so, they must take a number of prescribed steps. First they must have in place policies and processes, whereby they commit to meet their...

RADICAL ISLAMISM: TRAJECTORIES OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS AND ABUSES IN AFRICA

In Africa, radical and extremist Muslims are striving to transform society through violent change, claiming that African rulers are dictatorial and anti-Islamic; as a result, many African countries are experiencing serious human rights violations and abuses. Therefore, this paper examined radical Islamism and its trajectories of human rights violations and abuses in Africa and proffered workable solutions to the dilemma. To achieve the above aim, the paper employed historical and evaluative methods. The historical method was used to critically review the scholarly literature on radical Islamism and its human rights violations and abuses antecedents in Africa. At the evaluative level, the paper critically discussed the impact of human rights violations and abuses on the African nations and their citizens. The paper revealed that radical Islamism in Africa is driven by bad political leadership, poverty, poor education, unemployment, and religious exclusivism among others. The paper concluded that good governance, economic enhancement, and religious inclusiveness are key tools in discouraging and curbing radical Islamists in African countries.

Civil Military Relations in a Post-Colonial State: An Interrogation of Nigeria’s Military Internal Operations

The current corps of Nigerian army are products of top tertiary military and policy institutions. They have demonstrated their prowess internationally, especially, in peace keeping and peace enforcement. Forty-four years (44 yrs) after the Nigerian Afro-Beat Maestro (Fela) sang, “…they leave sorrow, tears and blood…”, the Nigerian army is still riveted in gross human rights abuses. Recently, it is competing with Boko Haram on who comes first on the list of International Criminal Court’s (ICC) human rights abuses. Given that the army is trained to use maximum force and the fact that post-colonial states’ crises, especially in Africa, and specifically Nigeria are internal. There has been the debate on the establishment of medium force outfit in Nigeria, which led to the establishment and subsequent disbandment of National Guard in the 1990s. The debate continued to rage in this Fourth Industrial Revolution era. But the cost implication of running such a paramilitary outfit has posed a major hindrance. To fill this gap, this paper joins the debate and argues for the establishment of an Army Constabulary Corp (ACC), a medium force between the army maximum force and the police minimum force. The paper uses the Feaver Agency theory of civil military relation as its theoretical framework. The study collated data through documentary methods. In analysing the data, the qualitative data were transcribed, interpreted, and analysed through systematic logical inductions.

FROM MIGRATION TO INTEGRATION: THE JOURNEY OF MIGRANT WORKERS IN KERALA

Culture continues to be a constantly evolving and dynamic. With the continuous interactions between people at all levels and between different cultures, the notions of culture of a particular target group keeps changing. The development of a cultural notion is dynamic and will continue to be so, and it can only be comprehended over a longer period of time.Migration is a social fact that cannot be attributed specifically to one point in time. For a variety of reasons, people have crossed boundaries. Some individuals relocate in quest of better career prospects. Others relocate to avoid violent conflict, hardship, hunger, fear, persecution, or abuses of human rights. Others do it in reaction to the unfavourable consequences of environmental issues like natural catastrophes, climate change, or other environmental problems. Many people relocate for a mix of these causes. However, there is an unavoidable relationship between a number of social, economic, political, cultural, and ecological elements that forms the foundation of migration with each journey that is performed by a person or a group of people. It is hard to generalise a consistent theory or a cause due to the very dynamic character it exhibits. Migration, which is sometimes thought of in terms of uniformity, is a phenomenon that differs from person to person. The effects of migration impact the economy, society, and state, however minimal they may be.Migration to a place with a different culture generally involves a difficult journey. Blending into the host society is often a practical choice for migrants. An individual or group habituates to the customs and values of another culture while keeping its own unique culture via the process of acculturation.In the background of the Indian society, the variety of languages, dialects, beliefs, traditions, and festivals continues to play a crucial role in the acculturation of immigrants. Migrants have a choice: they may either adapt to the dominant group's culture, reject it in order to preserve their own, or merge into a hybrid group (Berry, 1980). According to Üstüner (2017), three key factors shape the consumer lives of poor migrants, including (1) migration strips migrants of their naturalised cultural moorings from their previous local identities and forces them to deal with a mass-produced alien culture; (2) their minority ideology clashes with the dominant culture and is actively marginalized by it; and (3) they are forced to cope with the dominant consumer ideology.India, which is rich in several diverse forms of culture, continues to serve as a social hub for people from different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. The paper attempts in reviewing the migration to Kerala, in the background of the factors that pull the workers from other parts of the country and their responses and ability to negotiate – both at workplace and in the society, which are crucial for their social inclusion.

Blockchain technology needs for sustainable mineral supply chains: A framework for responsible sourcing of Cobalt.

Blockchain technology has recently become the go-to solution for companies and industries that seek to enhance value chain traceability of their products, and transparency in their supply chains. Because of these benefits, it’s been proposed for monitoring environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and compliance in industries that have weak regulatory and formal structures. The cobalt mining industry especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the world’s biggest producer of cobalt ore used in the manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries, is one such environment that’s characterized by conflict, and serious human rights abuses. The key actors in the cobalt supply chain, therefore, face the tradeoff involving maintaining long-term supply versus reducing the risks associated with cobalt sourced from locations with poor environmental and human rights records. Most of such problems emerge from Artisanal and small-scale mining. This paper presents an attempt to tightly link existing blockchain technology frameworks in the cobalt industry with ESG performance of companies to enable them to audit the chain of custody journeys for their components and ultimately sustainability performance. We present a responsible sourcing framework to connect blockchain source data needs to ESG metrics to help companies build interoperable but understandable blockchain architectures.

Covidisation of oppression: COVID-19 and human rights violations in Zimbabwe.

Restrictive measures implemented in Zimbabwe since March 30, 2020 were instigated by the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in China and its subsequent spread to other countries around the world. However, public concerns about preparedness, especially the government's response to the pandemic, were raised early when the coronavirus started to wreak havoc elsewhere around the world in late 2019. These concerns were particularly emphatic and palpable given that Zimbabwe has been having a health crisis for a long time well before the worldwide outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper is a critique of Zimbabwe's human rights record since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Madhukar Pai's idea of covidisation is used to conceptualise through description and explanation how the Zimbabwean government took advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to further human rights abuses, hence the covidisation of oppression. I use a multipronged approach starting with a historical account detailing how the Zimbabwean government has been flagrantly violating the human rights of citizens. Documentary evidence is the main source of information for this paper coupled with the empirical observation of developments in the political arena and using critical discourse analysis (CDA) as the main analytical tool. The Zimbabwean government has failed to balance the imperatives of saving lives by building a robust health system in conjunction with the creation and implementation of a comprehensive COVID-19 strategy while addressing the livelihood needs of its people.

Remarks by Christine Ryan

Thanks. When I first received the invitation to speak on this panel and saw the cover of the Queering Atrocity Prevention report, and also considered the work that was done by OutRight and Human Rights Watch in the Afghanistan report, there were many things that excited me about this work, despite its horrendous content. I am going to talk about two in particular. The first is something that is a call or reaffirmation that I see in both papers for our legal policy and programmatic approaches, to take a more critical queer and feminist conception of gender and apply that to whether it is our frameworks of analysis or to the legal obligations that exist for states to prevent and to punish mass atrocities. This, of course, goes beyond just the adding in of LGBT people or, as has happened over the past twenty years, just adding women into our international frameworks or our policy frameworks as well, but really understanding how gender as a social and relational dynamic, how that impacts behavior and expectations of behavior, how that can drive human rights abuses, how it can drive atrocities, how it is the root cause of them in many cases, and how we need to consider how different policies impact differently gendered beings at the response stage as well. That was one of the first things that I am hoping that this paper brings, that it resurges this conversation as much as possible, whether it is scholarship or within the diplomatic community, where I was partly involved in my last work, and to see it become more widespread.

Спортивна дипломатія Королівства Саудівська Аравія

The paper is devoted to the study of the peculiarities of sports diplomacy as part of the soft power of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) in the context of the implementation of Vision 2030. The research analyzes the factors of interdependence between current domestic, regional, and global policies of Saudi Arabia. The paper highlights the reasons and motives of the representatives of the House of Saud for the modernization of the country, which is based on economic and social principles and requires positive information coverage at the global and regional levels. The study provides a detailed description of sport-washing. The paper aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the KSA sports diplomacy as one of the areas of Vision 2030 implementation. The methodology of the system approach is used in the study, i. e., system-structural analysis and system-functional analysis, as well as event-analysis, method of decision-making analysis, and prognostic method. The research deals with the information, communication, and organizational levels of sports diplomacy. Strategic negotiations with leading international associations, information support, and development of the domestic and international network of the sports industry can help reduce the conflict setting and establish mutual understanding with the domestic and foreign publicity. The launch of large-scale government programs not only promotes sports in the KSA but also aims to raise national sports standards and the educational setting and attract domestic and foreign investments (King Abdullah Sports City, NEOM, the Kingdom’s Capital of Entertainment, Qiddiya Sports and Arts, etc.). The monarchy’s global image is apt to be improved by holding international competitions in many sports and the participation of Saudi athletes in international sporting events, including the Tokyo 2021 Summer Olympic Games and the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games. The Kingdom is alleged to face a number of obstacles to implementing its Vision 2030 foreign policy strategy and conducting sports diplomacy, including allegations of human rights abuses, interference in the Yemen conflict, and strained relations in the region.Thus, the development of sports diplomacy does not play a minor role in implementing the new foreign policy doctrine of the KSA and requires an analysis of methods and tools to predict the further development of the study area and the country in general.

Police soldiers, elite squads, and militia: militarized masculinities and public security discourses in Rio de Janeiro (1995–2018)

ABSTRACT This article investigates how gender representations were mobilized within security discourses by state authorities in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 1995 to 2018. First, we present the state of the art of the feminist international relations debate on gender performativity and militarized masculinities. Then, we analyze political statements and speeches by state authorities, offering new insights into the gendered nature of approaches to security policies in Rio de Janeiro. Our findings suggest that performances of militarized masculinity were crucial elements of public security discourses during the period analyzed. Significantly, we distinguish three main phases of public security policies, characterized by different performances of masculinity: (1) the mid-1990s until the mid-2000s, characterized by the representation of law enforcement agents as “police soldiers”; (2) the period of the Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora (UPP) program (2008–2014), characterized by the duality of a more feminine, human rights-centered security discourse and the continuation of the masculine militaristic logic, embodied by “elite squad” units; and (3) a return to the masculine war logic in public security during the federal intervention (2018). We contend that these performances of militarized masculinity contributed to the maintenance of a war logic as a central element of public security throughout Brazil’s democratic period, undercutting non-military approaches to governance and demanding tolerance of authoritarian measures and human rights abuses.

Biometric Facial Recognition Technology, Law Enforcement Algorithmic Automation, and Data-driven Predictive Policing Systems in Human Rights Protections and Abuses

Biometric Facial Recognition Technology, Law Enforcement Algorithmic Automation, and Data-driven Predictive Policing Systems in Human Rights Protections and Abuses

Overview of Epidemiology of Malaria Associated with Pregnancy in Northwestern Colombia, 1985-2020

Background: Knowledge about malaria associated with pregnancy (MAP) is scarce in Latin America and Colombia. Methodology: This paper presents an overview of studies captained in Pubmed, Lilacs, GoogleScholar and thesis repositories from six Colombian universities and bibliographic references of manuscripts. Results: The following topics have been described: study sites, infectious agents, genetic variation of Plasmodium in MAP, vector resistance to insecticides, incubation period, natural susceptibility and resistance to infection, immunity in MAP, frequency, coexistence of gestational (GM) and placental (PM) malaria, associated factors, efficacy of antimalarial treatment, material living conditions in MAP. The MAP has a high prevalence, with a high frequency of submicroscopic infections. There are cases of MAP due to P. falciparum, P. vivax, or both. Monotherapy with chloroquine or amodiaquine for MAP for P. vivax has efficacy greater than 95% and artemether-lumefantrine or artesunate-mefloquine 100% for P. falciparum. There are high rates of anemia in pregnancies (30-70%). In “The Region,” there is no problem of resistance of vectors to insecticides. MAP occurs in poor territories, with interaction of food insecurity, chronic malnutrition, dissatisfaction of basic needs, intestinal parasites, violence and abuse of human rights. Conclusions: MAP study is just beginning in Colombia; there are no programmes that effectively operate to detect and solve this problem; Government agencies, international health organizations, and private companies should finance the multidisciplinary and comprehensive research (natural and social) of the MAP, in order to know its main characteristics throughout the country and use that knowledge as a basis to seek solutions.

Lydia’s silence: Representation of trauma from an ex-centric position in Achmat Dangor’s Bitter Fruit

South Africa, a place long caught in the crosshairs of hegemonic violence and racism, provides a fitting case study for the imbalance and marginalization of the traumatized individuals who lived through the fascist apartheid regime. Achmat Dangor’s celebrated novel Bitter Fruit (2001) is a tragic story of the coloured family of Silas Ali set during 1998; when Nelson Mandela’s presidency was gaining momentum in South Africa. It was a period when the violent and discriminatory apartheid regime was coming to an end and a fledgling democracy was still testing its wings in South Africa. The narrative of Bitter Fruit is centred around the silenced memory of Lydia’s rape, Silas’s wife, by a white security policeman called Francois du Boise. The novel begins with Lydia’s suppressed traumatic past erupting into the post-apartheid present when Silas accidentally encounters his wife’s rapist at a mall in Johannesburg thereby bringing back the traumatic memories of the past. Nineteen-year-old Mikey Ali, who is a child conceived in shame and terror, is the figurative ‘bitter fruit’ in the novel born of miscegenation and apartheid abuse. Lydia’s trauma haunts the family in complex ways ultimately leading to the disintegration of familial bonds. These personal experiences of trauma take place against the backdrop of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a famous but controversial reparative model of justice. The proposed research article aims to understand trauma from the ex-centric position of a coloured woman who refuses to allow her personal experiences of trauma to be undermined and defined as merely wartime ‘collateral damage’. Lydia resists the reductionist approach that the members of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) had adopted while dealing with cases related to violence and human rights abuses. In the beginning, dialogue and discourses on trauma centred mainly around extremely unusual events but now trauma theories have infiltrated co

Business and human rights versus corporate social responsibility: Integration for victim remedies

It is a daunting task to discern between the several debates within and surrounding the corporate social responsibility and the business and human rights movements. At the basic level of objectives, for instance, questions arise as to which movement is substantively or comparatively broader in scope. In contributing to the debates, this article investigates their evolution and the intersections within the fields. It finds both movements to be inextricably-linked regulatory movements directed at establishing accountability for the impact of human rights violations. Using the human rights due diligence requirement elaborated by the influential United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights as a springboard, the article integrates the shared objective of the two inseparable movements, describing for scholarship and practice, the ambit of a victim-centred accountability remedial framework for business-related human rights abuses.

The AICHR as a participatory space: contesting the secretive face of power

ABSTRACT The ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) is often regarded unfavourably, depicted at best as irrelevant in the battle to promote and protect human rights in Southeast Asia, and at worst, complicit in the abuse of human rights by its silence in the face of the region's human rights' tragedies. While AICHR has many limitations, we regard it as a work-in-progress, evolving as it was always meant to. To understand this evolution, we conceive of AICHR as a participatory space in which contestation of what AICHR can, and cannot, do is being undertaken by its Representatives. This contestation includes exposing its secretive face of power by revealing: the space human rights can be discussed in; who can participate and who is excluded in this discussion; and how malleable the norms that operate within this space are to change. The latter aspect of contestation engages with the thorny ‘problem’ of consensus. We argue that the presence of Representatives from outside of government has introduced a desire in AICHR for change; a dynamism that makes it a participatory space witnessing contestation that has the potential to enable AICHR to evolve. A space, therefore, that for all its shortcomings is worth watching.

Contours of National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights in Central and Eastern Europe

Central and Eastern Europe has been often overseen in the debates on business and humanrights. Countries in the regions share a common history, experience and culture. Human rights andfundamental freedoms were in the past systematically and generally violated. Since democratisation,countries have suffered from a wide range of related human rights abuses. Corporations in theregions have often directly and indirectly interfered with the human rights of employees and thewider communities. Business and human rights has in the past lagged behind global developmentsalso in the light of the lack of capacity and general deficient human rights situation. This articledescribes and discusses contours of the National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights of theCzech Republic, Poland, Lithuania, Georgia, Ukraine and Slovenia by examining their strengths anddeficiencies. It argues that the field of business and human rights in Central and Eastern Europe hasmade a step forward in the last decade since the adoption of the United Nations Guiding Principleson Business and Human Rights. Nonetheless, human rights should be further translated into practiceto effectively protect human dignity of rights-holders.