Showing papers on "Human rights published in 2012"

Human Rights and Social Work: Towards Rights-Based Practice

Abstract: Now in its third edition, Human Rights and Social Work explores how the principles of human rights inform contemporary social work practice. Jim Ife considers the implications of social work's traditional Enlightenment heritage and the possibilities of 'post-Enlightenment' practice in a way that is accessible, direct and engaging. The world has changed significantly since the publication of the first edition in 2000 and this book is situated firmly within the context of present-day debates, concerns and crises. Ife covers the importance of relating human rights to the non-human world, as well as the consequences of political and ecological uncertainty. Featuring examples, further readings and a glossary, readers are able to identify and investigate the important issues and questions arising from human rights and social work. Now more than ever, Human Rights and Social Work is an indispensable resource for students, scholars and practitioners alike.

Handbook of International Relations

Abstract: PART ONE: HISTORICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL AND THEORETICAL ISSUES IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS On the History and Historiography of International Relations - Brian C. Schmidt Philosophy of Social Science and International Relations - Colin Wight Ethics and Norms in International Relations - Andrew Hurrell & Terry Macdonald Rational Choice and International Relations - Duncan Snidal Constructivism in International Relations: Sources, Contributions and Debates - Emanuel Adler Critical Theory, Post-Structuralism and Post-Colonialism - Maja Zehfuss Feminist Perspectives on International Relations - Laura Sjoberg & J. Ann Tickner Psychological Explanations of International Decision-Making and Collective Behavior - Janice Gross Stein Theoretical Pluralism in IR: Possibilities and Limits - Jeffrey T. Checkel PART TWO: STRUCTURES AND PROCESSES OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS State, Sovereignty and Territory - Thomas J. Biersteker Power and International Relations - David A. Baldwin Foreign Policy - Walter Carlsnaes International Organizations and Institutions - Lisa L. Martin & Beth A. Simmons International Law - Beth Simmons Negotiation and Bargaining - John Odell Globalization and Global Governance - Michael Z rn Transnational Actors and World Politics - Thomas Risse Transnational Diffusion: Norms, Ideas and Policies - Fabrizio Gilardi Domestic Politics and International Relations - Kenneth Schultz Comparative Regionalism: European Integration and beyond - Tanja A. Borzel Nationalism and Ethnicity in International Relations - Lars-Erik Cederman Great Power Hierarchies and Strategies in 21st Century World Politics - David A. Lake PART THREE: SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Interstate War and Peace - Jack S. Levy Security Co-Operation - Harald M ller Terrorism and Counterterrorism - Ethan Buena de Mesquita Civil Wars, Conflict Resolution and Bargaining Theory - Barbara F. Walter Religion and International Relations Theory - Monica Duffy Toft International Finance - Michael Tomz International Trade - Helen V. Milner International Migration - Gallya Lahav & Sandra Lavenex Development and International Relations - Jana Honke & Markus Lederer International Environmental Politics - Ronald B. Mitchell International Human Rights - Hans Peter Schmitz and Kathryn Sikkink

The Civic Origins of Progressive Policy Change: Combating Violence against Women in Global Perspective, 1975–2005

Abstract: Over the past four decades, violence against women (VAW) has come to be seen as a violation of human rights and an important concern for social policy. Yet government action remains uneven. Some countries have adopted comprehensive policies to combat VAW, whereas others have been slow to address the problem. Using an original dataset of social movements and VAW policies in 70 countries over four decades, we show that feminist mobilization in civil society—not intra-legislative political phenomena such as leftist parties or women in government or economic factors like national wealth—accounts for variation in policy development. In addition, we demonstrate that autonomous movements produce an enduring impact on VAW policy through the institutionalization of feminist ideas in international norms. This study brings national and global civil society into large-n explanations of social policy, arguing that analysis of civil society in general—and of social movements in particular—is critical to understanding progressive social policy change.

Shaming and Blaming: Using Events Data to Assess the Impact of Human Rights INGOs†

Abstract: Do the “shaming” activities of HROs (human rights international non-governmental organizations) have a direct influence on state behavior? We argue, consistent with existing scholarship, that states targeted or “shamed” by these organizations do improve their human rights practices. However, mere shaming is not enough. Improvements in human rights practices result from the interaction of shaming by HROs with (i) a domestic presence of HROs within the targeted state and/or (ii) pressure by third-party states, individuals, and organizations. Using a new data set of the shaming events of more than 400 HROs toward governments, we test these propositions quantitatively and find widespread support for the arguments. This research provides the first global quantitative evidence of the conditional importance of HRO shaming in transnational advocacy efforts.

Dangerous tales: Dominant narratives on the Congo and their unintended consequences

Abstract: Explanations for the persistence of violence in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo blame the incendiary actions of domestic and regional leaders, as well as the inefficacy of international peacebuilding efforts. Based on several years of ethnographic research, this article adds another piece to the puzzle, emphasizing the perverse consequences of well-meaning international efforts. I argue that three narratives dominate the public discourse on Congo and eclipse the numerous alternative framings of the situation. These narratives focus on a primary cause of violence, illegal exploitation of mineral resources; a main consequence, sexual abuse of women and girls; and a central solution, extending state authority. I elucidate why simple narratives are necessary for policy makers, journalists, advocacy groups, and practitioners on the ground, especially those involved in the Congo. I then consider each narrative in turn and explain how they achieved prominence: they provided straightforward explanations for the violence, suggested feasible solutions to it, and resonated with foreign audiences. I demonstrate that the focus on these narratives and on the solutions they recommended has led to results that clash with their intended purposes, notably an increase in human rights violations.

The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions are Changing World Politics:

Abstract: The Spectacular State explores the production of national identity in post-Soviet Uzbekistan. The main protagonists are the cultural elites involved in the elaboration of new state-sponsored mass-spectacle national holidays: Navro’z (Zoroastrian New Year) and Independence Day. The overall argument is that despite their aspirations to reinvigorate national identity, mass spectacle creators in Uzbekistan have reproduced much of the Soviet cultural production. National identity has been one of the most fraught questions in Central Asia, where nationality was a contradictory and complicated product of the Soviet rule. Although the category of nationality was initiated, produced, and imposed by the Soviet state in the 1920s, it eventually became a source of power and authority for local elites, including cultural producers. The collapse of the Soviet Union opened up possibilities for revising and reversing many understandings manufactured by the socialist regime. Yet, upon her arrival in Tashkent to conduct her research on the renegotiation of national identity in 1995, Laura Adams discovered that instead of embracing newly-found freedom to recover a more authentic history, most Uzbek intellectuals, especially cultural producers working with the state, avoided probing too far in this direction. Rather than entirely discarding the Soviet colonial legacies, they revised their history selectively. Whereas the ideological content of their cultural production shifted from socialism to nationalism, many of the previous cultural ‘‘forms’’ have remained. Similarly, the Uzbek government continued to employ cultural elites to implement the task of reinforcing its nation-building program, thus following the Soviet model of cultural production. The book consists of four chapters. The first chapter delineates the broad themes of national identity building, and the remaining chapters explore mass spectacle creation by distinguishing between three elements: form (Chapter Two), content (Chapter Three), and the mode of production (Chapter Four). The study is based on content analysis of two Olympic Games-style national holidays, interviews with cultural producers, and participation observation of festivals and behind-the-scenes preparation meetings. Although Adams provides a few references to viewers and their attitude toward the public holiday performances, her book does not offer an extended engagement with reception and consumption of these holidays. The comprehensive and multi-layered overview of the process of revising national identity in Uzbekistan is one of the book’s major accomplishments. For Adams, the production of national identity is not a selfevident and seamless production forced by the state but instead a dynamic, complex, and dialogical process of negotiation between various parties (intellectual factions, state officials, mass spectacle producers, etc.). Her account reveals the messy and often contradictory nature of national identity production and thus moves away from the tendency to reify the state and its policies. The book makes a significant contribution to studies of nationalism by suggesting that the production of national identity in Uzbekistan was centrally constituted by the consideration of the ‘‘international audience.’’ Although public holidays, studied by Adams, aimed at fostering national identification, the forms in which these celebrations are performed (including national dances and music) indicate the aspiration of cultural producers to be part of the international community. This kind of national production self-consciously oriented toward the international viewer has been the legacy of the Soviet nationalities policy where all cultural producers had to produce art ‘‘socialist in content, national in form.’’ Notwithstanding the difference in generations or genres,

Dignity: Its History and Meaning

Abstract: Dignity plays a central role in current thinking about law and human rights, but there is sharp disagreement about its meaning. Combining conceptual precision with a broad historical background, Michael Rosen puts these controversies in context and offers a novel, constructive proposal. Drawing on law, politics, religion, and culture, as well as philosophy, Rosen shows how modern conceptions of dignity inherit several distinct strands of meaning. This is why users of the word nowadays often talk past one another. The idea of dignity as the foundation for the universal entitlement to human rights represented the coming together after the Second World War of two extremely powerful traditions: Christian theology and Kantian philosophy. Not only is this idea of dignity as an "inner transcendental kernel" behind human rights problematic, Rosen argues, it has drawn attention away from a different, very important, sense of dignity: the right to be treated with dignity, that is, with proper respect. At the heart of the argument stands the giant figure of Immanuel Kant. Challenging current orthodoxy, Rosen's interpretation presents Kant as a philosopher whose ethical thought is governed, above all, by the requirement of showing respect toward a kernel of value that each of us carries, indestructibly, within ourselves. Finally, Rosen asks (and answers) a surprisingly puzzling question: why do we still have a duty to treat the dead with dignity if they will not benefit from our respect?

Rights-based fisheries governance: from fishing rights to human rights

Abstract: In the last twenty years, policy prescriptions for addressing the global crisis in fisheries have centred on strengthening fisheries governance through clarifying exclusive individual or community rights of access to fishery resources. With a focus on small-scale developing-country fisheries in particular, we argue that basing the case for fishery governance reform on assumed economic incentives for resource stewardship is insufficient when there are other sources of insecurity in people’s lives that are unrelated to the state of fishery resources. We argue that more secure, less vulnerable fishers make more effective and motivated fishery managers in the context of participatory or rights-based fisheries governance, and we further suggest that insecurity among fishers living in poverty can be most effectively addressed by social and political development that invokes the existing legal framework supporting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This perspective goes well beyond the widely advocated notion of ‘rights-based fishing’ and aligns what fishery sector analysts call the ‘rights-based approach’ with the same terminology used in the context of international development. Embedding the fisheries governance challenge within a broader perspective of human rights enhances the chances of achieving both human development and resource sustainability outcomes in small-scale fisheries of developing countries.

Reproductive governance in Latin America.

Abstract: This paper develops the concept of reproductive governance as an analytic tool for tracing the shifting political rationalities of population and reproduction. As advanced here, the concept of reproductive governance refers to the mechanisms through which different historical configurations of actors - such as state, religious, and international financial institutions, NGOs, and social movements - use legislative controls, economic inducements, moral injunctions, direct coercion, and ethical incitements to produce, monitor, and control reproductive behaviours and population practices. Examples are drawn from Latin America, where reproductive governance is undergoing a dramatic transformation as public policy conversations are coalescing around new moral regimes and rights-based actors through debates about abortion, emergency contraception, sterilisation, migration, and assisted reproductive technologies. Reproductive discourses are increasingly framed through morality and contestations over 'rights', where rights-bearing citizens are pitted against each other in claiming reproductive, sexual, indigenous, and natural rights, as well as the 'right to life' of the unborn. The concept of reproductive governance can be applied to other settings in order to understand shifting political rationalities within the domain of reproduction.

Carceral politics as gender justice? The “traffic in women” and neoliberal circuits of crime, sex, and rights

Abstract: This article draws upon recent works in sociology, jurisprudence, and feminist theory in order to assess the ways in which feminism, and sex and gender more generally, have become intricately interwoven with punitive agendas in contemporary US politics. Melding existing theoretical discussions of penal trends with insights drawn from my own ethnographic research on the contemporary anti-trafficking movement in the United States—the most recent domain of feminist activism in which a crime frame has prevailed against competing models of social justice—I elaborate upon the ways that neoliberalism and the politics of sex and gender have intertwined to produce a carceral turn in feminist advocacy movements previously organized around struggles for economic justice and liberation. Taking the anti-trafficking movement as a case study, I further demonstrate how human rights discourse has become a key vehicle both for the transnationalization of carceral politics and for the reincorporation of these policies into the domestic terrain in a benevolent, feminist guise. I conclude by urging greater and more nuanced attention to the operations of gender and sexual politics within mainstream analyses of contemporary modes of punishment, as well as a careful consideration of the neoliberal carceral state within feminist discussions of gender, sexuality, and the law.

CSR and the Debate on Business and Human Rights: Bridging the Great Divide

Abstract: Human rights have not played an overwhelmingly prominent role in CSR in the past. Similarly, CSR has had relatively little influence on what is now called the "business and human rights debate." This contribution uncovers some of the reasons for the rather peculiar disconnect between these two debates and, based on it, presents some apparent synergies and complementarities between the two. A closer integration of the two debates, as it argues, would allow for the formulation of an expansive and demanding conception of corporate human rights obligations. Such a conception does not stop with corporate obligations "merely" to respect human rights, but includes an extended focus on proactive company involvement in the protection and realization of human rights. In other words, the integration of the two debates provides the space within which to formulate positive human rights obligations for corporations.

Governance by Indicators: Global Power through Classification and Rankings

Abstract: 1. Governance by Indicators 2. The Dynamism Of Indicators 3. Taming and Framing Indicators: A Legal Reconstruction of the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 4. Problems of Power in the Design of Indicators of Safety and Justice in the Global South 5. Immunization Coverage Indicators: Technology of Public Health Governance 6. State Failure: The U.S. Fund for Peace Failed States Index 7. Corporations, Indicators, and Human Rights: A Material Semiotics View 8. Trends in Mission-Driven Funding: New Impact Indicators for a New Impact Industry 9. Legal Yardsticks: International Financial Institutions As Legal Diagnosticians And Remedial Agents 10. Measuring Human Rights: U.N. Indicators In Critical Perspective 11. Internally Displaced Population in Colombia: A Case Study on the Domestic Aspects of Indicators as Technologies of Global Governance 12. The Use Of Indicators To Measure Government Responses To Human Trafficking 13. Fighting Human Trafficking or Instituting Authoritarian Control? The Political Cooptation of Human Rights Protection in Belarus 14. Rights-Based Humanitarian Indicators In Post-Earthquake Haiti 15. Accountability In The Generation Of Governance Indicators 16. Beyond Supply and Demand: A Political-Economic Conceptual Model of Measurement Standards for Global Markets 17. Public Regulation Of Global Indicators

The concept of quality of life and its role in enhancing human rights in the field of intellectual disability.

Abstract: Background The changed societal views of persons with disabilities are reflected in the 2006 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. However, what is not specified in the Convention is how to operationalise and measure the Articles composing the Convention, and how to use that information to further enhance the human rights of persons with disabilities. Method The authors analyse the relationships between eight core quality of life domains and the 34 Articles contained in the Convention. Results There is a close relationship between the core quality of life domains and the 34 Articles contained in the Convention. Furthermore, the current status of these Articles can be evaluated through the assessment of indicators associated with the eight core quality of life domains. Conclusions Based on the assessment of these quality of life-related outcomes, three strategies can be used to enhance the human rights of persons with intellectual disability. These three are to employ person-centred planning, publish provider profiles and implement a system of support.

On banning autonomous weapon systems: human rights, automation, and the dehumanization of lethal decision-making

Abstract: This article considers the recent literature concerned with establishing an international prohibition on autonomous weapon systems. It seeks to address concerns expressed by some scholars that such a ban might be problematic for various reasons. It argues in favour of a theoretical foundation for such a ban based on human rights and humanitarian principles that are not only moral, but also legal ones. In particular, an implicit requirement for human judgement can be found in international humanitarian law governing armed conflict. Indeed, this requirement is implicit in the principles of distinction, proportionality, and military necessity that are found in international treaties, such as the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and firmly established in international customary law. Similar principles are also implicit in international human rights law, which ensures certain human rights for all people, regardless of national origins or local laws, at all times. I argue that the human rights to life and due process, and the limited conditions under which they can be overridden, imply a specific duty with respect to a broad range of automated and autonomous technologies. In particular, there is a duty upon individuals and states in peacetime, as well as combatants, military organizations, and states in armed conflict situations, not to delegate to a machine or automated process the authority or capability to initiate the use of lethal force independently of human determinations of its moral and legal legitimacy in each and every case. I argue that it would be beneficial to establish this duty as an international norm, and express this with a treaty, before the emergence of a broad range of automated and autonomous weapons systems begin to appear that are likely to pose grave threats to the basic rights of individuals.

Well-being and occupational rights: An imperative for critical occupational therapy

Abstract: Background: One of occupational therapy's core assumptions is that engagement in occupations influences well-being. Because occupational engagement is integral to human well-being, and because well-being is integral to human rights, this paper contends that the ability and opportunity to engage in occupations is an issue that concerns rights. Aims: To outline well-being and its centrality to human rights; to explore the relationships between well-being and occupation and between well-being and occupational rights; and to highlight the consequent imperative to engage in critical occupational therapy. Key issues: The World Federation of Occupational Therapists asserts that all people have the right to participate in a range of occupations that enable them to flourish, fulfil their potential, and experience satisfaction congruent with their culture and beliefs; and further asserts the human right to equitable access to participation in occupation. Conclusions: If occupational therapists are to take ...

Embracing the new disability rights paradigm: the importance of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Abstract: In 2008 the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) commenced operation. The CRPD has created a dynamic new disability rights paradigm that empowers disability people’s organizations and creates a new paradigm for disability scholars. This paper analyses the impact of the CRPD and provides practical guidance as to how this convention can be used to drive change. Prior to this convention, persons with disabilities were protected by a range of general human rights conventions. Despite receiving nominal protection under general human rights conventions, persons with disabilities have had many of their human rights denied to them. The CRPD goes further than merely re-stating rights. It creates a new rights discourse, empowers civil society and renders human rights more obtainable for person with disabilities than any time in history.

Welfare States and Immigrant Rights: The Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion

Abstract: Acknowledgments List of Tables and Figures 1. Welfare States and Immigrant Rights PART I: IMMIGRANTS' SOCIAL RIGHTS IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE 2. Introduction to Part I 3. Liberal Welfare States and Immigrants' Social Rights 4. Conservative Corporatist Welfare States and Immigrants' Social Rights 5. Social Democratic Welfare States and Immigrants' Social Rights 6. Immigrants' Social Rights across Welfare States PART II: THE POLITICS OF INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION 7. Introduction to Part II 8. Liberal Welfare States and the Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion 9. Conservative Corporatist Welfare States and the Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion 10. Social Democratic Welfare States and the Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion 11. The Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion Compared 12. Conclusion: Immigrant Rights - a Challenge for Welfare States References Index

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

Abstract: A Chapter which discusses the creation and evolution of the UN High Commissioner's Office, explains the structure of the Office, and looks at some of the priorities of the various High Commissioners.

Conducting Research with Tribal Communities: Sovereignty, Ethics, and Data-Sharing Issues

Abstract: Background: When conducting research with American Indian tribes, informed consent beyond conventional institutional review board (IRB) review is needed because of the potential for adverse consequences at a community or governmental level that are unrecognized by academic researchers. Objectives: In this article, we review sovereignty, research ethics, and data-sharing considerations when doing community-based participatory health–related or natural-resource–related research with American Indian nations and present a model material and data-sharing agreement that meets tribal and university requirements. Discussion: Only tribal nations themselves can identify potential adverse outcomes, and they can do this only if they understand the assumptions and methods of the proposed research. Tribes must be truly equal partners in study design, data collection, interpretation, and publication. Advances in protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) are also applicable to IRB reviews, as are principles of sovereignty and indigenous rights, all of which affect data ownership and control. Conclusions: Academic researchers engaged in tribal projects should become familiar with all three areas: sovereignty, ethics and informed consent, and IPR. We recommend developing an agreement with tribal partners that reflects both health-related IRB and natural-resource–related IPR considerations.

Citizenship, Migrant Activism and the Politics of Movement

Abstract: Introduction: Citizenship, Migrant Activism, and the Politics of Movement Peter Nyers and Kim Rygiel 1. Securitized migrants and postcolonial (in)difference: The politics of activisms among North African migrants in France Alina Sajed 2: Claiming Rights, Asserting Belonging: Contesting Citizenship in the UK Ruth Grove-White 3. Ungrateful Subjects? Refugee protests and the logic of gratitude Carolina Moulin 4. "We are All Foreigners": No Borders as a practical political project Bridget Anderson, Nandita Sharma and Cynthia Wright 5. Ethnography and Human Rights: The Experience of APDHA with Nigerian Sex Workers in Andalucia Estefania Acien Gonzalez 6. Moments of Solidarity, Migrant Activism and (Non)Citizens at Global Borders: Political Agency at Tanzanian refugee camps, Australian detention centres and European borders Heather Johnson 7. Building a Sanctuary City: Municipal Migrant Rights in the City of Toronto Jean McDonald 8. Taking not waiting: Space, temporality and politics in the City of Sanctuary movement Vicki Squire and Jennifer Bagelman 9: Undocumented Citizens? Shifting grounds of citizenship in Los Angeles Anne McNevin

International practices of organ donation

Abstract: Summary Organ donation and transplant rates vary widely across the globe, but there remains an almost universal shortage of deceased donors. The unmet need for transplants has resulted in many systematic approaches to increase donor rates, but there have also been practices that have crossed the boundaries of legal and ethical acceptability. Recent years have seen intense interest from international political organizations, led by the World Health Organization, and professional bodies, led by The Transplantation Society. Their efforts have focused on the development of a series of legal and ethical frameworks, designed to encourage all countries to eradicate unacceptable practices while introducing programmes that strive to achieve national or regional self-sufficiency in meeting the need for organ transplants. These programmes should seek to reduce both the need for transplantation and also develop deceased donation to its maximum potential. Living donation remains the mainstay of transplantation in many parts of the world, and many of the controversial—and unacceptable—areas of practice are found in the exploitation of living donors. However, until lessons are learnt, and applied, from countries with highly developed deceased donor programmes, these abuses of human rights will be difficult to eradicate. A clear international framework is now in place to achieve this.

On Global Justice

Abstract: Preface ix Acknowledgments xiii Part 1: Shared Citizenship and Common Humanity * Chapter 1: The Grounds of Justice 1 * Chapter 2: "Un Pouvoir Ordinaire": Shared Membership in a State as a Ground of Justice 23 * Chapter 3: Internationalism versus Statism and Globalism: Contemporary Debates 41 * Chapter 4: What Follows from Our Common Humanity? The Institutional Stance, Human Rights, and Nonrelationism 63 Part 2: Common Ownership of the Earth * Chapter 5: Hugo Grotius Revisited: Collective Ownership of the Earth and Global Public Reason 89 * Chapter 6: "Our Sole Habitation": A Contemporary Approach to Collective Ownership of the Earth 108 * Chapter 7: Toward a Contingent Derivation of Human Rights 130 * Chapter 8: Proportionate Use: Immigration and Original Ownership of the Earth 152 * Chapter 9: "But the Earth Abideth For Ever": Obligations to Future Generations 167 * Chapter 10: Climate Change and Ownership of the Atmosphere 187 Part 3: International Political and Economic Structures * Chapter 11: Human Rights as Membership Rights in the Global Order 209 * Chapter 12: Arguing for Human Rights: Essential Pharmaceuticals 232 * Chapter 13: Arguing for Human Rights: Labor Rights as Human Rights 245 * Chapter 14: Justice and Trade 261 Part 4: Global Justice and Institutions * Chapter 15: The Way We Live Now 281 * Chapter 16: "Imagine There's No Countries": A Reply to John Lennon 304 * Chapter 17: Justice and Accountability: The State 325 * Chapter 18: Justice and Accountability: The World Trade Organization 346 Notes 361 Bibliography 415 Index 453

The Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence: Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence

Abstract: The Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (‘‘Convention’’) joins a small number of treaties imposing specific obligations on member states to prevent and address violence against women. The Convention is notable both for its encapsulation of best practices in combating violence against women and for its confirmation that all forms of violence against women, including domestic violence, are human rights violations for which states are responsible.

Globalization, Economic Freedom and Human Rights

Abstract: Using the KOF Index of Globalization and two indices of economic freedom, we empirically analyze whether globalization and economic liberalization affect governments’ respect for human rights using a panel of 106 countries over the 1981-2004 period. According to our results, physical integrity rights significantly and robustly increase with globalization and economic freedom, while empowerment rights are not robustly affected. Due to the lack of consensus about the appropriate level of empowerment rights as compared to the outright rejection of any violation of physical integrity rights, the global community is presumably less effective in promoting empowerment rights.

The Least of All Possible Evils: Humanitarian Violence from Arendt to Gaza

Abstract: A groundbreaking exploration of the philosophy underpinning Western humanitarian and military intervention. The principle of the “lesser evil”—the acceptability of pursuing one exceptional course of action in order to prevent a greater injustice—has long been a cornerstone of Western ethical philosophy. From its roots in classical ethics and Christian theology, to Hannah Arendt’s exploration of the work of the Jewish Councils during the Nazi regime, Weizman explores its development in three key transformations of the problem: the defining intervention of Medecins Sans Frontieres in mid-1980s Ethiopia; the separation wall in Israel-Palestine; and international and human rights law in Bosnia, Gaza and Iraq. Drawing on a wealth of new research, Weizman charts the latest manifestation of this age-old idea. In doing so he shows how military and political intervention acquired a new “humanitarian” acceptability and legality in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

International Human Rights Law in Africa

Abstract: An introduction to international human rights law -- The role of United Nations organs and agencies in realizing human rights in Africa -- The United Nations treaty-based human rights system and Africa -- The African Union and human rights architecture -- Substantive human rights norms in the African regional system -- The African Commission : introduction and assessment -- The African Commission : protective mandate -- The African Commission : promotional mandate -- The African children's charter and children's rights committee -- The African Court on Human and Peoples' rights -- The realization of human rights in Africa through subregional institutions -- Domestic implementation of international human rights law in African States -- Conclusion.

External Rebel Sponsorship and Civilian Abuse: A Principal-Agent Analysis of Wartime Atrocities

Abstract: While some groups work hard to foster collaborative ties with civilians, others engage in egregious abuses and war crimes. We argue that foreign state funding for rebel organizations greatly reduces the incentives of militant groups to the ‘win the hearts and minds’ of civilians because it diminishes the need to collect resources from the population. However, unlike other lucrative resources, foreign funding of rebel groups must be understood in principal-agent terms. Some external principals — namely, democracies and states with strong human rights lobbies — are more concerned with atrocities in the conflict zone than others. Multiple state principals also lead to abuse as no single state can effectively restrain the organization. We test these conjectures with new data on foreign support for rebel groups and data on one-sided violence against civilians. Our results provide support for these hypotheses. Most notably, we find strong evidence that principal characteristics help influence agent actions.