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The debate on truth and reconciliation : a survey of literature on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission / Annelies Verdoolaege -- Narrative inequality in the TRC hearings : on the hearability of hidden transcripts / Jan Blommaert, Mary Bock, and Kay Mccormick -- Critical discourse analysis as an analytic tool in considering selected, prominent features of TRC testimonies / Christine Anthonissen -- South African novelists and the grand narrative of apartheid / Annie Gagiano -- Linguistic bearings and testimonial practices / Fiona Ross -- History in the making/the making of history : the "German Wehrmacht" in collective and individual memories in Austria / Ruth Wodak

The article investigates the availability of pornographic media to under-aged users, specifically the already marginalised under-aged sector of the South African population. It argues that the availability of pornography is just another illustration of the systemic discrimination against this section of the population. Theoretical, non-experimental and clinical evidence illustrating the negative impact that the exposure to pornography has on children is presented against the background of the social reality of South Africa. The article finds that exposure to pornography leaves children even more vulnerable than they already are. The investigation of relevant legislation indicates that those who broadcast and/or sell pornography contravene South African law. The article concludes that the effects of pornography on children are far-reaching and potentially harmful. Children should be more effectively protected against exposure to pornography. Lastly, the role of faith-based organisations (FBOs) and the possibilities of their effective involvement, is explored. ; http://www.hts.org.za ; hb2015

The persistence of human rights violations around the world clearly demonstrates the need to focus more attention on preventive action. Consequently, international organizations are increasingly strengthening the preventive dimension of their human rights activities. Preventive mechanisms have also emerged and continue to gain ground at the national level. These new realities, however, seem to have received little attention by the academic community. Yet they raise many important issues, which need to be further explored. The above considerations prompted the Marangopoulos Foundation for Human Rights to mark its twentieth anniversary by organizing an International Colloquy on the topic of the prevention of human rights violations. The present Volume contains contributions by the participants, based on the reports they presented at the Colloquy, substantially revised and updated. It constitutes the first attempt at a systematic analysis of the subject of the prevention of human rights violations, focusing on the following five aspects: conventional regimes, non-conventional monitoring mechanisms, international commissioners and Ombudsmen, national Ombudsmen and human rights institutions and the development of a human rights culture. It closes with a theoretical synthesis of the various approaches to the prevention of human rights violations, focusing on the context, the concept and function, as well as methods and techniques of prevention

"Contemporary Sources of Human Rights Violations" published on by Oxford University Press.

This article examines the main achievements and challenges of Africa's two regional bodies established to ensure the implementation of human rights in Africa. It makes an assessment of the role of Africa's oldest regional human rights body, the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (African Commission) in the last 31 years of its operation (from 1987–March 2018). It also considers the judicial role of the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights (African Court) in the last 12 years of its operation (from 2006–March 2018). The increasing contribution of both the Commission and the Court to the protection of human rights under the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights is rarely subjected to scrutiny in mainstream human rights literature. The article is limited to the consideration of the Commission's contribution with respect to: (i) decisions on admissibility of communications concerning mainly exhaustion of domestic remedies; (ii) decisions on merits of communications; (iii) adoption of resolutions, principles/guidelines, general comments, model laws and advisory opinions; (iv) special rapporteurs and working groups to deal with thematic human rights issues; (v) consideration of State reports and conducting on-site visits; and (vi) referral of communications to the African Court involving unimplemented interim measures, serious or massive human rights violations, or the Commission's findings on admissibility and merits.

The international legal liability of companies for human rights violations is a very current issue, since nowadays multinational and transnational corporations more and more frequently violate human rights. However, the establishment of the direct international legal liability of business actors for human rights violations is a long and difficult process. The present study seeks to analyse the efforts of the United Nations in this regard.

Difficult as it is to admit, poverty cannot be defined in law. In the tension between dealing with poverty and focusing on extreme poverty, there is an indeterminacy that makes democracies inattentive to the economic and social dynamics of poverty as inequality. As a result, responses to extreme poverty, especially when they are explicitly targeted or preferential, violate the fundamental equality of rights and dignity that they are supposed, formally, to express. Measures for the underprivileged thus do not offer them a way out from their status, but rather, paradoxically, lead them to qualify their suffering, and to find in favours received the strength to think of themselves as poor without being exposed to the terrors of extreme poverty. In a sense, such people, who depend on minimal welfare granted to them, have no "rights". Should we thus learn to think of poverty as an inevitable and unavoidable phenomenon in a world that claims to work to guarantee human rights, civil and political rights, economic, social, and cultural rights? (Original abstract)

Testimony can be an important tool for documenting human rights violations and achieving political and legal credibility when formal institutions for the defense of human rights are incapable of guaranteeing rights and providing impartial justice. The testifier is an active social agent engaged in a personal and collective performative act that can potentially broaden the meaning of truth to advance alternative and contested understandings of history and events. The case of Ramiro Aragón Pérez, Elionai Santiago Sánchez, and Juan Gabriel Ríos, who were falsely charged, tortured, and imprisoned in connection with the social movement in Oaxaca, Mexico, in 2006, provides evidence of this function.

Difficult as it is to admit, poverty cannot be defined in law. In the tension between dealing with poverty & focusing on extreme poverty, there is an indeterminacy that makes democracies inattentive to the economic & social dynamics of poverty as inequality. As a result, responses to extreme poverty, especially when they are explicitly targeted or preferential, violate the fundamental equality of rights & dignity that they are supposed, formally, to express. Measures for the underprivileged thus do not offer them a way out from their status, but rather, paradoxically, lead them to qualify their suffering, & to find in favors received the strength to think of themselves as poor without being exposed to the terrors of extreme poverty. In a sense, such people, who depend on minimal welfare granted to them, have no "rights." Should we thus learn to think of poverty as an inevitable & unavoidable phenomenon in a world that claims to work to guarantee human rights, civil & political rights, economic, social, & cultural rights? 8 References. Adapted from the source document.

The issue of the responsibility of states for human rights violations is examined. The issues of the recognition of human rights violations were discussed at a recent roundtable meeting at the Center for International law and International Security of the Institute for Contemporary International Studies in Russia. Adapted from the source document.

This article analyses the central arguments and findings of "transitional justice," the study of how incoming rulers address the human rights abuses of outgoing regimes, A scholarly consensus suggests the balance of political power matters most for explanations of transitional justice decision making, However, other important influences include international factors and the passage of time combined with democratic governance and/or emotions. Our review finds no consensus on the efficacy of transitional justice measures, in part because few studies currently exist. However, existing studies suggest that trials and truth commissions neither destabilize democracy nor foster animosity, respectively. Finally, this article considers whether restricting the study of transitional justice to third-wave democracies is appropriate in light of recent developments in long-established democracies. Adapted from the source document.

The Council of the European Union (EU) recently reached a negotiating position ('mandate') on two significant elements of the 'reform' of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). The vision hailed as a 'historic' agreement by national governments is a direct threat to the right to asylum. The Council not only maintains all structural flaws of the CEAS intact but proposes a quagmire of asylum procedures marred by unworkable, unnecessarily complex rules, that are in clear violation of key human rights standards.