Designating Safety,Denying Persecution: Implications for Roma Refugee Claimants in Canada

In response to the arrival in Canada of thousands of Hungarian Roma asylum seekers, a new and restrictive refugee regime was installed. Legislation included Designated Countries of Origin or “safe” countries from which refugee claimants were stripped of some entitlements. Acceptance rates fluctuate in loose reticulation with several factors. When negative decisions are made on refugee claims, conditions of persecution in Hungary are denied even though they are clearly demonstrable. Inclusion of claimants' voices substantiates a normalized violence. When decision makers parse the criterion of persecution and when political leaders dismiss claims as “bogus,” the consequence is the reconfiguration of the Roma as essentially nomadic.     

Two Models of Monetary Redress: A Structural Analysis

Monetary redress is a developing area of human rights policy. The article examines how a redress program’s design affects the interests of program applicants. It distinguishes two program models, individual assessment and common experience, and explores their differing effects on applicants’ interests. Analyzing two Irish cases, redress for survivors of the industrial schools and the Magdalene laundries, the discussion is applicable to a wide range of redress programs including those in postconflict, transitional justice, and postcolonial contexts.     

“Walking in her shoes”: The Impact of Victim Impact Panels on Perpetrators of Intimate Partner Violence

Restorative justice models have had success with some issues within the criminal justice system; however, advocates and researchers within the intimate partner violence practice community have been reluctant to embrace this model. Criminal justice responses for intimate partner violence continue to be founded on a blend of retributive and rehabilitative justice models. Despite this reluctance, use of the restorative justice intervention of victim impact panels, may have targeted utility for increasing perpetrators’ empathy for their victims. The author 2examined responses from perpetrators who were mandated to participate in a victim impact panel experience as part of the coordinated community system response to intimate partner violence.     

Do You Wish to Prosecute the Person Who Assaulted You?: Untested Sexual Assault Kits and Victim Notification of Rape Survivors Assaulted as Adolescents

In jurisdictions across the country, sexual assault kits (SAKs) have not been consistently submitted for testing and many cities are now submitting large quantities of SAKs for forensic DNA testing. As a result, some survivors will be asked to re-engage with the criminal justice system, a process that may raise complex issues for victims who were adolescents at the time of their assaults. The authors examine the experiences of 15 adolescent victims whose SAKs were not tested, and their decision-making pathways regarding reengagement with the criminal justice system years after the initial investigation. Findings reveal that characteristics of the initial assault, victim-blaming experiences, and the social support appear to be related to the decision to re-engage with law enforcement years after the initial assault. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

Comparison of Impact of Procedural Justice and Outcome on Victim Satisfaction: Evidence From Victims’ Experience With Registration of Property Crimes in India

Crime victim–police interface and registration of crime are the early and fundamental interactions in the criminal justice system. The process of lodging a complaint is marked by the pain of victimization, sharing of information, and expectation of quick remedial action from the police. The nature and quality of experience of the victim and outcomes impact the level of satisfaction with services of police. Through a survey of victims of property crimes, in different areas of a state in India, the author examines the impact of procedural justice and outcomes on victim satisfaction. The study illuminates the outcome oriented expectations of the victim, and the unique dynamics of victim–police interaction, which strains the legal ethical framework of the criminal justice system.     

Totalitarian tendencies in drone strikes by states

Lethal drones or unmanned combat aerial vehicles have been used to kill thousands of persons suspected of complicity in terrorism. Despite concerns aired by legal scholars that drone strikes outside areas of active hostilities violate international law, the US government contends that targeted killing is distinct from assassination, and has persisted in the practice to the point where it has become normalised as a standard operating procedure and taken up by other nations as well. Drone strikes have been championed by Western politicians as a “light footprint” approach to war, but the institutional apparatus of remote-control killing rests on totalitarian, not democratic principles. Secretive targeting criteria and procedures are withheld from citizens under a pretext of national security, resulting in a conflation of executive with judicial authority and an inversion of the burden of proof, undermining the very framework of universal human rights said to be championed by modern Western states. Moreover, lethal drones hovering above in the sky threaten all persons on the ground with the arbitrary termination of their lives and as such represent a form of terrorism no less than the suicide bombings of jihadist groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS.     

Pathway to resilience: hands and hearts for peasant livelihoods and fair relations between humans and nature

Abstract

Peasants and rural communities are on the front lines of most climate catastrophes taking place nowadays worldwide; at the same time, we have been the ones taking care of our common planet over generations. This article begins with a brief overview of the current situation of land use in the world today and links it to climate issues. It then describes some of the solutions to climate threats being negotiated between national governments and the private sector. It then highlights solutions that communities are already implementing and concludes with the reasons why systemic change is needed in order to achieve agrarian and climate justice.     

The origins and politics,campaigns and demands by the international fisher peoples’ movement: an Indigenous perspective

Abstract

This reflective contribution discusses the intersection of Indigenous and Small Scale Fisheries’ (SSF) issues, and how the international SSF movement has a critical role in the broader struggle for the convergence of social justice regarding the environment, food and lifeways. I explore some of the political tensions around Indigenous and SSF struggles against global neoliberalisation of land and water resources, some of the successes and challenges of the international SSF movement, and future considerations for academic/activist ‘decolonising’ work.     

Modern poetry,popular song and their dangerous liaisons

Abstract

In this article, Tsuboi Hideto examines the mutually entwined pursuits of modern poetry and music in interwar Japan, focusing especially on the work of Nakahara Chūya, Kitahara Hakushū, and the People's Poetry group. Cutting across their respective distinctions within the poetry establishment, Tsuboi draws attention to these figures’ shared investment in symphonic, folk and popular music. In so doing, he identifies among them a prevailing concern for curating a poetic voice that might harmonize the conflictual registers of individual and collective expression and thereby attune the work of the poet to that of the ‘people’ more broadly. Meanwhile, the essay traces the currents of modernist and avant-garde thought in Japan and Europe that framed these poets’ engagements with music and sound. Tsuboi then illustrates the varying degrees to which these voices, forged within the cosmopolitan milieu of the Taisho period, bent toward the nationalizing project and later gave way to the chorus of wartime fascism and imperial expansion.     

The everyday peace project: an innovative approach to peace pedagogy

A critical task for peace pedagogy is to challenge views of peace as primarily responses to declared war. Crisis-based politics tend to focus on exceptional situations and fail to capture the entire spectrum of violence. Premised on the idea that peace cannot be understood in isolation of larger structural problems, this paper proposes the concept of ‘everyday peace’ as a framework for peace education. Drawing from a pedagogical initiative, we examine how students engage with the concept of everyday peace and present our findings in three related domains: (1) definition of everyday peace, (2) application of everyday peace principles and (3) role of collaboration in everyday peace approaches. Our analysis underscored two important themes in participants’ definitions of everyday peace: (1) peace as a value-based praxis and (2) individual-level and systemic components of everyday peace. Applying these principles to a violent event in the local community, participant responses emphasized compassion, cultures of peace and the need to draw reflexive, meaningful connections between local and global contexts. The participants also outlined the synergistic role of collaboration in everyday peacebuilding. We discuss our findings in relation to extant research and consider implications of an everyday peace framework for holistic peace education.