Foreword

The University of Richmond Law Review is pleased to present the second annual Allen Chair Symposium issue. The editorial board hopes that this special issue of the Law Review contributes to the national and international discourse on the state of human rights law

A Decolonial Imperative: Pluriversal Rights Education

This editorial introduction invites a decolonial dialogue between peace education and human rights education so as to recognize and re-envision radical praxes. It begins by framing the similarities between the two subfields and discussing the effects of the critical turn, with special emphasis on critiques of the colonial entanglements of West-enforced peace and hegemonic rights discourses. Underscoring the imperative of decolonization, it concludes with a call for pluriversal rights education as a decolonial successor to peace and human rights education. It also offers a brief overview of the articles included in this special issue and how they each contribute to an ongoing decolonial dialogue

Editorial Special Issue on "Migrants and Human Rights Protections"

The idea for this Special Issue on 'Human Rights Protection for Migrants' was born out of a combination of frustration and scepticism in the face of International Human Rights Law's enduring struggles to extend protections to non-nationals, but also out of hope in the light of (some) human rights bodies' attempts to carve out 'protective spaces' for migrants against the backdrop of hostile migration laws and policies across the globe

Volume 2, Issue 1: Special Issue (Forced) Immigration and Media

This PDF includes the editorial and all the articles published in this Special Issue on (Forced) Migration and Media. This issue is the result of two workshops organised at the University of Leicester: a workshop on (Forced) Migration and Media-research that took place on the 13th of June 2016 and a Community Impact event that was organised on the 18th of July, 2016. These workshops were a response to the topical interest for refugees’ access to digital technology and the dehumanizing language used in, especially but not limited to British, media regarding migrants and/or refugees (Berry, Garcia-Blanco, Moore, 2015). (Forced) was purposefully bracketed as the label ‘refugee’ has its own difficulties. The differentiation between economic and forced migrants for instance negates that reasons behind migration are often multi-causal and multi-layered. It reinforces thinking in dichotomies that homogenizes and tends to negate in-between complexities, as  is often appropriated as a governing tool to victimize, exclude and curtail the rights of human beings (Crawley Skleparis, 2017; Lindley, 2010; Zetter, 2007). In this editorial, we reflect upon the main outcomes of the workshop we and other PhD-colleagues organised on the 13th of June, 2016, and connect them to the articles within this Special Issue

Sites of Appearance, Matters of Thought: Hannah Arendt and Performance Philosophy

This editorial introduces this special issue on the thresholds, borders, and dialogues between Hannah Arendt’s work and performance philosophy, bringing together contributions that investigate political resistance, thought, and practice. Arendt’s relevance to our times is ubiquitous: from the near constant citation of The Origins of Totalitarianism in relation to the recent rise in strong-man politics and resurgent ethnic nationalism, to her diagnosis of the plight of refugees, denied even the rights belonging to those that have broken the law, but instead placed outside the law. Contemporary political philosophy also bears numerous influences, in the thinking of Mouffe, Rancière, Nancy, Agamben, Brown, Butler, and more. For performance philosophy, we might engage with Arendt’s performative notion of politics itself, as exemplified in her idea of ‘spaces of appearance’, but also the performativity of thought, as well as the implications of Arendt’s work for phenomenology, governmentality, rights, and ecology. Contributors to this special issue also think through the relevance of Arendt’s work for an anti-colonial and anti-racist political praxis, and for post and non-human political ethics, judgment, and thinking

Using the law to save the planet:Legal options to address climate change and ecological destruction

Climate change and ecological destruction are among the most pressing issues of our time. In this special issue, academics from various legal and empirical disciplines contribute to providing an answer to whether, when and how different fields of law can be used as tools to enhance sustainability and to address climate change and ecological damage. These include (international) criminal law, liability and tort law, European law and regulations, competition law, corporate law, private law and tax law. These contributions were initially presented and discussed at a seminar held at the Erasmus University Rotterdam in May 2022. This editorial introduces the subject, discusses recent international developments and legal achievements to address the current ecological crisis, and describes how the law is increasingly mobilised from the ground up, by non-government organisations and individual legal professionals. It then progresses by summarising the keynote lecture of the seminar, given by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Human Rights. After this, all contributions to this special issue are shortly introduced and summarised.</p

Editorial: Connecting (Forced) Migration and Media Studies

This Special Issue on (Forced) Migration and Media is the result of two workshops organised at the University of Leicester: a workshop on (Forced) Migration and Media-research that took place on the 13th of June 2016 and a Community Impact event that was organised on the 18th of July, 2016. These workshops were a response to the topical interest for refugees’ access to digital technology and the dehumanizing language used in, especially but not limited to British, media regarding migrants and/or refugees (Berry, Garcia-Blanco, Moore, 2015). (Forced) was purposefully bracketed as the label ‘refugee’ has its own difficulties. The differentiation between economic and forced migrants for instance negates that reasons behind migration are often multi-causal and multi-layered. It reinforces thinking in dichotomies that homogenizes and tends to negate in-between complexities, as  is often appropriated as a governing tool to victimize, exclude and curtail the rights of human beings (Crawley Skleparis, 2017; Lindley, 2010; Zetter, 2007). In this editorial, we reflect upon the main outcomes of the workshop we and other PhD-colleagues organised on the 13th of June, 2016, and connect them to the articles within this Special Issue

Introduction: Global Human Rights Law and the Boundaries of Statehood

The contributions collected in this Special Issue are the outcome of a colloquium on Global Human Rights Law and the Boundaries of Statehood held at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS) in South Africa in March 2015. The colloquium is the first in a series of topics to be addressed within the STIAS research project, Boundaries and Legal Authority in a Global Context, coordinated by Hans Lindahl and Louise du Toit. We would like to express our gratitude to STIAS for the funding and logistics of the colloquium. Our particular thanks are due to the director of STIAS, Hendrik Geyer, for hosting our colloquium, and to Nel-Mari Loock and Maria Mouton for their friendly and diligent assistance with its organization. Daniel Augenstein has conducted much of the work in preparation of this Special Issue during a research leave at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin funded by the German Humboldt Foundation, whose support he gratefully acknowledges. Last but not least, we would like to thank the editors of the Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies for their commitment and editorial assistance in seeing this collective research project through to publication

GUEST EDITORS\u27 NOTE

The thematic issue of Psychological Topics is devoted to contemporary themes and trends in social psychology and covers research and theoretical contributions to a wide variety of important topics in the field. As the field of social psychology is very broad, so are the topics in this issue. The themes in this issue also show the characteristics of the times in which we live. Out of a total of 10 papers in the Special Issue, three explore the COVID-19 topic. The positive consequences of COVID-19, groups more exposed to the negative consequences of COVID-19, what contributes to greater vaccination readiness and how attitudes towards vaccination affect close relationships were addressed. The importance of the relationship, this time between yoga instructor and student, was emphasized by the authors who studied the effects of yoga on well-being. Well-being was the focus of another paper. It explores the short-term and long-term effects of news exposure on well-being. Readers of the Special Issue can read about the attention that psychologists pay to monitoring the state of human rights. Three papers focus on replications and extensions of key studies, but in different areas: self-handicapping, impression formation, and Turing decision. It has also been shown that the experience of acting and guided immersion is important for the empathy. The papers explored the topics through experiments, correlation studies, qualitative reviews, but also through triangulation studies linking quantitative and qualitative approaches. The authors come from Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Hungary, Poland, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, and Japan. We hope that this issue will allow readers a valuable insight into the current research in social psychology. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all the authors who contributed to this thematic issue, and to the reviewers. Also, we would like to thank Editor-in-Chief for the opportunity to present the field of social psychology in this Special Issue, and the entire Editorial Board for their help in the technical preparation of the paper

Towards a business, Human Rights and the environment framework

We are in the midst of an ecological crisis which has been and continues to be provoked by human-led ‘environmental degradation’ (defined for the purposes of this editorial as any harm or adverse impact caused to the environment, including climate change, the contamination of the land and water through the exposure to or dumping of toxic and hazardous substances and wastes, air pollution, the destruction of ecosystems, and the depletion of biodiversity). Despite this, and the fact that such degradation is directly linked to adverse impacts on biological diversity, ecosystems, and human life [1] (paras 36–38) [2] (pp. 3–4), states persist in providing inadequate responses to the destruction of nature, including in the context of establishing strong regulatory frameworks to address harmful corporate activity. It is this collective failure to take effective steps in addressing environmental degradation which continues to make human activities a threat to the natural world with potentially irreversible impacts [3] (p. 28) [4] (pp. 5–8). Humanity has received its “code red” warning [5]: we are at risk of exceeding 1.5 °C unless deep reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are made within the following decades [3] (p. 17). The degradation of the environment, rise in temperatures, and climate change have already impacted human health and livelihoods, which will only get worse, potentially becoming an existential threat. Academics, lawyers, and civil society actors have sought to explore solutions to tackling environmental degradation through the lens of human rights. As such, the growing recognition of the close relationship between the environment and human rights has led to the appointment of a Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment [6,7], the inclusion of targets that seek to address our adverse impact on the environment throughout the Sustainable Development Goals [8], and recently to the recognition by the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) that a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is a human right in of itself, in its landmark resolution 48/13 in October 2021 [9]. Despite this recognition, the well-established impact of the private sector on both human rights [10] and the environment [11] (paras 32–34) [12,13] (para 81), and the consolidation of a corporate responsibility to respect human rights under International Human Rights Law as clarified within the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) [14] (Principles 11–24), there has been limited consideration given to the environment in the business and human rights (BHR) discourse. Increasingly, regulatory developments have made efforts to integrate environmental rights into the protection of human rights from corporate harm, for example, the draft treaty or International Legally Binding Instrument (LBI) to regulate, under international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises [15]. Moreover, environmental considerations are starting to make their way into non-financial reporting and human rights due diligence processes along with a range of climate change-related litigation which consider the human cost of both corporate action and state inaction. However, the consideration of the environment in the BHR legal field has at its best been approached in an ad-hoc and piecemeal manner, resulting in efforts that fail to adequately consider the interaction between international human rights law and international environmental law as two separate legal regimes and their practical implementations in relation to commercial activities. From this perspective, how do we articulate a comprehensive theoretical framework which seeks to protect both human rights and the environment from corporate abuses? This question sits at the heart of this Special Issue of Sustainability on Business, Human Rights, and the Environment. In an attempt to provide a response, this Special Issue seeks to reflect on the current, albeit limited, theoretical and practical integration of human rights and the environment into the BHR framework to date. The scholars who have contributed to this Special Issue bring a wide range of expertise and perspectives from various regions to facilitate this reflection and incorporation of human rights and the environment into the BHR discourse to inform theory and practice. In addition to reflecting on the evolution of the relationship and current practice, they also explore the role and potential impact that a greater integration of the environment into the BHR framework has in achieving positive social and environmental change as well as the protection, fulfilment, and promotion of human rights. This Editorial seeks to set the stage for the contributions discussed above by: (1) laying out the relationship between human rights and the environment under International Human Rights Law, including both the synergies and contradictions brought by the different principles, natures, scopes, and duty-bearers in both regimes; (2) mapping when and where environmental concerns began to be considered in the corporate responsibility and BHR discourse and the prominence of climate change as a BHR issue; (3) considering the extent to which developing transparency standards, due diligence standards, and climate litigation has articulated human rights and environmental accountability for corporate-induced harm in the absence of a business, human rights, and environment (BHRE) framework. In these discussions, we identify and draw links between the key perspectives explored in the seven contributions which ought to be taken forward in any development of an integrated and coherent theoretical BHRE framework and its international legal implementation