LL.M. (Human Rights Law) / The idea of “development” being a legitimate universal human entitlement is not a new phenomenon. The emergence of this concept can be traced back to a number of universal norms which emerged from the United Nations (UN) legal framework since its creation in 1945.These norms include principles such as: greater democracy and representation in international relations; the economic complementarities of independent States; individuals as beneficiaries of social, economic and political development; respect for human rights; and the interrelationship between human rights and development.1 These principles provided the background against which the first UN working group on the Right to Development started elaborating a legal framework aiming at providing a binding solution to the conflict between industrialized States and developing States concerning the distribution of the world’s resources in 1970. At that time, the atmosphere at the UN Commission on Human Rights was highly charged with ideological positioning. Socialist countries pressed for peace and disarmament; developing States for development and an end to apartheid; Western industrialized States for establishing damage control machinery to scrutinize violations of civil and political rights.2 In 1977, the Commission on Human Rights submitted to the U.N Secretary General its first proposal which considered the suggestion of the UN Working group on the Right to Development. The proposal suggested that the “universal entitlement to development” was a prerogative of States on behalf of their populations.3 This proposal was rejected in 1979 by the conservative North American, European members of the U.N, and other committee members.

Repression is the expected response to anti-government protest; however, leaders can also accommodate demonstrators. Committing to human rights treaties is considered in this environment, where treaty commitments are conceptualized as a policy concession that leaders can grant dissenters. Past research has shown that top-down domestic pressures, such as new democratic regimes, can influence treaty commitments. This article extends this line of research by considering the influence of bottom-up domestic pressure, arguing that nonviolent, pro-democracy movements can pressure leaders into concessions, as these movements are risky to repress but threatening to ignore. Leaders are expected to seek ‘cheap’ accommodations, and commitments to human rights treaties provide a relatively low-cost concession that also addresses demonstrators’ pro-democracy demands. Using commitments to the nine core UN human rights treaties, results are generally supportive. Governments experiencing a nonviolent, pro-democracy movement are consistently likely to sign human rights treaties. Ratification is also likely but in more limited contexts, and is more closely related to movement success. This suggests that bottom-up pressures can influence commitment to human rights treaties, but there may be little substance behind those concessions. The status quo and cost-averse preferences of leaders lead them to grant accommodations that result in minimal change and cost.

Although much has been written about South African foreign policy very little focus has been on the African perspective in analysing policy actions. Furthermore, South Africa has regularly been criticised for being consistent in its criticism of Israel but inconsistent in other human rights issues. This so-called contradiction in South Africa’s foreign policy on Israel in relation to the Palestinian question, when compared to other human rights’ issues, demands an in-depth analysis of the decisions taken by the South African government that is not limited to rigid, pro-West paradigms. South Africa post-1994 is characterised by a context that includes historical experiences of injustice, abuse, apartheid, colonialism, racial discrimination and racial subjugation. It is a country whose leaders and people understand the notion of human indignity because of the impact of supremacist ideologies. The South African government, based on historical, practical and moral (human rights) grounds has indicated its committed support for the Palestinian struggle against Israeli apartheid and occupation. Accordingly, South Africa’s foreign policy stance on Israel has been consistent since 1994, although until 2008, it offered little in terms of real (punitive or sanctioning) action against Israel. Although the focus of this paper is on the Zuma government’s foreign policy on Israel in relation to the Palestinian question, a discussion on pre-1994 South Africa’s symbiotic relations with Israel is included considering the impact of historical experiences in decision making. This study also considers the foreign policy of the Mandela and Mbeki governments on the Palestinian issue which is important in providing a context to the understanding regarding the purported shift and contestation in the Zuma government’s foreign policy on Israel in relation to the Palestinian question. This shift is analysed by highlighting specific foreign policy actions and the role of key actors in attempting to influence those policy actions. From an academic perspective, the author considers four key areas which include a) human rights, b) foreign policy, c) human rights and ethics in foreign policy and d) global apartheid, foreign policy and human rights which are integrated within the structures of analytic eclecticism allowing for multiple levels of analysis. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / gm2015 / Centre for Human Rights / LLM / Unrestricted

The concept of sovereignty has been a contestable idea throughout history, and its meaning has oftentimes transformed to reflect prevailing systemic conditions and political priorities of major actors in each historical period. In this study, I argue that the social construction of state sovereignty is at the beginning stages of another major redefinition. In an era of globalization and regional integration, discourse on sovereignty has become increasingly prolific as the rhetoric of sovereignty moves away from Westphalian principles that were based exclusively on the agency of independent states. Furthermore, multinational campaigns to promote international human rights engender a discourse that suggests the idea of sovereignty is changing. Does this emerging discourse confirm the growing legitimacy of humanitarian intervention, or is it merely a discursive trend in international relations that does not indicate significant change in state perception and behavior? The purpose of this work is to address this question. / Master of Arts

No abstract available. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / gm2014 / Centre for Human Rights / unrestricted

No abstract available. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / gm2014 / Centre for Human Rights / unrestricted

No abstract available. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / gm2014 / Centre for Human Rights / unrestricted

Thesis advisor: Will Attwood-Charles / Immigration policy has undoubtedly taken a forefront spot in the national dialogue in our contemporary political moment. However, there is considerable disagreement among and within political parties about how to address this issue. This paper seeks to better understand the priorities of immigrant rights activists in the U.S. by executing case studies on 11 immigrant rights organizations. I explore which framing strategies each group uses to push for its goals and theorize about how these social movement organizations (SMOs) arrive at the strategic frames that they do. Through discourse analysis and coding of interviews, websites, and other media sources, I conclude that the most relevant factors in determining what frame a group arrives at are its external resource environment and how professionalized the organization is. There is additional evidence to suggest that the political opportunity structure, salience of a previously successful ‘master frame,’ and the age of leaders also affect framing processes. Finally, my data does not suggest that being immigrant-led versus led by non-immigrant ‘allies’ directly affects an SMOs’ framing strategies, but it does affect the external resource environment from which it is able to draw. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: International Studies.

Includes bibliographical references. / The seven women who shared their stories of rape at the human rights violation hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission ('TRC') in South Africa offer a nascent public record of women's experiences of rape under apartheid. This project is motivated by a desire to examine how these testimonies of rape were affected by explicit and implicit underlying narrative frameworks associated with the language of the TRC, and that of rape. In particular, this project analyses the extent to which the juxtaposition of these two frameworks at the TRC may have either enabled or constrained the seven women's narratives.

Since the enactment of Nigeria’s Same Sex (Marriage) Prohibition Act of 2013, advocacy for the protection of sexual and gender minorities in Nigeria has grown rapidly. This advocacy often toes a line of legal formalism, under an international human rights law framework. This framework uses strategic litigation, petitions before international bodies, presentation of violations reports to the national human rights bodies, and public engagement on the equality of application of human rights norms for sexual and gender minorities. Despite these efforts, political rhetoric and public opinion continue to be antagonistic to advocacy efforts, based on the claim of political and religious leaders that same-sex relationships and non-heteronormative sexuality and gender identity are incompatible with the cultures and religions of the Nigerian population. This thesis argues that the evolution and enforcement of Nigerian laws criminalising same-sex relationships and non-heteronormative sexuality and gender identity (‘criminalising laws’) are part of a system of wider social control leveraged by the political elite to perpetuate its hegemonic power. Consequently, this thesis proposes that, to advance the legal protection of sexual and gender minorities in Nigeria, advocates must critically understand, and take measures to reduce, the underlying power dynamics in the criminalising laws. Using doctrinal and empirical research, this thesis proposes democratic strategies to challenge and reduce hegemonic power dynamics in Nigeria, and to strengthen existing advocacy for the protection of sexual and gender minorities in Nigeria. The research shows that the evolution of laws criminalising same-sex relationships in Nigeria is based on the use of political homophobia by the political elite as a tool of social exclusion. It further concludes that law enforcement authorities in Nigeria are guided by hegemonic considerations in the enforcement of the criminalising laws. The thesis identifies social control linkages between the criminalising laws and the existence of wider social exclusion in Nigeria. An increased awareness by advocates of these underlying hegemonic motivations can lead to a more nuanced, more contextual, and more intersectional advocacy for the rights of sexual and gender minorities in Nigeria. / Thesis (LLD)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Centre for Human Rights / LLD / Unrestricted