从人权和公民权利的角度解读“职工合法权益”

如果从人权和公民权利的角度出发,就不能仅仅把"职工合法权益"理解为职工所拥有的、直接与劳动关系和劳动过程有关的权利,而应该理解为职工作为人、作为公民所拥有的、受到宪法保护的基本人权和公民权.不言而喻,工会也应当是这种意义上的"职工合法权益"的代表者和维护者.     

‘Solidity or Wind?’ What's on the Menu in the Bill of Rights Debate?

This article examines the pronouncements and positions of the leading political parties on the Human Rights Act and the proposals for a new British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. It analyses the main arguments made in support of a British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities, which are advanced around five main issues: security, the judges, parliamentary sovereignty, responsibilities and 'British rights'. The article was written before the government published the Green Paper Rights and Responsibilities: developing our constitutional framework in March 2009 and provides a political context with which to analyse it.     

论生育权的性质及其法律保护

生育是人类种族繁衍的本能需求,生育权是自然人与生俱有的一项基本人权,也是自然人所固有、专属和必备的人格权。自然人均平等享有生育权,法律对自然人的生育权应予以普遍的确认和保护;同时,也应关注男性、无配偶者和罪犯（包括死刑犯）等争议主体的生育权保护问题。     

How Scandalous <Emphasis Type="Italic">Is</Emphasis> Knowledge of Evolutionary Psychology?

Biological science is deepening our understanding of life at a brisk rate, but interdisciplinary discourse is not keeping pace. This essay offers an account of themes from evolutionary biology that can enrich appreciation of the complexities of human behavior. Because this topic touches fields with different and more traditional perspectives, frictions and misunderstandings exist, and I have employed examples from a single source in order to clarify the science. In her critique of evolutionary psychology published in her book Scandalous Knowledge, the social theorist Barbara Herrnstein Smith has set forth views that are not in harmony with either evolutionary biology or cognitive neuroscience. She asserts that specialized features of mental processing postulated by evolutionary psychologists are without empirical justification; further, she dismisses the concept as embracing “non-physical mental organs.” There exist, however, numerous examples of how brains process information in specific, functional ways, frequently characteristic of the species. Furthermore, the charge of “non-physical mental organs” is not only wrong; it reveals a failure to recognize that biology has two complementary modes of explanation. One is historical and addresses cause in terms of the historical course of evolution and the process of natural selection. The other is proximate and includes many levels of analysis from molecular to social. Because brains have evolutionary histories, the ‘function’ of a particular aspect of mental processing can have a hypothetical explanation in terms of adaptive advantage that is independent of any knowledge of the underlying neural circuitry. A computational model of the brain and representational processing of sensory information, however, are both compatible with observed properties of neurons in the retina and visual cortex as well as with evolutionary processes. Finally, study of the mental processes of non-human primates provides insight into the evolution of our own minds.

Autonomous peasant struggles and left arts of government

I argue that self-organisation cannot account for how grassroots struggles can pursue transnational political change. I develop an account of some ‘left arts of government’ through which resistance is facilitated and organised without reintroducing oppressive and hierarchical forms of rule. I do so by focusing on the practices of autonomous peasant mobilisations. Land occupation movements facilitate the ability of people to engage in ongoing resistance on their own behalf. They organise resistance through horizontal communication and through transnational networks involving representative structures. Finally, peasant mobilisations engage with states and international institutions to solidify gains made.     

Tracking the gender politics of the Millennium Development Goals: struggles for interpretive power in the international development agenda

This article tracks the gender politics of the processes that led to the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals and that continued to feature in subsequent policy debates. It suggests that this politics is rooted in tensions between conceptualisations of rights and capabilities that characterised the preceding decade. While feminist organisations made major gains on women’s rights during 1990s, it was a narrow version of human capabilities that defined the MDGs. Feminist efforts since then have focused on defending sexual and reproductive rights in the face of the attacks mounted by an ‘unholy alliance’ led by the Vatican and supported by a shifting group of countries and religious groups. This has led to the relative neglect of the economic injustices associated with the dominant market-led model of development.     

Human security thinking in practice: ‘personal security’, ‘citizen security' and comprehensive mappings

This paper describes the introduction of an emphasis on ‘personal security’ in human security thinking and practice, as part of the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to compartmentalize the pursuit of security. It reviews the past 20 years of attention to ‘personal security’: both in compartments that consider organized physical violence or threats to personal safety and property (‘citizen security’), and as parts of more wide-ranging examination of threats to fulfilment of basic needs and rights, for example, in comprehensive mapping exercises undertaken in various UNDP Regional and National Human Development Reports or in studies of women's security. The paper reflects on the complex process of opening-up conventional security thinking and practice in ways that add value and depth without shrinking into preconceived compartments.     

What can security do for food? Lessons from Brazil

What are the analytical benefits of using the security vocabulary when addressing issues of human well-being? And to what extent can a security framing of these issues be useful in the normative and political sense – that is, when making judgements about existing policies and when formulating and implementing alternative ones? This article uses the case of food security to engage with these questions. It argues for a shift away from conceptual fine-tuning of what food security should mean and towards an appreciation of how security functions as a political modality. Whilst acknowledging that this modality can work to encourage international conflict, enable governmental control and empower global capitalism, the idea that security has an inherent logic which denies progressive politics is refuted. Drawing on the idea of emancipation in critical security studies, and applying it to empirical examples from contemporary Brazil, it is shown how food security can help expedite action to address harm and vulnerability, reinforce the public sphere and widen the scope of social concern.     

Peace education and childhood

Peace studies and peace education are multifaceted processes focusing on diverse audiences from children in elementary grades to those involved in political negotiations at the highest levels. This paper addresses the foundational importance of including conflict embedded in adult-child relationships in peace education. It conceptually grounds assignments for university level courses designed to teach concepts linked to peace education through the vehicle of understanding violence against children. Such learning is designed to liberate students from the hegemony of adultism, the colonial relationship between adults and children and in turn to contribute to the advancement of peace education. Such pedagogy reflects the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child’s call for educational measures to protect and support children’s human dignity. Such an approach is especially relevant for peace education, as a large body of research across disciplines has provided substantial evidence of a significant relationship between childhood experiences of violence and subsequent juvenile and adult behavioral and social problems including conflict and violence. The approach and assignments described in this paper reflect insights about the use of narratives of childhood experiences, the etiology and effects of violence against children and the reproduction of conflict and violence across generations.     

Promoting democracy in Latin America: foreign policy change and US democracy assistance, 1975–2010

Since the Cold War the USA has articulated and implemented explicit strategies of democracy promotion. One interesting target of such efforts is Latin America, in part because of the region’s geographic proximity to the USA and of the mixed record of US support for democracy there. This paper examines the impact of the end of the Cold War and the 9/11 episode on the nature, purposes, targets and consequences of US democracy assistance to Latin America. Examining democracy aid allocations, social and political factors and other variables, it traces changes in aid strategies, purposes and recipients generated by these paradigm shifts, and assesses the impact of such assistance on the politics of the region. It concludes with implications of these findings for US democracy promotion policies.