The Socialization of Human Rights and The African Human Rights Action Plan: Issues, Challenges and Opportunities

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Ibironke T. Odumosu-Ayanu ◽  
Obiora C. Okafor ◽  
Sylvia Bawa
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
Multiple Roles ◽  
African Union ◽  
Socialization Processes ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Key Issues

Abstract This article critically analyzes human rights socialization in Africa through the lens of the draft African Human Rights Action Plan (AHRAP). It argues that the AHRAP presents a framework for human rights socialization, and it speaks to human rights socialization in distinctive ways. The article demonstrates that the AHRAP relies on African and international influences and seeks to propagate norms inspired by these influences. It analyzes three key issues from the AHRAP and discusses how those issues shape understanding of continental human rights socialization in Africa. These issues are the multiple roles and positions of the African Union, the identity of actors to whom socialization processes apply or ought to apply, and the nature of norms which are the focus of socialization efforts. The article’s analysis of these issues along with the AHRAP’s reliance on African and other influences reveal a path for human rights socialization in Africa that is both challenging and promising.

Human Rights and Social Policy: Challenges and Opportunities for Social Research and Its Use as Evidence in the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights in Scotland

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Hosie ◽  
Michele Lamb
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
Joint Project ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights ◽  
Collection Phase ◽  
Conceptual Relationship

This article is the result of a joint project conducted by University of Roehampton and the Scottish Human Rights Commission, undertaken between March 2010 and April 2011. The article describes the methodological challenges encountered in the data collection phase of the project and addresses the conceptual relationship between social science and human rights research. It argues that social policy and social sciences research has an important contribution to make in the promotion and protection of human rights and demonstrates the use of the Research in Scotland's National Action Plan for Human Rights, being prepared by the Commission during 2012–13.

A Decade of UNGPs in India: Progressive Policy Shifts, Contested Implementation

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Vasanthi SRINIVASAN ◽  
Parvathy VENKATACHALAM
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
National Guidelines ◽  
Effective Implementation ◽  
Spheres Of Influence ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Policy Shift ◽  
Social Environmental ◽  
Progressive Policy ◽  
Policy Shifts

Abstract The decade of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) coincides with India’s National Voluntary Guidelines on businesses’ social, environmental, and economic responsibilities (NVGs) and the National Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct (NGRBC) – an updated version of the NVGs. Human rights are one of the core principles in both guidelines and they draw upon the ‘Protect–Respect–Remedy’ framework of the UNGPs. The NVGs and NGRBC go beyond the UNGPs by requiring organizations not only to respect human rights, but also to promote them in their spheres of influence. Several factors, however, derailed the implementation of this progressive policy shift. This article explores the challenges in implementation and calls for the multiple actors involved to work together and shape a collaborative action plan for effective implementation of the NGRBC in the next decade. The authors reiterate the need for alternative lenses to frame the responsible business agenda within developing countries through positive obligations.

Presence through absence? Understanding the role of capital in the African Human Rights Action Plan

2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 579-600
Author(s):  
Obiora Chinedu Okafor ◽  
Sanaa Ahmed ◽  
Sylvia Bawa ◽  
Ibironke Odumosu-Ayanu
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
Significant Degree ◽  
Universal Declaration ◽  
Low Income Countries ◽  
Significant Extent ◽  
Global Capital ◽  
Market Practices

AbstractThis study examines the African Human Rights Action Plan (AHRAP) through the lens of Upendra Baxi's germinal theory on the emergence in our time of a ‘trade-related, market-friendly human rights’ (TREMF) thesis that is challenging the specific understandings of ‘people-centric’ human rights that are predicated in the letter and spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDH). Baxi contends, instead, that the dominant strands of the contemporary understandings of human rights are – for the most part – designed to protect the interests of global capital. That said, human rights frameworks in low-income countries need to be studied with a view to what they say and don't say about global capital. Despite its attempt to facilitate a progressive realisation of human rights in Africa, the AHRAP does not rise far enough above the TREMF paradigm to re-locate itself within the UDH one. This is due to the AHRAP not adequately theorising and analysing the role of capital in the (non)realisation of human rights in Africa. By allowing trade and market practices to slip to a significant extent beyond its purview, the AHRAP privileges – to a significant degree – the needs/interests of capital over the human rights of ordinary Africans. That is, the victims of the excesses of capital in Africa are reincarnated in the AHRAP document by the fact of their exclusion from it.

The English Language Learning Progressions (ELLP): Challenge or opportunity?

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 21-37
Author(s):  
Judith Anthony
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Future Research ◽  
English Language Learning ◽  
Learning Progressions ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
Critical Policy Analysis ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Critical Policy

This article provides an overview and critical analysis of The English Language Learning Progressions (ELLP) (Ministry of Education, 2008). Identifying main themes through critical policy analysis, this review seeks to place ELLP in context through a comparison with The English Language Learning Framework: Draft (Ministry of Education, 2005) and English Language Learning Progressions (ELLP ) Pathway Years 1–8 (Ministry of Education, 2020a). Within this review, the structure of ELLP is explored along with key ideas and claims. It is argued that there are both challenges and opportunities in ELLP. Finally, the key issues are summarised and suggestions are made for future research.

Resisting Neoliberalism in Colombia: The Role of Human Rights

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 127-144
Author(s):  
Paul A. Chambers
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Derechos Humanos ◽  
International Image ◽  
The Way

The Colombian government’s noncompliance with the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement’s Labor Action Plan calls into question not only the government’s intentions but also the efficacy of human rights activism and discourse for social resistance to neoliberalism. Colombia has managed to adjust the narrative on human rights and improve its international image, paving the way for U.S. ratification of the free-trade agreement despite the fact that the human rights situation continues to be very serious. Its success in this is due to the way in which the debate on the agreement and human rights was framed—with a very narrow focus on trade unionists’ rights and a discourse that did not link civil and political rights to economic and social rights—and to the ideological affinity between neoliberalism and the dominant liberal discourse on human rights. El incumplimiento del Plan de Acción Laboral por parte del gobierno colombiano, en el marco del TLC con Estados Unidos, pone en tela de juicio no solo las intenciones del gobierno, sino la utilidad y eficacia del activismo y discurso de los derechos humanos para la resistencia social al neoliberalismo. El Estado colombiano ha logrado ajustar la narrativa sobre los derechos humanos y mejorar su imagen internacional, lo que le permitió ser “premiado” con la ratificación del TLC a pesar de que la situación de derechos humanos siguiera siendo grave. Esto se debe a la forma en que se enmarcó el debate sobre el TLC y los derechos humanos—con un enfoque demasiado restringido y un discurso que no integró los derechos civiles y políticos con los derechos económicos y sociales—y a la afinidad ideológica entre el neoliberalismo y el discurso dominante de los derechos humanos.

scholarly journals Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence in Migration and Mobility: Transnational Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Societies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 135
Author(s):  
Marie McAuliffe ◽  
Jenna Blower ◽  
Ana Beduschi
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
International Development ◽  
Digital Technology ◽  
Design Development ◽  
Systemic Risks ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
The Subject ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Migration Systems

Digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in migration and mobility have incrementally expanded over recent years. Iterative approaches to AI deployment experienced a surge during 2020 and into 2021, largely due to COVID-19 forcing greater reliance on advanced digital technology to monitor, inform and respond to the pandemic. This paper critically examines the implications of intensifying digitalization and AI for migration and mobility systems for a post-COVID transnational context. First, it situates digitalization and AI in migration by analyzing its uptake throughout the Migration Cycle. Second, the article evaluates the current challenges and, opportunities to migrants and migration systems brought about by deepening digitalization due to COVID-19, finding that while these expanding technologies can bolster human rights and support international development, potential gains can and are being eroded because of design, development and implementation aspects. Through a critical review of available literature on the subject, this paper argues that recent changes brought about by COVID-19 highlight that computational advances need to incorporate human rights throughout design and development stages, extending well beyond technical feasibility. This also extends beyond tech company references to inclusivity and transparency and requires analysis of systemic risks to migration and mobility regimes arising from advances in AI and related technologies.

scholarly journals Litigating Economic, Social and Cultural Rights against Transnational Corporations in Indonesian Court

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 246
Author(s):  
Iman Prihandono
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Transnational Corporations ◽  
Court Decisions ◽  
Private Business ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Business Contract ◽  
Judicial Remedy ◽  
Private Corporations

States should take appropriate steps to ensure the effectiveness of domestic judicial mechanisms when addressing business-related human rights abuses. These steps may include ways to reduce legal, practical and other relevant barriers that could lead to a denial of access to remedy. To a certain degree, these problems exist in Indonesia’s judicial remedy mechanism. This article examines court decisions in five cases involving Transnational Corporations (TNCs). These decisions are examined to identify challenges and opportunities in bringing a case on ESC rights violations against TNCs. It is found that claim on ESC rights violation may be brought to the court, and the court has jurisdiction to entertain the case. However, of the five cases filed against TNCs, only in one case has the court decided in favour of the plaintiff. Most of the cases were rejected on procedural matters. This situation suggests that it remains burdensome for the victims of ESC rights violations to seek remedy at the court. There are procedural burdens that has to be faced by plaintiff when bringing ESC rights case against corporations, particularly TNCs. Nevertheless, there are new develop-ments in relation with pursuing ESC rights in court. One of the important development is private business contract between the govern-ment and private corporations may be annulled by the court, if the exercise of the contract would violate the government's obligation to fulfil human rights of the citizens

scholarly journals Business and Human Rights in ASEAN: Lessons from the Palm Oil Sector in Malaysia

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 73
Author(s):  
Andika AB. Wahab
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Corporate Culture ◽  
Palm Oil ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Member States ◽  
Oil Companies ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Asean Member ◽  
Guiding Principles

The release of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in 2011 aims to address gaps in human rights governance by setting a standard and corporate culture of respecting human rights. As part of the state responsibility to implement these guiding principles, some member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have already embarked preliminary steps towards establishing their respective National Action Plan on Business and Human rights (NAPBHR), while others are still lag behind. This article describes current development on business and human rights in the region. Drawing from the palm oil sector’s experience in Malaysia, this study aims to provide lessons for ASEAN member states to contemplate when developing their NAPBHR. In this article, I argue that while some large palm oil companies have shown modest progress in realizing their human rights obligation, challenges emerge in many forms including the lack of leadership, collaboration and ambition to steer and scale up industry transformation on human rights across supply chain. Equally important, challenges around certification scheme depict that it is not the only solution in persuading respect to human rights. Meaningful values transfer often overlooked in certification practice resulting in typical "ticking the audit box" exercise without understanding principles behind it. As such, the development of NAPBHR among the ASEAN member states should reflect on these reality and challenges.

scholarly journals Corporate social responsibility and protection of workers’ human rights: the case of Germany

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-270
Author(s):  
Achim Seifert
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Supply Chain ◽  
Supply Chains ◽  
Public Procurement ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
German Law ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights

The following Article analyzes recent developments of German law regarding CSR and the protection of human rights in the production sites of foreign subsidiaries and suppliers of German companies. It gives a brief overview on the National Action Plan of the Federal Government, adopted in 2016, analyzes possibilities of a direct enforcement of human rights violations before German courts and gives a survey on some relevant instruments German law uses to promote the respect of human rights by German companies (e.g. CSR transparency and public procurement law). Finally, the current debate on the adoption of a “Supply Chains Act” is briefly assessed. The author argues that the CSR debate in Germany has reached a crossroad with the Federal Government’s initiative for a “Supply Chains Act” since such Act would probably establish a supply chain due diligence and also a delictual liability of German companies for human rights violations caused by a non-compliance with its statutory duties to control its supply chain. However, the outcome of this ongoing debate still is unclear.

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