Relational Human Rights: Shed‐DNA and the Identification of the ‘Living Disappeared’ in Argentina

Through an ethnographic reading of an Argentine Supreme Court decision I explore the changing nature of the legal subject of human rights in light of emerging technologies. Guillermo Gabriel Prieto was suspected of being a ‘living disappeared’, one of the estimated 500 infants or young children forcibly abducted by the last military dictatorship in Argentina. They were raised by the perpetrators of the crime or their accomplices and kept unaware of their birth origins. The Court's deliberations focused on Guillermo's appeal of a lower‐court decision to carry out an identity test based on his shed‐DNA. The decision demonstrates that while the subject of human rights has often been equated with the bounded individual, new technologies challenge us to reconsider the subject's core characteristics: physical boundedness, autonomy, and individuality. I argue that the ruling offers us an alternative conception of the subject that could become the foundation for a new vision of human rights     

Between Human Rights and Sovereignty*—An Examination of EU–China Political Relations

This paper will study the differences between the EU and China on the understanding of human rights and national sovereignty and their impact on EU‐China political relations. The paper will be divided into the following parts. The first part will give a review of the concepts of both sovereignty and human rights and the rising concern of human rights in the contemporary world. The second part will study the EU's policy of human rights to see why the EU adheres to its values. The third part will look at China's policy on sovereignty and human rights. The fourth part will examine EU‐China political relations and analyse the difficulties in bilateral relations, due to differences in values between the EU and China. The fifth part will draw some tentative conclusion.     

The Trump Effect,Children, and the Value of Human Rights Education

Since launching his presidential campaign, Donald Trump's rhetoric has often been divisive as well as demeaning of selected groups. This article examines the impact of Trump's rhetoric on children and their communities and explores the role that human rights education can play in responding to Trump and forging broader support for human rights. The article reviews the research on human rights education and considers how human rights education can be embedded in broader efforts to educate children. Using children's literature as a case study, the article argues for the importance of mainstreaming human rights education and meeting children where they are, in order to foster greater recognition of and respect for the rights of all individuals.     

The effect of line‐up administrator blindness on the recording of eyewitness identification decisions

Purpose. Line‐up administrators’ expectations have been shown to influence eyewitnesses’ identification decisions. Expectations may also influence administrators’ willingness to record witnesses’ decisions as positive identifications. Methods. Single‐ and double‐blind participant administrators presented a line‐up to a confederate witness, who identified either the suspect or a filler. Results. A hierarchical log‐linear analysis revealed an interaction effect of blindness and witness choice on participants’ recording of the identification: Single‐blind administrators were more likely to record the confederate's choice as a positive identification when the witness chose the suspect (vs. a filler), whereas double‐blind administrators’ records were not influenced by the witness's choice. An interaction between blindness and witness choice also emerged for participant administrators’ witness evaluations. Single‐blind administrators rated confederates who chose a filler as significantly less credible than those who chose a suspect; double‐blind administrators’ ratings were consistent across photo selection. Conclusions. Blindness influenced line‐up administrators’ record of line‐up outcomes. These results add to the growing body of research supporting the use of double‐blind line‐up administration.     

Adherence to the Law-Based Protection of Human Rights and Improvement of the Legal Guarantee Mechanism of Human Rights

XI Jinping, General Secretary of Central Committee of the Communist Party of China(CPC), made an important speech (Speech) on China’s path of advancement of human rights at a group study session of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on February 25, 2022. Adherence to law-based protection of human rights and improvement of the legal mechanism of protection of human rights are important requirements for firmly following China’s path of human rights development. To improve the law-based mechanism of guarantee of human rights, the principles of respecting the people’s principal position and removing systematic and institutional barriers should be adhered to. The Constitution should be comprehensively implemented to promote record and review of new laws presented by legislatures, and to safeguard its authority. Innovations of human rights theory should be accelerated, along with faster construction of a human rights academic system, of a human rights academic system, and of a human rights discourse system, for meeting China’s needs in the new era. A sound legal mechanism of guarantee for human rights can better guarantee people’s better life. Furthermore, China should actively participate in global human rights governance and make appropriate contributions.     

Writing Human Rights History—And Social Science Encounters

This review essay on Aryeh Neier's The International Human Rights Movement: A History (Princeton University Press, 2012) discusses Neier's central themes: the origins and maturation of the movement and its effects, including the expansion of human rights and humanitarian law, enhanced criminal accountability for human rights crimes, and the appearance of criminal tribunals, culminating in the International Criminal Court. An overview is interspersed by imaginary conversations between Neier and scholars who speak to his themes, especially legal scholar Jenny Martinez, political scientists Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, historians Devin Pendas and Tomaz Jardim, and sociologists John Hagan, Daniel Levy, Natan Sznaider, Joachim Savelsberg, and Ryan D. King. Linking a practitioner's account with scholarly analyses yields some benefits of “Pasteur's Quadrant.”     

Ethno-National Narratives of Human Rights: The Northern Ireland Policing Board

Policing in Northern Ireland has undergone one of the world's most extensive human rights reform programmes. The challenge has been whether the human rights paradigm can serve as a mutual basis for the region's sparring ethno-national communities to deliberate over long-contested issues of policing, accountability and justice. This article focuses on the Northern Ireland Policing Board as an arena to examine the contemporary political attitudes and agendas that animate the Board's statutory duty to monitor policing on the basis of human rights. Marshalling qualitative data and drawing on legal anthropology, this article offers an account of the ‘social life’ of human rights and policing in the context of Northern Ireland's imperfect peace. It argues that, irrespective of legal standards, human rights oversight harbours deep sentiments and concerns, at the heart of which are communities’ own historical engagements with rights, competing legacies of the conflict and divergent understandings of contemporary policing.     

Workplace Monitoring and the Right to Private Life at Work

In Barbulescu v Romania, the European Court of Human Rights clarified the application of the Article 8 right to private life in the workplace, and the extent of the state's positive obligations to protect the right against workplace monitoring. The decision establishes that there is an irreducible core to the right to private life at work that does not depend on an employee's reasonable expectations of privacy, and sets out clear principles for striking a fair balance between Article 8 and the employer's interests in the context of workplace monitoring. This article considers the nature of states’ positive obligation to protect human rights at work, the scope of the right to private life, and the impact of the decision on domestic law of unfair dismissal.     

Legal Reform and Good Governance: Assessing Rights and Economic Development in Chile

Legal reforms throughout Latin America have increased the transparency of the criminal justice process and improved defendants' rights. Many scholars conjecture that such reforms also improve “good governance” and by extension economic development. Paradoxically, despite such assertions, there are few quantitative studies that examine the precise effect of such legal reforms. Using original data sets, the impact of Chile's criminal law reforms on the rights of criminals and economic development is tested. The results show that Chile's criminal law reform has enhanced defendants' rights by reducing the percent of individuals incarcerated. The reform has had a positive effect on regional economic activity, but little effect on foreign direct investment at the regional level.     

"The Firebrand of My Youth": Holmes,Emerson and Freedom of Expression

There is probably no figure in American jurisprudence who has been more studied and whose record has been more analyzed than Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Among the aspects of Holmes' career that have commonly piqued the interest of scholars is the apparent transformation of Holmes' views of the First Amendment and freedom of expression rights. In 1919, Holmes began a redirection of the United States Supreme Court in its interpretation of these rights with a dissenting opinion in which he set forth a broader approach than what had previously been used-and what Holmes himself had previously held. Why the transformation in Holmes? It is posited in this article that the philosophy that had been simmering in Holmes rose to the surface in 1919. It is a philosophy of individualism and non-conformity. In short, it is Ralph Waldo Emerson's philosophy of self-reliance.     

When Women's Rights are Not Human Rights – the Non‐ Performativity of the Human Rights of Victims of Domestic Abuse within English Family Law

A large proportion of child contact cases in England take place within a context of domestic abuse and significant risks to victims and their childrenq associated with post separation contact. The legal response has largely been inadequate and the potential impact of human rights law by the family courts has yet to be fully explored. This paper analyses an exploratory empirical research project undertaken in 2017/2018 with Women's Aid England and 72 victims of domestic abuse regarding their experiences of human rights law in the family courts. The results, theorised through the lens of performativity and against the context of international human rights law, reveal a high level of non‐ performativity with respect to the human rights of the participants. The paper concludes with recommendations and the implications the analysis holds for feminist organisations if they are to fully realise the human rights of the victims of domestic abuse.     

The Log in Your Eye: Is Europe's External Promotion of Religious Freedom Consistent With its Internal Practice?

The commitment of the EU to the external promotion of the respect for human rights allegedly distinguishes its foreign policy from that of traditional powers. Yet there is the perception that EU's statements are not always consistent with internal practices. This article analyses one set of EU's inconsistencies that has not been sufficiently studied: the discrepancy between internal and external human rights standards. The article focuses on the promotion and protection of freedom of religion or belief, which has become a priority of the EU's foreign policy. It is submitted that the EU's external position generally reflects values common to the Member States, but is sometimes contradicted by the practice of domestic authorities. The human rights standards identified in the EU's foreign policy may arguably serve as a reference for legal reform and the interpretation of fundamental rights in Europe.     

Mixed Messages and Mixed Results: The EU's Promotion of Human Rights in Turkey

In spite of the fact that human rights appear, based on proclamations made by EU representatives, to be of critical importance in the EU's negotiations with Turkey, human rights reform has not been a primary target of pre‐accession aid to Turkey. Why is human rights reform not a central priority in the EU's allocation of aid in this case? First, Commission representatives and Members of the European Parliament disagree over the relative importance of the status of human rights in the pre‐accession reform process. Second, the format of the aid allocation process magnifies inconsistencies in the EU's approach to human rights reform.     

NGOs,international courts,and state backlash against human rights accountability: Evidence from NGO mobilization against Tanzania at the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights

When nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) encounter state resistance to human rights accountability, how do NGOs use international courts for their human rights advocacy strategies? Considering the overlapping phenomena of shrinking civic space within authoritarian, hybrid, and democratically backsliding regimes, and state backlash against international courts, NGOs navigate two potential levels of state backlash against human rights accountability. Building on the interdisciplinary scholarship on legal mobilization, we develop an integrated framework for explaining how states' two-level (domestic and international) backlash tactics can both promote and deter NGOs' strategic litigation at international human rights courts (IHRCs). States' backlash tactics can influence NGOs' opportunities, capacities, and goals for their human rights advocacy, and thus affect whether and how they pursue strategic litigation at IHRCs. We elucidate the value of this framework through case studies of NGOs' litigation against Tanzania at the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights, an understudied IHRC. Drawing on an original data set, interviews, and documentation, we process-trace how Tanzania's various backlash tactics influenced whether and how NGOs litigated at the Court. Our framework and analysis show how state backlash against human rights accountability affects NGOs' mobilization at IHRCs and, relatedly, IHRCs' opportunities for influence.     

儿童免受性侵害的权利--对我国儿童性法律的审视

在国际法上 ,性越来越与人权联系在一起 ,越来越被视为一种基本人权 ,性法律逐步从主要维护性秩序转向主要保护个人的性人权。《儿童权利公约》就突出体现了性人权的视角。我国已经批准《儿童权利公约》和《〈儿童权利公约〉关于买卖儿童、儿童卖淫和儿童色情制品问题的任择议定书》。在性人权的视角下 ,我国儿童性法律存在明显的缺陷与不足。儿童性法律的修改 ,应朝着更加人权化的方向进行 ,以便从一个侧面推动我国的人权建设。     

Examining the “virtual”; publication as a “newspaper of record”;

Newspapers as a record of the day's events and chronicle for public business have been part of the United States' unofficial governing system for several hundred years. The expression “newspaper of record”; has specific meaning and import for librarians, historians and lawyers. This article compares the statutory characteristics of “newspapers of record”; with the qualities of modern electronic newspapers delivered by on‐line delivery services. The article concludes that the definitions of “newspapers of record”; used by librarians, historians and statutes may not be met yet by electronic editions of newspapers. Thus, on‐line newspapers may not be able to carry legal notices.     

Anti‐Imperialism: Generating Universal Human Rights out of Local Norms

To counter possibilities for human rights as cultural imperialism, (1) I develop a notion of human rights as culturally particular and valid only locally. But they are an increasingly generalizable particularism. (2) Because the incommensurability of different cultures does not entail an uncritical tolerance of just about anything, but rather allows for an objectivating stance toward other communities or cultures, locally valid human rights have a critical capacity. (3) Locally valid human rights promote a community's self‐representation and thus allow for diversity, rejecting the coercive (mis)representation of a community or culture as incapable of representing itself.     

Surrogacy,Identity, Parentage and Childrenʼs Rights – Through the Eyes of a Child

In this article I will focus on two important aspects of children's rights which are impacted by artificial reproductive technology (particularly surrogacy); being the rights to identity and the rights to legal parentage. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child acknowledges the importance of a child's right to identity, to be protected from discrimination on the basis of the status or beliefs of the child's parents, legal guardians or family members. For many children born through surrogacy arrangements, they may have only one or no legally recognized parent. The adults caring for them may have parental responsibility orders but this falls well short of providing children with the benefits and protections that legal parentage does. The issue of identity can be complex. Increasingly, states have recognized the importance of children knowing the circumstances of their birth and being able to access biological and genetic information including medical information. From a child's perspective the issues of identity and parenthood are intertwined. Given the importance of identity, more needs to be done to ensure that identifying information about children born as a result of artificial reproductive technology is properly stored and readily accessible for these children. Denying a child legal parentage when there are no concerns about the care being provided by their parents cannot be justified when considered from a children's rights perspective.     

The Horizontal Effect of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU: Rediscovering the Reasons for Horizontality

This article analyses the horizontal effect of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Horizontal effect has been an integral part of the Union's application of fundamental rights, especially in the field of equality. However, the codification of fundamental rights in the Charter raises important questions as to how horizontal effect will continue to apply in the EU, particularly in the aftermath of the Court's reticent rulings in cases such as Dominguez and Association de Médiation Sociale. This article argues that the emphasis on prior approaches to horizontal effect in recent rulings fails to address the profound constitutional issues that the horizontal effect of a fundamental rights catalogue raises, which concern the role of private responsibility within the developing constitutional order of the European Union. It therefore calls for a more systematically theorised approach towards the horizontal application of fundamental rights under the Charter framework.     

The Logics of Supranational Human Rights Litigation,Official Acknowledgment,and Human Rights Reform: The Southeast Turkey Cases before the European Court of Human Rights, 1996–2006

This article examines the domestic impact of supranational human rights litigation on acknowledgment of state violence in the context of macroprocesses of global governance. The article's argument is that the impact of supranational human rights litigation on the process of acknowledgment must be seen through counternarratives on state violence. The article undertakes a detailed textual analysis of the truth claims and denial strategies that emerged from the European Court of Human Rights proceedings on state violence during Turkey's struggle against the armed group the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). It assesses these in the context of the human rights reforms that were created following pressure from European-level governance processes. The article argues that attention must be paid to agency in acknowledgment and truth-telling processes, and points to the limits of technical-bureaucratic forms of human rights reform interventions in the context of state violence.