Human Rights in the European Union

Posted on May 7, 2013 by admin

[Editor's Note: Amy McCall is an ex-military strategist who is currently pursuing a dual Master's of Public Policy and International Law at the American University of Paris.]

european_union_flag

The European Union flag.

When considering current Human Rights (HR) issues within the EU, problems with Roma integration are often a topic of conversation. Yet there is more happening concerning HR in the EU that goes well beyond the Roma population. Interestingly, Roma integration is listed as the fourth area of concentration by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) and access to justice as the first.
This raises some interesting questions for debate. What is the legal framework for HR in the EU? What are the requirements for accession states? What are human rights standards for member states? Who oversees and monitors these standards and what are the consequences for states who do not meet the standards? What is the EU doing for human rights externally?

To understand HR within the EU one must be familiar with legal framework. The 2009 Lisbon Treaty made upholding HR standards primary law in the EU by including the Charter of Fundamental Rights and requiring the EU to accede to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The Council of Europe, it is important to understand, is different from the EU in that it has 47 members (where the EU has 27), its purpose is promoting HR, democracy and rule of law and most importantly, the European Council, not the EU, is home to the European Court of Human Rights. It is also important to note that the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights is based on the ECHR and only in some cases does the EU Charter provide further protection. The real difference is not in the two forms of legislation, but when they can be applied. In the EU, the Charter of Fundamental Rights can only be applied to EU Member States (MS) in the application of EU law.

Currently, all EU MS are signatories to the ECHR, but the EU as an institution has just recently completed its draft accession agreement and it is currently at the EU Court of Justice for legal opinion. Because all MS are already members of the ECHR, and the Lisbon Treaty made HR primary law, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) can and does try cases based on the EU charter, the ECHR as well as international law. Of course the ECJ looks at cases that question the interpretation of EU law and HR to ensure it is applied uniformly across all MS, EU institutions, businesses and individuals. The European Court of Human Rights, on the other hand, rules on individual or state applications alleging violations of the European Convention on Human Rights. The European Court of Human Rights has a backlog of over 120,000 cases and at a rate of 1,503 verdicts per year it will take almost 50 years to clear this backlog. Both courts rely heavily on the national court system to act as the main body in interpreting European HR law. Continue reading →

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A Burmese Migrant’s Need for Health Care

Posted on April 23, 2013 by admin

[Editor's Note:  Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau is a multimedia storyteller using the sacred art of journalism to heal and repair one's dignity. Simba’s stories have been featured on the Guardian, IPS Gender Newswire, IPS Inter Press Service, Humanist Newswire, and Le Monde. Simba has worked as a photographer, radio correspondent, and writer in the Middle East and North Africa, Asia, and North America. This post is an excerpt of the newest edition of Migrant Stories, which is a magazine that provides a platform for migrants, refugees, and indigenous communities to raise their voices, awakening the world to the journey they face and fostering a culture of respect.]

Truth: The age of mobility is upon us, as countries sending and receiving migrant workers is at an all time high. To add to the mix, there are currently more than 15.4 million refugees in the world today.

Truth: In 2010, the United Nations (UN) estimated that there were over 214 million international migrants, meaning that nearly 3.1% or one out of 33 persons is a migrant. This population would constitute the 5th populous country in the world, with women accounting for nearly 50 percent.

Truth: Nearly 72% of the world’s 33 million refugees are women and children.

Truth: Every step of the way, these refugees and economic migrants must survive human traffickers, forced labour, a treacherous sea voyage in overcrowded dinghy boats and xenophobia.

Truth: With the global economy in tatters, climate changing the game and wars raging across the world, migration is becoming a human reality.

Truth: Even you could find yourself a migrant. Leaving your place of comfort in search of greener pastures.

Gao’s Story

Burma-male

Source: Flickr

Currently, there are an estimated 2.5 million migrant workers in Thailand. According to human rights groups, the vast majority originate from Myanmar due to confiscation of land, human rights abuses, conflict, lack of jobs or other economic opportunities back home. Even though workers are officially covered by Thai laws and regulations, their rights are regularly violated.

At the age of 23, Gao who is pictured here travelled to Thailand due to intense fighting between the Shan army and the Burmese army. After serving in the Shan army as a soldier, he returned home to rumours that recruitment for young boys had resumed and his family agreed that it would be better if he went to Thailand where he could make a better living and provide for his family. This is his journey.

Simba: What was your life like in Burma?

Gao: I grew up in Shan State in Burma. There was always conflict so it was very difficult for all of us. In Burma, there’s a lot of discrimination against the various ethnic groups so people like us were denied an education or proper working and living conditions. For Shan people, I’d like that our culture and history is recognised and that our people gain freedom and autonomy.

S: What type of work did you do when you first arrived in Thailand?

G: When I first arrived to Thailand, I was working as a labourer lifting rocks out of the river onto the land and as a construction worker. This was about 14 years ago, we would work in the river all day without equipment like rubber gloves. We would collect the rocks and put them into a tank and then we’d get a half baht for each tank.

I tried to return to Shan State in Burma but things were still difficult so I crossed the border once more and started working in the hills of Thailand picking cabbage. Working in this area was very dangerous because there was a lot of drugs and everyone was addicted. I feared that if I remained there then I too would be become addicted so I tried to save enough money to relocate to Bangkok. Luckily, I met someone who also wanted to reach Bangkok so we put our monies together and travelled together.

S: Tell me about your life once you arrived in Bangkok.

G: After arriving in Bangkok, I started working in a garment factory. We didn’t have proper food. Every day I eating rice and sharing a packet of Ramen noodles. I started to get very sick. My whole body started to swell but I didn’t know what was wrong with me. In our tradition, if you get swelling then you’re told to take this medicine. However, when I took the medicine it made me even more sick.

The employer started to worry that I may die and suggested that I quit and go home. I didn’t want to return to Shan State because of my illness and I didn’t want to be a burden on my family. All the workers at the garment factory put their money together and helped me get a bus ticket to Chiang Mai.

Once I arrived in Chiang Mai, I remembered that I had heard on the radio about a Shan temple. I thought that if I was going to die then I would rather die in a Shan temple. The red bus driver who agreed to take me to the temple cheated me because it should have only cost around 8 baht but he charged me 400 baht.

When I arrived to the temple, a Shan guy – who had been around for a long time and was very knowledgeable – offered to help me. He put me in a wheelchair and took me to the hospital and left me at the counter. Despite running several tests, they couldn’t find out what was wrong with me so they sent me to the regional hospital in Chiang Mai. I was really lucky because the doctor assigned to me was Shan so I could communicate better with him. After inquiring about my history and what I was eating, he diagnosed me as being malnourished and that the medicine I had taken was poisonous.

The doctor kindly gave me treatment without asking for money and the social worker at the hospital gave me 50 baht. I went back to the Shan temple where I stayed for a month.

S: How did you find out about the Migrant Assistance Program?

G: The monk at the temple told me about a group of Shan who helped each other and it was the telephone number of Migrant Assistance Program (MAP). I called and someone from MAP came to take me and another migrant who had malaria to their emergency house.

Continue reading →

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Canadian Police Abuses Focus Attention on the West

Posted on March 1, 2013 by Maura Farrell

Following our re-launch earlier this month, Debating Human Rights continues to explore violence against women in 2013 as a worldwide epidemic. Recently, activists and the media have turned to the ongoing failures and abuses of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) against indigenous communities—including the 600 Aboriginal women who have recently gone missing or been murdered in Canada.

The RCMP’s ongoing abuses have created captivating dialogue as of late, notably in comprehensive reports from organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. This post contends that the true nature of persistent violence against Aboriginal women in Canada has been masked by a presumed causal link between RCMP negligence and the murders and disappearances of aboriginal women in British Columbia. It is clear that RCMP is at fault, but the issue at hand is too large for one culprit. The abuses against indigenous women and girls in Canada must be corrected, and quickly, but the human rights community cannot hope to put a Band-Aid over a bullet-wound. Hierarchical inequalities within indigenous groups, discriminate application of government policies and endemic poverty are all equally to blame for the sustained plight of these women.

In Canada, young Aboriginal women account for a disproportionately high percentage of the missing and murdered. This is especially true in communities near British Columbia’s Highway 16, which has been appropriately dubbed the “Highway of Tears”. In British Columbia, Aboriginal women compromise just three percent of the population, yet they account for thirty-three percent of the disappeared and dead, experiencing violence at a rate of incidence 3.5 times higher than that for non-Aboriginal women.

To make matters worse, the Canadian police have failed to protect indigenous women and girls in Canada, and have even added to the abuse themselves. These abuses were recently documented by the Canadian government in its Pickton inquiry. Yet, the inquiry revealed that there is “little appetite, either in institutional Canada or among Canadians, for the full conversation [about the broken state of aboriginal culture].”

Systemic poverty is also a crucial factor in the victimization of aboriginal women. The Government of Canada seems unable to address this issue. A 2000 Study by the Department of Indian Affairs concluded that there is an average of 22% less funding for an Aboriginal child brought up on a reserve than a non-indigenous child. Undoubtedly, less funding for children is not directly linked to violence, but there exists an evident relationship between the disadvantageous distribution of government resources and the impoverishment of the aboriginal community. Economic impoverishment, especially for women with children, can force women into destructive life paths, such as entering the sex trade, that place these women in greater danger.

Continue reading →

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Small Farmers, Big Opportunity

Posted on February 22, 2013 by admin

[Editor's Note: This post is by guest contributor Lisa Wong and was originally posted on the International Museum of Women's Her Blueprint. Lisa Wong is s a writer and economist, covering Latin America and social and environmental investments across emerging markets at Nikko Asset Management (Nikko AM). She holds a dual-degree Master of Public Administration (MPA) from both Columbia University and the London School of Economics in international finance and public policy respectively, a MA(Cantab) in English Literature from the University of Cambridge and a French diploma from the University of Sorbonne. She writes on the topic of development finance and inclusive businesses.]

How can we feed the growing world? By empowering one small scale farmer at a time.

Bean Farmer in Sri Lanka. Image courtesy of UN WomenWatch.

The global population, having ballooned over the last century, is likely to reach 7.5 billion people within the next decade. How are we to feed everyone?

Large multinational food companies have been thinking about securing their food supply for some time and have put a lot of energy and advancement in improving the productivity of their usual suppliers: big plantations and farms. But as these corporations look ahead to a swelling consumer base from a growing global middle class coupled with increasingly fragile food stock as climate change threatens crops, they are forced to focus beyond large farms and co-ops to make sure that their food supply grows apace with demand.

Increasingly, they are considering ways to include small scale farmers into their supply chains – those previously excluded from the global food industry and often some of the poorest and most marginalized. A recent report, Catalyzing Smallholder Agricultural Finance, by the development consultancy, Dalberg, found that this sector is no small fry: there are an estimated 450 million small holder farmers in the world – that’s more than the US and Japanese populations combined. With this new focus, it might finally be the big time for the small farmer. 

By 2018,  Dalberg, predicts that food consumption worldwide is expected to increase by nearly 30% compared to 2005. Our eating habits aren’t also just preoccupied with the amount of food available; many of us, especially in developed countries, expect a stable food supply and prices. We’re accustomed to having strawberries all year round for roughly the same cost, not to mention coffee – perhaps our most popular global addiction? If we don’t work harder at improving global food production, the stability of our food system is under threat. Factors such as climate change, population growth, and an expanding global middle class — as many emerging countries are getting richer — are placing increasing strains on the world’s food supply.

Continue reading →

Posted in Corporate Liability, Right to Food, Right to Food | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Debating Human Rights Re-Launch: 2013 Begins with Call to End Violence Against Women

Posted on February 14, 2013 by admin

Debating Human Rights is proud to re-launch in 2013 by highlighting an issue at the height of public and activist concern: violence against women.

The blog’s new editors, Kate Stence and Maura Farrell, look forward to closely reporting on this issue as the dialogue continues, posting further commentary as current injustices galvanize global action. Debating Human Rights remains committed to exploring the latest debates and ever-shifting paradigms of human rights in 2013 and beyond.

In recent weeks, global mainstream media has covered persistent and widespread violence against women in a range of countries.

In India, the gang-rape of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student on December 16, 2012 resulted in public condemnation and outcry from both India’s strengthening middle class and international organizations such as UN Women. Raped and mutilated with an iron bar at the hands of a group of six men while aboard a moving bus, the anonymous victim finally succumbed to massive internal injuries on December 29, after battling for her life for thirteen days in a Singapore hospital.

Courtesy of The Economist.

Rape and rape-related deaths are a national problem in India. In 2011, India was ranked 134th by UNDP’s gender equality index, highlighting the plight of Indian women and girls, who are under-fed and under-educated relative to males. Dowry violence, marital and in-law abuse, and reproductive sex selection are examples of the pervasive hardships for Indian women created from extreme gender inequalities. Sexual violence in Indian villages is so common that it keeps women indoors after dark, and the migration of rural Indian men to overcrowded slums means that the growing predation goes unchecked. Low persecution and even lower conviction rates for rape and other crimes against women exacerbate the violence. Continue reading →

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Human Rights Violations in Syria: A Timeline of Key Events and Corresponding International Responses

Posted on June 8, 2012 by Virginia Bennis

Since early last year, news agencies have been flooded with reports of human rights violations in Syria. In an attempt to synthesize the vast amount of information surrounding these human rights violations, a comprehensive timeline has been constructed by Debating Human Rights following key events since the Syrian government’s March 2011 crackdown on protestors, including: major news events, national and international sanctions, as well as official reports, press releases, and resolutions adopted by the United Nations.

Continue reading →

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Pregnancy Discrimination in the Workplace: Biology is Not Destiny

Posted on May 31, 2012 by Virginia Bennis

For many women, pregnancy discrimination in the workplace is a reality―or at least a real fear. The other day, my partner and I found out that his newly-married cousin was pregnant. It was a surprise to her, and a delight to the family. Instead of questions about gender, due dates, baby showers, or bigger apartments, however, the first question on everyone’s lips was whether or not she had passed the three-month the probationary period of her new job. The period d’essai is a shaky time for any new hire in France, as an employer has license to fire an employee without an obligation to justify the dismissal, but it is an especially shaky time for women of child-bearing age, namely because women of child-bearing age are seen as carrying risks and expenses that their male counterparts do not carry as a result of both their anatomy and societal role as mothers.

While anti-discrimination laws exist to protect pregnant women in almost every developed country, a number of studies have shown that these laws have done little to change perception or practice regarding the hiring of pregnant, potentially pregnant, or soon-to-be pregnant women.  A 2009 survey by HireScores.com recorded that 81% of British business managers “would ask female job applicants if they were pregnant, planned on having children or already had children” if they could.  What’s worse, “almost 50% of managers admit to factoring in a woman’s age and relationship status when trying to establish whether they could potentially be getting pregnant in the future.”

Continue reading →

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Improving Enforcement of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention

Posted on May 27, 2012 by Virginia Bennis

In recent years, the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention has come under fire due to a lack of enforcement of the convention by member states. The most recent progress report undertaken by Transparency International found that the overwhelming majority of states have failed to meet basic treaty obligations, attaining “little or no enforcement” of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention.   Canada, surprisingly,  is one of the worst offenders, as it remains the sole G7 country to be placed in the “little or no enforcement” category. According to Transparency International, 21 of the Convention’s 38 signatories fell under the “little or no enforcement” category, with only nine countries falling under the “moderate enforcement” category, and a mere seven having attained “active enforcement” status.  As a result, Transparency International views the current position of the convention as “unstable,” interpreting these numbers as clear evidence of a “lack of political commitment.” Indeed, many view the future of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention as uncertain unless new processes are implemented to recover momentum and improve effectiveness.

Currently, the OECD publishes a series of country reports on the implementation of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention containing peer-review examinations of each country. These reports have undoubtedly been useful in determining what legislative, administrative, and judicial actions have been undertaken by a given member country. Given the current enforcement levels, however, this reporting system may not do enough to stimulate and encourage enforcement on the part of signatories. The need for further guidance was addressed partially in efforts such as the 2009 OECD Recommendation for Further Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, which implemented the “phase three” reporting procedure focused on enforcement. Since 2009, however, Transparency International’s independent enforcement reports have seen little improvement in enforcement on the part of member states. Thus, the question remains: how can the OECD, as the convention’s administrator, continue to improve enforcement?

Continue reading →

Posted in Anti-Corruption, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

In Defense of Kony 2012: An Analysis of Criticisms

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Virginia Bennis

Over the last four weeks I have been, quite frankly, awestruck by the negativity of comments surrounding the Kony 2012 video campaign produced by non-profit organization Invisible Children. My sudden delight over the fact that friends (who don’t know the first thing about international human rights law and, for the most part, used social media to post baby pictures and talk about Hunger Games) were sharing the video and discussing the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) was quickly stamped out following the Scrooge-like grumbling of my colleagues in the human rights field, many of whom are alumnae of postgraduate human rights programs, or currently work for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or inter-governmental organizations (IGOs). It was mind-boggling that so little good was being said of a YouTube video from a start-up NGO that had managed to introduce the plight of LRA victims to the general public on a scale that had never been seen before, despite two decades’ worth of attempts from better-funded and better-known NGOs, IGOs, and television networks.

In searching for an answer as to why anyone in the human rights field would disparage the success of a non-profit trying to raise money for LRA victims, I couldn’t help but feel that those of us familiar with the dialogue of human rights occasionally suffer from bouts of intellectual elitism, causing us to spew bitter criticism in a burst of condescending I-know-more-than-you-dos whenever one of the unassuming layfolk dares to take an interest in our sacred realm of expertise. We become threatened by sudden interest in a subject that has, for the most part, been ignored by the general public, and feel the need to assert our authority as, well, the authority, on all things human rights. Suddenly, our general knowledge on the LRA is commonplace, and in an attempt to make ourselves stand out, we begin nit-picking and forget to celebrate the bigger battle that has been won: namely, that people are starting to care about a humanitarian crisis that is happening a world away.

My intention in this article is to address six of the most common criticisms of Invisible Children and the Kony 2012 video in an attempt to make the case that the NGO is not, in fact, the wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing that some would have you believe.
Continue reading →

Posted in Africa, Child Soldiers, United States | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Reza Deghati @ AUP

Posted on December 9, 2011 by Brad Pizzimenti

Debating Human Rights recently had the opportunity to sit down with Franco-Iranian photojournalist Reza Deghati. Reza has been photographing and traveling the world for decades, sharing his insights into the places he photographs and the people he meets. More recently, Reza served as a consultant to the United Nations in Afghanistan and has turned to advocacy work. In 2006, National Geographic awarded him with a fellowship. We are grateful he has taken the time to share his insights with us about the changing world that is unfolding in such unpredictable ways.

What follows is an excerpt from our interview. In it, Reza explores the implications of the kinds of citizen journalism we are seeing in the Middle East and North Africa.

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