Demands Of Justice Research Articles

Conceptualizing feminist solidarity through resistance in the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement

AbstractThe question of what constitutes solidarity (and what does not) has been a persistent concern for feminist scholars. In this conceptual article, we develop a distinction between superficial feminist solidarity and substantive feminist solidarity, grounded in illustrations of digital resistance during the transnational “Woman, Life, Freedom” feminist movement. The categories of superficial feminist solidarity and substantive feminist solidarity provide a framework for critically distinguishing between the range of actions in the movement and understanding their respective logics, practices, and implications. Superficial feminist solidarity actions may raise awareness, but often do so in the service of building consensus for Western feminism. In contrast, substantive feminist solidarity manifests as anti-colonial praxis that advances demands for social justice through a horizontal dynamic with people subjected to inhumane conditions.

Пути достижения этнополитического консенсуса в Республике Судан

The aim of this article is to explore ways to achieve ethno-political consensus in Sudan. Specifically, the article will examine possible mechanisms and analyzes the prospects for peaceful resolution of national political con-tradictions in Sudan. The article offers a structured overview of the various mechanisms for achieving ethnopo-litical consensus in Sudan, and analyzes the prospects for achieving ethnopolitical consensus in Sudan in light of recent political developments. The article created a table showing the political perspectives of ethno-political conflict management in Sudan – a cross-regional analysis. Given the specificity of Sudanese ethno-political conflict, the strategy for consensus building in Sudan should include inclusive dialog and negotiation among different ethnic and political groups, reconciliation and military, political, governance and legal reform. Howev-er, despite the fact that the demands for social justice and regional equality are put forward by the majority of the opposing sides, the conditions for their fulfillment, determined by specific social groups, differ significantly. Therefore, the author concludes that the prospects for achieving ethno-political consensus in Sudan remain uncertain, but recent political developments give grounds for optimism.

“Resetting” the Neighbourhood: Residents’ Resistance to Place Destruction in Gränby, Uppsala

ABSTRACT By following tenants who resist the destruction of their common yards in a post-renoviction neighbourhood of Uppsala (Sweden), this article examines how the local resistance by marginalized communities intersects with the effects of the financialization of housing. The article explores the concept of unhoming, as a violent, structural, and multi-scalar process that, in the name of urban renewal, destroys the places of marginalized communities in the capitalist city. For residents in a post-renoviction neighbourhood, the real-life experience of “creative destruction” entails navigating paradoxical and conflicting discourses, inflicting material, immaterial and emotional harm to the residents. The local resistance play out as a demand for housing justice, and as a forced balancing between patient dialogue and more confrontative action, in an increasingly authoritative context. Finally, the article suggests the use of a theoretical frame of place destruction in the analysis of contemporary urban struggles.

On Striving as Readers: A Response to Greer

The capacity of northern European gentlemen scholars educated in the love of wisdom, human dignity, friendship and rationality to treat their fellow human beings with irreconcilable prejudice and hold to ghastly beliefs of racial superiority, which legitimated violence, exploitation and extermination elsewhere, is one of the great tragedies of humanism. That the images of the human cultivated in texts were at variance with the lived experience of those who were treated as other than human was rarely noted in the books they read. I appreciate Matthew Greer's efforts to bring these concerns to the fore. I am grateful for the opportunity to read Sylvia Wynter, among others, and to think about their work in counter-humanism. I stand with Greer who reminds us that, as archaeologists, we must do more than critique ideologies, fight for inclusion, and engage in dialogue as demanded by a radical pluralism (Shanks & Tilley 1992, 246). Equity, social justice, openness, and decolonization demand the sustained effort of us all, both in our capacity as archaeologists and as readers of texts.

Governance Policy Evaluation in the United States during the Pandemic: Nonpharmaceutical Interventions or Else?

Scientific evidence suggests that nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) effectively curb the spread of COVID-19 before a pharmaceutical solution. Implementing these interventions also significantly affects regular socioeconomic activities and practices of social, racial, and political justice. Local governments often face conflicting goals during policymaking. Striking a balance among competing goals during a global pandemic is a fine science of governance. How well state governments consume the scientific evidence and maintain such a balance remains less understood. This study employs a set of Bayesian hierarchical models to evaluate how state governments in the United States use scientific evidence to balance the fighting against the spread of COVID-19 disease and socioeconomic, racial, social justice, and other demands. We modeled the relationships between five NPI strategies and COVID-19 caseload information and used the modeled result to perform a balanced governance evaluation. The results suggest that governmental attitude and guidance effectively guide the public to fight back against a global pandemic. The more detailed spatiotemporally varying coefficient process model produces 612,000 spatiotemporally varying coefficients, suggesting all measures sometimes work somewhere. Summarized results indicate that states emphasizing NPIs fared well in curbing the spread of COVID-19. With over 1 million deaths due to COVID-19 in the United States, we feel the balance scale likely needs to tip toward preserving human lives. Our evaluation of governance policies is hence based on such an argument. This study aims to provide decision support for policymaking during a national emergency.

Solidarism and the Struggle Against Environmental Racism

Margaret Kohn has argued that fin-de-siècle French Solidarists such as Alfred Fouillée developed a “third way” between capitalism and socialism which still provides a powerful justification for “welfare state” institutions and public-goods provision. But how does Solidarism respond to the demands for environmental justice, and against environmental racism, which have emerged in the past 50 years, mostly in Women of Color-led social movements. Distinguishing three elements of environmental justice, and also pinpointing the logic of expendability at the core of environmental racism, the current article shows that Solidarism has more resources than liberal egalitarianism to challenge environmental injustice, but that, in the white supremacist state, environmental racism in particular poses an especially difficult challenge. After discussing the Solidarists’ divergent responses to feminism and Social Darwinism, the paper shows that, provided Solidarists are also in solidarity with social movements of the oppressed, their doctrine can aid the struggle for equal status.

Unleashing the Power of Class Action Lawsuits: Redefining Justice for Insurance Policyholders in Indonesia

This paper explores the transformative potential of class action lawsuits in redefining justice for insurance policyholders in Indonesia. Through an in-depth examination of the legal landscape and specific cases, the study delves into the mechanisms and implications of leveraging class actions as a means of seeking justice within the insurance sector. By analyzing notable instances, such as the class action lawsuit initiated by insurance policyholders of PT Asuransi Jiwasraya and PT Asuransi Jiwa Adisarana WanaArtha, the paper scrutinizes the impact of collective legal action in addressing grievances and restoring violated rights. The research also navigates the legal provisions surrounding class actions in Indonesia, shedding light on their relevance and effectiveness in the pursuit of justice for insurance policyholders. Ultimately, this paper contributes to the ongoing discourse on legal remedies within the insurance industry, offering insights into the potential of class action lawsuits as a powerful tool for policyholders to assert their rights and demand justice in the Indonesian legal context.

Critically-Ill Children and the International Human Rights System: Assessing the Status and Role of the UNCRPD in the Case of Archie Battersbee.

Over the past few years, some parents and clinicians in the UK have argued about decisions on the fate of critically-ill children, with the cases ending in protracted and emotionally-sapping legal disputes. The long-running legal conflicts have played out in the public eye, eliciting conflicting opinions. At the core of the disputes is whether parents or clinicians should determine the appropriate course of action. In the event of the disagreements, the domestic court intervenes guided by the 'best interests' principle. A corpus of scholarship, falling on either side of the debate, has captured the contradictions. Until recently, the discourse had focused on the common recourses to domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights. However, in the recent case of incapacitated 12-year-old Archie Battersbee, his parents sought redress from the international human rights system through the Committee on the Rights of People with Disabilities to stop termination of his life support. The courts barred the involvement of the Committee on the basis that the UK had not incorporated the treaty which birthed the Committee. The case brought into sharp focus the relationship between international law and domestic law. First, this paper asserts that the weight (not) given to international law by the domestic courts was inconsistent with its treatment of international obligations in other cases. Secondly, the position that unincorporated treaties do not have legal effect in domestic proceedings is ambiguous. Finally, the treaty body appeared ill-suited to handle a case of a critically-ill child in the face of the impatient demands of local justice.

The National Coordination of Forcibly Contracted Teachers (NCFCT) as a social movement in Morocco: educators’ unionism and social justice activism

ABSTRACT This paper argues that The National Coordination of Forcibly Contracted Teachers (NCFCT) ‘التنسيقية الوطنية للأساتذة الذين فرض عليهم التعاقد’ is a social justice movement that goes beyond the demands for better employment benefits and educational justice through schools that communities deserve to resisting philosophies that make use of their ‘relegated’ status as an example of injustices and hierarchies in Morocco. To capture educators’ organising efforts, this paper drew on in-depth interviews with leading figures of NCFCT to develop a profound analysis of the rationales, workings and objectives of their activism. It also examined public records including press releases, international reports, citizens’ discourses and stakeholders/scholars’ statements to navigate the intricacies entailed in educators’ resistance to neoliberal/market-based educational policies and their activism towards a more equal society. Findings revealed that teachers have mobilised their activism to attend to the broader political and socioeconomic complexities in the country through renewed strategies, objectives, demands and forms of activism. A major takeaway from the analysis is that NCFCT’s forms of activism are continuously adjusted to the state’s pressures and the increasing restrictions on freedom of speech and demonstrating.

The Commonwealth Realms: A Thorn in the Side of the British Monarchy?

The death of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022 has given renewed momentum to claims for a republic in a significant number of Commonwealth realms, while also revealing how confused the perception of the role of the British monarch in the Commonwealth is. The latter is indeed both the head of 15 Commonwealth states, and since 1949, has been the “Head of the Commonwealth” as an international organisation of sovereign independent states. With a special focus on the case of Commonwealth realms, this article proposes to examine the extent to which these two roles of the monarch in the Commonwealth are compatible. While the monarch’s position as head of the Commonwealth, mainly shaped by Queen Elizabeth II throughout her reign, conveys the image of the head of a multicultural and multiracial “family of nations”, his role as constitutional monarch of his 14 “other realms”, might well undermine the legitimacy of the monarchy, at both international and national levels, and particularly in the context of increased global demands for reparations and decolonial justice.

Science and Justice Demand Climate Reparations: Overwhelming evidence shows that pollution by the U.S. and other developed nations has caused the climate crisis, and poorer nations are suffering the most.

Science and Justice Demand Climate Reparations: Overwhelming evidence shows that pollution by the U.S. and other developed nations has caused the climate crisis, and poorer nations are suffering the most.

Lições de Justiça Reprodutiva para catalisar estratégias de incidência durante a crise do Zika no Brasil

Abstract This article aims to revisit a constellation of responses to guarantee reproductive justice for women and girls during the Zika crisis in Brazil, that were conducted by Anis - Institute of Bioethics, a Brazilian feminist NGO. We argue that intersectional feminist lenses and gender-sensitive responses are necessary to build effective efforts for women and girls during a public health emergency. As such, we present three concomitant and intersectional learned tactics we used to fight for reproductive justice during the Zika crises, but also in its aftermath: 1. To build storytelling narratives that portray the disproportional effects of the crisis on women and girls; 2. To produce evidence-based data to catalyze advocacy strategies for legal and policy review; 3. To promote movement building opportunities and sharing power through community mobilization activities. We assume the importance of providing immediate evidence and gender sensitive framings to inform real-time public health responses. Advocacy efforts should not be seen as fragmented strategies, since ensuring reproductive justice demands a comprehensive and transformative framework that include solutions for multiple aspects of real-life experiences.

KONSEP MEKANISME PENYELESAIAN SENGKETA MELALUI SMALL CLAIM COURT SUATU STUDI PERBANDINGAN DAN IMPLEMENTASINYA DI INDONESIA

The demand of society seeking justice is for simple, speedy, and cost-effective dispute resolution. This is the foundation for the establishment of the principle of justice in Indonesia in accordance with Law Number 48 of 2009 concerning the Judicial Power, namely the principles of simple, speedy, and cost-effective justice. This is due to the fact that dispute resolution through litigation often fails to satisfy the parties involved due to its relatively lengthy process, complexity, and high costs. Meanwhile, dispute resolution outside the court (non-litigation) lacks executive power because it is solely contractual. The mechanism for resolving disputes through the Small Claims Court was initially known and practiced in countries with a common law system, eventually adopted by countries with a civil law system. In Indonesia, it was translated and implemented through the examination of simple lawsuits in accordance with the Supreme Court Regulation of the Republic of Indonesia Number 2 of 2015 concerning Procedures for Filing Simple Lawsuits, as amended and perfected by the Supreme Court Regulation of the Republic of Indonesia Number 4 of 2019 concerning Amendments to the Supreme Court Regulation of the Republic of Indonesia Number 2 of 2015 concerning Procedures for Filing Simple Lawsuits.

Belhar as mirror and window on social cohesion and justice

This study argues that the Reformed Churches in South Africa failed to constructively contribute to social cohesion and justice since the drafting of the Belhar Confession in 1982 due to its failure to embody the demands of unity, reconciliation and justice. Firstly, the study briefly discusses the historical setting of the Belhar Confession and how it remains a bridge too far to embody for the Church in South Africa since its drafting in 1982. Furthermore, the study indicates how the Church’s failure to embody the Belhar Confession leaves a vacuum in the discourses on racial tensions, the land issue and the new apartheid. Finally, the study engages how the Church can be an agent of transformation and hope.

Importance of Artificial Intelligence as Evidence in Cases between Underage Victims of Rape and Offenders in Nigeria

Underage girls are gradually becoming the major victims of rape in some developing countries such as Nigeria in recent years. Many of such cases of rape were either underreported or unreported to relevant authorities. Some of these underage victims of rape have experienced trauma, stigmatization, and depression which have affected their well-being. While some of the victims of rape are battling to overcome the negative outcome of the act, other victims among them have lost their lives because there was no prompt help for them to survive it. The perpetrators of the crime who were responsible for the crime were not equally punished for their crime because of lack of verifiable evidence that associated them with the act and the victim of rape. However, to demand justice for the underage victims of rape, Artificial Intelligence (AI) serves as a vital technology that can be used to present evidence in the case of rape between the victim of rape and the offenders. The objective of this article is to examine the importance of AI in presenting an evidence-based method in cases of rape between the underage victims of rape and offenders in society. The paper adopted a descriptive theoretical approach in the study. The paper revealed that AI technology is important and can be used to establish evidence in cases of rape between underage girls and offenders through some AI application methods, such as surveillance devices, facial recognition, DNA match, video and photo analysis, and object retrieval analysis among others.

Decommissioning: another critical challenge for energy transitions

To achieve the dual goals of minimising global pollution and meeting diverse demands for environmental justice, energy transitions need to involve not only a shift to renewable energy sources but also the safe decommissioning of older energy infrastructures and management of their toxic legacies. While the global scale of the decommissioning challenge is yet to be accurately quantified, the climate impacts are significant: each year, more than an estimated 29 million abandoned oil and gas wells around the world emit 2.5 million tons of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. In the US alone, at least 14 million people live within a mile of an abandoned oil or gas well, creating pollution that is concentrated among low-income areas and communities of colour. The costs involved in decommissioning projects are significant, raising urgent questions about responsibility and whether companies who have profited from the sale of extracted resources will be held liable for clean-up, remediation and management costs. Recognising these political goals and policy challenges, this article invites further research, scrutiny and debate on what would constitute the successful and safe decommissioning of sites affected by fossil fuel operations – with a particular focus on accountability, environmental inequality, the temporality of energy transitions, and strategies for phasing out or phasing down fossil fuel extraction.

The Radium Girls’ Eternal Glow: Politics, Gender, and Malpractice in the American Radium Industry

During the 1920s, radium permeated all aspects of American life from media to recreation to food due to pro-laissez faire laws that allowed the U.S. radium industry to adopt vertical integration business models and use illegal advertising methods. One of the largest radium corporations was the United States Radium Corporation which employed thousands of young girls in New Jersey and Illinois to paint radium watches for the U.S. military. While radium companies were aware of the lethal consequences of radium consumption, they continued to hire employees to handle the substance without proper protection and distributed their products on a mass scale, leading to hundreds of deaths and chronic illnesses. My paper builds on existing scholarship that has focused on the policy failures surrounding the Radium Girls while adding an overlooked unit of analysis: gender. This paper is a product of a year’s worth of researching secondary and primary sources online, visiting museums and archival collections, analyzing previous American industrial health laws, and consultations with PhD students at Yale University specializing in American history. My paper concludes that the tragic tale of the Radium Girls is an account of gender-based violence on a massive scale. The USRC took advantage of the women’s gender statuses to build a workforce considered expendable in society, and thus discounted by the media and law. As a result, the USRC and the U.S. government exploited the girls for decades, confident that the public would not demand justice in their names.

High-modern Food Systems in the USA: A Framework for Analysis and Change

Food production in the USA is dominated by a high-modernist ideology and industrial agricultural practices. A wide range of scholars, journalists, and activists have documented the negative impacts of industrial agriculture on human health and welfare in the USA and the world. This article provides a framework for understanding the US food system to see how power is exercised, and to learn what avenues for reform are available to citizens today. This article develops a holistic approach to understanding food systems in the USA and the world. Also highlighted are increasing demands for food justice and the need for greater political activism in food democracy.

Ukrainian Theater After the Full-Scale Russian Invasion: A New Reading of Canonical Plays

The article analyzes the new senses that appeared in the 2021–2022 Ukrainian theater performances of canonical works. Two of the productions in question are based on Ukrainian classical texts, namely Taras Shevchenko’s “mystery poem” “Velykyi Lyokh” (The Great Dungeon) and Lesya Ukrainka’s dramatic poem Cassandra. The other two productions, based on Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus Rex and Albert Camus’ play Caligula, consciously seek answers to the challenges of the new Ukrainian reality in the canon of world drama. The full-scale Russian invasion has made the well-known meanings in these works more clearly visible and added new ones. Against the backdrop of media discussions about the mental health of the Russian president, Caligula by the Ivan Franko Theater (Kyiv) reflects on the psychology of an authoritarian ruler. Oedipus Rex by the Theater on Podil (Kyiv) shows why the demand for justice is growing in wartime society and the moral side of actions is becoming increasingly important. The Great Dungeon by the Poltava Puppet Theater tells the dramatic story of the Russo-Ukrainian War through the prism of Shevchenko’s historical analogies. Cassandra by the Ivan Franko Theater creates the atmosphere of an vulnerable, open-air space where every inhabitant, except for the protagonist, prefers to protect themselves with fanciful constructions of ephemeral illusions. While the tragic reality of the Russо-Ukrainian War has led to the emergence of a large body of contemporary drama that interprets the new experience of Ukrainian society, the war reality has become a prerequisite for a significant rethinking of theatrical texts from the Ukrainian and Western European canon. Thus, Ukrainian theater is actively engaging with the new reality, intervening in various ways in current public discussions that aim to comprehend the drama of the war, and creating a safe space for a common emotional response to the latest tragic experience.

Exploring the Role of Civic Monitoring of Coal Ash Pollution: (Re)gaining Agency by Crowdsourcing Environmental Information

Abstract Citizen-gathered evidence (CGE) gathered by individuals organized in collectives have the potential to demonstrate environmental and social wrongdoings in court. We identify (collective) agency and resistance in how individuals and communities that have been exposed to socio-environmental stressors turn to gather CGE. We explore the modes through which people gather scientific data, produce CGE, alert authorities to environmental harm, and the methods by which data can be shared with communities, beginning with the case studies of civic environmental monitoring addressing coal ash pollution in North Carolina. We analyze the case studies through a theoretical lens built on (1) the theory of civic monitoring “as resistance;” (2) the argument that CGE can embody “collective intelligence;” and (3) the concept of “crowd science” through a decentralized yet coordinated network. In the first part of the article, we introduce the case studies. Then, we illustrate our theoretical frame as applied to the analysis of the cases. We discuss the cases and in particular the CGE at issue through the prism of the frame. We demonstrate how CGE can be valuable not only for civil society and civic organizations, but also for competent authorities. In our conclusion, we identify critical junctures of our case studies, such as that of “knowledge crowdsourcing” to demand justice that triggers the government to take action and the existence of a “coordinated” yet decentralized crowd to capture the full extension of the problem. Lastly, we outline the limitations of our study, a future research agenda, and still open questions.