Digital Commons Network^™

American Sign Language Legal Interpretation Complications: A Comprehensive Analysis Of Linguistic Barriers Within The Criminal Justice System, Katherine R. Doan

Helm's School of Government Conference - American Revival: Citizenship & Virtue

The founding documents of the United States of America tend to be rather universal and impartial in their vernacular. Because all citizens of a nation are deserving of the same rights and privileges regardless of age, race, ethnicity, or disability status, accommodations must be provided to the Deaf to give them equal access to information throughout interrogations, trials, and police interactions. While it may seem obvious that interpreters should be provided during legal situations involving a Deaf individual, visual communication can make legal interactions quite complicated when police or attorneys can only reveal limited details. When Deaf culture involving expansion …

The Impact Of The Convention On The Elimination Of Discrimination Against Women On Ecuador's Domestic Policy, Brittani Stiltner

Student Symposium

In 1979, Ecuador became one of the first Latin American countries to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). In this paper, I use Ecuador as a case study for analyzing the effectiveness of international human rights treaties on the countries that ratify them, looking specifically into the impact the CEDAW had on Ecuador’s domestic policies and action it has taken to expand women’s rights since 1979. I begin by giving a historical basis for the culture and political organization of the country due to colonization. I then articulate Ecuador as a leader …

Upholding Human Rights In North Korea, Deborah Adeniji

Helm's School of Government Conference - American Revival: Citizenship & Virtue

No abstract provided.

Does Human Rights Derogation Limit Covid-19 Infections?, Brian K. Gran, Reema Sen

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The purpose of this project is to model and understand socio-legal responses to the spread of COVID-19—in particular, emergency measures that derogate from states’ human rights commitments. Derogation of human rights in response to COVID-19 is unprecedented, according to some experts (Scheinin 2020). This project investigates whether combinations of conditions, such as moderate human rights derogation in combination with strong health infrastructures, reduce degrees of virus transmission and promote prevention. Its preliminary findings indicate that suspension of some rights appears crucial to limiting COVID-19 infections, but suspension of many rights has limited impacts, raising questions for practices of human rights …

North Korea: How Fear Is Used To Control A Nation, Ashley Clisby

Capstone Showcase

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, more commonly known as North Korea, is most commonly known for its possession and testing of nuclear weapons and threatening to use these weapons of mass destruction. Less commonly talked about are the human rights violations that are being experienced by the citizens of North Korea. Most, if not all, of the information regarding North Korean human rights that have been reported on comes from individuals who have escaped the Kim regime. There is very limited information traveling in and out of North Korea that is not heavily monitored by the government. These individuals …

The Campus Human Rights Index: Measuring University Commitment To Human Rights, Charles Crabtree, Volha Chykina, Kiyoteru Tsutsui, Michelle Bellino

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

To what extent do universities respect human rights? Despite the prevailing view that universities are bastions of progressive ideas with a bias for rights protection, anecdotal evidence suggests that they diverge significantly in their commitment to promote and protect human rights, even within the U.S. To this point, though, there exists no systematic measure of university human rights commitments. In this manuscript, we introduce the first such indicator - the Campus Human Rights Index (CHRI). We describe the measure and introduce our initial ranking of universities. We then formally assess the construct validity of our measure by comparing it to …

Human Rights And The Smart City, Tina Reuter

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This paper examines how technological solutions, information and communication technologies (ICTs), and smart city initiatives can become avenues to produce urban spaces that reflect fundamental human rights values such as non-discrimination, equality, and access for all.Cities today are drivers of human rights activity and serve as hubs for technological advances, political and economic innovation, and social justice. Nevertheless, the inclusion of marginalized communities continues to be a challenge. ICTs and smart city initiatives are often cited to foster urban integration, to improve citizen participation in decision-making processes, and to enhancecommunity resilience. At the same time, using technologies can amplify social …

The Segregation Of Religion: How Othering Influences Society’S Narrative Understanding About The Symbiotic Relationship Among Racism, Sexism, And The Church, Ajanet Rountree

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The social dependence on the sociology of male spiritual leadership is substantial. This dependence accomplishes two ideas: neutralizes the feminine experience and obviates the anthropological implications of religion in the perpetuation of oppression and subjugation. When considering racism and sexism in religion, specifically as they relate to the Black Christian church, a dismissal of accusations and assertions occurs by yielding to the context of the social era. This paper seeks to further clarify the position of women, who pushed against the grain of the gendered and racialized spaces of their churches and communities, as they sought to establish human rights …

Rehumanization Among Veterans Of The Yugoslav Wars: Rethinking Reconciliation And Post-Conflict Justice, Jordan N. Kiper

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Rehumanization is a central element in powerful social movements after war. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork in the Balkans, I consider the convergence and divergence between notions of rehumanization found in human rights literature and the role of rehumanization among veterans in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia. Rehumanization plays a prominent role among these veterans because of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which has had varied social effects on Balkan communities. By supporting the ICTY, veteran associations have vetted themselves of potential war criminals, and thereby developed overlapping justice discourses that converge on the notion of reconciliation. There are …

Institutionalizing Rights: The Rise And Fall Of The Human Rights Paradigm In Managing Migration, Todd Scribner

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In a December 2018 message to a gathering in Rome, Pope Francis challenged attendees to place “human rights at the centre of all policies,” even if it meant going against the grain of popular opinion. The occasion for his message was the 70^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which, at least rhetorically, placed human rights at the center of the international order. Three years after its proclamation, the United Nations used the Universal Declaration as a key pillar on which it built its Convention Related to the Status of Refugees, thus making human rights a …

How Can Human Rights Activism Help Tackle Economic Inequality? Lessons From Mining Affected Communities In South Africa, Allison Corkery

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The dramatic rise in socioeconomic inequality produced by neoliberal globalisation has provoked a crisis of confidence in the human rights community and inspired a wave of debate about whether human rights have anything meaningful to offer in advancing economic justice. The pessimistic view argues human rights are inadequate for challenging socioeconomic inequality because they are too closely aligned to Western liberalism and too uncritical of the rise of capitalism. The more optimistic view does not dismiss these critiques entirely. It argues that they are only valid for particular (arguably dominant) types of human rights praxis, however. Failing to acknowledge this …

Fiscal Citizenship: How Can Tax Efficiency And Isonomy Aid In The Promotion Of Economic Rights, Social Participation, Political Accountability, And Cultural Diversity?, Gustavo Voeroes Dénes

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

According to the World Inequality Report 2018 (WID 2017), Brazil is one of the few countries that has not recently displayed an increase in income inequality, having instead sustained it on persistently very high levels, actually composing the world’s “inequality frontier”. While such levels of inequality may be partly attributed to poor distribution of property rights, human capital endowments, and specificity of labor relations, a significant part of it is undoubtedly due the national fiscal system’s reduced distributive capacity, compromised by one the worst taxation systems in the world. Occupying the 184th position out of 190 countries in the World …

Human Rights And Economic Democracy: Reinvigorating The Human Rights Movement, Curtis T. Kline

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

A 2018 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that in order to avoid a seemingly inevitable ecological collapse that would bring intense suffering especially on the most marginalized and excluded sectors; the world needs to develop “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society”. There are many local experiences which demonstrate the possibilities of achieving these needed changes. There are a number of community organizations and associations, social movements, and municipal efforts, among others, with creative visions on this front. In Jackson, Mississippi, for example, Cooperation Jackson strives to be a means …

Human Rights, Environmental Justice, Social Justice, Faith Values And Ethics: Building Stronger Partnerships For The Common Good By Understanding The Differences, Theresa Harris, Leanne M. Jablonski, Sarah Fortner, Malcolm Daniels

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Partnerships between human rights practitioners, local communities, scientists, engineers, and health professionals have shown potential to address deeply rooted, systemic human rights concerns. These collaborations are essential for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and for engaging the perspectives and expertise of all constituents. However, even when the individuals in these partnerships or the organizations they represent have common goals, their motivations, analyses, and solutions often come from different perspectives. Members of good will can inadvertently alienate one another when attempting to work together. The fields of human rights, social justice, environmental justice, and ethics have each developed their …

The Human Right To Science, Brian K. Gran, Anne Bryden, Mark Frezzo, John Dale

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Human rights may be game changers to science. Science is under pressure. The ability to do science, to gain scientific educations, and to make and implement public policies based on science are under attack globally. Harms from doing science continue despite greater attention. Individuals are harmed in the name of science and scientists are persecuted for doing their work. The human right to science may change these scenarios. The human right to science belongs to everyone. Discrimination along lines of nationality, gender, skin color, beliefs, and other markers is not permitted. The human right to science bolsters other rights, including …

No Human Right To Sodomy: Christian Conservative Opposition To Sogi Human Rights, Cynthia Burack

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The American Christian conservative movement is the most consistent and persistent adversary of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) civil rights in the US. In recent years, the Christian right has responded to changes in attitudes to same-sex sexuality in the US by relocating some of their attention and operations to issues and arenas of contest outside the US that hold more promise for implacable antagonism to rights and recognition for LGBTQ people. In some parts of the world, these US-based anti-LGBTQ actors have become recognized as “experts” on gender and sexual minorities and the dire consequences the existence of …

Faith-Based Civil Society Organizations And The Protection Of Victims Of Human Rights Abuses In Nigeria, Nathaniel Umukoro

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Nigeria has witnessed various forms of human rights violations such as extrajudicial killings, rape, and torture during both military and civilian regimes. Amnesty International, the U.S. State Department, and the Political Terror Scale of the Centre for Systemic Peace indicate that Nigeria is a country characterized by generalized human rights violations.

Over the years, several scholars have examined the causes, nature, responses of the state, and reasons for the persistence of human rights violations in Nigeria. A careful consideration of these studies indicates that the role of faith-based civil society organizations in the protection of victims of human rights abuses …

The 'Nayirah' Effect: The Role Of Target States’ Human Rights Violations And Victims’ Emotive Images In War Support, Joseph Braun, Kiyoung Chang

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

When a target state violates human rights, how does the identity of the victims and the presence of emotive imagery affect the level of public support for interventionist war? How does the perceived race and gender of victims affect this relationship? We employ a survey experiment to study whether and when information about a target state’s human rights violations affects public attitudes toward the use of force. Specifically, we manipulate a fictional victim’s race (light-skinned vs. dark-skinned) and gender (male vs. female), and explore how these variations affect support for interventionist war. In our experiment, we find that war support …

Building A Bridge Across The Sea, Abby Wheatley

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

On October 3, 2013, the island of Lampedusa, Italy, was transformed into an international stage for the crisis of migration when a boat carrying hundreds of migrants traveling from Libya sank off its coast. Reports indicate that 368 people drowned, while 89 people were rescued, most of them by locals. Though the mass drowning of Africans seeking refuge in Europe was not a new phenomenon, the event brought international attention to Lampedusa and underscored the fragile line between local and global processes and the intertwined yet opposing forces of mobility and enclosure.

Using Lampedusa as a case study, this paper …

To Be Human In A Dehumanizing World: Black Lives Matter And The Human Rights Framework, Maria Rohani

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This paper explores the relationship between Black Lives Matter and the human rights regime.

First, the study contextualizes the contemporary movement within the long and complicated historical relationship between racial justice struggles and the international human rights system. Second, the paper looks at the available human rights tools that could advance the goals of Black Lives Matter, with a focus on relevant international treaties, the Inter-American System, and the Universal Periodic Review. Third, the project studies the ways in which Black Lives Matter has, on its own, already engaged with human rights discourse.

Here, a sample of Twitter content will …

The Path To 'Never Again': Human Rights Protest In Latin America, James Franklin

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The systematic study of political repression and human rights violations has found a number of factors that consistently explain political repression. These especially include domestic structural and institutional factors, such as civil war, democracy, a youth population bulge, aspects of the legal and judicial system, and the role of oil in the economy.

These findings do not chart a clear path for human rights advocates, as it is difficult to change a country’s institutions or demographics or to end a civil war (Toft 2010). This growth of scholarly interest followed an expansion in international human rights advocacy, evidenced by a …

Providing Refuge: A Regime Analysis Of Legal Protections For Displaced Persons In Sub-Saharan Africa, Natasha Bennett, Hannah K. Brown

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

While refugees are entitled to the right of asylum vis-a-vis the U.N. 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the subsequent 1967 Protocol, which includes rights of a legal resident in the host country, African states vary in their domestic implementation of refugee rights.

Sub-Saharan Africa host approximately 29 percent of the world’s refugees and as such represents a key region for understanding the dynamics of refugee rights and protections. With 45 member states having ratified (another 4 having signed) the Organization of African Unity’s 1969 Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of the Refugee Problem in Africa (OAU …

The Business Of Being Good: How It Pays To Be A Humanitarian State, Taylor Benjamin-Britton, Danielle Scherer

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In an era where human rights increasingly take a position of primacy in international relations, certain states have donned the mantle of the humanitarian, prioritizing human rights over nearly every other item on the foreign policy agenda and mainstreaming humanitarianism in other areas of foreign policy.

Existing arguments find that states that advance humanitarian policies are coerced, socialized, or mimicking, but they fail to seriously consider that states may choose and benefit from humanitarianism in several ways. We do not focus on explaining or theorizing why states have chosen to engage in humanitarianism; rather, we offer an analysis of the …

Faith-Based Resistance, Human Rights, And Emancipatory Practices, Curtis Kline

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Progressive political theologies can expand and deepen both the strength and the conceptualization of human rights advocacy. However, not all political theologies are an effort to defend human dignity; neither are all understandings and practices of human rights. The validation of progressive political theologies as well as the validation of human rights conceptualizations comes from their capacity to concretely change the lived reality of poor and oppressed peoples of the world.

As with political theologies, there is a constant struggle over the control of how to conceptualize what constitutes a human rights issue. While many communities of faith find liberating …

Doing Greater Good, While Doing No Individual Harm: A Public Health Approach To Human Trafficking Using A Human Rights-Centered Model, Patrick L. Kerr, Rachel Dash

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Human trafficking (i.e., modern slavery) includes myriad forms of sex and labor trafficking. Widely ranging estimates of the prevalence of human trafficking are commonly cited; at the same time, accurate data on these phenomena remain elusive, and assumptions rather than empirical evidence about the nature, targets, and proliferation of trafficking often dominate public policy discourse.

In this paper, we describe the ways in which this lack of accurate data on basic prevalence rates has led to key limitations in anti-trafficking work. First, this lack of data prevents a clear understanding of the problem of trafficking. Second, this deficit limits our …

Syrian Refugee Crisis And European Migration Policies: Rise In Xenophobic Rhetoric In Europe, Meltem Çelik Dirsehan

UBT International Conference

Syrian immigration crisis has been ignored by advanced European countries and the heaviest burden is left to developing border countries. However this ignorance has resulted in more mass influx of immigrants illegally to the borders of European Union with a target of advanced Northern countries. To evaluate the European ignorance to this humanitarian crisis, first Turkey is evaluated as a transition point for all Asian and Middle Eastern immigrants dreaming to live in Europe. By a shocking extend of sea arrivals, Europe have noticed the humanitarian crisis and made a deal with main transition point for immigrants, Turkey. However this …

Child Brides, Brydon Koch, Alexis Steffanni, Carly Catalanello, Michelle Gamberdella

The Research and Scholarship Symposium (2013-2019)

The goal of this presentation is to take a look into the human rights violation of child marriage happening in countries all over the world. For the purpose of this presentation, we will focus on four countries where child marriages are extremely prevalent: India, Niger, Bangladesh, and Yemen. First, we will begin with a brief history and background of child brides and statistics related to this population. Second, we will discuss the four countries (as stated above) where this is a major problem, and why the rates of child brides are especially high within each country. Third, we will consider …

Transnational Terrorism, Kylie E. Faxon, Daejanna Preston, Amanda Stables, Sarah Powazki

The Research and Scholarship Symposium (2013-2019)

The goal of this presentation is to review the literature regarding transnational terrorism. We hope to identify four aspects of terrorism within the United States, the Middle East and Nigeria. We will explore homeland attacks and recruitment in the United States, the Middle East as an active site of terrorist origins, and Nigeria where the terrorist group Boko Haram has violated the country’s safety and rights. First we will look at the history of terrorism and its origins. Second, we will discuss the environmental and psychological factors that lead to the formation of terrorist groups and the goals behind their …

The Right To A Safe And Healthy Birth, Rebecca D. Neff, Liz C. Widman, Leslie A. Lopez, Brittany M. Cowart, Rebecca L. Aviles

The Research and Scholarship Symposium (2013-2019)

The right to a safe and healthy birth is included in the declaration of human rights- the intrinsic allowances that humans are obligated to be protected by on a global scale. These rights, however, for some pregnant women have been submersed by lack of transportation, education and skilled birth attendants. Financial constraints and difficulty in obtaining adequate healthcare are also issues of concern. A review of literature pertaining to three different countries, the United States, China and India will be examined in light of safe and healthy birthing techniques for women worldwide. These countries were chosen due to their diverse …

Abusing Our Human Rights: The Truth, The Internet And A Multi-Media Approach To Connecting Global Cultures, Stefanie Frigo

Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy

See presentation description.