Institute of Commonwealth Studies

We Mark Your Memory: writings from the descendants of indenture
Edited by David Dabydeen, Maria del Pilar Kaladeen, and Tina K. Ramnarine
April 30, 2018

Customers based in the United States and Canada, please order from here: https://bit.ly/2GAV2YR

The abolition of slavery was the catalyst for the arrival of the first Indian indentured labourers into the sugar colonies of Mauritius (1834), Guyana (1838) and Trinidad (1845), followed some years later by the inception of the system in South Africa (1860) and Fiji (1879). By the time indenture was abolished in the British Empire (1917–20), over one million Indians had been contracted, the overwhelming majority of whom never returned to India. Today, an Indian indentured labour diaspora is to be found in Commonwealth countries...

Natural Resource Development and Human Rights in Latin America
Edited by Malayna Raftopoulos and Radosław Powęska
December 31, 2017

Contemporary development debates in Latin America are marked by the pursuit of economic growth, technological improvement and poverty reduction, and are overshadowed by growing concerns about the preservation of the environment and human rights. This collection’s multidisciplinary perspective links local, national, regional and transnational levels of inquiry into the interaction of state and non-state actors involved in promoting or opposing natural resource development. Taking this approach allows the book to contemplate the complex panorama of competing visions, concepts and interests grounded in the mutual influences and interdependencies which shape the contemporary arena of social-environmental conflicts in the region.

The Future of Refugee Law: RLI Working Paper Series Special Edition (16–22)
April 18, 2017
The Role and Experiences of Expatriate Women in the Last Phase of Empire and After
January 3, 2016
The Overseas Service Pensioners' Association (OSPA) was founded in 1960, with the primary object of the protection of the pension arrangements for Overseas Service officers and widows. But the chief interest now is in spreading a better understanding of what the Colonial Service (since 1954 properly called Her Majesty's Overseas Civil Service - HMOCS) was, who its members were, what they did, why and how they did it, and to what effect. More generally, what was their life like? This information needs to be out on public record so that people today and in the future can know about and have access to first hand evidence of how the colonial territories were governed and developed in the closing years of Empire, especially after 1945.
Reconciling Rwanda
Jennifer Melvin
December 1, 2015
In July 1994, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) set out to stabilise and secure Rwanda, a country decimated by genocide. This mandate was later extended to include the herculean task of promoting unity and reconciliation to a population torn apart by violence. More than two decades later, these goals appear to have been achieved. Beneath the veneer of reconciliation lies myriad programmes and legislation that do more than seek to unite the population - they keep the RPF in power. In Reconciling Rwanda: Unity, Nationality and State Control, Jennifer Melvin analyses the highly controversial RPF and its vision of reconciliation to determine who truly benefits from the construction of the new post-genocide Rwanda.
Contemporary Challenges in Securing Human Rights
Edited by Corinne Lennox
October 27, 2015

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the MA in Understanding and Securing Human Rights offered at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, we are pleased to publish a commemorative edited volume on human rights themes authored by distinguished alumni and faculty.  

The chapters reflect on cutting-edge challenges in the field of human rights. Topics include refugee protection, women’s human rights, business and human rights, the role of national and international legal mechanisms and emerging themes such as tax justice, rights in the digital age, theories of change, and poetry.

It is a credit to the MA programme that the chapters are
rich with...
A World You Do Not Know
Colin Samson
November 30, 2014
No image available
The Commonwealth Secretariat
Sue Onslow
March 24, 2014
The Legacy of Empire
January 1, 2014
This is the record of the fifth of the series of Witness Seminars held by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in conjunction with the Overseas Service Pensioners’ Association. The seminars were designed to give OSPA members and other interested people an opportunity to share with an academic and non-academic audience their views and experiences on topics relating to the end of the colonial period and the early stages of independence (the ‘End of Empire’) thus contributing to the overall Colonial Service historical record. This fifth seminar differed from the four earlier ones in that the “witnesses” were not former British colonial officers but were people from the former dependent territories who experienced the change from colonial...
Localisation of the Civil Service in Colonial Territories before and immediately after Independence
January 1, 2014
This is the record of the seventh of the series of Witness Seminars held by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in conjunction with the Overseas Service Pensioners’ Association. The seminars were designed to give OSPA members and other interested people an opportunity to share with an academic and non-academic audience their views and experiences on topics relating to the end of the colonial period and the early stages of independence (the ‘End of Empire’) thus contributing to the overall Colonial Service historical record.

Pages