Post-genocide Identity Politics in Rwanda and Bosnia and Herzegovina and their Compatibility with International Human Rights Law

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 328-354
Author(s):  
Flávia Saldanha Kroetz
Keyword(s):  
Bosnia And Herzegovina ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Political Interests

Rwanda and Bosnia and Herzegovina were scenarios of large-scale violence throughout the 1990s, substantiated by the manipulation of public and private discourses that denied diversity. After the conflicts, the states were faced with the challenge of addressing not only the consequences of the conflicts but also the constructed narratives behind them. In the two cases, public policies were implemented to elude further violence and strengthen a peaceful and long-term coexistence. Whether based on the rejection of ethnic identity or on the preservation of ethnic and national divides, both countries adopted policies that undermine basic rights and ignore sections of society excluded from official versions of history. Victimization is still a tool for political interests and remains present in public discourses. Irrespective of governmental policies that intend to surpass ancient animosities, divisionism is still present and underpins politics, religion, and social life in Rwanda and in Bosnia.

The Contemporary Significance of International Human Rights Law

2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
THOMAS BUERGENTHAL
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Gradual Loss ◽  
Substantial Progress ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights ◽  
International Human

AbstractJudge Buergenthal argues that the increased acceptance by states of international human rights obligations proclaimed in UN and regional treaties, reinforced by the jurisprudence of international and regional tribunals, accounts for the substantial progress that has been made in the protection of human rights throughout the world. The resultant political significance of international human rights law and the international community's growing expectation of compliance with that law explain why states engaging in large-scale human rights violations increasingly risk serious political and economic consequences for such practices. A state's continuing non-compliance with its international human rights obligations tends also to lead to the gradual loss by its government of the national and international legitimacy it needs in order to govern, which may in time contribute to its fall.

scholarly journals Rwanda’s Post-Genocide Approach to Ethnicity and Its Impact on the Batwa as an Indigenous People: An International Human Rights Law Perspective

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Brett Robert Hartley
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Indigenous Rights ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Term Survival ◽  
International Human ◽  
Building Program

<em>Following the 1994 genocide, Rwanda embarked on a nation-building program designed, inter alia, to create unity by resisting the attribution of minority or ethnic categories within Rwanda. For Batwa, the effect is to render their claims as indigenous mute. This paper critically examines Rwanda’s approach to ethnicity using international human rights as an analytical lens, arguing that Batwa have a legitimate claim as Rwanda’s indigenous people. It concludes that pressure on Rwanda to recognise Batwa indigenous rights will remain unsuccessful and argues that a normative approach, based on alternatives such as descent- and work-based discrimination, may prove effective for ensuring their long-term survival as a marginalised people</em>

THE LIMITATIONS OF A HUMAN RIGHTS APPROACH TO CORRUPTION

2016 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 405-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecily Rose
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
Strong Basis ◽  
Conceptual Clarity ◽  
International Human

AbstractInternational human rights law may serve as a language through which lawyers and others describe the harms resulting from corruption, but this approach has significant limitations as a legal framework. Despite a growing emphasis among scholars and practitioners on a human rights approach to the problem of corruption, this body of law does not provide a strong basis for addressing such conduct. International human rights treaties make no mention of corruption, and human rights treaty bodies have not brought conceptual clarity to the question of how corruption violates or undermines human rights. Given that human rights law binds States alone, it is also ill-suited to a phenomenon that typically occurs at the intersection of the public and private sectors. Even as a language for describing how corruption harms social and economic rights, human rights law has its limitations, some of which come into relief when compared with the field of development economics.

Belligerent Occupation and ITS Discontents: On the Relationship between International Human Rights Law and Belligerent Occupation’s Law

Global Jurist ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Silingardi
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Regulatory Framework ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
International Human ◽  
On The Road ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Too many normative instances, that were originally external to the belligerent occupation’s regulatory framework have settled, over the last decades, into that body of law. I refer, for instance, to the Occupying Powers’ demand to intervene significantly in the economic, political and social life of the occupied territory in the light of the need to conduct populations subject to undemocratic regimes, or in very backward economic conditions, on the road to democracy and economic development; or to the expectations that the Occupying Powers fully implement some core human rights obligations incumbent upon them. However, because of the lack of useful information in the current legal framework of international humanitarian law about the scopes that should legitimately lead the activities of the Occupying Powers, these claims threatens to deprive of legal effect the statement that occupation would not implement any transfer of sovereignty to the occupant (the so called ‘sovereign-based’ approach laid down by Articles 42 and 43 of the Hague IV Regulations). After a brief explanation of the doctrinal foundations of belligerent occupation’s law in the broader picture of the more recent practice of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories (with specific reference to the 2017 Law for the Regulation of Settlement in Judea and Samaria), the Article will focus on the analysis of the relationship between international human rights law (IHRL) and belligerent occupation’s law – in particular by stressing the risks that could arise when an Occupying Power decides to act in order to implement the right to self-determination of the occupied population. The aim is to investigate not only, form a de lege lata perspective, how the more recent practice of Occupying Powers has been influenced by IHRL but also, from a de lege ferenda perspective, to which extent (if any) human rights norms would contribute to fill the gaps and loopholes of the existing regulatory framework on belligerent occupation.

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