International and Area Studies Commons^™

Hidden Behind Happiness: Bhutan’S Global Image And Ethnic Exclusion, Deepesh Das Shrestha

Master's Theses

Bhutan has gained international recognition for its philosophy of Gross National Happiness (GNH), which promotes holistic development through principles of well-being, environmental sustainability, cultural preservation, and good governance. Yet this celebrated image conceals a darker history: the systematic expulsion of the Lhotsampa, the Nepali-speaking ethnic minority of southern Bhutan. This study critically explores the contradiction between Bhutan's international image as a model of happiness and the lived experiences of Lhotsampa refugees who were displaced during the early 1990s.

Using a qualitative phenomenological research design, the study draws upon in-depth semi-structured interviews with six resettled Bhutanese Lhotsampa refugees living in the …

Treatment Of Different Non-State Actors In Detention: A Legal, Moral, And National Security Analysis, Alison P. Raedel

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

This thesis analyzes state behavior regarding the treatment of non-state actors through three major frameworks: international law, ethical theory, and national security. Two cases are compared: the treatment of al-Qaeda detainees by the United States after the attacks of September 11th, 2001, and the treatment of the Angolan liberation movements by the Portuguese during the Angolan War of Independence. These cases were chosen to assess how the three frameworks apply across different non-state actors, which include terrorist organizations and liberation movements. International law provides a baseline for rights and protections, but it is often selectively interpreted. Just war theory gives …

Death Without Discretion: The Legality Of Mandatory Capital Punishment In Tanzania, Kimberly Austin

Human Rights Brief

The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (AfCHPR) recently found that Tanzania’s mandatory death penalty by hanging violates the rights to life and dignity, guaranteed under Articles 4 and 5 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the Charter). The Court’s judgment on June 26, 2025, in Tembo Hussein v. United Republic of Tanzania demanded rapid reform of Tanzania’s criminal laws in the name of preserving human rights.

How The Sui Generis Principle Has Been Historically Abused In International Law: From The British To The Israelis, Ahmad Hamdan

Human Rights Brief

I. Introduction

For over a century, powerful actors have used a single Latin phrase, sui generis, as a shield to evade accountability under international law. Meaning “of its own kind,” this theory dictates that a situation is so unique that ordinary rules should not apply. In international law, sui generis typically refers to situations or entities that cannot easily be categorized under existing legal frameworks or conventions. Its use indicates that there is no directly applicable precedent and that, as a result, no legal principles apply; instead, the situation itself will set the precedent. While some researchers argue that …

International Law, The Courts, And The Political Branches Of Singapore: Painting A Complete Picture, Benjamin Joshua Ong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In line with Singapore's vision of the separation of powers, the courts' duty is primarily to give effect to domestic law; the political branches take the lead in engaging with international law. A study of Singapore's interface with international law would therefore be incomplete were it to consider only the courts' role and not the political branches' model of international law as primarily a guarantor of Singapore's sovereignty and standing as a participant on the international stage. The political branches have been circumspect in engaging with international law in other areas, such as human rights, preferring a specifically Singaporean vision …

Gendered Resistance: Women’S Strategies Against Military Dictatorships, Argentina And Chile, Maricarmen Canales-Moreno

Publications and Research

This article compares the Madres de Plaza de Mayo in Argentina and the Agrupación de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos (AFDD) in Chile to examine how women transformed their identities as mothers, wives, and daughters into strategies of political resistance under military dictatorship. It argues that maternal imagery, public mourning, and the transformation of private grief into collective defiance enabled women-led human rights organizations to challenge authoritarian regimes while strategically drawing on gender roles those regimes sought to enforce. The article traces the emergence of both organizations, their occupation of public space, hunger strikes, legal action, and engagement with international human …

Ngos’ Role In Voluntary Repatriation Of The African Diaspora, Teni-Ola Ogunjobi

Young African Leaders Journal of Development

The African diaspora consists of people who were displaced far from their ancestral homeland because of slavery, colonization, and other forms of direct and structural violence. This paper will discuss the voluntary repatriation of displaced people, specifically Black people living outside of the continent of Africa, who desire to voluntarily repatriate back to their ancestral countries of origin, their ancestral home, and/or some location on continent of people of African descent. This article identifies a viable group within the international law arena to support in addressing the requests for voluntary repatriation of African descendants to their African countries of origin. …

Contested Development: China’S Influence, Authoritarian Agency, And Ngo Resistance In Uganda, Saara E. Leppanen

Global Governance Theses and Dissertations

In 2021, the Ugandan government suspended the operations of 54 non-governmental organizations (NGOs), citing a range of administrative and legal justifications. This crackdown reflects a broader pattern emerging across the African continent, where over the past twenty years, more than twenty-four states have introduced restrictions on NGOs, particularly those engaged in human rights advocacy and governance. At the same time, the continent has witnessed a marked increase in Chinese investment, most notably through Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched in 2013 as a global infrastructure and development project. While scholarship on the BRI has increased, limited attention has been …

Earthjustice: The Role Of The African Regional Human Rights System In Containing Climate Change, Bright Nkrumah, Ebenezer Durojaye, Maria Usang Assim

Journal of African Policy Studies

At the turn of the millennium, the landscape of Africa has been punctuated by intense weather conditions. With a disproportionate percentage of the continent’s population bearing the brunt of climate-induced heatwaves, deluges, and drought, it is expected that this phenomenon will spur regional climate litigation. The essay argues that although there is an evolution of climate cases submitted at the national level, this development has not evolved to the African regional human rights system. The lack of cases at the regional level beckons one to explore why (potential)victims are unable or unwilling to explore these mechanisms given their role in …

An Exhibition And Protest Of Executions In Iran, Donna M. Hughes

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

An exhibition and protest of executions in Iran was held in Washington, D.C. in June 2025. Portraits of 2000 men and women who were killed or executed in Iran since the 1980s were displayed on the National Mall in front of the Capitol. The Iranian Resistance estimates that 30,000 activists were massacred in one period in 1988. Executions of prisoners have continued steadily, making Iran the world’s leading executioner of men and women. In recent years, there has been a sharp escalation in the number of executions of prisoners. A United Nations Special Rapporteur reported that over 800 persons were …

Who Defines The Refugee?: Analyzing The Limitations And Relevance Of The 1951 Un Convention On Global Refugee Protection, Sarah Locke '25

Honor Scholar Theses

This thesis consists of three chapters and a mini-fourth. In Chapter One, I examine the historical context of the 1951 Convention and its lasting implications. I discuss the early history of the international refugee law regime and the power dynamics that shaped the UN Convention’s drafting. Using a postcolonial lens, I evaluate how the historical context of the Convention continues to perpetuate inequalities and exclusions today, especially through the myth of difference. In Chapter Two, I address the limitations of the 1951 Convention through a comparative analysis with two regional conventions. By analyzing the definition of refugee in each convention, …

Us Government’S Genocide Determination For Sudan And The Us Treasury Department Sanctions, Us Government Press Releases & Responses

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Abusing The International Solidarity Principle: Human Rights, International Solidarity, And The Eu's Bilateral Migration Deals, Jamal Barnes, Samuel M. Makinda

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The international solidarity principle is a crucial legal norm of international society. It helps guide state conduct and facilitate cooperation among international actors to respond to global challenges and uphold human rights. The European Union (EU) and its Member States have argued that their bilateral agreements with non-EU countries to prevent irregular migration to Europe is a demonstration of international solidarity that fulfils their obligations to asylum seekers and refugees. However, the EU's interpretation of international solidarity in these arrangements has been contested. This article argues that the EU has strategically interpreted the international solidarity principle to fit in with, …

Jóvenes Y Memoria: Conflict And Vitality In Education For Human Rights, Bryan Harriss Jones

Graduate Liberal Studies Theses and Dissertations

In 2002, the Comisión Provincial por la Memoria (the Provincial Commission for Memory - CPM) of Argentina’s province of Buenos Aires (PBA) established Jóvenes y Memoria: Recordamos para el Futuro (Youth and Memory: We Remember for the Future – JyM), an elective program for secondary school students. JyM empowers students to create and communicate narratives about the history and current state of human rights based on investigations using primary sources. The goals of CPM include fostering historical memory and preventing the return of authoritarianism. JyM furthers these goals by building exemplary memory to inspire positive change in the present and …

Marshaling A Triumph: The Park Chung Hee Era, Developmental State Theory, And The Meaning Of Success In South Korea, Kevin Hockmuth

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

South Korea has long been looked to as a model of developmental success. Undoubtedly, South Korean society has experienced a remarkable expansion of wealth, social well-being, and technological capacity over the last half-century. The central turning point in this momentous transformation coincided with the authoritarian rule of Park Chung Hee (1961-1979). As such, scholars of political economy and development have paid close attention to the various facets of his regime to glean the primary causes underpinning South Korea’s developmental feats. The most significant of these efforts have emerged from works emphasizing the role of the South Korean developmental state. This …

Western Hemispheric Security And The U.S.: Japanese Peruvian Wartime Incarceration During World War Ii, Matti Izora Ibrahim, Segâh Teki̇n

Faculty Publications - Teaching and Educational Leadership

Following the participation of the United States of America (U.S.A.) in World War II in 1941, the U.S. incarcerated 120.000 Japanese Americans during the war under the pretense of “military necessity”. At the same time, with the claim of guaranteeing the security of the Western Hemisphere, the U.S.A. coerced Latin American countries to deport thousands of their Japanese descendent citizens and place them in the custody of the U.S.A. among them, Peruvian Japanese citizens were kidnapped, taken to the U.S.A., and incarcerated indefinitely. This paper focuses on the incarceration of the Japanese Peruvians in the camps and their lives during …

From Migration Externalization To Coercive Engineered Migration: Effects Of The European Union's Migration Policies On The Human Rights Of Migrants, Annette Quinn

International and Global Studies Undergraduate Honors Theses

The growing concern over migration to the European Union (EU) through the Mediterranean, particularly since 2015, has led the EU to develop strategies that externalize migration control to third countries, shifting the responsibility for migrants. While externalization policies help the EU reduce migration, putting the care for migrants in the hands of third countries that often are not equipped to help them can lead to human rights abuses and poor conditions for migrants. The EU has adopted these policies in order to avoid their responsibilities to migrants, who gain many rights once entering EU territory; however, these policies actually put …

On The Phenomenon Of Populism And Extremism In The Balkans, Mustafa Cerić

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

This paper is based on my personal experience of war and peace in Bosnia. The basic notion is that it is easier to start a war than to stop it. Thus, postwar recovery or peacebuilding is not easy. But thanks to open-minded people who have been all along against a mythical populism that caused the bloody war against Bosnia and its autochthon people, the peace, although unjust, was reached after all. The focus here is on the idea of pluralism in Bosnia as an opposite to "populism" and "extremism." For a positive narrative like pluralism is a good way to …

Oscar Romero And Juan Gerardi: Truth, Memory, And Hope, Scott Wright

The Journal of Social Encounters

Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero and Guatemalan Bishop Juan Gerardi were prominent defenders of human rights during the civil wars that characterized their two countries during the 1980s and 1990s. By their public proclamations and prophetic witness, they laid the foundation for the United Nations Truth Commission in El Salvador, the United Nations Commission for Historical Clarification in Guatemala, and the Recovery of the Historic Memory (REMHI) project in Guatemala. Inspired by the need to dignify the victims of state-sponsored violence by refusing to forget, and accompanying the survivors in their struggle for justice, Romero and Gerardi were instrumental in uncovering …

Irregular Migration In Morocco: A Case For Constructionism, Mourad Khalil

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Separated by only 14 kilometers of water from Spain, Morocco has become a common destination for many sub-Saharan irregular migrants trying to reach Europe. With a large population of these migrants, Morocco has had to make important decisions on how to manage its irregular migrant population. However, the terrible conditions and regular violations of human rights that irregular migrants in Morocco are subject to lead one to ponder the role that international relations has and the extent to which human rights is a consideration in the policymaking of irregular migration. Applied to the three primary theories of international relations, liberalism, …

Exile Garden Of The Uprooted: A Zine About Migration And The Right To Move, Sazia Afrin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Exile Garden of the Uprooted is a digital zine that advocates for a borderless world where migration is treated as an equal and fundamental human right for all. Through critical analysis and experimental forms of art and writing, this zine draws attention to the structural violence used to criminalize the movement of marginalized people, the role nations and individuals play in such violence, and the practical solutions that can be employed to normalize migration and build resilient societies that support fair movement for all. The short essays, found poems, and original art work in this zine are interdisciplinary reflections on …

Transformaciones De Los Regímenes De Bienestar En Colombia, Bairon Otálvaro Marín

Gobernar: The Journal of Latin American Public Policy and Governance

El artículo muestra el proceso de evolución de tres modelos referenciales de política social y de régimen de bienestar en los albores del siglo XXI en Colombia. Se acude al método de análisis cognitivo en políticas públicas, como estrategia para la construcción de datos, evidencias y argumentos que permiten describir e interpretar los diversos enfoques y tipos de política social implementados en contextos territoriales caracterizados por un aumento de relaciones de exclusión y desigualdad. Los resultados evidencian que los enfoques más desarrollados en Colombia son asistenciales, neo asistenciales (protección social) e inclusivos, miradas que han ido construyendo una forma de …

Separation Beyond Walls: A Discussion Of The Practical And Theoretical Implications Of Prevention Through Deterrence, Kristina Lynch

Undergraduate Theses

This thesis investigates the alternative policing strategy known as Prevention Through Deterrence affecting undocumented migrants at the United States Southern Border. By forcing migrants into the Sonoran Desert, they are subject to countless dangers along their immigration attempt, and in many cases death, as a means to eliminate these “unwanted figures” from the public eye. The policies that comprise Prevention Through Deterrence have been in effect since the 1990’s, but the prevention of certain people from effectively immigrating to the United States has been occurring for just about the entire history of our country. The fact that it is still …

Justice For Venezuela: The Human Rights Violations That Are Isolating An Entire Country, Andrea Matos

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Towards A Governance Model Of Ungovernable Prisons: How Recognition Of Inmate Organizations, Dialogue, And Mutual Respect Can Transform Violent Prisons In Latin America, José Luis Pérez Guadalupe, James Cavallaro, Lucia Nuñovero

Catholic University Law Review

Study of informal organizations in prisons in Latin America focuses on the exercise of control over daily life inside detention centers, including the extreme example of ‘self-government’ of and by those incarcerated. In Latin America, self-government occurs in the dangerous context of severe overcrowding, limited resources and poor services, aggravated by high levels of violence and illicit markets within prisons. The combination is highly volatile and poses grave dangers to the lives and wellbeing of detainees, authorities and often the larger society beyond prisons. This article considers one pioneering effort to overcome the unfettered control of prison by detainees: the …

From Rulay To Rules: Perceptions Of Prison Life And Reforms In The Dominican Republic’S Traditional And New Prisons, Jennifer Peirce

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project explores the implementation of reforms to the prison system in the Dominican Republic, with an emphasis on how incarcerated people perceive their conditions and daily life in confinement. In 2003, the Dominican Republic established a New Prison Management Model, focused on international human rights standards and rehabilitation. This model now manages over half of the prison facilities and a third of the incarcerated population, while the previous, “traditional” model continues to operate in tandem. The “new” and reformed facilities (Centers for Correction and Rehabilitation) feature new buildings, programs, and correctional officer staff with multi-disciplinary training. In contrast, the …

Decolonization: The Litmus Test Of The Human Rights Framework, Isiuwa Omoigui

The Yale Undergraduate Research Journal

This literature review examines the complicated relationship between anticolonial activism and the human rights framework that emerged in the wake of the Second World War. I contextualize the scholarly debate on the tension between conceptions of human rights as an individual entitlement and the collectivist nature of African anticolonial struggles. The universalism of the human rights framework endures the harsh light of critique, given its emergence from the twentieth-century European experience of genocide and great powers’ competing commitments to democracy and empire. The crimes against humanity committed in the name of colonial conquest and rule challenge the great powers’ moral …

The Covid-19 Pandemic And Human Rights Limitation: The Role Of Trust And Communication In Vietnam, Van Thanh Vu

Asian Review

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented health crisis in modern history, causing disruption and chaos to the usual way of life, and requiring radical measures. This study investigates how willingly Vietnamese people cooperate with their government’s anti-pandemic measures, which limit their right to assembly, privacy and freedom of movement during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings show that the region of residence of the respondents influences their cooperation with government’s measures. It has also been found that the more the respondents have trust in the government as an important agency in pandemic management, the more they cooperate with the government’s measures.

Engaged Buddhist Community As A Human Right Response: A Case Of Buddhist Participatory Communication, Palphol Rodloytuk

Asian Review

Religions have played very important roles in resolving conflicts and problems for mankind in addition to providing the paths to happiness and salvations based on their uniquely defined traditions and frameworks. In the past several decades, where world problems have become more complex, including peace and conflict resolution, requiring more complex international standards and frameworks, the declaration of human rights was announced, promulgated, and implemented into governance and development policies adopted by many countries worldwide, in order to facilitate the ways that problems, conflicts, and various causes of suffering could be solved, with clear international standards and guidelines. Religions, Buddhism …

The Compressed Modernity Of Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage In Taiwan: Digital Activism, Human Rights Discourse, And Intertwined Sexual, Political And National Identities, Jyun-Jie Yang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In 2019, Taiwan became the first Asian country to officially legalize same-sex marriage. Remarkably, the Taiwanese queer movement achieved the goal of marriage equality in only 30 years, with the first tongzhi (同志) activist group organized in 1990. Compared to Euro-American social movements, Taiwanese tongzhi activism has experienced a “compressed modernity” (Chang, 1999, 2010a, 2010b), which accelerates cultural and social transformations. Although Taiwanese academia has been significantly influenced by queer studies as a form of western knowledge production, local scholars and activists created a new interpretation from “queer” to “tongzhi.” Entangled with complex political identifications in post-martial-law Taiwan, …