"This research report explores the strengths and weaknesses of four different frameworks tech companies, governments, and civil society can use to assess harms and benefits of new technologies. The four frameworks include human rights, conflict sensitivity, ethics, and human security. The research m
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ethodology involved interviews among diverse stakeholders in technology and civil society sectors. This research contributes policy recommendations for developing practical, operationalizable guidance that could have an immediate impact on tech companies’ work in countries or regions at risk of human rights abuses and violent conflict." (Abstract)
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"The volume analyses the ambivalent relationship between human rights and modern technologies since 1945. Tools of suppression or agents of emancipation? Modern technologies have become a major subject of human rights policy. Surveillance technology, the military use of drones, and the possibilities
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of Big Data analysis pose new challenges for the international human rights movement. At the same time, these techniques offer new ways to document and denounce violations of human rights and to promote mass mobilization. The volume analyses this ambivalent relationship between human rights and technological change in a historical perspective. Showing how the spread of modern technologies both challenged and served human rights policies, the volume focuses on four key areas of technological change: 1) development politics, infrastructures and large technical systems, 2) population politics and demographical knowledge, 3) media cultures and communication technologies, and 4) the societal impact of computerization. By sketching these debates since 1945, the volume adds a historical perspective to current debates about the political and ethical challenges of new technological developments." (Publisher description)
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"Westafrika wird in Europa oft undifferenziert als Krisenregion wahrgenommen. Während fundierte Kenntnisse über die Geschichte und Gegenwart der dortigen Staaten vielfach fehlen, halten sich Stereotype über die Ursachen von Flucht und Migration in und aus Westafrika zäh. Der Soziologe Olaf Berna
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u beleuchtet die historischen und sozioökonomischen Wurzeln der Migration, die in den westafrikanischen Gesellschaften eine lange und positive Tradition aufweise. Diese habe sich durch die Erfahrungen der Sklaverei und der Kolonialzeit, durch Bürgerkrieg und Terrorismus, ökonomische Fehlentwicklungen der Globalisierung, unpassende Entwicklungsprogramme sowie durch den Klimawandel die migrantischen Traditionen Westafrikas und ihre Dynamiken verändert, was diesseits des Mittelmeers weithin nicht verstanden werde. Solange sich Europa gegenüber Westafrika einem fundierten Verständnis der komplexen Fluchtursachen verweigere, sei eine Beruhigung der Lage dort nicht zu erwarten." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"These UNESCO guidelines aim to provide practical support to National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) on the use of the UPR process to improve freedom of opinion and expression, safety of journalists, and access to information and to strengthen their capacity to engage with the process in all its
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stages." (About, page 1)
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"In this submission, the Association of Progressive Communications (APC), EngageMedia and Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network (SAFEnet) examine Indonesia's compliance with the recommendations received during the third Universal Periodic Review cycle in 2017. This submission will focus parti
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cularly on digital rights including freedom of expression, the protection of human rights defenders (HRDs), including women human rights defenders, violence against women and misinformation." (Introduction, page 2)
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"Journalists alone cannot save journalism, and civil society activists and human rights defenders alone cannot defend civil space. This is why multi-stakeholder coalitions, as well as regional and international networks, constitute an essential pathway to identify and deliver solutions to the comple
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x challenges confronting both media systems and civil society. Coalitions can provide opportunities for media and civil society to work in a more strategic and coordinated manner on relevant issues, and to build the political will needed to sustain progress." (Page 3)
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"El presente documento es un resumen del Informe Regional de Vulneración de Derechos Humanos en la Panamazonía. Recoge 13 casos de violación sistemática a los derechos humanos de diferentes pueblos indígenas, comunidades campesinas y ribereñas de Colombia, Brasil, Ecuador, Perú y Bolivia. La
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lucha de estas comunidades por alcanzar una vida digna y cuidar la casa común ha sido larga, dolorosa y frustrante. Sin embargo, gracias al apoyo de organizaciones comprometidas, aliadas y vinculadas a la Red Eclesial Panamazónica (REPAM) ha sido posible recoger sus demandas, propuestas y llevarlas al más alto para demandar respeto a sus derechos y dignidad como seres humanos." (Introducción)
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"The aim of this document is to provide an introduction for companies to consider the relevance of the following issues for their operations, as well as inspiration and resources to begin to formalise their management of human rights. It is recognised that many of these issues cannot be solved by on
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e company alone and require collaboration across the mobile sector and working with other stakeholders. For each of the human rights issues covered here, the guidance: explains and defines what the human rights issue is and why it is salient for the mobile industry; outlines steps mobile operators can consider taking to operate responsibly and manage related risks; suggests examples of potential indicators that could be used to measure and report progress; briefly introduces supporting initiatives and resources in the sector that address these issues; and provides some case studies from GSMA members on addressing the topic." (Page 3)
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"Divisive Internet regulation is fragmenting the formerly worldwide web into numerous shards that follow their own rules. The US, the EU and China are influential in shaping regulation even beyond their own jurisdictions, with consequences for human rights, particularly in Africa. This paper argues
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that, as of 2020, the Western post-9/11 security agenda and uncontrolled digital capitalism had a more detrimental impact on Internet regulation in Africa than the authoritarian Chinese concept of Internet sovereignty, seriously affecting freedom of expression and the right to privacy online. However, particularly authoritarian governments in Africa use China’s economic and political agenda to their advantage, leaving civil societies at the mercy of digitally empowered states. Direct ways of impacting Internet regulation in Africa include loans, development programs or influential laws, whereas indirect means include engagement in multilateral and multi-stakeholder fora. Besides the political and economic interests of states, the datafication agendas of ICT corporations shape Internet landscapes in Africa. An emerging data protection framework pushed by the EU has the potential to mitigate their impact. Other means of protecting human rights require a united approach by the African Union and a deconstruction of digital capitalism and dependence relations between African states and the Global North." (Abstract)
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"This chapter deals with lèse-majesté laws and their impact on the exercise of freedom of political expression and journalism from the perspective of international human rights law. In doing so, it addresses the chilling effects of the application of a particular crime of lèse-majesté, namely
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defaming a head of state”, which are emphasized with historical and current examples from Turkey: a country that exemplifies the excesses in practice. Said excesses are assessed in light of the standards of freedom of political expression set by the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, which also demonstrates the excesses in other European countries and provides a comparative outlook. In conclusion, it is inferred that the mere existence of lèse-majesté crimes puts the rule of law at risk, thereby forcing journalists and other citizens alike to resort to self-censorship in violation of international human rights law as interpreted by the regional human rights mechanism." (Abstract)
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"Every year, hundreds of human rights defenders, humanitarian workers and journalists and media workers are killed around the world – simply for doing their job. Hundreds more are threatened, sexually harassed, kidnapped, arrested, imprisoned or otherwise targeted. This briefing paper is the preli
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minary output of research undertaken in an effort to inform or inspire action among the media support, human rights and humanitarian sectors to address pressing safety and protection issues. The paper seeks not only to identify com¬monalities between these sectors, but to identify possible areas for future collaboration and cooperation to address issues of safety and impunity." (Publisher description)
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"A prevailing culture of impunity for threats to the safety of journalists fuels their repetition. A failure of justice emboldens perpetrators and undermines journalists’ trust in the political will to guarantee their effective protection. Since 2012, the international community has increasingly s
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ought to shine a spotlight on this issue, setting out an ambitious global agenda for States to act on the safety of journalists through a series of resolutions adopted at the UN Human Rights Council, UN General Assembly, and UN Security Council. UN Resolutions on the Safety of Journalists call on all States to effectively enhance the safety of journalists and break the cycle of impunity through targeted action on three interconnected fronts: prevention, protection, and remedy." (Abstract)
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"Many local journalists covering issues like corruption and organised crime can be considered human rights defenders (HRDs) exposed to high levels of violence and impunity. In this chapter, Mitchell examines what protection is available for such journalists via the dedicated international normative
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framework. She then explores the overlap between such journalists and the HRD concept, before outlining the international protection regime for HRDs and how it compares to the equivalent journalists’ system. Given the similarities between the security situations of such journalists and HRDs and the challenges faced by the regimes, she suggests there are ways international actors can better collaborate that could potentially lead to improved protection for both groups—albeit on a small scale in the absence of increased resources and political will." (Abstract)
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"As international donors pour money into global human rights promotion, many governments—as well as scores of scholars and activists—fear a subtle, Western-led campaign for political, economic, and cultural domination. This book asks: What do publics in the global South think? Drawing on surveys
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in India, Mexico, Morocco, and Nigeria, the book finds most people are in fact broadly supportive of human rights discourse, trust local, rights-promoting organizations, and do not view human rights as a tool of foreign powers. Pro-human rights constituencies, rather, tend to be highly skeptical of the U.S. government, of multinational corporations, and of their own governments. However, this generalized public support for the human rights “brand” is not grounded in strong commitments of public effort or money, or in dense social ties to the nongovernmental rights sector. Publics in the global South rarely give to their local rights groups, and few local rights organizations attempt to raise funds apart from foreign aid. This strategy is becoming increasingly untenable as governments crack down on foreign aid to civil society. The book also analyzes the complex relationships between religion and human rights, finding that public or social elements of religiosity are often associated with less support for human rights organizations. Personal religiosity, on the other hand, is often associated with more human rights support." (Publisher description)
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"The Balkan Wars of the 1990s, the Rwandan genocide and the Darfur conflict served as catalysts for debates which significantly changed the character and institutional frameworks of international politics and international law after the end of the Cold War. Humanitarian emergencies and grave human r
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ights violations came to range among the most powerful arguments to justify military interventions abroad. In the course of these debates international norms and principles as those of sovereignty and the prohibition of the use of force were renegotiated. This volume situates the history of post-Cold War humanitarian intervention within the larger history of the twentieth century by looking at political and cultural shifts that preceded the end of the bipolar world order. At the same time, it seeks to elucidate the specificities of interventionism during the 1990s - a moment when, for the first time, military interventions were being justified on the basis of the protection of human rights. The authors examine the role of a wide range of actors like governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental actors like NGOs, the media, and public intellectuals." (Publisher description)
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