scholarly journals Data literacy integration into development agenda. A catalyst to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (3-4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tumuhairwe Goretti Kabatangare
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Strategic Decision ◽  
Digital Data ◽  
Data Literacy ◽  
Internet Infrastructure ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Global Agenda ◽  
Global Government

The ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ (4IR) era characterized by ‘Information Communication Technology’ (ICT) based data literacy with respect to research data collection, documentation, preservation, intellectual protection / control and dissemination is a functional catalyst  in enabling the realization of the SDGs of the United Nations (UN) global agenda on poverty reduction; hunger eradication; safe water accessibility, sustainable energy accessibility; ‘Sustainable Forest Management’ (SFM); climate change resilience; ‘Disaster Risk Reduction’ (DRR); biodiversity conservation and; social and gender equity by 2030. The study, employing a desk bound literature review research design, conceptualized that ‘ICT based digital data literacy’ (dependent variable) can ‘catalyze an enabling of the realization of the SDGs of the United Nations (UN) global agenda’ (independent variable), ‘inherent challenges’ (intervening variable) like poor internet infrastructure, digital data illiteracy and high-power costs among others notwithstanding. Global government ‘Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) are managing voluminous (big) digital data to support strategic decision making, policy implementation and operational optimization (monitoring and evaluation) towards realizing the SDGs. This requires effective competence (literacy) in digital data analytics to facilitate SDGs based data processing thereby enabling global government MDAs to accurately utilize data for policy implementation and decision making towards effectively realizing the SDGs. The study findings recommend a scaling up of digital data literacy and internet infrastructure development as well as power accessibility in especially developing countries among others. 

How Persons with Intellectual Disabilities Are Fighting for Decision-Making Rights

2022 ◽  
Vol 121 (831) ◽  
pp. 30-35
Author(s):  
Chester A. Finn ◽  
Matthew S. Smith ◽  
Michael Ashley Stein
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Intellectual Disability ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Intellectual Disabilities ◽  
Legal Capacity ◽  
Disability Rights ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The United Nations

Paternalistic attitudes about what is in the interests of a person with an intellectual disability have long led to abuses, and are embedded in the guardianship laws still in place in most countries. Self-advocates, who identify as people with intellectual or other disabilities and are committed to demanding their rights and educating others about them, are calling for a new approach. They have found support for reforms in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, adopted by the United Nations in 2006 and since acceded to by 182 countries. By supporting the fundamental right of those with disabilities to make decisions, it has enabled disability rights advocates to successfully challenge legal capacity restrictions and push for “supported decision-making.”

scholarly journals Hard Protection through Soft Courts? Non-Refoulement before the United Nations Treaty Bodies

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-384
Author(s):  
Başak Çalı ◽  
Cathryn Costello ◽  
Stewart Cunningham
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Dimensional Analysis ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
Individual Decision Making ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
European Court ◽  
The United Nations

AbstractThis Article comparatively analyses how the prohibition of refoulement is interpreted by United Nations Treaty Bodies (UNTBs) in their individual decision-making, where we suggest they act as “soft courts.” It asks whether UNTBs break ranks with or follow the interpretations of non-refoulement of the European Court of Human Rights. This investigation is warranted because non-refoulement is the single most salient issue that has attracted individual views from UNTBs since 1990. Moreover, our European focus is warranted as nearly half of the cases concern states that are also parties to the European Convention on Human Rights. Based on a multi-dimensional analysis of non-refoulement across an original dataset of over 500 UNTB non-refoulement cases, decided between 1990–2020, as well as pertinent UNTB General Comments, the Article finds that whilst UNTBs, at times, do adopt a more progressive position than their “harder” regional counterpart, there are also instances where they closely follow the interpretations of the European Court of Human Rights and, on occasion, adopt a more restrictive position. This analysis complicates the view that soft courts are likely to be more progressive interpreters than hard courts. It further shows that variations in the interpretation of non-refoulement in a crowded field of international interpreters present risks for evasion of accountability, whereby domestic authorities in Europe may favor the more convenient interpretation, particularly in environments hostile to non-refoulement.

scholarly journals Canada Should Retain Its Reservation on the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (12) ◽  
pp. 809-812
Author(s):  
Mathieu Dufour ◽  
Thomas Hastings ◽  
Richard O’Reilly
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Psychotic Disorders ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Not Criminally Responsible ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Right

The United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in 2006. When Canada ratified the CRPD, it reserved the right to continue using substitute decision making schemes even if the CRPD was ‘interpreted as requiring their elimination’. This was a prescient decision because the CRPD Committee, which is tasked with overseeing the interpretation and implementation of the CRPD, subsequently opined that all legislation supporting substitute decision making schemes contravene the CRPD and must be revoked. The CRPD Committee insists that every person can make decisions with sufficient support and that if a person lacks capacity to make a decision, we must rely on their ‘will and preferences’. Many international legal scholars have called this interpretation unrealistic. We agree and, in this article, describe how this unrealistic approach would result in extensive harm and suffering for people with severe cognitive or psychotic disorders. The reader should also be aware that the CRPD Committee also calls for the elimination of all mental health acts and the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights for the abandonment of the not criminally responsible (NCR) defence.

scholarly journals Nationality versus Gender? The Administrative Politics of Gender Parity in the United Nations and the Implementation of SCR1325

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Davies
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Peace Operations ◽  
Gender Parity ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract This article will shed light on an under-researched aspect of the implementation of gender policies in the UN Secretariat—the administrative and budgetary committees that establish the staff regulations for civilian personnel. The article will explore how the politics of UN recruitment invokes two primary identities—nationality and gender—and how these conflict with each other. Using demographic analysis of UN civilian staff in peace operations and a micro-case study of an ongoing attempt by the Secretary-General to change the staff rules and regulations to introduce a form of affirmative action to reach gender parity, this article finds that efforts to achieve the representative provisions of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, including through gender parity of civilians in peace operations, are hampered by the primacy of national identity in international organizations as well as by the highly politicized and nation state-driven process of administrative and budgetary decision-making. By focusing on the inner dynamics of decision-making in the United Nations, the article contributes to the literature on international organizations and gender by demonstrating how normative goals can be undermined by competition among member states over internal administrative processes arising from complex principal–agent relationships.

A new United Nations ‘disability’ convention

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Szmukler
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Involuntary Treatment ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
United Nations Convention ◽  
The United Nations

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) presents in a tailored form the rights of such persons. Mental health disabilities are included. While the Convention is most welcome, it is hugely challenging when it comes to involuntary treatment. Important authorities have interpreted it as excluding all forms of ‘substitute decision-making’. The Convention demands ‘respect for the rights, will and preferences’ of persons with disabilities. This chapter examines the meaning of ‘will’ and of ‘preference’. A problem arises when a person’s currently expressed ‘preference’ (or desire or wish) diverges from the person’s ‘will’ (taken to mean a person’s relatively enduring and deeply held value commitments). Both cannot be respected at the same time. Which should have precedence? The method of ‘interpretation’ discussed in Chapter 7 allows such a determination to be made, and aligns the ‘fusion law’ proposal with the objectives of the Convention.

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