Filtered violence: Human rights law, forced displacement and land politics in Colombia

2021 ◽  
pp. 239965442110021
Author(s):  
Max Counter
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Spatial Dynamics ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Forced Displacement ◽  
Displaced Populations ◽  
Land Title ◽  
Land Politics ◽  
Spatial Dimensions ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Land Restitution

How does human rights law arbitrate the spatial dimensions of violence? This paper broaches this question from a “critical geographies of human rights” standpoint to grapple with how human rights law defines the spatial dimensions of the very violence it sets out to confront. Through a focus on Colombia’s 2011 “Victims’ and Land Restitution Law” (the Victims’ Law), I demonstrate how human rights law does not just attempt to ameliorate legacies of violence, but that it circumscribes the spatial valences of violence in particular ways. Colombia has one of the world’s largest displaced populations and since 2011 has managed an extensive restitution program designed to restore land title to conflict victims who lost or sold property due to armed conflict. In this case, human rights law is productive of a “juridical gaze” that illuminates the spatial dynamics of forced displacement in a manner that obscures or only indirectly addresses the relationship between forced displacement and inequality in land ownership. Drawing on contemporary debates concerning the relationship between human rights and neoliberal inequality, I argue that that human rights law produces spatial renderings of violence that reflect the underlying degree to which human rights projects recognize or eschew material inequality and its relationship to violence.

Protecting Natural Resources

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jérémie Gilbert
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Conservation Of Natural Resources ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Do So

This chapter focuses on the connection between the international legal framework governing the conservation of natural resources and human rights law. The objective is to examine the potential synergies between international environmental law and human rights when it comes to the protection of natural resources. To do so, it concentrates on three main areas of potential convergence. It first focuses on the pollution of natural resources and analyses how human rights law offers a potential platform to seek remedies for the victims of pollution. It next concentrates on the conservation of natural resources, particularly on the interconnection between protected areas, biodiversity, and human rights law. Finally, it examines the relationship between climate change and human rights law, focusing on the role that human rights law can play in the development of the current climate change adaptation and mitigation frameworks.

scholarly journals Are Rights Out of Time? International Human Rights Law, Temporality, and Radical Social Change

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 817-838 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn McNeilly
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Change ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Judith Butler ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
The Future ◽  
International Human ◽  
The Relationship

Human rights were a defining discourse of the 20th century. The opening decades of the twenty-first, however, have witnessed increasing claims that the time of this discourse as an emancipatory tool is up. Focusing on international human rights law, I offer a response to these claims. Drawing from Elizabeth Grosz, Drucilla Cornell and Judith Butler, I propose that a productive future for this area of law in facilitating radical social change can be envisaged by considering more closely the relationship between human rights and temporality and by thinking through a conception of rights which is untimely. This involves abandoning commitment to linearity, progression and predictability in understanding international human rights law and its development and viewing such as based on a conception of the future that is unknown and uncontrollable, that does not progressively follow from the present, and that is open to embrace of the new.

scholarly journals The redirection of attacks by defending forces

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Tsvetelina van Benthem
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Law Of Armed Conflict ◽  
The Law ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract This article examines the redirection of incoming missiles when employed by defending forces to whom obligations to take precautions against the effects of attacks apply. The analysis proceeds in four steps. In the first step, the possibility of redirection is examined from an empirical standpoint. Step two defines the contours of the obligation to take precautions against the effects of attacks. Step three considers one variant of redirection, where a missile is redirected back towards the adversary. It is argued that such acts of redirection would fulfil the definition of attack under the law of armed conflict, and that prima facie conflicts of obligations could be avoided through interpretation of the feasibility standard embedded in the obligation to take precautions against the effects of attacks. Finally, step four analyzes acts of redirection against persons under the control of the redirecting State. Analyzing this scenario calls for an inquiry into the relationship between the relevant obligations under international humanitarian law and human rights law.

COVID-19 Border Closures: A Violation of Non-Refoulement Obligations in International Refugee and Human Rights Law?

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-48
Author(s):  
Kate Ogg ◽  
Chanelle Taoi
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Travel ◽  
Legal Analysis ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Refugee Protection ◽  
Travel Restrictions ◽  
Border Policy ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Travel Restriction

Abstract COVID-19 has presented a number of challenges for the international refugee protection regime. An issue that has received little attention is the relationship between states tightening their borders in an effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and their non-refoulement obligations. This raises the question of how international law responds when non-refoulement obligations may conflict with other international human rights such as the rights to life and health. Further, the legal analysis of whether a particular COVID-19 border policy is in violation of non-refoulement obligations must take into account how the travel restriction will be implemented. This article provides an overarching analysis of non-refoulement provisions in international refugee and human rights law and which COVID-19 international travel restrictions may be in breach of these obligations. We examine different types of COVID-19 travel restrictions and argue that many are undoubtedly violations of non-refoulement, but others raise unsettled questions of international law. Nevertheless, there is jurisprudence and scholarship to support the proposition that a state’s non-refoulement obligations can be triggered even in these more contested scenarios.

Title to Territory and JurisdictionThree and a Half Models

2020 ◽  
pp. 159-181
Author(s):  
Lea Raible
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Political Power ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
International Human ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The very term ‘extraterritoriality’ implies that territory is significant. So far, however, my argument focuses on jurisdiction rather than territory. This chapter adds clarifications in this area. It examines the relationship of jurisdiction in international human rights law, whether understood as political power or not, and title to territory in international law. To this end, I start by looking at what international law has to say about jurisdiction as understood in international human rights law, and territory, respectively. The conclusion of the survey is that the two concepts serve different normative purposes, are underpinned by different values, and that they are thus not the same. Accordingly, an account of their relationship should be approached with conceptual care.

14. The law of armed conflict

2019 ◽  
pp. 279-302
Author(s):  
Anders Henriksen
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Law Of Armed Conflict ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter examines those parts of international law that regulate how military operations must be conducted—jus in bello. It begins in Section 14.2 with an overview of the most important legal sources. Section 14.3 discusses when humanitarian law applies and Section 14.4 examines the issue of battlefield status and the distinction between combatants and civilians. Section 14.5 provides an overview of some of the most basic principles governing the conduct of hostilities while Section 14.6 concerns belligerent occupation and Section 14.7. deals with the regulation of non-international armed conflict. Finally, Section 14.8 explores the relationship between international humanitarian law and human rights law in times of armed conflict.

25. International humanitarian law

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandesh Sivakumaran
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
International Human ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Two Bodies

This chapter examines international humanitarian law, the principal body of international law which applies in times of armed conflict, and which seeks to balance the violence inherent in an armed conflict with the dictates of humanity. International humanitarian law protects the civilian population from the ravages of conflict, and establishes limitations on the means and methods of combat. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 2 considers the nature of international humanitarian law and identifies some of its cardinal principles and key rules. Section 3 explores the similarities and differences between international humanitarian law and international human rights law, comparing and contrasting their historical origins and conceptual approaches. Given that international humanitarian law applies during armed conflict, Section 4 considers whether there is a need for international human rights law also to apply. Section 5 ascertains the relationship between the two bodies of law and Section 6 considers some of the difficulties with the application of international human rights law in time of armed conflict.

14. The law of armed conflict

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders Henriksen
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Law Of Armed Conflict ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter examines those parts of international law that regulate how military operations must be conducted — jus in bello. It begins in Section 14.2 with an overview of the most important legal sources. Section 14.3 discusses when humanitarian law applies. Section 14.4 examines the issue of battlefield status and the distinction between combatants and civilians. Section 14.5 provides an overview of some of the most basic principles governing the conduct of hostilities while Section 14.6 deals with the issue of regulation of non-international armed conflict. Finally, Section 14.7 explores the relationship between international humanitarian law and human rights law in times of armed conflict.

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