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The European Union And Violence Against Women: Fundamental Rights And Con Games, R. Amy Elman

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Deciphering the European Union’s (EU) commitment to countering violence against women is challenging. To date, much of its response has been rhetorical. This article opens with a brief consideration of the EU’s first few initiatives to counter violence against women before turning to the polity’s enthusiastic endorsement of the Council of Europe’s 2011 Istanbul Convention, which defines such violence as a human rights violation. Not least, it offers a critical analysis of the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency’s 2014 survey on violence against women, the world’s largest international survey of its kind. That inquiry involved 42,000 in-person interviews with a representative …

Local Elected Officials’ Receptivity To Refugee Resettlement In The United States, Robert Shaffer, Lauren E. Pinson, Jonathan A. Chu, Beth A. Simmons

All Faculty Scholarship

Local leaders possess significant and growing authority over refugee resettlement, yet we know little about their attitudes toward refugees. In this article, we use a conjoint experiment to evaluate how the attributes of hypothetical refugee groups influence local policymaker receptivity toward refugee resettlement. We sample from a novel, national panel of current local elected officials, who represent a broad range of urban and rural communities across the United States. We find that many local officials favor refugee resettlement regardless of refugee attributes. However, officials are most receptive to refugees whom they perceive as a strong economic and social fit within …

Julius Nyerere’S Understanding Of African Socialism, Human Rights And Equality, Fr. Innocent Simon Sanga, Ron Pagnucco

The Journal of Social Encounters

Julius Kambarage Nyerere, African philosopher, anti-colonial leader, first president of the United Republic of Tanzania, and respected international statesman, served as president of the newly independent Tanzania from 1964 through 1985., after which he remained politically active in Tanzania and on the global stage. Trying to steer a post-colonial course of self-reliance, he developed and implemented African Socialism in Tanzania, articulated in the Arusha Declaration in 1967. As an anti-colonial leader, Nyerere referred to international human rights standards such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and maintained a commitment to human rights as president and afterwards. In this essay …

Anti-State Criminal Violence As Civil Defense, Tyler S. Thomas

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Anti-state criminal violence is a puzzle. Criminal organizations should avoid violent interactions with the state, yet in several countries like Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia there has been widespread anti-state violence orchestrated by organized criminal groups for the past 25 years. Why?

Building on existing literature, I develop a theory with which to explain anti-state criminal violence. I argue that organized crime is more likely to commit anti-state violence when state enforcement agents commit a serious grievance against the local population with whom the criminals share a social identity. I develop this theory using the case of the Michoacán Family, later …

The Performance Of The Christian Faith Under A Populist President: The Case Of The Philippine Church Under Duterte, Ruben C. Mendoza

Theology Department Faculty Publications

President Rodrigo Duterte has been consistent in his attacks against the Catholic Church. True to his campaign promise, he has unleashed his brutal "war on drugs" which has resulted to the deaths of thousands of suspected drug dependents and pushers. In response to his criticisms and the excesses of his anti-illegal drugs program, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines has issued various pastoral statements in faithfulness to its mission.Nevertheless, the majority of Filipinos continue to support Duterte and his anti-illegal drugs stance. In this context, the call of Pope Francis for the church to become a "field hospital" becomes …

Oppression Or Occupation: An International Analysis Of Sex Work And Sex Trafficking, Carver Wolfe

International Relations Summer Fellows

Although there is some debate over the exact number of victims of sex trafficking, it is agreed that it is an issue that affects primarily women and girls around the world. This paper will examine modern-day slavery and the unresolved, century-old debate surrounding sex trafficking and sex work. While abolitionists advocate for the total eradication of all sex work, whether it is consensual or not, libertarians support the right to voluntary sex work while condemning the coercion and exploitation that surrounds all forms of trafficking. I will use an analysis of international conventions and will begin a comparative analysis by …

Surveillance Technology Toward A Dystopian Future, Sandy Hernandez

University Honors Program Senior Projects

There is a continual debate between individuals who attempt to measure the individual’s right to privacy against the government’s right to know as an exchange to provide for the security of all citizens. Questions that demand an answer are whether the individual’s right to privacy outweighs the government’s duty to provide security; and if security is considered more important, can there even be a right to privacy. When questioning the right to privacy and state surveillance, there are three key goals. First, to investigate whether the human right to privacy should exist, considering the continued threat of terrorist attacks and …

In Search Of Trojan Horses: The United Nations Culture War, Patricia Ackerman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the expanding influence of the religious Right at the UN, building on extant scholarship on the role of the culture war at the UN. This scholarship has tracked the increasing presence of the religious Right following the Beijing World Conference on Women and the Cairo Conference of Population and Development. Since that time, there has been a systematic and strategic movement against LGBT human rights and sexual and reproductive health and rights. The religious Right influence UN discourse, documents, and global policy in favor of their agenda. This conflict manifests in a frenzied media and policy battle …

North Korea's Treatment Of Foreign Political Prisoners In The Trump Era, Sara Allocco

Politics, Philosophy, and Legal Studies: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

This paper analyzes foreign political prisoners’ treatment in North Korea during Donald Trump’s presidency. This subject is of particular interest given the widespread media attention the Trump Administration received following detained student Otto Warmbier’s return to the United States in June 2017 and historic Singapore summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Moreover, such U.S.-North Korea relations are particularly crucial given North Korea’s strong nuclear capabilities and designation as a totalitarian country. Using the Otto Warmbier story as the primary case study as well as public opinion analysis, bar association reports, official testimony, and commentary on international …

The Political Development Of Capital Punishment In The Modern Moroccan State, Mia Barr

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The modern Moroccan state seen today is very young. Having only been independent from France since 1956, the country has spent the last sixty-four years crafting its post-colonial statehood. What has emerged is a hybrid political system with powers split, however unequally, between the King and his inner circle, known as the makhzen, and the Parliament. Not only is the monarchy constitutional—meaning that its legitimacy is literally written into the primary governing document of Morocco, which had its last referendum in 2011—but it is also self-sustaining and self-legitimizing, for the monarchy uses its constitutional powers to grant itself further powers …

Backlash To The European Court Of Human Rights: The Case Of Russia, Cole Kovarik, Courtney Hillebrecht

UCARE Research Products

Since the end of World War II, the international community has forged human rights accountability systems that have since become increasingly important. The good work done by these international tribunals has come under threat more and more by a process of backlash called tribunal capture, or “the politics of states and individual political leaders seeking to undermine the tribunals by working within the judicialized and legalized landscape of international human rights law” (Hillebrecht). The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is no exception; since its foundation, it has been largely utilized. However, lack of compliance with its rulings remains to …

How States Respond To The Human Rights Violations Of A Past Dictatorship: The Cases Of Argentina And Chile, Michaela Drucker

Senior Theses and Projects

Many countries around the world have suffered from disastrous dictatorships riddled with human rights abuses. This thesis aims to answer the question of what happens after the dictatorship to address these human rights violations and why the responses differ from country to country. This paper poses six possible explanations as to what motivates justice, specifically prosecutions against former perpetrators: 1) the heinousness of the human rights violations, 2) the type of transition, 3) the legal structure, 4) the role of the executive, 5) international pressure through transnational advocacy networks, and 6) diffusion theory--the occurrence of similar justice policies in geographically …

In The Brandeis University Psychology Department, 1962-65: Recalling A Great American Social Theorist, Kenneth Feigenbaum

Comparative Civilizations Review

Abraham H. Maslow is one of the best known psychologists of the 20th century. His theory of motivation, most cogently expressed in his hierarchy of needs, is based upon biological assumptions mainly devoid of cultural influences, and it is not sensitive to the role of civilizations effecting intellectual development and ideology. Critiques of these possible shortcomings in his theory are abundant (Trigs, 2004).

Human Rights, Those Who Are Governed And The Legitimacy Of Law Enforcement, Lynn Rhodes

Comparative Civilizations Review

Most everyone, if not all of us, wants to be happy. Peace is a common denominator frequently sought. It is human nature to seek security, another word for happiness. Human Rights, as we know, are basic rights and freedoms that inherently belong to every person.

The Past Is Still With Me: Memoir Of A Soviet Yiddish Actress, Rosa Kurtz-Dranov

Comparative Civilizations Review

My mother Rosa Abramovna Kurtz-Dranov passed away in New Jersey in June 2003 after a long illness. She was 94. After the burial, I sat shiva, as is Jewish custom, for the first time in my life. (I did not sit for seven days, as required). As I was going through my mother’s papers — photos, letters, books, newspaper clippings — I stumbled upon a manuscript. That was her memoir, hand-written by her in New Jersey in 1987. It was an unexpected find; I had not known she was writing her memoirs.

On So-Called Russian Euroasianism: In Reply To Dmitry Shlapentokh, Ernest B. Hook Prof

Comparative Civilizations Review

Dmitry Shlapentokh’s article on Russian Eurasianism [Comparative Civilizations Review: No. 81. 9-29, 2019] contains a number of questionable statements without any attempt at documentation in support of his thesis. For example, in explaining why his version of “Eurasianism” was marginalized in the “West,” he states Western observers approached Russia from the perspective that “the triumph of American-type capitalism …shall be the omega point of all humanity, including Russia.”[emphasis in the original]. Moreover, “Gorbachev and Yeltsin were deeply hated by the majority.” [My emphasis.] No references are cited in support of these extraordinary statements, which would indeed require some impossible poll …

Edx And Harvardx. China X. China’S Past, Present And Future, Constance Wilkinson

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

End Matter

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

The Proof Is In The Process: Self-Reporting Under International Human Rights Treaties, Cosette D. Creamer, Beth A. Simmons

All Faculty Scholarship

Recent research has shown that state reporting to human rights monitoring bodies is associated with improvements in rights practices, calling into question earlier claims that self-reporting is inconsequential. Yet little work has been done to explore the theoretical mechanisms that plausibly account for this association. This Article systematically documents—across treaties, countries, and years—four mechanisms through which reporting can contribute to human rights improvements: elite socialization, learning and capacity building, domestic mobilization, and law development. These mechanisms have implications for the future of human rights treaty monitoring.