Suchergebnisse

Explores the life experiences, agency, and human rights of trafficked women in order to shed light on the complicated processes in which anti-trafficking, human rights and social justice are intersected.

This volume counters one-sided dominant discursive representations of gender in human rights and transitional justice, and women's place in the transformations of neoliberal human rights, and contributes a more balanced examination of how transitional justice and human rights institutions, and political institutions impact the lives and experiences of women. Using a multidisciplinary approach, the contributors to this volume theorize and historicize the place of women's rights (and gender), situating it within contemporary country-specific political, legal, socio-cultural and global contexts. Chapters examine the progress and challenges facing women (and women's groups) in transitioning countries: from Peru to Argentina, from Kenya to Sierra Leone, and from Bosnia to Sri Lanka, in a variety of contexts, attending especially to the relationships between local and global forces

This paper explores a linked set of contradictions – some of which verge on paradox – about legal aid (defined for this purpose as 'legal assistance funded by the state for indigent suspects and defendants'). These are: • The right to legal aid is a 'hybrid' right in the sense that it imposes a positive obligation of funding on the state, akin to an economic right, although it is an integral part of the civil and political right to a fair trial. • Legal aid, now enshrined in the major comprehensive human rights treaties, actually originated as the result of a variety of causes, by no means all of which reflected any notion of human rights. • For one particular group of countries (those post-socialist states which have achieved independence in the aftermath of the break up of the Soviet Union), human rights have been a conscious driver of change. However, for almost all of these countries, the immediate driver for reform was the prospect of future accession to joining the European Union rather than the mechanisms of the Council of Europe that oversee the structure of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). • The European Union provides an example for an organisation into which a major attempt has been made to integrate human rights into its constitution and this has both made it a powerful enforcer of rights in relation to countries on its eastern border but is now attracting the resistance a group of countries led by Ireland and the United Kingdom on its western border – both of which have actually have relatively well established legal aid schemes.

Campaigning to stop the use of child soldiers -- Organizing for decent work for domestic workers : the ILO Convention -- Defeating the election of human rights abusers to the UN Human Rights Council -- Working with UN special rapporteurs to end abuses -- Creating a new international priority : violence against children -- Bringing Charles Taylor to justice -- Seeking justice for the Abu Salim prison massacre -- Demanding accountability for war crimes in Sri Lanka -- Using new technologies in the campaign to free Tibet : the 2008 Beijing Olympics -- Organizing for LGBTI rights in Jamaica and Nepal -- Abolishing sentences of life without parole for juvenile offenders -- Lessons for the future

Social work has a long-standing tradition of emphasizing the interaction of people and their environment, although this systems perspective has focused almost exclusively on the importance of social relationships. There is an emerging emphasis within the profession regarding the need to pay more attention to the critical role of the physical environment. The last fifty years has seen a growing global ecological movement, and the profession is joining the call to action for sustainability. Social work must extend this mission to include environmental justice, the human right to live in a clean, safe, and healthy environment. The world's most poor, vulnerable, and oppressed people often live in the most degraded environments and have no control over resources. The important connections between social work, sustainability, human rights, and environmental justice in our contemporary world need to be more clearly articulated in the scholarly literature. An understanding of these separate but closely linked concepts is necessary for the profession to effectively pursue the goal of making the world a more just, humane, and sustainable home for all life.

The Hidden Hands of Justice: NGOs, Human Rights, and International Courts is the first comprehensive analysis of non-governmental organization (NGO) participation at international criminal and human rights courts. Drawing on original data, Heidi Nichols Haddad maps and explains the differences in NGO participatory roles, frequency, and impact at three judicial institutions: the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Human Rights System, and the International Criminal Court. The Hidden Hands of Justice demonstrates that courts can strategically choose to enhance their functionality by allowing NGOs to provide needed information, expertise, and services as well as shame states for non-cooperation. Through participation, NGOs can profoundly shape the character of international human rights justice, but in doing so, may consolidate civil society representation and relinquish their roles as external monitors