Suchergebnisse

Introduction /Richard Carver and Lisa Handley --Studying torture prevention /Richard Carver and Lisa Handley --Identifying what preventive mechanisms work /Richard Carver and Lisa Handley --United Kingdom /Richard Carver --Chile /Karinna Fernández Neira and Par Engstrom --Hungary /Barbála, András Kádár, and András Nemes --Indonesia /Budi Hernawan and Chris Sidoti --Israel /Irit Ballas --Peru /Nataly Herrera and Tom Pegram --South Africa /Gwénaëlle Dereymaeker and Lukas Muntingh --Georgia /Bakar Jikia and Moris Shalikashvili --Turkey /Kerem Altiparmak, Richard Carer, and Lisa Handley --Ethiopia /Yonas Mebrahtu and Sam Ponniah --India /Jinee Lokaneeta and Amar Jesani --Kyrgyzstan /Aida Baijumanova, Moritz Birk, and Lira Ismailova --The Philippines /Ricardo Sunga III --Conclusion /Richard Carver and Lisa Handley.

This indispensable introduction to the institutions, practices, and consequences of boundary delimitation around the world brings together some of the world's leading specialists on redistricting. - ;The aim of this book is threefold. First to put in one place for the convenience of both scholars and practitioners the basic data on redistricting practices in democracies around the world. Remarkably, this data has never before been collected. Second, to provide a series of short case studies that look in more detail at particular countries with regard to the institutions and practices that have.

In the past 15 years, the creation of national monitoring mechanisms has been the most widespread advance in protecting people deprived of their liberty from torture and ill-treatment. Bodies that make monitoring visits to prisons are not new, but they have been extensively promoted through the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment – the OPCAT. This treaty came into force in 2006 and Georgia was one of the first states to create the required national preventive mechanism (NPM), in 2009. This year, 2019, marks the tenth anniversary of the creation of Georgia's NPM, which is a suitable moment to reflect on the achievements of this institution. We were asked to conduct this assessment on the strength of our multi-country study, Does Torture Prevention Work?, published in 2016.[1] In that research, which included Georgia among the 16 country case studies,[2] we concluded that the most important preventive measures against torture were effective safeguards in practice when persons are first taken into detention. Criminalization, investigation and prosecution of perpetrators of torture and ill-treatment was also very important. The work of independent monitoring bodies also had a discernible positive impact – and this is particularly true in Georgia. So, while we concluded that monitoring bodies such as NPMs were not the most impactful mechanism for preventing torture, they are nevertheless an important part of the overall architecture of torture prevention. Indeed, it may be that they can play a significant role in encouraging states to provide more effective protection when people are first deprived of liberty – through access to a lawyer, medical examinations, and family notification among other steps – as well as advocating the more thorough and efficacious investigation and prosecution of torturers. This study of the Georgian NPM is an opportunity to look further into these questions.[3] In order to conduct this research, we used two assessment tools developed out of previous research projects. One, derived from our multi-country study, measures the state of a country's preventive mechanisms across detention safeguards, prosecution, monitoring, and non-judicial complaints bodies. It considers both the legal framework and actual practice in each of these four sets of preventive mechanisms. The other, derived from work for the United Nations Development Programme, is a tool for determining an NPM's compliance with the Paris Principles.[4] We devised a conceptual model that links together the capacity of the NPM to do its work and its actual work product with the short-term and long-term impact of the institution on torture reduction in Georgia. Our evaluation model relies in part on these assessment tools to explain the effectiveness of the NPM. For reasons of time, we focused only on three types of institutions that fall within the remit of the NPM: police stations and temporary detention isolators; and psychiatric hospitals.[5] [1] Richard Carver and Lisa Handley, Does Torture Prevention Work? (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press), 2016. The research for this original project was funded by the Association for the Prevention of Torture. [2] The researchers who wrote that chapter were Bakar Jikia and Moris Shalikashvili. We are very grateful to them for work that provided the foundation for this further study. [3] We are grateful to the Open Society Georgia Foundation for their financial support for this research; to the staff of the NPM for their patient responses to our inquiries; and to all those who agreed to be interviewed. [4] Principles relating to the status and functioning of national institutions for protection and promotion of human rights (endorsed by UN Commission for Human Rights Res 1992/54 and UNGA Res A/RES/48/134 20 December 1993). [5] The data that we needed to arrive at scores for these assessment tools was gathered in three ways. First, it rested in part on the research conducted in our earlier project. Secondly, it was based on documentary research, including NPM reports, legal texts, and reports of other organizations – national, regional, and international. Thirdly, we conducted a two-week mission to Georgia in August 2019, visiting Tbilisi, Kutaisi, and Batumi, where we conducted more than 20 interviews with people from the NPM and PDO, governmental authorities, and civil society.

IN THE PERIOD FROM 1965 TO 1985 THERE WAS A DRAMATIC INCREASE IN THE PROPORTION OF BLACK LEGISLATORS ELECTED IN SOUTHERN STATES. THIS DID NOT RESULT FROM A LARGER NUMBERS OF BLACKS BEING ELECTED IN WHITE-DOMINATED DISTRICTS BUT RATHER FROM AN INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF DISTRICTS WITH A MAJORITY OF BLACK POPULATION AND AN INCREASE IN THE PROPORTION OF SUCH DISTRICTS THAT ACTUALLY ELECTED A BLACK TO THE LEGISLATURE. MORE SPECIFICALLY, IT IS THE DISTRICTS THAT ARE AT LEAST 60% BLACK THAT ARE MOST LIKELY TO ELECT A BLACK LEGISLATOR. THE INCREASE IN THE PROPORTION OF DISTRICTS HAVING A BLACK MAJORITY IS LARGELY THE RESULT OF ENFORCEMENT OF THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT 1965, WHICH LED TO GREATER USE OF SINGLE-MEMBER DISTRICTS AND THE ELIMINATION OF DISTRICTING THAT DILUTED THE BLACK VOTE.

We look at the relationship between a congressional district's black and Hispanic population proportion and the likelihood of election of black or Hispanic candidates. We show that black and Hispanic gains appear to be due to an increase in the number of districts with substantial minority population, rather than to any change in the willingness of nonminority voters to support minority candidates. In contrast to earlier work we focus on the importance of the combined minority (black plus Hispanic) population as a determinant of minority electoral success.

Success of minority candidates; based on conference paper. Includes discussion of how the presence of Black population in a district affects the probability of Hispanic congressional success and vice versa.