Essay Contest Winners
View all past Essay Contest winners below
2025 Winners
Sara Occhetta
Human Rights Studies M.A.
"What are the international human rights implications of Italy’s detention centers for “irregular migrants” in Albania?"
Abstract: Signed in 2023 and ratified in 2024, the Italy-Albania Protocol enables the detention and deportation of individuals arriving in Italy from designated “safe countries” to offshore detention centers in Albania. This paper argues that by outsourcing detention and circumventing obligations under the principle of non-refoulement, Italy risks violating multiple of its human rights commitments, including the right to life, the rights of vulnerable individuals, the right to liberty and to non-discrimination. Although Italy asserts jurisdiction over the centers, it remains bound by its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and other international human rights instruments. Drawing on the principles of universality and indivisibility of human rights, the paper demonstrates the systemic nature of these violations and situates the Protocol within wider European trends of externalizing asylum responsibilities. The paper concludes that, to ensure accountability, a human rights framing must remain central when addressing the anti-immigration stance of many European countries.
Danielle Burns
Human Rights Studies M.A.
"Black Lives Matter Too: An Analysis on the US’ Legal Obligation to Protect Black Lives Against the Police’s Use of Excessive Force"
Abstract: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Morbi dapibus tellus quis justo pellentesque tincidunt. Fusce hendrerit sem in lacus iaculis, et rutrum nisi ultricies. Sed luctus tristique blandit. Nam condimentum dui sed orci efficitur molestie. Nullam a luctus neque, id congue leo. Integer porttitor lacus nisi, sit amet sollicitudin dolor malesuada a. Cras ex risus, vulputate sit amet viverra eu, efficitur sit amet nibh. Curabitur dapibus blandit nisl, eget convallis risus maximus eu. Aliquam erat volutpat. Proin nec nulla scelerisque nisl tincidunt euismod. Proin pulvinar suscipit purus, vitae feugiat tellus ornare a. Pellentesque at ipsum mauris.
Josephine Koch
Columbia University, School of General Studies
"Layered borderization / Blood borders: Territorializing land, body, and identity"
Abstract: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Morbi dapibus tellus quis justo pellentesque tincidunt. Fusce hendrerit sem in lacus iaculis, et rutrum nisi ultricies. Sed luctus tristique blandit. Nam condimentum dui sed orci efficitur molestie. Nullam a luctus neque, id congue leo. Integer porttitor lacus nisi, sit amet sollicitudin dolor malesuada a. Cras ex risus, vulputate sit amet viverra eu, efficitur sit amet nibh. Curabitur dapibus blandit nisl, eget convallis risus maximus eu. Aliquam erat volutpat. Proin nec nulla scelerisque nisl tincidunt euismod. Proin pulvinar suscipit purus, vitae feugiat tellus ornare a. Pellentesque at ipsum mauris.
Mukudzeiishe Madzivire
Columbia University, Columbia College
"The Minimum Core in Action"
Abstract: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Morbi dapibus tellus quis justo pellentesque tincidunt. Fusce hendrerit sem in lacus iaculis, et rutrum nisi ultricies. Sed luctus tristique blandit. Nam condimentum dui sed orci efficitur molestie. Nullam a luctus neque, id congue leo. Integer porttitor lacus nisi, sit amet sollicitudin dolor malesuada a. Cras ex risus, vulputate sit amet viverra eu, efficitur sit amet nibh. Curabitur dapibus blandit nisl, eget convallis risus maximus eu. Aliquam erat volutpat. Proin nec nulla scelerisque nisl tincidunt euismod. Proin pulvinar suscipit purus, vitae feugiat tellus ornare a. Pellentesque at ipsum mauris.
Josephine Koch
Columbia University School of General Studies, Undergraduate
"Questioning the 'Collective Good': Techno-Solutionism, Congolese Cobalt, and the Invisibilization of Sacrifice"
Abstract: Within the discourse on climate change, there is often a perceived binary between the problem before us and the solution(s) at hand. These solutions—developing renewable energy, investing in electric vehicles, and even building entire new hyper-modern “green” cities—often fit into a techno-determinist, techno-solutionist narrative that glosses over the complex set of compromises (moral, political, economic) that they pose. The development of electric vehicles has been central to this narrative, with countless technocrats, policymakers, and businesspeople heralding advances in EV technology as a game changer in the fight against climate change. However, less discussed is the catastrophic effect that EV technology—specifically the mining of elements such as cobalt that are essential components of lithium batteries—has upon marginalized communities. Using the case study of cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), this paper will seek to challenge the techno-solutionist narrative as articulated by entities like The Breakthrough Institute and key texts like “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto,” which hold that climate change will be addressed through technology, innovation, and the innate human capacity for progress. In place of this, I will argue that the case of cobalt mining in the DRC poses an undeniable challenge to the triumphalist narrative that portrays EV development as a central pillar of the “solution” to climate change. As examinations of the interrelation between techno-solutionism, capitalism, and (neo)colonialism reveal, techno-solutionism’s reassurance that technological responses to climate change need not entail sacrifices is blatantly incongruent with the stark reality of the systemic sacrifice of certain racially and geographically defined populations for the sake of the “collective.” This “collective,” while defined by techno-solutionism as universal, is predicated on the erasure, exclusion, and legitimization of “collateral damage” in the postcolonial Global South. As the case study of cobalt mining in the Congo reveals, technological “solutions” to climate change do not come without costs. By erasing these costs, which, like the effects of climate change itself, are disproportionately born by Black and Brown populations in the Global South, techno-solutionism represents an insidious narrative that obscures, trivializes, and justifies the mass sacrifice of entire populations along colonial and racial lines. In so doing, techno-solutionism becomes the rhetorical embodiment of necropolitics, serving as a tool by which to delineate colonially and racially defined boundaries that divide the supposedly “universal” collective of beneficiaries from the “expendables” who are to be sacrificed for the “greater good.”
Kathryn McCaughey
Human Rights Studies M.A., Graduate
"The Digital Patriarchy: How Tinder Facilitates Gender-Based Violence"
Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between Tinder, an online dating platform, and gender-based violence. Tinder created a digital space wherein men pursue women with greater ease and more confidence. As a result, men act aggressively on Tinder and engage in unwanted sexually explicit communications. This behavior can transcend the digital space into physical violence. The dynamic between Tinder and gender-based violence underscores the urgent need for comprehensive reforms in social norms as well as Tinder’s policies to ensure the safety and empowerment of women in the online dating space.
Claudia Sachs
Columbia University School of General Studies, Undergraduate
"A Looming Crisis: Does International Human Rights Law Address the Status and Protection of Climate Refugees?"
Abstract: Amidst the ongoing refugee crisis and the looming threat of a global climate migration catastrophe, a substantial body of legal scholarship has emerged, focusing on the concepts of "climate refugees" and "climate refugee status" within the framework of international and human rights law. This paper explores the ongoing discussion among legal scholars regarding the entitlement of "climate refugees" to statehood in nations that bear responsibility for climate change, the challenges of categorizing climate-induced displacement, and the ability of existing legal frameworks to address forthcoming challenges. Despite advocacy by scholars, activists, and governments for the safeguarding of populations at risk due to climate change, the issue of climate refugee status under international human rights law remains contentious. This essay argues that current international law lacks explicit provisions for the protection or designation of climate refugees. However, it posits that innovative legal and political mechanisms may offer states viable avenues to tackle the complexities of climate migration and internal displacement. The paper advocates for the establishment of more binding regional agreements as the optimal course of action to respond to and prepare for climate displacement, presenting a pathway toward a more comprehensive legal solution that protects human rights.
Tanya Tandon
Human Rights Studies M.A., Graduate
"Vanishing Women into the Shadows of Saffron"
Abstract: India's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has maintained its political stronghold since Narendra Modi's landslide election as prime minister in 2014. Characterized by its deployment of Hindutva, or the Hindu ethno-nationalist extremist ideology, the BJP is radically reshaping Indian society. This paper explores the profound societal transformations initiated by the BJP, emphasizing its imposition of violence and control on minorities, particularly Muslim, Dalit, and Adivasi women within India's borders. Grounded in the interplay of gender dynamics, nation-building, and necropolitics, the study critically examines the role of minority women in the BJP's Hindutva project, focusing on the conflict-ridden state of Assam.
The paper establishes a framework by highlighting the inherently gendered nature of the international nation-state system and untangling how notions of belonging, such as sovereignty, nationalism, and citizenship, are conventionally structured around patriarchal norms. Within the ongoing process of statebuilding, the paper argues that states leverage biopolitical control over women, instrumentalizing them as pawns to achieve security and hegemony. As such, the paper argues that the manipulation of gender is fundamental to India’s goal of building a Hindu nation-state, in which the BJP-led Indian government strategically and increasingly excludes minorities through citizenship, marking a pivotal moment in India’s political history.
To provide a comprehensive analysis, the paper investigates three cases, examining the impact of Indian legislation, including the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), and National Register of Citizens (NRC), on minority women in the state of Assam. The study concludes by underscoring how the marginalization and vanishment of minority women, orchestrated by the Indian government in the conflict-ridden state of Assam, and its necropolitical implications are integral to the BJP’s Hindutva project. This analysis disentangles concepts of gender, citizenship, and statelessness, illuminating the dangerous implications of political developments in contemporary India.
Kelly Rose Dudine
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Graduate
Evaluation of Coercive Reproductive Policies as a Violation of International Human Rights Law
Abstract: When women can realize their right to freely plan their families and choose whether to have children, women and girls can enjoy greater access to all of life's opportunities. However, what happens when the power to harness reproductive control is commandeered by the State? Over the past few decades, a number of States have implemented policies that manipulate or eliminate the most fundamental and personal human right to reproduction in an effort to control population growth, define the cultural make-up of the nation, and promote State-building. Through two case studies, Singapore and Uzbekistan, this paper examines different methods of State control over women and reproduction and demonstrates that policies at either end of the spectrum, from manipulation to forced action, result in severe human rights violations. In these cases, State policies to control reproductive rights violate internationally protected rights to family planning, free contraceptive choice and consent, and in their extreme, can amount to acts of violence against women, torture, and crimes against humanity.
Noa Levy-Baron
General Studies, Undergraduate
Art Therapy with Refugees: Overcoming Processes of Pathologization and Fostering Social Integration
Abstract: Refugees’ social integration to their new country is often a complex and laborious process. In addition to the necessity of adapting to a different language and culture and of becoming financially self-sufficient, many of them have to cope with an additional burden: trauma. While physical health is often addressed as a primary concern by local authorities and refugees themselves, mental health is often put on the back burner. Moreover, with refugee populations, finding efficient and successful mental health therapies is all the more challenging, as barriers of language and culture often hinder communication. This paper argues that art therapies, also called creative and non-verbal therapies, are a promising solution in refugee’s journey towards social integration. We argue that it is so for three main reasons. First, because art therapies paradoxically contribute to deconstruct narratives of pathologization of refugees, as they stress the non-deterministic nature of their condition (1). Secondly, because art therapies have already proved to be effective tools to help refugees heal from trauma, allowing the externalization of experiences difficult to verbalize (2). We finally demonstrate that, contrary to other kinds of therapies, that are “provided” to patients, art therapy requires the latter to actively participate. Art therapy thus facilitates refugees’ social integration by empowering them and transforming their status of passive victim into one of individuals with agency (3). Hanna Arendt’s essay We Refugees, in which she describes the struggle faced by refugees in their new country, will keep informing this paper and our understanding of the particular relevancy of art therapies in their case.
Lucienne Marie Paradis
General Studies, Undergraduate
(Un)Dividing the Balkan City of Bridges: School Reform and Re-structuring in Post-Conflict Mostar as a Model of Positive Peace Building in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Abstract: This paper investigates integrated schooling models and other school-based reforms as interlocutors in the process of collective memory re-formation in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), with the goal of combatting the current competing memories of both wartime and pre-war Bosnian society which result in a fragmented national narrative prevent stable peace in the country. Mostar, BiH is used as a relevant case study in this pursuit, due to the city’s distinctly segregationist school policies and high levels of both pre-war cultural pluralism and wartime destruction that provide a foundation upon which to reconstruct collective memories of heterogeneous harmony among the various ethno-national sub-populations. This paper aims to provide evidence that in the ongoing reconciliation and reconstruction process taking place in BiH, integrated schools can serve as peace building tools due to their functions as 1) culturally symbolic structures which implicate both past and future populations 2) shared spaces of interaction and collaboration for the ethno-nationally heterogeneous Bosnian population and 3) sites of collective narrative building, largely through curriculum. In other words, this paper will present schools as both publicly-accessed memory-embedded physical structures as well as sites of collective memory formation and dispersal, allowing them to correct the divisive modes of remembering—or, more accurately, un-remembering—that currently pervade the country. In order to frame the topics of peace building and education in BiH, the first section of this paper will provide some context regarding the physical destruction of Mostar, reconstruction efforts in the city, and the segregationist school model which developed as one branch of the reconstruction process. The following two sections will address processes of memory re-formation through structurally-embedded narratives (with schools as the primary structure of interest) and memory reformation through the narrative of the actors within schools, largely through curriculum development and broadening language of instruction practices. The final two sections will address the potential of using education reform in Mostar as a model for national-scale positive peace, and anticipated barriers to this undertaking.
Cordelia Sannie Rochemont Drew
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Graduate
Citizenship Jus Soli: A Comparative Analysis of Refugee Assimilation in Turkey and Colombia
Abstract: This paper compares the provision of citizenship to the children of refugees born in two similar host states: Turkey and Colombia. Despite notable similarities between these countries, Colombia has fulfilled the humanitarian international obligation to avoid statelessness for the children of refugees, whereas Turkey has not. To understand why, the key similarities and differing policies between these states and their policies are first be set out. After establishing the relevant international standards governing citizenship and statelessness, this paper considers the domestic and foreign policy considerations that drive migration policy before evaluating the influence of identity between refugee and host populations. This paper argues that the shared identity and history between Colombians and Venezuelans enables a policy of inclusive citizenship for the children of refugees, not endorsed within Turkish political society. Nevertheless, both Colombia and Turkey broadly seek to integrate economic migrants into their economies, not refugees into their political communities.
Nayla Basma
Columbia College, Undergraduate
Forced Sterilization of HIV-Positive Women in Chile: Addressing a Violation of the Right to Health
Abstract: Chile has grappled with the issue of the forced sterilization of women and girls with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) for several decades. This trend is particularly relevant, as it reveals that the forced sterilization of females with HIV—a significant human rights violation—has seemingly continued unabated in the region. This paper aims to understand why the practice remains in Chile and to explore the ways in which different actors have responded to this violation. The paper will first provide a brief context of this issue and a general definition of forced sterilization through the lens of human rights norms, specifically the right to health. It will then discuss the key drivers of forced sterilization against HIV-positive women in Chile, as well as analyze the response of leading civil society organizations (CSOs) to the situation. Finally, it will offer recommendations on how to address the multifaceted and complex dynamics of this crisis.
Juana Wai Sum Lee
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Graduate
Inadequate Private and Public Housing in Hong Kong: A Violation of the Right to Housing
Abstract: This article examines Hong Kong’s responsibility to protect the right to adequate housing through the application of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Hong Kong’s Basic Law. While inadequate housing standards are seen as commonplace in developing countries, inadequate housing has been exponentially increasing in Hong Kong’s thriving economy. Although Hong Kong recognizes certain economic, social and cultural rights under domestic legislation, it is apparent that Hong Kong does not recognize the right to housing as a fundamental human right. As seen in the last decade, housing in both the public and private sector have not met the standard of “adequate housing” as described in CESCR General Comment No. 4. The author finds that Hong Kong views housing as a financial instrument, commodity and privilege, rather than a human right, infringing on the economic and social rights of low-income vulnerable populations, including the LGBTQ+ population, ethnic minorities and the elderly. This article recognizes Hong Kong’s obligation to fully protect, respect and fulfill the right to housing under the ICESCR and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To add, this article will discuss a possible multipronged housing strategy to mitigate violations to the right to housing in Hong Kong’s property-led market.
Kendra Neumann
Columbia College, Undergraduate
Understanding Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan as a Multi-Faceted Problem
Abstract: This paper explores the increased prevalence in bride kidnapping since Kyrgyzstan’s independence in 1991, as well as how bride kidnapping fits into a global tradition of gender-based violence. Bride kidnapping has some roots in the pre-Soviet era—although the specific nature of those roots is controversial—but the practice has seen unprecedented growth in Kyrgyzstan since independence. While official data are lacking, some experts believe that up to one third of Kyrgyz marriages are a result of nonconsensual bride kidnapping. This paper discusses the factors that help explain the increased popularity of bride kidnapping. Bride kidnapping is largely a cultural phenomenon, and this paper looks at the role of culture—and invented Kyrgyz history—in fueling an increase in bride kidnapping. However, bride kidnapping is not solely a cultural phenomenon, and this paper also discusses the economic and political incentives that have contributed to the rise in bride kidnapping. Finally, this paper discusses how bride kidnapping, while fairly uncommon in most of the world, fits into a global tradition of gender-based violence. Given these varied explanations for the rise in bride kidnapping, and the intersection of these explanations, this paper concludes that any efforts to decrease rates of bride kidnapping would need to be nuanced and multifaceted.
Marissa Wong
Teachers College, Graduate
Assessing the Transformative Potential of UNRWA’s Human Rights, Conflict Resolution, and Tolerance (HRCRT) Curriculum for Palestinian Refugees
Abstract: Human rights advocates and institutions around the world, particularly the United Nations, have acknowledged that establishing a culture of human rights hinges upon human rights education (HRE). The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Education Sector has taken initiative in this regard by developing a multifaceted human rights learning framework for Palestinian refugee children throughout the Middle East through its Human Rights, Conflict Resolution, and Tolerance (HRCRT) program. Based on deconstructing the components of empowering and transformational HRE methodologies, this paper analyzes the forty lesson plans included in the UNRWA HRCRT Teacher Toolkit (2013) according to their potential to actively facilitate the realization of human rights aims. Applying Meintjes’ (1997) rendering of empowerment outcomes and critical consciousness, the paper identifies gaps in pedagogy aimed at the cultivation of agency and the application of knowledge to the lived realities of marginalized and refugee Palestinian children. Finally, it argues for deeper contextualization and the promotion of leadership development as an inroad to transformative learning within UNRWA’s current political constraints.
Rachel Jimenez
Columbia College, Undergraduate
Nakivale Refugee Settlement: An Analysis of UNHCR’s Three “Durable” Solutions
Abstract: This paper examines the constraints of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and its three durable solutions: repatriation, local integration, and resettlement. Through the examination of existing literature, this paper discusses the inefficiency of the durable solutions in providing effective solutions to Protracted Refugee Situations (PRS). The case study, which is the Nakivale Refugee Settlement in southern Uganda contains a large population of PRS, and its surrounding city, Mbarara, has housed a significant amount of self-settled refugees who thrive without humanitarian assistance. This paper argues there are more than three solutions to PRS and that a lack of new policy implementation of methods such as self-settlement by UNHCR is further perpetuating PRS, globally.
Rowena Brenda Dealy Kosher
School of General Studies, Undergraduate
When Catholicism, Government, and Social Movements Come to Play: A Historical Comparison of Abortion Policy around the World and its Implications on Human Rights
Abstract: Abortion and reproductive rights are highly contested topics among individuals, parties, religions, and governments. Policies vary cross-nationally, and change over time within countries depending on a variety of salient reasons. This paper, based on research and an analysis of scholarly writings on abortion policy, examines five countries across areas of the world: Latin America (Brazil), Central/Western Europe (Germany), The Global West (United States of America), Eastern Europe (Poland), and Northern/Nordic Europe (Sweden). I attempt to comparatively consider the reasons and motivation for their respective abortion policies over time. In this paper, I will argue that there are three main players that tend to shape the policies in a country: the level of Roman Catholic Church influence, the government type, and the strength/success of social movements. I conclude my argument with a discussion of how policy players and policy feedback shape abortion discourse and laws. I discuss the importance of recognizing reproductive rights as human rights vital to approach with as much equality as any other human right may be. It is time to step out of discriminatory and divisive policies and into ones that treat all sexes and genders equally, worldwide. Understanding the policy players in this fight will help move towards success.
Julian Murphy
Columbia Law School, Graduate
Is it recording? - Racial Bias, Police Accountability & Body-worn Camera Activation Policies of the Ten Largest Metropolitan Police Departments in the USA
Abstract: Racial bias in policing has been at the forefront of the national public debate since at least the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson and the ensuing Department of Justice investigation. As the country looks to ways to combat this invidious problem one “solution” has risen to particular prominence: police body-worn cameras. Police departments across the country have piloted and mandated body-worn cameras resulting in a variety of different guidelines and policies. In this Essay, I review the body-worn camera policies of the ten largest metropolitan police departments in the country. My focus is “activation” requirements – namely, the events police officers are required to record on their cameras. The ultimate aim of this Essay is to assess the relative merits of different activation policies as against one of the primary stated goals of the body-worn camera movement, namely, reducing racially biased policing. I argue that the most effective way to use body-worn cameras to reduce racial bias would be to mandate that the cameras be activated to record all police-civilian interactions, subject to a few very limited exceptions.
Genevieve Zingg
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Graduate
Violent or Victimized? Race, Gender, and the Rights of Male Migrants under the Global Refugee Regime
Abstract: Since 2015, the European Union (EU) has experienced a heightened level of asylum seekers arriving in search of formal protection under international law. Male refugees have been particularly vulnerable to high levels of sexual abuse and exploitation, self-harm and suicide, and arrest, detention, and harassment amidst the increasing criminalization of migration. This paper argues that intersectional biases rooted in social constructs of race and gender permeate the global refugee regime, causing male migrants to be coded as security threats and therefore obscuring their vulnerabilities as victims of war. The impact of racial and gendered biases on constructed perceptions of male migrants has jeopardized the refugee regime’s ability to sufficiently provide and protect fundamental rights enshrined in the 1951 Refugee Convention, namely rights to health and security.
Stephanie Euber
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Graduate
Genealogy of 'Resilience': Women’s Resiliency to Conflict-Related Sexual Violence
Abstract: In this paper, Stephanie Euber attempts to trace the genealogy of the term "resilience" as it is applied to women who have experienced gender-based violence in conflict. Through exploring "victim" versus "survivor" discourse, she aims to gain a better understanding of the resilience agenda. The South Sudanese context provides a brief example of how the resilience framework has been operationalized. Finally, she ends with a call for resistance to the resilience agenda.
Kunal Kanodia
Columbia College, Undergraduate
Climate refugees, and their ‘refugee’ status
Abstract: This article explores the manner in which the growing problem of climate refugees poses a significant legal, social and ethical challenge to international humanitarian law. It takes note of the obligations of the Global North, and takes into account different humanitarian and legal arguments that have been acknowledged by national courts. It goes on to talk about legal obligations to deal with climate change in the Netherlands, and what this means for climate refugees. It proposes solutions, and emphasizes the necessity of a synthetical approach to accommodate climate refugees.
Chase McNabb
Graduate School of Arts and Science, Graduate
Enforcing Respect for Indigenous People’s Right to Self-Determination: Establishing Mandatory Due Diligence Requirements for Canadian Transnational Mining Companies
Abstract: This paper focuses on the ways in which Canada’s extractive corporations infringe upon the economic, social and cultural rights of indigenous communities who live in the vicinity of their extractive projects. By paying homage to indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination and their right to autonomously manage their own natural resource wealth free from outside interference if they so please, it will be argued that Canadian extractive corporations will be better placed to receive a “social license to operate (SLO),” which is increasingly being recognized as essential in regards to preventing community-opposition to development and private-sector projects. Part and parcel to receiving an SLO is understanding and acknowledging indigenous peoples’ right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC). This paper hopes to add to the existing literature on the topic by showcasing that receiving FPIC by indigenous peoples is ultimately in the best interests of corporations in that it reduces the likelihood that there will be community opposition to their projects through respecting the economic, social and cultural rights of these communities. Lastly, it will be argued that the Government of Canada should enact legislation that establishes mandatory requirements for Canadian extractive corporations to abide by in terms of respecting the FPIC of indigenous peoples both domestically and abroad.
Alexandra VanRooyen
Columbia College, Undergraduate
A Reevaluation of Human Rights Advocacy Surrounding Female Genital Cutting
Abstract: This paper is a proposal for a project that takes a human rights approach to the issue of Female Genital Cutting, or FGC. It gives a background of FGC, incorporating a discussion of the practice within the context of both human rights and public health. It discusses the shortcomings of the most common human rights advocacy strategies and discussion surrounding it, namely, that simply criminalizing FGC is often less effective and does not address the root problem. People tend to view criminalization as a route to women's equality in patriarchal cultures, instead of the other way around. Conversations about FGC usually do not mention male circumcision, though many of the same human rights concerns come into play for both practices. The paper will describe a proposed new approach to tackling the issue of FGC from a human rights perspective which involves research, policy analysis, education, and selective decriminalization of the practice. It emphasizes the importance of a focus on women in communities where FGC is widely practiced when collecting data, including those who perpetuate the practice themselves. It advocates for decriminalization and development of safe medical standards for less invasive forms of FGC, to provide a route for women who will inevitably receive the procedure to do so safely. Finally, it expresses the importance of education and grassroots community efforts working to eliminate patriarchal ideas behind the practice of FGC, and working towards true equality.
Ryan Heman
Graduate School of Arts and Science, Graduate
Human Rights and Development Practice: Dismantling Aid Conditionalities for LGBTI People
Abstract: Increasing demands for aid effectiveness have resulted in a shift toward human rights-centered approaches to development. This paper will argue, nonetheless, that attempts to condition aid on the realization of particular rights demonstrate the limitations of incorporating human rights within development methods. Despite the real leverage aid conditionalities might offer in the pursuit of policy liberalization, implementation of such programs necessarily abdicates responsibilities imposed on the international community to contribute meaningfully to the development of recipients. Even further, as seen in recent responses to “anti-gay” legislation abroad, conditionalities specifically conceived so as to impose “positive rights” in contrast to local customs may on the contrary further entrench persecution of the most vulnerable. Future engagements on rights-based development must therefore pay special attention to shared ownership of aid agreements and promote inclusion and collaboration in lieu of simply penalizing exclusion.
Gabriella Levy
Columbia College, Undergraduate
The Detention of Asylum Seekers in the United States: A Theoretical, Legal, and Practical Assessment
Abstract: This essay concerns the American system of detention for immigrant asylum seekers. It details this system’s current structure, in which detention can occur during multiple phases of the asylum application process, whether upon arrival, while waiting for processing, or before deportation. The paper then proceeds to assess the system from three perspectives: theoretical, legal, and practical. The tripartite analysis suggests that, firstly, states detain immigrants for administrative, protective, and deterrence reasons. The biggest problem with these theories justifying the detention of immigrants and, in particular, the detention of asylum seekers, is that they consider immigrant detention in terms of national interests; thus, these justifications fail to consider the rights of the individual. In contrast, both domestic and international legal regimes seek to balance the interests of the state against the rights of the individual, thereby limiting immigrant detention policies by allowing detention only in specific circumstances and by specifying procedural requirements which must be met in order to detain immigrants. However, current U.S. policy and practice fail to conform to the balance established by law. For example, the American government does not treat detention as a last resort and does not require the government to justify detention on a case-by-case basis. Furthermore, the immigrant detention system, in practice, systematically mistreats immigrants by placing them in detention centers which are abusive and harmful as well as which utilize illegal practices. Thus, although immigrant detention of asylum seekers itself is not legally, theoretically, or practically problematic, current U.S. practice fails on all three fronts and must therefore be reformed.
Caroline Miller
Mailman School of Public Health and School of International and Public Affairs, Graduate
The Funding of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights: How to Leverage Participatory and Gender Transformative Grantmaking Approaches
Abstract: Women and girls around the world have yet to realize their sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). This paper addresses what the institutional philanthropic sector, including private and public foundations, women’s funds, and corporations/corporate foundations, can do to best leverage their funds to fulfill the SRHR of women and girls, and a broader gender equality agenda. It examines the current state of funding for women’s and girls’ initiatives, with an analysis of positive trends and areas of concern. It contends that there is room for growth in the magnitude of funds, as well as in the sophistication of funding strategies of institutional funders interested in investing in the health and human rights of women and girls. This paper makes the case that funders should incorporate two innovative approaches into their funding strategies: (1) participatory grant-making practices and values and (2) gender transformative grant-making. Participatory grant-making ensures that solutions are crafted and driven by the communities themselves, who are the recipients of programs. It necessitates deepened connections and collaboration with women’s rights organizations that are already embedded in local communities. A gender transformative approach to grant-making leads the philanthropic sector in a direction in which gender norms are recognized and elevated as an essential element of public health, rights based, and equality strategies. It is also inclusive of men, boys, and LGBTQ individuals and is fully intersectional by considering how multiple factors, including race, class, age, gender, and sexual orientation, among others interact to simultaneously marginalize people who are affected by them. A gender transformative lens enables funders to make strategic investments by funding programs that authentically tackle the roots of gender inequality, and thus lead to longer-term, more sustainable change.
Brooke Robbins
Columbia College, Undergraduate
Juvenile (In)Justice: A Global Flaw
Abstract: Child incarceration, otherwise referred to as “juvenile justice,” is intrinsically at odds with the rights outlined in the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). In signing the UNCRC, nations around the world promised their children special protections from discrimination (article 1), violence, neglect, and abuse (article 6), and mandated that the primary consideration in all matters concerning children be the best interests of the child (article 21). However, these promises continue to be breached around the globe, as States essentially desert their children in so-called “juvenile justice” institutions—systems embedded with various levels of corruption that manifest themselves in various forms of physical, mental, and sexual violence. Examining case studies from South Asia, England and Wales, and finally, the United States, I argue that child incarceration is by definition a systematic violation of the universal rights of the child. While systems of juvenile detention often parade as welfare-oriented, these systems are actually highly politicized, their aims involving not the best interests of the child, but rather the state’s desire to display its ‘power to punish’ and to assert a façade of social control. Finally, I argue that child incarceration functions, paradoxically, as both the chicken and the egg in a vicious cycle of violence by and against children—a cycle that Retributive approaches to juvenile justice, while seemingly logical, fail to take into account.
Elana Sulakshana
Columbia College, Undergraduate
The Gender Dimension of Migration as Climate Change Adaptation Strategy: A Case Study of Pakistan
Abstract: This essay argues that urbanization in Pakistan is a form of climate change adaptation that should be facilitated as a way to mitigate risk and diversify agricultural incomes. Pakistan's blanket policy of curbing rural-to-urban migration ignores the complex drivers of this migration and effective adaptation strategies. National policy must recognize and address the fact that internal migration is as a dynamic process that is being exacerbated by slow-onset drought. Furthermore, current migration practices are highly linked with gendered labor practices that stratify women into low-paid, vulnerable sectors. Pakistan’s climate policy should encourage and facilitate this urbanization rather than fear it, and given the existing structures of patriarchy present in rural areas, policy must ensure that women are a focus.
Max de Haldevang
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Graduate
Corruption and Impunity Go Hand-in-Hand in Kyrgyzstan: Explaining Injustice in Osh
Abstract: Ethnic Uzbeks have been disproportionately punished in the aftermath of the violence between ethnic Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbeks that took place in Osh, Kyrgyzstan in June 2010. Around 470 people died in the three-day conflict, 75 percent of whom were Uzbeks. However, 90 percent of those charged with murder in connection with the violence were also Uzbeks and in only one case has an Uzbek detainee not alleged torture or ill-treatment, usually used to force a confession. Uzbeks have also been violently repressed by police outside prison and their employment opportunities are dramatically reduced, with many forced to emigrate to Russia. The existing research on the subject has either looked at the initial cause of the violence or uncovered the human rights abuses themselves but this paper asks how and why the crackdown on Uzbeks came to take place. It argues that local authorities acted with impunity due to the weakness of the national Interim Government, in place after President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was ousted in April 2010, and the proliferation of unofficial criminal ruling networks. The paper contends that these ethnic Kyrgyz-run local authorities were motivated to crack down on Uzbeks primarily by criminal and economic concerns rather than by ethnic chauvinism. Osh’s place as the hub of Central Asia’s multi-million dollar drug trafficking network from Afghanistan is believed to have greatly enriched senior local officials and corrupted broad strata of local institutions. Meanwhile, the new interim government had promised to rid the country of corruption and needed the Uzbeks as a support base in the South, so weakening the Uzbek community became a necessity if local elites were to stay in power and in profit.
Emil Flato
School of General Studies, Undergraduate
The Detroit City Water Shutoffs: Volatile Possibilities and Complexities of Powerlessness for Human Rights of the Present
Abstract: This essay is an attempt to engage intellectually with human rights and the 2013–present Detroit water shutoff crisis as it was still unraveling. I argue that the case has so far been a failure for human rights, if the yardstick of success is whether human rights directly secure the rights they promise. Despite this failure, the case serves as a role model for a human rights strategy that seeks to adapt the malleable legal assemblage of human rights to salient contemporary injustices. The Special Rapporteur for the Right to Water stretched the limits of her mandate, on an informal shaming visit to a powerful country that has been singularly dismissive of enforceable human rights to water; on the other hand, she was successfully tapping into salient discussions of contemporary injustice in a wide array of activist groupings, prominent media outlets and critical academic conversations. In my essay, I elaborate how this failure exhibits what Sassen calls the “complex powerlessness” of human rights activism in our spatially unequal globalized contemporary. Rather than making broad-sweeping claims about human rights' inherent possibilities and limitations, this is a grounded argument about the volatile sphere of possibilities at the margins of human rights institutions, official mandates and traditional strategies. In this sphere lies a meager potential lies for human rights becoming a valuable wild card for addressing major social injustices, just like the regime once defied everyone's expectations about their potential for addressing civil atrocities.
Paul Katz
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Graduate
This Entire Book is Written in Blood: Amnesty International, Torture in Brazil, and the Creation of a Transnational Anti-Torture Movement
Abstract: From Amnesty International’s pioneering anti-torture campaign of the early 1970s to the release of the final report of Brazil’s National Truth Commission in December 2014, the practice of torture has long defined perceptions of the repressive military regime that dominated Brazil from 1964 to 1985. Yet natural as it may seem today, this association between Brazil and torture was far from inevitable. Indeed, opposition to Brazilian torture has been shaped by the actions of an array of groups and individuals, in Brazil and beyond. This essay explores an important part of this history by examining the actions of two such bodies: the Brazilian Catholic Church and Amnesty International. The anti-torture campaigns mounted by these two institutions in the 1970s and ‘80s reflect the distinct worldviews and divergent agendas of their authors, and in so doing they reveal the contingency and particularity of the fast-consolidating global human rights movement in which they played a central role. By exploring the competing conceptions of torture advanced by Amnesty and the Church, this paper challenges simplistic understandings of the transnational anti-torture movement as an inevitable, univocal response to the violence of an abusive regime, shedding light on the contingencies and particularities undergirding the explosive global growth of human rights.
Samantha Perlstein
Barnard College, Undergraduate
Rural Mental Healthcare in Nigeria: An Analysis of the Challenges and Some Achievable Goals
Abstract: The purpose of the African Charter on Human and People's Rights is to promote and protect the basic freedoms and rights of all Africans. Under Article 16 it recognizes that all individuals have the right to the best attainable state of mental health, and places the onus on the State parties present to the Charter to take all necessary measures to achieve this. However, in Nigeria alone the prevalence of severe mental illness is at 20%. Nigeria is representative of other West African countries that share similar mental health profiles. The purpose of this paper is to provide a clear picture of the state of Nigeria’s mental health care delivery system with a focus on rural communities, and offer achievable goals and programs as partial solutions. Effective mental health care is a human right and poor mental health is one of the leading causes of disability worldwide. It is linked to lower worker productivity, performance, and attendance, and to higher workplace accidents. In Nigeria the current ratio of psychiatrists to citizens is 1:1,400,000 with less than 150 psychiatrists in the whole country. The psychiatrists preside solely in urban areas with rural communities mostly receiving mental health care services through primary health care facilities run by staff lacking in proper mental health care and sometimes primary health care training. The perceptions and beliefs in rural communities toward mental health care and those who are mentally ill cause many Nigerians to either refuse care or to seek services from religious and spiritual healers. These are only some of the challenges in delivering effective mental health care services in rural Nigeria. This paper will begin by providing a historical look at the development of mental health care in Nigeria followed by a discussion of the delivery of mental health care within the Nigerian primary health care delivery system, and an analysis of the perceptions and beliefs in rural communities toward mental illness. Finally, two international advocacy and training programs, the Mental Health Gap Action program and the Mental Health Leadership and Advocacy Program, will be introduced as partial solutions to reducing the gap between need and availability of mental health care services in rural Nigeria.
Sara M. Bergstresser
School of Continuing Education, Graduate
The Detention of U.S. “Sex Offenders” Outside of the Criminal Justice System: A Human Rights Perspective
Abstract: Using a human rights framework, this paper investigates the practice of civilly committing individuals identified as “sex offenders” in the United States. In the US, sex offenders can be civilly committed after they fully have served their prison sentences. These commitments are indefinite, and there is a great deal of secrecy surrounding the process. The practice of confining sex offenders outside of the criminal justice system is problematic in multiple ways; the legal rationale for this action is connected to broad designations of mental illness, yet sex offenders are categorized primarily as a category of criminal. I argue that the ways in which “sex offenders” have been categorized, stigmatized, isolated, and indefinitely incarcerated constitute a violation of human rights. Finally, I discuss the implications of sex offender human rights for the entire human rights landscape within the United States. The sex offender is one of the most despised categories of human in this country, and the treatment of individuals in this category may be seen as a test case for others who are socially unpopular. Even the most despised groups of humans are still entitled to human rights: that is part and parcel of the human rights concept itself. Taking away the rights of the denigrated few has been historically a first step in a larger progression of human rights violations; the silent acceptance of abuses, as long as they are perpetrated against despised groups, often leads to tacit acceptance to the progressive encroachment of human rights abuses throughout a society.
Sarah Gunther
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Graduate
Queering Rights? Sexuality, Gender and Identity in the Yogyakarta Principles
Abstract: One of the most common arguments against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) rights is that they are new, special or additional rights. LGBTI rights advocates respond by clarifying that they are not asking for new rights; they are simply calling for the fundamental rights to which all humans are entitled. The Yogyakarta Principles on the Application of International Human Rights in relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, created in March 2007, exist to support that claim and represent a major step forward for the recognition of rights related to sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). While the Yogyakarta Principles succeed in including LGBTI people in the human rights framework, this paper argues that the narrow construction of sexual and gender identity in the Yogyakarta Principles ultimately limits their transformative potential. The Principles construct fixed sexual and gender identities from a Western perspective; they fail to address intersectionality; and they include LGBTI people as a population entitled to rights rather than advancing a sexual rights agenda. As a result, SOGI advocacy that uses the Yogyakarta Principles as its framework often misses opportunities to build coalitions and expand the human rights framework in ways that are critically needed. I conclude by offering the sexual rights framework as a more liberating approach to establishing rights and freedoms related to sexuality and gender.
Hal Levy
School of General Studies, Undergraduate
Defending Digital Natives: Young People as a Protected Class Within the Emerging Right of Data Privacy
Abstract: This paper poses two questions: should young people constitute a protected class under emerging human rights frameworks involving digital privacy and the right to internet access (RTA)? If so, which actors should be targeted by human rights advocates, and which privacy protections should be suggested for software or put into law to guard this protected class? Any new framework will need to safely navigate the growth of business and new technology, free speech, and demands from other non-youth stakeholders that do not infringe upon RTA. Youth voice has been sorely lacking from RTA debates, leading to the ineffectiveness of current privacy protection regimes and considerable disruption to international youth culture. By examining the current state of international policies on this topic as they apply to contemporary dilemmas in American primary education, this paper demonstrates the need for targeted protections involving minors to occur when data privacy is eventually addressed for all persons under international law.
Meghna Mukherjee
Columbia College, Undergraduate
A Bridge of A Difference: The Underlying Factors Characterizing the Kingdom of Bahrain’s and Saudi Arabia’s Respective Approaches to Women’s Public Participation
Abstract: This paper examines the case studies of the Kingdoms of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in their respective approaches to women’s participation in the public sphere. More specifically, the paper will consider the driving factors behind the formation of state policies and agendas that allow women to partake in activities beyond traditional domestic roles, or stifle their ability to do so. Although Bahrain and Saudi Arabia share a border, similar religious identities, traditional gender schemas, and monarchical authority the situation of women marks a point of difference between the two nations. Bahrain’s workforce is over 30% female, amongst the highest rates in the Gulf, while the female percentage of Saudi Arabia’s labor force falls short of 15% (Global Gender Gap Report 2012). These patterns also extend into spheres of education and political participation—shared borders do not indicate shared ideologies. Bahrain presents an increasingly accommodating environment for women in the workforce and political sphere, in contrast to Saudi Arabia, which remains hostile to female employment and involvement outside traditional boundaries.
Nadya Ali
Barnard College, Undergraduate
Water Apartheid: The Struggle for Water in Palestine
Abstract: The Middle East and North Africa are facing the most extreme problems of water scarcity worldwide. Issues like poorly developed infrastructure and non-cooperation regarding sharing between nations are amongst the top contributors as to why these countries suffer from water shortage. One of the best examples of these issues lies in Israel and Palestine. Israel, the occupying power, has continued to consume water comparable to that of other developed nations while systematically denying the Palestinian Territories of the water necessary to live. The Gaza strip is facing serious water quality issues, and because of this, serious quantity issues as well. The West Bank suffers mainly from water quantity issues. Though there are organizations and non-state actors that supply humanitarian aid for the Palestinians, there is no sustainable system that exists in the territories for cleaning and distributing water. Also, much needed information to more properly assess the water crisis is not made public due to “national security” conflicts. These constraints only add to the problems facing the region. Without proper assessment of the full extent of the problem, and without a reform in the discriminatory policies and system in place, no steps can be taken at resolving this human rights crisis.
Maria Holmblad
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Graduate
From Gender-Blindness to Gender-Blindness: The Illegitimate Victims of Sexual Violence in the Congolese Conflict
Abstract: There exists little knowledge about the experiences of male victims of sexual violence, and even less about its connection with norms governing masculinity and power in the context of armed conflict. This intersection deserves attention, both in order to address male experiences of victimhood, and to bring about a more inclusive understanding of the gendered component of sexual violence in conflict (SVC). This paper looks at data gathered on male and female victims of sexual violence in Eastern DRC in March 2010 and discusses a number of assumptions regarding the crime of SVC, such as social stigma and the victim-perpetrator stereotype. Its objective is to highlight the need to transcend conventional societal perceptions of SVC, and by avoiding simple narratives, adopting a more nuanced understanding of its victims, perpetrators, causes, and consequences. This study thus seeks to allow for a more dignified victim response, and in a more general sense, hopes to take steps to engage the human rights framework with rights issues concerning gender and sexuality.
Madeline Wolberg
Barnard College, Undergraduate
A New Conception of the Citizen: Reconciling the Space between Tribal Sovereignty and U.S. Citizenship
Abstract: For the past two centuries, Native Americans in the United States have been collectively (and sometimes unwillingly) naturalized as American citizens, putting all Native American nations under the jurisdiction of the American government and preventing them from attaining full sovereignty. These circumstances lead to questions about the nature of the citizen-state relationship between a government and its indigenous bodies, which can be answered in the frame of the conflict between Native American tribes and the U.S. government: What are the implications of a citizen-state relationship where the citizen does not care to be a citizen? In what ways might citizenship be considered detrimental to a person or group? How has the new international discourse of human rights and rights of indigenous peoples affected conceptions of state and citizen? How will the increasing political presence of indigenous groups affect the current relationship between state and citizenship? This paper will address these questions in the context of the United States’ relationship with Native Americans and will attempt to provide solutions to the problems posed by the ambiguous space of citizenship of indigenous peoples.
Jennifer Monroe Zakaras
Mailman School of Public Health, Graduate
Sexuality and “Right to Privacy” in Bowers and Lawrence
Abstract: The “right to privacy” has been a mainstay of human rights discourse, most notably in Article 12 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in a variety of state constitutions and legal codes. How this “right” is understood and legally operationalized, however, varies given time and place and especially when it intersects with different domains, such as sexuality. The legal and cultural understandings of privacy are key to conceptualizations of the individuals and groups allowed the benefits of rights affirmations and protections based on this principle. Unexamined assumptions about sexuality can also shape legal interpretations that, far from being neutral and objective, often invoke normative assumptions that constrict ideas of what individuals or dimensions of sexuality fall within the privacy sphere. Two significant U.S. Supreme Court cases addressing anti-sodomy law serve as instructive case studies of the way the principle of privacy has been invoked concerning rights pertaining to sexuality, and in particular, how conceptions of sexual rights can be both bolstered and narrowed by this principle. In analyzing the cases Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) and Lawrence v. Texas (2003), this paper explores how Constitutional understandings, “folk” ideas about sexuality, and other contextual factors interacted to determine whether and to what extent state intrusion in consensual adult sexual behavior was perceived as a violation of an individual’s right to privacy.
Erika Ileto Catral
Teachers College, Graduate
Challenges in the Interface between the State, Indigenous Peoples, and Bilateral Aid: the Philippine Department of Education, the Lumads of Mindanao, and AusAID
Abstract: Nation-states problematically define their political relationship with indigenous peoples as predicated on ambiguities pertaining to the nature of sovereignty, self-determination, identity, and culture. These prevailing ambiguities are manifested in a colonial anxiety that forcefully works upon indigenous peoples. I reflect on the ambiguities of these concepts as they are articulated in choking entanglements for the Lumad peoples of Mindanao within a colonial institution—the Philippine Department of Education—supported by bilateral intervention and the neoliberal politics of Australian foreign aid.
Giuliana Chamedes
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Graduate
Pope Pius XII, Rights Talk and the Dawn of the Religious Cold War
Abstract: From the early 1940s, Pope Pius XII began to advance an important language of rights, which denoted a new way of understanding church-state relations, and a new way of characterizing the leading friends and foes of the Catholic Church. His rights talk influenced lay Catholics in both the United States and Western Europe, by providing them with a framework for underwriting both the Allied cause in the Second World War and the Cold War consensus.
Elizabeth Fisher
Columbia College, Undergraduate
Patterns and Advantages of Community-Based Resistance to Land Grabs in Madagascar and Ghana: What Lessons can be Learned for Sub-Saharan Africa as a Whole?
Abstract: In this paper, I identify patterns of community-based resistance to land grabs by looking at two cases of successful resistance – resistance to the 2007 BioFuel Africa deal in Ghana and resistance to the 2008 Daewoo Logistics deal in Madagascar. I argue that community-based resistance is important because land grabs have severe negative effects on the local population, including dispossession of land, food and water insecurity, and lack of compensation; because the current drivers of the land grabbing phenomenon will continue to drive land grabs in the future, including food insecurity in wealthy developed nations, demand for biofuels, speculative investing in land, and FDI-attractive reforms in host countries; and because nascent top-down remedies for populations affected by land grabs, including international monitoring, host government regulation of foreign land investors, and transnational legal action, are not able to address the land grabbing phenomenon in a timely manner. The patterns of community-based resistance that I identify are the importance of individual leadership, NGOs, and dissemination of information in mobilizing the population against a land grab. These will be important in mobilizing resistance to the growing threat of land grabs.
Allison Namias Grossman
Barnard College, Undergraduate
International and Local Peacebuilding: Understanding Successes and Failures in Liberia and Somalia
Abstract: Civil wars are costly, complex political phenomena that evade quick fixes. Why do peacebuilding missions succeed or fail after civil wars in low capacity states? Using a case study approach, this paper seeks to answer this question. The conflicts in Liberia and Somalia began similarly enough to allow a comparison of peacebuilding attempts to resolve both conflicts. Examining peace processes and treaty provisions in both conflicts along with the situational factors — the presence of civil society, previous experience with democratic institutions, the survival of political, economic, or cultural institutions, and the relationships with neighboring states — can help us to understand why peace was achievable in Liberia but still eludes Somalia.
Jocelyn Courtney
Columbia Law School, Graduate
The Loliondo Massai Understood as "Conservation Refugees"
Abstract: In July of 2009, riot police burned eight Maasai villages in the Loliondo region of Tanzania to make a game reserve—part of a long chain of brutal acts perpetrated against this tribe. It is not hard to see that the Maasai in Tanzania have been victimized, but this paper argues that appealing to the international human rights regime in this type of situation should not be so automatic. It examines the human rights treaties that both sides might invoke, the Massai for the right to life and property, the government for the greater population’s right to conserve the land. The paper finds that the international human rights regime is actually part of the larger context in which the Maasai became vulnerable—compelling both their initial and their continued repression. It elucidates three problems with the current human rights movement: human rights tend to be structured in such absolute terms that they become limiting; individuals are too particularized; and activists rarely tailor their approach to local conditions. Without addressing these problems, appealing to international human rights will only further alienate the Maasai—reifying their “otherness,” and trapping them in a perpetual standoff with the government in which both sides can claim absolute rights.
Angelica Durón
Columbia College, Undergraduate
LGBT Rights in Uganda and in International Law
Abstract: Non-discrimination stands as one of the key tenets in the exercise and protection of human rights as codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the African Charter on Human and People’s rights, amongst a variety of other international documents. However, the question of whether discrimination based on sexual orientation violates international human rights norms remains a highly contentious matter. The polarized debate surrounding the Anti Homosexuality Bill proposed by David Bahati in Uganda in 2009 represents a growing lack of consensus regarding the role of cultural and moral differences in applying human rights standards. This paper explores the applicability of international standards of nondiscrimination and protection to individuals identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender in contemporary Uganda. Therefore, it offers an analysis of the following: current law and proposed legislation in Uganda, human rights international and regional documents, legal precedents in international law and contrasting viewpoints among Ugandans. The work reveals the inconsistencies of anti-LGBT arguments, presents LGBT rights as fundamentally compatible with human rights and emphasizes the role of an active civil society in further protecting the rights of all individuals.
Sarah Khan
Columbia College, Undergraduate
The Rights of Migrant Labor: Farmworkers in Florida
Abstract: Migrant agricultural workers in the United States face conditions ranging from sub-poverty wages and exclusion from social safety nets to circumstances that meet the legal standards of slavery. Almost half of these workers are undocumented and the political debate surrounding their situation is intertwined with a growing national concern about illegal immigration. Meanwhile, various human rights organizations have picked up on these workers’ plight; as evidenced by a recent increase in fair food campaigns across the US. This paper uses secondary sources and interviews with legal advocates to examine the mechanisms for the delivery (and denial) of rights of migrant farmworkers in Florida. It explores the challenges of organizing workers to collectively claim these rights, the loopholes in domestic law and the limitations to using an international legal framework for access to justice. An analysis of the sources reveals that much of the progress in Florida has been achieved through legal advocacy rather than collective organization; this speaks to an interesting general tension between human rights and labor rights movements and what happens when the twain meet. Another topic of interest is the ambiguous role of international law in this issue and the possibility for transnational arrangements.
Matthew Windsor
Columbia Law School, Graduate
“An Oasis of Horror in a Desert of Boredom”: Historic Institutional Abuse and Transitional Justice in New Zealand
Abstract: Historic abuse claims against government agencies and psychiatric institutions have become an increasingly prominent feature of the civil litigation landscape in New Zealand over the past decade. International law requires that individuals whose human rights have been violated while detained by or under the care of the state must have access to an effective remedy. The argument advanced is that the New Zealand civil litigation system is not a propitious vehicle for effective relief in relation to historic abuse claims. Factors that preclude effective redress include evidential difficulties, public policy concerns in relation to the tort of negligence, operation of statutory limitation and immunity provisions, and legal aid restrictions. However, a critical examination of the New Zealand experience through a transitional justice lens enlarges the repertoire of viable remedial responses. The deployment of transitional justice mechanisms – an official apology followed by reparations, an increasing emphasis on truth-seeking and a heightened role for civil society – would enhance the remedial process in New Zealand. Such mechanisms would not replace the civil litigation system but would correct for its deficiencies in the historic abuse arena.