International Human Rights Organizations Research Articles

The Development and Expansion of University-Based Community/Clinical Legal Education Programs in Malaysia: Means, Methods, Strategies

<p>Beginning in 2003, the not-for-profit international human rights organization Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia Community Legal Education Initiative (BABSEA CLE) began focusing on assisting in the development and expansion of university-based community/clinical legal education programs in the Southeast Asia region. Since that time, and as a result of this focus, university based CLE programs have been developed or expanded in Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, VietNam, Indonesia and Laos, with a continuously growing network of universities, both nationally and regionally. One of the flagship achievements of these activities has been the successful establishment of an accredited CLE program in Malaysia at the University of Malaya.</p><p>Finally the paper will identify strategic next steps in the development of this CLE movement within Malaysia, as well as its connection to institutions regionally throughout Southeast Asia and how the CLE movement intends to broaden its reach both within Malaysia</p>

Nongovernmental International Human Rights Organizations: The Case of Hong Kong

ABSTRACTThis article examines the contributions of nongovernmental international human rights organizations (NGIHRO) in promoting a broad sense of human rights in hybrid regimes using the cases of Amnesty International Hong Kong (AIHK), Green Peace Hong Kong (GPHK), and Oxfam Hong Kong (OHK). It contends that NGIHROs have made significant contributions to public education and fund-raising in Hong Kong. However, with regard to the human rights conditions, it is erroneous to consider Hong Kong as part of the developed world. Together with other probable political considerations, doing so may have led to gaps in the organizations’ roles and functions as advocates for human rights in Hong Kong. In the final analysis, this article uses the political protests in Hong Kong to illustrate the importance of addressing the implications of demands for preserving the local identity and alternative lifestyles in the broader understanding of human rights.

Just Communicating

Just Communicating

Ethiopia's Pastoralist Policies: Development, Displacement and Resettlement

Abstract Ethiopia's current economic plans call for extensive development along its riverine resources in lowland regions, areas typically occupied by pastoral and agro-pastoral peoples. These plans include the development of large dams for hydroelectric power and irrigating large agricultural estates producing sugar, cotton and rice in state-run and privately owned businesses. Nearly all of these projects entail the relocation and resettlement of populations away from the rivers, and threaten the livelihoods and way of life of small but distinct ethnic groups. Although criticised widely by international human rights organisations, the Ethiopian government maintains these developments will ultimately benefit both affected populations and the country as a whole. This paper reviews particular development projects on the Omo River and Awash River and in Gambela Region, and refers to works by NGOs and human rights organisations seeking alternative approaches to resettlement.

Matter of Discretion: The De Facto Abolition of the Mandatory Death Penalty in Barbados – A Study of the Boyce and Joseph Cases

The rising calls worldwide for a moratorium on the death penalty parallel the judicial erosion of the mandatory death penalty (“MDP”) in a number of Commonwealth Caribbean nations. The appellate proceedings of Attorney General of Barbados versus Jeffrey Joseph and Lennox Ricardo Boyce illustrate the jurisprudential evolution of the MDP in the following areas: (1) constitutionality; (2) deadlines for appeal; (3) the judicial review of executive clemency proceedings; and (4) petitions to international human rights organizations. This article explores the advent of a new chapter in Commonwealth Caribbean MDP jurisprudence through Attorney General v. Joseph, a seminal opinion by the Caribbean Court of Justice (“CCJ”). In this case, the CCJ augmented the procedural safeguards that have given rise to the de facto abolition of the MDP in Barbados and other Commonwealth Caribbean nations. This article also explains the intricate balance, in MDP appeals, of (1) constitutional and international law and (2) judicial review of executive action. The article concludes that the CCJ (once touted as a “hanging court”) has actually worked to secure the role of judicial discretion in MDP appeals and to insure the de facto abolition of the MDP.

Compulsory drug detention in East and Southeast Asia: Evolving government, UN and donor responses

According to official accounts, more than 235,000 people are detained in over 1000 compulsory drug detention centers in East and South East Asia. Individuals in such centers are held for periods of months to years, and can experience a wide range of human rights abuses, including violation of the rights to freedom from torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention; a fair trial; privacy; the highest attainable standard of health; and freedom from forced labor. Since 2010, an increasing number of United Nations agencies, human rights experts, and others have expressed concerns about rights abuses associated with compulsory drug detention centers, and since 2012, called for their closure. Although they do not represent a complete break from the past, these calls mark a significant shift from past engagement with drug detention, which included direct and indirect funding of detention centers and activities in detention centers by some donors. However, the lack of transparent governance, restrictions on free speech and prohibitions on monitoring by independent, international human rights organizations make assessing the evolving laws, policies and practices, as well as the attitudes of key governments officials, difficult. Looking specifically at publicly announced reforms and statements by government officials in China, Cambodia, Vietnam and Lao PDR reveals possible improvements in respect for the rights of drug users, and on-going challenges.

Jordan: The Ruse of Reform

Why has Jordan’s authoritarianism remained so stubborn? What makes the country’s Hashemite monarchy exceptional is that virtually no constituency apart from domestic oppositionists and international human-rights organizations puts consistent pressure on the kingdom to democratize. Western policy makers and Jordanian officials have successfully cultivated the kingdom’s image as a “moderate” Arab state, an oasis of stability and key ally in the world’s most strategic and turbulent region. Foreign aid from the United States and its allies remains the kingdom’s economic lifeline, and thus the best means by which to encourage the regime to actually take popular demands into account in its next reform gambit. With stability on the line, the next five years will prove to be the crucible for the Jordanian crown.

Making progress in elimination of gender stereotypes in the context of gender-based violence - The role of the CEDAW Committee

Over the last two decades the CEDAW Committee’s recognition of gender-based violence as a form of discrimination against women has made a major impact on how other international human rights organizations, including the Council of Europe and the European Union, approach this problem. As a result, the Council of Europe adopted the ‘Istanbul Convention’ on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, while the European Union strengthened the protection of victims of crimes in the Victims Directive. The CEDAW Committee’s views on the duty to eliminate wrongful gender stereotypes established by article 5 (a) of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination confirmed the binding legal nature of this obligation. However, the existence of an independent ‘justiciable’ right not to be subject to gender stereotyping, which subordinates women to men and assigns them a fixed gender role, has not yet been fully ascertained. The article argues that the creation of parallel international regimes of human rights in the area of gender-based violence does not undermine the role of the CEDAW Convention as a Women’s Convention, but enhances the complementarity of various human rights instruments.

A Responsibility to Report? The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch Reporting

The major international human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, play a central role in shaping public perceptions of human rights conditions around the world. They are widely perceived as neutral sources interested only in promoting human rights. As a result, they have become the basis of the most important datasets used in quantitative research, and proponents of a Responsibility to Protect have suggested they can act as impartial early warning mechanisms. Yet recent work on these groups suggest that their reporting is also shaped by institutional imperatives, such as the need to get press coverage for reports, to raise funds, and to respond to donors.BR Human rights conditions in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea are arguably among the worst in the world. Yet the reporting of the major human rights organizations on the DPRK has been surprisingly limited. This paper examines the factors that have shaped human rights reporting on the DPRK over time, and the implications of these factors for our understanding of the incidence of human rights reporting globally.

Climate change and the human rights challenge: extending justice beyond the borders of the nation state

This paper critically explores how a nation state perspective continues to shape the manner in which ideas of ‘entitlement’ and ‘right’ are framed in international policy debate on the security implications of climate change. In a world where natural resource reserves are steadily declining and inequalities between regions are widening, finding a peaceful compromise between the competing interests of global actors and the needs of vulnerable communities is a major challenge for the future. What dominates current international negotiations is not the question of duties to global others but rather the entitlements of sovereign states and private capital to exhaust precious resources reserves for private gain. This paper explores how climate justice coalitions, small state alliances and international human rights organisations challenge the ethical and, indeed, legal basis of this reasoning in their efforts to reframe ‘unintended’ acts of ecological destruction as a deliberate violation of human rights.

Kirpans, Law, and Religious Symbols in Schools

SATVINDER SINGH JUSS (PhD, Cantab; Barrister-at-Law of Gray’s Inn; Human Rights Fellow, Harvard Law School) is professor of law at Dickson Poon Law School, Kings College London, and is director for the Center for Transnational Law. His articles have appeared in Cambridge Law Journal, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Harvard Human Rights Journal, Modern Law Review, Brigham Young University Law Review, Journal of Church & State, International Journal of Refugee Law, Journal of Conflict and Security Law, Statute Law Review, and Human Rights Quarterly. Special interests include religion, refugees and immigration, and human rights. This is a modified version of a paper presented by the author at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury at a Roundtable on Human Rights, Human Dignity and Faith, at Lambeth Palace on January 13, 2012. This event brought together a high level group of academics from the field of human rights, ethics, and theology, and senior personnel from international development and human rights organizations to reflect on the current global context of human rights discourse. The roundtable discussion was aimed at exploring the historic connections and current tensions between the human rights discourse and some cultural and faith perspectives. See also http:// blogs.unicef.org.uk/authentic_voices/archive/2012/01/17/human-rights-andfaith-roundtable-at-lambeth-palace.aspx.

An analysis of news sources used in reports on slavery in the Sudan in the New York Times and Washington Post between 1986 and 2001

For over 25 years the Sudan and the United States have had a contentious relationship. In 1986 several international human rights organisations pointed to the re-emergence of the practice of slavery in the Sudan. Past research by American media has shown that journalists tend to use routine channels and American government officials, especially those from the ‘golden triangle’ (the White House, Pentagon and State Department) when covering stories related to foreign countries. However, in the case of the Sudan there was no clear American foreign policy for an extended period of time. Consequently, there was a stark absence of reporting on the slavery issue in the two elite American newspapers (the New York Times and the Washington Post) examined in this study. Furthermore, even when the topic was covered the sources used defined the issue through an American perspective, rather than within an historical and geopolitical context.

Essaying America: A Declaration of Independence

Early in his Meditations, Descartes suggests that, at least once, one should set one’s epistemic bushel in order, as if beliefs were apples to be sorted. But that is not quite right, even though he uses the image in his replies to the seventh set of objections. Descartes’s principal concern is not each and every belief but the ways in which he justifies them. It is thus not a stretch to find a kind of ethics of belief in the Meditations, at least with regard to scientia. (Regarding the epistemic challenges of everyday life, Descartes is quite clear in his synopsis that “no sane person ever seriously doubted these things,” i.e., “that there really is a world, and that humans have bodies and so on” [1984, 11].) At its heart, then, and all doctrine aside, Cartesian philosophy responds to a call that asks us to formulate a rational basis for our epistemic commitments. I feel a similar obligation, though my concern does not lie with how to conduct myself in the way of belief or, better yet, with how to formulate commitments to assertoric speech acts. In its briefest form, it runs, “Am I an American philosopher?” though that wording is infelicitous insofar Essaying America: A Declaration of Independence

A Hunger Strike - The Ecology of a Protest: The Case of Bahraini Activist Abdulhad al-Khawaja

This article uses the case of a Bahraini activist to explore the twin interrelated ecologies of a hunger strike. The first ecology is the ethical framing of a prison hunger strike as a corporeal-environmental act of (self) destruction intended to achieve political ends. The second ecology is the operation of global media where international inaction inadvertently foregrounds the political struggles that larger events and discourses surrounding Egypt, Libya and Syria overshadow. What connects these two ecologies is the body of the hunger striker, turned into a spectacle and mediated via a politics of affect that invites a global public to empathize and so enter into his suffering. The connection between the two lies in the emaciated body of the hunger striker in this case, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja

Priority-setting in international non-governmental organizations: it is not as easy as ABCD

Recently theorists have demonstrated a growing interest in the ethical aspects of resource allocation in international non-governmental humanitarian, development and human rights organizations (INGOs). This article provides an analysis of Thomas Pogge's proposal for how international human rights organizations ought to choose which projects to fund. Pogge's allocation principle states that ‘an INGO should govern its decision making about candidate projects by such rules and procedures as are expected to maximize its long-run cost-effectiveness, defined as the expected aggregate moral value of the projects it undertakes divided by the expected aggregate cost of these projects’ (2007. Moral priorities for international human rights NGOs. In Ethics in action, ed. D. Bell and J. Coicaud, 218–56. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 241). I critique Pogge's argument on two fronts: (1) I demonstrate that his view is problematic on his own terms, even if we accept the cost-effectiveness framework he employs. (2) I take issue with his overall approach because it generates results which can undermine the integrity of INGOs. Further, his approach mis-characterizes the nature of INGOs, and this mistake is at the root of his problematic view of INGO priority-setting. Ultimately, I argue for a conception of INGOs in which they are understood as ‘organizations of principle’, in the sense that they are independent moral agents and so should be permitted a fairly wide sphere of autonomy within reasonable moral constraints.

Law and Religion in Indonesia: The Constitutional Court and the Blasphemy Law

A growing number of religious minorities have been prosecuted for the criminal offence of ‘insulting a religion’, specifically Islam, in Indonesia. Both local and international human rights organisations have condemned the perceived misuse of what is widely referred to in Indonesia as the ‘Blasphemy Law’. This article will analyse the application for judicial review of the Blasphemy Law, which was submitted to the Indonesian Constitutional Court in 2009. It will critique the various submissions made to the court and analyse the historic decision of the judiciary, which upheld the validity of the Blasphemy Law. In doing this, it will explore how the relationship between law and religion, particularly Islam, has been debated, negotiated and articulated in democratic Indonesia

Human rights organizations and online agenda setting

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to better understand agenda setting by international human rights organizations in the online environment and at the same time contribute to agenda‐setting theory. The role of non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) in the area of human rights is clarified, and agenda setting and related concepts are discussed.Design/methodology/approachThe study focuses on how attention is drawn to human rights issues in online communication by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International. A content analysis of online forums of HRW and Amnesty International was conducted by monitoring their web sites and Facebook and Twitter pages over a period of three months. In addition, two expert interviews with representatives of Amnesty Finland were conducted to better understand how the organization's online communication activities relate to its policies in drawing attention to human rights.FindingsBased on this study, drawing attention to human rights issues is a goal that leads to active online communication. NGOs aim at attracting attention to their issues online by initiating a dialogue via online forums and motivating the public to participate in activities that may influence the media and the political agenda. The existing agenda‐setting research tends to emphasize the role of journalists in setting the public agenda, and mentions NGOs primarily as a source for journalists and as a political player. The online environment shows, however, that these NGOs mostly aim at setting the public agenda to create social change, while the media and political agenda are also not forgotten.Research limitations/implicationsThis study suggests that the interdependence of the media, public and political agendas is more complex than has thus far been considered in agenda‐setting theory, especially in the current online environment. It investigates online agenda setting by two international NGOs, but does not discuss the role of the media or the public at large in their relationship with these NGOs. As this study has a limited time frame, a content analysis over a longer period and interviews with representatives of a wider variety of NGOs could be a next step. Future research could also compare the online communication of NGOs with that of profit organisations.Practical implicationsThe findings show how agenda setting is supported by intricate multi‐platform activities in the present‐day online environment by the organizations studied in order to initiate a dialogue on societal issues. This suggests that in the online environment, the media, public and political agendas are becoming increasingly interrelated and within this triangle the public agenda seems to be gaining further in importance.Originality/valueThe impact that NGOs have on today's society is growing, and hence studying their online agenda setting is valuable from the perspective of corporate communication. International NGOs early on recognised the value of online communication.

Bringing Human Rights into the Migration and Development Debate

International migration is a key aspect of global integration, yet migration is characterised by a global governance deficit: unlike such areas as finance and trade, there is a lack of international institutions to set standards and ensure conformity with international legal norms. State migration policies often fail or have unintended consequences, while for migrants the result may be high levels of risk and exploitation. The US has over 11 million irregular residents, and systematic use of irregular migrant labour can be found throughout the world. In recent years, however, there have been attempts to move towards global governance mechanisms in the migration field. At the same time, migrant associations have grown and linked up with international human rights organisations. The article examines these trends, paying special attention to the Global Forum on Migration and Development – an intergovernmental consultation process that has met annually since 2007 – and the efforts of migrant associations and other civil society organisations to bring human rights into the debate. A final section discusses the initiative of a group of mainly Latin American academics to establish a new conceptual framework and set of strategic indicators to assess the links between migration, development and human rights. Policy Implications • Labour-importing countries can no longer pursue migration policies that ignore the interests, needs and rights of migrants and their communities of origin. • It is important for government and international agencies to work together with civil society organisations and migrant associations to safeguard migrant rights and to improve outcomes for all concerned. • Government policies on ‘migration management’ generally differentiate migrants into the highly skilled who are welcomed and offered legal entry and secure residency, and the low skilled who are treated as temporary migrants with limited rights or – even worse – as irregulars who are subject to criminalisation and high levels of risk and exploitation. Policies of this kind often fail to achieve their objectives or have unintended consequences. • Migration only benefits development if it is seen as part of a broader change process, which includes combating corruption, improving transport and communications infrastructure, upgrading education and health systems and improving rights and political participation. In other words, broadly based sustainable development comes first. • Progress towards a more sustainable migration order that recognises the rights and needs of all involved must be based on the questioning of dominant assumptions and the development of new sets of indicators and new sources of data. • Bringing human and worker rights into the migration and development debate is crucial for the establishment of fair and sustainable forms of global migration governance.

Law and Religion in Indonesia: The Constitutional Court and the Blasphemy Law

AbstractA growing number of religious minorities have been prosecuted for the criminal offence of ‘insulting a religion’, specifically Islam, in Indonesia. Both local and international human rights organisations have condemned the perceived misuse of what is widely referred to in Indonesia as the ‘Blasphemy Law’. This article will analyse the application for judicial review of the Blasphemy Law, which was submitted to the Indonesian Constitutional Court in 2009. It will critique the various submissions made to the court and analyse the historic decision of the judiciary, which upheld the validity of the Blasphemy Law. In doing this, it will explore how the relationship between law and religion, particularly Islam, has been debated, negotiated and articulated in democratic Indonesia

‘Heaven for disabled people’: nationalism and international human rights imagery

This essay explores the production, dissemination and promotion of disability imagery by an international human rights organization mobilizing national shame and shock effect as well as nation states seeking to use disabled people to make political points about their societies. The essay analyzes and critiques the idealization of ‘the developed world’ and the disavowal of ‘the developing world’, and discusses human rights films in Eastern Europe; the discourse about the US as the world leader in disability rights; and Chinese and South Korean disabled activists’ resistance against the governmental propaganda nearing their Paralympics. Resisting static and timeless generalizations about nation states is crucial to promoting a transnational communication on the human rights of disabled people and making connections among diverse, imaginative, conflicting, and ambiguous self‐representations of disabled people around the world.