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This paper employs the conceptual-analytical method to analyse literature and news reports on disabilities, and international legal documents and instruments on human rights and the rights of persons with disabilities to which Nigeria is a signatory. This study is conducted in the context of exclusionary and discriminatory practices against persons with disabilities in Nigeria. The practices and rights that are examined are in the areas of education and accessibility with regard to adults and children with disabilities, work and employment, and the employment or use of children with disabilities in alms-soliciting. The paper's broad objective in critically discussing these practices is to make a case for why and how they violate the rights of persons with disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the past decade, the author has examined North Korean primary public documents and concludes that there have been changes of identities and ideas in the public discourse of human rights in the DPRK: from strong post-colonialism to Marxism-Leninism, from there to the creation of Juche as the state ideology and finally 'our style' socialism. This paper explains the background to Kim Jong Il's 'our style' human rights in North Korea: his broader framework, 'our style' socialism, with its two supporting ideational mechanisms, named 'virtuous politics' and 'military-first politics'. It analyses how some of these characteristics have disappeared while others have been reinforced over time. Marxism has significantly withered away since the end of the Cold War, and communism was finally deleted from the latest 2009 amended Socialist Constitution, whereas the concept of sovereignty has been strengthened and the language of duties has been actively employed by the authority almost as a relapse to the feudal Confucian tradition. The paper also includes some first-hand accounts from North Korean defectors interviewed in South Korea in October–December 2008. They show the perception of ordinary North Koreans on the ideas of human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores Chinese people's pursuit of human rights through the Hegelian lenses of abstract rights and the master–slave dialectic. By juxtaposing the 1989 Tiananmen Incident and the Falun Gong movement, it illuminates how Chinese people's struggles for human rights have been informed by Confucianism and other Chinese philosophies, although they have also looked to the West for inspiration and endorsement. Moreover, Hegel's very own dialectic reassures us that Chinese people do not need to have an affirmative, conscious knowledge of 'rights' before they pursue them. While the student protests in 1989 were fuelled by a nationwide economic crisis, the Falun Gong movement was the result of an increasingly prosperous but spiritually blighted society. In both cases, the people, like slaves, struggled against their master, the Chinese government, for freedom and recognition so as to attain a full self-consciousness. Thus, this paper appropriates Hegelian concepts and his dialectical view of history to add to the existing criticisms of his Orientalist views, namely his belief that China is a stagnant nation and its people have no independent personality but only a servile consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The starting point in exploring possible linkages between migration and democratisation in this paper is the role of collective organisations in influencing and changing the direction and practice of political activism aimed at advancing the rights of migrants as foreign workers. Given the specific context of my discussion being temporary contract migration—the predominant form of (legal) economic migration in Asia today—taking a transnational perspective that links origin and destination countries is paramount, as the problem issues these contract migrants face occur at both 'ends' of the migration journey, often simultaneously. I develop a reconputalisation of the notion of 'political remittances' to analyse political activism via collective organisations that operate across borders. In doing so, I raise the question whether this activism contributes to the transnationalisation of migrant rights—a specific form of political remittances. In conclusion, I argue that the analysis and theorisation of political remittances aimed at furthering solidarity among workers and democratising of labour and human relations needs to be situated within a multi-sited landscape of collective organisations and the networks between them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are apparent differences between the developed North and the economically weak South. The relations between the North and South are marked by dichotomies and in order to deal with the challenges posed by the South, the North choses control and cooperation. The North uses several instruments including economic assistance to achieve its objectives. One of the new tools that is increasingly taken advantage of is human rights. Although there exists a genuine concern about human rights standards in the South, action on these issues almost always depends on national interest of the states in the North. This paradigm is proved true by the present human rights campaign the United States is undertaking against Sri Lanka in the United Nations Human Rights Council. The US and its Western allies believe that serious human rights violations have been committed during the last phase of the war in Sri Lanka. Promoting accountability and insisting on an international investigation, the US has successfully presented three resolutions on Sri Lanka since 2012. This paper argues that the US action is motivated primarily by its national interest. At the secondary level the US is interested in curtailing what is called the Sri Lanka model of conflict resolution and promoting reconciliation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This doctoral research project explores avenues to research ethically defined foreign policy differently, i.e. in ways that more systematically account for its counterproductive elements. Building on the specific case of the European Union's foreign policy in sub-Saharan Africa, embodied by the 2000 Cotonou Agreement and the 2007 Joint Africa-EU Strategy, through four papers and one books review, the study firstly develops the Ethical Intervener Europe analytical framework to account for the embedded problematics in the EU's ethical foreign policy. Secondly, through an eclectic theoretical approach, the study seeks to theoretically pin-point some alternatives to think about ethical foreign policy and finally, looks to concretize it through its application on the case of relative autonomous peace- and state-building in Somaliland. This research report briefly introduces the different findings and addresses the need for further research in view of a decolonial approach to the study of ethical foreign policy in a context of structural inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines jihad within what is loosely referred to as “the Western imagination.” Through the analysis of both popular stereotypes and the broader historical context of religious antagonism and (neo)colonialism, the paper discusses both contemporary political rhetoric and a pair of liberal post September-11 political cartoons. While European and North American political leaders have often stereotyped Muslims in order to justify various “axis of evil” bandwagons and further political and economic interests throughout the Islamic Crescent, I argue here that the liberal media's critiques also often rely on fallacious embodied stereotypes. The pervasiveness of such representations has important implications for the lived realities and human rights of both Muslims and non-Muslims globally because these stereotypes mask Muslim's legitimate concerns regarding (neo)colonialism and because of the human rights abuses that result from Islamophobia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we address some of the major limitations of the human rights tradition (HRT) in addressing issues of racial inequality. We contend that the universalist and individual-based framework of HRT fails to appreciate the significance of society's racial structure. More importantly, HRT ignores how race fractured the world system creating differently valued human bodies. In addition to addressing some of the shortcomings of HRT, we present challenges for those in the tradition and advance several alternatives for academics who want to work towards the elimination of race-based inequality in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of government racism is part of the explanation of the limited contemporary use of human rights in the US. This history poses a challenge to mainstream organizations' ability to organize using human rights, yet some contemporary organizations embrace these concepts that are in full use within international settings. This article focuses on the emergent reproductive justice movement, a women of color-based social movement which complicates the narrow focus on protection of legislation such as Roe v. Wade by integrating human rights analysis of domestic social problems. In doing so, this paper expands understanding of uses of human rights in the US and illustrates how race and gender identities contribute to social movement organizing around reproduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like elsewhere in Africa, local forms of Islam are being challenged by a number of new reformist and revivalist forms of Islam, influenced to some degree by a global Islamic revival but shaped by particular local histories and politics. This has caused some friction, especially as the regime in place seeks to manipulate these tensions for political benefit. Central to this struggle are the young men who have studied Islam abroad and who challenge the established truths of the traditional religious authorities; these authorities in turn accuse 'the youth' of bringing foreign, 'Arab' ideas and politics to Zanzibar. However, the kind of Islamic revival taking place in Zanzibar is far from radical or violent, and it is not appropriate to pose the present situation in terms of global Salafism versus local Sufism. In fact, Islamic revivalists often coin their critique of the state in terms of human rights and good governance and provide an alternative modernity that simultaneously challenges and articulates secular, liberal forms of modernity. Islamic revival critiques what is perceived as society's moral disorder and the state's inability to deal with new global challenges. Hence the present paper explores how global trends in Islam—but also global discourses on human rights and good governance—influence the current modes of Islamic revival in Zanzibar. With a heavily restricted political field, Islam can be a means of critiquing society without getting involved in politics. However, the government and the traditional religious authorities perceive this revivalism as a threat to the status quo and attempt therefore to politicise the struggle, accusing Islamic movements of fundamentalism and terrorism. It is within this political environment that Islamic revival must navigate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking up Hannah Arendt's analysis of statelessness and her critique of sovereign power, this paper argues that the condition of 'rightlessness' has become normalized within the international order. In contrast to claims that globalization has undermined sovereignty, Arendt's work helps to illuminate how states continue to reinforce their power to exclude and contain stateless persons while simultaneously deploying the discourse of universal human rights. Current state policies reveal that rightlessness is deeply embedded within the logic of the inter-state system. In a globalizing world where states are increasingly called upon to conform to universal standards of human rights, millions of stateless persons continue to be segregated from the public realm of effective political agency by statist practices of global apartheid, thereby rendering them 'superfluous' human beings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human rights entail an expansive conception of humans that stresses their inherent equalities, their responsibilities in democratic societies, and their rights as individuals and group members. This paper refers to the "human rights revolution," especially how it is evident in constitutions, and the relationship between human rights and public goods. Also sketched out are some of the ways that social scientists can promote human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human rights abuses and corruption during authoritarian rule are rooted in the arbitrary and coercive use of power. This study examines how two post-authoritarian accountability issues intersected in the Philippines, South Korea, and Indonesia. In the Philippines and South Korea, human rights abuses and corruption were viewed as overlapping or related legacies of authoritarian rule. The activities to eliminate corruption worked as catalysts for milestones of transitional justice, and violations of socio-economic rights were acknowledged. In Indonesia, by contrast, corruption and human rights abuses were treated as special crimes that occur continually across time. Specialized agencies helped Indonesia deal with human rights abuses and corruption during the authoritarian era. This study shows that anti-corruption activities can work as a catalyst for the progress of transitional justice for human rights abuses. It also highlights that post-authoritarian practices to deal with economic violence existed in Asia before transitional justice took shape as a field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents several African studies abstracts including "The 'birth' of a prophet: Andrew Wutawunashe's break from the Reformed Church in Zimbabwe (formerly Dutch Reformed Church)," by Lovemore Togarasei, "Integrity of mission in the light of the Gospel: bearing witness of the spirit among Africa's Gospel bearers," by Philomena Njeri Mwaura, and "Rural Islamism during the 'war on terror': a Tanzanian case study," by Felicitas Becker.

Studying the independence of Jordan's judiciary provides an opportunity for appreciating current structural impediments to democratic governance and economic reform. In this article, judicial independence is critically explored through an examination of Jordan's legal system, its political culture as well as regional and international policy initiatives. A number of suggestions are advanced in a bid to encourage ongoing dialogue about the central role an independent judiciary must play in advancing the interests of all stakeholders in future reform efforts whether in Jordan or the wider Arab region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses recent UN reforms to enhance the organization's capacity to prevent violent conflict. These reforms target crucial inefficiencies within the UN that have hampered effective preventive and protection practices in violent conflict and atrocities. The article argues that state actors have viewed the reform process as a site of norm contestation, and negotiations have created an avenue for compromises on the centrality of human rights and political backstopping of UN missions in volatile field contexts that are vital to better prevention and protection outcomes. Contestation by state actors is significant in steering the outcomes of institutional reform as states advance their normative agendas, and seek to integrate these preferences into new institutional structures that are open to negotiation through the reform process. A broad assessment of these reforms confirms the move toward a more pragmatic vision of peace and security in the UN to accommodate global power shifts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses snapshots , rather than the ongoing flows of diffusion/contestation typically emphasized by constructivists, to explore the exercise of power through normative change. Its case is a high-profile Human Rights Council initiative: the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP s). These UNGP s have successfully presented meanings as fixed while actually stretching those meanings' boundaries. They reconceptualize what it means to "respect" and "protect" human rights. This is surprising given that the principles were framed as a conservative exercise at clarification, and under-noticed due to the legal rather than conceptual focus of the existing critical literature. To respect human rights, according to the UNGP s, agents need to take costly positive action. Furthermore, protect obligations come before respect. These are significant innovations. On the other hand, two missed opportunities of the UNGP s are their thin harm-based foundation for respect obligations, and their state centrism about who has duties to protect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is but a limited scholarship on photographic sources from the Dutch military actions during the Revolusi Nasional Indonesia (Indonesian National Revolution) (1945–1949), and what exists almost entirely neglects perhaps the largest component of the archives: Dutch soldiers' amateur photographs. Yet this category of photographs has simultaneously attracted much public and media controversy. This article contends that a narrow range of soldiers' amateur photographs have thus far borne an anomalously weighty burden of proof to substantiate the nature and limits of extreme violence during the National Revolution, one that is brittle and difficult to sustain unless historians begin to broaden the focus of investigations into photographic archives. This article also investigates what it may mean for present-day Indonesians to see their ancestors as perpetrators as well as victims of violence and, importantly, as occupants of the ambiguous categories between both ends of this spectrum. What are the ethics of looking at and reproducing these photographs, and to whom do they belong? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an anthropological analysis of counterterrorism in Indonesia. In doing so, it draws on several complementary ideas which have shaped anthropological scholarship on security, addressing 'states of exception', 'securitization', 'governmentality', and 'human security'. The article develops its analysis through the first ethnographic study of Indonesia's national counterterrorism agency. Data comes from special access to the agency's facilities and events as well as interviews with agency personnel and ex-terrorists. The article also argues that post-9/11 security agencies frequently embrace a distinctive 'Muslim security strategy' built upon several contestable assumptions. Hence, it is assumed that Islam poses extraordinary threats to physical safety, human rights, and national identity. These threats justify suspending ordinary laws, making enormous investments in security measures, and extending such measures across the globe. It is also assumed that measures to prevent threats should focus on combating radical Islamic ideas, especially in educational institutions and on the Internet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at the strategy of Secretary-General António Guterres for modernizing the United Nation (U.N.), and examines how he can help define the contemporary role of the intergovernmental organization and prepare it for the challenges of the future. Topics discussed include the organizational restructuring of the U.N., Guterres' efforts to build confidence in his leadership, and his advancement of a preventive platform that promotes global peace and security. Also mentioned are proposals in Guterres' 2018 report which include the appointment of a victims rights advocate, the adoption of a Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, and the establishment of a High-Level Advisory Board on Mediation.

Little attention has been given to understanding how international courts feature in legitimacy assessments. How should the performance of international courts be evaluated in terms of their effect on a democratic deficit in international lawmaking? This article takes an initial step toward understanding how international courts improve or weaken the presence of democratic values in international lawmaking. In particular, this article focuses on one aspect of international courts—access for transnational actors. This article argues that TNA access to international courts provides an institutional mechanism to advance participation and transparency in international lawmaking. Normative and empirical analysis are combined to illustrate the extent to which access applies to international courts. Based on the empirical findings, which show a marked increase in TNA access to international courts, I argue that the increased participation and transparency made available through TNA access have democratizing effects on international lawmaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although transparency is frequently employed to enhance the legitimacy of public organizations, several scholars point to its potentially negative implications. This study analyzes the impact of transparency on the authority of peer reviews in international organizations. Authority, here conceived as rooted in legitimacy beliefs, is crucial for peer reviews to produce effects. This research is based on results from an online survey and forty-three interviews with actors involved in two United Nations peer reviews: the Universal Periodic Review in human rights and the Implementation Review Mechanism in the fight against corruption. The article shows that transparency positively affects the perceived development of pressure, yet negatively influences mutual learning and appears to be unable to ensure equal treatment of states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theme of the World Bank's 2006 World Development Report was Equity and Development. This article reviews the origins of the 2006 WDR, and why this was a controversial and political decision. It explains why equity is different from equality. It then considers what the World Bank and other agencies are doing to promote greater equity. Proequity policies require concern about distribution of both wealth and income, and the things that create greater opportunity. These issues are framed in terms of what some economists refer to as the "growth-inequality-poverty triangle." Resolving some of the contradictions of this triangle—how pro-growth policies and a concern for the distribution of gains does or does not resolve the problem of absolute poverty—explains many of the problems that remain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the United Nations assigned an important role to multistakeholder partnerships for implementing the Sustainable Development Goals. Since partnerships show a mixed success record, this article analyzes whether relevant actors in the UN context are inclined to translate lessons learned and the increased knowledge about partnerships' conditions for success into an improved "UN metagovernance." Criticizing the current institutional setup, most of the interviewed actors proposed that partnerships should be metagoverned by the UN through systemwide principles, rules, and procedures. There is, however, little consensus as to how that should be done. Drawing on assumptions from the literature and extensive empirical research, the article identifies patterns in actors' perspectives on the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on over seventy interviews with diplomats and experts from all five MIKTA member countries, we find that MIKTA is used as a value-for-money minilateral mechanism for the world's lesser powers grappling with the heightened global uncertainty and deepening interdependency. MIKTA foreign ministries have used the group as an ad hoc capacity-building and network-sharing scheme; and as a low-cost toolkit to diversify their traditional diplomatic channels and increase global visibility in various multilateral forums. However, MIKTA's flexible, but precarious, institutional realities also suggest that minilateral arrangements that share MIKTA's operational characteristics are likely to be short-lived and suffer from weak member commitment, resource constraints, forum-shopping risks, and a leadership vacuum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The responsibility not to veto is the idea that the Permanent Five at the UN Security Council should voluntarily refrain from using their veto in the event of atrocities. There are currently three veto-restraining initiatives, one of them from a P5 member, France. Despite its importance in diplomatic and UN circles, this debate has attracted little academic attention. This is partly because of the difficulty to access primary sources such as the details of the French proposal that circulated among the P5. Empirically focused and using diplomatic archives and experience, this article intends to fill such a gap. It provides the most detailed picture of the RN2V genealogy to date while offering a behind-the-scenes perspective on how the idea emerged and developed inside the French administration. It then unpacks the French strategy, its motivations and diplomatic efforts toward the P5, Group of 4, other states, and nongovernmental organizations, and eventually makes four recommendations for the initiative to have a chance of progressing among the Permanent Three. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2011 the Colombian Constitutional Court laid the groundwork for gay marriage, ruling it unconstitutional to exclude same-sex couples from the benefits of legal marriage. Instead of extending marriage to same-sex couples, however, the Court's decision left it to Congress to pass a law regulating such unions. Sharply divided on the issue, Congress failed to act. The then-Inspector General, a conservative Catholic, launched a wide-ranging legal and moral attack on marriage rights for same-sex couples, an attack which lasted until the Constitutional Court in 2016 expressly authorized these weddings. The attack included not only briefs and legal actions but also disciplinary action against public officials that celebrated same-sex weddings. This article seeks to unpack both the subtle and overt ways in which religious homophobia reflects and is reflected in popular culture and argues for a complex understanding of the relationship between homophobia in popular culture, religious definition of homosexuality as sinful, and the recourse to Constitutional Law by advocates for and against same-sex marriage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preventable maternal death as a human rights concern is gaining greater momentum. This article examines the normative framework applying to maternal mortality, and highlights the important link that exists between women's right to health and several other rights. It then discusses the differing, yet complementary, aspects of the nature of women's right to health as a right relevant to shaping a human rights approach to maternal mortality, namely: achieving health-care services that are available, accessible, acceptable, and of high quality; engagement of civil society organisations in the promotion and protection of women's health rights; and ensuring functioning accountability mechanisms. Even though the country recognises the right to health and other complementary rights in its current constitution, and also subscribes to numerous human rights instruments that incorporate the right to health, which equally apply to women, the article finds that there is a selective approach to women's access to health goods and services; the room for mobilising civil society is restrictive; and an inefficient accountability system exits. Relying on the requirements of human rights norms and standards, the article argues for the potential role of operationalisation of the rights-based model to further reducing or eliminating maternal mortality in the Sustainable Development Goals period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to examine the socio-cultural challenges that continue to limit women's enjoyment of their fundamental rights and freedoms in Mozambique. In this regard, this article focuses on three areas of gender inequality - denial of inheritance rights, sexual violence and early/ child marriage-in the country. In addition, the article, using a substantive equality approach, critically examines whether the steps and measures taken by the government of Mozambique to address gender inequality are consistent with its obligations under international human rights law. For the purpose of this analysis, the article focuses on Mozambique's obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women (African Women's Protocol). The article concludes by making suggestions on how Mozambique can better safeguard the rights of women and improve their status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In September 2015, the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda, a transformative plan of action for people, planet, and prosperity containing seventeen Sustainable Development Goals. To inform and animate the negotiations, the UN launched an ambitious series of consultations, involving inter alia governments, civil society, business, knowledge-based institutions, and citizens. This article contributes to the debate on democracy and global governance, drawing on democratic theory and the lessons of the elite donor-driven process that led to the Millennium Development Goals. It argues that, in the age of globalization, citizen participation is vital for the effectiveness and legitimacy of global governance. It then assesses the nature and extent of such participation in three UN 2030 Agenda consultation channels: the High-Level Panel, the national consultations, and the MY World citizen survey. The latter, in particular, exceeded the expectations of stakeholder democracy and ventured into a more direct participatory realm. The article concludes that the 2030 Agenda process has opened new paths toward the establishment of global democratic governance, though we remain far from the ideal participatory democracy many would prefer to see. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Undocumented international migration in Mexico is facing a serious human rights crisis. Each year, hundreds of thousands of migrants, above all from Central America, cross Mexico to reach the United States. Their journey risks extortion, kidnap, torture, disappearance, and death. For activists and civil society organizations, this crisis is explained by what they call the securitization of Mexico's migration policy. By "securitization," they mean a policy imposed on Mexico by the United States that treats migrants as a security threat. This article challenges this interpretation, arguing that the theory of securitization is insufficient to understand the many factors that make possible the systematic violence of the human rights of migrants in transit in Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do rising powers engage in norms entrepreneurship on issues of global relevance? This article analyzes Brazil's efforts to mobilize support for international regulation of electronic espionage. More specifically, the article examines Brazil's reframing of electronic espionage as an issue of development and human rights (rather than merely a security one) as part of an effort to trigger a norms cascade that would significantly modify what is viewed as acceptable use of the Internet by state agencies. Through this reframing, Brazil has begun to push for broader Internet governance reform as a prerequisite for curbing electronic espionage. In assuming the role of norms entrepreneur, Brazil incurs both opportunities and risks to its role and image as an innovative multilateralist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International human rights agreements promote rights-based norms as a guide for policymaking. But the appropriateness and legitimacy of these norms is sometimes questioned in local contexts, where they can generate disagreement as to their meaning and implementation. Convention 182 of the International Labour Organization (ILO) led to a global commitment to eliminate the worst forms of child labor, but the agreement has been subject to intense criticism, especially in societies where child labor is prevalent such as Bolivia. This article sheds light on the complex impact of global rights-based norms in local contexts and reminds us that civil society is always a heterogeneous and political space of action. This article also traces the complex debate on eradication versus legalization of child labor within Bolivia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most states have embraced the emerging Responsibility to Protect norm, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2005. R2P obliges states to prevent atrocity crimes within their own borders and not to turn a blind eye when they occur elsewhere. However, R2P's third pillar, which permits UN Security Council-authorized coercive actions, has been controversial. A few states have rejected R2P, fearing that the third pillar might be misused, while others have localized R2P (adapting it to their own preferences) or have sought to modify it globally through feedback in continuing UN discussions. This article explains the range of responses to the third pillar of R2P and explores why states employ different types of feedback, ranging from soft feedback (which seeks to build broader support for R2P) to hard feedback (which seeks to limit R2P). The article concludes that feedback reflects both national strategic concerns and preexisting local norms. Prior normative commitments to human rights and humani-tarianism reduce the incidence of hard feedback whereas normative commitments to anti-imperialism and noninterference increase the likelihood of feedback seeking to constrain R2P States with mixed commitments (e.g., to both human rights and to anti-imperialism) may offer complex, even contradictory, feedback, reflecting a prevailing national norm hierarchy, changes to which could result in changed state responses to R2P. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is some dispute over the extent to which South Africa has become a defender of regimes that abuse human rights. This article sheds further light on this question by focusing on South Africa's positions during the UN Human Rights Council's engagement with human rights problems in six countries: Democratic Republic of Congo, Israel, North Korea, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Sudan. In five of the six chosen cases. South Africa's attitude ranged from reluctant to obstructive of efforts to defend human rights. In only one case-Israel-was South Africa willing to bring to bear the full weight of the council's power. These findings strengthen the argument that South Africa is prone to shielding regimes that abuse human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how various United Nations agencies are implementing a rights-based approach to development in India. It argues that, while most studies of RBA focus on the promotion of economic, social, and cultural rights through this approach, civil and political rights are also integral to UN efforts. This is important because it suggests a new, more cooperative mode of promoting human rights as an alternative to traditional New York- and Geneva-based mechanisms. The article explains how rights are being promoted. It also lays out some strategies that UN bodies use to circumvent host state resistance to outside interference on human rights. Finally, it suggests a course for future rights promotion through these mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a systematic understanding of international norm emergence and illuminates the various strategic pathways to altering global dialogue and standards of practice. It traces the steps leading to global norm emergence and identifies the range of conditions that are necessary or sufficient for potential norms to move from one step to the next. Accordingly, it analyzes the progress of six separate international norm agendas to develop a more systematic understanding of the process of global norm creation, which can be applied to fledgling efforts to establish a new regime of international migrants' rights. Based on this examination, it introduces a typology that categorizes the stages of norm development and the range of possible outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recurrent food price crises, coupled with the steady deterioration of world food security over the past two decades, have prompted efforts to reform the global governance of food security. This article argues that diverging rules and norms across the elemental regimes of agriculture and food, international trade, and human rights over the appropriate role of states and markets in addressing food insecurity are a major source of transnational political conflict. It analyzes (1) the role of norms in the construction of the international food security regime; (2) the transition from an international food security regime to a regime complex for food security; and (3) rule and norm conflicts within this regime complex. It concludes with a discussion of the impacts of diverging norms on the politics of regime complexity and its policy implications for current efforts to reform the global governance of food security [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the dynamics of engagement between national human rights institutions (NHRIs) and civil society organizations (CSOs) in the Asia Pacific region. It explores the role of CSOs in the establishment of NHRIs and argues that this history is essential to understanding the experience of NHRIs within different states. Second, it explores the evolution and impact of networks of NHRIs and CSOs in a region that currently lacks a supranational mechanism for promoting and protecting human rights. Finally, it considers the potential for CSOs to utilize the evolving processes of the International Coordinating Committee of Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (ICC) to strengthen the independence and effectiveness of NHRIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In hybrid peace governance, liberal and illiberal norms, institutions, and actors exist alongside each other, interact, and even clash. Such a political, economic, and social order is a far cry from the liberal idea of peace based on legitimate and accountable democratic institutions, the rule of law, human rights, free media, market economy, and an open civil society. This article accounts for the emergence of hybrid peace governance and develops a typology based on the war/peace and liberal/illiberal spectra. Furthermore, it discusses the implications of hybridity and, in particular, whether it can avoid the pitfalls of top-down liberal peacebuilding and provide new opportunities for a more sustainable, locally engrained version of peace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The so-called resource curse raises moral issues. Who, if anyone, is morally responsible for it? This article argues that this question amounts to: who is blameworthy for the violations of people's property rights? The international oil companies are blameworthy for the violations of property rights only in the case of complicity, not in the normal purchase case. Yet the international community has to take action against massive violations of property rights. The article discusses different measures, and criticizes voluntary initiatives such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative for not making the states accountable to their people. In this line of thought, it argues for an extension of the mandate of the International Criminal Court: massive violations of property rights should be prosecuted at the international level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The modern refugee regime, created in the aftermath of World War II, provides protection mainly to people who flee individualized persecution or generalized violence. Subsequent to its creation, a range of new drivers of external displacement—particularly related to the interaction of environmental change, livelihood collapse, and state fragility—have emerged that fall outside the framework of the regime. In order to examine institutional responses to these people, this article develops the concept of survival migration, which describes people who have left their country of origin because of an existential threat for which they have no domestic remedy. It examines six case studies of national and international institutional responses to survival migrants from Zimbabwe, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which fall outside the 1951 Refugee Convention. Based on a conceptual model of regime stretching, the article offers an explanation for variation in the extent to which the existing global regime has adapted to address survival migration in different national contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women in Iran have gained unprecedented experiences in the course of their fight for democracy and human rights. In the Pahlavi era, the modernisation model was based on Western patterns. With the Islamic Revolution, a new generation of Iranian women emerged in social arenas. Ayatollah Khomeini always emphasised women's prominent and important role in social life. His views shed light on potentials for women's rights, but the obstacle of old cultural and historical attitudes have made these ideas difficult to actualise. The weakness of civil organisations, including women's political and non-political organisations, has seriously affected the outcomes. Although a reformist government and the reinforcement of governmental institutions concerned with women's affairs can play a part in improving the situation of women, women's civil society organisations can assume responsibilities at social levels in order to complement the role of the representatives. The author discusses the process of women's entrance in the public sphere and efforts by the 6th parliament to protect their rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Du Bois' sociological thought reveals an overlooked tension in the pursuit of human rights, a tension between universal human rights for all people, in general, and a race-specific human rights agenda for blacks, in particular. Du Bois recognizes both universal human rights for all individuals, groups, nations, and international bodies (regardless of race, gender, class, and other human divisions) and case-specific human rights for particular individuals, groups, nations, and international bodies (with regard to race, gender, class, and other human divisions). I aim to demonstrate why Du Bois' acknowledgment of universal and case-specific human rights, and dynamics of their interrelationship, improves contemporary sociological thought about the complexities of addressing human rights issues and provides a more nuanced model for human rights social action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contribution explores the implications of international migration on the research of democratisation processes. It focuses on the notion of democratic citizenship as a set of rights. Democratisation processes are thus conceptualised as processes in which rights are acquired, institutionalised and expanded. Expansion has two aspects: one is the inclusion of new groups of persons into the community of those entitled to rights, the other is the inclusion of new types of rights such as liberal, political, social, economic or cultural rights. Citizenship, which links the entitlement of rights to national belonging, must be rethought in the light of international migration. The repercussions of migration on citizenship rights and citizenship concepts have been explored in the context of labour immigrant incorporation within Western liberal democracies. For East Asia, however, these issues are largely unexplored. Labour migration in East Asia differs in several aspects from the Western template: labour-receiving countries in East Asia include authoritarian regimes as well as democracies in different states of consolidation. Furthermore, labour migration is predominantly temporary. Drawing on the theoretical insights of 'Western' debates, the article identifies the legitimate democratic representation as well as the conditions, the characteristics and the effects of struggles for migrants' rights as important fields of research on the nexus between labour migration and democratisation in East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the commodification of rights as private privileges under neoliberal capitalism, movements in the Global South have begun to reinterpret the human rights canon. Cosmopolitan notions of human rights have spread from the Global South only to face parochial resistance from postmodern intellectuals and neoliberal power structures in the Global North. In advancing a vision of “cosmopolitanism from below” as an antidote to neoliberalism, these alliances have articulated their demands in terms of economic and social rights. In the process, they have ruptured the connection – crucial to US hegemony from the late 1940s through the early 1970s – between human rights and development. Supporting these new interpretations of human rights discourse, we argue for an explicit decoupling of human rights from previously existing development projects predicated on “catching up” through programmed industrialization. We contend that proposals for a new global system in the 21st century could be centered not on micronationalist localisms, but rather on a genuinely inclusive universalism. The concept of human rights in our times is rooted in world-historical struggles that must include the universal right to food, health, and prosperity, and social ownership of resources on the one hand and freedom from exploitation, inequality, geographical location, gender and sexual domination, racial control, structural violence, and environmental degradation on the other hand. In this sense, the concept of societies without borders is inextricably linked with a notion of human rights that in its breadth, depth, inclusivity, and universality goes far beyond the limited class-based notion of rights rooted in the advent of bourgeois civil society and inherited by the development project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People everywhere are discovering that their own views about a decent society are widely shared around the world. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights already made this clear in 1948 by referring to “a common understanding” of rights and freedoms and a “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.” A challenge for social scientists is to develop dimensions for an index that measures variation in the extent to which societies are decent. Such an index would be useful in research for comparative and analytical purposes, and it could also be useful to people who mobilize to made demands of their government for a better society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The liberal construction of the citizen is a man (sic) empowered with reciprocal rights to the nation state, which will maintain his dignity by providing work and welfare if he can prove need. The challenge for the new century is to find out whether we still can live in a finely balanced world of citizen/civil society state and capital from which these rights will flow. We need to understand why many of the rights died and subsequently to be able to redefine what it means to be a citizen; by taking into account the unequally weighted power relations that favor corporate citizenship. Then human rights, defined as international standards and norms for economic rights (labor rights, housing and food rights), cultural rights and the right to protection from physical harm, can become a meaningful reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uniquely, in Nigeria Islamic Criminal Law was introduced in the framework of a secular federal constitution. In 2000 and 2001, twelve Northern states adopted legislation on the hadd offences and the Islamic law on homicide and bodily harm. Reliable statistics on the number of cases tried under the new laws are unavailable. Based on information from the media and human rights organisations, I present roughly 125 criminal cases tried before Nigerian Sharī'a courts between 2000 and 2004. This sample shows that Sharī'a was particularly enforced in states dominated by the Hausa. In religiously mixed states, the bid to introduce Sharī'a became part of the religious groups' competition for hegemony and access to public resources, with violent consequences. The expectations which many Muslims attached to the introduction of Sharī'a were inflated. Its impact on the security of life and property, the fight against corruption and the promotion of good governance has probably been minimal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]