The Tamil Issue in India–Sri Lanka Relationships: Priorities and Interests

More than 25 years of ethnic war in Sri Lanka ended in 2009. Expressing ‘serious concerns’ on human rights situation in post-civil war Sri Lanka, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has adopted critical resolutions. The eighth such resolution was adopted in March 2021. India abstained for the second time from voting on a resolution against Sri Lanka at the UNHRC since 2014. In 2012 and 2013, India voted in favour of resolutions that have been critical of Sri Lanka. This article, examines shift in India’s approach towards the Tamil issue in Sri Lanka.

The Necessity for Revisiting Direct Corporate Human Rights Obligations in the Current Business and Human Rights Treaty Process

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.

Universal periodic review as a migration desecuritization instrument

For the last decades, it was observed that the migration subject was addressed as a security issue due to a social construction proposed by the state that sees immigrants as a threat to security, in which they are subconsciously considered as “the other”. Thus, migration issues started to be analyzed under the security bias, which resulted in the topic being securitized instead of politicized and discussed by all sectors of society and under the human rights scope. In 2006 the United Nations Human Rights Council created the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism, which allows all UN member states to have their human rights situations reviewed every four years and a half. In this respect, the paper aims at presenting how the UPR mechanism may be a tool to desecuritize the migration subject by using Spain as a study case, which is the country that receives more recommendations about migrants among all UN member states. Therefore, the research focuses on a comprehensive evaluation of documents on Spain outcomes in the first two UPR cycles, in order to identify the main recommendations about the migration subject and to understand the interventions related to Spain's position on accepting or not such recommendations. The purpose here is to check the effectiveness of the UPR as a tool that may contribute to the desecuritization of the migration subject under the human rights perspective. The research focuses on a review of documents and bibliographic references, with a qualitative approach and exploratory nature. The initial result points out that the interactive discussion promoted by the UPR mechanism can help support to desecuritize the migrant issue.

The State in the Complex Networks of the UN Human Rights Council

Having developed into a political and ideological concept since the 1990s, global governance has evolved as a priority of the European Union. Although the EU promotes the idea of state decentralization within global governance at the UN, in the EU itself the state is paramount. This article examines the structure of the complex networks of the UN Human Rights Council. The scholarly problem of the article is the contradiction between the key decision-making role of the state in the HRC and increasingly complex social networks of the UN system. The Council is structured in a way that ensures the active participation of transnational corporations, NGOs, and EU supranational institutions in its agenda. Does this hypothetically mean that the role of the state in the UN system and in international affairs is declining? The focus of this article is on the ties between states, NGOs, and international organizations in the UN Human Rights Council. These ties suggest that the state is included in complex networks and enhances their sustainment.

Gaps in Corporate Liability

Fact-finding is a fundamental step in providing documentation that can be used in domestic and international proceedings. The United Nations establishes commissions of inquiry to investigate international law violations, often in contexts of armed conflict, under the mandate of the Human Rights Council or other more political organs of the UN. They vary in mandate, as well as in investigative and geographic scope. However, to this day, fact-finding mechanisms or inquiry commissions have only rarely conducted investigations into corporate crimes, even in cases where the UN has explicitly recognized the part played by economic actors in armed conflicts. Because corporations are not subjects of international law, they are presumed not to have any direct obligations under international law. Moreover, the mandates of fact-finding missions de facto exclude corporations from investigations because such mandates are always designed to investigate international law violations. By voluntarily dismissing any investigation of corporate crimes, the UN is significantly limiting prospects for corporate responsibility and impeding the process of transitional justice.

Unilateral coercive measures, IHL and impartial humanitarian action: An interview with Alena Douhan

Alena Douhan is the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the Negative Impact of Unilateral Coercive Measures on the Enjoyment of Human Rights. She was appointed to this position by the UN Human Rights Council in March 2020. As the mandate holder, she works with both States and UN organs and seeks to prevent, minimize and redress the adverse impacts of unilateral coercive measures on human rights. Ms Douhan is also a Professor of International Law at the Belarusian State University, Director of the Peace Research Center, and President of the Belarusian branch of the International Law Association.