GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

The Human Rights Revolution

Has the Iraq war fatally undermined the concept of "humanitarian intervention" aimed at stopping human rights abuses? Have the trials of Slobodan Milosevic and Charles Taylor discredited international criminal tribunals? Is universal jurisdiction legal?

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Guilty Democrats

Ma Jian Series: Human Rights

2010-01-25

The Chinese government's imprisonment of the writer Liu Xiaobo is a blatant attempt to criminalize democratic thought, and the real criminal in this case is, of course, the Chinese state. But the world’s democracies are guilty as well, for they appear to have lost their willingness to stand up for their beliefs.... read

Comments: 7 Recommended: 2 Read: 1757

Spanish Leadership for Europe’s Roma

George Soros Series: Human Rights

2009-12-31

Continued discrimination against Roma in Europe not only violates human dignity, but is a major social problem crippling the development of Eastern European countries with large Roma populations. Spain, which has been more successful in dealing with its Roma problem than other countries, can take the lead this month as it assumes the EU presidency.... read

Comments: 1 Recommended: 1 Read: 4032

Afghanistan’s Customary Anguish

Carol Mann Series: Human Rights

2009-12-22

When the problems riddling Afghan society are listed – violence, insecurity, corruption, religious fundamentalism – one dominating factor is usually left out: the influence of customary law. But Afghanistan cannot begin to solve its many problems until it criminalizes the privatized violence of this antiquated code.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 2408

The Anti-Hunger Imperative

Jose Manuel Barroso Series: Human Rights

2009-11-11

There are plenty of summits to choose from this year, but the World Summit on Food Security deserves not to be lost in the crowd. This meeting in Rome from November 16-18 provides badly needed political momentum to three linked issues that rank among the most challenging of the current era: food security, biodiversity, and climate change.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 1 Read: 4186

Hope for the Roma

George Soros and James D. Wolfensohn Series: Human Rights

2009-11-02

Hated, alienated, and shunned, the Roma have for too long been easy and defenseless targets for Europe's disgruntled racists, with violent attacks escalating in recent months. Only through much stronger efforts can European countries break the nexus of poverty and educational deprivation that traps too many Roma – and leaves them vulnerable to unspeakable abuse.... read

Comments: 1 Recommended: 0 Read: 6108

Lepers No More

Yohei Sasakawa Series: Human Rights

2009-10-29

TOKYO – Earlier this month, Father Damien was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in Rome. This religious and spiritual ceremony is an opportunity to reflect on Father Damien’s life and the lives of those with whom he is most closely associated – people affected by leprosy. ... read

Comments: 1 Recommended: 0 Read: 3421

Accounting for Gaza

Mary Robinson Series: Human Rights

2009-09-28

The UN HUman Rights Council has focused in recent years so intently – even exclusively – on Israel's treatment of the Palestinians that many accuse it of anti-Israel bias. Let us hope that, when the Council this week examines Judge Richard Goldstone's report on human rights violations by both Israel and Hamas during the Gaza conflict earlier this year, it proceeds fairly.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 3805

Treating Al-Qaeda

Bernard Haykel Series: Human Rights

2009-09-24

Al-Qaeda’s leadership, beliefs, and ideology are rooted in Saudi Arabia, but the organization has been all but crushed in the Kingdom by the government carrot-and-stick policies. The attempted assassination in Jeddah last month of Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, the deputy interior minister for security affairs, demonstrates both elements of the Saudi strategy.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 3163

Central Europe’s Misguided War on Drugs

Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch Series: Human Rights

2009-08-24

Throughout the former Soviet bloc, there is a disturbing trend in using outdated, conservative, and heavy-handed policies to address drug abuse. This approach is not only inhumane, but also economically untenable: leaders in these countries should be encouraged to redirect scarce law enforcement, court, and prison resources towards more pressing causes. ... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 5000

Ban Ki-moon’s Hushed Power	Stephen Schlesinger
Ban Ki-moon, who has just marked the half-way point in his five-year term as UN Secretary-General, has so far not been able to attract a large worldwide audience for his activities, for stylistic and other reasons, and also because of the vagaries of UN diplomacy. Nevertheless, in his own quiet way, Ban has accomplished much over the past 30 months.... read

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Guilty Democrats

Ma Jian Series: Human Rights

2010-01-25

Comments: 7 Recommended: 2 Read: 1757

What’s Wrong with Ethnic Profiling?

James A. Goldston Series: Human Rights

2009-06-24

Following the terrorist attacks in the US in 2001, and in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005, police across Europe began using ethnic stereotypes in deciding to stop, search, and detain people. Such practices express contempt for the values on which the EU is based, and a new study shows that they are also remarkably inefficient in addressing the threat of terrorism.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 6880

At Home in Guantánamo Bay

Oybek Jamoldinivich Jabbarov Series: Human Rights

2009-04-30

President Barack Obama has promised to close the US prison at Guantánamo Bay within a year. But dozens of innocent detainees, like the author, have nowhere to go, because they face torture and abuse in their home countries.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 7333

Affirmative Action for Europe

Heleen Mees and Rick van der Ploeg Series: Human Rights

2005-12-02

The violence in France, fueled by staggering unemployment and ruthless policing, reflects the utter failure of the French model of social integration. But violence elsewhere in Europe, such as the London bombings of July and the brutal murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh on the streets of Amsterdam in November 2004, had already made Europe’s failure to integrate its minorities painfully clear.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 23561

Coming Out in Africa

G. Pascal Zachary Series: Human Rights

2004-03-23

The lead story in a recent issue of the Daily Graphic, Ghana's most influential newspaper, was designed to shock: "Four Gay Men Jailed." Homosexual acts are crimes in Ghana - and across much of sub-Saharan Africa.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 22650

Poppy Power

Emma Bonino Series: Human Rights

2006-01-23

This month, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on Afghanistan that could pave the way for a new and more open-minded approach to counter-narcotics strategies worldwide. In fact, the resolution calls on the participants at a conference of donors, to take place in London at the end of January, “to take into consideration the proposal of licensed production of opium for medical purposes, as already granted to a number of countries.” ... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 20525

The Bush Repression

Aryeh Neier Series: Human Rights

2006-01-09

How will President George W. Bush’s administration be remembered historically? After five years in office, and with another three years to go, some answers are already apparent. Others are emerging gradually. The latter category includes an increasing assault on civil liberties within the United States that now compares to that of Richard Nixon’s administration more than thirty years ago. ... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 19994

Stem Cell Obscurantism

Emma Bonino and Marco Cappato Series: Human Rights

2005-06-06

On May 19, a group of Korean scientists published in the magazine Science the results of research that for the first time isolated human embryonic stem cell lines specifically tailored to match the DNA of male and female patients of various ages. The next day, British scientists at Newcastle University announced that they had successfully produced a cloned human embryo using donated eggs and genetic material from stem cells.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 19500

Turkey, Armenia, and the Burden of Memory

Charles Tannock Series: Human Rights

2005-04-19

All wars end, eventually. But memories of atrocity never seem to fade, as the government-fanned anti-Japanese riots now taking place in China remind us. The 90th anniversary of the Armenian massacres of 1915, ordered by the ruling Young Turks of the Ottoman Empire and carried out with the help of the Kurds, is another wound that will not heal, but one that must be treated if Turkey’s progress toward European Union membership is to proceed smoothly.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 19109

Down With Human Rights

David Rieff Series: Human Rights

2005-09-21

The relationship between the United Nations and the human-rights movement has always been ambiguous. On the one hand, human-rights ideology – and it is an ideology, every bit as much as Communism was or neo-liberalism is today – is profoundly legalist, claiming legitimacy from treaties and other international and national instruments. These include, as “first among equals,” the UN’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The modern human-rights movement was born out of the UN, and in many ways it has never entirely left home.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 19079

The Morality of Capital Punishment

Gary S. Becker Series: Human Rights

2006-04-28

The US is often criticized for its refusal to abolish capital punishment. Many now claim that abolition of capital punishment is a precondition of a civilized criminal-law system. Nobel laureate Gary Becker disagrees.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 19052

The Intervention Syndrome

Marek Antoni Nowicki Series: Human Rights

2005-10-11

Kosovo is often held up as a test case for the concept of “humanitarian” intervention. But as Iraq spirals into chaos, diplomats and leaders everywhere are again asking themselves if it is ever appropriate for alliances of nations or the international community as a whole to intervene when a sovereign country appears unable or unwilling to defend its citizens from genocide, war crimes, or ethnic cleansing.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 18927

Can Terrorism Be Cured?	Steven Metz
Terrorism is likely to define the year 2006 as much as it has ever year since 2001. Years from now, historians will likely label the opening years of the twenty-first century the “Age of Terrorism.” As with any new era, we do not yet fully understand what is happening and why. While most of the world recognizes the problem, there are very different views on its causes and cures.... read
The Immigration Game	Tito Boeri
Green Papers, as they are called in Europe, or White Papers, as they are known in America and Britain, are often mere rhetorical essays – government-backed studies that state broad principles unlikely ever to be applied in practice. The recent Green Paper released by the European Commission on international migration is no exception.... read

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