CAHR staff publish on a range of human rights topics in 2018-19

Posted on 19 August 2019

CAHR staff have published on a variety of topics in recent months, ranging from temporary relocation for HRDs to freedom of religion and abortion.

Temporary Relocation in an Academic Setting

Centre Coordinator reflects on her experience on the Protective Fellowship Scheme at CAHR in her article "Temporary Relocation in an Academic Setting for Human Rights Defenders at Risk: Good Practice Lessons and Challenges", published in November 2018. Sanna observes that with increasing threats against human rights defenders (HRDs) worldwide and shrinking civic space impacting on their ability to act, HRD protection through temporary relocation is needed more than ever, yet temporary relocation schemes are starting to feel a shrinking space impacting on their ability to relocate HRDs. Using the example of the Protective Fellowship Scheme for HRDs at Risk based at CAHR, this paper analyses both good practice and everyday challenges encountered in relocation, suggesting good practice lessons to reflect on.

From Transitional to Transformative Justice

A new book edited by Prof Paul Gready (and Simon Robins), From Transitional to Transformative Justice, was published by Cambridge University Press in February 2019. The volume addresses questions about the long-term effectiveness of transitional justice, which has become the principle lens used by countries emerging from conflict and authoritarian rule to address the legacies of violence and serious human rights abuses. Contributors to the volume focus on transformative justice as an alternative to transitional justice, analysing it from both conceptual and empirical perspectives. Reviewers have said the book is 'courageous and forward-thinking' (Harvey Weinstein - University of California, Berkeley; Co-Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of the International Journal of Transitional Justice) and 'deserves to be widely read' (Andrea Cornwall - Head of the School of Global Studies, University of Sussex).

Human Rights and Religion

Dr Ioana Cismas has published "Freedom of Religion or Belief and Freedom of Association: Intersecting Rights in the Jurisprudence of the European Convention Mechanisms" in an anniversary volume edited by Jeroen Temperman, Jeremy Gunn & Malcolm D. Evans (eds), The European Court of Human Rights and the Freedom of Religion or Belief: The 25 Years since Kokkinakis (Brill 2019). The contribution examines critically the intersection between articles 9 and 11 in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and the tensions between individual and collective (religious) interests.

In 2019, Dr Cismas' work on "The Position of the OIC on Abortion" was published in Marie Juul Petersen and Turan Kayaoglu's volume dedicated to The Organization of Islamic Cooperation and Human Rights (University of Pennsylvania Press 2019). The chapter explores previously uncharted territory: the position on abortion of the influential Organization of Islamic Cooperation. The analysis portrays the OIC’s normative position at this emerges from an analysis of legal instruments such as the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam; provides an overview of member states’ domestic legislation and policies on abortion, and a discussion of their consequence on the lives of women; and explores its institutional stance as revealed by discourses made on the global stage by OIC representatives.

Forthcoming Publications

Dr Alice Nah has two publications forthcoming exploring migration in Malaysia. In the context of recent discussions of healthcare deservingness, "Risk entrepreneurship and the construction of healthcare deservingness for 'desirable', 'acceptable', and 'disposable' migrants in Malaysia" examines how state calculations of healthcare deservingness have been applied to authorised migrants in Malaysia.

In "The ambiguous authority of the 'surrogate state': UNHCR's negotiation of asylum in the complexities of migration in Southeast Asia", Dr Nah again turns to Malaysia to examine how an international organisation with field presence, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), reinforces the distinction between 'refugees' and 'migrants' through regular practices of identification, intervention, and advocacy.