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21. US Policy on Small Arms Transfers: A Human Rights Perspective

Author:
Susan Waltz
Publication Date:
10-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
From Somalia and Afghanistan to Bosnia, Haiti, Colombia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Congo, small arms and light weapons were a common feature of the human rights calamities of the 1990's. More than a hundred low-intensity conflicts flared across the globe in that final decade of the bloodiest century, and virtually all of them were fought with small arms and light weaponry. Hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenades and bazookas, mortars, machine guns, and shoulder-fired missiles were the common weapons of warfare, along with the ubiquitous AK- 47--as readily slung over the shoulder of a 14 year old boy as a 40 year old man. Human rights and humanitarian organizations pondered the evidence: there was an inescapable linkage between the abuses they sought to curb, and the prevalence of these easy to handle, durable, and imminently portable weapons. In many instances the weapons were used as direct instruments of repression and devastation. In others, armed groups and government-sponsored militia used them to facilitate assaults with cruder weapons, spread fear, and create insecurity that effectively deprived people of their livelihood. Ironically, none of the countries in turmoil produced their own small arms. Behind the plethora of weapons lurked shadowy arms dealers looking for a profit, indifferent to the public's moral outrage and UN-imposed arms embargoes.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Human Rights, Human Welfare, and United Nations
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, Bosnia, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, and Somalia

22. Accommodating Indigenous Peoples within the Human Rights Regime:The Case of Awas Tingni v. Nicaragua

Author:
Amy E. Eckert
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
Some critics allege that the human rights regime is based upon the values of liberal individualism and therefore inappropriate for communities that do not share a commitment to these values (Pollis and Schwab 1979). Such critics characterize human rights as being either irrelevant because of the lack of fit between liberal individualism and more community-based cultures or, even worse, as an imperialist tool in the hands of the West. However, the individual rights that are secured by the international human rights regime can be used for a variety of different purposes, including both liberal and non-liberal ends. A person, or a group of persons, may use the individual freedoms secured by international human rights treaties to express opinions that are entirely inconsistent with, or even in certain respects contrary to, liberal political ideals. To restrict the rights of this individual to the expression of liberal ideals would be, ultimately, inconsistent with the idea of freedom underlying these rights. Because liberalism values the autonomy of the individual (and, arguably, the autonomy of the community) above that individual's willingness to embrace any particular ideas, a liberal approach to human rights enables individuals and communities to utilize their rights and freedoms in a broad manner of ways. Recent progress in the area of indigenous rights underscores the extent to which the rights secured by the international human rights regime, though expressed in liberal individualistic terms, can nevertheless be used to secure non-liberal communitarian goals.
Topic:
Human Rights, Human Welfare, International Law, and International Organization
Political Geography:
Central America and Nicaragua

23. Who Intervenes and Why it Matters: The Problem of Agency in Humanitarian Intervention

Author:
Eric A. Heinze
Publication Date:
08-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
The debate over humanitarian intervention has tended to focus on the conditions under which the resort to armed intervention is permissible while paying less attention to which actors are best suited to engage in such a complicated and demanding undertaking. The purpose of this paper is to explore characteristics that affect the ability of potential agents of humanitarian intervention to effectively undertake this operationally and politically demanding task. While the military wherewithal of the intervener is fundamental, I argue that a potential intervener's legitimacy as an agent or enforcer of humanitarian norms is also crucial in determining whether and the extent to which it is a suitable agent. In other words, the efficacy of a potential intervener depends not only on its military wherewithal, but also on certain non-material factors than can affect its ability to effectively exercise this power. Using a consequentialist ethical framework, this paper examines the various material and non-material factors that can militate either for or against the suitability of certain actors undertaking humanitarian intervention in various parts of the world. I ultimately use this framework to examine the suitability of various possible agents of a potential humanitarian intervention in Darfur, Sudan.
Topic:
Genocide, Human Rights, Human Welfare, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan

24. Law in Times of War: the Case of Chechnya

Author:
Federico Sperotto
Publication Date:
08-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
In October 1999 “the second Chechen war” broke out. In December the Russian federal army started an operation to take control of Grozny. During the confrontation between the Federal forces and the Chechen separatists, serious human rights violations occurred. Several cases concerning violations of fundamental rights, in and around the city, have been brought before the European Court of Human Rights against Russia. The lawsuits concerned in particular physical integrity issues. This study provides some insights on the jurisprudence of the European Court on Human Rights in order to ascertain the adequacy of the mechanism of protection provided by the European Convention of 1950 in situations of armed conflict.
Topic:
Human Rights, Human Welfare, and War
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, and Chechnya

25. Escaping the Cultural Context of Human Rights

Author:
Andrew Fagan
Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
The contemporary age appears beset and driven by moral and political disputes, disagreements, fundamental misunderstandings, and mutual incomprehension. Secularists and religious believers systematically argue past one another. Doctrinal differences across and within religious communities persist despite, in many cases, centuries of dialogue and debate. Many of these disputes are neither trivial nor banal, but go to the heart of some of the most enduring and fundamental political questions and concerns. Foremost among them is the question: how can we co-exist in a peaceful and harmonious manner that does not entail a wholesale renunciation of those constitutive beliefs and practices that make us who we are? How can we be and let be? The search for a sufficiently robust common ground is increasingly urgent and appears increasingly difficult to achieve at regional, national, and international levels. Some readers might balk at this particular characterization of the world “out there,” for some, a solution may appear readily at hand, requiring only sufficient political will and courage to be realized. On this view, the moral and legal doctrine of human rights provides the normative cement capable of overcoming conflict and holding the world together. For many advocates of human rights the doctrine and its core principles are neither partial nor contingent. Human rights, it is argued, address a global community of morally equal individuals. The right to life and the right to be free from torture are absolute and immutable. Simplifying a very complicated series of philosophical arguments, no rational individual, however powerful, is considered rationally capable of rejecting the universal application of such core principles. The doctrine of human rights is a necessary and sufficient means for resolving the phenomenon of moral and political conflict and offers a sustainable answer to the question of how we might live together despite our deep differences.
Topic:
Development, Human Rights, Human Welfare, and Politics

26. In Plain Sight? Human Trafficking and Research Challenges

Author:
Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick
Publication Date:
04-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
The recently released exploratory work, In Modern Bondage: Sex Trafficking in the Americas, edited by David E. Guinn and Elissa Steglich, is a helpful analysis of the state of trafficking for sexual exploitation in Central America and the Caribbean. The book makes two things clear: how far researchers have been able to come given the scarcity of reliable data; and how much work remains to be done before a clear picture of the nature and magnitude of trafficking and the best means for its eradication is obtained.
Topic:
International Relations, Human Rights, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
Central America and Caribbean