Human rights, migration and regional security

Includes bibliography

Human rights of migrant children and the children of migrants

Includes bibliography

Organized crime as a serious form of violation of human rights: the Protocol to Prevent, Supress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children

Includes bibliography

Trafficking in persons and the human rights of migrants

Includes bibliography

Trafficking in women: connections and disconnections between gender, migration and human rights

Includes bibliography

A virtual contradiction between international migration and human rights

Includes bibliography

Using human rights for sexual and reproductive health: improving legal and regulatory frameworks

This paper describes the development of a tool that uses human rights concepts and methods to improve relevant laws, regulations and policies related to sexual and reproductive health. This tool aims to improve awareness and understanding of States' human rights obligations. It includes a method for systematically examining the status of vulnerable groups, involving non-health sectors, fostering a genuine process of civil society participation and developing recommendations to address regulatory and policy barriers to sexual and reproductive health with a clear assignment of responsibility. Strong leadership from the ministry of health, with support from the World Health Organization or other international partners, and the serious engagement of all involved in this process can strengthen the links between human rights and sexual and reproductive health, and contribute to national achievement of the highest attainable standard of health.

Sex Trafficking of Minors as a Human Rights Issue

The following commentary serves as a response to the article, “Sex Trafficking of Minors in the U.S.: Implications for Policy, Prevention and Research,” drawing the important, though not often mentioned, connection between the sex trafficking of minors and human rights. The commentary argues that child trafficking has been inadequately addressed due to its relative invisibility, a lack of knowledge about human rights, and a lack of discourse about the human rights issues involved in sexual trafficking. As such, in the current day, the recognition that women and girls who are sexually exploited by traffickers are victims has seemingly been forgotten. The commentator commends the authors of “Sex Trafficking of Minors in the U.S.: Implications for Policy, Prevention and Research” for their work to better understand the characteristics of minor sex trafficking victims, which will play an important role in fighting deadly misperceptions about the victims, educating others about this lethal human rights violation, and finding ways to care for those victims who are rescued.

EU trade agreements and their impacts on human rights: study commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)

The European Union’s (EU) trade policy has a strong influence on economic development and the human rights situation in the EU’s partner countries, particularly in developing countries. The present study was commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) as a contribution to further developing appropriate methodologies for assessing human rights risks in development-related policies, an objective set in the BMZ’s 2011 strategy on human rights. The study offers guidance for stakeholders seeking to improve their knowledge of how to assess, both ex ante and ex post, the impact of Economic Partnership Agreements on poverty reduction and the right to food in ACP countries. Currently, human rights impacts are not yet systematically addressed in the trade sustainability impact assessments (trade SIAs) that the European Commission conducts when negotiating trade agreements. Nor do they focus specifically on disadvantaged groups or include other benchmarks relevant to human rights impact assessments (HRIAs). The EU itself has identified a need for action in this regard. In June 2012 it presented an Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy that calls for the inclusion of human rights in all impact assessments and in this context explicitly refers to trade agreements. Since then, the EU has begun to slightly adapt its SIA methodology and is working to define more adequate human rights–consistent procedures. It is hoped that readers of this study will find inspiration to help contribute to this process and help improve human rights consistency of future trade options.

The International Human Rights Policies of New Democracies: Brazil and Chile in Comparative Perspective

Since the beginning of the 1990s, the majority of Latin American states have attempted to incorporate in some way or another human rights concern into their respective foreign policies, highlighting a history of human rights abuses and the return of democratic political rule as a trigger for galvanizing a commitment to assist in preventing such violations in other countries. Yet, while human rights have come to play a non-trivial role in the contemporary foreign policy of many Latin American states, there is great diversity in the ways and the extent to which they go about incorporating human rights concerns into their foreign policies. Explaining the diversity of human rights foreign policies of new Latin American democracies is at the heat of this project. The main research questions are the following: Why do new democracies incorporate human rights into their foreign policies? And what explains the different international human rights policies of new democracies? To answer these questions, this research compares the human rights foreign policies of Chile and Brazil for over two decades starting from their respective transitions to democracy. The study argues that states commitment to international human rights is the result of the intersection of domestic and international influences. At the international level, the search for international legitimacy and the desire for recognition and credibility affected the adoption of international human rights in both cases but with different degrees of impact. International values and pressures by themselves, while necessary, are an insufficient condition for human rights initiatives perceived to have not insubstantial political, economic or strategic costs. New democracies will be more or less likely to actively include human rights in their international policies depending on the following four domestic conditions: political leadership legitimizing the inclusion of human rights into a state's policies, civil society groups connected to international human rights advocacy networks with a capacity to influencing the foreign policy decisions of their government, and the Foreign Ministry's attitudes towards international human rights and the degree of influence it exercises over the outcome of the foreign policy process.

Redefining 'media' using a 'media-as-a-constitutional-component' concept:an evaluation of the need for the European Court of Human Rights to alter its understanding of 'media' within a new media landscape

This paper considers the impact of new media on freedom of expression and media freedom within the context of the European Convention on Human Rights and European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence. Through comparative analysis of US jurisprudence and scholarship, this paper deals with the following three issues. First, it explores the traditional purpose of the media, and how media freedom, as opposed to freedom of expression, has been subject to privileged protection, within an ECHR context at least. Secondly, it considers the emergence of new media, and how it can be differentiated from the traditional media. Finally, it analyses the philosophical justifications for freedom of expression, and how they enable a workable definition of the media based upon the concept of the media-as-a-constitutional-component.

Dynamic nature of human rights: Rawls's critique of moral universalism

Human rights do not represent an absolute truth. Otherwise, they would represent ideology, which is contradictory to the basic idea of human rights itself. Consequently, there is a need for redefinition of the main presuppositions of modern conception of human rights represented in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This paper argues that Rawls's conception of human rights is significant for the refiguration of human rights. It represents the path towards postmodern idea of human rights and the recognition of difference.

Human Rights Violations in Police Custody

Human rights are the basic rights of every individual against the state or any other public authority as a member of the human family irrespective of any other consideration. Thus every individual of the society has the inherent right to be treated with dignity in all situations including arrest and keeping in custody by the police. Rights of an individual in police custody are protected basically by the Indian Constitution and by various other laws like Code of Criminal Procedure, Evidence Act, Indian Penal Code and Protection of Human Rights Act. The term `custody' is defined neither in procedural nor in substantive laws. The word custody means protective care. The expression `police custody' as used in sec. 27 of Evidence Act does not necessarily mean formal arrest. In India with special reference to Kerala and evolution and development of the concept of human rights and various kinds of human rights violations in police custody in different stages of history. Human rights activists and various voluntary organisations reveals that there are so many factors contributing towards the causes of violations of human rights by police. Sociological causes like ambivalent outlook of the society with respect to the use of third degree methods by the police, economic causes like meager salary and inadequate living conditions, rampant corruption in police service, unnecessary political interference in the crime investigation, work load of police personnel without any time limit and periodic holidays, unnecessary pressure from superior police officers and the general public for speedy detection causing great mental strain to the investigating officers, defective system of recruitment and training, imperfect system of investigation and lack of public co-operation are some of the factors identified in the field survey towards the causes of violations of human rights in police custody.

The Assault on Human Rigths and the Resilience of the Andean Dream: Health Inequities in Ecuador. IV Annual Distinguished Lecture sponsored by the Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture and Health; School of Public Health; University of Michigan

The point of departure for these reflections is life, since its protection is the central purpose encouraging the defense of human rights and of public health. Life in the Andes has an exceptional diversity. Particularly in Ecuador, my country, this diversity constitutes a characteristic sign that is expressed in two main forms: natural megadiversity and multiculturalism. Indeed, Ecuador’s small territory synthesizes practically all types of lifezones that exist on Earth, having received the gift of high average rates of solar energy and abundant nutritional sources, which have facilitated the natural reproduction of countless species that show their beautiful vitality in the variety of ecosystems that compose the Andean mountain range, the tropical plains, the Amazon humid forests, and the Galapagos Islands. But besides being a highly biodiverse country, it is also a plurinational and multi-cultural society, in which the activity of human beings, organized into social conglomerates of different historical and cultural backgrounds, have formed more than a dozen nations and peoples. Regrettably this natural and human wealth has not been able to bear its best fruits due to the violent operation of a deep social inequity – unfortunately also one of the highest in the Americas—which conspires against life and is reproduced in national and international inequitable relations. This structural inequity has changed its form throughout the centuries and currently has reached its highest and most perverse level of development.