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Human Rights
Democracy’s Promise Unfulfilled while Violence against Women in Politics Persists
- December 10, 2018
In October 2018, the Office for the High Commissioner on Human Rights’ Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and Girls presented a report to the UN General Assembly recognizing violence against women in politics (VAWP) as a human rights violation …
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Blue Wave Swamps Taiwan Elections
- November 28, 2018
Taiwan’s mid-term elections on 24 November brought a renewed “blue wave” to the island democracy. In this case, the blues are the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang, KMT) and allies who favour rapprochement with China. The greens are the …
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Bulldozing Human Rights in Tanzania
- November 16, 2018
by Dane Degenstein
Tanzania has recently started a campaign to identify, track down, and arrest gay people, an unprecedented move in a previously more tolerant country. The regional governor of Dar es Salaam, Paul Makonda, announced a task force to …
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Khashoggi Murder Case a Test for Despots Everywhere
- October 18, 2018
The disappearance and possible murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi is an important test case for despots everywhere. Can they get away with interrogating, kidnapping, and even assassinating their critics in other countries?
Khashoggi, a resident of the United …
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Understanding “Ethnic Conflict”
- October 7, 2018
By Marie-Eve Desrosiers and Srdjan Vucetic
“Ethnic conflict” elicits no shortage of strong scholarly opinion and debate. But what exactly is the causal relationship between ethnicity and violence? And what does “causal” mean in this context anyway? Since ethnic conflict …
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Decisive Action is Overdue to Protect the Rohingyas
- September 15, 2018
By John Packer
Director of the Human Rights Research and Education Centre at the University of Ottawa and Neuberger-Jesin Professor of International Conflict Resolution
Finally, the United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar has stated the obvious: the Rohingya …
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Germany: Yet Another Migration Debate?
- August 1, 2018
Asli Ilgit, Cukurova University
Audie Klotz, Syracuse University
Once again, pundits predict the downfall of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Why? Her migration policies appear to fuel the rise of the nationalist …
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UK Rendition and Torture: Lessons for Canada
- July 18, 2018
The British Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee has produced two reports on collusion in rendition (the legal term for shipping someone from one jurisdiction to another) and torture operations in the US-led War on Terror. They remind us in blunt …
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Mona Mahmudnizhad, 10 September 1965–18 June 1983
- June 19, 2018
by Ruth Bradley-St-Cyr
The 35th anniversary of the death of Mona Mahmudnizhad seems to have passed without world notice yesterday. On 18 June 1983, she was executed in Iran for being Baha’i and for teaching that faith to the …
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Need More Proof of Genocide in Myanmar? It’s Being Born Right Now
- June 3, 2018
by John Packer
Nine months since the violent attacks of August 25, 2017, and thereafter forced 700,000 Rohingya to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh, the first of thousands of pregnancies as a result of rape are coming to term.
For these …
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The Commonwealth’s Refusal to Address LGBTI Rights
- April 25, 2018
One of the best predictors of whether a country criminalizes homosexuality is whether it is a member of the Commonwealth. In 36 out of 53 Commonwealth countries, sexual acts in private between two consenting adults of the same sex are …
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In Defense of Canada’s New International Development Assistance Policy
- April 12, 2018
Criticism, while hardly ever welcome, is nevertheless necessary to draw attention to potential pitfalls. If heeded in time, danger may be averted; disaster, however, may follow an unexamined plan. Canada’s new Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP) has drawn its share …
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