scholarly journals From Silence to Radical Politics: Ethics, Affect and Becoming-disobedient

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippa Page
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Radical Politics ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
New Public ◽  
Do So

This article seeks to map out the notion of disobedience as it is conceptualised and practiced by the recently formed Argentine collective “Historias Desobedientes. Hijas, hijos y familiares de genocidas por la memoria, la verdad y la justicia” and its eponymous Chilean counterpart. To do so, it explores the published writings and artistic expressions of some of the collective’s members, as well as citing recent ethnographic work with some of the women who have publicly broken this “family mandate” by openly condemning their own fathers’ crimes against humanity. The analysis aims to better understand the complex interactions between ethics, affect and politics in these disobedient becomings. The article takes a comparative, transnational approach. By exploring dialogues that have been opened up between the Argentine collective and disobedient women located in Chile and Germany respectively, it asks what has enabled the emergence of these new public actors within the local sphere of human rights activism decades after the dictatorships ended? It considers not only how the Historias Desobedientes have been shaped by local human rights struggles, but also the ways in which they offer their own contours to the increasingly intersectional and transnational agenda. Particular attention is paid to the seminal influence of contemporary, intersectional feminism in articulating this specific praxis of disobedience as a non-violent challenge, not only to the resurgent discourses of reconciliation, impunity and/or denial, but furthermore to the long-embedded patriarchal and capitalist structures underpinning them.

scholarly journals ON THE COMPLEXITIES OF PROSECUTING ROBERT MUGABE AT THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Everisto Benyera
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
The World ◽  
The Hague ◽  
Robert Mugabe ◽  
Do So

One of the most desired actions by human rights activists the world over is to see Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe brought to The Hague to answer to allegations of genocide and crimes against humanity committed during his more than three decades in office. This desire notwithstanding, there are both legal and practical imperatives that render his prosecution highly improbable judging by the failed attempts to do so by various organisations. This article is a contribution to the debate on the fate of heads of states accused of genocide and crimes against humanity by focusing on the complexities surrounding the various attempts at having Mugabe brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC). The conclusion reached is that, no matter how desirable, the prosecution of Mugabe at the ICC, or any other court of law, is a distant reality due to various reasons outlined in the article. 

“As Slow as a Tortoise, and as Clever as a Hare.” Folktales as Lessons on Democracy, Equal Opportunities, and Human Rights among the Ndebele

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindiwe Ndlovu ◽  
Faith Sibanda
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Developing World ◽  
Equal Opportunities ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Animal Community ◽  
Do So

Indigenous African societies have, for a long time, been using their knowledge for the betterment of their lives. They have also demonstrated an ability to manipulate their immediate or remote surroundings to live sustainably. Those who claim to fight for equal and human rights in Africa do so under the misconception that they, and the developing world, have historically and inherently violated, and continue to violate, human rights in numerous ways. While this might not be completely dismissed, there is a plethora of evidence from African folktales to demonstrate that Africans have not only respected human rights, but have also encouraged equal opportunities for every member of their society. This article cross-examines Ndebele folktales with the intention of demonstrating that African indigenous knowledge exhibited through folktales was a well-organised system, which ensured respect for human rights for all members, regardless of their physical or social stature. Central to this discussion are the folktales which focus on the role played by the vulnerable members of the animal community, who replicate their human counterparts. Folktales are unarguably a creation by the indigenes and emanate from their socio-political experiences, as well as their observations of the surroundings. This suggests that indigenous people already had an idea about human rights as well as the need for equal opportunities since time immemorial. 

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.

The Challenge of Sustaining Peace

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Necla Tschirgi ◽  
Cedric de Coning
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Original Design ◽  
Entire Spectrum ◽  
The World ◽  
Effective Instrument ◽  
International Peacebuilding ◽  
Do So

While demand for international peacebuilding assistance increases around the world, the UN’s Peacebuilding Architecture (PBA) remains a relatively weak player, for many reasons: its original design, uneasy relations between the Peacebuilding Commission and Security Council, turf battles within the UN system, and how UN peacebuilding is funded. This chapter examines the PBA’s operations since 2005, against the evolution of the peacebuilding field, and discusses how the PBA can be a more effective instrument in the UN’s new “sustaining peace” approach. To do so, it would have to become the intergovernmental anchor for that approach, without undermining the intent that “sustaining peace” be a system-wide responsibility, encompassing the entire spectrum of UN activities in peace, security, development, and human rights.

State Violence, Justice, And The Suffering Of Others

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Sandrine Sanos
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
French Writer ◽  
Painful Experience ◽  
Tzvetan Todorov ◽  
Nazi Camps ◽  
Do So

In 1955, Alain Resnais's now canonical documentary, Nuit et Brouillard (Night and Fog) ended with an ominous question, asking “who, among us, is keeping watch from this strange watchtower [of the ruins of Auschwitz] to warn of the arrival of our new executioners” who might bring about the return of the “concentrationary plague?” One man had already made it his mission to do so: the French writer and former political deportee David Rousset. Rousset had shaken the French world of letters and politics with the 1946 publication of L'univers concentrationnaire (The Concentrationary Universe), which warned of the civilizational and moral cesura that the Nazi camps had been. The term quickly became a widely used conceptual framework. Former deportee and Catholic writer Jean Cayrol borrowed from it to write his voice-over to Night and Fog. In 1949, Rousset published another text that created a scandal in Cold War France: an Appeal to “fellow deportees” calling upon them to “investigate the USSR's concentrationary universe” (Kuby, 46). This indictment fiercely divided the French left. In 1950, he brought a libel suit against another former deportee, communist writer Pierre Daix, who had accused him of amnesiac “apoliticism” (Kuby, 65–6; Dean, 61). Just before, in the wake of his Appeal, Rousset had founded an organization against concentrationary regimes with those, like him, who had been political deportees. In 1951, it put the Soviet Union on trial for crimes against humanity. Rousset and his organization were involved in many trials, eager to denounce the “new executioners” who had revived the “scourge of the camps” in the postwar world. For many today, he is an “exceptional” man because, as philosopher and critic Tzvetan Todorov argues, he was not paralyzed by the memory of “this painful experience”; instead, he harnessed it into action against dehumanizing state violence. For Todorov, Rousset had allowed morality to prevail over base political considerations.

Simoncioni v. Germany

2015 ◽  
Vol 109 (2) ◽  
pp. 400-406
Author(s):  
Riccardo Pavoni
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Sovereign Immunity ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
Compensation Claims ◽  
The Right ◽  
Right Of Access

With Judgment No. 238/2014, the Italian Constitutional Court (hereinafter Court) quashed the Italian legislation setting out the obligation to comply with the sections of the 2012 decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in Jurisdictional Immunities of the State (Germany v. Italy; Greece intervening) (Jurisdictional Immunities or Germany v. Italy) that uphold the rule of sovereign immunity with respect to compensation claims in Italian courts based on grave breaches of human rights, including—in the first place—the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Court found the legislation to be incompatible with Articles 2 and 24 of the Italian Constitution, which secure the protection of inviolable human rights and the right of access to justice (operative paras. 1, 2).

THE WIDENING GYRE: COUNTER-TERRORISM, HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE RULE OF LAW

2008 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur Chaskalson
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The Internet ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Counter Terrorism ◽  
Daunting Task ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Google Search ◽  
Is Value ◽  
Do So

There are two themes that recur in previous Sir David Williams lectures. First, that it is a considerable honour to be invited to give the lecture. Secondly, that it is a daunting task to do so in the presence of Sir David, particularly in a field in which he has expertise. Since that covers most of the law there is no escape from this dilemma. Let me then acknowledge the privilege of having been asked to give this year's lecture, and confess that it is with some trepidation that I do so. The subject, terrorism and human rights, is not exactly uncharted territory. When I looked into the internet for some guidance on what might be relevant to terrorism and human rights, the response to my Google search informed me that in .03 seconds 32,900,000 references had been found. This seemed to indicate that it was unlikely that I would be able to say anything that has not already been said. But there are some subjects that are of such importance that there is value in reminding ourselves of the issues that are at stake, and if necessary for that purpose, repeating what others have said. And it is with that in mind that I approach my chosen topic.

The Human Rights Obligations of un Peacekeepers

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 431-450
Author(s):  
Conor Foley
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Single Case ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Disciplinary Action ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Right To Life ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
The Right ◽  
Do So

Over 100,000 un peacekeeping personnel are deployed on missions with authority from the Security Council, under Chapter vii of the un Charter, to use force to protect civilians. Nevertheless, they have repeatedly failed to do so and yet there does not appear to be a single case where the un has taken disciplinary action against senior staff for failing to act in line with a mission mandate in this regard. This article argues that the ´positive´ and ´negative´ obligations of international human rights law, protecting the right to life and physical integrity, provide the most appropriate guidance to the tactical use of force by un peacekeeping soldiers. Mechanisms also need to be created to improve the accountability of un missions to those that they are responsible for protecting.

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