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1. Ask the Experts: Consulta Previa

Author:
Sonia Meza-Cuadra, Katya Salazar, César Rodríguez-Garavito, and Roberto Junguito Pombo
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Americas Quarterly
Institution:
Council of the Americas
Abstract:
Governments aim to make decisions that will improve the economic and social development and welfare of their citizens. But historically, decisions affecting Indigenous and tribal people's culture, ancestral lands and habitats have too often been made without their participation. ilo 169 and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples seek to redress this situation.
Topic:
Economics, Government, Human Welfare, and Culture
Political Geography:
United Nations

2. Costing a Data Revolution

Author:
Gabriel Demombynes and Justin Sandefur
Publication Date:
10-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The lack of reliable development statistics for many poor countries has led the U.N. to call for a “data revolution” (United Nations, 2013). One fairly narrow but widespread interpretation of this revolution is for international aid donors to fund a coordinated wave of household surveys across the developing world, tracking progress on a new round of post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals. We use data from the International Household Survey Network (IHSN) to show (i) the supply of household surveys has accelerated dramatically over the past 30 years and that (ii) demand for survey data appears to be higher in democracies and more aid-dependent countries. We also show that given existing international survey programs, the cost to international aid donors of filling remaining survey gaps is manageable--on the order of $300 million per year. We argue that any aid-financed expansion of household surveys should be complemented with (a) increased access to data through open data protocols, and (b) simultaneous support for the broader statistical system, including routine administrative data systems.
Topic:
Development, Human Welfare, and Infrastructure
Political Geography:
Asia and United Nations

3. The Laboratory of Development: The Impact of Social Policies on Children in Latin America and the Caribbean

Author:
David Steven and Alejandra Kubitschek Bujones
Publication Date:
05-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
In October 2013, Ambassadors from the Group of Latin American and Caribbean Countries in the United Nations (GRULAC), their key negotiators from respective capitals, civil society representatives, and UN System agencies from the region held a retreat on the Post-2015 Agenda.
Topic:
Development and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
United Nations, Latin America, Caribbean, and North America

4. What Future for Human Rights?

Author:
James W. Nickel
Publication Date:
08-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Like people born shortly after World War II, the international human rights movement recently had its sixty-fifth birthday. This could mean that retirement is at hand and that death will come in a few decades. After all, the formulations of human rights that activists, lawyers, and politicians use today mostly derive from the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the world in 1948 was very different from our world today: the cold war was about to break out, communism was a strong and optimistic political force in an expansionist phase, and Western Europe was still recovering from the war. The struggle against entrenched racism and sexism had only just begun, decolonization was in its early stages, and Asia was still poor (Japan was under military reconstruction, and Mao's heavy-handed revolution in China was still in the future). Labor unions were strong in the industrialized world, and the movement of women into work outside the home and farm was in its early stages. Farming was less technological and usually on a smaller scale, the environmental movement had not yet flowered, and human-caused climate change was present but unrecognized. Personal computers and social networking were decades away, and Earth's human population was well under three billion.
Topic:
Climate Change, Human Rights, Human Welfare, International Law, International Political Economy, Sovereignty, and International Affairs
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, China, Europe, Asia, and United Nations

5. The Future of Human Rights: A View from the United Nations

Author:
Andrew Gilmour
Publication Date:
08-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Ever since the Charter of the United Nations was signed in 1945, human rights have constituted one of its three pillars, along with peace and development. As noted in a dictum coined during the World Summit of 2005: "There can be no peace without development, no development without peace, and neither without respect for human rights." But while progress has been made in all three domains, it is with respect to human rights that the organization's performance has experienced some of its greatest shortcomings. Not coincidentally, the human rights pillar receives only a fraction of the resources enjoyed by the other two—a mere 3 percent of the general budget.
Topic:
Climate Change, Human Rights, Human Welfare, International Law, International Political Economy, Sovereignty, and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Europe and United Nations

6. Fragile States, Fragile Lives

Author:
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
For decades, child marriage has been viewed as an unfortunate but inevitable social ill. Few policy-makers have considered its eradication feasible given how entrenched the practice is across the globe: one in three girls worldwide marry before the age of eighteen and one in nine girls marry before the age of fifteen. The United Nations (UN) estimates that if current trends continue, in the next decade 142 million girls globally will become brides before they turn eighteen. The implications are dire: research shows that child marriage both reinforces poverty and makes it harder to escape. The practice has curtailed advancement on Millennium Development Goals Four and Five-which call for a two-thirds reduction in the under-five mortality rate and a three-fourths reduction in maternal deaths by 2015, respectively-and has undermined the goal of achieving universal primary education.
Topic:
Human Rights, Human Welfare, Fragile/Failed State, and Governance
Political Geography:
United Nations

7. Tools, Tasks and Tough Thinking: Sanctions and R2P

Author:
George A. Lopez
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Abstract:
The cases where sanctions have been applied to protect populations experiencing on-going or impending mass atrocities are few and have produced mixed results. The UN Security Council imposed various targeted sanctions in 2005 in the case of Darfur, and in Côte d'Ivoire and Libya in 2011.
Topic:
Political Violence, Human Rights, Human Welfare, Humanitarian Aid, War, and Sanctions
Political Geography:
Libya and United Nations

8. Children and Armed Conflict: How to Deal with Persistent Perpetrators

Publication Date:
03-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination, Princeton University
Abstract:
The Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination at Princeton University (LISD), the Permanent Mission of Liechtenstein to the United Nations, and the nongovernmental organization, Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, convened a workshop, “Children and Armed Conflict: How to Deal with Persistent Perpetrators?” on February 7-8, 2013, at Princeton University. The workshop brought together representatives of United Nations member states, members of the Security Council, United Nations offices including the Office of the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Department for Peacekeeping Operations, Department of Political Affairs, and Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, representatives of NGOs, and academics to discuss strengthening Security Council action toward perpetrators of violations against children in situations of armed conflict.
Topic:
Political Violence, Arms Control and Proliferation, Civil War, Demographics, Health, Human Welfare, Peace Studies, and Youth Culture
Political Geography:
United Nations

9. Engaging Nonstate Armed Groups on the Protection of Children: Towards Strategic Complementarity

Author:
Jérémie Labbé and Reno Meyer
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
This issue brief provides an overview of the legal, political, and operational frameworks protecting children from the effects of armed conflict, notably from violations by nonstate armed groups. The UN Secretary-General has repeatedly emphasized the need to “more consistently and effectively engage non-State armed groups in order to improve their compliance with the law,” including international human rights and international humanitarian law. This is of particular importance with regard to child protection as armed conflicts have far-reaching impacts on children, who are among the most vulnerable members of society. The issue brief explores some of the limitations of these frameworks and their mechanisms, and discusses ways to maximize the comparative advantages of different actors when engaging nonstate armed groups to improve the protection of children's rights.
Topic:
Political Violence, Human Rights, Human Welfare, International Law, Insurgency, and Youth Culture
Political Geography:
United Nations

10. National R2P Focal Points Recommendations

Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Abstract:
In 2005 at the United Nations World Summit, states unanimously committed to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity by adopting the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). R2P affirms an individual state's primary responsibility to protect its population from these four crimes along with the collective international responsibility to take appropriate measures to help protect populations at risk.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Political Violence, Arms Control and Proliferation, Human Rights, Human Welfare, Humanitarian Aid, and War
Political Geography:
United Nations