scholarly journals Human Rights and British Citizenship: The Case of Shamima Begum as Citizen to Homo Sacer

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-363
Author(s):  
Mercedes Masters ◽  
Salvador Santino F Regilme
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Public Security ◽  
Homo Sacer ◽  
The Core ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Global North ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Uk

Abstract In the post-9/11 context, citizenship in the global North has been reoriented towards the concept of public security. Much of this lay in political rhetoric definitions of who is a threat to the security of a nation state, with a particular emphasis on the ‘threatening Other’. The ‘war on terror’ motivated governments to revoke the citizenship of such persons. In February 2019, the British teenager Shamima Begum was branded as such, and swiftly had her citizenship stripped, which the UK authorities justified as a necessary precaution to protect the nation’s safety. This article asks the core question: how does Britain embed notions of hierarchical human rights, particularly in Begum’s case? The article upholds two key arguments. First, the revocation of citizenship suggests hierarchical notions of humanity, whereby the state’s obligations to its constituents differ depending on each individual’s socially constructed racial and gender identities. Second, the legitimization of exceptionalist security politics suggests the deployment of differentiated conceptions of the state’s obligations to its citizens. The case of the revocation of Begum’s citizenship illustrates how persistent colonialist and stratified conceptions of citizenship enable the demotion of a citizen to a bare human or homo sacer.

scholarly journals Politics of Recognition: What Can a Human Rights Perspective Contribute to Understanding Users' Experiences of Involvement in Mental Health Services?

2009 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lydia Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Mental Health Services ◽  
Health Services ◽  
User Involvement ◽  
Politics Of Recognition ◽  
Implementation Gap ◽  
The Core ◽  
Mental Health Service User ◽  
The Uk

In the UK, participation in decision-making is increasingly being viewed as a right for users of mental health services. Yet research repeatedly finds a policy implementation gap in this area. Drawing on a localised, qualitative study involving three mental health service user/community groups, this article frames this issue in terms of a ‘politics of recognition’. It demonstrates how whilst government user involvement policies officially attempt to recognise users and their voices, they simultaneously reconstitute failures of recognition in terms of status subordination and a disqualified identity for service users, thereby obstructing participatory parity and amounting to a dereliction of the core principles underlying human rights.

scholarly journals Multiculturalism, Identity Claims, and Human Rights: From Politics to Courts

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 367-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neus Torbisco-Casals
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Freedom Of Association ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
European Court ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Ethnicity And Gender ◽  
Political Backlash

Abstract Across Europe, courts (both domestic and international) are increasingly playing a central role in dealing with identity-driven conflicts across deeply entrenched ethnocultural divides. At the outset, many of these controversies are seemingly religious or cultural disputes, involving the interpretation of individual rights such as freedom of conscience, freedom of association, and freedom of religion. Yet if we scratch beyond the surface, there is much more at stake in these disputes, or so this paper contends. Broader disagreements that confront majority and minority cultures regarding group rights and the shifting intersections between religion, ethnicity, and gender are played out in these judicial battles. The paper traces the so-called “crisis of multiculturalism” in the European political rhetoric and practice and highlights its impact on the de-juridification of cultural rights and on the tendency to seek accommodation through litigation (typically by minority litigants increasingly frustrated with the political backlash against their rights). It then inquires into the prospects of this strategy, pointing out the limitations courts face when adjudicating identity conflicts pertaining to minority groups traditionally disadvantaged in mainstream political processes. These concerns are illustrated through revisiting a number of controversies over Muslim veils that have been resolved by the European Court of Human Rights. The paper cautiously concludes that a shift toward more participatory political processes is more likely to mitigate the decline of progressive forms of multiculturalism and consolidate minority rights.

From the Colonial to the Contemporary

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Drohan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
Consistent Pattern ◽  
Strategic Narratives ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Public Scrutiny ◽  
The Uk

The conclusion begins by surveying the legacies of human rights activism during the Northern Ireland Troubles and reviews the book’s arguments regarding the Cyprus and Aden emergencies. Next, this section asserts that the consistent pattern of thwarting activism and the frequent circulation of officials from one campaign to the next suggests that, like torture, the ability to hide abuses from public scrutiny emerged as a key, but unspoken, element of British counterinsurgency during the era of decolonization. Finally, the conclusion addresses the contemporary relationship between counterinsurgency warfare and human rights—including the influence of the UK Human Rights Act and the importance of strategic narratives—during conflicts associated with the post-9/11 “war on terror” in Iraq and Afghanistan.

scholarly journals Sporting Gender: Women’s Footballing Bodies as Sites/Sights for the (Re) Articulation of Sex, Gender, and Desire

2003 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 371-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jayne Caudwell
Keyword(s):  
Queer Theory ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Gender Differentiation ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Relations Of Power

Past and present participation in the game of football (soccer) by women and girls in the UK is mostly through organizational structures and legal and discursive practices that differentiate players by sex and incidentally gender. In this article, the author argues that the emphasis on sex and gender differentiation in football underpins a sporting system that is unable to move beyond sex as pregiven and the sex/gender distinction. The author engages with feminist–queer theory to illustrate how sex, gender, and desire are regulated in order to uphold social relations of power. The focus on women’s footballing bodies demonstrates how the sexed body is socially constructed to inform gender and sexuality. In addition, the author highlights resistance to the compulsory order woman-feminine-heterosexual and presents examples of rearticulations of sex-gender-desire.

scholarly journals De-securitising ‘the South in the North’? Gendered Narratives on the Refugee Flows in the European Mediascape

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 453-477 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rita Santos ◽  
Sílvia Roque ◽  
Sofia José Santos
Keyword(s):  
Social Representations ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
The South ◽  
The North ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Counter Narratives ◽  
The Social ◽  
Gender Constructions ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Uk

Abstract This article focuses on media representations of ‘the South in the North’ crosscutting the European mediascape in 2015 and the beginning of 2016. Assuming that both identities and perceptions of in/security are socially constructed, particularly by means of discourse, that security is gendered and gender constructions are in turn built on dynamics of in/security, and that gendered power relations and representations are always entangled with other structures of inequality and domination such as racism, this article argues that gendered categories of othering in the media’s representations have been critical to produce and justify 1) hegemonic narratives of securitisation that aim to protect an imagined European identity and 2) counter-narratives denouncing the racial and cultural discrimination tied to the ‘North’s’ hegemonic representations of refugees. Theoretically, the article proposes a dialogue among critical, feminist, and postcolonial peace and security studies. Methodologically, it analyses through discourse analysis three highly mediatised cases by examining the social representations of the refugees, namely their gendered components put forward by representative European media outlets based in the UK. It explores their implications in terms of the consolidation of stereotypes and hierarchies of suffering according to criteria of credibility/suspicion and vulnerability/threat, and identifies some examples of media counter-narratives on refugee flows through specific gendered and racialised representations.

Freedom of Expression, Counter-Terrorism and the Internet in Light of the UK Terrorist Act 2006 and the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights

2009 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daragh Murray
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Primary Interest ◽  
Counter Terrorism ◽  
European Court ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Right

As a result of the ‘War on Terror’ domestic governments and the international community have paid increasing attention to counter-terrorism legislation. Given the meteoric rise in prominence of the Internet, and the ever-expanding ‘terrorist’ use of this entity, it is unsurprising that the Internet has now become the focus of legislative attention. However, what does this mean for one of the most fundamental of human rights, the right to freedom of expression? This article will analyse the concepts of incitement, glorification and dissemination as they relate to the Internet, and evaluate their place within the broader framework of the right to freedom of expression. Consequently, ‘context’, the quantifiable circulation of content, and other relevant issues are evaluated through the prism of the Internet. Similarly, the role of the ‘blogger’ is discussed as it relates to the dissemination of information, and the overarching concept of participatory democracy. For illustrative purposes, the United Kingdom's Terrorist Act 2006, and the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights will be of primary interest.

scholarly journals Women, Peace, and Security

2018 ◽  
pp. 2-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara E. Davies ◽  
Jacqui True
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Lasting Peace ◽  
Global North ◽  
Practical Experiences ◽  
And Gender ◽  
North And South

The Women, Peace, and Security agenda (WPS) stands at a juncture with significant potential to prevent conflicts, protect human rights, and promote recovery from conflict but inadequate progress and institutional resistance to meeting the commitments enshrined in UNSCR 1325. The chapter builds on feminist constructivist theories of normative change to put forward a pragmatist understanding of “women, peace, and security” as a “work in progress,” wherein advocates and scholars work together with activist states to advance principles of equal and lasting peace. We argue that WPS theory and practice in conflict, post-conflict, and peaceful situations is a dynamic, normative agenda, and iterative reform process committed to realizing a critical gender perspective on peace and security. Drawing on scholars, practitioners, and advocates’ experiences from the Global North and South working on the WPS thematic agenda and on women’s diverse practical experiences of promoting peace and inclusion, we defend a gender-sensitive and gender-inclusive perspective on peace and security.

Migration and human rights: The law as a reinforcer of gendered borders

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 282-287
Author(s):  
Eva Brems ◽  
Lourdes Peroni ◽  
Ellen Desmet
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Domestic Labour ◽  
The Law ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Refugees And Asylum Seekers

Borders follow migrants even inside the territory of their State of destination. These ‘sticky’ figurative borders may flow directly from immigration norms and practice or indirectly from other areas of law. This Special Issue focuses on the gendered nature of these borders, as they rely on/reinforce socially constructed norms of masculinity and femininity. As a result, these figurative borders undermine the equal enjoyment of human rights of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers along gender lines. Specifically, gendered borders are analysed in relation to the themes of asylum, domestic labour and gender-based violence. The human rights of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in these domains are analysed in an integrated and complex fashion. The analysis demonstrates that migrants, refugees and asylum seekers navigate and challenge not only sticky figurative borders, but also borders between different areas of law. The (non)interaction between these different areas of law may equally create or reinforce unequal human rights protection along gender lines. The law, across different areas and through the workings of diverse categories, definitions and standards, may thus work as a border-reinforcer.

scholarly journals Shackled Liberties, or: How Security Came to Trump Everything Else

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-59
Author(s):  
Jan-Peter Hartung
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Public Security ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Terrorist Threat ◽  
Coercive Measures ◽  
Mass Migration

In this paper, the origins of the “security narrative” in contemporary German political discourse is traced back to the early modern conception of “natural law,” first emphasized by Thomas Hobbes. Underlying this conception is that individuals would – by acknowledgment of their inborn “natural law” – sacrifice their individual liberties for the sake of public security. It is shown that a conception of state based on such a metaphysical premise discounts the existence of any discontent as valid within a society, and allows for top-down coercive measures against anyone who does not buy into this narrative. Those measures, exemplified by political rhetoric in Germany and beyond in the wake of recent mass migration and “terrorist threat,” do quite often impair with even fundamental human rights and appear at odds with the simultaneous claim to represent a liberaldemocratic constitution.

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