Mapping the meaning of human dignity at the European Court of Human Rights: An unsupervised learning approach

Since 2015 and its adoption by the United Nations (UN), the sustainable development goals (SDGs) program and its 17 SDGs have been a source of inspiration for numerous sectors, in order to reach the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. In sectors as diverse as industry, human rights, ecology, or education, several institutions, organizations, and stakeholders have used the opportunity offered by the SDGs to make sustainable choices or apply specific policies. Yet it is also true that the sheer application of the SDGs have triggered grounded criticism, insofar as it offered readymade templates to reproduce inequalities or foster wrong decisions. In this sense, the 2030 agenda has raised some concern regarding a new form of colonialism it seems to rely on, its permanent links to an economy of growth and non-decent work, or the pervasive impacts on education and social inequalities. Such critical points have motivated scholars to work on a reinterpreted application of the SDGs, underline the positive evolution of the SDGs in comparison to the millenium development goals, and call for an adaptation of the SDGs regarding climate change and planetary limits. As a linguist, my approach regarding the 17 SDGs is rooted in systemic discourse analysis-an applied discourse study that simultaneously draws on critical discourse analysis, corpus studies and lexicometric analysis, which I will define later in the present chapter. My goal is to analyze every official text published in order to present and encourage the application of each of the 17 SDGs, thus building a corpus by extracting texts from official sources published on the Internet website of the UN, dedicated to the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. In this sense, a link is made between discourse structures, social structures, and social representations.

This paper explores faculty well-being in nursing education as a moral and political issue, emphasizing a humane ethics of academic care that confronts institutional harm, moral distress, and inequality. Despite nursing's commitments to compassion, equity, and justice, many educators face excessive workloads, racial exclusion, and moral conflicts, leading to burnout and moral injury. Current wellness approaches individualize distress and hide institutional responsibility. Drawing on critical, decolonial, and ethical traditions, the paper challenges resilience-based discourses, framing faculty well-being as a collective moral obligation rooted in governance and power. It synthesizes decolonial scholarship, moral resilience, transformational leadership, and human rights, grounded in ethical principles and ESG standards. Using examples from faculty development and institutional practice, it introduces the Becoming HUMANE Framework as a lens, not a model, to understand healing, rights, resilience, accountability, belonging, and empowerment as essential to ethical academic environments. Nurse educators are positioned as tempered radicals whose reflective resistance turns moral distress into collective agency and accountability. Reframing well-being as a moral and political issue reveals the limits of individual resilience and advocates for humane academic systems. Nursing education must address institutional conditions affecting educator well-being to uphold its moral commitments.

All countries that have signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) have obligations to align their national laws and policies with it. According to the General Comment on Article 12 prepared by the CRPD Committee, this entails operationalising systems and practices that support, rather than substitute, decision-making. The CPRD Committee has identified Mental Health Advance Directives (MHADs) as one mechanism to operationalise supported decision-making, and many jurisdictions have incorporated them into newly reformed mental health legislation. The purpose of this systematic scoping review was to assess whether any MHADs currently under investigation conform to the specifications outlined in the General Comment on Article 12 regarding advance directives. The results indicated that no MHAD under investigation in the international literature meets the specifications of the General Comment on Article 12 for advance directives. MHADs are an essential tool to ensure the human rights of people who experience psychosocial disability are protected in line with the requirements of the CRPD. Although there are projects examining the effectiveness of MHADs, none of these MHADs fulfil the specifications of the General Comment on Article 12. This raises questions for both policymakers and clinicians who will implement these MHADs, particularly as they feature in newly reformed legislation. Researchers should consider the implications of the CRPD Committee guidance when evaluating the effectiveness of MHADs, including whether their jurisdiction aligns with the requirements for tools that facilitate supported decision-making.

The article examines the specific features of legal regulation of the artificial intelligence domain within the framework of the contemporary information society. The study argues for a human-centered approach to the development of legal mechanisms for governing AI, which must remain consistent with general legal principles and the protection of human rights and freedoms. Special attention is paid to the issues of legal provision and legal intervention in the AI sphere, along with the potential risks associated with the emergence of a digital dictatorship. The conclusion emphasizes the necessity of further academic and normative efforts aimed at regulating the AI domain.

This study juridically analyzes the system of evidence in Indonesian and Thai criminal procedure law, focusing on the regulation and application of evidentiary instruments. It compares the formalistic and enumerative approach of Indonesia’s Criminal Procedure Code (KUHAP), particularly Articles 183–184, which require a minimum of two lawful pieces of evidence—namely witness testimony, expert testimony, documents, indications, and defendant statements—against Thailand’s more inclusive model under Sections 226–231 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), which classifies evidence into material, documentary, and personal evidence and grants broader judicial discretion. Both systems share similarities, including the exclusionary rule against illegally obtained evidence and the recognition of digital evidence in response to contemporary legal developments, particularly after Indonesia’s reform through Law No. 20 of 2025. However, structural differences significantly affect the effectiveness of justice: Indonesia emphasizes legal certainty to prevent judicial subjectivity, while Thailand promotes procedural flexibility and allows private prosecution to enhance efficiency and victim participation. Employing a normative-comparative method, this study concludes that ASEAN legal harmonization is necessary to develop a balanced hybrid evidentiary model capable of ensuring substantive truth while safeguarding the human rights of suspects and defendants in the era of transnational crime.

ABSTRACT This article provides a political-economic historical analysis of Cambodian labor migration to Thailand, challenging the explanatory sufficiency of the neoclassical push-pull paradigm that dominates existing scholarship. While acknowledging the descriptive utility of push-pull models in mapping proximate migration determinants, the study argues that the structural vulnerability of the Cambodian labor force – conventionally treated as exogenous ‘push’ factors – is itself the path-dependent product of three interconnected, state-driven transformations spanning 1975 to 2019. The first stage examines the comprehensive institutional disruption during the Democratic Kampuchea period (1975–1979), which severely depleted human capital and dismantled all formal labor governance structures. The second stage analyzes the internationally influenced post-conflict reconstruction of the 1990s, which produced a structurally bifurcated ‘dual-labor regime’ concentrating effective labor protections within a narrow export-oriented garment enclave while leaving the vast rural workforce institutionally unprotected. The third stage investigates the post-2000 formalization of labor export through a privatized regulatory architecture characterized by significant governance gaps. Drawing on primary legal texts, demographic data, and empirical human rights documentation, the article demonstrates that the systemic exploitation of Cambodian migrant workers abroad is closely connected to this domestic political-economic trajectory, thereby historicizing the foundational categories that equilibrium-based migration frameworks take as given.

ABSTRACT The discipline of social work operates within a persistent ontological tension between defending universal human rights and respecting local cultures. Traditionally managed through cultural competence, this approach risks reducing deeply structural problems—such as poverty and institutional racism—into static cultural codes, inadvertently reproducing an Orientalist binary that obscures structural violence in Western democracies. To revitalize social work’s foundational commitment to social justice and genuine solidarity, this conceptual article proposes a paradigm shift toward a dual framework: cultural humility as an ethical stance and structural competency as an analytical mandate. Drawing on ethnographic sensibility, the paper explores how practitioners can interpret client resistance not as cultural deficits, but as rational survival strategies forged under institutional duress. Furthermore, the neoliberal bureaucratization of the Turkish welfare system is examined as an analytical illustration of global audit cultures to highlight the limitations of purely theoretical education. Bridging theoretical critique and concrete pedagogical action, the article presents actionable mechanisms for curricular restructuring, including structural vulnerability assessments, mobile supervision (walking classrooms), university-community legal coalitions, and explicit ECTS integration. Ultimately, these pedagogical interventions equip future practitioners to actively dismantle systemic barriers rather than merely manage cultural symptoms.

ABSTRACT This article explores the marginalisation of children in peace processes as peace-making itself evolves. Earlier liberal models treated peace agreements as transformative opportunities, justifying calls for children’s participation through legal, normative and strategic arguments. Contemporary practices, however, increasingly prioritise elite bargains and transactional settlements, leaving less room for the inclusion of previously excluded groups. Competing visions of childhood, shrinking civic space and weakened human rights frameworks further restrict children’s voices. The article argues that because traditional strategies for promoting participation might be undermined by these changes, it is important to contemplate new openings such as civil society networks, digital activism and local-level initiatives to support child participation.

ABSTRACT The North American 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup (FWC) is the first tournament in which human rights policies and plans have been in place for the awarding body and host nation from the bid stage. This paper examines the FWC human rights governance arrangements, through an analysis of strategic documents, observations of three host cities and semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders. Drawing on institutional theory, we argue that human rights institutional logic formation, via stakeholder engagement and isomorphic pressures, influences FIFA. However, we also demonstrate that this influence is limited due to the primacy of business agendas at the executive level. We conclude that while positive steps have been made, with human rights structures, policies and processes now in place at FIFA, host nation(s) and host cities; issues of implementation remain throughout each level of the FWC institutional field.

The rapid advancement of human germline gene editing (HGGE) technology has brought opportunities for gene therapy in patients with rare diseases. However, due to risks related to technical safety, ethics, and societal concerns, some countries have explicitly prohibited the application of germline gene editing. In reality, the use of HGGE for correcting genetic diseases contributes to safeguarding the fundamental rights of patients with rare genetic disorders and their offspring. The off-target effects of CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology are controllable, and preliminary clinical successes have been achieved, with a low probability of substantial harm. Moreover, the expected number of actual applications is minimal, meaning it will not significantly alter the human gene pool in the short term. When applied reasonably, HGGE for correcting genetic diseases does not pose the aforementioned ethical or social risks. Its application is ethically justified, and by implementing matching safety safeguards and regulatory frameworks, the legalization of HGGE for genetic disease correction can be achieved, thereby balancing technological innovation with human rights protection.

This paper examines the killing of fifteen-year-old Felani Khatun at the Bangladesh–India border to interrogate how postcolonial border regimes produce racialized and gendered forms of violence. Drawing on feminist, postcolonial, and migration studies frameworks, I conceptualize the “illegal body” as a product of sovereign power—where law, religion, and class converge to determine whose lives are protected and whose deaths are rendered ungrievable. Situating Felani’s killing within the intertwined histories of Partition, nationalism, and securitization, the paper traces how colonial laws such as the Foreigners Act and contemporary policies like the Citizenship Amendment Act reproduce exclusionary citizenship regimes that criminalize Muslim mobility. Through a close reading of public narratives, legal proceedings, and human rights reports, the analysis reveals that border violence is not an anomaly but a routine performance of sovereignty that transforms legality into a tool of dispossession. By linking gendered nationalism, humanitarian discourse, and state power, this study contributes to the sociology of borders and migration by theorizing how sovereign violence and moral governance sustain the production of disposable lives at postcolonial frontiers.

ABSTRACT Educating young people is an endeavour that inherently engages with their personal development. Cognition, social dynamics, personal identities, and other psychosocial processes inform how young people receive and respond to what they are taught explicitly and implicitly in schools. Truth and reconciliation commissions’ attention to the education sector must thus be attuned not only to curriculum, programming, and students’ understandings and attitudes, but also to how they make sense of these lessons. In this article, I describe conceptualised peace, a developmental, phenomenological framework, to guide the planning and structure of educating about history after armed conflict and human rights violations. This theory highlights youth’s agentic role in making meaning of educational lessons, informed by their identities and lived experiences of social-ecological contexts. The process has reverberations for their developing senses of self as citizens and how they act in the world. Overall, the developmental psychology lens of conceptualised peace can contribute to current work on historical consciousness and holds concrete implications for approaches to educating future generations after conflict and violence.

Police brutality is a global phenomenon. The practice has dire consequences for fundamental human rights. It has far and remote implications for loss of lives and property. The limited literature on the police brutality and human rights prompted this research. The study assessed police brutality and human rights in Shagamu, Ogun State, Nigeria. It adopted mixed research methods and it is descriptive and cross-sectional in nature. It is anchored strain and routine activity theories. Primary data were obtained through the administration of questionnaire on 108 respondents in Shagamu, Ogun State. The Yamane Taro formula was adopted to determine the sample size. Simple and stratified sampling methods were employed. The study hypothesis tested on the significant relationship between police brutality and security of lives and property. The P-value of 0.292 exceeded the level of significance at 0.05, meaning that police brutality leads to loss of lives and property. The study recommends an established criminal justice system for trial and punishment of erring police officers while members of the public should be well-educated on their fundamental human rights as well as limits of police officers.

This study examines the ontological security of the individuals in relation to the realization of human rights and analyzes the impact of violations of rights on individuals’ perceptions of ontological security. After outlining the historical and conceptual foundations of security, the study explores how ontological security is constructed at both the individual and societal levels. Focusing on the relationship between ontological security and human rights, the research demonstrates that access to fundamental rights and freedoms plays a decisive role in individuals’ psychological and social security. In this context, the study emphasizes that feeling secure is not limited to protection from physical threats, but must also be supported by social, economic, and legal guarantees. The findings reveal that modern security policies particularly in the areas of counterterrorism, refugee policies, ethnic and religious discrimination, and global pandemics can undermine individuals’ senses of identity and belonging, thereby producing conditions of ontological insecurity. Ultimately, the study highlights the crucial role of human rights based security policies in protecting individuals’ ontological security and fostering social stability and peace.

This paper presents a conceptual framework for developing a geographic information system (GIS) designed to monitor agricultural and rural development in Ukraine with integrated human rights assessment components. The proposed system addresses critical challenges facing Ukraine’s rural territories in the context of post-war reconstruction, including food security degradation, land resource management, infrastructure destruction, and protection of vulnerable population groups. The study outlines a comprehensive monitoring framework structured around six indicator blocks: security situation, food security, land resources and land use, agro-food system infrastructure, socio-economic conditions of rural territories, and human rights observance. The system architecture incorporates modular design principles, spatial database technologies, and advanced analytical capabilities to support evidence-based policy development and decision-making at multiple governance levels. Integration of geospatial analysis and socio-economic assessment methods aims to provide a tool for a human rights-based approach implementation into rural development management during Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction.

This article will examine forfeiture of cultural property involved in transnational disputes. It will focus on the ever-growing body of civil forfeiture actions, or in rem actions, against objects of cultural heritage in the United States, where there has been a shift away from primarily relying on private litigation of cultural property disputes toward civil forfeiture actions brought by the federal government. It will examine how civil forfeiture has proven to be an effective procedural device for courts to adjudicate competing claims to property and to effectuate return to owners, particularly source nations. It will also explore how private international law elements pertain to these actions, such as the application or rejection of foreign national ownership laws in U.S. courts, as well as the possibility of enforcement of foreign transnational forfeiture orders (for example, Italy’s transnational forfeiture order for the ‘Getty Bronze’ in California, the lawfulness of which was recently upheld by the European Court of Human Rights). It will examine the advantages and the downsides of the use of forfeiture as it relates to returns for international cultural heritage and discuss whether the end – that is, restitution to source nations – justifies the means.

This analytical paper synthesizes academic research, statutory and regulatory frameworks, and programmatic evidence to assess global solutions to homelessness. Drawing on human rights law (e.g., the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), national statutes (e.g., the United Kingdom’s Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 and Canada’s National Housing Strategy Act 2019), key court decisions (e.g., City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, 2024; Government of the Republic of South Africa v. Grootboom), and large-scale evaluations of Housing First and prevention systems, it identifies concrete policy designs that reduce homelessness sustainably. The article argues that legal duties of prevention, rights-based housing frameworks, scaled affordable housing, and fidelity-consistent Housing First—integrated with coordinated access and targeted supports for veterans, youth, and families—produce the strongest, most durable results when paired with fair public-space management and non-criminalization approaches.

This article investigates the structural paradox characterizing Cambodia-U.S. relations in the post-Cold War period, in which the persistence of political and security friction coexists with functional cooperation. The study identifies policy areas in which China’s emergence as an unconditional patron creates tension with the U.S., and analyzes mechanisms through which Chinese support enables Cambodia to evade U.S. normative pressure on democracy and human rights. Using an analytic eclecticism approach that combines structural realism and liberal institutionalism, the study conducts a qualitative content analysis of semi-structured interviews with 13 elite informants, including Cambodian government officials, U.S. diplomats, and analysts. The findings demonstrate that China’s multidimensional assistance (economic, military, and diplomatic) has significantly undermined Western normative leverage, forcing Cambodia to pursue a dual-track strategy that focuses conflict in the high-politics domain (security, governance) and maintains cooperation in the low-politics domain (trade, development assistance, public health). This pattern generates a state of managed contradiction, which compartmentalizes the coexistence of political hostility and functional cooperation without progressing towards normative convergence or bilateral breakdown. The study makes an empirical contribution by tracing how patron diversification reshapes small-state agencies and by showing that alternative patronage enables states to resist normative pressure while preserving selective cooperation in an era of great-power competition.

ABSTRACT Human rights discourse is an important expression carrier of the concept of human rights. By searching Chinese judicial judgement documents (CJJDs), one can find that judges invoke the term ‘human rights’ for judgement reasoning and argumentation in litigation. As exercisers of public power, how judges express human rights in their decisions reflects China’s attitude toward protecting human rights in the judicial field, the availability of human rights remedies and the development and achievements of the cause of judicial protection of human rights. According to the form and purpose of judges’ invocation of ‘human rights’, it can be typified into five types of Chinese judicial human rights discourse (CJHRD) based on a sample of 751 CJJDs. Analysis of the specific context and content of CJHRD reveals its stability and fundamental principles. An in-depth analysis of the sources of the CJHRD reveals that it has a strong dependence on the human rights provisions or human rights discourse of laws, regulations and human rights documents. Meanwhile, the human rights discourse formed by judges’ use of ‘human rights’ in their reasoning reflects at least four human rights concepts that are recognised by China’s judiciary and transmitted to Chinese citizens through judicial channels.