Massive Violations Of Human Rights Research Articles

The Human Rights Dimensions of International Peace and Security and Humanitarian Intervention after 9/11

While international peace and security require the stability provided by the Westphalian system of International Law, it can at the same time be endangered by massive violations of human rights. On the other hand, Human Rights can only be enjoyed in times of peace while the Westphalian system can limit the effective and universal enforcement of Human Rights in cases in which the UN Security Council has failed to take action under Chapter VII. This paper is an attempt at reconciling these needs - which are at times directly contrary, and at other times interlinked - ones with a special focus on massive violations of human rights which are not being addressed effectively by the UN Security Council. To this end, we will look at the Human Rights dimensions of international peace and security outlined above before we come to the core issue of the paper, the legality of the use of force for the protection of Human Rights in cases in which the UN Security Council fails to act, or, in other words, the question of how far the need for universal respect for human rights can overrun the need for peace, given the links between both factors indicated above. At the end of the paper will be a suggestion for a step-by-step approach regarding the effective enforcement of Human Rights aimed at preserving international peace and security as much as possible while at the same time taking into account national and regional systems for the protection of Human Rights. Special attention will be given to the role of Humanitarian Intervention in a world dominated by the war against terrorism in the wake of the September 11, 2001, Al Qaida terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center, the Pentagon as well as in Pennsylvania.

Accommodating Individual Criminal Responsibility and National Reconciliation: The UN Truth Commission for East Timor

The population of East Timor has been subjected to severe human rights violations, in both the near and the more distant past.1 Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese colony and non-self-governing territory under Chapter XI of the United Nations Charter on December 7,1975, after a period of civil turmoil and political instability marked by parallel claims to independence and calls for integration into Indonesia.2 The Indonesian invasion brought with it massive violations of human rights and the laws of war.3 Military clashes between the independence movement FRETILIN (Frente Revolucionaria do Timor Leste Independente) and Indonesia continued on a large scale until 1979, though rebellion against Indonesian rule generally persisted for the whole period of Indonesian occupation. Beginning in January 1999, pro-Indonesian militia, supported by Indonesian security forces.

The Victim-Related Provisions of the Statute of the International Criminal Court: A Victimological Analysis

The 1998 Rome agreement to create a permanent International Criminal Court (the ‘ICC’) is a significant psychological advance in the fight against impunity for those who perpetrate massive violations of human rights. It has also been said to be an important step forward in the recognition of the suffering and the rights of the victims and survivors of the international crimes that are defined in the Statute of the ICC. This article will critically analyse from a victimological perspective the provisions of the Statute of the ICC that directly concern such victims. These provisions can be rouped into those that allow for victim participation into pre-trial and trial decisions, victim support and protection, and victim reparation. The conclusion to the article suggests that while the terms of the Statute are clearly an advance for victims, there are a number of concerns that in practice may undermine the usefulness of the ICC from a victimological perspective. Like all measures that promise benefits for victims, they must be carefully implemented and their use continually evaluated through proper scientific research on victims' experiences.

Restitution Claims for Massive Violations of Human Rights During the Nazi Regime The Austrian Case

Restitution Claims for Massive Violations of Human Rights During the Nazi Regime The Austrian Case

America's Misguided Mission

In Democracy by force, Karin von Hippel provided a useful analysis of the mistakes made and lessons learned by the United States in using military force to promote democracy during the Cold War. However, more fundamental issues with regard to the intentions and consequences of American intervention are left unexplored. US policy-makers mistakenly believe that spreading democracy will itself enhance international security. Democracy needs liberalism to produce peace; indeed, as Yugoslavia and Rwanda illustrate, illiberal democracy can bring war. This article concludes that American might could be put to better moral use in preventing massive violations of human rights, rather than in promoting democracy.

New and old wars: organized violence in a global era

Mary Kaldor's New and Old Wars has fundamentally changed the way both scholars and policy-makers understand contemporary war and conflict. In the context of globalization, this path-breaking book has shown that what we think of as war - that is to say, war between states in which the aim is to inflict maximum violence - is becoming an anachronism. In its place is a new type of organized violence or 'new wars', which could be described as a mixture of war, organized crime and massive violations of human rights. The actors are both global and local, public and private. The wars are fought for particularistic political goals using tactics of terror and destabilization that are theoretically outlawed by the rules of modern warfare. Kaldor's analysis offers a basis for a cosmopolitan political response to these wars, in which the monopoly of legitimate organized violence is reconstructed on a transnational basis and international peacekeeping is reconceptualized as cosmopolitan law enforcement. This approach also has implications for the reconstruction of civil society, political institutions, and economic and social relations. This third edition has been fully revised and updated. Kaldor has added an afterword answering the critics of the New Wars argument and, in a new chapter, Kaldor shows how old war thinking in Afghanistan and Iraq greatly exacerbated what turned out to be, in many ways, archetypal new wars - characterised by identity politics, a criminalised war economy and civilians as the main victims. Like its predecessors, the third edition of New and Old Wars will be essential reading for students of international relations, politics and conflict studies as well as to all those interested in the changing nature and prospect of warfare.

Vojvodina ‐ the next stage of the dismantling process?

As of spring 1999, the only remaining multi‐ethnic region of the Former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) inhabited by a substantial Serb population that had escaped large‐scale, bloody inter‐ethnic clashes and massive violations of human rights has been Vojvodina. The national question and the pro‐autonomy movement are potential sources of secession in Vojvodina. However, the Serbian demographic domination in most of the territory of Vojvodina, the moderate, compromise‐oriented, and fractured political parties of national minorities, the lowland mentality and inter‐ethnic tolerance of the native population, and the lack of serious coercion of national minorities make the risks of spontaneous eruption of inter‐ethnic conflicts relatively small. However, external factors such as the secession from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) of Montenegro and/or Kosovo and NATO military intervention in the FRY may result in serious assaults on minorities and conflict in Vojvodina.

Humanitarian Responsibility and Committed Action

Far from rejecting the classicist approach, as Thomas Weiss claims, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) follows the fundamental principle of providing aid in proportion to need and without discrimination. Actions that on Weiss's political continuum would be termed solidarist are less an expression of political preference than a determination to claim and operate within humanitarian space as well as to maintain accountability to international civil society through testimony (témoignage) regarding mass violations of human rights. Although providing aid in conflict is implicitly political, involving humanitarian actors and aid in conflict resolution initiatives, as Weiss advocates, risks diluting the primary responsibility of humanitarian aid to alleviate suffering. It also further shifts the responsibility for conflict resolution and the respect of international legal conventions from accountable political institutions to the private sphere. Is this where we want to lead humanitarianism?

Individual and NGO participation in human rights litigation before the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights: lessons from the European and Inter-American Courts of Human Rights

In terms of article 6(1) of the Protocol Establishing the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights, the Court may entitle both relevant non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with observer status before the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (the Commission), and individuals to institute directly before it, urgent cases or cases of serious, systematic or massive violations of human rights. In deciding the admissibility of cases brought under article 6(1), the Court may request the opinion of the Commission which must give its opinion as soon as possible. Additionally, article 25(2) of the Protocol provides that the Court may receive written and oral evidence and other representations including expert testimony and it shall make a decision based on such evidence and representations.

Mutombo v. Switzerland

Human rights — Jurisdiction — Torture — Convention against Torture, 1984 — Duty of non-refoulement in Article 3 — Conditions — Political activities in Zaire — Author applying for refugee status in Switzerland — Relevance of existence of consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights in Zaire — Whether author personally at risk of torture — Whether torture “foreseeable and necessary consequence” of return to Zaire — Obligation of State Party under Convention — Whether expulsion of author to Zaire would constitute a violation of Article 3 of Convention by SwitzerlandInternational tribunals — United Nations Committee against Torture — Jurisdiction — Procedure — Proof

Khan v. Canada

Human rights — Jurisdiction — Torture — Convention against Torture, 1984 — Duty of non-refoulement in Article 3 — Conditions — Requirement that individual must be personally at risk of being subjected to torture — Relevance of consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights in State to which individual is to be returned — State to which individual to be returned not a party to the Convention — RelevanceInternational tribunals — United Nations Committee against Torture — Jurisdiction — Procedure — Proof — Allegation that return of individual by Convention State to non-Convention State would expose him to risk of torture — Convention against Torture, 1984, Article 3

Historical Dictionary of Morocco

Historical Dictionary of Morocco. Second Edition. By Thomas K. Park and Aomar Bourn. Historical Dictionaries of Africa, No. 95. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2006. Pp. Ixxii, 675, 31 maps. $115.00. Midway through the first decade of the twenty-first century, the Kingdom of Morocco continues to attract the attention of serious students of North Africa. The Moroccan state, under the post-1999 leadership of King Mohamed VI, has embarked on a number of political and social reforms, such as long overdue enhancements to the status of women and the establishment of a widely noted Truth and Reconciliation Commission which has attempted to expose (and make amends for, if possible) the massive violations of human rights committed under the 1961-99 rule of King Hassan II, Mohamed VFs father and predecessor. In addition, the still-unresolved Western Sahara conflict has continued to distract Rabat, having maneuvered itself into an uncompromising and isolated position in 2003 when it strongly rejected a compromise internal autonomy plan for the territory formulated by former U.S. secretary of State James A. Baker III, and also ruled out a United Nations referendum of self-determination that the world body had been unsuccessfully trying to conduct since 1991. And looming over the entire picture was Morocco's glaring social and economic inequalities, thought by some to have been partly responsible for the Moroccan nationals who took part in the Casablanca terrorist attacks of May 2003 and the Madrid commuter railway bombings in March 2004 that killed nearly 200 people. With all these factors and more at work, Morocco deserves-indeed, demands-a thorough reference-oriented treatment, something that is performed (in the main effectively) by the second edition of Thomas K. Park's Historical Dictionary of Morocco, this time co-authored by Aomar Boum, a Moroccan who hails from the historic M'Hamid oasis in the south of the country and is a doctoral candidate at the University of Arizona in Tucson. In a review of Park's first edition of the dictionary (IJAHS Vol. 31 No. 2 [1998], 412-13), this reviewer took issue with a variety of characteristics of that volume, among which was the spotty coverage of postcolonial Morocco. Happily, the authors of this edition have produced a work that far surpasses the prior dictionary, as recent events and personages as well as the full gamut of economic, political, and social issues are given attention. Separate entries thoroughly discuss Moroccan elites, the arts, agriculture and industry, music and the news media, natural resources, the country's many respected universities, and religious issues, including Morocco's significant Jewish minority. Moreover, specific entries are devoted to leftist and Islamist movements, political parties in general (accompanied by the results of parliamentary elections since independence), and the structure of the state bureaucracy. Park and Bourn also give the reader biographical data of a wide variety of persons, not only from precolonial and colonial times, but also inside and outside the present governmental and commercial structure who are-for better or worse-prominent fixtures in modern Moroccan society. …

Coming to Terms with Atrocities: A Review of Accountability Mechanisms for Mass Violations of Human Rights

The field of human psychology has taught the lay world a principle regarding personal emotion that is now taken as a given: To ensure good mental health and stability, it is crucial that individuals emerging from massive abuse and trauma develop appropriate mechanisms to confront and process that past experience, facilitating closure rather than repression. Figuring out which approach or mechanism will be most helpful to the healing process will vary from person to person, and will be determined in part by the background and makeup of the particular individual as well as by the nature of the trauma endured. But, for both victims and perpetrators of past abuse, dealing with the reality and consequences of its occurrence is essential. In responding to such trauma, groups and nations tend to function similarly to individuals. Societies shattered by the perpetration of atrocities need to adapt or design mechanisms to confront their demons, to reckon with these past abuses. Otherwise, for nations, as for individuals, the past will haunt and infect the present and future in unpredictable ways. The assumption that individuals or groups who have been the victims of hideous atrocities will simply forget about them or expunge their feelings without some form of accounting, some semblance of justice, is to leave in place the seeds of future conflict.

Legal Responses to Genocide and Other Massive Violations of Human Rights

What can the enlightened sectors of the international community do to prevent and halt the proliferation of genocides and massive human rights violations around the planet? We evade the obvious, albeit costliest answer-to arrest them before, or at least while they are happening, by any means necessary: to stop them by stopping them. Instead, we focus on actions after the fact. One method, which is particularly favored is to create courts to try the perpetrators of atrocities. Indeed, in the course and the wake of the atrocities committed in Cambodia, southern Sudan, the former Yugoslavia, Haiti, Rwanda, Burundi, Zaire-the list grows relentlessly-many in the international community call for the creation of ad hoc or standing international criminal courts to deal with the gravest of international legal delicts. Courts are indispensable institutions in many domestic criminal and civil systems, and any polity, no matter how structured, must construct mechanisms of varying degrees of institutionalization to apply the law to concrete cases. But lest we fall victim to a judicial romanticism in which we imagine that merely by creating entities we call "courts" we have prevented or solved major problems, we should review the fundamental goals that institutions designed to protect our public order seek to fulfill. National legal systems allocate different responsibilities to criminal and civil law, but common to all legal systems is a set of fundamental sanctioning goals for the protection, restoration, and improvement of public order. While these fundamental goals have been expressed in many forms, they may be synthesized into seven specific goals:' (1) Preventing imminent discrete public order violations; (2) Suspending current public order violations; (3) Deterring, in general, potential future public order violations; (4) Restoring public order after it has been violated; (5) Correcting the behavior that generates public order violations;

The Politics of Memory

Under the circumstances of the political violence in Argentina in the mid1970s that climaxed in the military coup of 1976 and the ensuing massive violations of human rights, a new social movement emerged. At first almost in hiding and unseen, then becoming steadily more visible, gaining step by step in political relevance and centrality, the human rights movement and the issues it raised gradually came to occupy a significant position in the public arena. Under the military dictatorship (1976-1983) the movement unfolded a varied range of activities: supporting victims and their relatives, spreading the information that was to break the imposed silence about the nature and scope of the violations, launching open protests, organizing and promoting international solidarity. As a result, it was the key actor in the development of societal demands for the defense of human rights. After the transition to democracy in 1983, the tasks of the human rights movement changed, although its basic aim of defending human rights and protesting violations remained. Faced by new institutional and political demands and symbolic and cultural challenges, it gradually lost its central political position, entering a phase of internal debate about its role under a democratic regime and revealing its internal cleavages and heterogeneities. At present it is still searching for a new profile.

The Fate of Human Rights in the Third World

The new Asian and African states have laid much stress on human rights, but have often not lived up to them. The basic right of self-determination has been limited to colonies only. Democratic institutions have generally given way to authoritarian regimes, often run by the military, with popular participation denied rather than encouraged. The right to life, liberty, and security of person has been grossly violated in the cases of millions of refugees, temporary and permanent, in Africa and the Asian subcontinent. Many hundreds of thousands have been killed in domestic conflicts, as in Indonesia, Nigeria, and Burundi. One of the results is the emergence of a double standard: an all-out African and Asian attack upon the denial of human rights involved in colonialism and racial discrimination, but a refusal to face up to massive violations of human rights in the Third World itself.

LA RESPONSABILIDAD DE PROTEGER (R2P). LOS DERECHOS HUMANOS Y EL CONSEJO DE SEGURIDAD

La adopción, en 1948, de la Convención para la Prevención y la Sanción del Delito de Genocidio pareció que abría una nueva era en la vida internacional en que prácticas como esa quedarían en el pasado histórico. La realidad mostró que ese instrumento internacional no fue suficiente frente a la arbitrariedad de gobiernos. Acciones genocidas continuaron desarrollándose y para aminorar el sufrimiento humano se recurrió a la llamada “intervención humanitaria” como respuesta a la inacción del Consejo de Seguridad, la que también trajo consigo arbitrariedades en su invocación, desacreditándola. Ante los reiterados llamados del Secretario General de Naciones Unidas para prevenir y detener masivas violaciones a los derechos humanos, se ha tratado de normar un tipo de intervención, alejándola de arbitrariedades, mediante la cual la comunidad internacional pueda responder a masivas violaciones a los derechos humanos. Eso se ha dado en llamar Responsabilidad de Proteger.