Human rights

Mapping Crisis
Edited by Doug Specht
September 14, 2020

The digital age has thrown questions of representation, participation and humanitarianism back to the fore, as machine learning, algorithms and big data centres take over the process of mapping the subjugated and subaltern. Since the rise of Google Earth in 2005, there has been an explosion in the use of mapping tools to quantify and assess the needs of those in crisis, including those affected by climate change and the wider neo-liberal agenda. Yet, while there has been a huge upsurge in the data produced around these issues, the representation of people remains questionable. Some have argued that representation has diminished in humanitarian crises as people are increasingly reduced to data points. In turn, this data has become ever...

International Responses to Mass Atrocities in Africa
Kurt Mills
January 31, 2020

Since the end of World War II and the founding of the United Nations, genocide, crimes against humanity and other war crimes—mass atrocities—have been explicitly illegal. When such crimes are committed, the international community has an obligation to respond: the human rights of the victims outweigh the sovereignty claims of states that engage in or allow such human rights violations. This obligation has come to be known as the responsibility to protect. Yet, parallel to this responsibility, two other, related responsibilities have developed: to prosecute those responsible for the crimes, and to provide humanitarian relief to the victims—what the author calls the responsibility to palliate. Even though this...

Thou Shalt Forget: Indigenous sovereignty, resistance and the production of cultural oblivion in Canada
Pierrot Ross-Tremblay
November 15, 2019
What is ‘cultural oblivion’ and ‘psychological colonialism’, and how are they affecting the capacity of Indigenous Peoples in Canada to actively resist systematic and territorial oppression by the state?
Following a decade-long research project, this new book by Pierrot Ross-Tremblay examines the production of oblivion among his own community, the Essipiunnuat [or, ‘People of the Brook Shells River’] and the relationship between a colonial imperative to forget. The book illustrates how the ‘cultural oblivion’ of vulnerable minority communities is a critical human rights issue but also asks us to reflect upon both the role of the state and the local elite in creating and warping our perception and understanding of history....
Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights
Edited by Nancy Nicol, Adrian Jjuuko, Richard Lusimbo, Nick Mulé, Susan Ursel, Amar Wahab, and Phyllis Waugh
September 13, 2018
Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights: (Neo)colonialism, Neoliberalism, Resistance and Hope is an outcome of a five-year international collaboration among partners that share a common legacy of British colonial laws that criminalise same-sex intimacy and gender identity/expression. The project sought to facilitate learning from each other and to create outcomes that would advance knowledge and social justice. The project was unique, combining research and writing with participatory documentary filmmaking. This visionary politics infuses the pages of the anthology.

The chapters are bursting with invaluable first hand insights from leading activists at the forefront of some of the most fiercely fought...
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Environmental Displacement in 2018 - Current Protection Challenges: RLI Working Paper Series Mini-volume (23–25)
July 17, 2018
Chile and the Inter-American Human Rights System
Edited by Karinna Fernández, Cristian Peña, and Sebastián Smart
June 16, 2017
This book reflects on the relationship between Chile and the Inter-American Human Rights System, focusing on an interdisciplinary and detailed examination of the consequences of recent cases decided by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights against the Chilean state. These cases illustrate central challenges in the areas of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex rights, as well as shedding light on torture and indigenous rights in Chile and the Americas as a whole.

Los Nuevos Desplazados
Edited by Nicolás Rodríguez Serna and David James Cantor
July 30, 2016
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.
Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in The Commonwealth
Edited by Corinne Lennox and Matthew Waites
May 30, 2013

Human rights in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity are at last reaching the heart of global debates. Yet 78 states worldwide continue to criminalise same-sex sexual behaviour, and due to the legal legacies of the British Empire, 42 of these – more than half – are in the Commonwealth of Nations. In recent years many states have seen the emergence of new sexual nationalisms, leading to increased enforcement of colonial sodomy laws against men, new criminalisations of sex between women and discrimination against transgender people.

 

Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in The Commonwealth: Struggles for Decriminalisation and Change challenges these developments as the first book...

What Future for Human Rights in a Non-Western World?
Edited by Simon Bennett and Eadaoin O'Brien
December 10, 2012
The countries of the global north and west that have enjoyed hegemonic preponderance in international affairs over the last two centuries are seeing their relative influence on the world stage decline in favour of rising powers of other regions. As the ability of the global north and west to project normative standards with regards to social organisation, international relations and the role of the state is waning, what emerging norms might guide future trajectories for global society? As human rights is a highly politicised and contentious area of discourse and practice, what future might there be for human rights in a non-western world? The London Debates 2011 workshop sought to bring together established academics and early career...

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