scholarly journals In Pursuit of Financial Justice: Local African Communities’ Quest for Legal Redress Against Business-Related Human Rights Abuses

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Laila Abdul Latif

Mining corporations in Africa stand accused of violating human rights. This article gives a voice to the plight suffered by local African communities in accessing justice to remedy the violation of their human rights as a result of the business activities of mining corporations. It focuses specifically on the right to access justice in order to ask whether the affected communities get a fair and effective share of financial remedies to mitigate against the violation of their rights to health, clean environment and property. It examines two separate and independent avenues through which local communities access justice and asks which of the two, judicial or non-judicial approaches, guarantee these local communities a right to be heard and a recourse to financial remedies.

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.


2016 ◽  
pp. 1147-1165
Author(s):  
Bogusław Sygit ◽  
Damian Wąsik

The aim of this chapter is describing of the influence of universal human rights and civil liberties on the formation of standards for hospital care. The authors present definition of the right to life and the right to health. Moreover in the section it is discussed modern standards of hospital treatment under the provisions of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality. The authors discuss in detail about selected examples realization of human rights in the treatment of hospital and forms of their violation. During the presentation of these issues, the authors analyze a provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and use a number of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights issued in matters concerning human rights abuses in the course of treatment and hospitalization.


Author(s):  
Zafeiris Tsiftzis

A lot of attention has been paid by the international community to the responsibility of Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) and to the prevention of human rights abuses committed their employees. The non-binding nature of the existing international initiatives with respect to PMSCs requests the human rights law to play a crucial role to the regulation of PMSCs and their employees during operations. This article examines the States' procedural obligation under international human rights law with regard to allegations of the right to life and the prohibition of torture. Moreover, it assesses the application of the jurisprudence of human rights bodies over the activities of PMSCs, whilst it focuses on the obligations of States to prevent and investigate human rights allegations committed by PMSCs' employees. Above all, this article advocates that human rights law has a significant role in the regulation of PMSCs and the prevention of the commission of human rights violations by PMSCs and their employees.


Author(s):  
Dalia Perkumienė ◽  
Rasa Pranskūnienė ◽  
Milita Vienažindienė ◽  
Jurgita Grigienė

The globalization process has yielded various undesirable consequences for the environment and society, including increased environmental pollution, climate change and the exhaustion and destruction of resources. The influence of these processes makes it difficult to guarantee citizens’ rights to a clean environment, and the implementation of this right requires complex solutions. The aim of this integrative review article is to discuss the right to a clean environment, as it relates to green logistics and sustainable tourism, by analyzing various scientific and legal sources. Rethinking the possible solutions of green logistics for sustainable tourism, such as tourism mobilities, bicycle tourism, the co-creation of smart velomobility, walkability, and others, can help us also rethink how to balance, respect, protect, and enforce human rights in the present-day context of climate change challenges. The integrative review analysis shows the importance of seeking a balance between the context (the right to a clean environment), the challenge (climate change), and the solutions (green logistics solutions for sustainable tourism).


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Su Yin Htun

It is universally accepted that everyone has the right to citizenship. Myanmar’s framework on the right to nationality constitutes a unique, exclusive, ethnic citizenship system based on jus sanguinis or the law of blood. Myanmar’s Citizenship Law was enacted in 1982 by repealing the Union Citizenship Act of 1948. As citizenship parameters were changed by the Law, many people in the Kachin, Karen, and Rakhine states lost their nationality rights and consequently suffered human rights abuses. In the Rakhine state, serious communal violence occurred in 2012, 2016, and 2017, and the government declared a state of emergency. This research paper focuses on how Myanmar can adhere to international standards for nationality rights. It provides a historical overview and legal analysis of citizenship laws in Myanmar using a human rights lens and offers suggestions for legal reforms that can help address the problem of statelessness in Myanmar. Specifically, it recommends the use of the jus soli, or the law of the soil, approach to citizenship.


Author(s):  
Bogusław Sygit ◽  
Damian Wąsik

The aim of this chapter is describing of the influence of universal human rights and civil liberties on the formation of standards for hospital care. The authors present definition of the right to life and the right to health. Moreover in the section it is discussed modern standards of hospital treatment under the provisions of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality. The authors discuss in detail about selected examples realization of human rights in the treatment of hospital and forms of their violation. During the presentation of these issues, the authors analyze a provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and use a number of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights issued in matters concerning human rights abuses in the course of treatment and hospitalization.


Author(s):  
Philippa Osim Inyang

The international community has awoken to the reality that transnational corporations (TNCs) do not only control more resources than a good number of states. They wield enormous influence in the corporate world which greatly impacts on local cultures and initiatives. Many of these TNCs, who operate in developing states, engage in activities which frequently result in human rights abuses. Several states rely on the resources extracted by these large corporations as the main stay of their economies. Consequently, they lack the economic capacity and political will to effectively regulate the activities of the TNCs, leaving these entities to perpetrate human rights abuses in the local communities with impunity. Although the Human Rights Council, through the Inter-governmental working group on Business and Human Rights, has begun a treaty process on business and human rights to address these issues, the work of the IGWG, so far, has not adequately responded the root cause of the corporate impunity, which is their unwillingness and inability to hold corporate entities accountable for their harmful activities. Thus, this paper proposes that the issue of direct human rights obligations on corporate entities should be revisited in order to ensure that corporate entities do not escape accountability for human rights harm resulting from their activities.


Author(s):  
Haldemann Frank

Principle 31 deals with rights and duties arising out of the obligation to make reparation. It reflects a significant trend in recent international affairs: the call for ‘reparations’ as a means of ‘correcting’ legacies of serious and widespread human rights abuses. The idea of a general individual right as codified in Principle 31 is consistent with existing international law, but arguably has no strong legal basis. The Principle opens with a strong normative claim: ‘Any human rights violation gives rise to a right to reparation’. This claim is far from self-explanatory and raises a variety of questions about its meaning and foundations, such as the question of what it is to have a right to reparation. After providing a contextual and historical background on Principle 31, this chapter discusses its theoretical framework and highlights some of the legal, and predominantly international practices relevant to the Principle.


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