Human rights and future people — Possibilities of argumentation

Questions of sustainability will be of crucial importance for the twenty-first century. But do we have to think about questions of responsibilities regarding future people in terms of human rights? And if duties regarding sustainability fall outside the scope of human rights, what would this imply for the moral and political importance of human rights in general? This article investigates conceptually how we should see the relationship between human rights and long-term global ecological challenges. We will discuss how a human rights approach to questions of sustainability would be different from other approaches and what would be required to see those ecological challenges as human rights questions. We will discuss the possibilities for conceptualizing the relationship between human rights and sustainability. And we will briefly draw some conclusions in terms of topics for further debate.     

‘Then we offer them a new project’—the production of projects in social work conducted by civil society in Sweden

In some areas in Europe and Sweden, it is possible to find institutional deficits, that is, areas wherein the welfare state has more or less withdrawn its institutions. In parallel with this development, greater interest has shifted towards social work already being conducted by volunteers and non-profit organizations. How this social work could take on more responsibility for the social well-being of society is a key question. By applying the theory of ‘production of projects’, this article examines 13 projects conducted by civil society organizations in Sweden and how they could relate to the civil sector becoming a complement or even an alternative to the state welfare sector. In terms of competition for funding, the projects need to be able to package their ideas well and manage relationships with the beneficiaries. The lack of long-term alternatives and the demand for innovative ideas influence the civil sector’s ability to take more responsibility for the social well-being of society and make political influence more difficult.     

The Antinomies of Population-Centric Warfare: Cultural Respect and the Treatment of Women and Children in U.S. Counterinsurgency Operations

There is tension between three of the U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine's central goals: the restoration of security, democratization, and cultural respect. These goals are particularly difficult to reconcile when it comes to the treatment of women and children in contested areas. Those groups have unique security concerns that are margin-alized in the U.S. military's conceptions of security and they may be victims of violence that is tacitly permitted by efforts to show cultural respect. After discussing these problems as they appear in U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine the author shows how they shape events in real operations with the help of interviews conducted with veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.     

Powerful perpetrators,hidden in plain sight: an international analysis of organisational child sexual abuse cases

ABSTRACT

There is virtually no literature on child sexual abuse committed by “powerful perpetrators”, who, use position, reputation, wealth and/or power, to become influential members of their organisation. Seventeen cases relating to youth serving organisations were identified using a comprehensive search of databases covering case reviews from England, Australia and the US. A Quantitative Content Analysis was used to analyse the sample with a focus on identifying offenders’ “modus operandi”. Findings revealed a number of critical differences between powerful perpetrators and other child sexual offenders described in the literature. Findings are discussed in relation to their implications for creating safer youth serving organisations. In particular, focusing on educating YSOs to recognise and address risks posed by powerful perpetrators; expanding organisational safety policies and practices and taking steps to develop a strong, positive organisational safety culture are commended as key approaches.     

Fighting the Hellhounds: Pro-democracy Activists and Party Politics in Post-Suharto Indonesia

In the literature on post-Suharto Indonesia, an increasingly dominant stream has portrayed the political system as being hijacked by predatory elite interests associated with the fallen New Order regime. While such characterisations describe important elements of the post-1998 polity, they do not tell the full story. At the same time that patronage-driven career politicians have staked their claims in the newly democratic state, a large number of civil society activists also started to play an active role in formal politics. This article illustrates how human rights advocates, women activists and labour leaders have tried to promote their causes not from the margins of civil society, but from within the power centre of political institutions. To be sure, some activists-turned-politicians have failed in this effort, but others have initiated key pieces of legislation that led to ground-breaking reforms. In comparative terms, the article demonstrates that Indonesian activists have created an effective political niche for themselves, avoiding both the patterns of state co-optation so prevalent in South Korea and the anti-system attitudes of activist politicians in Malaysia.