scholarly journals Ending political abuse of psychiatry: where we are at and what needs to be done

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert van Voren
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
21St Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Treatment Methods ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
The Past ◽  
Individual Human

SummaryThe number of reports of political activists falling victim to the political abuse of psychiatry is increasing. When the USSR first disintegrated, this practice virtually ceased to occur. What came in its place, however, was a disturbing collection of other forms of abuses, including human rights abuses, caused by a lack of resources, outdated treatment methods, a lack of understanding of individual human rights and a growing lack of tolerance in society. The number of cases of political abuse of psychiatry has increased since the 21st century began, particularly over the past few years in Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Corporate Liability Design for Human Rights Abuses: Individual and Entity Liability for Due Diligence

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Global Supply Chains ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
Corporate Liability ◽  
Human Rights Due Diligence ◽  
Individual Human

Abstract In this article, I critically review the economic theory of corporate liability design, focusing on the allocation of liability between a corporation and its individual human agents. I apply this theory to transnational commercial contexts where human rights abuses occur and assess the likely efficacy of some putative liability regimes, including regimes requiring corporations to undertake human rights due diligence throughout their global supply chains. I advance a set of general considerations justifying the efficacy of due diligence in relation to alternative liability regimes. I argue, however, that due diligence regimes will likely under-deter severe human rights abuses unless they are supported by substantial entity-level sanctions and, in at least some cases, by supplementary liability for individual executives. The analysis has significant policy implications for current national and international efforts to enforce human rights norms against corporations.

scholarly journals Transition, Flow, and Divergent Times

2013 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 581-584
Author(s):  
Avinoam Shalem
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Arab World ◽  
The Political ◽  
Global History ◽  
Transition Flow ◽  
Recording Time ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
History Of

The Western academy's growing interest in the contemporary arts in the Arab world illustrates the desire to map “Islam”—problematic as this term is—within the global history of cultures and to integrate it into “Western” models of the writing and documenting of the past. As positive and corrective as these academic approaches may seem, the notion of recording time—that is, writing history—is still firmly bound at the beginning of the 21st century to the idea of continuity, and the pattern of “Western”-centric thinking imposes that notion upon contemporary artists and art historians. Yet the political changes and spontaneous eruptions that the Middle East and North Africa are experiencing, especially since the beginning of 2011, defy and resist conventional interpretations of historical processes and therefore demand a rethinking of the configuration of the past.

Memory and Politics in Democratic Spain

2020 ◽  
pp. 46-61
Author(s):  
Omar G. Encarnación
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
The Political ◽  
Truth Telling ◽  
Franco Regime ◽  
Political Class ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Right

This chapter explains the persistence of Spain’s ‘politics of forgetting’, a phenomenon revealed by the wilful intent to disremember the political memory of the violence of the Spanish Civil War and the human rights abuses of General Franco’s authoritarian regime. Looking beyond the traumas of the Civil War, the limits on transitional justice and truth-telling on the Franco regime imposed by a transition to democracy anchored on intra-elite pacts, and the conciliatory and forward-looking political culture that consolidated in the new democracy, this analysis emphasizes a decidedly less obvious explanation: the political uses of forgetting. Special attention is paid to how the absence of a reckoning with the past, protected politicians from both the right and the left from embarrassing and inconvenient political histories; facilitated the reinvention of the major political parties as democratic institutions; and lessened societal fears about repeating past historical mistakes. The conclusion of the chapter explains how the success of the current democratic regime, shifting public opinion about the past occasioned by greater awareness about the dark policies and legacies of the Franco regime, and generational change among Spain’s political class have in recent years diminished the political uses of forgetting. This, in turn, has allowed for a more honest treatment of the past in Spain’s public policies.

scholarly journals Human rights in the age of digitalization

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-125
Author(s):  
Elena Olegovna Tchinaryan ◽  
Evgeny Sergeevich Kuchenin ◽  
Vladimir Lvovich Slesarev ◽  
Andrey Vladimirovich Ryzhik
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
General Population ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Copyright Protection ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Legal Institutions ◽  
Internet Environment

At the very beginning of the 21st century, some experts agreed that the dispersal of the political and cultural initiative of network societies tends to reduce the unified control over political and cultural activities. This process leads to the accessibility of information to the general population and increases the scale of democratization of society. The accessible Internet environment has had a positive impact on the openness of information; however, it has harmed the protection of users' data. Gerald Cohen, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, who is an expert in intellectual property and copyright protection, recommends considering Internet utopianism through a system of legal values. It is important to note the utopianism that links the Internet network and human independence considering utopianism in the field of anonymity in more detail, as something that harms social institutions. Cohen also outlines the view that existing legal institutions are the basis for protecting human independence, as well as the importance of creating new legal institutions.

scholarly journals Contours of National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights in Central and Eastern Europe

2021 ◽  
pp. 174-186
Author(s):  
Jernej Letnar Černič
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Action Plans ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
The Past ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Wide Range

Central and Eastern Europe has been often overseen in the debates on business and humanrights. Countries in the regions share a common history, experience and culture. Human rights andfundamental freedoms were in the past systematically and generally violated. Since democratisation,countries have suffered from a wide range of related human rights abuses. Corporations in theregions have often directly and indirectly interfered with the human rights of employees and thewider communities. Business and human rights has in the past lagged behind global developmentsalso in the light of the lack of capacity and general deficient human rights situation. This articledescribes and discusses contours of the National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights of theCzech Republic, Poland, Lithuania, Georgia, Ukraine and Slovenia by examining their strengths anddeficiencies. It argues that the field of business and human rights in Central and Eastern Europe hasmade a step forward in the last decade since the adoption of the United Nations Guiding Principleson Business and Human Rights. Nonetheless, human rights should be further translated into practiceto effectively protect human dignity of rights-holders.

scholarly journals Obtaining Damages for Corporate Human Rights Violations in Investment Arbitration Through a Procedural Lens

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasmin S
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Investment ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
International Investment Law ◽  
The Past ◽  
Investment Arbitration ◽  
Violent Acts ◽  
Public Scrutiny ◽  
Investment Law

Over the past decades, transnational corporations have come under increasing public scrutiny for their involvement in human rights abuses, particularly in developing countries. One may think of violent acts against local communities, slave labor, and grand scale environmental pollution. International investment law protects and safeguards the rights of foreign investors but falls short of holding them accountable to societies where they operate. Recently, a few arbitral tribunals have grappled with the question of whether corporations can be held accountable for illegalities that constitute human rights violations inflicted upon the host state or its people. This article discusses the arbitral treatment of corporate human rights violations by investment tribunals in three treaty-based cases: Copper Mesa v. Ecuador, Burlington v. Ecuador and Urbaser v. Argentina and draws on recent scholarly work on causation in investor-state arbitration to evaluate their approaches.

Memory Culture and Memory Policy in Germany – Prerequisites and Critique

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 180-191
Author(s):  
Daniela Decheva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
The Political ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
The Past ◽  
Memory Culture ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Political Consensus ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights ◽  
Basic Prerequisite

The paper analyses the contemporary debate about memory culture and memory policy in Germany which are highly valid for Europe as well. They base on the political consensus that the memory of collective crimes committed in the past, especially of the Holocaust, and the honour to the victims, are a basic prerequisite for the protection of human rights. In the second part of the paper different critical views on the conception and practice of memory culture and memory policy in Germany are discussed.

The Suharto Case

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 214-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiwon Suh
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
National Commission ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
The Past ◽  
Study Team ◽  
Political Capabilities ◽  
The Impact

How could Suharto avoid prosecution for human rights abuses? For a preliminary answer, this paper provides an account of a specific and observable failure: The failure of the Suharto study team, a Komnas-HAM (National Commission of Human Rights) initiative to put the atrocities of the Suharto era on the human rights court track. It begins with prosecutorial approaches toward past abuses and a lack of coordination over transitional justice strategies in Indonesia as the background to Suharto’s non-prosecution. Then, it proceeds to trace the Suharto study team’s life in 2003 until its defeat. The fate of the Suharto team highlights the dilemma of timing between public attention and political capabilities in transitional justice. Five years after Suharto stepped down, legacies from the past prevented progress in the case, while the impact was far from explosive when new commissioners of the Komnas-HAM finally announced the findings of gross violations in 2012.

China's engagement in Africa: scope, significance and consequences

2006 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 459-479 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denis M. Tull
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
African State ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
International Strategy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Attractive Alternative ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
The Past ◽  
Debt Cancellation ◽  
Recent Developments

China's vastly increased involvement in Africa over the past decade is one of the most significant recent developments in the region. It appears to contradict the idea of international marginalisation of Africa and brings significant economic and political consequences. China's Africa interest is part of a recently more active international strategy based on multipolarity and non-intervention. Increased aid, debt cancellation, and a boom in Chinese-African trade, with a strategic Chinese focus on oil, have proven mutually advantageous for China and African state elites. By offering aid without preconditions, China has presented an attractive alternative to conditional Western aid, and gained valuable diplomatic support to defend its international interests. However, a generally asymmetrical relationship differing little from previous African–Western patterns, alongside support of authoritarian governments at the expense of human rights, make the economic consequences of increased Chinese involvement in Africa mixed at best, while the political consequences are bound to prove deleterious.

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