Human Rights and Technology

The execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the other environmental and human rights activists in Nigeria in November 1995, represented flagrant violations of human rights. What was exceptional about this case was that the uprising, which ultimately lead to the executions, was not primarily aimed at the Government, but rather at one of the large transnational corporations, Shell Oil. The article analyses the composition of the actors and the various human rights involved in this conflict. It argues that the complexity of the conflict is shown through the wide variety of environmental NGOs, human rights NGOs, international business and organisations that were implicated in it. The article points to the interrelatedness of various human rights - and the interlinkedness to environmental issues, claiming that environmental organisations were forced’ to use rights language, while human rights organisations needed to address environmental issues. And ultimately, the business actor has publicly stated intent to observe a human rights accountability.

This study explores the manner in which leaders working in the domestic violence field in the US have or have not adopted a human rights framework and what impact this has had on domestic violence policy and intervention. Participants included leaders from national domestic violence and human rights organizations. These organizations are instrumental in developing policy and in framing the issues of domestic violence and human rights, many of which also work with specific racial and ethnic populations. Some of the primary research questions included: If the human rights discourse is being put to practical use within the US, how does it meet the needs of women of color, immigrants, and other women who have been marginalized? Does bringing the issue of domestic violence into a human rights framework reinscribe hegemonic feminism in ways that are either ineffectual or oppressive and colonizing to women of color, immigrants and/or women in marginalized groups in the US and if so, in what ways? Additional research objectives include assessing whether there is active resistance to adopting a human rights framework and benefits and challenges to using the framework. This research uses the critique and experiences of women of color as a focal point. Through the use of critical ethnography and autoethnography, this study examines the manner in which the power to frame and define social problems unfolds. Findings suggest a limited dialogue to date between national domestic violence and human rights organizations with a range of thoughts regarding potential benefits and barriers to reframing domestic violence as a human rights violation. Barriers include lack of resonance/U.S. exceptionalism, power of the State to direct funding and focus, and reluctance to shift status quo based in part in white privilege. Benefits of cross-organizational dialogue include expanding focus, building coalitions, and engaging diverse communities in addressing domestic violence issues. Intersectional issues related to gender, race/ethnicity, immigration, and sovereignty are also explored. This research suggests that social workers need to continue to critically assess the application of human rights to social justice issues and the role that privilege plays in social movements and social policy formation.

The Pitfalls of International Human Rights Monitoring: Some Critical Remarks on the 1995 Human Rights Watch/Helsinki Report on Xenophobia in Germany Manfred H. Wiegandt (bio) The euphoria of the opening of the iron curtain in Germany in 1989 and the unification one year later of a country that had been divided since the end of World War II was just abating when the ugly face of xenophobia started to reappear in the country. Pictures of skinheads lashing out at “foreigners,” of shelters for asylum seekers beleaguered by neo-Nazis, and of burned down dwellings housing Turks did the rounds in the international media. Increasingly hostile attitudes and behavior towards foreigners, which occurred amidst a public debate on how to curb the influx of hundreds of [End Page 833] thousands of asylum seekers into Germany, alerted many observers who were concerned about the situation of foreigners in Germany. One of the human rights groups that reacted to the dramatic increase of violence against foreigners was Helsinki Watch, now called Human Rights Watch/Helsinki. In October 1992, Human Rights Watch/Helsinki issued its first report on xenophobic violence in Germany (1992 Report). 1 In April 1995, it released a more elaborate follow-up report on the subject (1995 Report). 2 One may suggest that the international reaction to Human Rights Watch/Helsinki’s allegations of a wave of violent xenophobia in Germany both alerted the public to problems in Germany and put pressure on the German federal and state governments to make changes after they had partly given the fatal impression of silently tolerating, ignoring or, at least, belittling the degree of violence against foreigners in the country. However, despite the beneficial effect of evaluations by Human Rights Watch/Helsinki and other groups, 3 the 1995 Report by Human Rights Watch/Helsinki gives rise to a critique of its approach to human rights monitoring—a critique that may, to some extent, be valid for other human rights groups that pursue a similar approach. There are some fundamental problems with the 1995 Human Rights Watch/Helsinki Report itself. In addition, one might voice some objections to the principles that Human Rights Watch/Helsinki voiced in its dealing with Germany, in particular its “hate speech” policy. The first critique concerns the introductory section of the 1995 Report. Human Rights Watch/Helsinki mentions that Germany has experienced widespread beatings and even killings of foreigners. 4 The 1995 Report states that “[i]t is clear that racist attacks and killings are not unique to Germany. Genocide has been committed in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Many violent attacks against foreigners have occurred in France, England, Sweden, and other Western European democracies in the early 1990s.” 5 It might be just sloppy language that seems to insinuate that the xenophobic attacks in Germany fall under the same category as the genocides in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. However, it is unwise to start a serious human rights [End Page 834] investigation with an overdramatization of the situation. Strong words are warranted to attract the attention of the public to the serious human rights violations that have occurred in Germany, particularly because initially the authorities, as the 1992 Report concluded, 6 did not take the violations seriously. However, a comparison between the events in Germany and the genocides in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia is so out of proportion as to cast doubt on the lack of bias in the whole 1995 Report. The advantage of nongovernmental human rights organizations (human rights NGOs) is that they do not have to feel confined by “diplomatic” usages. Unlike intergovernmental human rights organizations, NGOs are able to speak out and arouse immediate international attention to a specific problem. However, this relative flexibility, which makes human rights NGOs a valuable supplement to “official” and often very inert international human rights organizations, should not be compromised for cheap showmanship. If NGOs in the human rights field were to act like the international media then they could spotlight some situations, but, in doing this they might not be taken seriously by the governments of the countries they were evaluating. It is this type of behavior that could give governments a valid reason not...

The task of this paper is to study the role of international human rights organizations in response to the conflict taking place in eastern Ukraine. The study is based on recent reports from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the OSCE on Ukraine. The relevance of the stated topic is determined by the situation with human rights violations in the armed conflict in Ukraine and the significant role of international human rights organizations, making active efforts to resolve it. The purpose of this study is to determine the main aspects of the role that international organizations play in resolving this range of issues. This will help to identify potential opportunities to tackle the problem with human rights violations in the Ukrainian territories. The study combines quantitative and qualitative research of the entire spectrum of issues brought into the subject. The main results obtained are: analysis of the role and place of international human rights organizations in assessing the situation with the conflict in the Ukrainian territories and obtaining statistical information on the current status of human rights violations in these territories. The value of this paper lies in obtaining practical recommendations for finding ways to peacefully resolve the conflict in the East of Ukraine and implementing comprehensive measures to create conditions for the protection of human rights in this region

Scholarly writings on internationally constituted commissions of inquiry (COIs), as outlined in the introduction to this symposium, give inadequate attention to the effects that they might have on local disputes that these bodies are often created to address. The United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (2009), popularly known as the Goldstone Commission, had unintended and unforeseen consequences at the domestic level. Specifically, the Commission caused a severe backlash against human rights organizations in Israel (IsHROs). This article analyses the backlash against the Commission and the effect of that backlash on human rights organizations and human rights advocacy in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory in the first few years after the release of the Goldstone report. This case study reveals how a government can use a COI intervention in an ongoing conflict to deflect criticism against it and to delegitimize local human rights organizations and, as a result, to intensify enemy–friend dynamics within a conflict. The findings of this case study thus challenge the assumption of much of the socio-legal literature that the interaction of international human rights institutions with domestic actors leads to positive human rights change. But the case study also adds a new dimension to the academic and policy literature that has been critical of the international human rights enterprise in recent years. Despite delegitimization campaigns, international funding has increased for many IsHROs, and, eventually, some groups have become even more visible and have enjoyed, internationally, a higher reputation and greater credibility. The Commission’s experience thus demonstrates that the establishment of COIs in deeply divided conflict societies can have negative, as well as positive, implications on human rights.

Human Rights and Reform: Changing the Face of North African Politics, by Susan E. Waltz. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995. xiv + 237 pages. Notes to p. 269. Index to p. 281. $45 cloth; $16 paper. Reviewed by Maryam Elahi The human rights movement in the Maghrib has had significant impact in influencing public debate and bringing discussions on democratization and political reform to the forefront of Maghribi political society. With this book, Susan Waltz has succeeded in examining the role played by the Maghribi human rights movement in integrating the notion of civil and political rights in modem Tunisian, Algerian, and Moroccan political culture. I highly recommend Human Rights and Reform to anyone interested in North African contemporary history and politics. It examines the struggle of human rights activists and the cultural and political impediments that challenge them. This book discusses the development of modern state structures in Maghribi societies. One cannot get a sense of contemporary North African politics without understanding the role of the human rights movement-of whom it consists, what it strives for, and its undeniable influence over the substance of political discourse in the region. The author also discusses the impact that the international community has had in influencing the public debates and political measures, in some cases merely cosmetic, on human rights. In addition, these external forces, be they human rights organizations or the US Congress, have bestowed credibility and thereby protection to the domestic human rights organizations. Unlike other regions in the world where the human rights activists come from labor, indigenous movements, or political parties, the movement in the Maghrib was dominated initially by professionals: academics, doctors, and lawyers. Thus, being part of the professional elite, they had easier access to the political apparatus and developed a somewhat confusing rapport with the government, which at times they respectfully challenged and at other times they threatened. The birth of human rights organizations in each of the three countries has its own specific stories. In Tunisia, the Tunisian League for Human Rights was formally recognized by the government in 1977. Its original leadership chose individuals who had a reputation for being politically independent to head the organization and its executive committee. The League immediately proved itself to be a serious human rights group by organizing a commission of inquiry to look into detainees' situations and by sending observers to attend political trials. …

Today, the United Nations plays a leading role in the development of international law and cooperation among the world's states. Member states have pledged to realize their rights and fulfill their obligations under the UN Charter. The main objectives of the UN are envisaged in Article 1 of the Charter, where the key provision relating to human rights is reflected in paragraph 3 of Article 1. According to it, the UN aims to achieve international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural and humanitarian character and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction of race, sex, language or religion [1]. As it can be seen, the Charter only calls on states parties to promote the protection of human rights, without establishing clear obligations to protect and guarantee them. Since 2014, i.e. since Russia launched its war against Ukraine, the aggressor has not stopped committing crimes against our country and our people. Russia's actions encroach not only on the sovereignty of our state, but also on human rights and freedoms. Under such circumstances, the international community cannot stand aside from these events. Many international human rights organizations have offices in Ukraine. Among them is the UN. On 31.07.2014, the Government of Ukraine and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights signed an agreement on the deployment of a short-term UN human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine. The legal status of UN monitoring missions in legal science has not been the subject of a separate study. Certain aspects of the activities and competence of such missions have been considered in the works of such scholars as I.A. Shumilo [14], F. Megre [13], K. Boyle [12] and others, which are devoted to the coverage of international mechanisms for the protection of human rights and freedoms, the status of the UN General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council. Therefore, the task set out in this article is to analyze and establish the specifics of the legal status of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission (hereinafter - the Mission), in particular, the one established for Ukraine, and the limits of the Mission's powers under the UN Charter, UN General Assembly resolutions, and international agreements between UN agencies and Ukraine. Therefore, the relevance of this article is beyond doubt. It has been established that the purpose of the Mission is to facilitate cooperation between the Government of Ukraine and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (hereinafter - OHCHR)[2] and it plays the role of a subsidiary mechanism for the protection of human rights and freedoms within the UN. The conclusions of the mission will undoubtedly serve as a convincing additional evidence base for Ukraine in international judicial and other bodies in protecting its interests and establishing the guilt of the Russian Federation for actions committed against our country.

İnsan hakları alanında sosyal hareketlerden ve taban örgütlerinden barolara, iş derneklerine ve gayriresmî iletişim ağlarına kadar uzanan çeşitli aktörler bulunmaktadır. İnsan hakları alanında en etkin aktörlerden biri olan sivil toplum kuruluşları (STK) hem ulusal hem de uluslararası düzeylerde insan haklarının tesisi, korunması ve geliştirilmesi için dünya çapında çeşitli işlevler görmektedir. Bu çalışma, insan hakları temelli STK’lar üzerinden, Türkiye’deki sivil toplum faaliyetlerinin ve mobilizasyon stratejilerinin sistematik bir incelemesini yapmayı amaçlamaktadır. Glasius’un sınıflandırmasından yararlan bu çalışmada, Türkiye’deki STK’ların, insan hakları gözlemcisi ve norm-dönüştürücü olarak seslerini duyurabilseler dahi, kanun yapıcı aktörler olarak bu hakların tesisinde ve korunmasında yetersiz kaldıkları savunulmaktadır. İnsan hakları STK’ları izlemede isim zikretme ve utandırma ve yargısal savunuculuk stratejilerini kullanırken, norm dönüşümünde çerçevelemeyi, kanun yapımında ise savunuculuk stratejileri yaygın olarak kullanılmaktadır. Bu çalışma, içerik analiz yöntemini kullanarak STK’ların belgelerine odaklanmakta ve Türkiye’deki insan hakları ve sivil toplum ilişkisini inceleyerek akademik tartışmalara katkı sunmaktadır.

Chapter 2 uses theories about post-transitional justice and the importance of domestic activism to evaluate the role of the state and human rights organizations in Mega Cause I. The involvement of the state and its support of the trial showed an initiative to acknowledge the responsibility of the state for crimes committed during the dictatorship and to punish those who were guilty. In this effort, departments of the state worked closely with top human rights organizations throughout the trial to help legally represent victims in court, assist the victims of state terrorism and the witnesses at the trial, and publicize the trial. In analyzing the state and human rights organizations, this chapter looks at the Human Rights Secretariat, the Ulloa Center, the IEM, and CELS.KeywordsArgentine government’s role in post-transitional justiceCenter for Legal and Social StudiesHuman Rights SecretariatInstitute of Space for MemoryUlloa Center

In Ukraine, starting from February 2022, every day servicemen of the Russian army commit crimes that are a direct violation of international humanitarian law, not only on the front line, but also in the depths of the country, in the central and western regions. The author of the article analyzes the procedure for pre-trial investigation of international criminal crimes and the role of non-governmental public human rights organizations in this process. In addition, the new functions assigned to NGOs as separate non-governmental human rights organizations that have been operating on the territory of Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale invasion were considered. The legal mechanisms for the involvement of NGOs in the collection of evidence on the ground, as well as the possibility of taking into account the collected information by international justice bodies, were studied. Specific examples and initiatives of the public sector, within the scope of the issue being studied, are given, and the functions, competences, and opportunities for increasing the effectiveness of NGO activity in the conditions of war are defined.
 It was concluded that non-governmental organizations, including human rights organizations, during the war in Ukraine discovered new areas of work and expanded the possibility of cooperation with state bodies. In turn, law enforcement agencies have provided access to limited information for the NGOs themselves by internal orders, which together increases the effectiveness of the pre-trial investigation of committed crimes. Thanks to this, feedback has been established. Special attention should be paid to the work of foreign NGOs and volunteers, which contributes to the recording of war crimes and crimes against humanity, which current Ukrainian refugees witnessed or became victims of.
 It was concluded that the main areas of evidence-gathering NGO activity are the following: 1) dissemination of information in the mass media about the condition of refugees who suffered as a result of the crimes of the Russian military, documenting the stories of witnesses of such offenses. In particular, the facts of torture and sexual violence (from the testimonies of refugees from Ukraine) were reported by the mass media in many European countries and beyond; 2) provision of advisory assistance regarding high-quality recording of episodes of criminal acts in order to recognize such evidence as appropriate; 3) peaceful gatherings and protests of public organizations, the active public against Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine, which, of course, is of great importance for the international community to recognize their severity and massiveness.
 It was concluded that the wide international recognition of the war crimes of the Russian Federation creates opportunities for the successful initiation of the International Tribunal or other judicial formats (such as the International Criminal Court, the Extraordinary Chamber) to bring the perpetrators to justice. All international actors collect evidence according to the clear requirements and standards of the International Criminal Court, and subsequently either transfer it to it or accumulate it in the prosecutor’s offices of certain countries for further referral to a designated responsible judicial body.

Establishing an NHRI in a Contested Political Space: A Deliberative Process in Israel

Despite its media reforms designed to democratize the country’s media landscape, the Ecuadorian government has been subject to constant condemnation from major U.S.-based human rights organizations on freedom-of-expression grounds. A close examination of these critiques and the Ecuadorian media reforms to which they correspond and a comparison of the Ecuadorian government’s and critical human rights organizations’ positions with liberal scholarship on the right to freedom of expression leads to the conclusion that Ecuadorian media reform is consistent with liberal social-democratic principles and, by contrast, human rights organizations uphold an early-modern interpretation of liberalism that is marginal within scholarship on freedom of expression. A pesar de su programa de reformas para democratizar el campo de los medios de difusión, el gobierno ecuatoriano ha sido objeto de una condena permanente por parte de las principales organizaciones de los derechos humanos de los Estados Unidos por motivos de la libertad de expresión. Un examen minucioso de estas críticas y de las reformas del gobierno ecuatoriano, así como una comparación de las posiciones del gobierno ecuatoriano y las de las organizaciones de derechos humanos con los estudios liberales sobre el derecho a la libertad de expression, revelan que estas reformas son consistentes con los principios liberales y socialdemócratas y que, en cambio, las organizaciones de derechos humanos defienden una interpretación del liberalismo correspondiente al principio de la era moderna temprana que queda marginal dentro de los estudios sobre la libertad de expresión.

Drawing on forty in-depth interviews with program managers in nineteen Western international human rights organizations, this article examines how human rights organizations make decisions about how to allocate resources and how to manage their commitments to specific causes, specific people, and specific areas. It argues that organizational routines shape the allocation of resources relatively independently of other factors and it pays particular attention to the role played by intra-organizational “units” of work and planning. Units of work and planning function as candidates for the allocation of resources within organizations. Resources are not allocated directly to issues or causes but rather are distributed on the one hand among a set of range of practices, such as reports and campaigns, and ways of responding, which are considered legitimate, and on the other hand among the thematic and geographical units, which structure human rights organizations. The article concludes by discussing some factors that play a role in the selection among these units. As human rights workers consider where their organizations can make a difference, other organizations and conditions for their work come into view, levers matter, and the way making a difference can be demonstrated plays a role.

The article deals with the historical aspects of the formation and key periods of development of public monitoring commissions. Consideration of the topic of this article through the prism of events that highlight the prerequisites for the formation of a system of public control, allowed the authors both to identify systematic difficulties faced by individuals who joined human rights organizations, and to formulate specific proposals, the application of which in practice can be indispensable for improving the activities of public monitoring commissions at the current stage of their development. The content of the article reveals historical facts that played an important role in the formation of public monitoring commissions, mainly as a human rights institution of public observers. The authors note some persons who are interested in creating a system of public control that can provide both consulting and financial assistance not only to representatives of penitentiary institutions, but also to citizens held in them. The article allows you to clearly present the chronology of events that are elements of the Foundation of modern human rights organizations, including a description of situations that affected the performance of members of public monitoring commissions in various time periods. The authors attribute the dynamics of the relevance of the functions of public control to various circumstances, including the emergence of the Gulag, which became the main stumbling block in the development of public monitoring commissions at the end of the second half of the XX century. The article also highlights the stages of forming the next composition of public monitoring commissions, provides indicators that characterize not only the number of their members in the subjects of the Russian Federation and members of such commissions, but also the number of visits to places of forced detention, verification activities, complaints and applications considered, legal consultations, etc. In addition, the authors analyzed the activities of human rights organizations that are active in some regions of the Russian Federation, which revealed the specifics of the implementation of certain rights of citizens, including those who are in prison. The use of a systematic approach to the study of the historical aspect of the creation of public monitoring commissions and the analysis of the organization of work of their members allowed the authors to identify certain problems of theoretical and practical significance, as well as to suggest ways to solve them.

This study aimed to identify the role of Palestinian human rights organizations in protecting civil and political rights, by studying the efforts made by these organizations to reach their goals. The qualitative approach was adopted to carry out the study, and the interview was used as a tool for gathering information. A sample consisting of seven human rights organizations was selected, and eleven interviews were conducted with some of those working at these institutions. The results of the study revealed that human rights organizations contribute to right to life protection by (56%), Right to Physical Integrity by (53%) Right to Freedom of Expression (45%), Right to a Fair Trial by (70%), in the Israeli violations part: they contribute to Israeli violations reduction by (66%). Based on the findings, the researcher recommended the need to join efforts to improve the human rights situation, by solving the problems that the Palestinian political system suffers from and by working to unify the national vision in order to confront and end the occupation. هدفت هذه الدراسة إلى التعرف على دور منظمات حقوق الإنسان الفلسطينية في حماية الحقوق المدنية والسياسية، من خلال دراسة الجهود التي تبذلها هذه المنظمات للوصول لأهدافها، حيث اتبعت الدراسة المنهج الكيفي لإجراء الدراسة، واستُخدمت المقابلة كطريقة للحصول على المعلومات فتم اختيار عينة مكونة من سبعة مؤسسات حقوقية وأجريت أحد عشر مقابلة مع بعض المدراء والعاملين في هذه المؤسسات. وتوصلت الدراسة إلى جملة من النتائج أهمها: كشفت نتائج الدراسة أن منظمات حقوق الإنسان تسهم في حماية الحق بالحياة بنسبة (56%)، والحق في السلامة الجسدية (53%)، والحق في التعبير عن الرأي (45%)، أما الحق بمحاكمة عادلة (70%).وفي قسم الانتهاكات الإسرائيلية: تساهم في الحد من الانتهاكات الإسرائيلية بنسبة (66%) وعلى ضوء النتائج أوصت الدراسة بضرورة تكاتف الجهود الرسمية والمدنية للارتقاء بحالة حقوق الإنسان، وذلك من خلال حل الإشكاليات التي يعاني منها النظام السياسي الفلسطيني، ومن خلال العمل على توحيد الرؤية الوطنية بهدف مواجهة الاحتلال وانهائه.