Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Case For Abolition: Analyzing The Death Penalty In The United States, Abigail E. Nick

Senior Theses and Projects

This thesis delves into the multifaceted debate surrounding the death penalty in the United States, exploring its constitutionality, morality, and implications for the justice system. Drawing from legal, philosophical, and empirical analyses, it argues against the continued practice of capital punishment, contending that it violates fundamental human rights, inhibits rehabilitation efforts, and fails to align with evolving societal norms. The discussion navigates through historical contexts, international perspectives, and philosophical theories of punishment, examining the right to life, methods of punishment, and evolving standards of decency. It underscores the tension between retributive justice and the protection of human rights, highlighting the …

Human Rights Organizations In Palestine: Scope, Opportunities And Challenges, Qusai A. Ibrahim, Salwa Ramadan

An-Najah University Journal for Research - B (Humanities)

The study was designed to understand the scope, opportunites and challenges of human rights organizations (HROs) from the point of view of managers in the State of Palestine. The study adopted the quantitative method, using a probability sample of 39 managers in the HROs. A social survey, developed by the researchers, was used to collect the data after ensuring its reliability and validity. The data were analyzed with the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and are discussed with descriptive statistics. Against the background of the pervasive attacks by Israel on Palestine, the study revealed that HROs engage in a …

Citizenship And Human Rights: The Path To Reparation, Larissa Rocha

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Human rights and citizenship are strictly tied together. Without citizenship to a country, one cannot have their human rights guaranteed. In the framework of reparative citizenship, and methodology of feminist political philosophy, I search for solutions for the statelessness and citizenship issues in India and Ukraine. I offer an analysis of the differences and similarities between both cases while going through both countries' colonial histories and understanding their impacts on the issues they are facing today.

Exploring The Post-Surgical Needs Of Guatemalan Children And Their Families From Low Socioeconomic Status (Ses) Communities Using An Occupational Therapy Perspective, Diana Del Carmen Tojin Romero, Karen Aranha, Angela Labrie Blackwell

Summer 2023 Virtual OTD Capstone Symposium

Background: Despite a decline in infant mortality rates in the Global South (GS), there has been a rise in congenital and developmental disabilities. International short-term medical (ISTM) missions in Guatemala seek to address the surgical needs of children from low SES communities, but the understanding of the impacts of such assistance and the post-surgical needs of these communities remains limited. Embracing the Human Rights-Based Approach (HRBA) to healthcare as a foundation for this study recognizes health as a fundamental human right. The main tenets of this approach will guide this investigation to understand the post-surgical needs of children and their …

The Relationship Between Democratic Measures, Lgbtiaq* Rights Acceptance, And U.S. Foreign Aid Allocation In The Global South, Jacqueline Biergans

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

U.S. democratization efforts abroad are sometimes framed as motive for U.S. aid allocations to Global South countries. In that regard, Jasbir Puar (2007 and 2013), Cynthia Weber (2016), and Laura J. Shepherd (2006) critique U.S. foreign policy for using LGBTIAQ* rights as an empty rhetoric rather than as benchmark by which to identify and reward countries’ level of democratization in the Global South. However, Claire Apodaga and Michael Stohl (1999) explain that the United States is prioritizing economic and security interests instead, whereas countries receive military support despite their human rights abuses at home. In this thesis, the relationship between …

The Intellectual And Diplomatic Discourse Of American Progressives And The Late Ottomans, 1830–1930, Brigitte Maricich Powell

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The American intellectual and diplomatic discourse with the late Ottoman Empire is an understudied field of history. Major works to date are primarily focused on the US relations with the Turkish Republic starting in 1924, which at best may highlight the Barbary Wars and the Treaties of 1830 and 1862 as a precursor. Few works offer, if any, a comprehensive insight into the diplomatic relationship that evolved between the US and the Near East from 1830 to 1930. This research is meant to fill the absence by probing into the service of key American diplomats and intellectuals who visited and …

Rights That Are Not Guaranteed: Failures Of Government Policy On Homelessness, Jeffrey Kaspraw

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

Since the 1980s, the rising number of homeless people has caused the problem to become a significant political issue. Politicians have made promises in their campaigns to solve the emergency every election cycle. Most of these campaign promises never come to fruition, and we see a continuing rise in homelessness. This paper examines the political context of housing insecurity to argue that housing is a human right, and that homelessness is a failed policy decision. Homelessness comes in four different forms that all require individual attention. The current policies aimed to address homelessness cannot be one size fits all. While …

Eugenics Not Eradication: How People With Disabilities Have Lost The Right To Life, Ava Standish

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

Disability-selective abortion stems from a eugenical philosophy not a hope of eradication. Disabilities cannot be eradicated because they are not diseases. Eugenics seeks to purify society from those who are considered “inferior” and to encourage the rate of births considered “superior.” Eugenics continues today through selective abortion of children with disabilities. These children deserve the right to life guaranteed by natural rights, human rights, and the laws of the United States. Children with disabilities, particularly Down Syndrome, have lost this right to life in the United States and abroad. In the United States, 67% of children with Down Syndrome are …

The Eagle’S Eye On The Rising Dragon: Why The United States Has Shifted Its View Of China, Jackson Craig Scott

Baker Scholar Projects

Since 1978, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has long been viewed as an economic trading partner of the United States of America (US). The PRC has grown to be an economic powerhouse, and the US directly helped with that process and still benefits from it. However, during the mid-2010’s, US rhetoric began to turn sour against the PRC. The American government rhetoric toward the PRC, beginning with the Obama administration, switched. As Trump’s administration came along, they bolstered this rhetoric from non-friendly to more or less hostile. Then, Biden’s administration strengthened Trump’s rhetoric. Over the past ten years or …

How Activist Groups Use Human Rights Rhetoric In The Fight For Reproductive Rights And Abortion: The Cases Of The United States, Germany, And The Netherlands, Esme Ostrowitz-Levine

Senior Theses and Projects

Human rights advocates often argue their primary power is that claiming them and deploying human rights rhetoric adds legitimacy and authority to a cause. Yet our understanding of if, how, and why human rights language is used in the political struggle for equality is incomplete. In this thesis I examine the key question of the use of human rights rhetoric and claiming by activists and governmental actors via the struggle for reproductive rights, especially for access to abortion. Through a comparative case study of the United States, the Netherlands, and Germany, this paper finds that legislative bodies tend to utilize …

Review- Archives And Human Rights, Alexandra Pucciarelli

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Archives and Human Rights edited by Jens Boel, Perrine Canavaggio, and Antonio González Quintana utilizes seventeen case studies to examine the role archives and archivists can play in international justice after human rights violations. The cases include but are not limited to; Rwanda, Spain, and Cambodia.

Behind Closed Doors: How Remittance Flows Changed Repression Dynamics In Beneficiary States During Covid-19, Ketevan Tsurtsumia

Senior Projects Spring 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic affected the global world in a lot of ways. Extensive research has been done on its effect on the economic growth of states, the effectiveness of government responses, the efficacy of different vaccines, and vaccine diplomacy. However, changes in state repression have been a neglected topic in research focused on understanding and analyzing the processes that took place during the pandemic. This paper will take on the topic of state repression dynamics during COVID-19 and further develop this relationship using remittances as an additional variable that affects state repression, taking state repression as a dependent variable. Finally, …

Plurality, Precarity, Nos/Otras: Searching For A New Guarantee Of Dignity In The Contemporary World, Antonia Salathe

Senior Projects Spring 2023

One cannot comprehend the topography of our contemporary globe without seeing the chain-link lines that fractalize sand, sea, and soil. Contemporary global politics is marked by a refugee crisis of colossal proportion. At its core, the contemporary refugee crisis is perpetuated by the fact that there is no framework to apprehend the personhood of the refugee, let alone an organized and attentive global process for directing the flow of vulnerable persons toward safety.

I argue that in order to ease the burdens placed on vulnerable people we must return to philosophy and look at the refugee crisis for what it …

Coup De Grâce, Violet Rea Mass

Senior Projects Spring 2023

This project, composed of an introduction and a fiction piece, explores the complex power dynamics at play on the university stage put into perspective of the Human Rights study. The fiction follows young Olive as arrives for her first term at a university in a secluded valley where she must come to terms with a darkness greater than she had ever imagined.

Toward A Biblical And Missiological Framework For Transformational Advocacy In The Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Michelet William

Dissertations

Problem

Adventists have been inconsistent in dealing with inequality and injustice in society, swaying between silence, accommodation, positional statements, and direct advocacy approaches. Although advocacy has become more prominent among Adventist thinkers since the end of the twentieth century, there is a lack of empirical data which answer questions related to contemporary Adventists' beliefs and practices in relation to advocacy in the context of mission. Concomitantly, there does not yet exist a documented or articulated Adventist missiological perspective on advocacy.

Research Questions

(1) What part, if any, has biblically-based social advocacy played in Adventist mission history? and (2) What do …

The Human Environment: Awakening To The Indomitable Cuban Spirit--Government, Culture, And People, Berta Hernández-Truyol

FIU Law Review

My thoughts are to write about The Human Environment. I will address the recent events concerning the increased silencing of dissent and the criminal law reforms that prohibit peaceful gatherings.

Why Corporate Success Requires Dealing With The Past, Sarah Federman, Judith Schrempf-Stirling

School of Peace Studies: Faculty Scholarship

Customers, employees, and citizens expect companies to address historic transgressions and work toward a positive legacy.

Businesses’ past involvement or complicity in atrocities and human rights abuses such as slavery and genocide is a pressing concern for stakeholders today. Managers who meaningfully engage with their companies’ past actions can address historic harms while simultaneously contributing to their companies’ future success. The authors examine the factors that are pushing companies to take action now, and they offer guidance to help leaders begin the process of moving forward.

Reclaiming Justice From Below: Victim Participation And Reparations In Post-Conflict Peru, Fiorella P. Vera-Adrianzen

Political Science ETDs

Since 2007, Peru’s Plan Integral de Reparaciones (PIR, Comprehensive Reparations Plan) has provided material, symbolic, individual, and collective reparations to victims of the civil conflict (1980-2000). Important differences in the implementation of reparations have emerged across time and space. Previous studies have examined factors conditioning the adoption and the effects of reparative justice, generally at the national level. How reparative processes unfold on the ground from design to implementation remains underexplored. Drawing upon original interviews, focus groups, participant observation, and archival research in three highly affected Andean regions (Apurímac, Junín, and Ayacucho) and in the capital city, Lima, I examine …

Assessment Of Overseas Labor Migration Systems In Bangladesh, Sigma Ainul, Eashita Haque, K.G. Santhya, Ubaidur Rob

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Bangladesh is a significant labor-sending country, with about 7.8 million Bangladeshis working abroad. Major destinations for migrant workers are the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Female migrants represent 12 percent of the migration flow, with a majority engaged as domestic workers. Migration to GCC countries is characterized by short-term temporary migration, migration of low- and semi-skilled workers, laborers with low literacy level, debt-financed migration, and often migration through unofficial channels. The overseas labor recruitment industry often leaves migrants susceptible to human trafficking, forced labor, and modern slavery. Also, many migrants return empty-handed and with huge debt. The Population Council in …

The Prevalence Of Domestic Servitude Among Child Domestic Workers In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Research Findings, Annabel Erulkar, Lemi Negeri, Eyasu Hailu

Adolescents and Young People

It is estimated that there are 17.2 million child domestic workers globally, most of whom are girls. Research related to this marginalized group is limited, with most at a small scale or subsumed in other topics, such as domestic workers generally. The dearth of evidence limits awareness about girls in such circumstances and inhibits the design and implementation of context-appropriate policy and program responses. This mixed-method study is one of the few large-scale studies to examine child domestic work, including its prevalence, the entry and experience of girls in this work, and levels of human trafficking, hazardous work, and illegal …

The Violence In Our Humanity: Principles, Action, And The Erosion Of State Sovereignty, Rasheed Idou

Theses and Dissertations

The past two decades have witnessed an increasing number of armed conflicts, both inter- and intra-nationally, and an even more increasing number of multilateral military interventions without UN Security Council authorization. Central to the discussion of these interventions are the themes of humanitarianism and state sovereignty. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the relationship between humanitarian imperatives and principles of sovereignty within the context of armed conflict to better understand the tensions that have led to the current global outcomes. In so doing, it identifies how humanitarian principles, imperatives, and actions have affected the contemporary conception of state …

Towards Safer Recruitment Of Ethiopian Women Into Domestic Work Abroad: Early Findings From The Meneshachin ‘Our Departure’ Qualitative Study, Joanna Busza, Zewdneh Shewamene, Cathy Zimmerman

Gender Equality and Equity

This report presents preliminary findings from the first phase of data collection of the Meneshachin ‘Our Departure’ qualitative study conducted by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in collaboration with the Population Council in Ethiopia and the Freedom Fund, with support and funding from the U.S. Department of State. The study aims to inform the development of feasible, responsible recruitment measures that could reduce the risk of labor exploitation and trafficking experienced by Ethiopian migrant women seeking domestic work abroad. The research focuses on the role of different actors in arranging Ethiopian women’s migration to the Middle East …

Strategies And Policies In Enforcement Of Security, Human Rights And Development In Papua, Rudy Syamsir, Syaiful Rohman

Journal of Terrorism Studies

Papua always an interesting discussion along with the rampant acts of violence against civilians carried out by the Independent Papua Organization (OPM), which were later labeled with various terms such as the Armed Separatist Group (KSB), Armed Criminal Group (KKB), Armed Separatist Criminal Group (KKSB). KKB carried out acts of violence in killing civilians, government officials vandalizing and burning public facilities. Because of the ways that are similar to acts of terrorism, this group is finally called the Armed Terrorism Group (KTB). The Indonesian National Army (TNI) and Indonesian Republic Police (POLRI) security forces have taken repressive actions with armed …

Tennessee Prostitution Amnesty Law Analysis, Emma Sharou, Ally Biegel, Allene Fields, Kennedy Kittner

Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

Currently, people engaging in prostitution who report crimes in Tennessee can face charges should their involvement with prostitution come to light during the report. This barrier to services can prevent individuals from seeking help and infringes upon their rights as crime victims. The Tennessee Prostitution Amnesty Law aims to remove this barrier and seeks to combat the violence experienced by individuals engaging in prostitution by safely providing them with a voice to report crimes against themselves and others without facing charges for prostitution. Additionally, the law states that providing a voice for these individuals will in turn create more opportunities …

The Contradiction Of The Welfare Dictatorship: The Stasi’S Role In Preserving And Undermining East German Human Rights, Mallory Wooldridge

Honors College Theses

Constructed four years after WWII in a kind of pendulum swing response to the Third Reich, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was an experiment in socialism. Under the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (The Socialist Unity Party of Germany, SED) no East German was to go hungry, unemployment would be eradicated, housing guaranteed, women treated as equals, and human rights interwoven into the fabric of this socialist society. However, SED socialism in practice did not conform to this original vision and would eventually represent the disillusionment with the socialist project as a whole.

This project seeks to understand human rights in the …

Peer Reviewing The World: Increasing Civil Society Participation In The United Nations Universal Periodic Review, Lucien F. O'Brien

Political Science Honors Projects

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is an exceptional mechanism within the framework of international human rights. The fact that it evaluates all UN member states’ human rights records on a universal basis sets it apart from other enforcement mechanisms that do not give equal time to all countries or do not seek to cover all human rights. Following the introduction of hybrid modalities in the third cycle, the UPR faces a turning point in terms of who is included in the process and how. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with UN officials, diplomatic mission members, civil society representatives, and academics, as …

Compassion, Respect And Governance: How Legislative Gender Quotas Influence Physical Integrity Rights, Daniel Partin

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

This paper addresses the substantive political outcomes of legislative gender quotas and considers the influence of gender quota rules upon the governmental respect for physical integrity rights that are observed within states.

Restrictions Of Human Rights On The Basis Of Public Welfare, Thomas Makoto Naruse

Japanese Society and Culture

One of the basic principles of Japanese Constitution is respect for human rights. However, the Constitution stipulates “public welfare” in 4 Articles, and recognizes restrictions on human rights. From its text, it appears that human rights restrictions are widely recognized. The debate over public welfare has gone through several stages, and understanding has changed. The aim of this article is to introduce the meaning of “public welfare” in Japanese Constitution, and how it works. After introducing the flow of the theory, this article will examine how it functions as a basis for restrictions on human rights.

The State, The Udhr, And The Social Construction Of Family In Human Rights: The Case Of The Scarborough 11, Abbey S. Willis, Mary C. Burke, Davita Silfen Glasberg

Societies Without Borders

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) (UN 1947:34) declares in Article 16(3) that “the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to the full protection by society and the state.” However, the UDHR does not define family, but rather presumes it is defined by traditional heteronormative marriage in a nuclear family. The failure of the UDHR to consider a more expansive view of family leaves the definition of family centrally in the hands of the state, and affects the ability of all but traditional nuclear family forms to access other human rights. We …

“Labor For Love, Labor To Heal:” Human Rights Activism As A Politics Of Refusal, Angela E. Fillingim

Societies Without Borders

The literature on social movements centers demands made on the state and theorizes collective action as rooted in specific times and the nation-state. I ague that this literature is analogous to “the veil,” a concept developed by W.E.B. Du Bois. Indigenous theorizations of a “politics of refusal” provides us with a foundation see beyond the veil. This paper brings together “Du Boisian Sociology,” Latina Feminisms, and indigenous theories of collective action to develop a robust theorization of human rights activism, and social movements more broadly. This paper asks: What can we gain from analyzing movements from beyond the veil by …