Suchergebnisse

In this article, we discuss the role of the Netherlands with respect to the Darfur crisis during 2003–2005. From the moment the crisis broke out, the Netherlands was active as a major donor and tried to facilitate political solutions. During the period January 2004–July 2005, it functioned as the (acting) presidency of the Council of the European Union and was therefore involved in creating a common EU position. We discuss how policy was made while observing internal (domestic) and external (international) influences. We conclude that the Netherlands was partially successful in establishing a more active EU position regarding Darfur. However, we also find evidence that, eventually, the EU has lagged behind the response of the UN Security Council, despite being a major donor to emergency relief and the African Union mission in Sudan.

This article suggests that research in the field of human rights, especially when it is legal in nature, tends to devote surprisingly little attention to questions of methodology. This may be a result of the fact that human rights scholars often are (former) human rights activists. Dispensing with methodological constraints enables researchers to engage in wishful thinking and to reach the conclusions they were hoping to find in the first place. The article makes some suggestions for those who wish to avoid this pitfall, including carefully spelling out a research method, discussing which alternative methods have been rejected, and avoiding the label "emerging" human right.

Those involved in human rights, whether on a theoretical or a practical level, sometimes cannot help feeling that they are dancing on a tightrope stretched between two high trees above a deep ravine. On one side of the ravine, a jungle stretches out as far as the eye can see; a jungle which is ruled by the laws of the fittest; laws that have no regard for justice and vulnerability. On the other side of the ravine, justice has, in the course of time, changed the laws of the jungle into laws which include and protect vulnerable individuals in society. In this second volume in celebration of Theo van Boven's 65th birthday, a number of Theo's friends try to come to grips with the tension between the `jungle of exclusion' and the `ideal of inclusion', in the full knowledge that Theo has preceded them in a great deal of pioneering work. The volume opens with an interview with Theo van Boven. Topics covered in the present volume include ( inter alia ): pre-20th century bills or rights, Mandelstam as forgotten pioneer of human rights, racial and gender discrimination, the rights of the child and child abuse, the right to reparation, the role of bystanders, globalization of economic power, economic and social rights and the European Union, tobacco use as a human rights issue, illegally obtained evidence, human rights policies, cultural diversity, human rights funding, the African human rights system, follow-up action to state reporting, character of the views of the Human Rights Committee, the Human Rights Committee and gender mainstreaming, the UN Commission on Human Rights, and the International Criminal Court