New Releases
The History of Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones: Conference Report
Elizabeth Heineman
Radical History Review, Issue 101 (Spring 2008)
Since the Rwandan genocide and the wars of Yugoslav disintegration in the early 1990s, sexual violence in conflict zones has received considerable media attention. Thanks to international feminist organizing, international organizations have recognized it as a human-rights violation and a crime of war. Yet we know relatively little about sexual violence in earlier wars. In April 2006, the University of Iowa Center for Human Rights sponsored a conference titled "The History of Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones." In her "conference report plus," the coorganizer Elizabeth Heineman examines the functions of sexual violence in conflict zones, the uses of discourses about it, legal frameworks before and since the evolution of human rights discourses, the impact of civilian contexts on survivors' experiences of wartime sexual violence, and historians' means of capturing the voices of both victims and perpetrators. Finally, she notes some of the political and institutional challenges to pursuing historical research on sexual violence in conflict zones. (Text from Radical History Review report Abstract)
"Human Rights and Nation-Building in Cross-Cultural Settings"
Burns H. Weston
Maine Law Review , Summer 2008
Values are preferred events, “goods” we cherish; and the value of respect,
“conceived as the reciprocal honoring of freedom of choice about participation in value processes,” is “the core value of human rights.” In a world of diverse cultural traditions that is simultaneously distinguished by the widespread universalist claim that “human rights extend in theory to every person on earth without discriminations irrelevant to merit,” the question thus unavoidably arises: when, in human rights decision-making, are cultural differences to be respected and when are they not? This paper examines the question which arises early in the nation-building enterprise where demands to preserve cultural traditions clash with demands to adhere to universal (and largely external) human rights standards.
"Climate Change and Intergenerational Justice: Foundational Reflections"
Burns H. Weston
Vermont Journal of Environmental Law, Summer 2008
This article concludes "that there is ample theory to establish that future generations can have legal as well as moral rights to protection from climate change harms and that the ecological rights of future generations define the ecological duties of present generations. Remaining is the all-important imperative to build upon this theory an ecological legacy, national and international, from which our children grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and other future generations can benefit and of which we, the living, can be proud."
"Child Labor through a Human Rights Glass Brightly"
Burns H. Weston and Mark B. Teerink
Human Rights & Human Welfare, October 2006
The abolition of child labor requires broad and deep initiatives at social transformation. A human rights understanding and approach to the problem of child labor, presupposing an holistic and multifaceted orientation to the individual child and society, is therefore indispensable. Conceptualizing child labor as a human rights issue alone “raises the stakes”; it changes the dynamic in positive ways and gives claims of abuse and exploitation greater legal and moral force. However, reorienting one’s worldview, while essential, is not sufficient to bring about the broadbased change required to eradicate the workplace abuse and exploitation of children.
In this paper, UICHR Interim Director and Senior Scholar Burns Weston and Mark Teerink seek to identify a wide range of practical mechanisms and measures, both legal and “extralegal,” that may be adopted or adapted in the planning, creation, implementation, and assessment of antichild labor initiatives.
"The Third Sector, Human Security, and Anti-Terrorism: The United States and Beyond"
Mark Sidel
Voluntas, October 2006
This paper, written by UICHR Executive Board member Mark Sidel, is a revised version of the keynote address to the Seventh International Conference of the International Society for Third Sector Research (Bangkok, July 2006). It explores the increasing tendency of governments to view the third sector as a source of human insecurity and uncivil society in the wake of terrorist attacks. The paper discusses the means governments use to control third sector activity that they view as potentially linked to terrorism, the need for comparative analysis of these measures, and the role of the third sector and scholars in recognizing the responsibilities of governments to prevent third sector organizations being used in terrorism while preserving the independence and vitality of the third sector.
Human Rights in the World Community: Issues and Action
Richard Pierre Claude and Burns H. Weston (Editors)
3rd Edition, Penn Press, 2006
Specifically designed for educational use by international relations, law, and political and social science classes, Human Rights in the World Community treats the full range of human rights issues, including implementation problems and processes involving international, national, and nongovernmental action. This new edition reflects the global, large-scale change that has occurred in the field of human rights, and features an extensive bibliography and filmography.