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Begin New Search Topic Human Rights Content Type Journal Article Journal Georgetown Journal of International Affairs

1. The ASEAN Synthesis: Human Rights, Non-Intervention, and the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration

Author:
Mathew Davies
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Abstract:
The ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD) has been welcomed as the most impressive commitment to protecting human rights within ASEAN ever created. At the same time, others have criticized it as fatally flawed, creating no meaningful regional oversight of human rights. In this article I argue that this range of reactions is explicable by understanding the Declaration as embodying what I term the “ASEAN synthesis” between progressive and traditionalist positions held by member states. Since 1997 the progressives have lobbied for substantial reform of ASEAN, including a commitment to human rights. The traditionalists, while not opposed to reform, envisage a traditional approach to regional affairs that prioritizes member-state security through commitments to sovereign equality and non-intervention. The ASEAN synthesis reconciles these two agendas by legitimizing the discussion of human rights within the regional framework while also reinforcing the principle of non-intervention, seriously curtailing the ability of regional institutions and declarations to engage in proactive rights protection. The argument unfolds in three parts. The discussion first identifies the members and interests of the progressive and traditionalist camps, placing them in the context of ASEAN's evolution since 1967 and with particular attention to the 1997 Financial Crisis as the trigger for their emergence. The second section examines the evolution of ASEAN from 1997-2012 and argues that this process can be understood as representing the synthesis of the progressive interest in human rights as aims and the traditionalist focus on orthodox practices. The final section examines the AHRD itself to reveal the influence of both interest groups
Topic:
Human Rights and Financial Crisis

2. La Policía Communitaria: Self-Defense Groups in Mexico: The Aftermath of a Poorly Designed Policy

Author:
Mauricio Mering and Jaime Hernandez Colorado
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Abstract:
On 4 January 2013, in the Mexican state of Guerrero, armed men calling themselves the “Ayutla de Los Libres Community Police Force” took self-defense into their own hands, sensing the inability of their government security forces to crack down on the violence of organized crime. In a total of nine states, the press has since documented additional community self-defense groups that have risen in response to the insecurity in Mexico, subsequently posing a challenge to the new government. This article examines the formation of community self-defense groups in light of the failures of the security policy implemented during the Felipe Calderón administration. This security policy resulted in the fragmentation of organized crime cartels and an increase in violence triggered by the diversification of criminal activities, leaving a trail of death, corruption, and human rights violations. The rise of these self-defense groups lends credit to the idea that vigilantes themselves can serve as an antidote to insecurity, particularly in rural communities. Across Mexico, groups seeking justice by their own hands have experienced widespread legitimacy, as exemplified by Javier Sicilia, who led the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity and demanded justice for the victims of Calderón's security policy; and Isabel Miranda, who became a Mexico City government PAN candidate in the 2012 elections after singlehandedly seeking and delivering her son's kidnappers to the authorities. These are just two cases of civilians who were victimized by organized crime and who therefore had to use every means necessary to mobilize society, highlighting the ineffective Mexican police force and the nation's judicial system. The leitmotif of urban social movements seeking for justice is not the same as that of the community police – but both are seeking justice and security because official security agencies have failed. Community self-defense groups are security corps composed by citizens working in their specific regions according to traditional rules and often recovering indigenous customs. These groups base their efforts upon civil society participation, solidarity, and other values that survive in rural Mexico, such as family relations, friendship, and social trust among the inhabitants of a town or region. It is important to state that these values as the basis of self-defense groups remain because members of these groups are members of the community too. The expansion of community groups is both old and new – these groups integrate romantic notions of justice with the more modern conception that society must participate in the fight against organized crime. These two opposing dimensions are harmonized in the wake of an ineffective security policy, forcing society to reach beyond public protest so as to organize community police groups…
Topic:
Corruption and Human Rights
Political Geography:
Mexico

3. The Global Online Freedom Act

Author:
Ian Brown
Publication Date:
03-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Abstract:
The Global Online Freedom Act is one of the most comprehensive legislative attempts to protect online human rights. However, some civil society groups are concerned that certain controls could block the availability of tools useful for human rights activists in affected countries.
Topic:
Human Rights

4. American Aid and Human Rights in the Philippines

Author:
Christian Pangilinan
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Abstract:
The streets of Catmaran, a small town in Northern Samar province in the Philippines, seem wide compared to those of the capital, Manila. There is almost no traffic. Instead of dense rows of aluminum-roofed shacks, rough concrete houses, and stalls with plastic signs for soda and cell phone companies, green farms and bahay kubo, traditional thatch houses on stilts, border the roads. At first glance, the beaches look idyllic.
Topic:
Human Rights
Political Geography:
America and Philippines

5. Strange Bedfellows The Convergence of Sovereignty-Limiting Doctrines in Counterterrorist and Human Rights Discourse

Author:
Rosa Brooks
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Abstract:
A fragile ideological coalition has emerged with members of both the human rights and hard security communities advocating for more robust sovereignty-limiting doctrines. Perhaps it is best to simply embrace the organized hypocrisy that surrounds this case of strange bedfellows.
Topic:
Security, Human Rights, and Sovereignty