Bøger i Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights serien

This remarkable book demonstrates through in-depth case studies from ten countries around the world how the forensic exhumation of mass graves is inextricably intertwined with grassroots initiatives, national political developments, international human rights advocacy, and transnational claims of transitional justice.

The ruthless military dictatorship that ruled Argentina between 1976 and 1983 betrayed the country''s people, presiding over massive disappearances of its citizenry and, in the process, destroying the state''s trustworthiness as the guardian of safety and well-being. Desperate relatives risked their lives to find the disappeared, and one group of mothers defied the repressive regime with weekly protests at the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires. How do societies cope with human losses and sociocultural traumas in the aftermath of such instances of political violence and state terror?In Argentina Betrayed, Antonius C. G. M. Robben demonstrates that the dynamics of trust and betrayal that convulsed Argentina during the dictatorship did not end when democracy returned but rather persisted in confrontations over issues such as the truth about the disappearances, the commemoration of the past, and the guilt and accountability of perpetrators. Successive governments failed to resolve these debates because of erratic policies made under pressure from both military and human rights groups. Mutual mistrust between the state, retired officers, former insurgents, and bereaved relatives has been fueled by recurrent revelations and controversies that prevent Argentine society from conclusively coming to terms with its traumatic past.With thirty years of scholarly engagement with Argentina—and drawing on his extensive, fair-minded interviews with principals at all points along the political spectrum—Robben explores how these ongoing dynamics have influenced the complicated mourning over violent deaths and disappearances. His analysis deploys key concepts from the contemporary literature of human rights, transitional justice, peace and reconciliation, and memory studies, including notions of trauma, denial, accountability, and mourning. The resulting volume is an indispensable contribution to a better understanding of the terrible crimes committed by the Argentine dictatorship in the 1970s and their aftermath.

In Strategies of Compliance with the European Court of Human Rights, Andreas von Staden looks at the nature of human rights challenges in two enduring liberal democracies—Germany and the United Kingdom. Employing an ambitious data set that covers the compliance status of all European Court of Human Rights judgments rendered until 2015, von Staden presents a cross-national overview of compliance that illustrates a strong correlation between the quality of a country''s democracy and the rate at which judgments have met compliance. Tracing the impact of violations in Germany and the United Kingdom specifically, he details how governments, legislators, and domestic judges responded to the court''s demands for either financial compensation or changes to laws, policies, and practices.Framing his analysis in the context of the long-standing international relations debate between rationalists who argue that actions are dictated by an actor''s preferences and cost-benefit calculations, and constructivists, who emphasize the influence of norms on behavior, von Staden argues that the question of whether to comply with a judgment needs to be analyzed separately from the question of how to comply. According to von Staden, constructivist reasoning best explains why Germany and the United Kingdom are motivated to comply with the European Court of Human Rights judgments, while rationalist reasoning in most cases accounts for how these countries bring their laws, policies, and practices into sufficient compliance for their cases to be closed. When complying with adverse decisions while also exploiting all available options to minimize their domestic impact, liberal democracies are thus both norm-abiding and rational-instrumentalist at the same time—in other words, they choose their compliance strategies rationally within the normative constraint of having to comply with the Court''s judgments.

Mexico's Human Rights Crisis offers a broad survey of the human rights issues that plague Mexico. Impunity, contributors argue, is the root cause of a climate of generalized violence that is carried out, condoned, or ignored by the state and precludes any hope for justice.

In her examination of Southeast Asia, Catherine Renshaw asks how human rights can be implemented in and between ASEAN states that are politically diverse. She concludes that, in the absence of a global legalized human rights order, the most significant advancements in the promotion of human rights have emerged from regional institutions.

Does international sport make the world a better place? This volume critically examines the claims that global sports events promote peace, mutual understanding, antiracism, and democracy, and exposes repeated shortcomings in human rights protection, from the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games to Brazil's 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics.

Successfully combining military, political, and cultural analysis with a serious treatment of legal and human rights considerations, this book will appeal to anyone interested in the conversion from war to peace in Latin America and around the world.

Human Rights and Statistics is the first book to describe and summarize important issues associated with the collection and uses of human rights statistics.

This volume brings together academics and practitioners from around the world to engage in theoretical analysis, case study exploration, and reflection on a variety of private regulatory initiatives (PRIs) that may certify that actors along the global supply chain conform to certain codes of conduct.

This volume brings together academics and practitioners from around the world to engage in theoretical analysis, case study exploration, and reflection on a variety of private regulatory initiatives (PRIs) that may certify that actors along the global supply chain conform to certain codes of conduct.

Past state injustice has enduring consequences and the harm needs to be addressed as a matter of justice and equity. Time for Reparations offers detailed case studies of state injustices-from slavery to forced sterilization to widespread atrocities-and interdisciplinary perspectives on the potential impact of reparative strategies.

In helping deeply divided societies come to terms with a troubled past, transitional justice often fails to produce the intended results. Thin Sympathy argues that the acquisition of a basic understanding of what has taken place in the past will enable the development of a more durable transitional justice process.

In Fighting Machines, Dan Saxon explores the relationship between lethal autonomous weapons (LAWS), the concept of human dignity, and international law. He argues that humans and LAWS must operate interdependently to ensure that human reasoning and judgment are available for cognitive functions better suited to persons than machines.

Johannes Morsink is Professor Emeritus of Political Philosophy at Drew University. He is author of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting, and Intent and Inherent Human Rights: Philosophical Roots of the Universal Declaration, both of which are available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Past state injustice has enduring consequences and the harm needs to be addressed as a matter of justice and equity. Time for Reparations offers detailed case studies of state injustices-from slavery to forced sterilization to widespread atrocities-and interdisciplinary perspectives on the potential impact of reparative strategies.

Drawing on previously unused or underutilized archival sources, Human Rights and Transnational Democracy in South Korea offers the first account of the historical intersection between South Korea's democratic transition and the global human rights boom in the 1970s.

Based on two years of fieldwork with the transnational network of antiwar activists who constituted the World Tribunal on Iraq, For the Love of Humanity addresses the contemporary challenges and ambiguities of forging global solidarity through an anti-imperialist politics of human rights and international law.

Human Rights as Human Independence offers a comprehensive, systematic, and complete account of the nature, sources, and scope of human rights that can be used to interpret international documents and make informed decisions about how human rights practice must be continued in the years to come.