human rights Archives

16 Days Activism Against GBV Series| Beyond Convictions: Rethinking gender justice through survivors’ lived experiences

By ISS Blog Bliss 2 December 2025 472 views

International criminal law has made remarkable progress in recognizing gender-based crimes, yet conviction rates alone cannot capture the meaning of justice for survivors. In this blog, Abubakar Muhammad Jibril draws on the Gender Justice in International Criminal Law Conference to argue that genuine gender justice must be reimagined through survivors’ lived experiences—centering healing, dignity, and accountability beyond the courtroom.

The limits of legal victories

Over the past two decades, international criminal law (ICL) has evolved to acknowledge sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) as crimes of the gravest concern. From the landmark Akayesu judgment of the ICTR, which recognized rape as an act of genocide, to the Rome Statute’s explicit listing of sexual slavery, enforced pregnancy and other forms of sexual violence, progress has been undeniable. Yet despite these achievements, the lived experiences of many survivors reveal a different reality. During the Gender Justice in International Criminal Law Conference, several participants echoed a powerful truth: a conviction does not automatically equate to justice. Survivors often remain unseen, unheard and unsupported in the aftermath of trials. Many return to communities where stigma and silence persist, where reparations are delayed and where their suffering is reduced to a footnote in legal history. This paradox between legal recognition and lived reality lies at the heart of why gender justice remains incomplete.

The epistemic gap in International Criminal Law

ICL, by design, privileges evidence, procedure and precedent. It asks: What can be proved? Who can be held responsible? Yet for survivors of gender-based crimes, justice often depends on questions the law cannot fully answer: How can I heal? Who believes me? Will my story change anything? This epistemic gap between legal knowledge and experiential truth reflects a deeper structural limitation. The courtroom, though vital, cannot capture the emotional, social and cultural dimensions of gendered harm. The narratives of survivors are frequently filtered through lawyers, investigators and judges, transformed into ‘admissible evidence’ rather than lived testimonies of pain and resilience. As feminist scholars like Catharine MacKinnon and Fionnuala Ní Aoláin have argued, law can recognize sexual violence without truly listening to survivors. This dissonance risks turning gender justice into a symbolic victory rather than a transformative one.

From criminalization to transformation

At the conference, one speaker remarked that international tribunals have been more successful in criminalizing gender-based crimes than in transforming the conditions that enable them. This distinction is crucial. Criminalization ensures accountability for perpetrators, but transformation demands more: it requires dismantling the patriarchal, cultural and institutional structures that make such crimes possible in the first place. Survivors do not merely seek punishment; they seek recognition, healing and inclusion in rebuilding their societies. For instance, the Trust Fund for Victims under the International Criminal Court (ICC) has provided symbolic reparations, but survivors repeatedly stress the need for collective and community-based remedies, access to education, psychological care, economic empowerment and public acknowledgment. These are not mere add-ons to justice; they are justice itself.

Centring survivors’ voices: towards participatory justice

Reimagining gender justice means shifting from a courtroom-centred model to a survivor-centred one. Survivors must not only testify; they must shape the process. Participatory justice approaches already piloted in certain post-conflict societies offer valuable lessons. In Sierra Leone, Rwanda and Uganda, survivor networks have played pivotal roles in truth-telling and community reconciliation. Their initiatives illustrate that justice becomes meaningful when survivors help define their goals and outcomes. As discussed in several conference panels, integrating psychosocial support, trauma-informed procedures and culturally sensitive reparations into ICL processes could bridge the gap between law and lived experience.

The politics of recognition

Gender justice cannot be disentangled from global hierarchies of power. Many survivors come from the Global South, yet international criminal processes are dominated by Northern institutions and perspectives. This imbalance shapes not only whose stories are heard but also how justice is defined. To move beyond symbolic inclusion, international mechanisms must decolonize their approaches, valuing local knowledges, community healing practices and indigenous forms of accountability. Justice cannot be exported; it must be co-created with those who have suffered most. A decolonial feminist approach to ICL thus requires more than reforming procedure; it demands rethinking the very epistemology of justice from punishment-centred to person-centred, from institutional legitimacy to human dignity.

Reclaiming the meaning of justice

The conference’s closing sessions were marked by a shared realization: while legal frameworks are essential, they are not sufficient. The future of gender justice lies not only in how courts punish crimes but in how societies restore humanity after harm. For survivors, justice is not measured in verdicts but in voices being heard, believed and healed. It is in communities that refuse to silence them, in policies that empower them and in histories that finally honour their truths. International criminal law must therefore evolve from a reactive to a restorative paradigm, one that integrates legal accountability with social repair, trauma healing and long-term prevention. Only then can justice be both legal and lived.

Conclusion

As scholars, practitioners and advocates, we must move beyond celebrating convictions to asking harder questions: Whose justice? For whom? At what cost? The survivors who continue to rebuild their lives after unimaginable violence remind us that justice is not a verdict; it is a process of human restoration. The future of gender justice in international criminal law depends on whether we can truly listen to the people for whom justice was meant to serve.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Abubakar Muhammad Jibril is a legal researcher and LLM candidate specializing in human rights law, with a focus on women’s and children’s rights, gender-based violence and international human rights frameworks. His work integrates comparative legal analysis across diverse jurisdictions, exploring the intersections of law, culture and religion, particularly within Islamic legal traditions. Abubakar’s research aims to promote equitable legal reforms and deepen the scholarly understanding of justice, dignity and protection for vulnerable groups worldwide.

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How a new conscription law is threatening everyday humanitarian action in Myanmar

By ISS Blog Bliss 2 July 20247 October 2024 2356 views

The compulsory enlistment of young men and women in war-stricken Myanmar following the enactment of a conscription law in February this year is adding a layer of complexity to a society already struggling with human rights abuses and a lack of safety for civilians. The conscription order is systematically depleting the youth who are pivotal to everyday humanitarian action, thereby posing a threat to humanitarianism in a country facing a massive humanitarian crisis, writes ISS PhD researcher Hyeonggeun Ji.

Over three years have passed since the Myanmar military seized power, ousting the democratically elected government. Until early last year, the junta currently in control of Myanmar showed unparalleled power over the joint resistance force, which consists of armed organisations opposing the government that emerged from the coup. However, the junta now faces many challenges, in particular a significant manpower shortage. According to several estimations, the junta’s armed forces once comprised between 300,000 to 400,000 troops, but this number has now dwindled to approximately 150,000 due to desertions and casualties.

To address this shortage, the military on 14 February this year enforced a conscription order, targeting men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27. In mid-March, it started enlisting the first batch of civilians by mail, with plans to draft 60,000 people annually. The military authority announced that the first batch of 5,000 troops would be called to duty in mid-April; however, the actual number summoned remains undisclosed so far.

Young people are fleeing en masse…

The announcement has been met with resistance. Young people, unwilling to kill or serve in military, have been compelled to flee abroad en masse — a phenomenon frequently portrayed in the media as a mass migration or exodus — to avoid conscription. And two people tragically died of suffocation in a crammed queue days after the law was enacted while trying to obtain visas at the Myanmar passport office.

…leading to the loss of youth in Myanmar society

This sudden flight of young people signifies the loss of youth in Myanmar society, both in the sense of youths become forced to be soldiers opposing civilians and by leaving the country altogether. Moreover, the military is continuously trying to label young people as the ‘worst’ enemies due to their active and potential role in anti-coup and pro-democracy movement. In this context, recruiting them can be seen as part of a broader strategy to eliminate the presence of youth from the social fabric by turning young people into soldiers. Concurrently, it is possibly related to the junta’s manoeuvre to politicise aid for its political gain — the military regime could cite reduced humanitarian activity as a means to render people more compliant.

The humanitarian crisis is being exacerbated…

This development is compounding an existing humanitarian crisis. The war is violent — a recent report by Action on Armed Violence estimates this ‘under-reported war’ resulted in 2,164 casualties due to explosive weapons in 2023 alone, and according to a UN report, systematic military violence against civilians had displaced 2.6 million people and had forced another 600,000 to flee by December 2023. War-torn Myanmar moreover is marked by humanitarian needs; 18.6 million people — one-third of the country’s total population — struggle with precarious living conditions, hunger, a lack of clean water, illness, and human rights violations. And the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) has sharply increased to nearly 2 million people over the past three years. Military forces are even brutally attacking IDP camps, where unarmed civilians have relocated after their homes were attacked. Affected people are grappling with trauma.

The international humanitarian system moreover is facing multi-layered constraints, making it difficult for humanitarian aid to reach affected people. At the international level, the attention of developed countries, whose resources and decision-making power are essential, to the war in Myanmar is woefully inadequate, partly due to the country’s perceived lack of economic potential. In addition to the utterly inadequate scale of international relief efforts and a lack of funding, the restriction of humanitarian aid and a hostile environment for aid workers have also prevented humanitarian workers from assisting people in need. Meanwhile, the junta jeopardizes the neutrality of humanitarian assistance by requiring international humanitarian organisations to hand over aid resource to military authorities.

…but everyday acts of humanitarianism persist

Despite these frustrations and limitations, humanitarianism persists in Myanmar, with local people and grassroots organisations sustaining alternative humanitarian approaches through everyday acts of humanitarianism. For instance, teachers are continuing to teach, which can give children access to psychosocial services in emergencies while also preserving their right to education. Another instance is the crucial role of diaspora organisations in reporting the local conditions in inaccessible conflict zones and by organising fundraising activities to provide help in the form of emergency relief, assistance for IDPs, and education support. These instances represent mere glimpses of the myriad everyday humanitarian practices conducted by diverse local actors within Myanmar and along its borders, operating beyond the boundary of the hierarchical global humanitarian system.

The youth embody humanitarianism…

Along with continuing humanitarian efforts led by diverse local actors, young people in Myanmar embody humanitarianism in their everyday lives. The role of youth in humanitarian practice is not new but has become intricately intertwined with social norms and culture over time. Young men and women in the country lead and support the social affair groups that organise cultural events, weddings, funerals, blood drives, and various community activities within their villages. Through this social environment, the youth have forged the virtue of helping others in voluntary and collaborative ways. Their important role was highlighted during COVID-19 as they demonstrated capacity to raise funds and circulate health-related information within the communities when external resources were insufficient for managing the pandemic situation.

As humanitarian needs escalate while external assistance remains limited, the volunteerism, leadership, and unity embodied by the youth for humanitarian action are now more critical than ever.

…and their erasure should be countered

But the Myanmar junta’s conscription law presents a systematic obstacle to youth-led everyday humanitarian action and, consequently, poses a threat to humanitarianism in Myanmar. A recent report, Forced to Fight, underlines the emerging signs of young people’s apprehension about conscription, noting how these fears significantly impede their social participation and how their absence is acutely felt within the society.

Currently, the limited attention paid to the issue focuses solely on the security of the youth, which is essential for discussing the conscription law; however, it neglects the broader implications for people and the society. I contend that the conscription law should be recognised as an instrument of power designed to dismantle humanitarian action sustained by everyday practices of local youth in collaboration with other actors on the ground. The failure to respond appropriately to this critical juncture could push humanitarianism in Myanmar to the brink of an existential crisis.

Funding statement

This blog article is part of the work of the Humanitarian governance, accountability, advocacy, alternatives project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 884139.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Hyeonggeun Ji is currently pursuing his PhD at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS). His research focuses on humanitarian governance for climate-related displacement in Bangladesh.

How (not) to enhance meaningful dialogue about academic relations with Israeli universities.

By ISS Blog Bliss 13 June 202414 December 2024 2487 views

After weeks of protest and student-led demands to cut ties with Israeli universities, a joint letter recently published in Dutch newspaper Trouw by the rectors of all Dutch universities declared that they will not consider cutting ties with all universities. Whereas the letter leaves an opening for universities to evaluate their collaboration with specific institutions, the main message remains that cutting ties would run counter to academic freedom. In this (translated) blog article, Professors Thea Hilhorst, Klaas Landsman and Amina Helmi argue that the letter risks stifling a dialogue that had been going on in various forms since October of last year. Dutch universities can do well to follow the University of Gent’s example, where a ‘human rights’ commission has advised on the severing of ties with Israeli institutions, and where this advice was actually heeded, they write.

In the last few weeks there have been mounting protests both by students and by scientific staff at universities, all of them calling for Dutch universities to cut their ties with Israeli universities. Last Saturday, the rectors of universities in the Netherlands jointly wrote an open letter that was published in Dutch newspaper Trouw saying that there would not be a ban on collaboration with all Israeli universities, stating that this would run against the core value of academic freedom. With this decision, the rectors stifle the dialogues that had begun to be held over this issue in different universities.

Ever since the protests began, it has been painfully clear that the universities were not well prepared to organize discussion on human rights-based boundaries to their partnerships with Israeli institutions; it seems they were improvising while some entered into dialogue with protesters while others didn’t.

Two years ago, when Russia invaded Ukraine, it took only a few days for the university boards in the Netherlands to collectively declare that they would sever all their ties with Russian institutions. It concerned a quick decision taken by the boards without consultation within their institutions. In their open letter the rectors explain that that decision was in response to an urgent request from the government. The question remains if such a decision should then not be evaluated against the value of academic freedom?

Towards the end of last year, the discussion around working with institutions and companies in the fossil fuel industry also came to the fore, again provoked by various student protests. The question then was if Dutch universities can maintain their relations with the fossil fuel industry despite their commitment to sustainability. Over the course of this debate, various study and research committees were set up to investigate, including by the Royal Dutch Scientific Academy (KNAW). That debate has yet to reach a conclusion, and no decisions have been made.

The question about the ethics of collaboration is now resurfacing in relation to the relation with Israeli universities. According to the International Court of Justice, there are several clear signs that Israel is in the process of conducting a genocide. Can universities in this situation hold on to their ‘business-as-usual’? How, in a few years, will we look back on the universities’ reluctance to act? We cannot pretend we didn’t know what was going on in view of the series of declarations of the Court.

Many Israeli universities’ programmes contribute directly or indirectly to the continuing occupation of Palestinian land and the displacement of Palestinian people, as well as the ongoing war that is killing thousands of civilians and creating famine conditions. The letter published by the various rectors did not make any mention of the potentially unfolding genocide. They frame the situation as a conflict that has two sides that are more or less comparable in power. However, the issue concerns the disproportionality of the respons of Israel to the 7 October attacks. The rectors state in their letter that they care about supporting Palestinian collegaues, yet fail to mention that all eleven universities in Gaza have been wiped off the face of the earth by Israeli bombardments.

Indeed, the open letter published by the rectors is a top-down interruption of processes of dialogue that had been building in the previous weeks. In various universities, committees and groups had been set up to help advise and facilitate this dialogue. The Dutch universities would do well to take advice from the University of Ghent in Belgium. At that university, a ‘human rights commission’ advised the specific severing of ties with three Israeli institutions, adjudged to be materially contributing to the ongoing repression of human rights, whilst the rest of the ongoing partnerships were to continue as normal. The university adopted the advised road.

It’s quite unthinkable that Dutch universities can continue to uphold their various core values without occasionally having to make painful choices informed by these values. On the basis of recent history, we can only make three suggestions to the universities:

1) bring in an ethical committee and give them the mandate to give binding advice,

2) make sure that the commission evaluates cases against the core values of the institution, and

3) make sure that the committee reflects all stakeholders within the university.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Dorothea Hilhorst is professor of Humanitarian Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University.

Klaas Landsmanis the Chair of Mathematical Physics, Institute for Mathematics, Astrophysics, and Particle Physics at Radboud University Nijmegen.

Amina Helmi is a professor at the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute in Groningen. Helmi’s main research interests are galaxy evolution and dynamics, with emphasis on what can be learned from the nearby Universe, and in particular from our own Galaxy.

Institutional care is an affront to rights of children with disabilities

By ISS Blog Bliss 28 November 202325 December 2024 1763 views

In solidarity to the 16 days activism against gender-based violence, this article highlights the structural violence that impedes the rights of children with disabilities —including girls— in Kenya. The author Stephen Ucembe, who is an alumni of the International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, emphasizes the need to protect the rights of children confined to institutional care.

Image Credit: Hope and Homes for Children

Every child, including those with disabilities, is entitled to the rights enshrined in the Convention of the Rights of the Child which Kenya has ratified. As a country, we have agreed to uphold these rights through the Children’s Act 2022.

However, in contravention of their rights, children with disabilities are often hidden away in communities or sometimes separated and isolated in institutions against their wishes. Isolation from communities on the basis of disability is discriminatory. It is a dereliction of duty – an abdication of responsibility by the government. Supporting these children to be visible in our communities and families normalizes disability. Hiding them from others dehumanizes and perpetuates stigma and discrimination, hence exacerbating the problem.

Furthermore, unnecessary placement in residential care institutions often multiplies violations; children with disabilities are denied other rights, like the right to family and community care, to culture, to identity, to freedom of association.

A global Human Rights Watch report, published in 2017 titled, ‘Children with disabilities: Deprivation of liberty in the name of care and treatment’ documented that children with disabilities often face severe neglect and abuse. This included beatings and psychological violence, sexual violence, involuntary and inappropriate medical treatment, use of abusive physical restraints, seclusion and sedation, denial of education and denial of regular contacts with families.

An investigative media exposé traced how the problems described above play out locally. It uncovered multiple human rights violations perpetuated against institutionalized children with disabilities, by a government agency.

Nobody is seeking to romanticize families and communities. There are many children facing abuse, neglect and exploitation, including stigma and discrimination within family and community settings. However, studies consistently point to serious violations in institutional care settings. Moreover, over 80 years of research shows that supported families and communities are far better equipped than institutions when it comes to improvement of children’s overall well-being.

The primary role of government should not be to create more barriers, or spaces that deepen inequality and diminish inclusivity. Yet, this is exactly what we do when we institutionalize these children or neglect them in communities. The role of the government should be to ensure their protection and enjoyment of all rights, through full inclusion and participation in the community.

To make inclusion a reality, we need responsive initiatives that tackle ubiquitous stigma and discrimination. That starts with community services and facilities available to persons with disabilities, enabling them to access education, housing, rehabilitation and therapy. It extends to respite care centers that allow struggling care-givers time off, or time to go and work. And it means we must improve infrastructure and provide necessary assistive devices, aids and services, like hearing aids, crutches, wheelchairs, tricycles, white canes and walking appliances to support full participation.

Lastly, it’s up to us to ensure we do not leave these children behind in the care reform processes that the government has initiated. To support governments to include disabled children in family based alternative care, the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities developed ‘Guidelines on deinstitutionalization, including in emergencies’.

These guidelines are meant to ensure an end to rampant violence against institutionalized persons with disabilities, including children. This advice should ensure children with disabilities are included and supported in families and communities, and prevent their institutionalization.

This article was first published on The Standard.

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Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Stephen Ucembe is the Regional Advocacy Manager, Hope and Homes for Children. He is a professional social worker with skills, knowledge, and experience working with children and young people without parental care, and vulnerable families. His preference is to work in Kenya, or regionally (east and southern Africa) with organization (s) whose mission and vision is family and child focused.

Mobilising for a Just World: Legal Mobilization for Whom?

By ISS Blog Bliss 31 January 202326 December 2024 2607 views

Both scholars and practitioners engaged in either researching or advancing legal mobilization recognize that law can be used to guide legal interventions seeking to trigger transformative justice. A persistent question faced by legal mobilization practitioners and researchers alike is: who are we mobilizing for, and with whom? As a member of the Legal Mobilization Platform (LMP), I sought to answer this question during the platform’s launch on 12 January 2023 in The Hague.

Who takes the lead in legal mobilization claims?

It should be a standard response that any legal mobilization claim should be led by individuals and organizations who experience violations. However, this is not always the case. The structure of the legal profession often obscures the agency of those whose rights have been violated. Contradicting the approach of Systemic Justice, those who are centred in strategic litigation are often the NGOs and law firms – however well-intended – that are officially presenting a particular claim, rather than the communities and individuals affected by violations.

As a researcher wanting to understand these dynamics better, but also as someone with a long history of advocacy in my earlier career as a human rights lawyer, it has always been important for me to understand the objective of a legal mobilization claim and to critically reflect on my role in it.

The Legal Mobilization Platform (LMP) is a large and broad platform of researchers and practitioners, where legal mobilization researchers and practitioners can interact with each other in a dynamic and reflective shared space. From the overwhelming responses we have received thus far, there appears to be a very strong interest in better understanding and reflecting upon which forms of legal mobilization work and which don’t to trigger transformative change. To give an example, LMP-member Systemic Justice orient their work around “community-driven litigation”. Their goal is

…to radically transform how the law works for communities fighting for racial, social, and economic justice. Centring affected communities in joint litigation, Systemic Justice will help broaden access to judicial remedies for those fighting for justice and equality. This will help dismantle the power structures that underpin and fuel racial, social, and economic injustice.

People can certainly be both a researcher and advocate. However, these roles are different: what researchers aim for are solid arguments based on a convincing methodology; for practitioners, the aim is for transformative change. Without being clear what one’s role is, one can end up being of little use to either scholars or to activists. Nevertheless, for both researchers and practitioners, being a critically reflexive researcher or a conscientious advocate may involve standing up for cause, just as much as it may be necessary to step back, allowing others to take up the research or advocacy space and above all supporting others, or what Aminata Cairo refers to as “holding space”.

Recognizing one’s privilege

The questioning of who represents what goes even further than this. Before deciding whether one has the legitimacy to either research or represent a cause, it is critical for one to recognize one’s privilege. Critical scholars problematize this from the fields of critical race studies, critical feminist studies and critical legal studies, such as TWAIL. From a methodological standpoint, it is critical to recognize one’s positionality in relation to both the issues and people that are the focus of research, as well as the importance of praxis.

However, even more crucially, social justice activists frequently insist on questioning who, and in what manner, individuals can credibly speak out on issues such as the Dutch slavery and colonial heritage, which is currently a topic of much debate in the Netherlands and a focus of the LMP.

The challenges of patriarchy, racism, elitism, and anthropocentrism

Apart from crucial matters of ownership and positionality, there are myriad institutional structures and systems that can pose challenges for legal mobilization practitioners to navigate. To begin with, the patriarchal character of law, legal process and systems, including universities and the legal profession, structurally privileges men. But this is not the only problem. Patriarchy also corrodes the way institutions operate, with a tendency towards non-collaboration, individualism, and a high level of competitiveness. Similarly, the racialized character of law, legal processes, and systems structurally privilege white people. We see this problem in efforts to accomplish gender diversity and inclusion, within the public sector, courts, and universities where racist stereotypes persist, and even within NGOs, as Doctors Without Borders has acknowledged.

Alongside patriarchy and racism is the elitist character of the law and legal process that systemically protects the interests of a handful of affluent people, the so-called 1%, allowing some individuals to acquire massive opulence that can eclipse the GDP of entire nations, while allowing ample opportunities to avoid the payment of tax, hindering the equitable distribution of wealth.

And finally, the law and legal process tend to be highly anthropocentric, which means that they structurally privilege humans and disregard non-human interests. Here we are talking about the rights of nature, which researchers such as Dr. Daphina Misiedjan focuses much of her research on.

All of this involves (or at least it should) a great deal of legal learning, which Karim Knio and Bob Jessop recognize are part and parcel of a pedagogical approach to understanding how crises, whether they be of a financial, social, or political nature, are construed and managed.

More than litigation

Finally, legal mobilization is much more than litigation alone. As Eva Rieter and I have argued, it is about many different uses of law, incorporating other confrontational forms, including, but not limited to, litigation, e.g. protests, corporate shaming, civic boycotts. But legal mobilization can also adopt cooperative forms, such as participation in policy-making processes, training courses on systemic racism awareness, and partnerships with municipal and national government actors and law enforcement officials to develop, monitor, and implement policies for tackling systemic racism.

In all respects, solidarity is key. Solidarity involves first and foremost, listening to those affected by racial, climate, and socio-economic injustice, which is not always easy for researchers and practitioners alike as systemic justice involves one fundamentally questioning liberal values that are dominant both in systems of law and governance, not to mention economic relations.

The future of legal mobilization

So how should one take these reflections forward in practice? A key strategy for tackling all of these dilemmas in legal mobilization practice has been demonstrated by Amsterdam-based member of the Platform Public Interest Litigation Project or PILP, which applies a broad understanding of strategic litigation and asks, “Where does it hurt?”.

Another example of going beyond litigation is De Zwart Manifest (“Black Manifesto”), which recognises that, according to the Dutch Constitution, “everyone in the NL is treated equally in equal circumstances”. However, “the reality is different. In the NL there is a racialized order”. In other words, the claim of the manifesto is not to champion equality, but rather to redress systemic inequalities, or what Gloria Wekker, a member of the Legal Mobilizational Platform, refers to as “radical equality”.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Jeff Handmaker is Associate Professor of Legal Sociology at the International Institute of Social Studies and, together with Margarethe Wewerinke-Singh at the University of Amsterdam Law School, a member of the Steering Group of the Legal Mobilization Platform

Knowledge is power: how ‘infomediaries’ are helping marginalized communities in Bangladesh claim access to information

By ISS Blog Bliss 24 January 202326 December 2024 2186 views

South Asian countries have made remarkable progress in adopting laws that provide citizens with the right to information. Yet in many instances, information still cannot be accessed, or differentiated access to information can be observed. ‘Infomediaries’ introduced in Bangladesh through a community empowerment programme have played an essential role in helping marginalized people access information by mediating between communities as information seekers and local governments as information providers. Such actors may assist marginalized communities in South Asia and beyond in claiming their right to information, writes Sujoy Dutta.

Legislation guaranteeing access to information has been globally recognized as a fundamental human right. Such legislation can empower citizens in urban and rural spaces, including women, by allowing them unrestricted access to information. This helps to promote transparency and accountability, for example by facilitating the review of government policies and programmes to prevent the misuse of government resources by officials.

However, the implementation of such acts does not always take place in ways that benefit all citizens equally. Studies indicate that merely creating a legal space is not enough to ensure that poor people can access information. Neuman and Calland argue that ensuring citizens’ right to information is a three-phased process that involves the introduction of law, its implementation, and, finally, its enactment. All the elements of this ‘transparency triangle’ are crucial and interrelated; however, the implementation phase is of paramount importance and serves as the base of the triangle.

In South Asian countries, the enactment of such laws occurred in the wake of political reform and the deepening of democracy. Pakistan was the first country to introduce a Right of Access to Information Act in 2002, followed by India (in 2005), Nepal (in 2007) and Bangladesh (in 2009). All these countries introduced this law after years of lobbying by civil society groups. While the laws are key for holding governments accountable, their use by poor communities in this region remains restricted.

What’s happening in India?

India’s Right To Information Act is considered to be one of the most robust laws in South Asia, yet it remains untapped by the poor and marginalized communities, who have limited means of access. In five Indian states (Goa, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Delhi), citizens are more likely to access this law, as requests for information prompt officials to act “almost like magic”. This is because, once an application for accessing information has been submitted, the government is expected to produce results.

But in states that are considered less progressive, like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where incomes and literacy rates are lower and corruption is rampant due to poor governance, awareness this law is limited. In these states, government officials undermine transparency norms, refuse to provide the requested information, and reject appeals to access information on spurious grounds. These practices mock transparency laws, as the poor have a hard time dealing with inflexible bureaucratic officials and procedures.

Experiences from Mexico suggest that expanding the use of right to information to disadvantaged communities requires trustworthy intermediaries. In many countries, this role has been entrusted to NGOs, as well as community and youth groups, who enable the poor to submit their information requests without delay. This helps everyone not only to access information, but also to interrogate anti-democratic practices. A community empowerment programme of Bangladesh has shown how intermediaries can make an impact. Such configurations can be replicated in parts of South Asia and in other parts of the world where information has not reached disadvantaged sections of the population.

How ‘infomediaries’ are helping marginalized people

India’s more restrictive states could take cues from the Community Empowerment Programme (CEP) of Bangladesh. Introduced in 2011 and supported by the World Bank and the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), the programme is empowering the poor (especially women) to overcome difficulties they face while obtaining information. The activities of the programme include the identification, training, and assignment of ‘informediaries’– a cadre of information intermediaries who have a basic understanding of the law and are chosen from within the community to motivate villagers to access information. These informediaries hold information clinics aimed at developing better-informed citizens as they link the marginalized sections with state machinery.

In Bangladesh, these informediaries were selected from Polli Samaj, a popular theatre group who are accepted by villagers. Their role is to gather information queries from the community and submit applications of right to information to the relevant government or NGO offices on their behalf. When answers to the relevant information are received, they are passed on to the applicants.

Based on their popularity, these infomediaries are able to establish a close rapport with public officials through their repeated visits. This allows them access to information with relatively greater success. In many instances, they have been effective in assisting marginalized groups (including women) to access information by overcoming multiple barriers. These include communication, infrastructure, and unpaved roads and inadequate public transportation systems that have made it difficult and time-consuming for the women to travel to lodge their application for information.

However, if this concept is to be implemented in India’s less prosperous states, it has to move a step forward by ensuring that all marginalized groups have access to public offices. Infomediaries should also motivate women to demand information. This will eventually enable these groups to access information without the help of infomediaries.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Sujoy Dutta teaches at Tata Institute of Social Sciences in India. His research publications integrate disciplinary tools from political economy, sociology, and public policy, much of which is based on fieldwork-based empirical analysis (in Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and some parts of Maharashtra, India). He holds a doctorate degree from the National University of Singapore and a Master’s degree from the ISS. Currently, he is undertaking extensive fieldwork in India and Bangladesh to examine the impact of the Right to Information Act on poor households.

Palestinian Human Rights Defenders need protection: what can we do?

By ISS Blog Bliss 27 January 20224 January 2025 4234 views

On 19 October 2021, the government of Israel issued a military order that designated six, renowned and award-winning Palestinian human rights groups as “terrorist organisations”. The reason for this military order, and the evidence for making such designations, have not been disclosed. This is the latest of Israel’s longstanding efforts to undermine the work of these organisations. It also seems clear that this action is intended to intimidate donors and supporters of these organisations.

The Palestinian human rights organisations under threat

The six organisations affected by Israel’s military order are: Addameer, Al-Haq, Bisan Center for Research and Development, Defence for Children International-Palestine, Union of Agricultural Work Committees, and Union of Palestinian Women Committees. The work of these six organisations is both crucial to a future peace in Israel and Palestine, and has been invaluable for the work of United Nations human rights treaty bodies, as well as Special Rapporteurs and Commissions of Inquiry, and for the International Criminal Court that is currently investigating international crimes in Palestine. Declaring the work of these organisations as “terrorist” not only undermines efforts at peace, but also places individuals who work for them in a potentially very dangerous situation, and potentially creates dilemmas for states, individuals, and organisations who have supported them (financially or otherwise) regarding the continuity of that support. This combination of (possible) effects forms an existential threat to the work of the six organisations, which no doubt is intended by the government of Israel.

Addameer was founded in 1992 and advocates for Palestinian political prisoners who suffer long-term arbitrary detention, without charge or trial. Al-Haq, founded in 1979, is the West Bank affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists-Geneva, and has issued dozens of meticulously documented reports on the countless human rights violations that Palestinians experience daily. These violations include denials of the right to housing and freedom of movement, lack of protection against settler violence, and a long list of international crimes, most of which are connected to Israel’s regime of apartheid, itself a crime against humanity. The Bisan Center for Research and Development, in operation since the late 1980’s, focuses on the most marginalised communities in Palestine, including women, youth, and workers in the most rural and deprived areas, and advocates for their development needs. Defence for Children International-Palestine has, since 1991, documented serious human rights violations directed against children, including inhuman and degrading punishment and treatment, arbitrary detention, torture, and unlawful killings. The organisation also provides legal assistance and representation to these children in Israeli military tribunals.

The Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) is one of the oldest Palestinian NGOs that advocates for Palestinian farmers’ rights to sovereignty of their land and products. They have played a leading role in documenting settler violence against Palestinian farmers, work that is especially important now as Palestinians across the West Bank are facing massive settler violence when they try to harvest their olive crops. This is confirmed by reports from the International Committee of the Red Cross, which have documented that from August 2020 up until August 2021, settlers destroyed over 9000 Palestinian olive trees, in addition to increased levels of violence and harassment directed against Palestinian farmers. The Union of Palestinian Women Committees (UPWC), established in 1980, is the umbrella organisation for all Palestinian women’s groups in the Occupied Territories. Its staff have supported Palestinian women’s rights, equal opportunities for men and women, and equity between social classes. UPWC has been a major force in the women’s rights movement in Palestine, and plays an active role in the global movement for women’s rights, including in relation to attention for gender-based violence.

Global reaction to the designation

B’tselem was among the first Israeli organisations to condemn the Israeli government’s designation as a ‘draconian’ measure. In addition, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the designations as “an attack on human rights defenders, on freedoms of association, opinion and expression and on the right to public participation”, and called for the designations to be “immediately revoked”. International human rights NGOs Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International also issued strong statements condemning the designations. They have been joined by international legal experts, including the celebrated South African law professor John Dugard, who also reflected on the similar treatment of human rights organisations by South Africa’s apartheid regime in the 1980s.

On 3 November 2021, more than 30 Dutch organizations addressed the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Dutch Parliament; they called on the Netherlands to:

publicly speak out against and condemn Israel’s decision as an unjustified violation against civil society;
appeal to Israel to retract this military order with immediate effect;
continue its support to Palestinian partner organisations and ensure that Dutch banking and financial institutions disregard Israel’s order;
openly support the work of these affected organisations.

Above all, the Netherlands has been called upon to ensure support to civil society, and especially to human rights defenders who speak out in defence of the rights of Palestinians.

All of these demands by Israeli, international, and Dutch human rights organisations are fully in-line with the United Nations Declaration and the European Union Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders. Referring to these sources, the Dutch government has openly declared that it “supports human rights defenders, so that they can do their work effectively and safely”.

Valuable time, however, has been lost since 19 October. Even worse, in January 2022, the Dutch government announced that it was stopping its support to one of the six designated organisations (UAWC), even despite their admission that they lacked evidence of a link to terrorist activity.

Action is needed NOW

Respect for international law, and the UN and EU guidelines on human rights defenders, should compel the government of the Netherlands to reverse its decision to defund UACW, and to urge the European Union to join United Nations experts, the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, and others, in irrefutably condemning Israel’s designations.

So, what can we do now?

Both financial and diplomatic support are crucially needed during this time when Palestinian civil society is under great pressure from Israel’s military and apartheid regime. This is why we produced a letter for individual sign-on, to protest the Dutch government’s decision, and why we will be organising a webinar on 27 January 2022 to discuss this further. For more information, please register here, or alternatively contact our network.

An earlier version of this article, which we provide key updates to above, was published in the Dutch newspaper Trouw.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Jeff Handmaker is Associate Professor in Legal Sociology at the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Christian Henderson is Assistant Professor of International Relations of the Middle East at Leiden University. Both are supporters of Dutch Scholars for Palestine.

Marthe Heringa is a student at Leiden University and an organiser of Students for Palestine.

Will Colombia ever witness peace?

By ISS Blog Bliss 18 May 202118 January 2025 3465 views

The most recent wave of state violence against Colombian citizens that culminated in the killing of 47 demonstrators during a single week of protests taking place across the country is extremely worrying given the massive human rights violations it signifies. Yet far from being an isolated episode, the events that recently transpired are rooted in a deeper socio-economic and political crisis that has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. State violence that has plagued the country for so long can be interpreted as the expression of institutional imbalances and may signify a worrying move toward securitisation – one that should be avoided at all cost.

Picture taken from El Espectador 01.05.2021.

“If the people go out to protest within a pandemic, it is because the government is more dangerous than the virus.”
– Slogan of the most recent (28A) protests

As a country known for having undergone decades of social unrest and political tensions, Colombia has been hurled back into the spotlight in the past two weeks as police and military forces cracked down on protesters. A current national strike against a tax reform starting on 28 April – aptly called 28A – has since escalated massively, leading to international calls for peace as repression fuelled further protests and tensions. Disturbing and painful images and audio clips of the police shooting demonstrators seemingly indiscriminately in different Colombian cities, hitting human rights defenders, and even threatening a humanitarian and verification mission in Cali have now been spread all over the world.

What led to these protests?

The answer is not straightforward. On 5 April 2021, a tax reform was proposed by Ivan Duque’s government. Given the enormous social tensions in Colombia, the proposed regressive tax reforms, through which the upper classes would benefit from tax cuts, and middle- and low-income classes would pay more for public services and consumption, fuelled a runaway fire, leading to a national protest scheduled for 28 April, but lasting much longer. This act of defiance should be interpreted not as a reckless act during a pandemic, but a desperate effort of protesters to protect their own futures. The tax reform proposal was finally withdrawn on 4 May, but only after 31 demonstrators had been killed, 814 had been arbitrarily detained, and 10 cases of sexual violence by police representatives had been reported.

The use of state violence against Colombian citizens is unfortunately not new. The recent round of protests was preceded by a national strike on 21 November 2019 called 21N, which was also met with force. Yet each moment of resurgence of violence is equally devastating for Colombia, a Latin American nation that has been struggling hard to shake its image as politically unstable. What’s more worrying are hints of a move toward securitisation that can normalise violence. Instead of strengthening the independence and capacity of the country’s judiciary and other bodies that are supposed to hold the state accountable for its deployment of force and citizens for the private use of the violence, securitisation would reinforce the vulnerability of social leaders and human rights defenders who play an important role in helping maintain the country’s democratic system and who can press for structural change.

Picture taken from BBC News Mundo 03.05.2021

Why is this so worrying?

Besides protesting against a proposed tax reform, Colombian society is using the 28A protests to urge a fundamental change in the socio-economic policies driven by a neoliberal government logic. Young people are advocating for affordable, good-quality, public higher education institutions and access to decent jobs. Workers and pensioners are rejecting the growing ‘flexibiliation’ of the labour market and the increased age of retirement. Public sanitation workers and health workers are asking for better working conditions and better public health care given the strain placed on them by the COVID-19 pandemic. It was never only about the tax reforms. Citizens feel betrayed by a government that does not seem to govern in their interests.

The right to protest (peacefully) to make such concerns heard is thus crucial for many groups across Colombia. Unfortunately, protests have taken place against a backdrop of violence that has haunted the country for decades. Continued state violence against protesters can be linked to the country’s violent history. Repression following the rejection of the 2016 Peace Agreement is also visible in the dramatic increase of other violent events, including recent massacres in rural areas of Colombia fuelled by broken promises of strengthening the state’s civil infrastructure for those residing in rural areas. And after the end of the Colombian conflict, new armed factions have sprung up to dispute the territories formerly controlled by FARC guerrillas. The result has been a predictable resurgence in illegal market activity and violence against civilians. Afro-Colombian, indigenous, and peasant communities are caught in the crossfire or are direct targets.

Pictures taken by Juliana Poveda during the demonstrations in front the Colombian Embassy in The Hague 07.05.2021

What’s worse, during COVID-19, the government has demonstrated a growing inclination towards authoritarianism, imposing curfews and militarising control of the lockdown. The pandemic has exacerbated the country’s socio-economic crisis, and both escalating violence in rural areas and lockdowns in cities intensified ordinary citizens’ socio-economic vulnerability. In effect, a decade of social policies to reduce poverty were reversed in a single year given the government’s erratic handling of the pandemic. Reducing ordinary people’s vulnerability and addressing inequalities were simply not priorities for this government. The proposed tax reform was the last straw, signifying to Colombians a government that was not doing its duty to make their lives better, both when it comes to the safety of civilians and their welfare.

What needs to be explored once the violence has been stopped is whether this inclination toward violent repression signifies the securitisation of state institutions and an even greater risk for social leaders and human rights defenders in the cities and rural areas of Colombia to continue keeping the state accountable. This would be devastating for Colombia, which has long sought peace and freedom, and whose citizens thought that the end of its conflict some five years ago signified a new era in which the state and citizens would be able to co-exist in harmony. The government should also take a long, hard look at whether it is actually actively pursuing peace – recent events seem to indicate the opposite.

—

Thanks go to Lize Swartz for helping shape this article.

Opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the ISS or members of the Bliss team.

About the author:

Juliana Poveda is a lawyer specialized in human rights and international humanitarian law of the National University of Colombia. She is currently pursuing her master’s degree at the ISS. Prior to that, she received her M.A. in Political Studies at the Institute of Political Studies and International Relations (IEPRI).

Venezuelan refugees on Curaçao have entered the Kingdom of the Netherlands! by Peter Heintze, Dorothea Hilhorst and Dennis Dijkzeul

By Dorothea Hilhorst 26 April 201918 May 2020 3957 views

“Reception of refugees in the region” is a central concept in the foreign policy of the Dutch government. It means that the Netherlands wants to financially support countries that accept refugees fleeing from a conflict in a neighboring region rather than enabling refugees to migrate onwards to Europe. Usually, the regions where refugees need to be sheltered are far away from the borders of our Kingdom. Suddenly, however, the Netherlands Kingdom has become the region itself.

Refugees from Venezuela are arriving in small but growing numbers on the Caribbean island of Curaçao. Curaçao is a remnant of colonial history, in that it is an independent country that continues to be part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The response to the fleeing Venezuelans now arriving on the island is highly inadequate and it is recognized that human rights are being violated on a large scale.

A recent report of Refugee International states that: “In displacement crises, the quality of services and assistance typically varies from one host country to another, but the fate of Venezuelans seeking refuge on the small island of Curaçao, only 40 miles from the coast of Venezuela, could very well be the worst in the Americas”. It is high time that the Netherlands, as the main country of the Kingdom, starts to make a serious effort to ensure that refugees are properly accommodated in their own region.

Distraught

Curaçao, an island state with 160,000 inhabitants, is struggling with major problems. The exploitation of the Curaçao oil refinery by the Venezuelan oil company brought jobs and foreign currency. And so did wealthy Americans and Venezuelans who came to spend their money in the paradise-like tropical tourist resorts.

Now everything has changed. Due to American sanctions against Venezuela, the refinery has almost come to a standstill, hotels have closed their doors, and the Insel Air airline was declared bankrupt in February. Twenty-six percent of the population is unemployed. The crisis in Venezuela is deeply affecting the economy of Curaçao, and its public finances are running out. Meanwhile, in Venezuela, less than eighty kilometers away from Curaçao, a political, social and economic tragedy is taking place. The international community is preparing for the large-scale provision of humanitarian aid. Distraught Venezuelans are leaving the country.

And that’s how the problems arise on Curaçao. Under pressure from a complaining population, a faltering economy and declining government revenues, the government in Willemstad is trying to prevent the arrival of undocumented Venezuelan migrants. Instead of recognizing their desperate situation, the Venezuelan migrants are being portrayed as criminals.

Boats

For generations, people have travelled back and forth between the South American mainland and the Caribbean Islands off the coast. Boats brought fish, fruits and seasonal workers. This has always gone on openly, outside of official rules and without international supervision. Besides fish and fruit, the boats also bring drugs and weapons and facilitate human trafficking. Nowadays they also bring more and more refugees from Venezuela.

The Venezuelans, who could be entitled to international protection under international law, are suffering the consequences. They do not receive shelter or protection. Instead, they are treated as criminals who need to be expelled as soon as possible. The Curaçao government does not acknowledge that this entails grave human rights violations. The government is resorting to fear mongering and repeatedly states it needs to act against illegal migration in order to avoid a potential pull effect, which might cause the country to attract even more migrants.

The role of the Netherlands

Curaçao is an independent state within the Kingdom of the Netherlands and is responsible for its own asylum policy and migration issues. However, the Statute of the Kingdom stipulates that the states have a duty of care for each other, especially in times of emergency. Moreover, foreign and defence policy is formally a responsibility of the Kingdom as a whole. If there are human rights violations within the Kingdom, the Kingdom is responsible. However, the Netherlands is currently failing to extend support to the forced migrants who are entitled to protection. Observers in Curaçao are advocating a more hands-on attitude on the part of the Netherlands: less distant and more in cognizance of the spirit of the Kingdom.

As early as July 2018, the Advisory Council for International Issues (Adviesraad voor Internationale Vraagstukken / IAV) warned of legal inequality within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and pointed out the importance of respect for human rights. The potential impact of the Venezuela crisis on Curaçao forces the Kingdom to take a pro-active stance to protect Venezuelan refugees. Everyone understands that in the current situation, Curaçao can neither handle the influx with its own resources nor uphold refugee law. It is time for civil servants from Curaçao and the Netherlands to jointly set up a functioning asylum procedure for Curaçao and make it work!

Protecting Venezuelan refugees is in the first place a responsibility of the state of Curaçao. Nonetheless, the Netherlands should step in and support the country to provide a decent level of care to the despair migrants from Venezuela. The Netherlands has always favoured reception of refugees in the region; it is time to walk the talk.

Image Credit: Cookie Nguyen. The image was cropped.

About the authors:

Peter Heintze is an independent researcher, as well as coordinator of the KUNO – platform for humanitarian knowledge exchange in the Netherlands.

Dorothea Hilhorst is Professor of Humanitarian Aid and Reconstruction at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam. She is a regular author for Bliss. Read all her posts here.

Dennis Dijkzeul is a Professor in Conflict and Organization Research at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany.

Human Rights Inside and Outside: Introducing the 2018 INFAR Conference

By ISS Blog Bliss 24 May 201818 May 2020 2130 views

The ISS next week hosts a conference organised by INFAR on “Human Rights Inside and Outside”, with a special focus on the Rule of Law and human rights. These two concepts are core normative ideas for law, yet their intrinsic value and application is contested. This blog details the conference proceedings and briefly describes the conference theme and the main questions participants will seek to answer. It also serves as an invitation for interested parties to attend the conference.

On 31 May and 1 June 2018, the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) will host a conference titled “Human Rights Inside and Outside”. This conference is being organised in the framework of the Integrating Normative and Functional Approaches to the Rule of Law and Human Rights (INFAR) Research Excellence Initiative, a 5-year (2015-2020) joint project of the Erasmus School of Law and the ISS of Erasmus University Rotterdam. Over one and a half days conference participants will gather to discuss the application of the Rule of Law (RoL) and human rights norms in relation to civic participation, contested constitutionalism, and corporate responsibility.

What is the conference about?

The Rule of Law (RoL) and human rights are core normative ideas for law, yet their intrinsic value and application is contested. Some have even argued that the human rights movement is on a regressive path, frequently leaving the most vulnerable without voice, ignoring economic considerations, and lacking prospects of securing access to justice.

International and supranational organisations today are dedicated to the promotion of the RoL and human rights, but they face problems in how to progress towards these purposes. The European Union (EU) finds that its new member states are unable to deliver on the RoL commitments made when they joined the EU. The United Nations struggles with RoL and human rights in post-conflict states, for instance when the UN takes on the role of government, as in Kosovo, and in transnational trade contexts, where the UN tries to provide guidelines for how business actors should take responsibility for human rights protection.

Part of the difficulty in realising and critiquing RoL and human rights interventions emanates from the divergence of views among actors regarding their overall meaning and purpose. The RoL and human rights are well-known legal and also political and economic concepts, as law and development scholars note. However, the content of these concepts is a contested subject. Policymakers, regulatory agencies and private actors tend to take a functionalist approach in which the RoL and human rights are viewed as instruments for stimulating economic growth or political stability. On the other hand, courts and most other legal actors view the RoL and human rights as intrinsically valuable norms, but fail to address the circumstances that lead to (dis)function. That is, they fail to realise how the application of RoL and human rights is contingent upon and vulnerable to economic and political struggles, and how battles over these norms are won and lost for economic and political expediency.

INFAR’s interest in RoL and human rights

A core assumption of the INFAR project is that it is not enough to shine light on the conceptual tensions and dilemmas of RoL and human rights arising through processes of globalisation and financialisation, such as in adjudications involving trade law and human rights. The global issues of inequality and political exclusion do not have a quick fix, but a fruitful approach towards them could be investigating the specific social settings where fallouts from the broader conceptual tensions and dilemmas are registered: the human consequences for people and groups and a fuller appreciation of which actors and what norms affected individuals must compete with. Micro ethnographic and other socio-legal studies within public and private settings that examine different forms of struggle against plural forms of expropriation and exclusion can tell us much about the success and deficits within a specific context.

Through these studies we find out more about the RoL and human rights elements that are frequently undermined by increasing economic inequality or political exclusion, and the processes surrounding and facilitating such outcomes. Such context-specific studies enable us to appreciate that both answers and obstacles to human rights and RoL questions are not controlled by the state and can involve private actors who bring their own understandings of what RoL and human rights mean within their operations.

Against this background, the conference will explore what RoL and human rights norms are invoked in different settings, involving constitutional courts, corporations, governments and regulators; how those rights interact with the political and economic purposes and incentives of those actors; and why the realisation of rights can involve innovative or adverse results. Accordingly, we will study how the substantive meaning of the RoL and human rights differs depending on circumstances.

We will explicitly examine the role of private actors in RoL and human rights conversations:

How might strategic litigation efforts assist in achieving social justice for Roma travelers under consistent threat of forced eviction?

How can legal guarantees for public participation be operationalised in private settings?

And how can human rights based constitutions remain a meaningful framework in divided societies?

When considering these questions we keep the people whose rights are at stake at the forefront of our discussions, while recognising the dangers of doing so from an epistemic standpoint.

Conference proceedings

The first session on citizenship and discrimination will focus on the global, European and Dutch responses to Roma rights, with papers from Julia Sardelić, Claire Loven and Leonie Huijbers, Helen Hintjens and Kristin Henrard. On the topic of contested constitutionalism we hear from Jeff Handmaker and Wil Hout, Otto Spijkers and Sanele Sibanda. On corporate social responsibility, Liesbeth Enneking discusses global value chains, Nicola Jägers, the Sustainable Development Goals, Peter Knorringa and Samer Abdelnour speak on global standards for sustainability, and Rachel Adams presents on transparency and human rights. On human rights and mining, Anneloes Hoff will present ethnographic research on the practical application of the corporate responsibility to respect human rights, Kinnari Bhatt discusses an unusual example of private contracting between a concessionaire and an Aboriginal group, and Jackie Dugard presents on the constitutional rights to property and equitable access to South Africa’s mineral resources.

After an exciting roundtable debate and Q&A on how human rights can be strategically mobilised for political and social change, the conference closes with a Keynote Address by South African Sociology of Law Professor Jonathan Klaaren of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

All are welcome! Register for the event here. A conference programme can be found at the same link.

Authors:

Nathanael Ali, Kinnari Bhatt, Jeff Handmaker and Sanne Taekema (conference co-organisers)

(How) should scholars say what humanitarians can’t? by Roanne van Voorst and Isabelle Desportes

By ISS Blog Bliss 16 May 201818 May 2020 3681 views

In January this year, a long day of interviewing aid workers involved in the Myanmar Rohingya crisis revealed that these aid workers often refrain from talking about the human rights violations in Myanmar. Out of fear to be forced to cease operations or to get fired, they keep silent and carry on. This raises the question: should the scholars engaging with them speak up in their stead? This blog provides a reflection of whether and how scholars can get involved in the entanglements of humanitarianism and conflict. It also provides insights into the ethical and practical reasons why both aid workers and scholars sometimes hesitate to become more engaged.

The time we were doing fieldwork relating to the governance and the accountability of aid in Myanmar coincided with a massive exodus of the Rohingya Muslim minority fleeing persecution and the destruction of their homes in the northwestern Rakhine province. Yet, as we asked broader questions relating to the accountability of aid, the stories of humanitarian aid workers resounded with us. Stories of frustration and powerlessness, as they felt barriers were posed to their work not only by authorities, but also by their own organisations. As scholars, we felt determined that we wanted to ‘do something’. But along with this urge to act came insecurities and concerns.

Providing aid in restrictive settings

Local and international relief agencies that work in restrictive conflict settings are doing something that is intrinsically difficult. Often perceived as a threat by authorities involved in violence, agencies need to make sure they remain tolerated and even supported by these same authorities in order to operate effectively and deliver aid to those in need. In practice in Myanmar, aid agencies are stuck in the middle of two discourses: that of the United Nations that from afar qualifies the military offensive in Rakhine as a « textbook example of ethnic cleansing », and that of Myanmar authorities, who claim they were fighting Rohingya militias only and deny targeting civilians.

Faced with the overwhelming need for support to continue operating in the field, most humanitarian agencies refrain from being overtly critical of human rights violations and prefer to assert their position as impartial and neutral aid providers. Only very few are allowed by the government to work in Rakhine, and those who may, generally keep silent about what they observe. No wonder: when in 2014 Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said that it was deeply concerned about the tens of thousands of people it was treating, the government forced it to cease operations in Myanmar. In order to avoid that for their own organisations, most aid agencies active on the ground thus strictly do and say what they’ve agreed to in (obligated) memoranda of understanding with the government—even if that does not match needs on the ground.

The personal dilemmas of humanitarians

These strategic decisions, however understandable, can have major consequences for the people whom agencies come to assist, but also have psychological implications for relief workers. Many suffer from what Hugo Slim has termed ‘bystander anxiety’. And this was also evident during our interviews: many of those we talked to in Yangon felt anxious and frustrated by the violence they observed in the field and the self-censorship they observed within their own organisations.

One field officer of a large international organisation felt that his agency was « sacrifying its principles and moral authority » in exchange for Rakhine field access and status, which was not even alleviating suffering on the ground because the government forbade actual activities. After he anonymously spoke to journalists, the whole team received a serious warning never to speak to the press again. He lamented the complete lack of internal discussions on these dilemmas, even as many of the staff, including Rohingya, « begged the organisation to speak out ».

We heard many similar stories from humanitarians working for INGOs or the UN. They could not openly discuss, let alone act upon, what they observed in the field. Particularly in meetings attended by the government, they knew « not to be critical ».

Here is where the scholars could come in, but often don’t do so.

Four broad arguments can motivate scholars to engage in the humanitarianism-conflict debate. First, as independent researchers in the field, scholars have more freedom to speak up. Second, many will argue that ‘speaking the truth’ is a scholarly duty. Third, scholars’ voice might carry differently than that of human rights organisations or journalists, as scholars are supposed to adhere to rigorous scientific and ethical standards that grant their research some credibility. Last, academics increasingly vary their channels to seek ‘societal impact’. Newspaper articles, debate evenings, social media and blogs such as this one can help convey to a wider audience what would otherwise remain obscured.

But this freedom comes with responsibilities. Scholars, somewhat like humanitarians, tread a fine line between engaging in effective action and making their own work—or worse, that of relief agencies or local research partners—harder or even impossible to carry out. Discussions about the role of researchers are by no means new. Take the discussions on scholar activism and action research (combing research and social change work), or the divide in the field of anthropology, amongst others, between those who believe they should retain distance in the field and those who support local activism or other types of involvement.

Ethics aren’t the only reason scholars often don’t speak up. Many of the issues that came up during our Myanmar discussions were practical, concerning safety, future access to visas and research permits, academic integrity, and access to non-academic channels, both in terms of networks and skills. Myanmar is a complex setting to work in, not only for humanitarians. Scholars and journalists also face difficulties in accessing the field, while some have been deported or arrested.

Moreover, the ‘hard evidence’ was thin. There would not be enough informants allowing for the rigorous cross-validation of statements. Interviews could not always be recorded and informants insisted that they, their agency and the locality where they operated should remain confidential to avoid raising colleagues’ or authorities’ suspicions. Were these stories even convincing enough for people who hadn’t been here, let alone fulfilling academic standards? Wouldn’t journalists after all be a better fit to relay them?

The answers might differ for each scholar, for each person. We share them to stir up a conversation and to share our doubts with researchers and (inter)national practitioners alike. Even with intentions to change local realities for the better, it’s not easy to take the leap from scholar to messenger. Yet, who else would fulfil that role?

This blog is a first attempt to support humanitarians who can’t speak up.

About the authors:

Roanne van Voorst is a postdoctoral researcher involved in the research project”When disaster meets conflict. Disaster response of humanitarian aid and local state and non-state institutions in different conflict scenarios” at the ISS.

Isabelle Desportes is a PhD candidate working on the governance of disaster response, in particular the interplay between humanitarian and local actors.

Tag Archives human rights