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11. Tunisia–The Imprisonment of Fahem Boukadous (Part One of a series)

Author:
Rob Prince
Publication Date:
10-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
To most Americans with the exception of those few who, for whatever reason, have an attachment to the North African country of Tunisia, the name Fahem Boukadous, foreign to American ears, means nothing. It means a good deal more to "Reporters Without Borders” and to the US State Department that actually issued a statement (half way down the page) on his behalf, to the US intelligence agencies and military that have carefully followed the Spring, 2008 uprising in the Tunisian region of Gafsa–deemed the most extensive and militant social protest in that country's history in the past quarter century.
Topic:
Human Rights, Human Welfare, and Torture
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, America, Arabia, North Africa, and Tunisia

12. Human Rights Education in Peace-building: A Look at Where the Practice Has Come from, and Where It Needs to Head

Author:
Tracey Holland
Publication Date:
12-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
The world's peace-building and development organizations increasingly are incorporating human-rights frameworks into the myriad of activities now under their purview. Slower to develop, however, are the capacity-building programs designed to impart knowledge about human rights to citizens and communities. Field-workers throughout the world indicate that the lack of such guidance-giving education hinders them when it comes to monitoring activities, helping to rebuild public institutions, setting up and organizing electoral politics, building an unfettered media, protecting human security, setting up transitional justice mechanisms, and the myriad of other peace-building activities and democratization challenges they face in post-conflict situations. This paper not only explores this emerging field of the study and practice of human-rights education within the cross-national peace-building sphere by sharing the perspectives of educators around the world, but also considers a host of ideas that should help to advance the human-rights agendas of present and future post-conflict planners.
Topic:
Security, Development, Human Rights, Human Welfare, International Law, Peace Studies, and Peacekeeping

13. Customary Law and Human Rights in Botswana

Author:
Rekha A. Kumar
Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
The right of indigenous people to have customary law accommodated within the communities they live is an integral part of Botswana legal system. How far traditional cultures protect the well-being of their people would illuminate the foundation of human dignity on which human rights protection stands in a country. The revelations may not be affirmative always, however. In Botswana the Constitution places a prominent status on custom in a range of contexts. The core of personal law is very much the domain of customary law. It is of particular significance for women's rights. In its application it reinforces the social order by determining the obligations of men, women and children, their entitlement to resources, property ownership, marriage and divorce. It formulates such matters as the status of widows, child custody and inheritance. In the absence of a guarantee that equality between men and women takes precedence over custom, traditional practices that discriminate against women may be lawful in some circumstances. There are a number of regional and international human rights instruments ratified by Botswana. The Government has assumed an obligation to ensure that at all its levels of administration basic rights of the people will be respected and protected. How far these legally bind Botswana in its domestic application of customary law is a legitimate question not clearly settled so far.
Topic:
Human Rights, Human Welfare, and Law
Political Geography:
Africa

14. The Responsibility to Protect: Three Pillars and Four Crimes

Author:
Heraldo Muñoz
Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
The adoption of the concept of “Responsibility to Protect” (RtoP) by the Heads of State and Government in the September 2005 United Nations World Summit was a historic landmark which has generated great attention as a potentially powerful instrument to impede humanitarian tragedies. Yet much has been missing, or misinterpreted, in the public discussion of this emerging norm. Some fear that RtoP could be abused by powerful countries to intervene in developing nations alleging altruistic motives, while others believe that RtoP is already a rule of customary international law that should be applied unconditionally and without delay in the face of any humanitarian crisis in the world. To make it workable in real life, the concept must be saved from friends and foes by narrowing its focus and turning RtoP as operational as possible so as to effectively implement it, in line with what global leaders decided in 2005.
Topic:
Government, Human Rights, and United Nations

15. Darfur: In Search of Peace

Author:
George Shepherd and Peter Van Arsdale
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
Darfur is located in the Western part of Sudan and borders Libya to the north, and Chad and CentralAfrican Republic to the West. It had an estimated population of seven million (prior to refugee and IDPdisplacements), representing more than 70 tribes, and is potentially rich in natural resources includingoil, copper, and uranium, as well as reservoirs of subsurface "Pleistocene water."
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Civil War, Human Rights, Human Welfare, Humanitarian Aid, Poverty, and War
Political Geography:
Africa and Libya

16. Intent: Ius In Bello Norms in Just War Theory The Case of the War in Gaza in 2009

Author:
Howard Adelman
Publication Date:
02-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
“I am sure they (the IDF soldiers) committed this crime.” I read these words just after I had finished the first draft of this paper on 1 February 2009. Oakland Ross, the Toronto Star journalist, was quoting Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish who had trained at the Soroka hospital in Beersheba and the Tel Hashomer hospital in Tel Aviv. The interview was held at the latter Israeli hospital where another daughter was being treated for her injuries after the IDF opened the Ezer crossing to Gaza in a rare exception and allowed a Palestinian ambulance to meet up with an Israeli ambulance so the injured child could be transferred by IDF helicopter to the hospital. Dr. Abu al-Aish, a gynaecologist at Gaza's main Shifa Hospital, was a peace activist; his children attended peace camps with Israeli children. During the war, he had been heard frequently on Israel's Channel 10 TV station reporting in fluent Hebrew by cell phone via his friend, the Israeli journalist, Shlomi Eldar, to Israelis on the health problems resulting from the war that he had been witnessing in Gaza from his top floor apartment of a five-storey apartment building on Salahadin Street at the corner of Zino Rd. in Jebaliya just north of Gaza City. On Friday, 16 January 2009 less than 36 hours before the ceasefire went into effect in Gaza on Sunday, 18 January 2009, he was on the air when two shells from an Israeli tank parked a block away ploughed through his apartment and killed three of his daughters. 22-year-old Bisan, 15-year-old Mayer, 14-year old Ayan, and his 14-year-old niece, Nour Abu al- Aish.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Human Rights, and War
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Arabia, and Gaza

17. Repression and Punishment in North Korea: Survey Evidence of Prison Camp Experiences

Author:
Stephan Haggard
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
The penal system has played a central role in the North Korean government's response to the country's profound economic and social changes. Two refugee surveys—one conducted in China, one in South Korea—document its changing role. The regime disproportionately targets politically suspect groups, particularly those involved in market-oriented economic activities. Levels of violence and deprivation do not appear to differ substantially between the infamous political prison camps, penitentiaries for felons, and labor camps used to incarcerate individuals for misdemeanors, including economic crimes. Substantial numbers of those incarcerated report experiencing deprivation with respect to food as well as public executions and other forms of violence. This repression appears to work; despite substantial cynicism about the North Korean system, refugees do not report signs of collective action aimed at confronting the regime.
Topic:
Corruption, Human Rights, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
China, South Korea, and North Korea

18. A Human Rights-Oriented Approach to Military Operations

Author:
Federico Sperotto
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
Counterinsurgency is the dominant aspect of US operations in Afghanistan, and since ISAF—the NATO-led security and assistance force—has assumed growing security responsibility throughout the country, it is also a mission for the Europeans. The frame in which military operations are conducted is irregular warfare, a form of conflict which differs from conventional operations in two main aspects. First, it is warfare among and within the people. Second, it is warfare in which insurgents avoid a direct military confrontation, using instead unconventional methods and terrorist tactics.
Topic:
Human Rights, Human Welfare, War, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and Asia

19. The International Security Presence in Kosovo and the Protection of Human Rights

Author:
Federico Sperotto
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
On March 11th, 2000, two children who were playing in the neighborhoods of Mitrovica, Kosovo, got hurt by an “unexploded ordnance”. One of them died in the explosion, the other was severely injured. An inquire clarified that the ordnance was a “bomblet”, a part of a cluster bomb dropped during the 1999 NATO air campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Topic:
Security, Human Rights, Human Welfare, International Cooperation, and International Law
Political Geography:
Kosovo, Yugoslavia, and Balkans

20. Can Historical Institutionalism Resolve the Limits of the 'Many Hands' Dilemma?: Institutional Accountability through the EU's and the IMF's Codes of Conduct

Author:
Sarah Bania-Dobyns
Publication Date:
08-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
This paper argues that because institutions are different from individuals, we need different ethics in order to address the unique ethical risks associated with them. In particular, institutions run into unique ethical problems when no one individual is clearly responsible for an institutional outcome, what many scholars have called the “many hands” dilemma. The traditional approach to resolving such dilemmas has nevertheless been to attribute responsibility to individuals, either as persons or as agents. Since the traditional approach sets limits on the kinds of institutional ethical dilemmas that can be resolved, I turn to historical institutionalism (HI) in order to focus instead on the level of the institution as a step towards the case for holding international institutions accountable as institutions. HI can draw attention away from the detailed actions of individuals inside an institution, instead focusing attention on the evolutionary nature of the institution, making it difficult to change institutional practices. Based on this claim, in the second part I discuss two examples of institutions' accountability structures and guidelines, the EU Code of Good Administrative Behaviour and the IMF Code of Conduct for Staff. By considering three different factors (location of the Code within the governance structure of the institution, relations with a public according to the Codes and language in the Codes), my objective is to show how these Codes illustrate the limitations of the traditional approach to the “many hands” dilemma. I close with a discussion of how this argument makes space for further research on institutional accountability.
Topic:
Human Rights, Human Welfare, and International Organization