scholarly journals The Soldiers of Songbun: Militarization, Human Rights Abuse and Childhood Experiences of North Korean Youth

Author(s):  
Peter Steele

North Korea is an enigma. The United Nations (UN) states that it is “…without parallel in the contemporary world …” in terms of abuse, exploitation and lack of civil rights. No other rogue state commands the attention and mystique as the isolated nation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Despite an increasingly prevalent international front, including warming relations with South Korea and the threat of nuclear weapons, everyday citizens remain hidden. Public displays of Olympic cheerleaders or the admittance of “K-Pop” stars across the Korean Demilitarization Zone (DMZ) distract from the widespread human rights abuses and public indoctrination that is second nature in the country. But this is no surprise; In the DPRK, the leader is above all else. While marginalized groups in other countries may be granted a voice by international organizations, the vulnerable in North Korea are obscured in the shadow of the great leader’s actions.

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 111 ◽  
pp. 193-195
Author(s):  
Elspeth Guild

Fleur Johns' thesis about the increasing role of data in the verification of the condition of the world and how this impacts on international law is stimulating and bears reflection. This is an extremely interesting and innovative approach to the issue of data and its role in state engagement with mass migration. From the perspective of a scholar on international refugee law, a number of issues arise as a result of the analysis. One of the contested aspects of mass migration and refugee protection is the inherent inconsistency between two ways of thinking about human rights—the first is the duty of (some) international organizations to protect human rights in a manner which elides human rights and humanitarian law, and the second is the right of the individual to dignity, the basis of all human rights according to the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1949. The first enhances the claims of states to sovereign right to control their borders (mediated through some international organizations), while the second recognizes the international human rights duties of states and international organizations to respect the dignity of people as individuals (including refugees). Fleur is completely correct that human rights abuses are at the core of refugee movements. While there are always many people in a country who will stay and fight human rights abuses even when this results in their sacrifice, others will flee danger trying to get themselves and their families to places of safety; we are not all heroes. Yet, when people flee in more than very small numbers, state authorities have a tendency to begin the language of mass migration. The right to be a refugee becomes buried under the threat of mass migration to the detriment of international obligations. Insofar as mass migration is a matter for management, the right of a refugee is an individual right to international protection which states have bound themselves to offer.


2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 717-745 ◽  
Author(s):  
THOMAS POGGE

Various human rights are widely recognized in codified and customary international law. These human rights promise all human beings protection against specific severe harms that might be inflicted on them domestically or by foreigners. Yet international law also establishes and maintains institutional structures that greatly contribute to violations of these human rights: fundamental components of international law systematically obstruct the aspirations of poor populations for democratic self-government, civil rights, and minimal economic sufficiency. And central international organizations, such as the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank, are designed so that they systematically contribute to the persistence of severe poverty.


Author(s):  
Foday Yarbou

AbstractThe conflict between Jammu and Kashmir has acquired a multifaceted character. On one hand, the conflict involves national and territorial contestations between India and Pakistan, and on the other, it entails different kinds of human rights abuses and various political demands by religious, linguistic, regional, and ethnic groups in both parts. This article aims to portrait the images and human rights abuses meted on the people of Jammu and Kashmir. It also urges and pleads to India and Pakistan and all those countries who are taking part directly or indirectly in the territorial disputes or conflict in the region of Jammu and Kashmir to end the conflict. Human rights abuse such as torture, rape, sexual harassment, murder, and unnecessary killings of the people of this region were all condemned by the author of this article. He further requests the international community such as the United Nation to take a bold step in settling the conflict in that region by passing an effective resolution at the international level that will put an end to the conflict. In this article, the author uses a qualitative research method to explore different journals and write up of scholars in finding tangible solutions to the conflict in Jammu and Kashmir. The author also uses a theoretical explanation in the article. The result of this article intends to see that all the main concerning points raised in this write-up are fully considered and implemented by the United Nation in bringing peace and stability in the region of Jammu and Kashmir. Conflict in this region has become a worrying issue in the international community and the necessary steps should be taken to bring it to halt.


The Drone Age ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 195-233
Author(s):  
Michael J. Boyle

Chapter 7 argues that drones will enable international organizations, NGOs, and advocacy groups to monitor human rights abuses, deliver relief, and pressure governments for change. Small surveillance drones are ideally suited for taking on the “dull, dirty, and dangerous” jobs that are needed in these situations. In the future, drones will be able to transport and drop food and medicine in response to crises in places where humanitarian organizations are reluctant to send their own personnel. Drones will ultimately give these actors another tool with which they can monitor events on the ground and possibly shame governments into stronger action. But drones may also increase the ambitions of IOs/NGOs to intensify the pace of humanitarian relief and social change, even if doing so is unsustainable.


2017 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam R. Bell ◽  
K. Chad Clay ◽  
Amanda Murdie

Which countries are likely to be ignored for their human rights abuses? This article focuses on one particular way that cases of human rights abuse might be overlooked by human rights organizations (HROs): the relative visibility of the state’s abusiveness vis-à-vis its geographic and social peers. HROs are more likely to target abusive states that are located in regions with more HRO resources and/or are surrounded by states that demonstrate higher respect for human rights, as these abuses will stand out much more clearly. Further, human rights treaties can be used by abusive states as a form of strategic “social camouflage,” with states trying to minimize the risk of HRO attention by ratifying human rights treaties to look more like their rights-respecting peers. Using a cross-national time-series research design, this article finds much support for the argument: abusive states that “join the chorus” avoid HRO attention.


Jurnal HAM ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 35
Author(s):  
Oki Wahju Budijanto

AbstrakPenghayat Kepercayaan masih mengalami diskriminasi, khususnya dalam penghormatan hak-hak sipilnya. Hal ini berakar dari “perbedaan” yang lahir dari pengakuan negara atas agama dan perlakuan berbeda kepada “agama” dan “kepercayaan”. Pada Pemerintahan Joko Widodo-Jusuf Kalla salah satu agenda prioritas adalah memprioritaskan perlindungan terhadap anak, perempuan dan kelompok masyarakat termajinalkan, serta penghormatan HAM dan penyelesaian secara berkeadilan terhadap kasus-kasus pelanggaran HAM pada masa lalu menjadi momentum tepat untuk penegakan HAMnya. Pertannyaannya, implementasi penghormatan Hak Asasi Manusia bagi penghayat kepercayaan di Kota Bandung. Tulisan yang didasarkan pada penelitian bersifat deskriptif analisis dengan pendekatan yuridis normatif pada tataran implementasi (khususnya Kota Bandung), para penghayat kepercayaan tidak mengalami kendala dalam memperoleh layanan kependudukan dan catatan sipil. Namun demikian masih terdapat penolakan masyarakat umum terhadap pemakaman bagi para penghayat kepercayaan di tempat pemakaman umum. Penolakan ini tentu bertentangan dengan Pasal 8 ayat (2) Peraturan Bersama Menteri Dalam Negeri dan Menteri Kebudayaan dan Pariwisata Nomor 43 Tahun 2009 dan Nomor 41 Tahun 2009 tentang Pedoman Pelayanan Kepada Penghayat Kepercayaan Kepada Tuhan Yang Maha Esa, maka pemerintah daerah menyediakan pemakaman umum.Kata Kunci: Penghormatan HAM, Hak-Hak Sipil, Penghayat KepercayaanAbstractBelief adherent still experience discrimination, expecialy respect of their civil rights. it is rooted in the “difference” is born from the recognition of the state of religion and different treatment to “religion” and “belief”. In Government Joko Widodo-Jusuf Kalla which one of the priority agenda is to prioritize the protection of children, women and marginalized groups of society, as well as respect for human rights and equitable settlement of the cases of human rights violations in the past an appropriate moment to better provide the respect of human rights.This paper based of research which is descriptive analysis with normative juridical approach in terms of implementation (particularly the city of Bandung), the seeker of confidence not having problems in obtaining settlement services and civil records. However, there is still a general public rejection of the funeral for the seeker of confidence in the public cemetery. This rejection against to Article 8 (2) Joint Regulation of the Minister of Home Affairs and Minister of Culture and Tourism No. 43 of 2009 and No. 41 of 2009 on Guidelines for Care To Belief adherent in God Almighty, the local government provides the public cemetery.Keywords: Respect of Human Rights, Civil Rights, Belief Adherent


Author(s):  
Mahmood Monshipouri

Given the systematic threats facing humanity, there is an urgent need for new thinking about the human rights project. The most prevalent form of global abuse exists in the form of violence against women and children. Sexual violence has been considered the most pervasive, yet least recognized human rights, abuse in the world. Equally prevalent among the modern sources of threats to physical integrity rights are the pervasive practice of torture and the issue of poverty and the threats it poses to human dignity and human rights. Individual civil-political rights and the rights of minorities, including women, ethnic and religious minorities, and indigenous people have been protected at times and violated at other times by states. Moreover, some observers argue that group rights should be properly understood as an extension of the already recognized collective rights to self-determination of people. But this broad spectrum of human rights violations can be organized into two categories: domestic and international. The domestic sources include both local and national sources of human rights abuses, and international sources entail international and global dimensions. These analyses are interconnected and reinforcing, but they can be contradictory at times. Understanding such complex interrelations is a necessary condition for describing factors and processes leading to abuses. In an applied sense, this understanding is essential for suggesting how we should proceed with the protection of basic human rights. Although there is agreement on the most pressing problems of human suffering, there is no consensus over the answers.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Arturo Zysman Quirós

Latin America has neither suffered the majority of mass atrocities in the contemporary world nor the worst of them but, after a sustained period of transition to democracy, it holds the record for the most domestic trials for human rights abuses. Argentina is an emblematic case in Latin America and the world. Due to the early development of its human rights trials, their social impact and their scale, it has a leading role in what is known as ‘the justice cascade’. Until recently, leading scholars in sociology of punishment have studied the penality of ‘ordinary crimes’ through causally deep and global narratives largely from the perspective of the Global North. State crimes and regional paths of transitional justice have been neglected in their accounts. This paper will question this state of affairs – or ‘parallelism’ – through an exploration of the punishment of both ‘common crimes’ and ‘state crimes’ in Argentina, thus contributing to the growing body of scholarship on southern criminology.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-102
Author(s):  
Silas Udenze ◽  
Barth Oshionebo ◽  
Stanislaus O. Iyorza

This study explores how four Nigerian newspapers framed President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration and its human rights campaign. Using newspaper editorials published in The Punch, The Nation, Daily Trust, and Vanguard newspapers of December 2019 as the object of analysis, the paper draws on the methodological context of such framing to investigate how the selected newspapers framed the human rights situation in Nigeria. This study asserts that those newspapers’ editorials used varieties of framing methods, namely: “unrepentant dictator frame”, “resistance frame”, “indifference frame”, “warning frame”, and “sympathetic” frame to portray the government’s disposition to human rights issues. Furthermore, the paper reveals that the Nigerian media is partisan when it comes to the struggle against human rights while their positions on national issues like the fight against human rights abuse are subject to ethnic and political influences, as evident in the Daily Trust editorial. The study also revealed that editorials can be used as essential tools to curtail the excess of government, precisely, to fight against the abuse of human rights. Finally, the paper recommends that newspaper publishers should limit their editorial influences in day-to-day administration of news outlet to engender objectivity, news balance and accuracy in order not to exacerbate the socio-political situation in a multi-ethnic society such as Nigeria.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document