Magister Legum - LLM / The global state of the environment is deteriorating daily because of challenges posed by environmental degradation, including climate change. In recognition of the mounting global environmental crisis and its detrimental impact on the enjoyment of human rights, there is a growing call for the recognition of what is generally referred to as a human right to a clean environment, otherwise referred to in this study as an international environmental right. Proponents of an international environmental right hold a firm view that such a right will prevent or mitigate actions that are responsible for environmental degradation and thus contribute to environmental protection. This study seeks to determine the nature of the relationship between the environment and human rights and whether the proposal for the recognition of an international environmental right to address global environmental concerns that pose a threat to the enjoyment of human rights has merit. In determining the viability of recognising an international environmental right, a number of theories underpinning the recognition of new international human rights, the status of the right in existing international human rights agreements, political willingness and support of states, the notion of global constitutionalism, customary international law sources such as soft law instruments, international declarations etc., are considered.

Doctor Legum - LLD / The success of any human rights system at the domestic, regional or international level requires an adequate development of the normative, institutional and jurisprudential frameworks. With regard to the African Commission, its approach on the normative and jurisprudential framework on evidence obtained through human rights violations is critiqued. The study is guided by three research questions on the African Commission’s normative and jurisprudential framework, and interrogates the need for improvement. While other human rights bodies like the European Court of Human Rights and the Human Rights Committee have developed jurisprudence, their experiences can only be useful to Africa where they are subjected to a framework that speaks to an accused, in Africa in light of his or her peculiar situation. An evaluation of the African Commission’s mode of dealing with evidence obtained through human rights violations, followed by an evaluation of the mode engaged by other human rights bodies offers a platform to selectively, and with necessary adoption recommend a framework that the Africa Commission can use to improve its jurisprudence. In this regard, the study draws on the experiences of other human rights bodies to aid, the development of a framework to improve the jurisprudence of the African Commission. The study situates theoretical underpinnings that inform the decisions of the African Commission, the European Court of Human Rights and the Human Rights Committee. This is followed by an evaluation of the normative and jurisprudential frameworks of the three human rights bodies. The study proposes a framework based on a victim-centred approach to improve the jurisprudence of the African Commission on evidence obtained through human rights violations.

The United Kingdom’s acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) refugees has been heralded as a progressive shift in asylum law. Indeed, the scope for the protection of sexual minorities under the Refugee Convention has expanded. The interpretation of the Convention definition of refugee in Article 1A(2) has been continuously adapted, especially the “particular social group” (PSG) category as well as the recognised scope of “well-founded fear of being persecuted.” This thesis interrogates how “gay” refugees have been accepted under the Convention. The analysis considers the ways judicial decision-making has constructed the PSG and persecution of sexual minority asylum seekers. The sample consists of 22 appeals from 1999-2011 which were identified as major legal developments, beginning with the first significant recognition of “homosexual” refugees. Several additional tribunal determinations and key international cases are also considered. A socio-legal approach is taken to study the tensions between fluid sociological images of gender and sexuality and the fixed notions of identity found in the law (whether arising from individual cases, formal practice, or state imperatives). Through an examination of the legal discourse in the texts examined, the research deconstructs the jurisprudential debates in order to assess their impact on sexual minorities seeking asylum. This contextual, rather than doctrinal, approach reveals how the jurisprudence often obscures sociologically problematic assumptions made by adjudicators. This analysis offers an original contribution, concluding that UK protection is grounded on the assumption that sexual and gender identity are “immutable.” Far from opening the UK to persecuted sexual minorities, the prevalence of this assumption significantly narrows the apparently “inclusive” construct of the refugee. Building on the findings, the thesis proposes that adjudication should focus on the persecutory intent to suppress non-conforming acts and identities (or norm deviance) in order to identify sexual minority refugees rather than the categories of LGBT. Additionally, framing determination in the terms of relational autonomy develops a better understanding of the conditions necessary to realise a non-conforming sexual and gendered life free of persecution. The concept of norm deviance decentres the assumption of a knowable truth of identity, and relational autonomy asserts that the deprivation of self-determination and rights to relate may constitute a well-founded fear of persecution.

abstract: The current immigration flow to the United States from Mexico has been polarized by politicians and anti-immigration groups, with a rhetoric that immigrants are a danger to the sovereignty of the country and an economic burden. These accusations ignore the role played by trade agreements in causing such migration patterns by displacing Mexican migrants and how U.S. immigration policies subsequently condemn these economically displaced migrants into illegality. This thesis examines the role national governments and laws of both the United States and Mexico play in formalizing the undocumented flow and the contestation of these economic migrants. I challenge the contemporary view of trade agreements as pull factors by showing how they also function as problematic push factors of migration through displacing Mexicans from their land and any meaningful form of economic security. Once displaced, these communities seek opportunities by migrating to the U.S., where they cross into illegality. Together, examining displacement and subsequent illegality, this thesis reveals the problematic, yet hidden role played by trade agreements in Mexican migration to the U.S. and gaps in current U.S. immigration laws that has preserved the injustices created when neoliberal economic policies and immigration politics provide no protection to impacted indigenous communities. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Interdisciplinary Studies 2019

My main argument in this dissertation is that popular nationalism in post-war South Korea, unlike the conventional claim to it among many South Korean critical intellectuals and unification policy-makers, cannot serve as an antidote to anti-North Koreanism. On the contrary, it is problematic that the cultural politics of national identification, prescribed as an authentic critical tool of challenging anti-North Koreanism, helps program hierarchical inter-Korea relationships by exposing the South Korean public to anomalous cultural-political characteristics of North Koreans. It also does so by creating popular discourses that have reinforced unification policy agendas that frame the development of North Korea in terms that would make it amenable to the needs of transnational capitalism and the legitimacy of liberal human rights discourse. This critical endeavor claims that the critique of anti-North Koreanism cannot be successful without problematizing the idea of discontinuity that stresses there is a rupture between cold war and post-cold war forms of anti-North Koreanism. This is because any un-scrutinized presumption of the historical transition can only confuse critical interpretations of the role of national identification while thereby reinforcing policy-driven resolutions for inter-Korea sociability. Thus, I locate the significance of my work in a democratic call for South Korean critical communication and cultural studies as well as the public to effectively deconstruct the contingent discursive collaboration of national identification and anti-North Koreanism that complies with transnational globalization.

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Many countries use aid as a political tool, but Japan is unique in that foreign aid is one of its most important foreign policy tools. Drawing from literature on donor motivations for aid-giving, this paper argues that the neo-realist view of aid-giving offers the best explanation for why Japan provides aid. More specifically, Japan’s aid-giving is motivated by its pursuit of economic and strategic goals. This underlying motive for aid-giving necessarily impacts how Japan provides aid and how it uses aid to respond to human rights violations in recipient countries.

In this dissertation, I examine the within-country and between-country effects of state-based human rights violations on annual counts of total, fatal and attributed attacks. I use the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) for my outcome variables and Political Terror Scale (PTS) to measure state-based human rights violations. Scholars argue that repressive governments that silence dissidents and close all avenues of political expression increase the likelihood of terrorism and other acts of violence against the state (Gurr, 1970; Crenshaw, 1981; DeNardo, 1985; Piazza, 2017). In such circumstances, terrorism and acts of violence against the state may serve as a defense mechanism against repressive governments (Gurr, 1970). Others argue that state-based violations of human rights can damage public approval and perceptions of legitimacy towards the government (Piazza, 2017). This, in turn, fosters anti-state and anti-status quo grievances. Such polarized environments become vulnerable to extremist movements in regard to the gathering of support, recruitment of new members, and distribution of effective propaganda, all of which may result in increased terrorist attacks at the country-level (Walsh and Piazza, 2010). I use the fixed effects negative binomial regression model to test the effects of within-country changes in state-based human rights violations on annual changes in terrorism. I use generalized hierarchical linear modeling to test the effects of between-country changes in state-based human rights violations on annual changes in terrorism. Using country-level data from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), Political Terror Scale (PTS), Polity IV, Freedom House and the World Bank, I examine the relationship between state-based human rights violations and terrorism for 175 countries between 1980 and 2014. The results indicate that state-based human rights violations is significantly and positively correlated with annual terrorism. The results regarding human rights violations are consistent for both within-country and between-country differences. Increases in human rights violations within a country results in increase in the number of terrorist attacks. Similarly, countries which have higher human rights violations also have high frequency of annual terrorist attacks.

The dissertation addresses the impact of the medieval notion of what scholastic theologians termed "invincible ignorance" upon later Spanish attitudes toward and actual treatment of their New World Indian subjects. Once sixteenth-century theologians expanded the range of topics of which "invincible" – and thereby excusable – ignorance could theoretically be had, official Spanish policy towards the pagan and culturally alien Native Americans became noticeably less inhumane and oppressive. This study adds significantly to our knowledge of the interaction between Native Americans and their European conquerors during the first century of Iberian settlement. First, it uncovers the ideological justification for the aforementioned shift in Spain's treatment of its Indian subjects. Second, this study successfully explains why Spanish attitudes towards the American Indians changed at the moment they did. Third, it provides an alternative to the largely discredited but inadequately replaced explanation that Spanish colonial administrators introduced more moderate policies because they increasingly abandoned the position that the Indians were not fully human. This dissertation, moreover, presents a critical contribution to our understanding of the genesis of the concept of individual human rights. As sixteenth-century theologians concluded that insurmountable ignorance constituted valid grounds to excuse some individuals for such "sins" as unbelief, idolatry, and human sacrifice, what became progressively obvious was that no single moral standard could be applied to all human beings, irrespective of upbringing and education. As a result, morality became more subjective and dependent upon the individual circumstances of the actor. Thus, in order to maintain a minimum of justice, what was morally "right" came to be seen in an increasingly direct relation to the individual. Although the connection between moral subjectivity and individual human rights has been well-established in the secondary literature, the underlying issue of invincible ignorance in relation to the problem of colonial conquest has so far not been recognized. Indeed, the very concept of "invincible ignorance" has never been systematically studied. This project reintroduces this critical notion to the center of the conversation.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, has been described in many ways. It has been called qigong, one of many schools of physical exercises that aim at improving health and developing "supernatural abilities". Scholars and mainstream media have referred it to as a "spiritual movement" or religion, although practitioners claim it is not a religion. It has been called a cult, in the pejorative sense rather than in a sociological context, by the Chinese government and by some Western critics. In the writings of Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, it is referred to in different ways, though primarily as a "cultivation practice". The question of how to define Falun Gong is not just an academic issue; the use of the cult label has been used to justify the persecution of practitioners in China. To a limited degree, the Chinese Government is able to extend the persecution overseas. How society defines Falun Gong has implications for action on the level of policy, as well as the shaping of social, cultural, and personal attitudes. This research project addresses what Falun Gong is through ethnography. Research methods included participant-observation, semi-structured ethnographic interviews (both in-person and on-line), and content analysis of text and visual data from Falun Gong books, pamphlets, and websites. Research sites included Tampa, Washington D.C., and "cyberspace". In order to keep my research relevant to the issues and concerns of the Falun Gong community, I was in regular contact with the Tampa practitioners, keeping them abreast of my progress and asking for their input. My findings are contrary to the allegations made by the Chinese Government and Western anti-cultists in many ways. Practitioners are not encouraged to rely on Western medicine, but are not prohibited from using it. Child practitioners are not put at risk. Their organizational structure is very loose. Finally, the Internet has played a vital role in Falun Gong's growth and continuation after the crackdown.