Fait Accompli: Singapore Again Upholds Section 377A Criminalising Homosexuality

Fait Accompli: Singapore Again Upholds Section 377A Criminalising Homosexuality

Co-authored by guest contributors Paras Ahuja and Rahul Garg.  Paras Ahuja is an undergraduate student pursuing law at the National Law University, Jodhpur. Her research interests include human rights, constitutional law and feminism.  Rahul Garg is an undergraduate student pursuing law at the National Law University, Jodhpur. His research interests include gender studies, human rights and international humanitarian law. On 30th March, 2020, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Singapore in Ong Ming Johnson v. Attorney-General upheld the constitutional validity of Section 377A of the Singapore Penal Code, 1871. Section 377A punishes any male person who commits an act of “gross indecency” with another male person, whether in public or in private. The judgement marks itself as a regressive touchpoint in Singapore’s progression towards inclusiveness and equality.  Article 14(1) (a) of the Constitution of Singapore guarantees every citizen the right to freedom of speech and expression. The petitioners in this case contended that Section 377A derogated this right by failing to recognize one’s...
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The Tibetan Model of Resistance: Human Rights in Tibet

The Tibetan Model of Resistance: Human Rights in Tibet

Guest Contributor Divya Malhotra is pursuing her Ph.D. from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and is a non-resident fellow at the Middle East Institute, New Delhi where she monitors and documents Pakistan-Middle East relations. Her areas of interest include human rights studies. Her writing has appeared in the Times of Israel blog.  The world today is riddled with violence and conflict. Countries across Asia and Africa are engaged in a perpetual struggle for political and religious autonomy and self-determination. Be it West Asia’s Arab Spring, Israeli-Palestinian conflict over land, the Baloch and Pashtun separatist movements in Pakistan, or the turmoil in Kashmir, violence has become accepted as a status-quo in these areas. However, one community’s struggle for separation has had an intriguingly peaceful and spiritual dimension: the Tibetan resistance movement.      Historical Background The Tibetan independence movement is a political movement for the independence of Tibet and the political separation of Tibet from China. It has been principally been led...
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A State’s Responsibility in an Epidemic: Human Rights and the Coronavirus Outbreak

A State’s Responsibility in an Epidemic: Human Rights and the Coronavirus Outbreak

Guest Contributors Bodhisattwa Majumder and Devashish Giri are penultimate year students at Maharashtra Law University Mumbai. Their interests include Constitutional Law, Public International law and Maritime law. Any discussion related to the paper can be made via mail at [email protected] or [email protected] The outbreak of Coronavirus or COVID-19 (“Coronavirus”) from Wuhan, China (“People’s Republic of China “) has engulfed as many as twenty four countries across the globe with a medical emergency and has claimed more than 3,800 lives as of now.  This strain of the virus is graver than the other types of Coronaviruses as it has never been identified in humans before. Coronavirus belongs to the zoonotic group of viruses which can affect a human being with a range of health ailments ranging from the common cold to serious problems such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV). The World Health Organization and other countries including the US have declared it as a “Global Public...
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Non-Violence in Communal War in Central Nigeria

Non-Violence in Communal War in Central Nigeria

By James Courtright, Staff Writer for RightsViews On January 30th Dr. Jana Krause came to speak with students and faculty at Columbia’s School for International and Public Affairs about her new book, “Resilient Communities: Non-Violence and Civilian Agency in Communal War.” Her work centers on communal conflict - non-state armed conflict between identity groups - in Plateau state in Nigeria and Maluku province in Indonesia. In both places the violence tended to be simplistically referred to as Christian against Muslim, but upon further investigation she found it was deeply rooted in local political and economic dynamics and narratives. After explaining how communal violence was organized, she then delved into neighborhoods in Nigeria and Indonesia where violence did not occur, analyzing how the choices of civilians and their collective efforts to prevent fighting saved the lives of hundreds of people. Conflict in Jos When she first visited Jos, Nigeria in 2010, Dr. Krause had to pass through multiple checkpoints along the road from the...
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Is Tolerance of Human Rights Abuses out of Fashion? A Cautionary Tale for Retail Giants

Is Tolerance of Human Rights Abuses out of Fashion? A Cautionary Tale for Retail Giants

By Kelly Dudine, staff writer at RightsViews In a Bangladeshi garment factory, a woman works seven days a week, morning to night, and still cannot afford to feed and clothe her children at home. In India, young women working in cotton mills face appalling work conditions, low pay, violence and exploitation. This is the cost of fast fashion, poorly regulated labor markets, and ultimately, the tolerance of human rights abuses by the business community.  However, shifts in public opinion, consumer behavior, and investment strategies are testing business-as-usual more than ever before. The bare minimum is no longer enough - the rules are changing and the business community will need to make drastic, meaningful changes in order to adapt. The recent filing of bankruptcy by Forever 21 is a strong cautionary tale to all retail giants. The company has been in troubled waters for years. It expanded too quickly and carelessly, and faced lawsuits and accusations of worker exploitation. Despite the adaptation of a social...
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Erosion of the Right to Freedom in Kashmir: How India Violated Established Principles of Constitutional and International Law

Erosion of the Right to Freedom in Kashmir: How India Violated Established Principles of Constitutional and International Law

Guest Contributor Bhaskar Kumar is a 3rd year student at National Law School of India University, Bangalore. His areas of interest include criminal justice, human rights, constitutionalism and international law. He writes for a number of platforms including law review blogs and media platforms like The Hindu, Live law JILS-NUJS etc. In anticipation of unrest after altering the special constitutional status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian government detained several political leaders and imposed a broad restriction on freedom of movement and press in August 2019.   These restrictions were imposed in the aftermath of abolishing article 370 of Indian Constitution. This article was part of the Constitution of India which provided special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir. By virtue of this article, the people of Jammu and Kashmir used to enjoy some privileges including exclusive property rights.  The government justified this amendment by considering it a step that ensures the complete integration of the state into...
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The Ayodhya Ruling and the Rule of Law

The Ayodhya Ruling and the Rule of Law

Guest Contributors Prannv Dhawan and Parth Maniktalaare are law students at NLSIU Bengaluru and Campus Law Centre, Delhi respectively. Prannv is the founding editor of the Law School Policy Review and Parth is an editor of the online journal, Polemics and Pedantics. A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court in India has unanimously held that the possession of the most-contested piece of land in Indian political history—the 2.77 acres where the Babri Masjid Mosque once stood—should in fact be exclusively given to the Hindu claimants of the case. At the same time, the Court invoked its special power to do ‘complete justice’ under Article 142 to restitute the damage caused by ‘egregiously illegal’ idol installation (1949) and Masjid demolition (1992). Hence, it ordered the government to allot an alternate plot of 5 acres to the Sunni Muslim Waqf Board at a ‘prominent place’ in Ayodhya for the construction of a new mosque.  A few words have become an indispensable part of the...
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The Kashmir Issue: How “Miller (2)” Must Inspire the Indian Supreme Court

The Kashmir Issue: How “Miller (2)” Must Inspire the Indian Supreme Court

By guest contributors Anmol Jain and Prannv Dhawan. Jain is  a penultimate-year law student at National Law University, Jodhpur, India. He takes an active interest in the study of constitutional law and judicial approaches to human rights. Dhawan is a third-year law student at National Law School of India University, Bangalore, India. He is interested in policy and legal research in the domains of public law, human rights and climate justice.  India’s constitutional democracy is backsliding. Speaking at a rally during the ‘National Register of Citizens (NRC) Seminar’ recently, the Home Minister advocated for the re-introduction of the much contentious Citizenship Amendment Bill, which unconstitutionally aims to provide easier citizenship requirements for non-Muslim refugees. Noted scholars have argued that previously, the National Register of Citizens exercised in Assam and now, the dilution of Article 370 of the Constitution that provides special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, are arguably unconstitutional attempts to further the political vendetta of the ruling...
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On Constitutional Morality: Thoughts from Delhi

On Constitutional Morality: Thoughts from Delhi

Guest Contributor: Anmol Mittal is a 5th Year Student at National Law University, Delhi.  The question of what the true import of the term “Constitutional morality” is has become pertinent following India’s (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Presidential Order C.O. 272, and the subsequent State Reorganisation Bill introduced in the parliament. On the morning of August 5, through a combination of the Presidential order and the Reorganisation bill, the special status accorded to the State of Jammu & Kashmir, by way of Article 370, within the Indian Union, was revoked. To examine where the moral compass of India’s Constituent document lies, it’s necessary that the Constitution be considered as a ‘whole’, and not as being contained ‘essentially’ in Part-III on Fundamental Rights (Part-III rights).  For the uninitiated, Part-III rights are, in a manner of speaking, India's version of the bundle of rights in America guaranteed through the 1st, 5th, 6th amendments and so on. Article 19 corresponds directly with the 1st Amendment, Article 20...
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Decoding India’s Faltering Extradition Track Record: A Human Rights Approach

Decoding India’s Faltering Extradition Track Record: A Human Rights Approach

Guest Contributor: Tanishk Goyal is a second year law student at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata.  On July 2 2019, The U.K refused to extradite a couple who were accused of murdering their adopted Indian boy and his brother-in-law in order to receive a life insurance payout. The UK’s reasoning for this refusal took place against the backdrop of the inhumane and degrading human rights conditions prevailing in India. This discharge added on to the intractably dismal extradition track record of India, despite it having ratified the 1949 Geneva Conventions and The U.N Convention Against Corruption which adopt the framework for extradition and mutual legal assistance between countries for an expedited and effective extradition process. One of the fundamental reasons for this situation is India’s international perception as a country which cannot ensure the safety of the offenders it extradites.  Although India has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which lays down a human-rights based...
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