Do Victims of War Need International Law? Human Rights Education Programs in Authoritarian Sudan

Providing Rights Through Individual Compassion: <i>The ambivalent rights talk within refugee resettlement work</i>

“…We draw on an understanding of rights as negotiations or struggles taking place at a micro level, and to understand these, it is central to set out from the position of rights-holders themselves (Ingram 2008;Squire & Darling 2013), and the local context (Massoud 2011, Merry 2006, Stenner 2011) -in our case, refugees going through resettlement to Sweden and participating in COPs. Like other studies on human rights, our study also relates to the connection between the state as duty-bearer and individuals as rights-holders (Dembour 2010).…”

“…Other studies focus on the role of law in protecting the vulnerable migrants (see for example Betts 2010;Noll 2010;Lindahl 2008), or explore discrepancies between legislated rights and rights in practice (Lundberg 2011;Jönsson 2014). Attention has furthermore been given to how rights are constructed and used within the often hierarchical contexts that form the very meetings between 'rights providing' state officials, and 'rights receiving' refugees (Englund 2004, Massoud 2011, Merry 2006. As regards children's rights more specifically, Ann Quennerstedt points to the lack of studies envisaging how these are constructed and invented in local contexts.…”

“…This does not mean that we argue for human rights in themselves to be rejected. As shown by, for example Massoud (2011), human rights may provide hope and have side effects that change living conditions mundanely. Rather we explore local constructions of rights as contextually situated.…”

Law: The Socio-Legal Perspective

“…Many of the new themes within this perspective are motivated by new societal challenges such as evolving technologies and technological possibilities (Berman, 2007;Elkin-Koren, 1996;Ross, 2002); the rise of a 'risk society' (Baker and Simon, 2002;Beck, 1992;Ericson and Haggerty, 1997;Giddens, 1999); global warming and the increasing number of natural disasters (Gunningham et al, 2003;Hartman and Squires, 2006); ethnic conflict and violence around the globe (Hagan and Rymond-Richmond, 2009;Ivkovi c and Hagan, 2006); the transition from nations at war to the 'war against terror' (Hagan et al, 2008;Hirsch, 2008;Thacher, 2005); demographic movements through immigration and emigration, which raise new questions of citizenship (Boyle and Busse, 2006;Menjívar and Abrego, 2012;Wiles, 2007); the rise of global capitalism and corporate power (Carruthers and Halliday, 2006;Shamir, 2004); problems faced by new democracies seeking to craft constitutions (Elkins et al, 2009;Epstein et al, 2001;Ginsburg, 2003); the increasing role of nongovernmental organizations and other nonstate entities in rule making and meaning making; and the interplay between these entities and states in influencing international orders (Boyle and Preves, 2000;Davis et al, 2010;Massoud, 2011;Trubek et al, 2000). Many of the new themes within this perspective are motivated by new societal challenges such as evolving technologies and technological possibilities (Berman, 2007;Elkin-Koren, 1996;Ross, 2002); the rise of a 'risk society' (Baker and Simon, 2002;Beck, 1992;…”

Pragmatic Resistance, Law, and Social Movements in Authoritarian States: The Case of Gay Collective Action in Singapore

“…Law and society scholarship has focused on the role of rights in relation to social movements (see, e.g., Andersen ; McCann ; Rosenberg ), but lacks systematic exploration of the relationship between law and social movements in contexts outside Western liberal democracies. Particularly in repressive regimes where civil‐political rights are curtailed, violated, or lack cultural resonance (Massoud ), social movements may not be able to mobilize rights the way their counterparts in Western liberal democracies can and do. Hence, collective mobilization may develop in alternative forms (Davenport ), but may elude scholars' conventional focus on rights‐based strategies.…”