Digital Commons Network^™

Human Rights And Development For India's Rural Remnant: A Capabilities-Based Assessment, Lisa Pruitt

Lisa R Pruitt

The cachet that India currently enjoys on the world stage is linked largely to the booming high-tech and service economies associated with its megacities. Yet in terms of sheer numbers, India is not an urban nation. About a third of India’s population lives in urban areas, though that figure is rising quickly. One projection indicates that thirty-one villagers will continue to show up in an Indian city every minute over the next forty-three years — 700 million people in all.

Lack of sustainable development in rural areas is a major force behind the massive rural-to-urban migration across Asia. An enormous …

Global Laws, Local Lives: Impact Of The New Regionalism On Human Rights Compliance, Stephen Powell, Patricia Pérez

Stephen Joseph Powell

Continuation of the brisk pace of international economic growth with its necessarily increased use of natural resources—often at unsustainable levels—and its higher levels of pollution—often at the cost of citizen health—combine with the rules of the global trading system to threaten human rights to health, to freedom from forced or child labor, to non-discrimination, to a fair wage, to a healthy environment, even to democratic governance and participation in the political process. As a result, in recent years a growing number of economists begrudgingly acknowledge the incontrovertible—although presently dysfunctional—linkage between trade and human rights and the need to integrate these …

Superfluousness, Human Rights And The State: Applying Arendt To Questions Of Femicide, Narco Violence And Illegal Immigration In A Globalized World, Emma Norman

Emma R. Norman

This paper shows how Hannah Arendt’s disturbing notion of superfluousness and her critique of human rights are highly applicable to the problems globalization has brought to the U.S.-Mexico border region and beyond, with worrying consequences. In theory, ‘inalienable’ human rights form a safety net to catch those whose governments fail to afford them political rights. But, as Arendt pointed out, such minimum rights only function if one’s state is willing and able to guarantee them. For her, stateless persons are deprived of both a territory and of occupying a ‘niche in the framework of the general law.’ They are thus …

Ngo Standing And Influence In Regional Human Rights Courts And Commissions, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

This article explores the extent to which nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have standing to bring claims in the European, Inter-American, and African human rights enforcement systems, examines the degree to which NGOs in fact bring such cases, and analyzes the ramifications of NGO involvement in these systems. Part I of this article considers how NGOs can be involved in the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Human Rights Commission and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. As detailed in this part, while …