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Technical cooperation in the field of human rights
No full textThis chapter highlights the contribution of the academic teaching which I have received at the University of London within the MA in Understanding and Securing of Human Rights in 2002–3.The course content and its themes have contributed to strengthening my knowledge and skills for the human rights field, which have enabled me to have better opportunities to contribute to human rights protection and promotion. Throughout the last years, I have worked extensively to transfer the knowledge gained into projects and practical programmes in the field of human rights, namely, capacity building through Technical Cooperation Programmes (TCPs).1 In this chapter, I will use three examples to show the contribution of TCPs in building knowledge and skills to promote and protect human rights. The first example will focus on TCPs during conflict and insecurity; the second will show building skills during transition; and the third will show the country specific programme during stability
Foreword
No full textIn the early 1990s, all but one Master’s degree programme on human rights in the world approached the topic from a narrowly legal perspective. They were mostly located in departments or schools of law. They had great virtues, as I had discovered when interacting with the programme at the Harvard Law School during the mid-1980s. But they largely omitted scholars from other disciplines – the social sciences, history, philosophy, etc. – who could offer crucial insights for a rounded understanding of human rights
Guest Editorial: Law, Gender and Sexuality
No full textIn this Guest Editorial for a special issue of Legal Information Management, Jon Sims (Content Specialist: Law and Socio-Legal Studies, The British Library) summaries the aims and outputs of a national socio-legal training day on legal biography organised by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, the British Library and the Socio-Legal Studies Association and held at IALS in May 2014. The special issue of Legal Information Management features a series of articles on the theme of sources and methods in socio-legal research on law, gender and sexuality. As with last year’s issue on legal biography (LIM Vol.14 No.1) the articles published here are based on talks given at a national training day held at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (IALS) in May 2014, and co-organised by IALS, the Socio-Legal Studies Association (SLSA) and the British Library
Ritual Traditions of Non-Mediterranean Europe
Get PDFThis piece is a contribution to a handbook to the archaeology of ancient religion and attempts to summarize the main lines of religious practice in temperate Europe in the late Iron Age and Early Historic periods
The Journal of the Friends' Historical Society vol. 66
Get PDF01 Editorial; 02 'Enemy aliens': Quakers and Germans in Britain during World War I; 03 Penington and Politics: three pamphlets considered; 04 The Buildings of Settle Meeting House in 1678; 05 'Misorcus' and Richard Richardson; 06 Recent Publications; 07 Biographies
An Eighteenth-Century Thought Experiment on Climate Change: Johann Jakob Scheuchzer's "De ignis seu caloris certa portione Heluetiae adsignata" (1708)
No full textJohann Jakob Scheuchzer’s De ignis seu caloris certa portione Heluetiae adsignata (1708) is one of a series of scientific papers that the prominent Swiss physician and naturalist (1672-1733) sent to the Royal Society in the early 1700s. This particular essay provides an original contribution to physico-theological thought. Unlike most natural-theological works, it emphasises the dangers of human intervention in nature. As an early modern thought-experiment on climate warming and its expected consequences on Alpine and European ecosystems, it seems to anticipate modern anxiety over climate change. But it is also a fine piece of Neo-Latin mountain-writing in the tradition of earlier authors such as Henricus Glareanus (1488-1563) and Conrad Gesner (1516-1565). This article offers the first edition of De ignis seu caloris certa portione, based on Scheuchzer’s autograph in the Royal Society collections in London. Scheuchzer’s text is accompanied by an English translation, a full textual commentary, a short biography of the author, and an appendix providing the details of Scheuchzer’s papers and letters to the Royal Society for 1703-1708
Las reclamaciones de James J. O'Kelly al parlamento británico por la fuga de José Maceo hacia Gibraltar
Get PDFIn 1882, José Maceo, one of the leaders of the rebel side in the first Cuban War of Independence, known as the "10 Years War" (1868-1878), along with two comrades had managed to escape from incarceration in Cadiz, fled to Tangier in North Africa and there boarded a steamer for Gibraltar on route to the United States. However, once landed in Gibraltar, then a British colony, they were brought before the Chief of Police who, despite their protestations that they were political prisoners and in contravention of British law and international treaties, handed them over to the Guardia Civil. All three were subsequently re-imprisoned.
This injustice, which was to cause a great deal of embarrassment to the Liberal government of William Gladstone, would probably have been quickly forgotten if it were not for the persistence of an Irish Nationalist Member of Parliament, James Joseph O'Kelly.
O'Kelly, a member of the Fenian Brotherhood, had worked as a journalist in Cuba during the 10 Years War and had narrowly escaped being hanged by the Spanish colonists who accused him of fighting for the rebels. He saw parallels between the Spanish occupation of Cuba and the British in Ireland and used his campaign to obtain justice for the rebel General to attack what he saw as his main enemy, the British Empire.
This chapter, based on material from the British National Archives, examines James Joseph O'Kelly's intervention in this episode in Cuban history and will discuss the wider implications of international solidarity in the face of nineteenth century imperialis
The social construction of Afro-descendant rights in Colombia
No full textAfro-descendant people make up around 30 per cent of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean, some 150 million people (IACHR 2011). In a context of mestizaje and the myth of racial democracy, Afro-descendant rights were not institutionalised in many Latin American states until the end of the 20th century. This reflected an invisibility at the international level where a specific normative framework on Afro-descendant rights did not begin to emerge until the beginning of the 21st century. Through multicultural citizenship reforms in the 1980s and 1990s several Latin American states recognised rights for their Afro-descendant populations; however, these tended to be subsumed into the existing indigenous rights framework, thus neglecting the specific situations of Afro-descendants
Bringing human rights home: refugees, reparation, and the responsibility to protect
No full textHuman rights, it is often observed, have become a common global language for making moral claims. One consequence of this is that there is a huge range of ways in which states, organisations and other actors draw on, invoke and mobilise human rights in different locations and contexts. The vast array of campaigns, treaties, laws and policies which fall under the umbrella of human rights means that human rights talk will be continually contested and, to some extent, fragmented, contradictory, and inconsistent. In Richard Wilson’s phrase, human rights discourse will remain strongly marked by ‘ideological promiscuity’ (Wilson 2006). Given that human rights talk and practice are partly shaped by power, these inconsistencies will inevitably, at least to some degree, reflect power relations and dominant interests within and across states
Power of the law, power to the people: pursuing innovative legal strategies in human rights advocacy
No full textThe use of legal tools and mechanisms in human rights advocacy can play a significant role in the advancement of human rights. Although often difficult, complex and time-consuming, using legal strategies, particularly strategic litigation, in campaigning and advocacy can influence decision-making processes and bring actual changes in legislation, policy and practice. It can also help raise public awareness about a particular human rights issue and empower communities to claim their rights by involving them in designing and implementing legal advocacy strategies.
However, pursuing legal strategies to advance human rights is easier in some jurisdictions than in others. In countries where political space for human rights advocacy is limited and the rule of law weak, relying on human rights norms tends to be inefficient and can even prove counter-productive. In these cases, invoking other legal norms, such as environmental protection laws, can prove more useful for the improvement of the human rights situation on the ground