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Begin New Search Topic Human Rights Political Geography Global Focus Content Type Special Report Publication Year within 25 Years

1. Our Identities under Arrest

Author:
Kellyn Botha
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
ILGA World (International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association)
Abstract:
Arrests and prosecutions for consensual same-sex sexual acts, or for diverse gender expressions, continue unabated across the world. And yet, they are considerably under-reported. Our Identities Under Arrest is a brand-new publication by ILGA World offering a global overview of the enforcement of laws criminalising consensual same-sex sexual acts between adults and diverse gender expressions. The report reviews hundreds of cases in which law enforcements subjected LGBT and gender-diverse persons to fines, arbitrary arrests, prosecutions, corporal punishments, imprisonments and more – up to (possibly) the death penalty. Governments often argue that criminalising laws are ‘dormant’, but this report offers evidence that such claims are largely inaccurate. How – and how often – they are enforced can vary abruptly and in unpredictable ways, making both our communities on the ground and asylum seekers who managed to flee live perpetually under threat. The Our Identities under Arrest report will be of great value to the advocacy work of human rights defenders. It will assist asylum seekers and the legal experts working on their cases. And it will provide researchers, media outlets, governmental and global agencies with the necessary information to build a holistic picture of how the criminalisation on the grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression really looks like.
Topic:
Human Rights, Law Enforcement, LGBT+, and Criminalization
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. "The ball should not get stained": The Qatar soccer world cup 2022 tarnished by human rights violations

Author:
Gabriella Michele Garcia
Publication Date:
08-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for the Opening and Development of Latin America (CADAL)
Abstract:
FIFA gave the bid to Qatar to host the World Cup in 2022. Qatar gave the promise that they would hold a spectacular cup with the construction of a city, stadiums, and luxurious venues and hotels. To complete the construction process, they hired migrant domestic workers, and in the process they have violated human and workers rights, putting workers at risk of death, and betraying the terms and conditions under which the workers had been hired. Since the start of the construction project there has been a massive turn for the worst in migrant worker’s rights, as they continue to be abused.
Topic:
Human Rights, Sports, Migrant Workers, FIFA, and Soccer
Political Geography:
Qatar and Global Focus

3. Democracy by Design: An Affirmative Response to the Illiberal Use of Technology for 2021

Author:
Kara Frederick
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
Abstract:
Aglobal contest between democracies and autocracies is raging on the digital front. Technology stands to alter the balance between free, open societies and closed, repressive regimes. Nation states in direct competition with the United States seek to project global influence by shaping an existing digital order to their will. Impulses toward illiberal use of technology at home threaten to curtail individual liberties, constrict opportunity, and erode a truly open society. Democracies do not yet have a model for how to confront this. In the United States, a roadmap for a solution must start with the fundamental question: How should U.S. technology companies, with the help of the U.S. government, respond to the illiberal use of technology by authoritarian actors abroad? This report contends with this question by identifying concrete actions and threat-mitigating strategies that contain the input of government, the tech sector, civil society, and academia. It provides starting points to address the systemic risk inherent in dealing with authoritarian regimes and also examines cost imposition on those complicit in tech-enabled human rights abuses. Yet a strategy aimed only at staunching the illiberal use of technology will fail in the long term. Instead, the U.S. government and tech companies alike must recruit democratic allies to purvey an affirmative agenda that promotes digital freedom across the globe. This report proposes an agenda that stresses privacy leadership by the United States and its technology companies. It identifies areas of collaboration for U.S. allies and democratic partners, like digital trade, foreign law enforcement requests for data, and technical standards. This report’s affirmative agenda also contains an imperative for U.S. tech companies to build commercial norms toward digital freedom and incentivize transparency within their own ranks. For digital freedom to prevail over authoritarian uses of technology, democracies must present something better. Together, they must establish an alternative model for the use of technology globally. These recommendations build that democratic case, starting with the United States.
Topic:
Human Rights, Science and Technology, Authoritarianism, and Democracy
Political Geography:
North America, Global Focus, and United States of America

4. Addressing Data Gaps on Child, Early, and Forced Marriage in Humanitarian Settings

Author:
Dyan Mazurana and Anastasia Marshak
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Feinstein International Center, Tufts University
Abstract:
The United Nations and its partner agencies have pledged to focus on the problem and eradication of early, child, and forced marriage. On November 12, 2018, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution on child, early, and forced marriage. As part of this resolution, the General Assembly highlighted the need for better data collection and disaggregation of that data for improved analysis and learning. This report is a comprehensive and user-friendly concept note for a database on child marriage in humanitarian settings, a first step in eradicating the problem. The report identifies the existing knowledge and data on child marriage in humanitarian settings, gaps in that evidence base, and provides recommendations for moving forward with the creation of a comprehensive database. The authors interviewed key stakeholders on child marriage across program, policy, and academia in combination with a comprehensive literature review. The report was commissioned and funded by Save the Children U.S.
Topic:
Health, Human Rights, Humanitarian Aid, United Nations, Children, Basic Data, and Humanitarian Intervention
Political Geography:
Middle East, North Africa, and Global Focus

5. Curbing deception - A world survey of legal restrictions of so-called ‘conversion therapies’

Author:
Lucas Ramón Mendos
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
ILGA World (International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association)
Abstract:
‘Conversion therapy’ is a term describing pseudo-scientific and harmful practices used to attempt altering a person’s gender expression, gender identity or sexual orientation. In 2020, ILGA World has released a ground-breaking report on the issue: Curbing Deception is an extensive global research into laws banning ‘conversion therapies’ both at the national and subnational level. The report explores the vast field of techniques used for the purpose of attempting to alter lesbians, gays and bisexuals’ sexual orientation, to prevent trans youth from transitioning or make trans people de-transition, or to force our gender expressions and roles to align with the social binary stereotypes of masculinity and femininity. It also analyses strategies beyond legal reform to restrict these harmful practices worldwide. Experimentation and abuse have long taken place under the legitimising cloak of medicine, psychology and science. As the report details, gruesome practices – including electroshock ‘therapies’, forced internments in ‘clinics’ and exorcisms – are still applied in numerous countries, pushing people of diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions to living self-loathing lives, up to the extreme consequences of committing suicide. Protection from similar ineffective and cruel treatment is as urgent as ever: our report also exposes how - thanks to the tireless advocacy of activists, survivors and grassroots organisations – States, health professionals and international human rights bodies across the world are speaking up against so-called ‘conversion therapies’.
Topic:
Human Rights, Law, Reform, Regulation, LGBT+, Protection, and Conversion Therapy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

6. Trans Legal Mapping Report: Recognition before the law (2019)

Author:
Zhan Chiam, Sandra Duffy, Matilda González Gil, and Lara Goodwin
Publication Date:
09-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
ILGA World (International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association)
Abstract:
The Trans Legal Mapping Report is a research project by ILGA World, detailing the impact of laws and policies on trans persons across the globe. Its latest edition, released in September 2020, covers the legal situation in 143 UN member States: it highlights provisions which set out how trans and gender-diverse people can change their sex/gender marker and names on official identity documents (legal gender recognition), but also collects information on laws criminalising trans identities, both explicitly and de facto – looking at the situation for our communities in every region of the world. All too often, processes for gender marker and name change include requirements that are blatant human rights violations: this report outlines them clearly, but also shows progressive examples from across the world. Compiling information both through desk-based research and the lived realities of trans activists across the world, the ILGA World Trans Legal Mapping Report is a fundamental tool that advocates can use to engage with their national governments and bring about change.
Topic:
Human Rights, Law, LGBT+, and Transgender
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7. State-Sponsored Homophobia (2020): Global Legislation Overview Update

Author:
Lucas Ramón Mendos, Kellyn Botha, Rafael Carrano Lelis, Enrique López de la Peña, Ilia Savelev, and Daron Tan
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
ILGA World (International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association)
Abstract:
Every year, ILGA World publishes its State-Sponsored Homophobia report, a world survey of sexual orientation laws. Since its first edition, back in 2006, ILGA World’s State-Sponsored Homophobia has been a fundamental resource for those interested in accessing the core information on legislation affecting people on the basis of their sexual orientation. Not only human rights defenders, but also civil society organisations, governmental and United Nations agencies, allies and media worldwide value the publication as one of the main sources of information on the issue. The publication is accompanied by a series of maps and charts illustrating where criminalisation, protection and recognition laws exist.
Topic:
Human Rights, Law, LGBT+, and Homophobia
Political Geography:
Global Focus

8. Building a Multi-Directional Transnational Solidarity Movement

Author:
Jeff Bachman
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Abstract:
Transnational solidarity movements have typically flowed from a central point located in the West, particularly in the United States, to the East and the Global South. Shadi Mokhtari describes this phenomenon as the “traditional West-to-East flow of human rights mobilizations and discourses.” Viewed individually, this phenomenon is not problematic in all cases. However, as Mokhtari argues, this one-directional flow of human rights politics precludes non-Western non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from weighing in on human rights violations committed in the United States. Human rights violations in the United States are typically experienced by marginalized communities, from the mass incarceration and disenfranchisement of African-Americans to the detention and ill-treatment of immigrants, migrants, and refugees. For a truly global human rights movement to emerge—one that is not grounded in Western paternalism and perceived moral superiority—this must change.
Topic:
Development, Human Rights, Post Colonialism, Immigration, Refugees, NGOs, and transnationalism
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

9. UN Human Rights Council Elections for 2021-2023 and the Responsibility to Protect

Author:
Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Abstract:
Today, 13 October, the UN General Assembly elected Bolivia, China, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, France, Gabon, Malawi, Mexico, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Senegal, Ukraine, United Kingdom and Uzbekistan to the Human Rights Council (HRC) for the 2021-2023 term. With the elections of Côte d’Ivoire, France, Mexico, Senegal and United Kingdom, 16 of the 47 Council members during 2021 will also be members of the Group of Friends of the Responsibility to Protect in Geneva. The Human Rights Council and its mechanisms – including the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), special procedures and treaty bodies, as well as the technical assistance provided by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) – all play an essential role in providing early warning of the risk factors that can lead to crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and genocide.
Topic:
Human Rights, United Nations, Elections, Responsibility to Protect (R2P), and UN Human Rights Council (HRC)
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Russia, China, United Kingdom, Ukraine, France, Uzbekistan, Cuba, Nepal, Mexico, Senegal, Bolivia, Malawi, Côte d'Ivoire, Global Focus, and Gabon

10. Cuba’s voting pattern during its 12 years at the UN Human Rights Council

Author:
Brian Schapira and Roxana Perel
Publication Date:
09-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for the Opening and Development of Latin America (CADAL)
Abstract:
Over the twelve years during which Cuba had a seat at the UN Human Rights Council, the regime has been systematically complicit in the grave human rights violations perpetrated in other parts of the world. This can be inferred from the recorded votes, opposing to resolutions condemning dire human rights violations and calling the world into action. They have been constantly abetting and siding with autocratic governments across the world. In the bid to join the Human Rights Council during the 2021-2023 term, the one-party system stated that «should Cuba be elected to the Human Rights Council, it would continue to support its long-standing initiatives». Global democracies, especially those in Latin America who strive to consolidate the respect for human rights, shall oppose to the candidacy of Cuba and any other autocracies to the Human Rights Council, and they must do so publicly and actively in order to avoid the weakening of the International system for human rights protection.
Topic:
Human Rights, United Nations, UN Human Rights Council (HRC), and Human Rights Violations
Political Geography:
Cuba and Global Focus