Answering the Call of Conscience

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Obie Clayton
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Moral Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Arena

Abstract This essay shows how three institutions—family, religion, and education—coalesced to shape the moral life of John Lewis. Lewis was born into a very religious, though uneducated, family who wished to see their son receive the education they were denied. The young Lewis took their zeal for education and religion into seminary and later college. It was in college that Lewis developed an intolerance for discrimination and came to champion the civil and human rights of all individuals. His call of conscience would not condone the suffering and abuse being generated by a segregated society. This passion for human rights led to his rising into prominence in the political arena, where many referred to him as the “conscience of the nation.”

scholarly journals Aboriginal women in Australia: from domestic workers to big politics. Part 2. Political arena

2020 ◽  
pp. 426-440
Author(s):  
N.S. Skorobogatykh ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Aboriginal Women ◽  
Human Rights Movement

In this part of the article analyzes the participation of aboriginal women in the political life of their country and their activity on the parliamentary arena. The main character is Linda Burney, whose life and work vividly embodies the main features of the modern stage in the Australian indigenous peoples’ human rights movement

The Politics of Reforming Special Procedures

2020 ◽  
pp. 35-68
Author(s):  
Elvira Domínguez-Redondo
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Code Of Conduct ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Wide Margin ◽  
Distinct Category ◽  
Normative Basis ◽  
Legal Foundations ◽  
African Group

The political nature of the decisions creating mandates has propitiated the development of pioneering methods of work because they provided a wide margin of autonomy to experts acting as mandate holders. Their less than solid normative basis has also allowed political contestation. The legal foundations have been particularly weak in justifying working methods to handle individual communications of human rights violations, since it represents an extraordinary limitation to the sovereignty of states. In this context, states have pushed for several reforms of the UN Special Procedures with different motivations. The reform agendas pursued by the Asian and African Group have been considered as particularly threatening for the future of Special Procedures. In practice, their number has continued to grow. Furthermore, several waves of reform have resulted in standardization of practices and the provision of sounder legal bases for the methods of work of mandate holders through the approval of the Code of Conduct, among other measures. The processes of reform have forced the consideration of Special Procedures as a distinct category in the political arena.

A Turn to the Rights: UK Conservative Christian Lobby Groups and the ‘Gay Debate’

2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Hunt
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Christian Churches ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Secular World ◽  
Conservative Christian ◽  
The Uk ◽  
International Conventions ◽  
Rights Issues

The extension of non-heterosexual rights in largely liberal democratic contexts and confirmed in wider international conventions poses a challenge to Christian churches which historically condemned homosexuality and other sexual ‘variations’ on the basis of religious conviction. The stance taken by contemporary churches on these rights issues now diverge considerably. This article, however, considers the entrenched position of conservative Christian factions in the UK that have intensified their levels of political mobilisation at a time when they are drawn into the political arena through the implications of non-heterosexual rights in both the churches and the secular world. The article explores the way in which these cadres are forced to engage with the rhetoric of rights as an integral part of their oppositional stance, while attempting to negate the foundational basis of non-heterosexual rights. It will conclude with a discussion of how such developments connect with human rights theory.

Mauritanian Politics and the Institutionalization of Military Supremacy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boubacar N'Diaye
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Regime Type ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Military Leaders ◽  
National Question ◽  
Repressive Regime ◽  
Heads Of State ◽  
The Military

Since its maiden coup in 1978, which initiated both an era of recurrent coup activity and a regime type dubbed “Mauritania of the Colonels,” the Mauritanian military, once an unassuming, apolitical institution, has been in power either directly or through a “civilianized” military regime. Since its creation in the early 1990s, the Battalion for Presidential Security (BASEP) has played a prominent role in the workings of Mauritania of the Colonels. Only during a 17-month interlude under a civilian democratically elected president, following a bungled transition marked by the underhanded interference of some military officers, did the military formally leave power—and then only formally. Whether they tried to meet them in earnest or not, the challenges of withdrawing the military from the political arena and democratizing the country have dogged all military heads of state. The challenges were complicated by Mauritania’s intractable ethnocultural rivalries subsumed under the “national question” and the related “human rights deficit.” After Colonel Ould Taya, whose lengthy and repressive regime had the deepest impact on the country and the national question in particular, the challenges were even harder for his successors to face. The latest transfer of power between one retired general and another, both of whom had conspired to overthrow Mauritania’s only democratically elected civilian president, is evidence that, as major players, Mauritania’s military leaders are well on their way to institutionalizing the Mauritania of the Colonels they assiduously fashioned for more than 40 years.

Risk, Desire and Adaptation: The Paradox of Queer Solidarity and the Political Possibility of Death Under Neoliberalism and Homonationalism

Somatechnics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-200
Author(s):  
Natalie Kouri-Towe
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Political Activism ◽  
State Violence ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sexual Rights ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Strategy I

In 2015, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid Toronto (QuAIA Toronto) announced that it was retiring. This article examines the challenges of queer solidarity through a reflection on the dynamics between desire, attachment and adaptation in political activism. Tracing the origins and sites of contestation over QuAIA Toronto's participation in the Toronto Pride parade, I ask: what does it mean for a group to fashion its own end? Throughout, I interrogate how gestures of solidarity risk reinforcing the very systems that activists desire to resist. I begin by situating contemporary queer activism in the ideological and temporal frameworks of neoliberalism and homonationalism. Next, I turn to the attempts to ban QuAIA Toronto and the term ‘Israeli apartheid’ from the Pride parade to examine the relationship between nationalism and sexual citizenship. Lastly, I examine how the terms of sexual rights discourse require visible sexual subjects to make individual rights claims, and weighing this risk against political strategy, I highlight how queer solidarities are caught in a paradox symptomatic of our times: neoliberalism has commodified human rights discourses and instrumentalised sexualities to serve the interests of hegemonic power and obfuscate state violence. Thinking through the strategies that worked and failed in QuAIA Toronto's seven years of organising, I frame the paper though a proposal to consider political death as a productive possibility for social movement survival in the 21stcentury.

THE CONCEPT OF "HUMAN RIGHTS" IN THE SOCIO-POLITICAL SCIENCES

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-59
Author(s):  
Farhod Khatamov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Development ◽  
The Political ◽  
Scientific Article ◽  
Historical Evolution ◽  
Political Sciences ◽  
Special Place ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights

This scientific article analyzes the origin of the concept of "human rights", its historical evolution and role in the political development of society. Scientific conclusions were made by summarizing the interpretations of various periods and historical stages. The study also emphasizes that the protection of human rights and freedoms occupies a special place in the development of human civilization

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