scholarly journals The COVID-19 Pandemic: A Month of Bioethics in Finland—ADDENDUM

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 204-204
Author(s):  
MATTI HÄYRY

AbstractThe role of bioethicists amidst crises like the COVID-19 pandemic is not well defined. As professionals in the field, they should respond, but how? The observation of the early days of pandemic confinement in Finland showed that moral philosophers with limited experience in bioethics tended to apply their favorite theories to public decisions with varying results. Medical ethicists were more likely to lend support to the public authorities by soothing or descriptive accounts of the solutions assumed. These are approaches that Tuija Takala has called the firefighting and window dressing models of bioethics. Human rights lawyers drew attention to the flaws of the government’s regulative thinking. Critical bioethicists offered analyses of the arguments presented and the moral and political theories that could be used as the basis of good and acceptable decisions.

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
MATTI HÄYRY

AbstractThe role of bioethicists amidst crises like the COVID-19 pandemic is not well defined. As professionals in the field, they should respond, but how? The observation of the early days of pandemic confinement in Finland showed that moral philosophers with limited experience in bioethics tended to apply their favorite theories to public decisions, with varying results. Medical ethicists were more likely to lend support to the public authorities by soothing or descriptive accounts of the solutions assumed. These are approaches that Tuija Takala has called the firefighting and window dressing models of bioethics. Human rights lawyers drew attention to the flaws of the government’s regulative thinking. Critical bioethicists offered analyses of the arguments presented and the moral and political theories that could be used as the basis of good and acceptable decisions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-42
Author(s):  
Kornelija Marzel

According to the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia and the Human Rights Ombudsman Act, the Slovenian Ombudsman is established to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms in relation to public authorities. It is important that the Ombudsman not only complies with the provisions of the Constitution and international legal acts, but that when intervening, the Ombudsman may invoke the principles of fairness and good administration. The purpose of the article is to contribute to the understanding of good administration and related circumstances for the respect or violation of human rights. The article is based on the idea that by applying the principles of good administration, public authority undermines the public belief that bureaucracy is an end in itself and is in a dominant position. With these principles, public authority focuses on parties which realise their rights and enjoy their freedoms through the principles and postulates of a democratic society. Both theoretical and empirical research methods were used in the preparation of the article. The analysis of complaints to the Ombudsman aimed to verify the compliance of normative, theoretical bases with actual practice, and to establish the basis for evaluating the existing model of the Slovenian Ombudsman, all in the context of the study of good administration. The results together with theoretical findings facilitated the verification that in practice, public authorities most frequently violate the principles of good administration and that the Ombudsman may significantly contribute to good administration within their powers. The findings of this article are an original contribution to understanding ombudsmen and their role in different countries.


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ksenia Minakova

The article analyzes methods of ensuring the migrants rights by the public authorities of the Russian Federation, the individual elements of the migration policy of the Russian Federation relating to the activities of public authorities. It considers the activities in the field of protection of the migrants rights by such authorities as the Russian President's Office for Constitutional Rights of Citizens, the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, the Council for Interethnic Relations, General Directorate for Migration, Chief Directorate for Migration Issues of Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, their normative documents, that regulate their activities. It examines separately the activities of the RF Government in the field of protection of the migrants rights, as well as judicial authorities; it identifies the special role of the RF Constitutional Court in the field of ensuring the rights of migrants, refugees, the internally displaced and stateless persons. It underlines the role of authority bodies of the RF entities in ensuring the migrants rights in terms of Irkursk Oblast. The article offers to differentiate strictly the role of each authority body in the field of migrants rights protection, as well as to pay specific attention to regulation of activities of the FR entities authority bodies in this direction.


2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (8) ◽  
pp. 59-69
Author(s):  
Bohdana Huriy

In the article, we analysed the state of development of cultural policies in Amalgamated Territorial Communities (ATC) of Ukraine as well as the changes that have taken place in the cultural area in Ukraine. This was due to the activities of international grant programs, foundations and legislative organizations. We described the local situation in the ATC and detected their main cultural policies' problems. We also described the main stages of forming the international grant programs' sector, foundations and donors in the aforementioned area. We have identified the most active grant programs which operate in Ukraine. We defined that their activity supports discussion about the role of the culture, influences the processes of transformation and modernization of culture, and provides the possibilities for activists and specialists from the public sector to directly and transparently influence and advocate the cultural changes. The article presented results of the sociological research "The human rights-based approach to the content and implementation of cultural policies in Ukraine at ATC level". It was conducted with representatives of the "DOBRE" program, USAID, the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation, «U-LEAD with Europe», the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, and four regional representatives’ non-public organisations. We concluded that the international grant programs, foundations, and legislative organizations support the ATC in the forming and conducting development strategies and service delivery standards, transparently conducting their activities and financial accountability, supporting the community's involvement in the main processes and changing stereotypical approaches to understanding the needs of different population categories in Ukraine's ATC. During the four years of their activity, there has been significant development of communities in terms of infrastructure and human development and community resources. In particular, it is connected with Equality and Human Rights principles, the involvement of all community actors in the processes taking place in society, and constant feedback from the public.


Author(s):  
Satino Satino ◽  
Yuliana Yuli W ◽  
Iswahyuni Adil

Law Number 40 of 1999 concerning the Press is one of the legal regulations that have a role in efforts to realize a good life together. The struggle of the Indonesian press to achieve freedom was finally achieved after the enactment of Law Number 40 of 1999 concerning the Press. The purpose of this study is to find out how the freedom and role of the press in law enforcement are reviewed from the perspective of Law Number 40 of 1999, concerning the press. This study uses a sociological juridical method, the results of research conducted on real facts in society with the intent and purpose of finding facts, then proceeding with finding problems, ultimately leading to problem identification and leading to problem solving. The results of the research include the press trying to carry out its functions, rights, obligations, and roles, so the press must respect the human rights of everyone. The press has an important role in realizing Human Rights (HAM), as guaranteed in the Decree of the People's Consultative Assembly of the Republic of Indonesia Number: XVII/MPR/1998. Based on the results of the research above, it is necessary to uphold the freedom of the press in conveying public information in an honest and balanced manner and that freedom of the press is not absolute for the press alone, but to guarantee the rights of the public to obtain information. what happened in the context of realizing press freedom as contained in Law/040/1999 concerning the Press.


2021 ◽  
pp. 3-25
Author(s):  
David Ormerod ◽  
Karl Laird

It is neither easy to define crime nor identify the aims of criminal law but some characteristics may be universal to every crime, including that it involves public wrongs and moral wrongs. ‘Public wrongs’ reflect the important role of the public in punishing crimes. A crime incorporating a moral wrong implies that a ‘wrong’ is done or harm to others is involved but experience suggests that morality and criminal law are not coextensive. The chapter introduces students to thinking about criminalization and the need to guard against overcriminalization. It also examines the principal sources of criminal law: common law, statute, EU law, international law and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Problematically, important and serious offences and most defences in English law derive from common law rather than statute, and some offences—from public nuisance to gross negligence manslaughter—have been challenged recently on grounds of certainty and retrospectivity.


2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (5) ◽  
pp. 805-827 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Kenyon Lischer

AbstractAfter a genocide, leaders compete to fill the postwar power vacuum and establish their preferred story of the past. Memorialisation, including through building memorials, provides a cornerstone of political power. The dominant public narrative determines the plotline; it labels victims and perpetrators, interprets history, assigns meaning to suffering, and sets the post-atrocity political agenda. Therefore, ownership of the past, in terms of the public account, is deeply contested. Although many factors affect the emergence of a dominant atrocity narrative, this article highlights the role of international interactions with genocide memorials, particularly how Western visitors, funders, and consultants influence the government's narrative. Western consumption of memorials often reinforces aspects of dark tourism that dehumanise victims and discourage adequate context for the uninformed visitor. Funding and consultation provided by Western states and organisations – while offering distinct benefits – tends to encourage a homogenised atrocity narrative, which reflects the values of the global human rights regime and existing standards of memorial design rather than privileging the local particularities of the atrocity experience. As shown in the cases of Rwanda, Cambodia, and Bosnia, Western involvement in public memory projects often strengthens the power of government narratives, which control the present by controlling the past.


Author(s):  
Juan Manuel Goig Martínez

La alimentación adecuada constituye un derecho humano. Así lo han reconocido oficialmente la gran mayoría de los Tratados Internacionales sobre derechos humanos. Pero existe una gran diferencia entre que un Estado reconozca oficialmente la alimentación como un derecho fundamental en su constitución, o lo haga como un principio rector, puesto que ello dotará al derecho a la alimentación adecuada de una mayor protección, o lo convertirá en un principio de actuación de los poderes públicos. Se puede exigir a los gobiernos garantizar el ejercicio efectivo del derecho a la alimentación de conformidad con las disposiciones constitucionales para otros derechos humanos. Pero, la capacidad de la invocación indirecta de otros derechos humanos para lograr la protección efectiva del derecho a la alimentación en el plano nacional dependerá, en definitiva, de la interpretación jurídica que se haga de la Constitución.Adequate food is a human right. Thus the vast majority of treaties have officially recognized it human rights. But there is a big difference between that a State officially recognizes food as a fundamental right in the Constitution, or do it as a guiding principle, since this will provide the right to adequate food of greater protection, or the It will become a principle of action of the public authorities. You may require Governments to ensuring the effective exercise of the right to food in accordance with the constitutional provisions for other human rights. But the indirect invocation of other human rights capacity to achieve effective protection of the right to food at the national level will depend, ultimately, of the legal interpretation that is made of the Constitution.


2008 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 2013-2039 ◽  
Author(s):  
Armin von Bogdandy ◽  
Philipp Dann

The administration of the traditional nation-state used to operate as a rather closed system to the outside world. Today, cooperation between the public authorities of different States and between States and international bodies is a common phenomenon. Yet the characteristics and mechanics of such cooperation can hardly be understood using the concepts domestic public law or public international law currently on offer. Conventional concepts, such as federalism, confederalism or State-centered “realism” hardly fathom the complexity of interactions or reflect the changed role of the State, while more recent concepts, such as multi-level systems or networks, seem to encompass only parts of the phenomena at hand. Given this void, we propose to explore the notion of “composite administration” (Verbundverwaltung) and argue that it offers a concept which can combine more coherently the seemingly diverging legal elements of cooperation and hierarchy that distinguish administrative action in what often is called a multi-level administrative system. Even though the concept of composite administration was originally designed and further developed with respect to the largely federal European administrative space, we suggest testing the concept in the wider context of international cooperation. We believe that it offers valuable insights and raises critical questions, even though we do not intend to insinuate any proto-federal prospects of the institutions discussed in this paper.


1965 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 543-565 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Nerfin

In most African countries, the housing situation is most unsatisfactory, both in quality and quantity. The underlying factors are both demographic (population growth, rapid urbanisation) and economic (the under-development of productive resources). Although the poverty of housing is only one facet of the ‘pauperisation’ of the African masses, and although new needs arise directly from the process of development itself, yet the only possible framework for any modern housing policy is planning—economic, social, and spatial—in which the role of the public authorities is decisive both in the preparation and the implementation of the plan. Housing then becomes one element in the total modernisation of society.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document