428. ANY SITUATION, AS BAD AS IT HAS BECOME, CAN GET WORSE. (Ho Chi Minh)
-In the post-truth era, it is not pessimism that is called-for, realism is. Perhaps truth will ultimately survive and there will be a renaissance. It will take a long time…
427. OF DATA, COMMUNICATIONS, THE MEDIA AND HUMAN RIGHTS.
In development work, there is a tendency to confuse political discourse with technical knowledge, enhancing the power of select experts over a) political actors/activists, and b) over the empirical knowledge…
426. GIVEN THE STRONG RESISTANCE BY STATES TO ANY TRUE ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISMS IN AGENDA 2030, WILL THE SDGs LEAD TO STATES AIMING TO ACHIEVE ‘HUMAN-RIGHTS-DEVOID-OF-MEANING’ INDICATORS?
We cannot create the impression that the SDGs are a normative rather than a political framework. The SDGs are a political compromise, one that many-of-those-who-should do not fully support. (Simone…
425. NEOLIBERALISM AND HUMAN RIGHTS: WHEN THE NEW ADOPTS THE CLOTHES OF THE OLD. (Harriet Friedmann)
Nothing disappears until it is truly replaced. (Auguste Comte) 1. Neoliberalism is not really new. It is actually an even more anti-social version of 20th century capitalism some of us…
424. WHAT WE ARE DEFENDING IS NOTHING LESS THAN THE RIGHT TO HEALTH (!), NOT UNIVERSAL HEALTH COVERAGE PER-SE.
. Preamble: The human right to health is indispensable for the exercise of other human rights. 1. The link between an individuals’ state of health and his/her access to health…
423. THE PARTICIPATION RHETORIC HAS HIDDEN THE REALITY OF WHAT EXCLUSION IN HUMAN RIGHTS TERMS REALLY IS.
Look at the travesty of language: ‘The excluded’ are the majority, no?; actually, the ‘included’ are the minority. . 1. Inviting a token ‘voice’ to speak briefly at an international…
422. PRESIDENT OBAMA OFTEN REMINDED US THE ARC OF HISTORY IS LONG; BUT DOES IT BEND TOWARDS JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS? BENDING THE ARC OF HISTORY WE MUST.
1. Here are a bunch of questions that have for long puzzled other critics and me • Why is it that those who have chronicled history have not felt the…
421. THE VIEW FROM ORTHODOXY: POINT/COUNTERPOINT ON GLOBALIZATION AND HUMAN RIGHTS.
. Setting the stage 1. The two decades following the Cold War were celebrated and decried as the era of globalization. Critically speaking, the long-term trend of globalization masks a…
420. RELIGIONS HAVE A STRONG POWER ON POLITICS, ON SOCIETY AND ON HUMAN RIGHTS: THEY SHAPE WORLD VIEWS, WAYS OF LIFE AND THE TYPE OF SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT OF MANY PEOPLE AROUND THE GLOBE. (N. Farouq)
Religion and Science 1. Insofar as religion makes claims in the area of science –which it does, because it talks about creation, about the nature of the universe and about…
419. FOR THOSE OF US WHO ADVOCATE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IT IS NOT ABOUT JUST TO CONVINCE OTHERS, BUT TO RECOMMIT OURSELVES. (Ken Harvey)
-Human rights activists cry out, not just to rescue others from their oppression, but to preserve what is left of their own dignity. (K. H.) -I do not do this…