Principles of Protection for Internally Displaced Persons

For forced migrants who have not left their country but are internally displaced persons, human rights law provides an important framework through which to analyse and address their plight. Two principal reasons underpin this assertion.
First, owing to the compelling need: human rights violations cut across all phases of internal displacement, causing its occurrence, characterizing the conditions of physical insecurity and material deprivation in which the internally displaced often find themselves, and impeding equitable and lasting solutions.
Second, as internally displaced persons remain within the territory of their state, refugee law does not apply and, instead, human rights law provides the fundamental basis for addressing their plight. In addition to human rights law, other standards of international law are also relevant, namely international humanitarian law when displacement occurs in situations of armed conflict and refugee law by analogy.
Drawing on these three standards of international law, Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement have been developed which set out what protection should mean for internally displaced persons in all phases of displacement. This article traces the origins and provides an overview of the content of the Guiding Principles, the text of which is reproduced in full in the Appendix.     

The trade–labour relationship in the light of the WTO Appellate Body's embrace of pluralism

Labour lawyers have raised concerns that the law of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has the potential to limit member States' ability to respond to violations of (international) labour rights/standards, both at home and abroad. But its Appellate Body has interpreted WTO law to “permit pluralism”, preserving Members' right to regulate. This jurisprudence has carved out “policy space” for Members, broadened the scope of doctrinal exceptions and blunted the force of disciplines that seek deep integration through regulatory coordination/coherence. These moves mean that numerous labour-protecting measures are likely to be legal under WTO law, diminishing the potential conflict between multilateral trade law and labour law.     

Cosmopolitanism: The Foundational Ground for a More Inclusive Understanding of Belonging to Protect the Human Rights of North Korean Stateless Women

In this article, I will examine the use of the notion of cosmopolitanism to address the exclusionary nature of citizenship. Citizenship is a contemporary social norm that privileges citizens and discriminates against others, leading to consequent human rights violations experienced by stateless populations. I will use the case study of North Korean stateless women who reside in China and who are victims of human trafficking as an example of stateless people who lack legal guarantees for human rights. By uncovering the way citizenship operates as a social structure that deprives people of their human rights, I will argue for Seyla Benhabib's notion of cosmopolitanism, which pursues a more inclusive notion of belonging and necessitates institutional changes. These include the juridical implementation of improved immigration policy and citizenship law, involving the cooperation of the global society, to recognize the dignity of the stateless and protect their human rights.     

The law of migrants

While it is acknowledged that international migration law is attracting increased interest, this law merely describes the conditions of admission, sojourn, employment, and exit of migrants, thus amounting in many respects to a restatement of the law of aliens considered in a different perspective. This article concentrates on the humanitarian aspects of migration law, in an attempt to determine the possibility of joint promotion and dissemination of human rights, international humanitarian law, refugee law, law of migrants, and relief law. Refugees are protected by a series of international legal instruments, both universal and regional, which are complemented, if need be, by resolutions of the competent bodies. 2 reasons why the law of migrants deserves to be highlighted and developed are: 1) we have seen that the characteristic aspects of migration are either ignored or only partially taken into account by existing law, and 2) it is important that individuals should be protected in every circumstance. There exists a relatively narrow basis for joint action; since this must be built on points of convergence, a preliminary step consists of identifying this common denominator. The forms which joint action may take can be less structured and reflected in the individual practice of each organization The sine qua non of successful joint action is an awareness of the enterprise's ultimate goal: to assure in every circumstance better protection for human beings, whatever their legal status may be.     

Are we doing enough? Stigma,discrimination and human rights violations of people living with schizophrenia in India: Implications for social work practice

ABSTRACT

In India, the human rights of people living with mental illness (PLMI) are poorly articulated and hence less researched. Using in-depth and focus group interviews, this study explores multiple perspectives on stigma, discrimination, and human rights violations of people living with schizophrenia (PLS) within their web of relationships in the city of Mumbai, India. Thematic analysis shows that abusive experiences at home, stigma associated with mental health services and barriers to meaningful employment contribute to human rights violations. Implications for strengthening the role of mental health professionals including social workers to promote, protect and actualize the rights of PLS are stressed.     

Human rights for women: battles of culture and power

In Africa, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) focussing on human rights have mushroomed during the past 10-15 years, and, with several of these organizations run by and for women, it is possible to find free legal aid for women in almost every capital city. The collapse of the extended family and, thus, the framework for customary law has meant that women are faced with problems of maintenance and widows with problems of inheritance. Customary law and the protection it afforded women and children has also been weakened by a poverty-driven shift in urban areas from a focus on community support to a focus on individual survival. The vacuum left by this change in legal and social structure is being filled by the human rights NGOs. Paradoxically, in the face of such change, a static, communal, and neutral concept of "culture" was held out by African state representatives at the 1993 UN Conference on Human Rights to justify their opposition to the acceptance of the crosscultural legitimacy of human rights, especially for women. While these arguments were being aired at the Conference, African NGOs were vigorously using examples of the marginalization of women to promote the opposite view. The most important aspect of these conflicting views is which group has the most power and resources to voice its interpretation of the situation. With most African countries governed by a dual system of laws, customary law and common or civil law (left over from colonialism), human rights groups are working to instill human rights principles into common law through the ratification of international conventions. Thus, persons in need could be viewed not as victims but as individuals entitled to enforceable and universal rights. Misuse of the term "culture" can marginalize women even as it is being promoted as a protective device for women. A more useful view of culture is as something which transcends traditional boundaries and locates people and institutions in the global community where they are protected by the acknowledgement of their human rights.     

International law and human rights: trends concerning international migrants and refugees

Not with standing human rights linkages, migrants and refugees are often on the periphery of effective international protection. State sovereignty and self-regarding notions of community are used to deny or dilute substantive and procedural guarantees. Recently, even non- discrimination as a fundamental principle has been questioned, as has the system of refugee protection. This article located both migrants and refugees squarely within the human rights context, contrasting both inalienable rights with the demands of sovereignty, and juxtaposing the 2 in a context of existing and developing international standards. Migration and refugee flows will go on, and the developed world, in particular, must address the consequences - legal, humanitarian, socioeconomic, and cultural. Racism and institutional denials of basic rights daily challenge the common interest. This article shows how the law must evolve, responding coherently to contemporary problems, if the structure of rights and freedoms is to be maintained.     

Indigenous internationalism: native rights and the UN

Abstract

Since 1982, with the creation of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations, the UN has taken steps toward addressing the violations of indigenous human rights around the globe that have characterized the colonization of indigenous peoples by western nations since the 15th century. This article explores the question of whether actions taken by the WGIP and other UN bodies promise to relieve this legacy; or whether the UN, as the proper overseer of international law concerning human rights today, continues that legacy in revised form, as some analysts have claimed. A brief overview of positions taken by key figures in the history of international law concerning indigenous peoples since the early 16th century provides a background against which to compare the work of the UN. My conclusion is that while the UN has in some ways sustained the inherited order of neglect of indigenous rights, it has, more importantly, created openings which make it possible for indigenous peoples to assert their claims. While this is not a story of continuous progress, it does suggest that there is reason to respect the UN's efforts in this relentlessly neglected area of human rights.     

‘We are not Victims,we are Protagonists of this History’

This article centers on the Mexican and Argentinean ‘Dirty Wars’, examining the limitations inherent in human rights and women's human rights responses to these epochs of violence. I situate Argentina's report on the dictatorship, Nunca más (1984), in conversation with Elena Poniatowska's text on the 1968 Mexico City massacre, La noche de Tlatelolco (1971), to trace the rise of a global human rights discourse that has become the dominant manner of conceptualizing human rights violations and gender violence in the latter half of the twentieth century. While feminist critiques of human rights have centered on the lack of gender-specific focus of violence committed against women, this article questions whether the women's human rights discourse disengages the historical, economic and geopolitical realities from which these violations were committed and instead focuses on women's sexual violations to garner international condemnation of gender violence. By turning to these texts, this article centers on the possibilities and limitations of women's human rights discourse and the impact this has on the shaping of women's political agency. This article calls for a critical feminist approach to women's human rights in order to document narratives of women survivors of human rights abuses without obfuscating their political subjectivities.     

Not Bound but Committed: Operationalizing the Global Compact on Refugees

The Global Compact on Refugees is not legally binding, but it gives rise to commitments by the international community as a whole. It is also rooted in international refugee law, international human rights law and international humanitarian law. This article addresses how the GCR cannot give rise to binding obligations in international law, yet provide for enhanced protection and assistance to refugees and hosting communities, and establish commitments for a fairer and more predictable sharing of burdens and responsibilities. It does this by reference to other non‐legally binding international documents and rules of law. Additionally, the use of indicators to measure states’ and other international actors’ performance in operationalizing the GCR provides a framework to measure commitments; coupled with greater humanitarian and development co‐operation, commitments can be better facilitated even if the GCR is not legally binding. Finally, the sharing of burdens and responsibilities is also fulfilled by the emphasis on solutions.     

Guerre juste et guerre sainte au regard des droits de l'homme

The permanence of conflict, and the resurgence of holy war today, belie the condemnations of war by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Charter of the United Nations. They provoke questions about derogations from these principles to prevent violations of human dignity and to consider a military intervention in reference to human rights. First of all, the ambiguity of humanitarian or military intervention needs clarification; then a priori objections against justifiable military intervention postpone its interpretation indefinitely. Only justice may legitimate armed interventions to protect the innocent by disarming their attacker. It requires a re-understanding of sovereignty as the responsibility to protect. From this, preventive military intervention remains unjustifiable. Nevertheless, in the case of an effective and imminent threat, the absolute and immediately necessity to protect oneself or another does legitimate first action as an ultimate defence under contradiction, as shown by the defence against the holy war of terrorism. But it requires systematic investigation concerning the specific situations and purposes implied. So, only human rights can legitimate military intervention, according to this rethinking of the criteria, and only to protect oneself and others; and the implementation of such an intervention, in complex situations, requires extreme prudence and considerable wisdom.     

De Jure vs. De Facto Rights: A Response to “Human Rights: What the United States Might Learn from the Rest of the World and,Yes, from American Sociology”

Blau's ( 2016 ) argument for a Constitutional Project implies that changes in the U.S. Constitution would ensure fundamental adherence to human rights standards. We disagree with the assumption that legal and institutional instruments are guarantors of human rights practice. Instead, we see rights practices as the function of power struggles that include but go far beyond formal law. Instead, we emphasize an important distinction between de jure human rights instruments and de facto human rights practice, arguing that the focus on de jure instruments and legal discourse misses the significant effect of social movements and direct action that secure rights practice. De jure instruments may codify human rights and enumerate them as important, but they do not carry the authority of enforcement. We argue that the pursuit of human rights must be reframed to include both de jure and de facto human rights terrains. While charitable provisions from generous states can temporarily relieve specific human rights abuses, universal human rights practice requires establishing the fundamental political primacy of the people through the processes of the human rights enterprise.     

Rejected asylum seekers: the problem of return

During this decade the return of rejected asylum seekers has become an issue of increasing concern to major asylum states in the industrialized world. This article exposes the various political and legal approaches taken by returning states as well as the constraints emerging from human rights law.
As a rigid control paradigm and related enforcement practices entail a considerable risk of human rights violations, it seems reasonable to focus on measures enhancing the voluntary compliance of all actors involved with norms governing return.
This means negotiating a broad political consensus between returning states and countries of origin, specifying the legal framework with a view to securing the human rights of the rejectee, arranging for impartial monitoring of return practices and rendering voluntary forms of return more attractive.     

Culture And The Court: The Judiciary As An Arbiter Of Cultural Disputes In The USA

The law has enormous cultural significance; it creates many of the roles and statuses that structure people's lives, represents a society's values, establishes rights of cultural expression, and places restrictions on these rights. The cultural dimensions of the law are especially important for marginalized groups, as the law can act as a barrier to political and social inclusion or offer protection from discrimination. This essay argues that cultural studies of the law have overlooked the significance of the different sources of law. In the USA, culturally significant laws and legal interpretations can come from the judiciary or the legislature. Laws that are recognized by the judiciary or established by it through common law have a much different cultural significance from laws that are passed by legislatures. Judicial decisions are more symbolically meaningful, but may have a more limited power to produce deep cultural changes. Some major judicial decisions on minority rights, such as that in Brown vs. Board of Education, have even incited backlash. Legislative decisions tend to be seen as more legitimate and more reflective of the popular will, yet it may be more difficult for minority groups with limited resources to act through the legislature. Moreover, the legislature can also be used to by larger groups to block minority groups' attempts to gain rights. This essay illustrates the differences between these two sources of law and their comparative power to influence culture with key examples drawn from the civil rights movement and the gay rights movement.     

What does care have to do with human rights? Analysing the impact on women's rights and gender equality

Unpaid care work is a critical human rights issue, as well as a major obstacle to gender equality and poverty reduction. This article draws attention to the impact of heavy, intensive, and unequal burdens of unpaid care work on the human rights of women living in poverty, and analyses the relevance of international human rights law to decisions on the necessary responses and remedies. The authors present recommendations for policy and practice – both for national/local governments and for development practitioners – based on human rights law and standards.     

Privacy violations and procedural justice in the United States prisons and jails

Through constitutional amendments and case law, the United States citizens receive privacy protections. These same protections do not exist for individuals incarcerated in prisons and jails. Instead, their privacy rights are regularly replaced by larger institutional concerns for security, safety, and control. Such privacy violation measures may include electronic surveillance, recording of phone calls, opening/reading of mail, and searches of their person, cell, and property. Although it is expected that incarcerated individuals have fewer privacy rights than nonincarcerated citizens, some privacy violations may be perceived as procedurally unjust due to their severity and infringement upon incarcerated individuals' rights to dignity and respect. This has implications for the well-being of incarcerated individuals, the legitimacy of correctional officers, and as a result, the potential safety and security of institutions.     

Upholding social justice: Obligation or optional extra in social work? Critical reflections on a classroom-based inquiry

Internationally, the pursuit of social justice is core to social work and social work education. In Australia, since British colonization, Indigenous peoples have suffered significant human rights violations, oppression, and racial discrimination. Some key literature suggests that cultivating empathy can facilitate action to challenge human rights violations and reduce racism. Previous research with social work students at a regional Australian university had revealed least empathy for vignettes featuring cultural differences. A classroom-based inquiry in 2014 exploring barriers for students to take an activist stance for social justice extended that previous research. Here, those findings are further pondered in relation to advancing social work education for socially just practice.     

The needs of refugee women: a human-rights perspective

While the issue of giving women their human rights has been firmly placed on the agendas of international conferences, the plight of refugee women has gone largely unrecognized. Refugee women face rape, sexual abuse, sexual extortion, and physical insecurity. Such violations precipitate their flight, characterize their attempts to gain refugee status, and continue during their tenure in refugee camps, where they are excluded from positions of authority. Because the definition of refugees in the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees omits sex as a grounds for determining refugee status or as a grounds on which it prohibits discrimination based on sex, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees decided in 1985 that such claims must fall under the classification of membership of a particular group. Unfortunately, agreement with this is discretionary for states. It has been argued that states which protect aliens from discrimination based on sex must afford the same privilege to refugees, but, again, such behavior is subject to debate. Concerns about the human rights of refugee women should be strengthened by being addressed in the existing framework of human rights conventions in international law, such as the Commission on the Status of Women and the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). One recent advance in this area was the establishment of the Yugoslav and Rwanda War Crimes Tribunals which will investigate the sexual abuse of women during the armed conflicts. The issue of violence against women in every situation must remain on CEDAW's agenda. In addition, the Fourth World Conference on Women provides a welcome opportunity to place these issues in the forefront of global efforts to protect women.     

From basic needs to basic rights

After arriving at an understanding that basic rights refer to all human needs, it is clear that a recognition of the basic needs of female humans must precede the realization of their rights. The old Women in Development (WID) framework only understood women's needs from an androcentric perspective which was limited to practical interests. Instead, women's primary need is to be free from their subordination to men. Such an understanding places all of women's immediate needs in a new light. A human rights approach to development would see women not as beneficiaries but as people entitled to enjoy the benefits of development. Discussion of what equality before the law should mean to women began at the Third World Conference on Women in Nairobi where the issue of violence against women was first linked to development. While debate continues about the distinction between civil and political rights and economic, social, and cultural rights, the realities of women's lives do not permit such a distinction. The concept of the universality of human rights did not become codified until the UN proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. The declaration has been criticized by feminists because the view of human rights it embodies has been too strongly influenced by a liberal Western philosophy which stresses individual rights and because it is ambiguous on the distinction between human rights and the rights of a citizen. The protection of rights afforded by the Declaration, however, should not be viewed as a final achievement but as an ongoing struggle. International conferences have led to an analysis of the human-rights approach to sustainable development which concludes that women continue to face the routine denial of their rights. Each human right must be redefined from the perspective of women's needs, which must also be redefined. Women must forego challenging the concept of the universality of human rights in order to overcome the argument of cultural and religious diversity which erodes women's rights. Women can, however, challenge the traditional patriarchal understanding of human rights, drawing on the energy contained in the "basic needs to basic rights" approach.     

Unauthorized Migrants and the (Il)Logic of “Crime Control”: A Human Rights Perspective on US Federal and Local State Immigration Policies

Immigration control, widely regarded the sovereign right of nation states, has often been pursued at the expense of civil and human rights. More than a century ago, nativists legitimated a punitive approach to immigration control that treated migrants’ rights as secondary by branding millions of newcomers to the United States as a “dangerous class”. In many ways, recent policies similarly criminalize immigrants and deploy crime control strategies in response. This article reviews the most significant of these policies at the federal and local state level, including: border security measures, detention and deportation, the 287(g) program, anti‐immigrant city ordinances, and the Arizona law (SB1070). Each initiative has been framed as necessary to protect American citizens from serious crime. We focus on four ways in which these policies violate human rights: first, border security measures that result in migrant deaths violate the right to life; second, detention and deportation violate the right to liberty; third, detention and deportation punish unlawful residents as though they were guilty of criminal rather than civil violations of the law, imposing penalties that are arbitrary and disproportionately harsh; and fourth, local state policies to counter illegal immigration encourage racial profiling, a practice that violates the right to freedom from discrimination.