The Emergence of Water as a ‘Human Right’ on the World Stage: Challenges and Opportunities

2013 ◽  
pp. 81-94
Keyword(s):  
Human Right ◽  
The World ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities

Religious Freedom in Islam

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Philpott
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The West ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
Public Controversy ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
The World ◽  
Muslim Majority

Is Islam hospitable to religious freedom? The question is at the heart of a public controversy over Islam that has raged in the West over the past decade-and-a-half. Religious freedom is important because it promotes democracy and peace and reduces ills like civil war, terrorism, and violence. Religious freedom also is simply a matter of justice—not an exclusively Western principle but rather a universal human right rooted in human nature. The heart of the book confronts the question of Islam and religious freedom through an empirical examination of Muslim-majority countries. From a satellite view, looking at these countries in the aggregate, the book finds that the Muslim world is far less free than the rest of the world. Zooming in more closely on Muslim-majority countries, though, the picture looks more diverse. Some one-fourth of Muslim-majority countries are in fact religiously free. Among the unfree, 40% are repressive because they are governed by a hostile secularism imported from the West, and the other 60% are Islamist. The emergent picture is both honest and hopeful. Amplifying hope are two chapters that identify “seeds of freedom” in the Islamic tradition and that present the Catholic Church’s long road to religious freedom as a promising model for Islam. Another chapter looks at the Arab Uprisings of 2011, arguing that religious freedom explains much about both their broad failure and their isolated success. The book closes with lessons for expanding religious freedom in the Muslim world and the world at large.

Giving effect to the human right to a clean environment in Botswana

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-39
Author(s):  
Tinashe Madebwe ◽  
Emma Chitsove ◽  
Jimcall Pfumorodze
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Protection ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Environmental Rights ◽  
Environmental Deterioration ◽  
Clean Environment ◽  
The World ◽  
The Right

Environmental deterioration remains a concern in Botswana. Despite efforts being made to address this issue by the state, more needs to be done in this regard. This is particularly interesting in the light of reports that the country is looking to draft a new constitution. Against this backdrop, this article considers whether including environmental rights in Botswana’s constitution would advance environmental protection efforts. To this end, the article relies on experiences with rights drawn from different jurisdictions across the world, as well as commentary on these experiences, to build a tool for measuring the extent to which the turn to environmental rights holds value in a given jurisdiction. Using this tool, and drawing from experiences in looking to establish environmental rights in Botswana, the article measures the extent to which including the right in the constitution would hold value in advancing Botswana’s pursuit of environmental protection objectives.

Understanding ‘Source’ and ‘Purpose’ in Processes of Democratic Change: Insights from the Philippines and Thailand

2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul D. Hutchcroft
Keyword(s):  
Effective Means ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Democratic Change ◽  
The World ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
Formal Establishment

AbstractPrevious decades' celebrations of the triumph of democracy were frequently based on mainstream analyses that displayed two major theoretical problems. First, conceptualisations of democracy based on ‘minimal pre-conditions’ commonly conflated the formal establishment ofdemocratic structureswith the far more complex and historically challenging creation ofsubstantive democracy. Second, a deductive and generally ahistorical model asserting fixed stages of ‘democratic transition’ diverted attention from deeper and more substantive examination ofstruggles for power among social forces within specific historical contexts. By adhering to minimalist conceptions of democracy and simplistic models of democratic change, mainstream analysts quite often chose to overlook many underlying limitations and shortcomings of the democratic structures they were so keen to celebrate. Given more recent concerns over ‘authoritarian undertow’, those with the normative goal of deepening democracy must begin by deepening scholarly conceptualisations of the complex nature of democratic change. This analysis urges attention to the ‘source’ and ‘purpose’ of democracy. What were the goals of those who established democratic structures, and to what extent did these goals correspond to the ideals of democracy? In many cases throughout the world, ‘democracy’ has been used as a convenient and very effective means for both cloaking and legitimising a broad set of political, social, and economic inequalities. The need for deeper analysis is highlighted through attention to the historical character of democratic structures in the Philippines and Thailand, with particular attention to the sources and purposes of ‘democracy’ amid on-going struggles for power among social forces. In both countries, albeit coming forth from very different historical circumstances, democratic structures have been continually undermined by those with little commitment to the democratic ideal: oligarchic dominance in the Philippines, and military/bureaucratic/monarchic dominance in Thailand. Each country possesses its own set of challenges and opportunities for genuine democratic change, as those who seek to undermine elite hegemony and promote popular accountability operate in very different socio-economic and institutional contexts. Efforts to promote substantive democracy in each setting, therefore, must begin with careful historical analysis of the particular challenges that need to be addressed.

Problematizing the Privatization of Water

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha Gamero
Keyword(s):  
Private Sector ◽  
World Bank ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Special Interest Groups ◽  
Trade Policies ◽  
Safe Drinking Water ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The World ◽  
Precious Resource ◽  
The Cost

This presentation will focus on the issue of the privatization of water. The privatization of water is currently being facilitated by the growth of trade liberalization and the free trade policies of international organizations like the IMF and World Bank. It is also growing due to the neoliberal policies of states and because of the increasing power of the private sector (including well- funded lobby and special interest groups) over the policies of governments. The principal arguments and viewpoints of those who both support and oppose the privatization of water will be examined and evaluated. In particular, arguments concerning the cost and accessibility of water for people will be studied. The effects and implications of privatization in highly diverse communities in both developed and developing countries will be discussed. An example from the community of Cochabamba in Bolivia will be analyzed, showing many of the drawbacks that can come with the privatization of water. This presentation will argue that water is a precious resource which ought not to be treated as a commodity. Instead, it should be treated as a human right that no individual or corporation should make a monetary profit from. Governments ought to provide safe drinking water for their citizens, rather than leaving this duty to the private sector as is happening in many parts of the world.

The World in the Process of Change: Challenges and Opportunities for Russia

2011 ◽  
pp. 3-30
Author(s):  
S. Chebanov
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
International Security ◽  
Developing World ◽  
Process Of Change ◽  
Academic Conference ◽  
The World ◽  
90Th Anniversary ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Current Stage

This is a publication of the materials of academic conference “The world in the process of change: challenges and opportunities for Russia” held in April 2011 in IMEMO and chaired by academician A. Dynkin, the Institute’s Director. The conference was dedicated to the 90th anniversary of academician N. Inozemtsev. In their reports the Conference participants analyze the Russian economic and political development at the current stage, the issues of modernization, the problems of the developing world, international security in the XX century, etc.

Share resources through the largest interlibrary loan network

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 137-140
Author(s):  
Gemma Burke ◽  
Erin Duncan ◽  
JL Smither
Keyword(s):  
Resource Sharing ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Interlibrary Loan ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities

Purpose The paper aims to show how using a resource-sharing service can help you provide more resources to your users. Design/methodology/approach This paper discusses interlibrary loan challenges and opportunities, specifically with reference to WorldShare Interlibrary Loan. Findings This paper describes the service that connects libraries to the largest cooperative resource-sharing network with more than 10,000 borrowing and lending libraries worldwide, the possibilities for the future, facts and figures and how libraries around the world have used the solution successfully. Originality/value This paper looks at how WorldShare Interlibrary Loan can help libraries overcome the challenges that they face regarding resource sharing.

scholarly journals Deep solidarity: Broadening the basis of transformation

2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joerg Rieger ◽  
Rosemarie Henkel-Rieger
Keyword(s):  
Job Market ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The World ◽  
New Models ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Race Ethnicity

Across the globe, conditions of labour are worsening, providing both challenges and opportunities. As labour is one of the places where the intersectionality of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class is always at work, new models of resistance are created here as well. Deep solidarity describes what happens when the 99% who have to work for a living (including people who are excluded from the job market) realise what they have in common, in order to employ their differences productively in the struggle. In this article, a theologian and a labour and community organiser work together showing how the Abrahamic religious traditions and developments in the world of labour help us to shape deeper forms of solidarity.

scholarly journals The Organization of Political Violence by Insurgencies

2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Roos Haer
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Probit Model ◽  
Ordered Probit ◽  
Process Theory ◽  
Ordered Probit Model ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Armed Group ◽  
The World ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractA range of theories have attempted to explain the variation in civilian abuse of warring parties. Most of these theories have been focused on the strategic environment in which these acts take place. Less attention is devoted to the perpetrators of these human right abuses themselves: the armed groups. This study tries to fill this niche by using the organizational process theory in which it is assumed that armed groups, like every organization, struggles for survival. The leader tries to ensure the maintenance of her armed group by increasing her control over her troops. The relationship between the level of control and the perpetrated civilian abuse is examined with a new dataset on the internal structure of more than 70 different armed groups around the world. With the help of a Bayesian Ordered Probit model, this new dataset on civilian abuse is analyzed. The results show that especially particular incentives play an important role.

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