Human Rights

The 67th UN General Assembly recently adopted an unprecedented resolution emanating from its first-ever High-Level Meeting on the Rule of Law in September. For the first time in history, 193 Member States unanimously and explicitly linked the rule of law and development, stating:

A wave of protests has swept across the streets of Khartoum and other major cities in Sudan; adding to the long list of problems that are fundamentally challenging Omar al-Bashir and his 23-year old repressive regime.

Many Cambodian migrant workers abroad are employed in domestic work, that is, work carried out for an employer’s household, such as cooking, cleaning, looking after family members and other household tasks.  Malaysia is a major destination country for Cambodian migrant domestic workers (as well as migrant workers from other countries in the region), who are predominantly young women. 

Aside from being the most dynamic and populous region, Asia and the Pacific is a modern-day hub of people on the move in search of decent work. Some 25 million Asians are employed in countries other than their own. Beginning in the mid-1970s, the rate of Asian migration has been increasing. Since the beginning of the millennium, we’ve seen a clear acceleration of this trend.

On November 24, 2012, more than a hundred textile workers died when a factory in Bangladesh was engulfed in fire. Will this day haunt the 160 million Bangladeshis in the years to come? Unlikely. The country has faced numerous tragedies. While some were a result of natural disasters, most can be attributed to sheer negligence, lack of accountability and effective regulatory enforcement. Earlier in the year, a capsized ferry resulted in the death of 110 people. In July 2011, 40 school children were killed in a school bus accident.

Each year at this time—timed purposefully to coincide with International Anti-Corruption Day—Transparency International publishes its annual global ranking of the world’s countries based on how corrupt their public sector is perceived to be, the Corruption Perceptions Index.  Transparency International’s work to standardize cross-country corruption indicators such as the CPI was recognized recently in this blog as part of the “Rule of Law Measurement Revolutio

On 10th December 1948 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This was followed up in 1950 when the Assembly passed resolution 423 (V) that invited all Member States and interested organisations to adopt 10thDecember as Human Rights Day.

"We do not have the tools and instruments to stop big companies buying land. Land acquisitions are a reality. We can't wish them away, but we have to find a proper way of limiting them. It appears to be like the wild west and we need a sheriff and law in place." - Food and Agriculture Organization Director General José Graziano da Silva, The Guardian , October 29, 2012.

I recently attended proceedings for a dozen detainees who were being held by the National Directorate of Security (“NDS”) for charges relating to national security.

It is two years since the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law was set up. Its director, Sir Jeffrey Jowell, talks about its work to Frances Gibb.

The Justice Rising Blog aims to highlight grassroots organizations who are stiving to advance the rule of law. If you would like to highlight your organization, send us an email at [email protected]!  Name of Organization : Community Empowerment and Development Team (CEDT) Title of Project: Participatory Technical Community Mapping and Action Planning: A Grassroots Approach towards Securing Tenure in Poor Communities in Cambodia.

The biggest hurdle to any quality grassroots programme is funding. I have met many Cambodians in my capacity as a lawyer, or working with the schools in the education system, who are doing great things in areas such as youth, community development, fair trade and education. These programmes relate to fundamental human rights. I have tried to help them with funding applications, but they have to have strategic plans, budgets and they really have no capacity to do all the work required while trying to run their programmes on virtually nothing.

Economic growth is a recent historical phenomenon. In 1776 when Adam Smith published “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” 75% of humanity lived on less than a dollar a day and the average per capita income was about US$ $550 – an income level that was stagnant for 2,000 years.

"Morocco’s forceful attempt to annex Western Sahara constitutes one of the most egregious violations of the international order codified in the wake of World War Two. The United Nations was founded to prevent the aggressive expansion of territory by force. Yet in Western Sahara, the Security Council has turned a blind eye to Morocco’s blatant contravention of the UN Charter.”