Journal of Human Rights Practice - recent issues

Introduction to the Special Issue: Where is the Evidence?

Archer, R. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:25:46 PDT

Evaluating the Impact of Human Rights Litigation on Policy and Practice: A Case Study of the UK

Donald, A., Mottershaw, E. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:25:46 PDT

This article examines the methodological challenges in evaluating whether, and how, human rights litigation has an impact in the world outside the courtroom. Drawing on research carried out for the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) in Britain on the impact of selected human rights legal cases on the delivery of public services, it argues that assessing impact requires us to cast the net wide. Impact may be evident in legal judgments and the generalizable principles they enshrine. Impact may be seen in resulting changes to public policy and its implementation - including the process by which decisions are made. It may also be evident in outcomes in the form of both empirical social realities and the experience of people delivering and using the services that are implicated in the judgment. The article further argues that understanding the mechanisms by which legal judgments are (or are not) translated into changes in policy and practice enables the human rights practitioner to identify barriers to impact and make recommendations that go beyond individual cases to the very process of translating law into the realization of rights. The article situates this analysis in the context of work in other national contexts to use litigation instrumentally alongside other forms of social action to pursue human rights goals – and wider academic debates about the risk of creating an artificial disconnection between law and political action in the promotion of human rights.

Rethinking Compliance: The Challenges and Prospects of Measuring Compliance with International Human Rights Tribunals

Hillebrecht, C. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:25:46 PDT

This article examines the challenges and opportunities in measuring compliance with international human rights tribunals. Using the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights as examples, this article highlights the importance of strong measures of compliance, identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the current approaches to measuring compliance, and begins a dialogue about the future of measuring compliance by positing an alternative compliance indicator.

Reasons to Be Cautious about Evidence and Evaluation: Rights-based Approaches to Development and the Emerging Culture of Evaluation

Gready, P. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:25:46 PDT

An evaluation culture is becoming a feature of human rights practice. This article concurs with the prevailing wisdom that more evaluation of such practice is needed. But it also suggests that the lure of evaluation could be extremely damaging if it is embraced in haste or ignorance. In this new venture what is required is an informed approach to the strengths and weaknesses of cultures of evaluation; adaptation to the particularities of the human rights project (it should not solely be driven by what ‘works’); care not to simply repeat the mistakes made elsewhere in the rush to provide gold-standards of success or impact; and monitoring of how evaluation practices feed back into human rights practice. The article charts the reasons why the human rights movement has historically had an ambivalent and inconsistent attitude towards evidence-based justifications and evaluation of its work. It will then examine some initial evaluations of rights-based approaches to development, to see what they tell us about both rights-based approaches and modes of evaluation.

Closing the 'Escape Hatch': A Toolkit to Monitor the Progressive Realization of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights

Felner, E. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:25:46 PDT

A basic paradox underlies much work on economic, social, and cultural rights. At the level of theory, there is widespread recognition among experts and advocates that the obligation to progressively realize these rights ‘to the maximum of a state's available resources’ is at the heart of their realization. However, at the practical level – in terms of monitoring efforts, field investigations, and adjudication by courts – this key obligation has largely been sidelined, and the focus instead has been on various immediate obligations related to these rights, which are not dependent on resource availability. This article argues that while this focus has been effective in many ways, circumventing the standard of progressive realization has severely constrained the ability of the human rights movement to hold governments accountable for policies and practices that turn millions of people into victims of avoidable deprivations such as illiteracy, malnutrition, preventable diseases, and homelessness.

The article then proposes a methodological toolkit to monitor the obligation of progressive realization. This toolkit has two components: (1) a basic framework of three steps, each with its own simple methods; (2) a set of more sophisticated tools that have been developed in recent years by various researchers or used by civil society organizations. These methods can be powerful tools of social change, allowing us to expand the areas of government policy that come under scrutiny and accountability and to provide objective validity to claims that often the issue is not resource availability but rather resource distribution. Admittedly, addressing issues subject to progressive realization is not easy. It requires grappling with difficult normative and policy problems related to resource constraints and trade-offs, as well as delving into data. These are not typically areas of human rights expertise. Nevertheless, the human rights movement is now mature enough to overcome these challenges.

Human Rights Impact Assessment in Practice: The Case of the Health Rights of Women Assessment Instrument (HeRWAI)

Bakker, S., Van Den Berg, M., Duzenli, D., Radstaake, M. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:25:46 PDT

This article examines Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) as a methodological approach to investigate and measure human rights impacts and compliance. It recognizes that there is a vast body of relevant theoretical material, but notes that practical examples of its use and case studies are thus far limited. To analyse the potential contributions of HRIAs for human rights practitioners, a concrete tool is discussed: Aim for human rights ‘Health Rights of Women Assessment Instrument’, produced by Aim for human rights. The article considers lessons that can be drawn from practical experiences with this tool. In the discussion of the case studies, examples of results and outcomes of its use are provided. The authors then extrapolate from the concrete tool to discuss to what extent HRIA as a methodology can contribute to measuring and promoting the realization of human rights. They highlight benefits as well as challenges that still have to be overcome. Finally, a call is made for more intensive sharing of practical experiences with HRIA tools in order to move the methodology forward.

Human Rights Impact: Developing an Agenda for Interdisciplinary, International Research

Ergas, Y. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:25:46 PDT

The language of human rights has become pervasive in political discourse. Concomitantly, governments have begun mainstreaming human rights into public administrations, international and national human rights commissions have been established (or reformed), human rights organizations have multiplied, and signals abound that human rights is becoming a profession. Yet the growing salience of human rights discourses and practices has accompanied continuing, flagrant violations. What then is the effect of human rights laws, policies, and interventions? How can ‘impact’ be defined and measured? This question is being urgently asked by practitioners and scholars. Drawing together an emerging community of researchers and practitioners, subject to securing appropriate funding, the Center for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University is planning to launch a research programme on this theme.

Assessing Compliance: the Challenges for Economic and Social Rights

Anderson, E., Foresti, M. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:25:46 PDT

Assessing government compliance with economic and social rights obligations presents a number of complex challenges. New approaches are needed for this purpose – building on available social science methods. Development of these approaches should take into account questions of the affordability of these rights when assessing government compliance.

Producing the Evidence that Human Rights Advocacy Works: First Steps towards Systematized Evaluation at Human Rights Watch

Gorvin, I. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:25:46 PDT

In the community of human rights activists and professionals, we share a conviction that we make a difference. But attributing positive change to our own work is often uncertain. At the same time, as our presence in the media and in discussions with policy-makers grows, and is seen to grow, we face a hostile audience as never before. There are many—our direct targets and others—who would like to discredit and dismiss human rights organizations, or are skeptical of the value of condemning human rights abuse in the absence of an appetite among influential governments to apply meaningful leverage. Both the hostility and the skepticism raise the stakes for us to explain our purpose and our tactics, including in terms of how we assess that we are effective.

Yet even major, established human rights organizations are still getting to grips with more systematically evaluating whether and how we achieve the outcomes we seek from our advocacy efforts. How do we locate the reliable evidence that our approaches to human rights problems actually work? And if we do, how do we make that exercise truly worthwhile by establishing an organizational culture of evaluating and learning? This paper aims to present Human Rights Watch's work-in-progress as we think through and pilot a systematized evaluation process.

Evaluation at Minority Rights Group

Thomas, C. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:25:46 PDT

This practice note sets out some of the thinking behind evaluation at Minority Rights Group (MRG) and looks at our current practice in this area. It considers how MRG has changed in terms of evaluation in recent years. It discusses what we have learnt about evaluation, and the current major challenges that we face in this aspect of our work.

Human Rights and State Fragility: Conceptual Foundations and Strategic Directions for State-Building

Evans, D. G. — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:05:39 PDT

This article addresses a number of conceptual issues guiding the development of a human rights-based approach to state fragility. An initial section sets out the methodological assumptions underlying the study, and locates it with reference to international human rights law and the ‘Principles on Good International Engagement in Fragile States and Situations’ drawn up by the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. This is followed by a review of key elements in the evolution of human rights standards and practice in relation to governance and state-building, particularly through their application in human rights-based approaches to development and human security. A programmatic framework for the role of international actors in the task of state-building in fragile settings is elaborated, focusing on three main elements: ensuring protection and security to individuals and communities; supporting the development of a culture of democratic governance; and strengthening the capacity for equitable access to essential public services.

The study is grounded in an understanding that fundamental rights do not derive from the state, but rather that the state is formed and functions on the basis of its primary role as ‘duty-bearer’. The normative authority of human rights standards within the international system, reinforced by policy innovations such as the Responsibility to Protect and programmatic initiatives such as the Millennium Development Goals, suggests that states should be structured, supported, and assessed on the basis of their core purpose of ensuring the respect for and realization of fundamental human rights – including civil and political, and economic, social, and cultural rights.

Noting the correlation between conflict and poverty, and their integral link to human rights performance, it is argued that neither factor on its own is sufficient to provide a reliable analytical framework for guiding responses to state fragility. This suggests the need for a functional approach to state-building that is contextually oriented to each case of fragility and able to accommodate a wider range of assessment factors. These factors should relate to the core principles (equality and non-discrimination, participation and empowerment, and accountability) and the analytical criteria (deprivation, exclusion, vulnerability, and justice) of human rights standards. Such an approach will recognize the priority of analysing and addressing issues of social, economic, and political exclusion, and will emphasize the importance of both process and outcome in developing the institutions required to foster and sustain cultures of democratic governance.

Protecting Peaceful Protest: The OSCE/ODIHR and Freedom of Peaceful Assembly

Jarman, N., Hamilton, M. — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:05:39 PDT

This article reviews ongoing work to increase awareness of, and raise standards in relation to, freedom of peaceful assembly across Europe, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia. The work is led by the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) at the Organisation of Security and Co-operation in Europe (OCSE). The article begins by highlighting the importance of freedom of peaceful assembly within democratic societies, and then describes the development of the ODIHR Guidelines on Peaceful Assembly. The article outlines some of the key issues of contention relating to the regulation of freedom of assembly, and discusses the process of reviewing the existing and draft legislation against the standards articulated in the Guidelines. In this context, the article also explores the potential for constructive engagement between government, civil society, and the OSCE to facilitate legislative amendments that respect key human rights norms and principles. Finally, the article reviews recent developments in training monitors of public assemblies with the aim of building local monitoring capacity and thus developing an evidence base of the practical implementation of laws relating to freedom of peaceful assembly.

Overcoming a Taboo for HIV Education in the Workplace: Integrating Issues of Relevance for Men Who Have Sex with Men

Carlson, E. S., Rizio, A. — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:05:39 PDT

The purpose of this article is to propose ways to integrate the needs of men who have sex with men (MSM) into HIV workplace education programmes in Asia and the Pacific without alienating a larger audience. To this end, it reviews educational materials from the region produced by the leading United Nations agency in HIV education for the workplace, the International Labour Organization (ILO), and its partners, highlighting innovations and signalling limitations.

MSM are an especially vulnerable group whose needs, to a large extent, are not being addressed by HIV education in the workplace. For this reason, it is essential to reach out to MSM, by mainstreaming references to them into HIV workplace training materials.

Evidence from Asia shows that MSM are particularly affected in terms of HIV prevalence and social exclusion. For example, HIV prevalence among MSM-identified men in Bangkok has been reported to be as high as 28%, with real rates estimated to be higher. In many areas of Asia, MSM also have sex with women (including sex workers), and HIV can be spread to a number of interconnected populations in this way.

That being said, mainstreaming MSM into existing training materials is a difficult matter, complicated by the presence of sexual taboos and homophobia. As a result, targeted instruction for – let alone reference to – MSM in the workplace is virtually absent.

This article finds that, although innovative in many ways, workplace training materials tend to focus on heterosexual relationships and rarely take into account the specific needs and vulnerabilities of MSM. One reason for this is that sexual relationships between same-sex couples are not socially accepted (and sometimes criminalized) in the countries in which these HIV education programmes are carried out.

This article concludes that, in order to fully address HIV education in the workplace, educators must integrate the needs of MSM into training materials, fully address their vulnerabilities, and take into account particularities of HIV prevention, treatment, care, and support for this important group.

Sites for Health Rights: the Experiences of Homeless Families in England

Stuttaford, M., Hundt, G. L., Vostanis, P. — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:05:39 PDT

This paper explores non-legal spaces in which the right to health is invoked. Consideration is given to the potential for creating spaces in which people who are mobile can access health care services, as well as engage with services and activities related to the underlying determinants of health in order to overcome inequities in health. The aims of the research were to explore: service user and provider perceptions of the right to health; the role of individual and collective agency in a partnership approach to health; and the development of a framework of sites for health rights. Interviews and participatory diagramming and visualization were conducted with service users and providers and participant observation was undertaken at two hostels. It was found that there needs to be greater clarity of entitlements for service users as well as responsibilities for those with a duty to protect, respect, and fulfil the right to health. As public space becomes more regulated, hostels are becoming one of the few places which homeless people can transform to use as sites for addressing violations of health rights, for self-advocating for health rights, and for engaging with services advocating on their behalf. It is necessary to ensure that spaces in which the right to health can be invoked are acceptable and appropriate to those who seek to claim the right to health in these spaces. Where the spaces are unacceptable or inappropriate, the spaces can become sites against rights, rather than sites for rights.

Rights in Recession? Challenges for Economic and Social Rights Enforcement in Times of Crisis

Saiz, I. — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:05:39 PDT

The global economic crisis poses a severe threat to economic and social rights, but it is also an opportunity to rethink how we hold states accountable for their fulfilment.

Now more than ever, the human rights movement needs to articulate vigorously the fundamental principles that cannot be rescinded even in times of recession and show how these should guide policy responses to the crisis. This involves intensifying efforts to identify new methods and venues through which to scrutinize governments' compliance with their obligations to fulfil economic and social rights.

The crisis is also an opportunity to rethink the role of the state in regulating the creation of wealth and redistributing its benefits towards the universal realization of economic and social rights. The transnational impacts of the crisis highlight the need to frame accountability in global terms, and to assert more vigorously the notion that states' responsibilities to respect, protect, and fulfil economic and social rights do not stop at their national borders.

As responses to the crisis have shown, the progress made in advancing the legal justiciability of economic and social rights has not been matched in the arena of politics and public policy. Bridging this gap will involve releasing the still-latent potential of economic, social, and cultural rights advocacy as a powerful tool for social mobilization and transformation.

Climate Change and Human Rights Practice: Observations on and around the Report of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on the Relationship between Climate Change and Human Rights

Dudai, R. — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:05:40 PDT

Climate change has become a prominent issue in world affairs, but is yet to be taken on board by the human rights community. While on the one hand it is clear that climate change will have adverse effects on the enjoyment of human rights, it is less clear whether human rights organizations are best-placed to campaign against it and whether the incorporation of climate change into the mandates of human rights organizations would be a wise and effective move. Taking as its main point of reference the recent report on the relationship between climate change and human rights by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, thus far the most authoritative publication on this question, this note addresses some of the main challenges in approaching climate change as a human rights issue in general, as well as some of the more specific challenges arising from a human rights practice perspective.

Documentary Film and Social Networking in Defence of Human Rights: Producing and Distributing a Quechua-Language Version of 'State of Fear' in Peru

De Onis, P. — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:05:40 PDT

This is the story of how the documentary film ‘State of Fear: The Truth About Terrorism’ was translated into Quechua, the primary language of the majority of victims of Peru's armed conflict with Shining Path insurgents, and how the film was distributed to the affected communities. ‘State of Fear’ is based on the work of the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission and their conclusions on how Peru's ‘war on terror’ with Shining Path undermined their country's democracy and civil liberties. The main reason for producing this version of ‘State of Fear’ was to make the Truth Commission findings available to a broad Quechua-speaking public that would otherwise not have access to them.

Human Rights, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity at the UN General Assembly

Sheill, K. — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:05:40 PDT

The article is a brief reflection on the joint statement at the UN General Assembly on human rights, sexual orientation, and gender identity – signed by 66 states in December 2008.

WHOSE VOICES? UNDERSTANDING VICTIMS' NEEDS IN TRANSITION: Nepali Voices: Perceptions of Truth, Justice, Reconciliation, Reparations and the Transition in Nepal * By the International Centre for Transitional Justice and the Advocacy Forum, March 2008

Robins, S. — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:05:40 PDT

An Unfinished Enterprise: Visions, Reflections, and an Invitation

Gready, P., Phillips, B. — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:00:00 PST

South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign: Combining Law and Social Mobilization to Realize the Right to Health

Heywood, M. — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:00:00 PST

This article summarizes the experience and results of a campaign for access to medicines for HIV in South Africa, led by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) between 1998 and 2008. It illustrates how the TAC mobilized people to campaign for the right to health using a combination of human rights education, HIV treatment literacy, demonstration, and litigation. As a result of these campaigns, the TAC was able to reduce the price of medicines, prevent hundreds of thousands of HIV-related deaths, but also to force significant additional resources into the health system and towards the poor. The article asks whether the method of the TAC has a wider application for human rights campaigns and, particularly, whether the protection of the right to health in law, and the obligation that it be progressively realized by the State, provides an opportunity to advance human rights practice.

The Price of Internal Legal Opposition to Human Rights Abuses

Sfard, M. — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:00:00 PST

Many of the legal campaigns against governmental practices and policies in large-scale human-rights abusing regimes are waged ‘internally’, through the regime's own institutions. Such litigations raise serious dilemmas for human rights lawyers and for human rights organizations. This essay is an attempt to dig out the implications of these internal legal struggles, whatever their effectiveness, for the project of bringing an end to the human rights abusing regime. The essay analyzes 35 years of ongoing, occupation-related human rights litigation in the Israeli court as a generic example of a massive ‘internal’ legal opposition. The author of this essay, an Israeli lawyer, involved in such litigations, reaches a painful conclusion: although internal legal action might ease human sufferings in individual cases, it nevertheless potentially empowers the regime and contributes to its sustainability.

Human Rights and Development: a Comment on Challenges and Opportunities from a Legal Perspective

McInerney-Lankford, S. — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:00:00 PST

Human rights and development continue to reflect a separate evolution. This article explores challenges which characterize the relationship between human rights and development from a legal perspective suggesting reasons why the tensions and disconnects endure. It makes an obvious, but nevertheless underappreciated point: human rights are the subject of binding international legal obligations and their relevance to development can be understood in light of this. The first part of this article addresses the challenges of integrating human rights in development and the divergences of discourse and policy frameworks. The consequences of these divergences are examined, including a lack of prominence for legal duties for human rights in development, the absence of a normative baseline against which to check development processes and outcomes, an overall lack of policy coherence and a potential undermining of human rights accountability. The article concludes by highlighting opportunities extant in the international human rights law framework. The legal challenges and opportunities are viewed as interconnected: obstacles confronted in integrating human rights in development may be to be rooted in a neglect of the normative and legal dimensions of human rights, which in turn point to opportunities for greater convergence and coherence around international legal frameworks.

Human Rights Advocacy on Gender Issues: Challenges and Opportunities

Farrior, S. — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:00:00 PST

Recent years have seen notable progress on issues of gender and human rights in standard-setting and to some extent application of those standards through international and domestic legislation and jurisprudence, and in institutional programming and development. Some international and regional human rights bodies now go beyond just including ‘women’ in a list of ‘vulnerable’ groups, and have begun to incorporate women's experiences and perspectives into recommendations for structural changes needed to bring about full enjoyment of human rights by women and girls. In addition, recent years have seen the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex people being taken up beyond the first human rights bodies that addressed them, and developments have taken place in standard-setting. Despite this progress, many challenges remain. Violence against women continues at a staggering rate. Gender-based discrimination persists in the workplace, housing, education, disaster relief, health care, and countless other areas. Access to justice continues to be hindered by a range of obstacles. Religion, tradition, and culture continue to be used as a shield for violating women's rights. Same-sex conduct is still criminalized in scores of countries, and it carries the death penalty in seven states. The traditional human rights law paradigm, with its focus on the state, may be obsolete in dealing with human rights abuses by such diverse non-state actors as powerful militias and global corporations. This article highlights just a few opportunities and challenges to come for international human rights advocacy on gender issues.

Fact-Finding on Torture and Ill-Treatment and Conditions of Detention

Nowak, M. — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:00:00 PST

The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture (SRT) is mandated to investigate and assess the situation of torture worldwide. He takes up complaints by torture victims and sends communications to Governments; he addresses specific factual and legal issues related to torture and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment and, most importantly; upon the invitation of Governments, he carries out fact-finding missions to specific countries. These country visits aim to establish a dialogue with the Government and to assess the situation of torture and ill-treatment in a given country. The preparation of a country visit may last up to several years, since sometimes long negotiations are necessary before a Government extends an invitation to the SRT accepting the SRT's terms of reference for fact-finding missions. These include full freedom of inquiry, unrestricted freedom of movement throughout the country as well as confidential interviews with victims, witnesses, human rights defenders, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Because torture takes place behind closed doors, torture fact-finding and the assessment of the general conditions of detention require unannounced visits to places of detention and individual and confidential interviews with persons deprived of their liberty. It is essential that interviews with detainees only take place with their informed consent and that necessary precautionary measures against reprisals are taken. The mission reports that are drafted on the basis of information received from the Government, NGOs, lawyers, and detainees are presented and discussed in the Human Rights Council. The SRT's recommendations included in the report should help the Government in its efforts to eradicate torture in the respective country. Additionally, the reports are essentially background materials for the Universal Periodic Review of the Human Rights Council and can serve as an important advocacy tool for NGOs and other actors.

Sri Lanka: Ethnic Strife, Fratricide, and the Peace vs. Human Rights Dilemma

Hoole, R. — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:00:00 PST

The rapid intensification of the conflict in Sri Lanka during the mid-1980s followed the July 1983 communal violence. Agents of the state perpetrated human rights violations, including attempts at demographic transformation through massacres and the displacement of minority Tamils. The accompanying rise of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam through the brutal elimination of rivals brought another dimension to the conflict. Conventional human rights work, which dealt exclusively with the State, distorted the problem. The new totalitarian cult of the hero within a disillusioned Tamil society portended internal terror, recruitment of women and children, debasement of its own civilians in peace and war, and a barbarous approach to civilians from other communities.

Amidst the devastation of 1987, a group of academics from the University of Jaffna, drawing on wider discussion within the community, wrote the Broken Palmyra in a bid to tell the whole truth and challenge the fatal trend. Through this experience, the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) [UTHR(J)] was born. Its reports have endeavoured to expose and challenge all perpetrators of abuses irrespective of affiliation. Its members also engaged with the university community and those outside against violence, whether out of narrow ideologies or sheer anger. The risk was knowingly taken and Dr Rajani Thiranagama, a leading member, paid with her life.

Throughout its 20 years, UTHR(J) has challenged peace activity that privileged ‘peace’ over human rights, whose culmination was the recent Sri Lankan peace process with Norwegian facilitation. Both sides had powerful camps with fixed ideological obsessions, which either tried to manipulate the peace process or exploited its vulnerabilities to go on the rampage. The combined effect discredited the process and strengthened extremism on both sides. The collapse of the process owed to a theoretical aversion to mechanisms that pose a strong deterrence against human rights abuse by any party. The Sri Lankan experience is a further warning that a peace process that fails to advance human rights is doomed.

Despots Masquerading as Democrats

Roth, K. — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:00:00 PST

Today, virtually every government wants to be seen as a democracy, but many resist allowing the basic human rights that would make democracy meaningful because that might jeopardize their grasp on power. Instead, governments use a variety of subterfuges to manage or undermine the electoral process. Their task is facilitated by the lack of a broadly accepted definition of ‘democracy’ akin to the detailed rules of international human rights law. But much of the problem lies in the fact that, because of commercial or strategic interests, the world's established democracies often close their eyes to electoral manipulation, making it easier for sham democrats to pass themselves off as the real thing. That acquiescence undermines the efforts to promote human rights because it can be more difficult for human rights organizations to stigmatize a government for its human rights violations when that government can hold itself up as an accepted ‘democracy.’ The challenge facing the human rights movement is to highlight the ploys used by dictatorial regimes to feign democratic rule and to build pressure on the established democracies to refuse to admit these pretenders into the club of democracies on the cheap.

HUBRIS AND HUMILITY IN BOSNIA

Phillips, B. — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:00:00 PST

ART, ANGST AND DEALING WITH THE PAST IN NORTHERN IRELAND

McEvoy, K. — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:00:00 PST

TURNING TO TORTURE IN A 'NATION OF LAW'

Freer, R. — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:00:00 PST