Nongovernmental International Human Rights Organizations: The Case of Hong Kong

2014 ◽  
Vol 47 (03) ◽  
pp. 642-653
Author(s):  
Wai-man Lam

ABSTRACTThis article examines the contributions of nongovernmental international human rights organizations (NGIHRO) in promoting a broad sense of human rights in hybrid regimes using the cases of Amnesty International Hong Kong (AIHK), Green Peace Hong Kong (GPHK), and Oxfam Hong Kong (OHK). It contends that NGIHROs have made significant contributions to public education and fund-raising in Hong Kong. However, with regard to the human rights conditions, it is erroneous to consider Hong Kong as part of the developed world. Together with other probable political considerations, doing so may have led to gaps in the organizations’ roles and functions as advocates for human rights in Hong Kong. In the final analysis, this article uses the political protests in Hong Kong to illustrate the importance of addressing the implications of demands for preserving the local identity and alternative lifestyles in the broader understanding of human rights.

Author(s):  
Aryeh Neier

This chapter examines the rise of the international human rights movement as significant force in world affairs. It draws attention to the Cold War, in which the context of international human rights took place. It also talks about the “Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch” as one of the leading non-governmental human rights organizations operating globally that was established at different stages of the Cold War era. The chapter focuses on the emergence of the human rights movement in the communist countries, as well as its development on the other side of the Cold War divide. It illustrates the demonstration over the arrests of Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel in 1965, which marked the beginning of the emergence of a human rights movement in the Soviet bloc countries.


Author(s):  
Nina I. Karpachova

The task of this paper is to study the role of international human rights organizations in response to the conflict taking place in eastern Ukraine. The study is based on recent reports from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the OSCE on Ukraine. The relevance of the stated topic is determined by the situation with human rights violations in the armed conflict in Ukraine and the significant role of international human rights organizations, making active efforts to resolve it. The purpose of this study is to determine the main aspects of the role that international organizations play in resolving this range of issues. This will help to identify potential opportunities to tackle the problem with human rights violations in the Ukrainian territories. The study combines quantitative and qualitative research of the entire spectrum of issues brought into the subject. The main results obtained are: analysis of the role and place of international human rights organizations in assessing the situation with the conflict in the Ukrainian territories and obtaining statistical information on the current status of human rights violations in these territories. The value of this paper lies in obtaining practical recommendations for finding ways to peacefully resolve the conflict in the East of Ukraine and implementing comprehensive measures to create conditions for the protection of human rights in this region


2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (119) ◽  
pp. 13-34
Author(s):  
Frits Andersen

The article outlines some of the historical traces for the eco-crisis that presently threatens the first and most outstanding national park in Africa, homeland of the mountain gorilla. After a short description of the site, the article presents the Congo Reform Movement’s campaign against the bloody suppression in the Congo Free State around 1900, often referred to as the Red Rubber-regime. The Congo Reform Movements “Atrocity Meetings” are considered to be the first human rights campaign, because they established the rhetorical models that we find today in Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Global Witness. The article argues that we can detect similar and highly problematic structures in the animal rights campaigns which took on a global scale in the 1970s – initiated among others by Dian Fossey and her famous and infamous fight for the protection of mountain gorillas in the Virunga mountains. Both human rights campaigns and animal rights campaigns share a responsibility, I argue, for the eco-crisis at Virunga. Finally I present the documentary Virunga from 2014 as a model and as a rhetorical alternative.


1998 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 306-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes M. M. Chan

The Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance entered into force on 8 June 1991. Its purpose is to incorporate into the law of Hong Kong the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (“the ICCPR”) as applied to Hong Kong. Being one of the first occasions where the ICCPR has been given direct legal force in a common law jurisdiction, the Hong Kong experience will provide an interesting case study on how an international human rights instrument is received and interpreted in domestic law. Indeed, shortly after the coming into operation of the Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance, the late Professor Opsahl predicted that it would give the ICCPR, and by implication the Human Rights Committee, a potential impact on the Hong Kong domestic legal system which could hardly be expected in other countries. He even suggested that, in dealing with matters which the Human Rights Committee has not yet considered, the interpretation of the Hong Kong courts in applying the Bill of Rights may provide a useful supplement to international human rights law. The Bill of Rights Ordinance is now seven years old. This article will address two issues: first, the impact international and comparative jurisprudence has had on the interpretation of the Hong Kong Bill of Rights and, second, the contribution the Hong Kong jurisprudence on the Bill of Rights has or could have made to the development of international and comparative human rights law.


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