Digital Commons Network^™

Artificial Intelligence, Large Language Models, And The Colonialization Of Data: Implications For The Rhetoric Of Human Rights, Adam Todd

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a new technology with profound implications for law, its practice, and our definitions of legal rights. This presentation examines how generative AI, particularly through its use of large language models like ChatGPT, may affect the social practice of human rights.

AI language models are computer programs that are trained by reading billions of pages of materials available through the internet and, through brute processing, is able to provide information about the relationships between the language derived from this raw, language-based data. Through this process, the program can provide users with valuable written information with summaries, analyses, …

Exploring Gender Budgeting To Accelerate The Realisation Of Women’S Rights In Nigeria, Eno Ekpo

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The proliferation of gender budgeting initiatives globally has yielded a progressive understanding of the distributive impacts of responsive gender budgeting to ensure that both women and men benefit equally from public resources for inclusive development. The incorporation of providing resources in international human rights frameworks recognises the relevance of resources to drive development policies and programmes aimed at rectifying gender imbalances that disproportionately affect women and mandates the adoption of gender budgeting as a necessary step by states to translate their commitments to realising women’s rights at domestic levels. The Maputo Protocol, a pioneering African human rights instrument with extensive …

Challenges Of Using Human Rights To Foster A More Just African Continental Free Trade Area, Brenda Kombo

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Skepticism towards free trade is often rooted in the perception that its proponents tend to pursue it at the expense of many of the very people whose lives it is meant to improve. Critiques often leveraged against free trade include its uneven distribution of gains among winners and losers, its undemocratic nature, and its prioritization of trade liberalization over other social values such as human rights. However, Article 3(e) of the Agreement establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) provides that it seeks “promote and attain sustainable and inclusive socio-economic development, gender equality and structural transformation”. Seemingly portending a …

The Role Of African Regional Human Rights Bodies In Addressing The Negative Impacts Of Climate Change, Ebenezer Durojaye, Assim Usang, Bright Nkrumah, Amar Mahadew

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Undoubtedly one of the greatest challenges humanity has got to contend with in recent times, is that of climate change. Climate change and environmental degradation pose great threats to the enjoyment of individual rights across the world. In its first ever resolution on climate change in 2008, the Human Rights Council affirmed that ‘’ “climate change poses an immediate and far-reaching threat to people and communities around the world and has implications for the full enjoyment of human rights” (UNHRC, Resolution 7/23 ‘Human Rights and Climate Change’, 28 March 2008, un Doc. A/hrc/res/7/23). Subsequently, the first report of the first …

Judicial Activism As A Pathway To Environmental Justice In Africa’S Mining Industry: The Case Of Nigeria And South-Africa, Onyekachi Eni Dr, Dr. Ngozi Chinwa Ole

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Africa’s mining industry embodies the tension between socio-economic development, and environmental protection. On account of their abundant mineral resource endowments, Nigeria and South-Africa constitute Africa’s mining hub with the attendant environmental burdens evident in the distortion of natural environmental equilibrium, disruption of ecosystem services and dislocation of the people from their cultural moorings contrary to extant global and regional instruments on development and human rights. Notwithstanding the negative externalities of mining, the incidence of poverty and the absence of basic amenities in many mining communities often combine to frustrate the effort of mining-affected persons to obtain redress for the violation …

Social Media Activism: Reshaping Human Rights Discourse In Africa, Oyinade Adekunle

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In the 21st century, social media has emerged as a powerful tool for championing human rights in Africa, providing a platform for education, protest, awareness creation, and information dissemination. By transcending geographical boundaries and physical limitations, social media enables Africans to promote human rights agendas and engage in discourse on a global scale. This paper examines the transformative impact of social media on African human rights discourse. It begins by exploring the pivotal role of social media in disseminating information and raising awareness about human rights issues. It emphasizes how social media facilitates the reach of a wider audience, enabling …

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.

Never Again? The United Nations And Genocide: A Doomed Mission?, Maria Terrinoni

Capstone Showcase

Despite their commitment to international peace and security and to the concept of “never again,” the United Nations has failed to end the many genocides of the late 20th century. In this thesis, I use the genocides in Rwanda (1994) and in the Yugoslav Wars (1991-1999) as case studies to understand the UN’s response to genocide and to attempt to understand why the UN cannot effectively respond to and end genocide. I discover that issues such as the limitations of the Genocide Convention, the importance of state sovereignty, and overall institutional failures of the United Nation make any attempt to …

Documenting Human Rights Violations: An Analysis Of Press Reporting On The Mexican Disappearance Crisis, Maria Terra, Yolanda Burckhardt

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The global pandemic has transformed many structures, including the way in which human rights academics and practitioners carry out their work. This project is an example of human rights research using methods that can be applied remotely from any part of the world, and even replicated in other contexts or experiences.

The initiative is one of the projects from the Observatory on Disappearances and Impunity in Mexico led by Barbara Frey (University of Minnesota), Leigh Payne (Oxford University), and Karina Ansolabehere (UNAM-México), focused on the enforced disappearances crisis occurring in Mexico. The work included an extensive database created by coding …

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 …

Challenges In Language Planning And Policies In The Western Balkans, Agim Poshka

UBT International Conference

The language policies in the Western world are closely related to administrative planning procedures which allow pragmatic application of expected procedures and responsibilities. Unfortunately, this is not the case in the Western Balkans. Based on the Socio-Historic practices, the language planning and policies are often a political and human rights issue. The right to speak, get educated and get serviced by the public servants in your own ethnic language was an issue that was prolonged in the region. The status of Albanian language in Kosovo drastically improved after the independence and in Macedonia this is an ongoing process that requires …

An Ethical Assessment Of Philippine Laws On National Security Through Deontological Ethics, David Joseph O. Velasco

DLSU Senior High School Research Congress

As a democratic country, the Philippines value the natural rights enshrined in the Constitution. Filipinos, particularly those who were involved in the preservation of democracy, were up in arms when the Republic Act 11479 or the Anti-Terrorism Act and formerly, the repealed Republic Act 9372 or the Human Security Act were passed. Filipinos fear that both infringe on basic human rights, such as that of right to life, liberty, and property. For this reason, there is a need to encourage research that will assess these laws concerning the national security of the country, in an ethical manner, in order to …

Predisplacement Abuse And Postdisplacement Factors Associated With Mental Health Symptoms After Forced Migration Among Rohingya Refugees In Bangladesh, Ahmed Hossain, Redwan Bin Abdul Baten, Zeeba Zahra Sultana, Taifur Rahman, Mirza Asif Adnan, Moynul Hossain, Taifur Aziz Khan, Muzakkir Kamar Uddin

Security Research Hub Reports

Importance: At the end of August 2017, violence and persecution in Myanmar's Rakhine state forced nearly 1 million Rohingyas to flee to Bangladesh for their lives and seek shelter. Many refugees, after their traumatic experiences leaving Myanmar, experience mental health problems. Objectives: To identify the prevalence of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSSs) among displaced Rohingya adults and investigate the association of predisplacement abuse and postdisplacement factors with PTSSs. Design, setting, and participants: This cross-sectional analysis from a household survey of 1184 Rohingya adults aged 18 years or older was conducted in 8 refugee camps within Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, from September 17, …

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 …

Ethics And Methods Of Human Rights Work: Exploring Both Theoretical And Practical Approaches, Shayna Plaut, Maritza Felices Luna, Christina Clark Kazak, Neil Bilotta, Lara Rosenoff Gauvin

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This workshop will explore both theoretical and practical approaches to methodologies and ethics as it relates to human rights work.

The goal of the workshop is to create a dynamic space that encourages participants to share and learn from our own experiences navigating the messiness of human rights ethics and methods. We specifically address formal education and systems and structures so that we may all design, do and teach research and practice related to human rights in a more critical and sustainable manner. We recognize the tensions of creating research, programs and advocacy that is seen as “legitimate” to educational …

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 …

Delinking The "Human" From Human Rights: Artificial Intelligence, Transhumanism And The Future Of Human Rights, A. Kayum Ahmed

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Human rights discourses are deeply embedded in an epistemic anthropocentricism that centers the human in human rights. However, conceptions of what constitutes the human are being eroded through the development of artificial intelligence, bio-hacking and transhumanism, all of which, support the emergence of new kinds of humans.These emergent humans include the enhanced human who possesses abilities that compel us to reconsider the parameters of humanness, as well as computer systems that demonstrate characteristics thought of as uniquely human. The blurring of the divide between human and machine therefore compels us to reconsider our understanding of the human in human rights, …

Abortion As A Human Right In The United States: Exploring The Role Of Cedaw Cities In Challenging The Hyde Amendment, Jessica Pierson

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Women’s sexual and reproductive rights are foundational to gender equality. Having access to abortion care is fundamental to the full realization of a woman’s human rights. Although abortion is legal in the United States, anti-choice groups and conservative lawmakers have been successful in restricting the right to an abortion, particularly through legislation like the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funds from covering abortion care for low-income women insured by the Medicaid program. U.S. constitutional law has upheld restrictions on abortion care, leaving a large portion of reproductive age women without the ability to exercise their constitutional right to an abortion. …

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 …

Literary Didacticism In Indigenous & Latinx Human Rights Literature, Tereza M. Szeghi

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This presentation offers a survey of the complex strategies literary advocates for indigenous and Latinx human rights have used for successfully educating, persuading, and engaging readers. I argue that the history of human rights literature demonstrates that finding an effective balance between political persuasion and constructing an engaging piece of fiction is quite challenging, while also suggesting strategies that have been proven over time to be more effective than others.

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 …

The Human Right To A Healthy Environment: Pushing The Boundaries In The Inter-American System, Sarah Dávila-Ruhaak

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The connection between the environment and human rights is not a surprising one. The enjoyment of human rights depends on a person’s ability to live free from interference and to have his or her rights protected. The interdependence of human rights and the protection of the environment is manifested in the full and effective enjoyment of the rights to life, highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, adequate standard of living, adequate food, clean water and sanitation, housing, culture, freedom of expression and association, information and education, participation, effective remedies, and the rights of indigenous peoples. Without adequate access …

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 …