Narcophobia: drugs prohibition and the generation of human rights abuses

This paper is concerned with the negative aspects of global drugs prohibition. The paper argues that prohibition, which is driven by moralism rather than empirical research, creates a black market that is regulated by violent entrepreneurs, and particular in developing countries where there is a lack of economic opportunities for the poor, offers the only feasible employment options. The paper suggests that the results of experimental legislation should be taken seriously. The militarisation of prohibition enforcement has hindered the advancement of democracy and led to violence and increases in human rights abuses. In conclusion it is argued that the current system of global prohibition creates more problems than it solves, and that issues of drug production and trade need to be dealt with by regulation from within a development perspective.     

Survey reveals human rights abuses in Alberta

A survey of people with HIV/AIDS in Alberta suggests that there are serious deficiencies in the provision of pre- and post-test counselling to people undergoing HIV-antibody testing. Survey respondents also identified human rights abuses in employment, housing, and other areas.     

Report documents human rights abuses of drug users in Thailand

A violent, state-sponsored "war on drugs" is jeopardizing Thailand's long struggle to become one of Southeast Asia's leading rights-respected democracies. This is one of the findings of a report released by Human Rights Watch (HRW) on the eve of the XV International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, Thailand in July 2004.     

A hypothetical neurological association between dehumanization and human rights abuses

Dehumanization is anecdotally and historically associated with reduced empathy for the pain of dehumanized individuals and groups and with psychological and legal denial of their human rights and extreme violence against them. We hypothesize that ‘empathy’ for the pain and suffering of dehumanized social groups is automatically reduced because, as the research we review suggests, an individual''s neural mechanisms of pain empathy best respond to (or produce empathy for) the pain of people whom the individual automatically or implicitly associates with her or his own species. This theory has implications for the philosophical conception of ‘human’ and of ‘legal personhood’ in human rights jurisprudence. It further has implications for First Amendment free speech jurisprudence, including the doctrine of ‘corporate personhood’ and consideration of the potential harm caused by dehumanizing hate speech. We suggest that the new, social neuroscience of empathy provides evidence that both the vagaries of the legal definition or legal fiction of ‘personhood’ and hate speech that explicitly and implicitly dehumanizes may (in their respective capacities to artificially humanize or dehumanize) manipulate the neural mechanisms of pain empathy in ways that could pose more of a true threat to human rights and rights-based democracy than previously appreciated.     

Human rights abuses and the medical profession

Allegations of torture are on the increase and the medico-legal and ethical problems can no longer be ignored by the medical profession. While jurists fail to give effective legal guidelines as to what amounts to 'torture', reports indicate that doctors are often engaged in activities which are difficult to reconcile with any conception of medical ethics. There is a clear need for the medical profession to re-evaluate their involvement in circumstances that are a direct antithesis of their professional occupation. The skills of doctors with forensic expertise allow detection of human rights abuses and thereby its potential reduction. There is scope for the reduction torture or ill-treatment, if the profession maintain high standards of medical practice and ethics.     

Tracing the use of electrical torture

With the aim of being able to trace skin sequelae to electrical torture, an interdisciplinary group of scientists (the "electrical group" of Anti-Torture Research, ATR) has performed controlled morphological studies on skin biopsies from experiments with fully anesthetized pigs. "Vesicular nuclei" in epidermis and a characteristic pattern of collagen calcification in dermis were found to be typical of electrical damage. These alterations were produced by alternating current as well as by direct current.     

The state human trafficking and human rights issues in Africa

Internal factors in Africa which include limited autonomy of African states, the states’ various degrees of lack of capacity, as well as inept and parasitic leadership make human trafficking and human rights abuses in Africa inevitable. Regardless of the connections suggested to exist between globalization and human trafficking, internal factors in Africa are more fundamental than globalization in explaining human trafficking and the associated human rights violations. Corruption and misrule brought about wars and crises, unemployment, poverty, and diseases, all of which acted as push factors in disposing victims to be trafficked. Internal factors were exacerbated by the structural adjustment programs of the 1980s and were only deepened by the impacts of globalization. Any meaningful resolve to combat human trafficking and fight human rights abuses in Africa necessarily has to address the nature of state and the character of the leadership in the region.     

The safeguarding and foundation of human rights

Human rights, as legally understood, must be safeguarded. This presupposes a state of law. The safeguarding of human rights further presupposes an independent judiciary applying the law in a community with common values and aspirations. The foundation of human rights is an individualistic philosophy dependent on the respect for truth and the possibility for the individual to attain it. The respect for the dignity of the human person is the result of a long historical development from this starting point.Dedicated to Helmut CoingTranslated by E. F. Kaelin.     

关于病案所有权和使用权初探

医疗行业是高风险行业。由于医学的高难复杂性和局限性 ,医疗行为具有“双重效应” ,使得在医疗过程中经常发生对病人不利的结果 ;同时 ,由于病人对医疗价值的过高期望 ,往往造成医疗纠纷不断发生。随着医疗纠纷的不断增加 ,医患双方的法律识越来越强 ,患者用法律手段维护自身的合法权利 ,医院用法律保护医院和医务人员的合法权益 ,作为认证医疗过失的原始资料———病案无疑是医院与患者双方关注的焦点。我国目前尚无法律对病案所有权和使用权做出明确规定。鉴于病案物质部分归医疗机构所有已经成为通说。为此笔者根据掌握的资料 ,就我国的…     

The structure of basic human rights

This paper offers a theory of the structure of basic human rights which is both compatible with and clarificatory of the traditional conception of such rights. A central contention of the theory is that basic rights are structurally different from other kinds of moral rights, such as special rights, because of differences both in the way in which basic rights have content and the model on which basic rights are correlative with duties. This contention is exploited to develop and defend the central thesis of the theory, namely that basic human rights are bundles of mutually held active rights enjoyed by persons in virtue of the specifiable moral relationships they bear to each other.     

关于病案所有权和使用权初探

医疗行业是高风险行业.由于医学的高难复杂性和局限性,医疗行为具有"双重效应",使得在医疗过程中经常发生对病人不利的结果;同时,由于病人对医疗价值的过高期望,往往造成医疗纠纷不断发生.     

欧洲人权与生物医学公约(节译)

序言欧洲理事会(Council of Europe)②成员国,其他国家和欧洲共同体,即签约国:遵循1948年12月10日联合国大会宣布的世界人权宣言;遵循1950年11月4日人权和基本自由保护公约;遵循1961年10月18日欧洲社会宪章;遵循1966年12月16日公民权利和政治权利国际公约以及经济、社会和文化权利国际公约;遵循1981年1月28日个人数据自动处理时个人保护之公约;同样遵循1989年11月20日儿童权利公约;考虑到欧洲理事会的目的在于致力于成员国间更大程度之结合,而达成这一目的的手段之一为保持并进一步实现人权和基本自由;意识到生物和医学的快速发展;确信尊重…     

欧洲人权与生物医学公约(节译)

欧洲理事会(Council of Europe)成员国，其他国家和欧洲共同体．即签约国：     

人权与公民权之异同

人权和公民权是两个关系非常密切的概念,它们既有相同之处,又有细微差别。它们的共同点表现为:起源相同,社会基础和制约条件相同,内容基本相同,价值取向和理论基础相同。它们的区别体现在:主体不完全相同,适用范围不同,属性不同,表达方式的差异,实施和监督机制的差异,救济途径的差异。     

滥用海洛因对心血管系统的损害

海洛因滥用对人体各个系统产生严重的损害,其中对心血管系统的损害作用是多方面的。本文就滥用海洛因对心率、血压、心电图、心功能、血液循环、心血管内一些物质的变化、心血管并发症等进行综述,为相关的研究提供参考。