Constructing a Global Law-Violence against Women and the Human Rights System

This ethnographic analysis of one of the core human rights conventions suggests that despite the lack of enforceability of this convention and its operation within the framework of state sovereignty, it is similar to state law. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, or CEDAW, the major UN convention on the status of women, articulates a vision of women's equal protection from discrimination and addresses gender-based violence as a form of discrimination. It had been ratified by 171 nation states as of mid-2003. Its implementation relies on a complex process of periodic reporting to a global body meeting in New York and a symbiotic if sometimes contentious relationship between government representatives and international and domestic NGOs. Like state law, it serves to articulate and name problems and delineate solutions. It provides a resource for activists endeavoring to address problems of women's status and turns the international gaze on resisting nations. Its regulatory strength depends on the cultural legitimacy of the international process of consensus building and related social movements to define social justice in these terms. Thus, like state law, its impact depends on its cultural legitimacy and its embodiment in local cultures and legal consciousness. This examination of CEDAW as quasi law extends our understanding of law as a plural and a symbolic system rooted in a particular historical moment of globalization.     

Rights,responsibilities and regulation – the three Rs of education: a consideration of the state's control over parental choice in education

Education is both a right and a responsibility. International instruments such as the International covenant on civil and political rights and the International convention on the rights of the child affirm the right of all children to education. This right is spelt out in the education legislation of all states and territories in Australia. Education is not only free but is compulsory for all children between certain ages. The obligation is imposed on parents (in accordance with definitions contained therein) to ensure that their children are both enrolled at and attend school. However, parental choice of education provider is allowed within each jurisdiction by way of state, private or church schools, all of which are registered and regulated to varying degrees by the state. The legislation of each jurisdiction also makes some degree of provision for parents who choose to opt out their children from any formal education setting and to educate them at home. Home education is also subject to state regulation. The assumption by the state of the responsibility for education guides this policy and legislation. The argument for state control of all education, no matter how and by whom it is provided, is that the state has an overriding interest in ensuring the economic well-being of its citizens and the growth of its intellectual capital. The state acknowledges that the responsibility for education is shared with parents, primarily by providing penalties for parents who fail to ensure enrolment and attendance of their children at a school. There is evidence that more and more parents in developed countries worldwide are choosing to educate their children at home, and anecdotal evidence suggests that Australia is part of this trend. To this end, this article critically examines the balance and relationship between the exercise of parental choice and responsibility in education, and state regulation and control. It does so by examining the means by which the legislation of different jurisdictions allows for choice in the exercise of the right to education, with particular reference to home education, places limitations on that choice and imposes control on the delivery of education outside state schools.     

Thinking about gender and judging

Reviewing the work of three political scientists who studied women judges provides an opportunity for rethinking the concept of gender and how to do gender-based research. Scholarship on women judges sometimes veers toward an essentialist view of women and gender differences, despite empirical evidence to the contrary. A close reading of this early work reveals some essentialist missteps but also offers strong examples of research across many methodologies that should serve as exemplars for current research across disciplines. If we move beyond the question of whether women decide cases differently from men, using sex as a variable, like other gender-based research strategies, can provide useful feminist insights.     

Press Photography and Visual Censorship in the Australian Parliament

Still photography is an important medium for visually communicating — and scrutinising — the power of elected representatives. However, it has been severely restricted by parliaments. Surprisingly, the photographs taken by press photographers have been viewed as a larger threat to parliamentary dignity than other seemingly more powerful media, such as television. This article analyses parliaments’ “extraordinary sensitivity to photography” 1 by conducting a comparative, historical examination of press photography in five national parliaments — Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. The article discusses historical milestones in media access for each of these parliaments, but focuses particularly upon the unusual case of the Australian Parliament and its rules on still photography. The author draws upon interviews conducted with Australian press photographers, as well as an analysis of primary material — including parliamentary guidelines on media access, photographs, newspaper reports, parliamentary debates, inquiry reports and submissions.     

Ernest Cole: the perspective of time

Ernest Cole’s photographs reveal the contradictions and paradoxes of apartheid South Africa. At a very young age, and with little formal instruction Cole instinctively produced a significant documentary photo-book titled House of Bondage (1967). This article makes a close reading of some of Ernest Cole’s photographs in relation to the historical circumstances of apartheid and how they can be perceived through the lens of hindsight in postapartheid South Africa. The work offers a potent argument for the power of perception to uncover overlooked moments of the period. As an African, Cole’s photographs construct a narrative of apartheid from the position of an “invisible” black insider. In so doing, they tellingly reveal how he used the system of apartheid to his own advantage in his photographic practice. His photographs ask us to consider his modus operandi and the courage it took to make them at that time, offering the opportunity to behold moments that cut across gaps of space and time.     

Review of Rebecca W. Y Wong,The Illegal Wildlife Trade in China; Understanding the Distribution Networks

Asian Journal of Criminology -     

Is international agricultural research a global public good? The case of rice biofortification

The status of international agricultural research as a global public good (GPG) has been widely accepted since the Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. While the term was not used at the time of its creation, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) system that evolved at that time has been described as a 'prime example of the promise, performance and perils of an international approach to providing GPGs'. Contemporary literature on international agricultural research as a GPG tends to support this view and focuses on how to operationalize the concept. This paper adopts a different starting point and questions this conceptualization of the CGIAR and its outputs. It questions the appropriateness of such a 'neutral' concept to a system born of the imperatives of Cold War geopolitics, and shaped by a history of attempts to secure its relevance in a changing world. This paper draws on a multi-sited, ethnographic study of a research effort highlighted by the CGIAR as an exemplar of GPG-oriented research. Behind the ubiquitous language of GPGs, 'partnership' and 'consensus', however, new forms of exclusion and restriction are emerging within everyday practice, reproducing North-South inequalities and undermining the ability of these programmes to respond to the needs of projected beneficiaries.