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In this research, I present critical facts about Land Tenure Systems and Poverty Reduction processes in Mafela Resettlement community. I focus mainly on the Post-Fast Track Land Reform (2004 – 2011) period and the interactive processes in this new resettlement area. The research - premised on the rights approach - sought to explore land tenure rights systems and poverty reduction mechanisms seen by the Mafela community to be improving their livelihoods / it also sought to find out if there is evidence linking tenure rights to poverty reduction and how land tenure rights governance systems affect their livelihoods. Suffice to say in both the animal kingdom and human world, territorial space and integrity, its demarcation as well as how resources are used within the space, given the area - calls for a - defined system of rights by the residents themselves. Whilst it is true that there is no one story about Zimbabwe’s land reform (Scoones et al 2011), the contribution of this research towards insights emanating from the newly resettled farmers adds another invaluable contribution in the realm of rural development issues.

<p>In this research, I present critical facts about Land Tenure Systems and Poverty Reduction processes in Mafela Resettlement community. I focus mainly on the Post-Fast Track Land Reform&nbsp / (2004 &ndash / 2011) period and the interactive processes in this new resettlement area. The research - premised on the rights approach - sought to explore land tenure rights systems and poverty&nbsp / reduction mechanisms seen by the Mafela community to be improving their livelihoods / it also sought to find out if there is evidence linking tenure rights to poverty reduction and how land tenure&nbsp / rights governance systems affect their livelihoods. Suffice to say in both the animal kingdom and human world, territorial space and integrity, its demarcation as well as how resources are used&nbsp / within the space, given the area - calls for a - defined&nbsp / system of rights by the residents themselves. Whilst it is true that there is no one story about Zimbabwe&rsquo / s land reform (Scoones et al 2011),&nbsp / the contribution of this research towards insights emanating from the newly resettled farmers adds another invaluable contribution in the realm of rural development issues. The oft rigidified&nbsp / perceptions about the land reform in Zimbabwe as having dismally failed draw contrasting findings from this research. The findings, themselves drawn mainly through interviews, seem to&nbsp / suggest that there are indeed improved livelihoods for resettled farmers more than what is generally believed from a distance. The perception that secure tenure rights (among other myths) determines livelihoods improvement also revealed otherwise with Mafela community. The resettlers&rsquo / dynamic socio-economic milieu presents opportunities and challenges which only the resettled farmers can solve if given adequate support and empowerment in terms of decision making processes. The power basis wielded by the war veterans and the culture of top-down&nbsp / decision making processes as lamented by the resettled farmers suggest that the evolution of resettlements is still far from over. This research therefore hopes to challenge its readers and other&nbsp / stakeholders to engage with issues and recommendations raised here in order for a rethink about land tenure rights and poverty reduction initiatives associated with the new resettlement areas&nbsp / in Zimbabwe in general.</p> <p>&nbsp / </p>

This paper surveys the legal implications of religious doctrines at they relate to the universal acceptance of reproductive rights. While the use of human rights to advance reproductive health has gained momentum over the last several decades, the variance in arranging religion and state relations and the significant impact religious institutions have over the substantive rights to reproductive freedom in many parts of the world necessitates a break from considering reproductive rights as a strictly secular issue. Using Israel, Poland and Indonesia as examples, this paper will explain how an understanding of the doctrines underlying major world religions is a crucial step towards recognizing how reproductive rights and freedoms can be advanced in a world where laws and policies are informed by both the sacred and the secular.

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This doctoral thesis investigates contemporary disputes about international distributive justice by first outlining a distinctive human rights approach to the issues and then assessing alternative views of various kinds. The thesis is organized in terms of the dispute between cosmopolitans and communitarians on the question of ethics in international political theory. Part One of the thesis, 'Cosmopolitanism,' outlines and evaluates the most significant cosmopolitan theories of international justice. Following an introductory chapter in which the debate is introduced in a general way. Chapter Two focuses on basic human rights. Chapter Three is on utilitarianism, and Chapter Four investigates Onora O'Neill's Kantian approach to international justice. I conclude that the human rights approach, conceptualized in a distinctive form, is the most promising of these alternatives. Part Two of the thesis, 'Communitarianism,' investigates various "communitarian" challenges to the universalist ambitions of the arguments defended in Part One. These challenges are designed to prove that the pretensions of cosmopolitans are illusory, incoherent, overridden by some morally more important considerations, or otherwise wrong-headed. Constitutive theorists maintain that, while there are perhaps good grounds for recognizing the claims of human beings qua human beings, cosmopolitans fail to take proper account of the value of what we might call certain intra-species collectivities, most importantly, sovereign states (Chapter Eight). Relativists hold that justice is subject to community-relative standards that make cross-cultural comparisons impossible. Hence, universal claims to justice make no sense (Chapter Seven). Defenders of nationality base their conclusions on the ethical value of the 'nation,' and sometimes claim that distributive justice can be discussed properly only within the context of a given national community (Chapter Six). Patriots emphasize devotion to one's country as a primary moral virtue, and conclude that such devotion, in practice, amounts to legitimate favouritism for compatriots and, therefore, at least potentially, the denial of some of the claims of non-compatriots. If such a view requires the denial of the full force of human rights claims, then patriotism conflicts with cosmopolitanism (Chapter Five). The argument of Part Two is that, on the whole, the communitarian challenges do not succeed. Nevertheless, there are significant lessons to be learned from the criticisms in each case. The defence of cosmopolitanism is strengthened by exposure to these objections, even though they do not provide any grounds for rejecting the basic human rights claims of individuals.

Fifty years after the Nuremberg trials, Europe is challenged once again with a question: Who is responsible for state-sponsored violations of human rights. This time, those put on trial or ostracised from power are elements of the Communist structures of control. Some observers have criticised these measures of political justice, comparing them to a 'witch hunt,' and accusing the courts and legislature of often engendering an unjustifiable collective guilt. In contrast, others have claimed that not enough is being done; that the people of Eastern Europe "have asked for justice, and got the rule of law." In this thesis, the author proposes an assessment of the process of political justice taking place in post-Communist Eastern Europe. The approach taken is from the perspective of the role played in this process by the concept of collective responsibility of political organisations for violations of human rights. While concentrating on the way collective responsibility appears in the criminal law measures taken in Hungary, and in the administrative procedures of screening used in the Czech Republic, the thesis also aims to offer a comprehensive picture of the general debate on accountability for past human rights violations which takes place in post-Communist Eastern Europe. The thesis underlines the complexity of the political reality in which the expectations for accountability for state-sponsored violations of human rights are answered. It also emphasises the importance for this answer to acknowledge the nature of the Communist regime, and of its representative structure known under the name of Nomenklatura. Based on these elements, the author argues for the necessity of combining individual and collective responsibility for human rights violations. A reconstructed concept of collective agency and collective responsibility appears to be the solution to the inconsistencies otherwise manifested in a process of political justice. Such concepts, the author argues, should allow for the acknowledgement - through commissions of truth, as well as through prosecution and screening - of the role played by the Communist structure of power in the violations of human rights which took place under its regime.

For twenty-three years, the Christian Council of Nigeria made plans for a newspaper with which to plead the cause of the disadvantaged in Nigeria. In April 1967, it eventually launched the <I>Nigerian Christian</I> magazine as a Christian journal for reporting and reflection on matters of importance to the nation. This thesis assesses the <I>Nigerian Christian</I> magazine's response to oppression in Nigeria, in order to determine whether the magazine lived up to its foundling vision. The study is delimited to 1) the <I>Nigerian Christian's</I> reporting and reflection over a twenty-year period beginning from its debut, and 2) the following issues: (i) national ideology, (ii) the rule of law, (iii) constitutional view of subsistence rights, (iv) official corruption, and (v) the strike phenomenon. The concept of advocacy press, a journalistic category, currently articulated and promoted by the World Association for Christian Communication, was adapted and used as a normative frame of reference, for assessing the <I>Nigerian Christian's</I> response to oppression in Nigeria. Having established that the criterion is both a journalistic category and a socio-ethical tool with a sound theological basis; its news-worthiness criteria were adapted and reformulated for this study as follows: 1) alternative time-frame, 2) alternative social actors, 3) alternative narrative. The analysis shows that the <I>Nigerian Christian</I>, in its reporting, lived up to its founding vision with respect to the first news-worthiness criterion. It was less faithful to its vision with the second. With reference to the third criterion, the <I>Nigerian Christian</I> betrayed its founding vision because its reflection on the five issues was an echo of the <I>status quo</I>.

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