Trafficking in human beings and Foucauldian biopower : A case study in the expansion of the human rights phenomenon

Trafficking in human beings has become one of the most talked about criminal concerns of the 21st century. But this is not all that it has become. Trafficking has also been declared as one of the most pressing human rights issues of our time. In this sense, it has become a part of the expansion of the human rights phenomenon. Although it is easy to see that the crime of trafficking violates several of the human rights of its victims, it is still, in its essence, a fairly conventional although particularly heinous and often transnational crime, consisting of acts between private actors, and lacking, therefore, the vertical effect associated traditionally with human rights violations. This thesis asks, then, why, and how, has the anti-trafficking campaign been translated in human rights language. And even more fundamentally: in light of the critical, theoretical studies surrounding the expansion of the human rights phenomenon, especially that of Costas Douzinas, who has declared that we have come to the end of human rights as a consequence of the expansion and bureaucratization of the phenomenon, can human rights actually bring salvation to the victims of trafficking? The thesis demonstrates that the translation process of the anti-trafficking campaign into human rights language has been a complicated process involving various actors, including scholars, feminist NGOs, local activists and global human rights NGOs. It has also been driven by a complicated web of interests, the most prevalent one the sincere will to help the victims having become entangled with other aims, such as political, economical, and structural goals. As a consequence of its fragmented background, the human rights approach to trafficking seeks still its final form, consisting of several different claims. After an assessment of these claims from a legal perspective, this thesis concludes that the approach is most relevant regarding the mistreatment of victims of trafficking in the hands of state authorities. It seems to be quite common that authorities have trouble identifying the victims of trafficking, which means that the rights granted to themin international and national documents are not realized in practice, but victims of trafficking are systematically deported as illegal immigrants. It is argued that in order to understand the measures of the authorities, and to assess the usefulness of human rights, it is necessary to adopt a Foucauldian perspective and to observe the measures as biopolitical defence mechanisms. From a biopolitical perspective, the victims of trafficking can be seen as a threat to the population a threat that must be eliminated either by assimilating them to the main population with the help of disciplinary techniques, or by excluding them completely from the society. This biopolitical aim is accomplished through an impenetrable net of seemingly insignificant practices and discourses that not even the participants are aware of. As a result of these practices and discourses, trafficking victims only very few of fit the myth of the perfect victim, produced by biopolitical discourses become invisible and therefore subject to deportation as (risky) illegal immigrants, turning them into bare life in the Agambenian sense, represented by the homo sacer, who cannot be sacrificed, yet does not enjoy the protection of the society and its laws. It is argued, following Jacques Rancière and Slavoj i ek, that human rights can, through their universality and formal equality, provide bare life the tools to formulate political claims and therefore utilize their politicization through their exclusion to return to the sphere of power and politics. Even though human rights have inevitably become entangled with biopolitical practices, they are still perhaps the most efficient way to challenge biopower. Human rights have not, therefore, become useless for the victims of trafficking, but they must be conceived as a universal tool to formulate political claims and challenge power .In the case of trafficking this means that human rights must be utilized to constantly renegotiate the borders of the problematic concept of victim of trafficking created by international instruments, policies and discourses, including those that are sincerely aimed to provide help for the victims.

First and second law thermodynamic analysis of air and oxy-steam biomass gasification

Gasification is an energy transformation process in which solid fuel undergoes thermochemical conversion to produce gaseous fuel, and the two most important criteria involved in such process to evaluate the performance, economics and sustainability of the technology are: the total available energy (exergy) and the energy conserved (energy efficiency). Current study focuses on the energy and exergy analysis of the oxy-steam gasification and comparing with air gasification to optimize the H-2 yield, efficiency and syngas energy density. Casuarina wood is used as a fuel, and mixture of oxygen and steam in different proportion and amount is used as a gasifying media. The results are analysed with respect to varying equivalence ratio and steam to biomass ratio (SBR). Elemental mass balance technique is employed to ensure the validity of results. First and second law thermodynamic analysis is used towards time evaluation of energy and exergy analysis. Different component of energy input and output has been studied carefully to understand the influence of varying SBR on the availability of energy and irreversibility in the system to minimize the losses with change in input parameters for optimum performance. The energy and exergy losses (irreversibility) for oxy-steam gasification system are compared with the results of air gasification, and losses are found to be lower in oxy-steam thermal conversion; which has been argued and reasoned due to the presence of N-2 in the air-gasification. The maximum exergy efficiency of 85% with energy efficiency of 82% is achieved at SBR of 0.75 on the molar basis. It has been observed that increase in SBR results in lower exergy and energy efficiency, and it is argued to be due to the high energy input in steam generation and subsequent losses in the form of physical exergy of steam in the product gas, which alone accounts for over 18% in exergy input and 8.5% in exergy of product gas at SBR of 2.7. Carbon boundary point (CBP), is identified at the SBR of 1.5, and water gas shift (WGS) reaction plays a crucial role in H-2 enrichment after carbon boundary point (CBP) is reached. Effects of SBR and CBP on the H-2/CO ratio is analysed and discussed from the perspective of energy as well as the reaction chemistry. Energy density of syngas and energy efficiency is favoured at lower SBR but higher SBR favours H-2 rich gas at the expense of efficiency. Copyright (C) 2014, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

HIV/AIDS and national security

McInnes, C., 'HIV/AIDS and national security', in: AIDS and Governance, N. Poku, A. Whiteside and B. Sandkjaer (eds.),(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), pp.93-111 RAE2008

Cross-Border Environmental Governance and EC Law

This article examines the nature and scope of emerging cross-border participatory rights under European Community environmental law. It reviews the legal and political forces that have stimulated the development of such rights and also the specific nature of the rights conferred by three major legislative initiatives: the Community Directives on Environmental Impact Assessment, Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control, and the Water Framework Directive. The article concludes with a case study on Ireland which assesses the likely significance of these cross-border participatory rights for transboundary environmental governance in Ireland.

Book Review: Critical Perspectives on Human Rights and Disability Law

Book Review

Doping, sport and the law: time for repeal of prohibition?

This article concerns the legal issues that surround the prohibition of doping in sport. The current policy on the use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) in sport is underpinned by both a paternalistic desire to protect athletes’ health and the long-term integrity or ‘spirit’ of sport. The policy is put into administrative effect globally by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which provides the regulatory and legal framework through which the vast majority of international sports federations harmonise their anti-doping programmes. On outlining briefly both the broad administrative structures of international sport’s various anti-doping mechanisms, and specific legal issues that arise in disciplinary hearings involving athletes accused of doping, this article questions the sustainability of the current ‘zero tolerance’ approach, arguing, by way of analogy to the wider societal debate on the criminalisation of drugs, and as informed by Sunstein and Thaler’s theory of libertarian paternalism, that current policy on anti-doping has failed. Moreover, rather than the extant moral and punitive panic regarding doping in sport, this article, drawing respectively on Seddon’s and Simon’s work on the history of drugs and crime control mentality, contends that, as an alternative, harm reductionist measures should be promoted, including consideration of the medically supervised use of certain PEDs.

Promoting Dignity for All: Human Rights Approaches in the Post-2015 Climate Change, Disaster Risk Reduction and Sustainable Development Frameworks

This article takes as its starting point the potentially negative human rights implications that the effects of climate change, disasters and development practices can have on individuals and communities. It argues that key international instruments, including the post-2015 successors to the Kyoto Protocol, Hyogo Framework for Action on disaster risk reduction and the Millennium Development Goals, appear to be moving towards an express acknowledgment of the relevance of international human rights law as an important mechanism to minimise potential harms that may arise. This raises the question as to the appropriate role of the UN human rights monitoring and accountability mechanisms in identifying the relevant rights-holders and duty-bearers. The article therefore provides an examination of the linkages between climate change and international human rights law, as well as discussion of the human rights considerations and accountability mechanisms for disasters and sustainable development. The article concludes by arguing that despite differential understandings between disciplines as to the meaning of key terms such as ‘vulnerability’ and ‘resilience’, international human rights law provides a comprehensive basis for promoting international and national accountability. It follows that a greater level of coordination and coherence between the human rights approaches of the various post-2015 legal and policy frameworks is warranted as a means of promoting the dignity of those most affected by climate change, disasters and developmental activities.

New governance for higher education institutions:prospects for female university careers and equality law

This paper analyses the reforms in employment conditions at German public universities from the 1990s to the 2000s, considering how these impact on practical equal opportunities between women and men. It concludes that while the so called "new governance" in universities would have offered opportunities to integrate positive measures to increase female participation in research and teaching, these opportunities were missed in most German states.

Comparative International Human Rights Law

This chapter locates of international human rights in current discussion of comparative international law, and distinguishes comparative international human rights law from both the 'fragmentation' literature, and from comparative constitutional rights discourse.

Democracy, cosmopolitanism and national identity in a ‘globalising’ world

Broadly globalising processes have been in train for centuries, but contemporary discourse about globalisation is here located within a specific historical context, particularly characterised by new forms of communications and the pressures on states produced by the decline of Keynesianism and the end of the Cold War. Coincident changes also led to a growing interest in national identities, marked not least by the founding of this journal in 1999. Globalisation, a series of processes rather than a single force, has a range of effects on states, nations and national identities, including accommodation and adaptation as well as resistance. Indeed, globalising forces, such as democratisation, are shown to require nation-building. Attempts to impose order on international society through cosmopolitan devices are arguably more inimical to national identities. As with nations, cosmopolitanism involves an imagined community. Because this necessarily exists outside time, the building of a sense of trust and commonality across people and territory is however more challenging. Without popular ownership, it is argued, cosmopolitanism is often more likely to appear a threat than a boon. Building a global civil society, or indeed local democracies, is also unlikely when so many societies still lack local versions anchored in some form of national identity.

ADR in aviation: European and national perspectives

The air transport sector generates the largest share of cross-border consumer complaints, as a proportion of complaints received by the ECC-Net. Since the foundation of the ECC-Net in 2005, air passenger claims have made up around one fifth of the total caseload most years. A pan-European framework of bodies that handle consumer to business disputes will be implemented through the consumer ADR directive.4 Taking these developments into consideration, the aviation industry is an interesting sector to study. This paper looks at dispute resolution for air passengers in the United Kingdom (UK) and Germany, as well as at European level.