Women and the extreme right: A comment

Reza Shah‐Kazemi (ed.), Algeria: Revolution Revisited. London: Islamic World Report, 1997, distributed by I. B. Tauris and St. Martin's Press. Pp.193. $19.95. ISBN 1–8606–4368‐X.

Danny O. Coulson and Elaine Shannon, No Heroes: Inside the FBI's Secret Counter‐Terror Force. New York: Pocket Books, 1999.

Jessica Stern, The Ultimate Terrorists. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1999. Pp.214. $22.95 (cloth). ISBN 0–674–61790–8.

Ehud Sprinzak, Brother Against Brother: Violence and Extremism in Israeli Politics from Altalena to the Rabin Assassination. New York: The Free Press, 1999. Pp.366. US$27.50, Can.$41.00. ISBN 0–684–85344–2.     

The right to protection from sexual assault: the Indian anti-rape campaign

This article reveals a viewpoint that emphasizes some dilemmas among Indian feminist practice, women's sexuality in legal terms, and case law in India. The Indian Women's Movement (IWM) was successful in 1983 in adding a legal amendment on rape and child abuse. The case that mobilized women to change the law occurred in 1980 when a court acquitted two policemen who were charged with raping and molesting a 16-year-old tribal girl. The Bombay High Court overturned the judgement and convicted both policemen. The case was appealed, and the policemen successfully argued that rape did not occur because the girl did not protest and was sexually experienced anyway. In 1980 the Forum Against Rape was formed to mobilize public support and to lobby the State for reform of the law on rape. The campaign focused on custodial rape and political repression, rape as civil rights issue, and rape as a women's issue. There was a distancing between the victim, who occupied a lower caste and class position, and her defenders in the women's groups. The campaign appealed to both the appropriate judgement of the State and the denial that the State was an effective vehicle for change. The campaign did not directly address incest and marital rape or domestic violence within families. The legislature debated the issue of legal change during 1982. The debate revealed deep divisions about sexuality and women's status. It was argued that chaste women were not rape victims, and unchaste women were of a socially inferior caste and class. It was argued that there should be a ban on child marriage rather than spousal rape laws. Child rape is a legal issue only when the perpetrator is outside the family. Rape was discussed as an act of lust and not violence. In 1992, a woman promoting an end to child marriage was raped and the men were acquitted. It was argued that the law was out-of-date and in need of revision.     

From the right to development to the rights-based approach: how ‘human rights’ entered development

This article offers an intellectual genealogy of how the concept of human rights has entered the development discourse—from the formulation of a ‘right to development’ to the rhetorical incorporation of rights within prevailing discourse, to the articulation of a ‘rights-based approach’ to development. It concludes with some propositions about the important role that a focus on rights might play in the practice of international development.     

The global struggle for the right to a place to live

The problem of inadequate housing and living conditions facing one quarter of the world's population is situated in this article within the frameworkof human rights, and of international recognition of the basic rights to a place to live, and to gain and sustain an adequate standard of living. The nature and scale of the housing crisis points to a failure of governance that leads to exclusion, dispossession, and violence becoming endemic in societies: the institutionalisation of insecure and inadequate housing and living conditions. The author draws on the experience of Habitat International Coalition (HIC) in developing and supporting a comprehensive range of actions at local, national, regional, and international levels; and suggests some of the elements required if changes are not only to be promoted and campaigned for, but also sustained.     

Options,functions, and skills: What an organizational ombudsman might want to know

Conclusion In this article I have tried to outline the present day practice of organizational ombudsmanry in North America, as I understand it thus far. I have drawn on very generous contributions from others in the profession, from my own experience, and from research. Probably no ombudsperson lives up, every day, to the standards he or she has set for good judgment, fairness, compassion, neutrality, respect for others — for true and ethical professionalism. These are qualities that may be instinctive in some people but which may be acquired by all of us in greater measure through study and self-reflection — as I learn from the steadfast examples of close colleagues around North America.also adjunct professor of management at MIT's Sloan School of Management. A practicing ombudsperson for 22 years, and co-founder of The Ombudsman Association, she has consulted, lectured and written extensively in this area of dispute resolution.     

The right to self-determination and the indigenous people of Western Sahara

This paper discusses the right to self-determination of the indigenous people of Western Sahara. It studies their post-colonial struggle for self-determination, which has been denied owing to Morocco's occupation and forcible annexation of their territory in 1975. It also looks into the process by which the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination has been institutionalized within the United Nations (UN) system as well as the ongoing UN peace efforts to implement this right and the prospects to which they may lead. Overall, the paper seeks to demonstrate that the continuation of the conflict in Western Sahara is a strong reminder of an enduring violation of a fundamental norm of international law, and the responsibility of the UN and the international community as a whole to redress this aberrant situation.     

The right to broadcast: towards a broadcasting charter for South Africa

SUMMARY

In this article Michael Markovitz, chairman of the Broadcasting Commission of the Film and Allied Workers Organisation (FAWO) argues:

• that present broadcasting statutes restrict access to the technological means of communication in South African society which prevails now;

• that broadcasting is an issue of national and constitutional importance;

• that the deregulation of broadcasting, with protection or non-profit broadcast services, could benefit the negotiation process;

• that private sector domination of both the broadcasting and print media sectors would be incompatible with the extension of freedom of expression in South Africa;

• that prevailing broadcasting legislation effectively prohibits community broadcasting; and

• that the right to broadcast and broadcast freedom should be entrenched in a Bill of Rights.

     

The continuous process of recognition and implementation of the Sami people's right to self-determination

This paper explores the status of the recognition and implementation of the Sami people's right to self-determination. The Sami are the indigenous people of Finland, Norway, Sweden and the Kola Peninsula in the north-western region of Russia. They are one people residing across national borders, enjoying a distinctive identity, language, history, culture and social structure, as well as unique traditions, livelihoods and aspirations. Their distinctiveness has given rise to their claim to self-determination based on conventional principles and instruments of international law. But where their right to self-determination has been gradually recognized by Finland, Norway and Sweden, Russia remains reluctant. And where Sami self-determination has been implemented through indigenous Sami parliaments, in Nordic states, the process of recognizing and implementing their right within these states has only taken place incrementally within existing democratic and constitutional mechanisms. It is a continuous process without a predefined outcome.     

Hitting the right target: EU and Security Council pursuit of terrorist financing

This article analyses one specific instance of the use of targeted sanctions to combat the financing of terrorism by the European Union on behalf of the United Nations Security Council. The case raised a number of issues involving the use of sanctions against non-state actors and provoked a legal challenge at the European Court of Justice. These European court cases have been portrayed as a challenge to the use of targeted sanctions by the Security Council to maintain international peace and security. The fundamental critique here is that targeted sanctions must adhere to due process and the rule of law in order to protect individual human rights.     

Youth culture and European integration in Germany: back to European basics?

Using data of a representative survey among young people in Germany, the present article detects significant shifts in attitudes towards European integration over a relatively short time-span. Surveying these changing attitudes, the article explores the idea that these changing attitudes could signal more than mere short-term reactions to singular political events, but rather point to a reorientation towards the initial conceptualization of European integration as a peace project. Gudrun Quenzel is Lecturer at the Institute for Sociology at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Mathias Albert is Professor of Political Science at Bielefeld University.     

Wiki and the Agora: ‘It's organising,Jim, but not as we know it’

This article argues that those keen to characterise and harness the empowering potential of Information and Communications Technology [ICT] for development projects must understand that the very existence of this technology opens up alternative models of co-operation and collaboration. These models themselves necessitate breaking away from ‘traditional’ command-and-control models of management. One alternative is to persuade participants, or potential participants, to co-ordinate their efforts along the lines exemplified by the open-source software movement and the contributors to Wikipedia: models of co-ordination that ought not to work but appear to do so. The article offers a summary of this argument, and then suggests ways in which NGOs in particular might try to incorporate these insights into their strategies. This is particularly critical for organisations that rely on increasingly pressurised funding opportunities, and which also seek to develop and engender participation and determination from within and among specific target groupings.