White Terror and the Discourse of Peace and Reconciliation

2021 ◽  
pp. 89-112
Author(s):  
Kirk A. Denton
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Democratic Society ◽  
National Museum ◽  
Free World ◽  
Martial Law ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Political Contention ◽  
White Terror ◽  
Peace And Reconciliation ◽  
Green Island

Since the lifting of martial law, museums have been established in Taiwan that draw attention to past human rights abuses under the Chiang regime and that promote human rights education. This chapter focusses on two such sites: the Ching-mei Human Rights Culture Park (景美人權文化園區‎) and the Green Island Human Rights Culture Park (綠島人權文化園區‎), as well on efforts to join the two together to form the National Museum of Human Rights (國家人權博物館‎). These sites have been the object of political contention between the DPP and the KMT, but both parties have used them to present Taiwan as a democratic society that respects human rights and is united with the rest of the “free” world.

Documents and Source Material

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Palestinian Territories ◽  
Source Materials ◽  
Israeli Occupation

This section comprises JPS summaries and links to international, Arab, Israeli, and U.S. documents and source materials from the quarter spanning 16 May-15 November 2017. Fifty years of Israeli occupation was the focus of reports by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and Oxfam that documented the ongoing human rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories. Other notable documents include Israeli NGO Gisha and UNSCO reports on the ten-year Gaza siege, Al Jazeera's interactive timeline of the Nakba, and an exchange of letters between the ACLU and U.S. senators on anti-BDS legislation.

Humanitarian Intervention and Non-Ideal Theory

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramon Das
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Ideal Theory ◽  
Military Power ◽  
Moral Integrity ◽  
Philosophical Debate ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Target State ◽  
Target States

This chapter argues that the philosophical debate around humanitarian intervention would be improved if it were less ‘ideal-theoretic’. It identifies two ideal-theoretic assumptions. One, in target states where humanitarian intervention is being considered, there are two distinct and easily identified groups: ‘bad guys’ committing serious human rights abuses, and innocent civilians against whom the abuses are being committed. Two, external to the target state in question, there are suitably qualified ‘good guys’—prospective interveners who possess both the requisite military power and moral integrity. If the assumptions hold, the prospects for successful humanitarian intervention are much greater. As a contrast, some possible non-ideal assumptions are that (i) there are many bad guys in a civil war, and (ii) the good guy intervener is itself supporting some of the bad guys. If these non-ideal assumptions hold, prospects for successful humanitarian intervention are small.

War and the Politics of Ethics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maja Zehfuss
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Ethics Training ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
The World ◽  
Ethics And Politics

Contemporary Western war is represented as enacting the West’s ability and responsibility to help make the world a better place for others, in particular to protect them from oppression and serious human rights abuses. That is, war has become permissible again, indeed even required, as ethical war. At the same time, however, Western war kills and destroys. This creates a paradox: Western war risks killing those it proposes to protect. This book examines how we have responded to this dilemma and challenges the vision of ethical war itself. That is, it explores how the commitment to ethics shapes the practice of war and indeed how practices come, in turn, to shape what is considered ethical in war. The book closely examines particular practices of warfare, such as targeting, the use of cultural knowledge, and ethics training for soldiers. What emerges is that instead of constraining violence, the commitment to ethics enables and enhances it. The book argues that the production of ethical war relies on an impossible but obscured separation between ethics and politics, that is, a problematic politics of ethics, and reflects on the need to make decisions at the limit of ethics.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Tallberg ◽  
Karin Bäckstrand ◽  
Jan Aart Scholte
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
Comprehensive Treatment ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
The Core ◽  
Governance Institutions

Legitimacy is central for the capacity of global governance institutions to address problems such as climate change, trade protectionism, and human rights abuses. However, despite legitimacy’s importance for global governance, its workings remain poorly understood. That is the core concern of this volume, which engages with the overarching question: whether, why, how, and with what consequences global governance institutions gain, sustain, and lose legitimacy. This introductory chapter explains the rationale of the book, introduces its conceptual framework, reviews existing literature, and presents the key themes of the volume. It emphasizes in particular the volume’s sociological approach to legitimacy in global governance, its comparative scope, and its comprehensive treatment of the topic. Moreover, a specific effort is made to explain how each chapter moves beyond existing research in exploring the book’s three themes: (1) sources of legitimacy, (2) processes of legitimation and delegitimation, and (3) consequences of legitimacy.

Is Democracy Exportable?

2019 ◽  
pp. 724-742
Author(s):  
Pierre Salmon
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Regime Change ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Yardstick Competition ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
The People

Among many aspects to the question of whether democracy is exportable, this contribution focuses on the role of the people, understood not as a unitary actor but as a heterogeneous set: the citizens. The people matter, in a different way, both in the countries to which democracy might be exported and in the democratic countries in which the question is about promoting democracy elsewhere. The mechanisms or characteristics involved in the discussion include yardstick competition, differences among citizens in the intensity of their preferences, differences among autocracies regarding intrusion into private life, citizens’ assessments of future regime change, and responsiveness of elected incumbents to the views of minorities. The second part of the contribution explains why promotion of democracy is more likely to work through citizens’ concern with human rights abuses than with regime characteristics.

Corporate Liability Design for Human Rights Abuses: Individual and Entity Liability for Due Diligence

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Global Supply Chains ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
Corporate Liability ◽  
Human Rights Due Diligence ◽  
Individual Human

Abstract In this article, I critically review the economic theory of corporate liability design, focusing on the allocation of liability between a corporation and its individual human agents. I apply this theory to transnational commercial contexts where human rights abuses occur and assess the likely efficacy of some putative liability regimes, including regimes requiring corporations to undertake human rights due diligence throughout their global supply chains. I advance a set of general considerations justifying the efficacy of due diligence in relation to alternative liability regimes. I argue, however, that due diligence regimes will likely under-deter severe human rights abuses unless they are supported by substantial entity-level sanctions and, in at least some cases, by supplementary liability for individual executives. The analysis has significant policy implications for current national and international efforts to enforce human rights norms against corporations.

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