Region – RightsViews

Human Rights Violations in Artsakh: Starvation, Isolation, and Cultural Loss

March 27, 2024 by Sueda PolatNo Comments

By Guest Writer Tatiana Gnuva Image: "Ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh evacuated from their homes" by Mil.ru is licensed under CC BY 4.0 DEED. Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as “Artsakh,” was home to 120,000 people, most of whom were ethnic Armenians. Artsakh is isolated from the Republic of Armenia and is only connected to the country through the Lachin corridor. The independent republic of Artsakh functioned as a de-facto breakaway Armenian state yet was long claimed by Azerbaijan. For centuries, Artsakh was a primarily Armenian region, but in the early 1920s, it was incorporated into the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic under the decision of the USSR’s Joseph Stalin. Starting in December of 2022 and lasting over ten months, Azerbaijan slowly implemented its strategy to claim the territory. The country’s actions plunged the region into poverty and insecurity, dramatically lowering human rights standards. In December of 2022, Azerbaijani protestors blocked the corridor, effectively limiting movement to Artsakh. The protestors masqueraded as an environmental demonstration to...

The CESCR Committee Champions the Right to Access Sports

February 21, 2024 by Sueda PolatNo Comments

By Guest Writer Aleydis Nissen The United Nations (UN) Committee on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights has historically sidestepped the right to access sports in its concluding observations. Yet, the Committee's latest recommendations to Palestine and France mark a significant milestone in recognizing the intersection of sports and human rights. As the global landscape evolves, this development challenges traditional notions of sports autonomy, signaling a crucial step towards ensuring inclusivity and the right to access sports. A Right to Access Sports for All Unlike other UN core human rights conventions, such as those dedicated to the rights of women and people with disabilities, the Covenant on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights (CESCR) (adopted in 1966) does not explicitly include the right to access sports. Nevertheless, the Committee that monitors this covenant recognizes this right as a derivative of the right to cultural life (as outlined in Article 15 of CESCR), particularly highlighted in General Comment 21 (2009). Monitoring the Right to Access Sports Up till...

Dismantling Democratic Norms in an Unstable Peru

September 30, 2023 by Meryem BahadirNo Comments

By Guest Writer Winston Ardoin Image: "Protest in Cusco, Peru" by illuminaut is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0. Over the last decade, the concept of “democratic backsliding” has captured the attention of political scientists seeking to explain the unsettling increase in government overthrows and authoritarian behaviors around the world. In the Americas alone, several countries have faced democratic instability in recent years, from infamous cases like El Salvador and Venezuela to regional hegemons like Brazil and the United States. In retreating from democratic norms, states have begun institutionalizing authoritarian practices while further targeting political dissent by restricting rights and access to justice. In recent months, interim President Dina Boluarte and the Peruvian government’s response to political instability and nationwide protests exemplifies this worrisome trend. 2022-2023 Peruvian Protests & Government Response Following the ousting of controversial leftist president Pedro Castillo in December 2022 succeeding an attempted power grab, thousands of Peruvians took to the streets. At its core, protesters’ demands have been primarily political, focused on new elections...

Tackling Terrorism or Suppressing Dissent? Sri Lanka’s Controversial ATA Bill

September 30, 2023September 30, 2023 by Meryem BahadirNo Comments

By Guest Writer Nishka Kapoor Recently, the government of Sri Lanka published the new Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), a new legislation intended to replace the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) of 1979. This is the second attempt to introduce a replacement bill, following the initial 2018 effort that was met with widespread criticism and subsequently rejected. The latest ATA has also drawn significant criticism nationally and internationally due to concerns regarding its non-compliance with human rights principles. In early 2022, Sri Lanka faced a severe economic crisis which had a devastating impact on the Sri Lankan people. There is a shortage of essential goods and unprecedented levels of inflation. Millions of people were pushed into poverty, and there have been numerous anti-government demonstrations. In an attempt to quell dissent, the Sri Lankan government has proposed a new ATA Bill. This is because the country’s economic problems have triggered widespread protests against the government, and the administration has responded by detaining and arresting...

A Frog in a Slowly Boiling Pot: The Status of Russia’s Judges, Lawyers, and Human Rights Defenders

September 30, 2023September 30, 2023 by Meryem BahadirNo Comments

By Guest Writer Nevin Kamath Photo Attribution: James LeeFormerIP at en.wikipedia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Perhaps an underreported tragedy of Russia’s war in Ukraine is the ongoing evaporation of freedoms within Russia itself. I recently moderated the American Bar Association’s (ABA) “Challenges Facing Judges, Lawyers, and other Human Rights Defenders in Russia - Where are we now?” presented to the ABA and the general public by the ABA’s International Law Section, International Human Rights Committee in June 2023. What we heard from three experts was a grim reminder of why Russia scores at a 16/100 (Not Free) and dropping in Freedom House’s 2023 research. What does the current situation in Russia look like for judges, lawyers, and human rights defenders? We first heard from Daria Korolenko, a lawyer and researcher with OVD-info, which is an NGO that defends the freedom of peaceful assembly and the freedom of speech by “monitoring the detention of activists at rallies and providing politically persecuted citizens with...

Manipur Violence: The Weaponizing of Sexual Offenses During Conflicts

September 30, 2023September 30, 2023 by Meryem BahadirNo Comments

By Guest Writer Prabhu Gupta The small Indian state of Manipur has been engulfed in intense civil conflict due to ethnic tensions. The primary Meitei population, along with the smaller Kuki minority, are engaged in a struggle for control and territorial dominance, leading to violent clashes. Recently, a video went viral showing two naked women being paraded naked, molested, and raped by a mob in the violence-inflicted areas resulting in a huge uproar from both within and outside the nation. Factual Backdrop and issues leading to the crisis The northeastern Indian state of Manipur, situated to the east of Bangladesh and sharing a border with Myanmar, has a population of approximately 3.3 million people. The majority population belongs to the Meiteis, while around 43% belong to the Kuki and Naga tribes, which make up the predominant minority groups. In Manipur a situation of ongoing violence began in May, resulting in the death of at least 130 people and injuries to 400 more. The conflict...

What’s Next in Criminalizing Intimate Partner Violence

September 5, 2023 by Jess GallagherNo Comments

By Staff Writer Zeqi Chen In March 2022, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), was reauthorized for the fourth time, albeit after a four-year delay. First enacted in 1994, VAWA is the federal legislative milestone against domestic violence that provides protections for individuals who have suffered gender-based harm. VAWA’s most iconic achievement was the establishment of criminalization as a way to combat intimate partner violence and advance the criminalization of intimate partner violence. This approach, which allocates most of its funding to law enforcement to address domestic violence, was opposed by anti-violence activists as early as 1994 when VAWA was passed. They warned that criminalizing domestic violence would disproportionately target communities of color and punish survivors. With the death of George Floyd to the “Black Lives Matter” movement, the breakdown of trust between the public and police has led to increasing challenges to the traditional role of law enforcement and debates around the effectiveness of its powers in social justice. The assumption that...

The Role of Gendered Perspectives in the Context of Crimes Against Humanity

August 31, 2023 by Meryem BahadirNo Comments

By Guest Writer Shagnik Mukherjea Image by the EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid In April 2023, the Sixth Committee of the United Nations initiated a two-year process to deliberate and negotiate the draft articles on the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity. At the forefront of the multitude of issues being tackled by the International Law Commission (ILC) and numerous States are gender-based issues, with a particular emphasis on reinforcing legal obligations and ensuring safeguards for victims of sex and gender-based violence. Over the past few decades, significant strides have been made in achieving justice for gender-based crimes. However, most of these legal frameworks have required incorporating gender-specific concerns into existing structures that were not originally designed to address these issues. For instance, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) investigated and prosecuted individuals for wartime sexual violence, considering rape and sexual enslavement as crimes against humanity in the Kunarac et al. Case. Furthermore, the Furundžija Case emphasized that instances...

Indonesia’s Military-Democracy Interplay is a Lesson Never Learned

August 31, 2023September 20, 2023 by Meryem BahadirNo Comments

By Guest Writer Rafsi Albar Image by Arkananta Dhimas Naufal For 31 of its 78 years, Indonesia was ruled by the iron fist of the “smiling general,” Suharto. His leadership, known as the “New Order,” originally focused on economic development in order to make up for the losses suffered as a result of President Sukarno’s political manoeuvres. Despite being arguably successful in improving the welfare of its more than 100 million people across three decades, his military background eventually found a way to intervene in the young nation’s supposed democracy. The dual function of the armed forces, more commonly known locally as Dwifungsi ABRI, is a doctrine developed around the same time as Suharto’s rise to power following the political upheaval caused by the Indonesian Communist Party’s insurgency in 1965. The armed forces—or ABRI—then encompassing both the military and police, saw civil administration as ineffective. As such, they believed that former and active ABRI personnel should be able to assume strategic positions in...

It Is Feminist, So It Is Good: Feminist Jail Is Not Feminist

August 24, 2023 by Jess GallagherNo Comments

By Staff Writer Zeqi Chen In May 2022, a proposal titled The Women’s Center for Justice: A Nation-Leading Approach on Women & Gender-Expansive People in Jail, respondedresponds to concerns about New York City’s current plans to close Rikers Island by 2027. The current alternative to Rose M. Singer Center, the women’s jail on Rikers Island, is to build a new facility for women and gender-expansive people as part of a larger men’s jail in Kew Gardens, Queens. But the proposal states that “New York City should transform the closed Lincoln Correctional Facility at West 110th Street into a Women’s Center for Justice. ” According to the proposal, this approach is designed to highlight the unique needs for trauma-informed care, family reunification and skill building that female inmates need as mothers and victims of intimate partner violence or domestic violence. Rose M. Singer Center, which Proposal claims is the site of nearly all female and gender-expansive populations in New York City jails,...