The Protective Shields

Author(s):  
Kinda Mohamadieh

This chapter examines the various roles undertaken by civil society organizations (CSOs), or nongovernmental organizations, in the Arab region and their implications for collaboration between CSOs and the United Nations, with particular emphasis on how CSOs figure in policy debates and the human rights movement. CSOs in the Arab region, mainly those working on policy and legislative issues, have been engaged with UN-led processes and conferences since the 1992 Earth Summit, and including the 1995 Summit on Social Development and the 2000 Millennium Summit. However, as some UN agencies, driven by a quest for funding, have moved into programmatic interventions, tensions have sometimes emerged between CSOs and UN agencies when some UN agencies have ended up potentially competing with CSOs for funding or crowding out the space available for CSOs. This chapter first traces the history of CSO-UN interactions in the Arab region before discussing the new challenges and possibilities raised during the period of the Arab uprisings.

Author(s):  
Nivea Ivette Núñez de la Paz E Renate Gierus

Este artigo, embasado em relatos de experiências, quer compartilhar processos educativos vivenciados a partir de duas organizações da sociedade civil - OSCs, o Centro Ecumênico de Capacitação e Assessoria - CECA e o Conselho de Missão entre Povos Indígenas-COMIN, instituições que tem suas sedes localizadas em São Leopoldo/RS. O CECA atua na formação de lideranças estudantis, comunitárias, de movimentos eclesiais e sociais; e o COMIN, com povos indígenas, ambas na promoção de cidadania e direitos humanos. Iniciamos o relato com um breve histórico de cada instituição, seguido da descrição metodológica da experiência, finalizando com uma análise da mesma.This article, based on experience reports, wants to share educational processes experienced based on two civil society organizations - OSCs, Ecumenical Centre for Training and Consultancy - CECA and Council of Mission among Indigenous people - COMIN, institutions that have their headquarters located in São Leopoldo / RS. CECA acts with formation of student leaders, community, ecclesial and social movements; and COMIN with indigenous peoples, both promote citizenship and human rights. We begin this reporting with a brief history of each institution, followed by the methodological description of the experience, ending with an analysis of that experience.


2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 562-567
Author(s):  
Claudio Schuftan

Historically, political elites adopted the idea of human rights if, and only if, it could foster their interests. Today, it is thus public interest civil society organizations, and not states, that are left to contribute most to the protection of and the struggle for human rights. Despite human rights being enshrined in constitutions, nowadays they can primarily be effectively claimed by those with access to the courts and by the press, i.e., those in power. Public interest civil society organizations and social movements are the only ones left to play this crucial role. The need for the global human rights movement to bridge the gap that has opened up between itself and the majority of the public is clear. Communications in the human rights domain simply have to become less legalistic and more hands-on. To claim their rights, those rendered poor need real power. Those who have been left poor and oppressed do not ever get to actively claim their rights. Instead they ask for mercy, expect charity, and seek benefits from benevolent masters.


2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Halili Halili

Civil Society Organizations play a significant role in movement of human rights. CSO's face shifting contemporary challenges, namelY, betrayal against values of human rights and weaknesses of state sovereignty. These new challenges strive for CSO's to conduct some action in two ways: retrospective paradigm and prospective one. In one hand, they should do war against forget in the past viola­tions of human rights. In the other hand, tbey have to respond progressivelY the future challenge of human rights.


AJIL Unbound ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 113 ◽  
pp. 355-359
Author(s):  
Ximena Soley

Since the explosion of the human rights movement in the early 1970s, civil-society organizations have played a key role in the inter-American human rights system (IAS). In the era of dictatorships, they provided the information necessary for the Inter-American Commission to be able to act in the face of uncooperative states. When democracy returned to the region, these organizations grew in number, and their role within the IAS likewise expanded. In particular, a set of organizations that focused on legal strategies and the activation of regional human rights protection mechanisms cropped up. These organizations have, at a more abstract and general level, contributed to the juridification of human rights struggles and ultimately to the creation of a legal field. They have also largely set the agenda of the IAS, although the agenda-setting power has been limited to a small number of organizations that constitute the system's “repeat players.” In a manner befitting their systemic importance, these organizations have tried to make sure the organs of the IAS run smoothly, and to defend them when they come under attack. This essay explores the different roles that human rights NGOs have played in the history of the IAS and suggests that the strategy of increasing juridification that they have pursued since the region's return to democracy might have reached its limits.


2021 ◽  
Vol 287 ◽  
pp. 112277
Author(s):  
Midhun Mohan ◽  
Hayden A. Rue ◽  
Shaurya Bajaj ◽  
G.A. Pabodha Galgamuwa ◽  
Esmaeel Adrah ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Harriet Samuels

Abstract The article investigates the negative attitude towards civil society over the last decade in the United Kingdom and the repercussions for human rights. It considers this in the context of the United Kingdom government’s implementation of the policy of austerity. It reflects on the various policy and legal changes, and the impact on the campaigning and advocacy work of civil society organizations, particularly those that work on social and economic rights.


Author(s):  
Hannah Smidt ◽  
Dominic Perera ◽  
Neil J. Mitchell ◽  
Kristin M. Bakke

Abstract International ‘naming and shaming’ campaigns rely on domestic civil society organizations (CSOs) for information on local human rights conditions. To stop this flow of information, some governments restrict CSOs, for example by limiting their access to funding. Do such restrictions reduce international naming and shaming campaigns that rely on information from domestic CSOs? This article argues that on the one hand, restrictions may reduce CSOs’ ability and motives to monitor local abuses. On the other hand, these organizations may mobilize against restrictions and find new ways of delivering information on human rights violations to international publics. Using a cross-national dataset and in-depth evidence from Egypt, the study finds that low numbers of restrictions trigger shaming by international non-governmental organizations. Yet once governments impose multiple types of restrictions, it becomes harder for CSOs to adapt, resulting in fewer international shaming campaigns.


Author(s):  
Floribert Patrick C. Endong

Many human rights activists and West-based INGOs have entrenched the questionable culture of using pathetic and socially pornographic images to boost their advertising, mobilization and fundraising campaigns aimed at tackling social problems in Africa. The images deployed by these advocacy entities most often function as double edged swords: they do not only capture the wisdom and rhetoric marketed by the campaign organizers but sometimes subtly act as negative symbols or metaphors of the African continent. Many of these visuals as used in posters and ad copies subliminally abjectify Africans, thereby reinforcing the myriad of decades-old myths and stereotypes of the continent and its people – notably abject poverty, famine, illiteracy, and backwardness, among others. This chapter illustrates the above-mentioned thesis through a semiotic analysis of posters and image-based ads recently deployed by some West-based civil society organizations during the Nigeria-born #BringBackOurGirl movement. The chapter specifically illustrates how the visuals and anchorages used in the #BringBackOurGirl posters hyperbolically abjectify and denigrate African people, associating them with old-age stereotypes.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 66-72
Author(s):  
Kate Mah

This paper examines the emergence of civil society in China under the authoritarian system in the last thirty years. It seeks to explore the ways in which an initial, traditional notion of civil society has altered in the context of China, as well as the respective challenges faced by both the organizations and the government in carrying out their goals and governance. The rapid rise of market capitalism, globalization and Chinese economic success in the last forty years to present day has made room for the rise of non-governmental organizations as well as social mobilization and engagement from citizens. This paper suggests that China has been able to accept the emergence of civil society, however, despite these developments, the government has been able to sufficiently suppress civil society from carrying out any objectives of transparency, social justice and accountability. It surveys the history of civil society within the authoritarian state, analyzes the specific government-NGO relations between the Chinese Communist Party and civil society organizations, and reflects upon the implications of the current legal and political framework that Chinese civil society must operate under.


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