Search

Begin New Search Topic Human Rights Political Geography Global Focus

211. State-Sponsored Homophobia (2008)

Author:
Daniel Ottosson
Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
ILGA World (International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association)
Abstract:
Every year, ILGA World publishes its State-Sponsored Homophobia report, a world survey of sexual orientation laws. Since its first edition, back in 2006, ILGA World’s State-Sponsored Homophobia has been a fundamental resource for those interested in accessing the core information on legislation affecting people on the basis of their sexual orientation. Not only human rights defenders, but also civil society organisations, governmental and United Nations agencies, allies and media worldwide value the publication as one of the main sources of information on the issue. The publication is accompanied by a series of maps and charts illustrating where criminalisation, protection and recognition laws exist.
Topic:
Human Rights, Law, LGBT+, and Homophobia
Political Geography:
Global Focus

212. Exploring Universal Rights: A Symposium

Author:
Jamie Mayerfeld, Henry Shue, Jack Donnelly, Kok-Chor Tan, Charles Beitz, and Brooke A. Ackerly
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Human Rights and Human Welfare - Review Essays
Institution:
Josef Korbel Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver
Abstract:
The struggle for human rights has been shadowed by philosophical doubt. Can we assert universal human rights without engaging in moral imperialism? Can we have confidence in the moral beliefs that underlie human rights claims? Can we justify human rights to those who do not believe in the intrinsic value of autonomy? Which Rights Should Be Universal?, the first of two projected volumes on human rights, is a significant contribution to this literature. In a series of original and mind-opening arguments, William Talbott, a professor of philosophy at the University of Washington, lifts us over one philosophical impasse after another. Admirers of Which Rights Should Be Universal? will find their thinking about human rights enlarged and enhanced by a wealth of new concepts; critics will be kept busy in answering the book's copious arguments. From any perspective, Professor Talbott's book moves the conversation about human rights onto a new plane.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, Gender Issues, Human Rights, Political Economy, and Post Colonialism
Political Geography:
Global Focus

213. State-Sponsored Homophobia (2007)

Author:
Daniel Ottosson
Publication Date:
09-2007
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
ILGA World (International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association)
Abstract:
Every year, ILGA World publishes its State-Sponsored Homophobia report, a world survey of sexual orientation laws. Since its first edition, back in 2006, ILGA World’s State-Sponsored Homophobia has been a fundamental resource for those interested in accessing the core information on legislation affecting people on the basis of their sexual orientation. Not only human rights defenders, but also civil society organisations, governmental and United Nations agencies, allies and media worldwide value the publication as one of the main sources of information on the issue. The publication is accompanied by a series of maps and charts illustrating where criminalisation, protection and recognition laws exist.
Topic:
Human Rights, Law, LGBT+, and Homophobia
Political Geography:
Global Focus

214. Who Failed Whom? Assessing the UN's Human Rights Efforts

Author:
Balakrishnan Rajagopal
Publication Date:
10-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
MIT Center for International Studies
Abstract:
Several months ago, during the finalization of the plan to replace the United Nations’ Commission on Human Rights with the new UN Human Rights Council, John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, said with characteristic flourish, “We want a butterfly. We’re not going to put lipstick on a caterpillar and declare it a suc- cess.” Is the new UN Human Rights Council a butterfly or a cater- pillar (with or without lipstick)? Bolton’s pungent remark rests on three underlying assumptions: first, UN reform was urgently needed in the human rights field because its predecessor, the UN Commission on Human Rights, was a failure; second, the cause of failure was the takeover of the Commission by undemocratic and repressive states and the resultant hijacking of the human rights agenda; third, the best way to make the UN effective and legitimate in the human rights field was to restrict the membership of its premier body, i.e., the Council, to a handful of liberal democratic states and have them act as the custodians and enforcers of human rights. Bolton’s critique of the Commission (if not his lan- guage) and his vision to go forward have been shared widely by many academics, policy specialists, and western international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) that specialize in human rights advocacy.
Topic:
Human Rights, International Cooperation, United Nations, and NGOs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

215. Legal Survey 2006 - With the governments in our bedrooms

Author:
Daniel Ottosson
Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
ILGA World (International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association)
Abstract:
Every year, ILGA World publishes its State-Sponsored Homophobia report, a world survey of sexual orientation laws. Since its first edition, back in 2006, ILGA World’s State-Sponsored Homophobia has been a fundamental resource for those interested in accessing the core information on legislation affecting people on the basis of their sexual orientation. Not only human rights defenders, but also civil society organisations, governmental and United Nations agencies, allies and media worldwide value the publication as one of the main sources of information on the issue. The publication is accompanied by a series of maps and charts illustrating where criminalisation, protection and recognition laws exist.
Topic:
Human Rights, Law, LGBT+, and Homophobia
Political Geography:
Global Focus

216. The Democracy Makers: Human Rights and the Politics of Global Order

Author:
Nicolas Guilhot
Publication Date:
04-2005
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
Has the international movement for democracy and human rights gone from being a weapon against power to part of the arsenal of power itself? Nicolas Guilhot explores this question in his penetrating look at how the U.S. government, the World Bank, political scientists, NGOs, think tanks, and various international organizations have appropriated the movement for democracy and human rights to export neoliberal policies throughout the world. His work charts the various symbolic, ideological, and political meanings that have developed around human rights and democracy movements. Guilhot suggests that these shifting meanings reflect the transformation of a progressive, emancipatory movement into an industry dominated by “experts” ensconced in positions of power. Guilhot’s story begins in the 1950s when U.S. foreign policy experts promoted human rights and democracy as part of a “democratic international” to fight the spread of communism. Later, the unlikely convergence of anti-Stalinist leftists and the nascent neoconservative movement found a place in the Reagan administration. These “State Department Socialists,” as they were known, created policies and organizations that provided financial and technical expertise to democratic movements and also supported authoritarian, anti-communist regimes, particularly in Latin America. Guilhot traces the intellectual and social trajectories of key academics, policymakers, and institutions, including Seymour M. Lipset, Jeane Kirkpatrick, the “Chicago Boys,” influenced by Milton Friedman, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the Ford Foundation. He examines the ways in which various individuals, or “double agents,” were able to occupy pivotal positions at the junction of academe, national, and international institutions, and activist movements. He also pays particular attention to the role of the social sciences in transforming the old anti-communist crusades into respectable international organizations that promoted progressive and democratic ideals, but did not threaten the strategic and economic goals of Western governments and businesses. Guilhot’s purpose is not to disqualify democracy promotion as a conspiratorial activity. Rather he offers new perspectives on the roles of various transnational human rights institutions and the policies they promote. Ultimately, his work proposes a new model for understanding the international politics of legitimate democratic order and the relation between popular resistance to globalization and the “Washington Consensus.”
Topic:
International Relations, Globalization, Human Rights, and Democracy
Political Geography:
Global Focus
Publication Identifier:
9780231504195
Publication Identifier Type:
ISBN

217. Gross Human Rights Violations in 1994

Author:
Brigitte Hamm
Publication Date:
12-1996
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute for Development and Peace
Abstract:
Leaving theoretical questions aside, the measurement of human rights is often considered to be appropriate in evaluating a country's human rights situation. Such data are used as an auxiliary tool of exogenous pressure, which is known as political conditionality whereby aid is related to specific political practices. Often human rights organizations of the South ask for the instrument of political conditionality against repressive regimes. However, exogenous pressure directed mainly towards elections and the respect for political human rights may be criticized as a kind of imperialistic attitude, trying to implement Western values in Non-Western societies.
Topic:
Development, Human Rights, Politics, Terrorism, and Conditionality
Political Geography:
Global Focus