Movement For Human Rights Research Articles

National Origins of International Solidarity Movements: Nationalism and International Solidarity for East Timor in Post-Cold War Southeast Asia

Abstract The international solidarity movement for the East Timorese was developed in Southeast Asian nations during the 1990s as ‘the issue of East Timor’ became a primary concern for the ASEAN countries’ civil society. Proponents of liberal democracy have assumed that international solidarity movements for human rights and democracy during the 1990s resulted from the powerful momentum of liberal democracy that universally linked foreign people. However, Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri and their marxist followers have explained these transnational movements as a transnational network that overcomes national borders against the capitalist Empire. Nevertheless, the political history of transnational solidarity movements from East Timor to Southeast Asia in the post-Cold War 1990s makes clear that nationalism has continued to be an ideological driver to link people from different nations. Focusing on the international solidarity for the East Timorese independence struggle, this paper demonstrates a transnational function of nationalism through which international solidarity movements are created, resonate and function. The East Timor international solidarity struggle successfully created a transnational platform through the APCET conferences held in the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand in the 1990s. Socio-historical analysis of APCET reveals that nationalists in Southeast Asia shared collective memories of national struggles beyond their spaces and times to create a transnational force to support self-determination for the East Timorese. Through its analysis, this article extends the theoretical framework of nationalism that has explained nationalist movements to serve as a more powerful tool to explain international solidarity in the age of globalisation. (247 words)

Seeking justice on social media: Funas as a localized form of Latin American youth activism

A funa, a public denouncement aimed at raising moral condemnation of a person accused of perpetrating a crime or injustice, has become a major digital activism instrument in Latin America, particularly in Chile. Originated in the human rights movement in the 1990s, funas re-emerged as a new form of online activism that hybridized with a Latin American and historical form of protest to exert informal justice through social media. Drawing on a face-to-face survey of Chilean youth aged 18–29 years, we examine the factors that explain young people’s attitudes and behaviors regarding funas. We find that funas are gendered, with issues like sexual harassment and misconduct being the primary subject of funas. We also show that women hold more positive views about funas and are more likely to engage in online funas. Finally, our findings indicate that individuals who trust the judicial system are less likely to share funas on social media.

Leadership and the ethics of hope: Václav Havel and the Charter 77 human rights movement in Czechoslovakia

Hope as a feature in both authentic and spiritual leadership theory has become a diminished moral concept, departing from its philosophical and theological roots, and distorted by excessive positivity, success, instrumentalization, cultural bias, and ideology. Following Ciulla’s (2014) assertion that biography can do much to inform leadership theory, this paper contributes a richer understanding of hope through the though case of Václav Havel and the Charter 77 human rights movement in Czechoslovakia using French existentialist Gabriel Marcel’s ethics of hope. Five elements of Marcel’s philosophy demonstrate hope’s transforming vulnerability amidst technological control, relationship with despair, active presence, creative fidelity, and transcending power in love. Examining Czechoslovakia’s human rights movement through the lens of Marcellian ethics provides insight into the role of absurdity and truth-telling as a precursor to hope, taking responsibility for failure, overcoming fear through the “solidarity of the shaken,” creative fidelity through living in truth and using humor, and love manifesting as sacrifice and openness to seeing one’s contribution to the moral contamination of society under totalitarianism.

Діяльність Володимира Старосольського як адвоката та громадського діяча у сфері захисту мовних прав українців в Другій Речі Посполитій

The article examines Volodymyr Starosolskyi’s contributions as a lawyer, public figure, and scholar of constitutionalism, specifically focusing on his role in defending the language rights of Ukrainians in the Second Polish Republic. This is explored within the broader context of the Ukrainian national question in the early 20th century. The article highlights the political, legal, and social realities of the time, detailing Starosolskyi’s involvement in judicial political processes against Ukrainians in Poland, as well as his political and legal writings. The study is based on a significant range of sources, including Volodymyr Starosolskyi’s correspondence, scientific treatises on language policy, and courtroomspeeches. Thesematerials provide a comprehensive understanding of his worldview and beliefs. Particular attention is given to the formation of his ideas, which were shaped by prominent Ukrainian public figures and legal scholars, such as I. Voloshyn, R. Dombachevskyi, M. Glushkevych, S. Dnistryanskyi, K. Levytskyi, and I. Franko. The article also uncovers lesser-known aspects of Starosolskyi’s legal practice, including his active participation in the Union of Ukrainian Lawyers, a professional association dedicated to defending the national rights of Ukrainians. Additionally, it analyzes the judicial political trials of the 1930s, in which Starosolskyi defended the language rights of Ukrainians. The author concludes that Starosolskyi’s involvement in the human rights movement in Western Ukraine, particularly in response to the Polish government’s discriminatory policies, became the driving force of his legal and public work. His advocacy for Ukrainian language rights was a central aspect of his broader efforts to address Ukraine’s national and sociopolitical challenges and to realize the vision of an independent Ukrainian state.

Returns, Marches and Countermarches: The Agony for Truth and Justice

The present research aims to describe and characterize the actions in the reparation processes of Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, and Mothers and Relatives of Disappeared Detainees, in Argentina and Uruguay respectively, in the period from 2005 to 2015, in the face of the effects of political violence and state terrorism. It is proposed to make visible what the organizations' actions have been to influence advances in reparations, with special emphasis on concrete actions in contexts of self-styled "progressive" governments. A qualitative research is proposed, with the substantive use of the technique of documentary analysis and in-depth interviews for data collection, and for the analysis of said data we proceeded through discourse analysis. The results indicate that the central axes linked to comprehensive reparation in each organization are oriented towards: psychosocial reparation, accompaniment in the search process, progress at the legal level, recognition by the State of its responsibility before the crimes committed, the clarification of the truth, especially in the awareness of young people, with an educational paradigm that encourages education for memory. Reparatory mechanisms have manifested themselves in a similar way in the contexts of political progressivism, both in Argentina and Uruguay. However, the Argentine context has established a greater deployment of policies, with a special focus on the restitution of rights, and guarantees of non-repetition, developing an instituting policy promoted by the human rights movement. In the Uruguayan case, although progressivism enabled the creation of new institutions, providing new spaces and a budget to respond to the citizenship and mainly to the victims' relatives, for truth, justice and reparation, these have been poorly satisfactory measures, in where there is still a consolidation of policies, demanded by the human rights movement.

Framing the human rights curriculum in American social work education

ABSTRACT In this paper, the authors take the position that human rights are not a principal discipline of American social work. Rather, within the United States, social work is a profession that makes the fulfillment of human needs its principal focus. The authors offer methods to prepare social work students for rights-based practice, a product of their work in educating social work students in global human rights over the past decade and in undertaking research. The authors consider the importance of the Capability Approach as an overarching framework guiding human rights education in social work. Using the author’s experiences, review of key documents, and two approaches to human rights practice, proactive and reactive ones, to teach relevant content, the authors offer a framework guiding human rights education in American social work. By drawing from documents pertaining to the global human rights movement, the authors examine key ideas, practices, and institutions that constitute the human rights movement internationally. The authors conclude by identifying pedagogical approaches that can assist social work students in learning about human rights practice, theoretically and experientially, with an emphasis on preventing rights violations and on responding effectively during and after these violations occur.

THE FORMATION OF GENDER HISTORY AND ITS SUBJECT

Thе article aims to highlight the foundation of gender history as a discipline and to reveal the process of formation and transformations of the subject of gender history in the research of American, European and Ukrainian historians. From the beginning it was connected with the development of the movement for human rights, feminism, the struggle for gender equality and non-discrimination. The pluralism of approaches to the study of gender history and the definition of its subject is shown regarding to the diversity of approaches to the essence of history and gender, their interaction with sexuality, body, identity, race, ethnicity and nationality, colonialism, power relations, dominance and subordination, and the meaning of gender in history.

Research on Sweatshops from the Perspective of Corporate Social Responsibility

Economic globalization brings opportunities as well as challenges to business and labour, and labour rights violations related to sweatshops are one of them. With the human rights movement, more and more social organisations are joining the anti-sweatshop movement. In this context, governments have also been deemed to need to collaborate and take action to ban the sale of products manufactured under sweatshop conditions. This essay will address the anti-sweatshop movement from the perspectives of sustainable supply chains and corporate social responsibility. After analysing the reasons that influence the formation of sweatshops and the importance of the need to eradicate them, the essay will argue that by doing so various governments can effectively promote awareness amongst businesses of their need to adhere to corporate codes of conduct and fulfil corporate social responsibility, and as a result these corporations will have the potential to safeguard labour rights and promote their own sustainable development and social justice.

Human Rights in Nepal's Democracy: Achieving Best Practices

This article outlines the status of human rights practices and provisions within Nepal, a democratic nation where democracy, progress, and the rule of law are interconnected with the preservation of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Nepal, as a democracy, ensures the protection of human rights for its citizens. Over the past few decades, significant strides have been made in enhancing these practices and provisions, particularly in granting rights to marginalized groups as per the 2015 Constitution. However, despite these advancements, the Nepalese government has consistently overlooked recommendations from the Commission to investigate and prosecute human rights violations, as mandated by the Constitution. There is a need for the Nepalese government to prioritize the human rights movement, which faces numerous challenges from activities that contradict the principles of the constitution, democratic norms, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The paper highlights progress in human rights provisions and practices, alongside suggestions to actively ratify the Rome Statute to enhance Nepal's international reputation.

Enhancing Human Rights Protections: Legislative and Judicial Responses in India Amid the Human Rights Movement

Enhancing Human Rights Protections: Legislative and Judicial Responses in India Amid the Human Rights Movement

Ukrainian Literary Dissent

The aim of the study was to discuss Ukrainian literary dissent as a component of the socio-cultural phenomenon of the Sixties – the national revival of the 1960s and 1970s in Ukraine and the Resistance Movement under the totalitarian regime of the Soviet Union. The objective was to reflect on the phenomenon of Ukrainian literary dissent in the second half of the twentieth century in the light of the modus operandi/concept of Freedom. Historical and literary, comparative and historical, receptive and aesthetic, on top of typological methods are tools for understanding the Ukrainian literary dissent of the 1960s and 1970s in Ukraine in its morphological dimension. Personalities of the Ukrainian literary dissent included Ihor Kalynets, Hryhorii Kochur, Yurii Lytvyn, Valerii Marchenko, Taras Melnychuk, Mykhailo Osadchyi, Vasyl Ovsiienko, Mykola Rudenko, Yevhen Sverstiuk, Ivan Svitlychnyi, Vasyl Stus, Oleksa Tykhyi, Les Taniuk, Mykola Kholodnyi, and others. The basis for the formation and existence of Ukrainian literary dissent (general historical, historical and cultural, mental, ontological) in the context of the Sixties as a “synergistic phenomenon” was discussed by Liudmyla Tarnashynska. Worldview, philosophical, socio-cultural manifestations of Ukrainian literary dissent were literary aspects of the human rights movement (literary and artistic, rhetorical and journalistic, literary and critical). The existence of Ukrainian self-publishing was a special form of the Resistance Movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, as well as an alternative component of the literary process of this period (Ivan Dziuba, Iryna Zhylenko, Sviatoslav Karavanskyi, Roman Korogodskyi, Mykhailyna Kotsiubynska, Leonid Pliushch, Mykola Rudenko, Yevhen Sverstiuk, Ivan Svitlychnyi, Vasyl Stus, and others). Contribution of literary dissidents included the activities of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group (Oles Berdnyk, Yurii Lytvyn, Valerii Marchenko, Mykola Rudenko, Vasyl Stus). The activity of the Ukrainian literary dissent is projected into the plane of Freedom and Rebellion in the socio-historical, mental, genetic, and metaphysical planes were social freedom as a socio-political struggle; personal freedom as an existential confrontation; and creative freedom as a metaphysical rebellion. Presentation of the activities/works of Mykola Rudenko, Ivan Svitlychnyi, and Vasyl Stus as key figures of Ukrainian literary dissent follows.

The Oppositional Writer Paul Goma and the Assassination Attempts by the Securitate (1977–1982)

In the political-diplomatic context of the preparations for the Belgrade Follow-up Meeting to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe and of Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, inspired by the former, the initiative by the Romanian writer Paul Goma to start a human rights movement in Romania, at the beginning of 1977, was seen as an open declaration of war by the communist regime. All those who joined the Goma Movement were subject to repression. The writer would be in danger of losing his life because of the attempts to assassinate him by the secret police. A sudden death was preferable to a public trial, which would have seriously damaged the image of the regime in Bucharest, especially since in 1977 provisions dealing with political crimes had been removed from the Criminal Code. Released from prison under pressure from the West, the dissident writer, banned in Romania, continued to be one of the leading critical voices against the Ceaușescu regime while in exile. When he was forced to leave the country in November 1977, the writer was warned by the Securitate general Nicolae Pleșiță that the long arm of the secret police would reach him no matter where he was. In the 1980s, at the behest of the party leaders, the secret police were still working out ways to silence him. Just as he survived the first assassination attempt (in the Rahova prison in Bucharest, April 1977), Paul Goma would survive two more attempts, in 1981 and 1982, planned by the Securitate, under direct orders from Ceaușescu, the first attempt being carried out by the international terrorist Carlos the Jackal, the second one by the Securitate officer Matei Haiducu, based in Paris.

From Harmful Practices and Instrumentalisation, towards Legislative Protections and Community-Owned Healthcare Services: The Context and Goals of the Intersex Movement in Australia

People with innate variations of sex characteristics (also known as intersex traits or disorders or differences of sex development) have any of a wide range of innate physical traits that differ from medical and social norms for female and male bodies. Responses to these physical differences create experiences and risks of stigmatisation, discrimination, violence, and harmful medical practices intended to promote social and familial integration and conformity with gender stereotypes. As is evident globally, the Australian policy response to the existence and needs of people with innate variations of sex characteristics has been largely incoherent, variously framing the population as having disordered sex development in need of “fixing”, and a third sex/gender identity group in need of recognition, with only recent engagement by intersex community-controlled civil society organisations. This paper presents an overview of the context and goals of the intersex human rights movement in Australia. Australian intersex community organisations have sought to apply human rights norms and develop new infrastructure to address key health and human rights issues, and necessitating new ways of resolving policy incoherence. Together with human rights, mental health, and public health institutions, they have called for significant changes to medical models of care and reform to research and classification systems. Intersex community organising and resourcing have made a tangible difference. The Australian Capital Territory is the first jurisdiction in the country to move ahead with reforms to clinical practice, including a legislative prohibition of certain practices without personal informed consent, oversight of clinical decision-making, and investment in psychosocial support. A national community-controlled psychosocial support service has also commenced.

Bioethics-CSR Divide

Bioethics-CSR Divide

Political Homophobia in Soviet Lithuania Revisited: The Case of the Dissident Viktoras Petkus

This article explores the uses of homophobia as a part of the Soviet repressive apparatus. It examines the case of the Lithuanian dissident, political prisoner, and human rights activist Viktoras Petkus (1928–2012), in particular, the accusation of sodomy he faced in 1978, as a part of the highly political case related to Petkus’ involvement with the Lithuanian Helsinki Group. I employ the concept of political homophobia to analyse the ways that the KGB tried to destroy Petkus’ reputation and defame the Lithuanian dissident movement for human rights, which the Soviet authorities perceived as particularly threatening.

After truth, after shame … after information politics? Rethinking the epistemologies of human rights in the digital-authoritarian conjuncture

ABSTRACT Since the contemporary, mainstream human rights movement rose to prominence in the late-1970s, both knowing about and doing human rights has been marked by a very particular mode of activism, information politics, which mobilises ‘brute' facts with the aim of shaming governments into reform. However, this article suggests that the global rise of the far-right has intertwined with reactionary forms of digital culture, engendering both the retreat of shame as an operative concept in global affairs and nourished a growing ‘post-truth' suspicion of facts. The article theorises this problem as a conjunctural shift that represents both a political and epistemological crisis for human rights. Following the lead of debates within Science and Technology Studies (STS) and media studies, I contend that the present conjuncture requires us to consider what comes after information politics by re-imagining its epistemological basis. The article brings together Donna Haraway's theoretical work on ‘Situated Knowledges', with Maurizio Lazzarato’s political epistemology to develop a more perspectival, combative approach to human rights knowledge-making. I argue this epistemic framework is able not only to navigate key problems posed by the digital-authoritarian present but also to address many issues with information politics identified by earlier critics.

Business and human rights in Japan: Progress and challenges of the Japanese government

Business and human rights in Japan: Progress and challenges of the Japanese government Professor Emi Sugawara from Osaka University of Economics and Law, Faculty of International Studies, discusses government’s efforts to respect human rights in the supply chain. If the ultimate goal of the business and human rights movement is to realise a sustainable society in which no one’s human rights are left behind, then the role of the state, along with businesses, is important. According to UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), states have a duty to protect human rights by creating an environment that enables businesses to respect human rights, and this environment can be created through a smart mix of policies that are consistent from the perspectives of business and human rights. Noted, so what about Japan?

The formation of women`s suffrage in the USA in the XIX-XX centuries

In the scientific article, the author analyzed the issue of the formation of women’s suffrage in the United States of America. The meaning of the “conference to discuss the social, civil and religious condition and rights of women” held in Seneca Falls in 1848 is revealed. The role of suffragettes, their complex international connections and strategies for the development of women’s rights are outlined. The achievements of Mary Wollstonecraft, Maria Stuart, Francisca Anneke, Sarah Parker Remond, Stanton, Anthony, Ida Wells, Frances Harper, Churchy Terrell, Alice Paul and the social movement of abolitionists in the process of securing women’s rights, including women’s suffrage, are revealed. The importance of the founding of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, the International Women’s League, the World Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the International Council of Women, the National Association of Colored Women, the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, and the Inter-American Commission on Women is characterized. The emergence of the internationalism of women’s suffrage, the spread of feminism is analyzed. The events and consequences of the struggle for women’s suffrage in the USA are summarized. In particular, it notes that the transnational legacy of the suffrage movement is evident in the ongoing aspirations of US women for full citizenship today. Then, as now, the struggle for women’s rights is linked to global movements for human rights – for immigrant, racial, labor and feminist justice. The internationalism of the women’s suffrage movement shows us that activists and movements outside the USA, as well as a wide range of diverse international causes, were crucial to the organization of what was considered such a quintessentially American right to vote. The emergence of women’s suffrage reminds us how much we have to learn from feminist struggles around the world. We see the prospects for further scientific research in the study of women’s suffrage in the states of the EU and other countries of the world and in their comparison. A scientific article can be useful for experts, historians and students.

Gennady Shimanov and His Unfulfilled Dream of “Orthodoxizing the Soviet State”

The article delves into the life and endeavors of Gennady Mikhailovich Shimanov (1937–2014), a relatively unknown to the wide audience yet a profoundly intriguing thinker, Orthodox publicist and dissident of the Soviet and post‑Soviet eras. It provides an overview of his biography and creative journey, highlighting his atypical position within the dissident and human rights movement, which predominantly leaned towards liberalism. In general, Shimanov’s beliefs revolved around practicing Orthodoxy during the Soviet era, Christian socialism, and Russian nationalism. The article focuses on Shimanov’s historiosophical prediction in the 1970s, suggesting the transformation of the Soviet state into an Orthodox theocracy, and the subsequent debates within the dissident literature of that time. Unusual for that period was Shimanov’s conviction in the necessity of maintaining loyalty to the Soviet state even on the part of dissidents. The article also touches upon Shimanov’s post‑Soviet creative works and their character, notably after the collapse of the USSR when his expectations starkly failed to fulfill, or fulfilled in the opposite direction. Nevertheless, other successful ideas and predictions by Shimanov are acknowledged. For example, those regarding the detrimental consequences that the country and society would experience if the liberal approach was chosen as the way out of the historical impasse of the Soviet era. The article also notes weaknesses in Shimanov’s ideologies, particularly evident in the post‑Soviet years: painful antisemitism, excessive social interpretation in understanding of Christianity, and ideological engagement. Simultaneously, the article acknowledges positive aspects of his ideas, namely his focus on national and family issues that heavily impacted the future of the Russian people.

НОРМАТИВНО-ПРАВОВЕ ЗАБЕЗПЕЧЕННЯ ГЕНДЕРНОЇ ПОЛІТИКИ НА РІВНІ ТЕРИТОРІАЛЬНИХ ГРОМАД В УКРАЇНІ: МІЖНАРОДНИЙ АСПЕКТ

Background . Ukraine's candidacy for EU membership contributed to the acceleration of changes in Ukrainian legislation in accordance with the requirements of the "Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union, the European Atomic Energy Community and their member states, on the one hand," signed in 2014. Of particular interest in the context of the development of municipal gender policy are the issues of localization of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and the joining of local communities to the European Charter of Equality of Women and Men in the Life of Local Communities. In order to adapt European approaches to gender policy at the local level, it is necessary to carry out a detailed analysis of the normative and legal support of gender policy for the effective post-war reconstruction and recovery of Ukraine. The subject of the research is international normative legal acts in the field of human rights, gender equality, local self-government and other areas of law (from the standpoint of the provisions of the Law of Ukraine "On Law-Making Activity") and their adaptation to Ukrainian legislation. Methods . In order to conduct a correct study and obtain reliable results, an institutional approach was used, which makes it possible to form the author's vision of ensuring equal rights and opportunities for women and men at the local level by formal and informal social institutions. A structural-constructivist approach was also used to study the structural factors that determine the framework of gender relations. Results . International legal acts in the field of gender equality, rehabilitation and municipal policy are aimed at the unification of approaches to the regulation of human rights protection in the plane of the so-called "unified legal field" – international legal standards – and are acts of a binding or recommendatory nature. From the point of view of the development and implementation of gender policy at the level of territorial communities in the conditions of postwar reconstruction, UN Security Council Resolution 1325 "Women. Peace. Security". The focus of the UN Security Council Resolution on the idea of implementing a gender approach at "all levels in operations to ensure peace and security", including at the level of local communities, is closely related to the concept of "localization". The term "localization of Resolution 1325" was introduced 14 years ago by the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders and is a confirmation of the potential of the direct impact of this international act on gender policy at the level of territorial communities. Unfortunately, this tool (local action plans) for the implementation of gender policy is rarely used and implemented in Ukraine today. Although they have significant potential in achieving gender equality at the level of territorial communities in the conditions of post-war recovery. Ukraine's accession to the international Biarritz Partnership also improved the environment for the implementation of a gender approach in management at the level of territorial communities and created the conditions for a potential increase in revenues to local budgets in the long term (involvement of women in economic activity, reduction of the wage gap between women and men, reducing the consequences of gender-based violence, increasing the life expectancy of men and establishing contacts with children through the opportunity to go on maternity leave, creating dadhubs, inclusive public spaces in communities, etc.). In June 2022, after a long-term advocacy campaign of the Ukrainian feminist human rights movement in partnership with the Equal Opportunities MFI, the VRU ratified the Council of Europe Concept on preventing violence against women and domestic violence and combating these phenomena, which strengthened not only national gender legislation, and gender policy at the local level. The European Charter of Equality of Women and Men in the Life of Local Communities provides for inter-municipal partnership of communities in the direction of achieving gender equality. For Ukraine, as a state that has acquired the status of a candidate for the EU, the synchronization of national legislation in the field of gender equality is important. Conclusions . International legal acts, which are a consequence of legal globalization, have an indirect effect on the development of gender policy at the level of territorial communities in Ukraine. They include international treaty acts on gender equality as a component of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Policies and documents adopted by EU government structures, international representatives of civil society are not normative in nature and do not relate to international legislation, however, they are frameworks for the formation of national legislation at the local level.