Oscar Pistorius: shooting to kill
Can a white man be morally absolved if it is decided that he meant to shoot an ‘imaginary black intruder’ rather than his girlfriend? Ché Ramsden explores the dark depths of colonial and apartheid...
View ArticleHuman Rights: from universalism to pragmatism
Human rights have often been critiqued for their abstract universal claims, but human rights approaches are now beginning to lose their universalist baggage in the shift towards more pragmatic...
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Legalizing economic and social rights can help the poor: reflections from...
Socio-economic rights contribute to economic and social transformation by correcting unreasonable state policy, and combating social exclusion. At its best, economic and social rights activism...
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Rethinking citizenship: revisiting the 2004 Irish Citizenship Referendum a...
In June 2004, the Irish electorate voted to remove automatic entitlement to birthright citizenship (jus soli), which had been in place since the foundation of the Irish state. The government argued...
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Quiet legacies and long shadows: the Obama era of counterterrorism in the...
Despite the crumbling facade of its interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, America is preparing for a new century of 'light footpring' warfare, using Africa as its laboratory. "Stack and rack": US...
View ArticleHuman rights and the paradoxes of liberalism
Human rights are a hybrid of liberal law, morality and politics. Their ideological power lies in their ambiguity, not in their adherence to liberal values of individual freedom.Human rights are the...
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Two books, two approaches to breaking the British deadlock
Dissenters to the dystopic state of Britain, like David Marquand and Michael Meacher MP, set out the inequalities and economic policies than disfigure British society and propose overlapping remedies....
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How to be a successful 'ethnic' in Britain
Here are five simple tips for ensuring you're a good ethnic, mostly gleamed from personal experience and a close reading of the Sun. Flickr/didkovskaya. Some rights reserved. David Cameron’s recent...
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I know why I’m obsessed with Jews, but why are you?
Can we care for people who don't look, speak and think like us? Only greater knowledge of our own responsibility for the catastrophe in Gaza will make us act to end the killing. A Palestinian child...
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Guerilla woolfare: against the madness of mutually assured destruction
Rolling out a seven mile knitted pink peace scarf between the Atomic Weapons Establishment complexes at Aldermaston and Burghfield on Nagasaki Day may sound crazy. It isn't as insane as letting the UK...
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Yes, economic and social rights really are human rights
The argument that socio-economic rights are not “real” human rights is far too simplistic. While the phrase “progressive realization” gives many governments an excuse to treat these rights as second...
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e-book: 42 reasons to support Scottish independence
The e-book, based on a series here on oD, is launched today - get your copy now.Today, my e-book “42 reasons to support Scottish independence” comes out. That's one reason for today, and another for...
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Ukraine is struggling to cope with a flood of internal refugees
Ukraine is faced with a flood of IDPs (internally displaced persons). But what are the authorities doing?In 1986 – the year of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster – Ukraine experienced massive internal...
View ArticleTurkey's presidential election candidates
An overview of the strengths and weaknesses of Turkey's presidential candidates, and of the electorate's views, indicate that Erdoğan will be the victor of the upcoming elections on 10 August 2014.The...
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Greece is creating prisons fit for the era of austerity
The new Type C maximum security prisons Greece is about to introduce will inaugurate a new model for Europe in which our understanding of “crime” and “punishment” means little.A protest in Athens...
View ArticleGenocidal desistance in Gaza
Desistance from violence can be to withdraw from a stance of violence through an act of violence, to leave off one form of violence by taking on another. Each Israeli attack on Gaza is simultaneously...
View ArticlePalestinian-Israeli cohabitation: pluralising the suffering
How should we interpret or reinterpret this rhetoric of suffering which has become such a constant point of reference in the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict?The rising toll of deaths in the...
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Uncovering Colombia's systems of macro-criminality
While transitional justice initiatives have traditionally shied away from dismantling the system, Colombia's Justice and Peace Law has taken the first steps towards exposing the political and economic...
View ArticleUnder pressure: convergence against Agenda 21 in the Tea Party and Occupy...
Uninformed public and low community participation have been the result of unsuccessful top down institutional approaches to implementing sustainable development plans, without incorporating local...
View ArticleLiberalism and the Media
I have looked at the glass of liberalism and seen it as half-full. If we are ever going to change our societies for the better, it will be as advocates of the best of the liberal tradition.I am in...
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