Sub-regional Meeting on Disability Legislation: Decent Work for Persons with Disabilities in Asia, UN Conference Centre, Bangkok, Thailand, 23-24 June 2008

The Sub-regional Meeting on Disability Legislation, jointly organized by the ILO and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), took place in the framework of a technical cooperation project, “Promoting the Employability and Employment of Persons with Disabilities through Effective Legislation (PEPDEL)”, funded by the Government of Ireland. The meeting aimed to provide participants with an appropriate platform for discussion regarding the main legal issues in the field of employment discrimination law relating to disability and to sensitize them to key concepts in disability discrimination law and specifically the CRPD. Participants examined good practices in implementing disability discrimination legislation, with a view to facilitating the implementation of the CRPD in the Asian region. The meeting also provided participants with an opportunity for networking withlegal and other experts in Asia and beyond

A Poverty of Rights: Six Ways to Fix the MDGs

The reactions of the human rights community to the MDGs have been diverse. The goals have given a clear, communicable and quantitative focus to development but they arguably distract attention from important issues and are structurally flawed. In looking backwards, we need to consider whether the human rights gaps in the MDGs architecture are partly responsible for the mixed success of the enterprise and whether the MDGs are also being used to avoid human rights commitments. This reflection is used to look forwards to 2015 and it is argued that, even if we accept the target?based approach, human rights can make six key contributions, namely: (1) increasing participation in target selection; (2) ensuring targets better reflect human rights; (3) aiming for equality not just average improvements; (4) adjusting the targets for resource availability; (5) locating economic trade?offs within a human rights?based normative framework; and (6) improving the accountability infrastructure

Reducing Inequality – The Missing MDG: A Content Review of PRSPs and Bilateral Donor Policy Statements

Although important gains have been made in reducing global poverty, the pace of progress across the world is not on track to achieve the 2015 MDG targets. Is this due to lack of ownership on the part of national governments and the international community? This article examines whether the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) and donor policy statements are aligned with MDG priorities and targets. The analysis found a high degree of commitment to MDGs as a whole but both PRSPs and donor statements are selective, consistently emphasising income poverty and social investments for education, health and water but not other targets concerned with empowerment and inclusion of the most vulnerable such as gender violence or women's political representation. The article concludes that a new, ninth Goal needs to be added – to reduce inequality – to make the MDGs aligned to the original purpose of the Millennium Declaration

Sterilization of men with intellectual disabilities: whose best interest is it anyway?

This article examines the ethical and legal issues raised by the involuntary sterilization of men with intellectual disability. It traces how, after the demise of eugenic reasoning, social policies of normalization and care in the community provided new justifications for sterilizations. It also examines how, ironically, modern arguments about promoting male sexual freedom have come to be used as a justification to sterilize. Through examination of recent cases on the sterilization of men with intellectual disabilities, this article explores the legal framework of the ‘best interests’ test and the ‘least restrictive alternative’ provisions in the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and argues that sterilization is usually unnecessary, disproportionate and not the least restrictive option. It also argues that the least restrictive alternative provisions contained in the 2005 Act need to be more rigorously applied

Accumulative Bad Governance

This article argues that accumulative bad governance over three decades of Mubarak's regime represents one of the main reasons why people revolted. Bad governance contributed to the fall of the regime in three fundamental ways: first, it created the conditions (such as rampant corruption, violation of human rights and absence of rule of law) that served to inspire public action against the rulers; second, it led to the breakdown of core elements critical for regime stability (within the bureaucracy and the judiciary for example) and third, it catalysed the middle?class who played a key role in agitating for the uprisings via Facebook and other social media. However, in exposing the dynamics of bad governance in Egypt, this article suggests that the problem is not only one of governance gone bad but the very ‘good governance’ paradigm promoted by international actors. By focusing on institutional reform, the good governance paradigm did not capture the way in which actors, processes and values become diffuse across the state?society divide. A relational governance approach would be more analytically useful in capturing and engaging with some of these dynamics

Smokes and mirrors at the United Nations’ universal periodic review process

Purpose: In 2006, the United Nations’ Human Rights Council was tasked to establish a new human rights monitoring mechanism: the Universal Periodic Review Process. The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of discussions held in the process, over the two cycles of review in relation to women’s rights to access health care services. Design and Methodology: This investigation is a documentary analysis of the reports of 193 United Nations’ state reports, over two cycles of review. Findings: The primary findings of this investigation reveal that despite an apparent consensus on the issue, a deeper analysis of the discussions suggest the dialogue between states is superficial in nature, with limited commitments made by states under review in furthering the protection of women’s right to access health care services in the domestic context. Practical Implications: Considering the optimism surrounding the UPR process, the findings reveal that the nature of discussions held on women’s rights to health care services is at best a missed opportunity to make a significant impact to initiate, and inform, changes to practices on the issue in the domestic context; and at worst, raises doubts as to whether the core aim of the process, to improve the protection and promotion of all human rights on the ground, is being fulfilled. Originality/Value: Deviating from the solely technocratic analysis of the review process in the existing literature, this investigation has considered the UPR process as a phenomenon of exploration in itself, and will provide a unique insight as to how this innovative monitoring mechanism operates in practice, with a particular focus on women’s right to access health care services

Value/s in early childhood education

Twenty years ago, as an early childhood teacher, I was fortunate to attend a professional development day conference led by the inimitable Professor Tina Bruce. At the conference, Tina asked we early childhood teachers: ‘What one thing would you put your back to the wall for in your job?’ In other words, Tina wanted us to share with one another the values that guide our daily work with young children and their families. An avowed Froebelian, Tina herself subscribes to a very particular set of values (Bruce 2015) and she is not alone. Many early childhood educators over two centuries have been influenced by the principles and philosophy developed by Froebel, the original kindergarten practitioner (Froebel Trust 2018). Indeed, as for so many others, my own initial teacher education was strongly influenced by Froebelian principles which have continued to guide my work in the field for thirty-five years. We live in an era of unprecedented global focus on early childhood development (UNESCO 2017; WHO 2018), in this editorial I revisit Froebel’s principles and I argue that we would be wise to continue to regard them as relevant and valuable touchstones for early childhood education in the twenty-first century

Monetary Compensation for Survivors of Torture: Some Lessons from Nepal

The Nepali Compensation Relating to Torture Act (1996) is one of the earliest pieces of specific anti-torture legislation adopted in the global South. Despite a number of important limitations, scores of Nepalis have successfully litigated for monetary compensation under the Act, on a scale relatively rare on the global human rights scene. Using a qualitative case study approach, this article examines the conditions under which survivors of torture are awarded compensation in Nepal, and asks what lessons does this have for broader struggles to win monetary compensation for torture survivors? We end by suggesting that there can be practical tensions between providing individual financial compensation and addressing wider issues of accountability

Increasing Demand for Natural Rubber Necessitates a Robust Sustainability Initiative to Mitigate Impacts on Tropical Biodiversity

© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Strong international demand for natural rubber is driving expansion of industrial-scale and smallholder monoculture plantations, with >2 million ha established during the last decade. Mainland Southeast Asia and Southwest China represent the epicenter of rapid rubber expansion; here we review impacts on forest ecosystems and biodiversity. We estimate that 4.3-8.5 million ha of additional rubber plantations are required to meet projected demand by 2024, threatening significant areas of Asian forest, including many protected areas. Uncertainties concern the potential for yield intensification of existing cultivation to mitigate demand for new rubber area, versus potential displacement of rubber by more profitable oil palm. Our review of available studies indicates that conversion of forests or swidden agriculture to monoculture rubber negatively impacts bird, bat and invertebrate biodiversity. However, rubber agroforests in some areas of Southeast Asia support a subset of forest biodiversity in landscapes that retain little natural forest. Work is urgently needed to: improve understanding of whether land-sparing or land-sharing rubber cultivation will best serve biodiversity conservation, investigate the potential to accommodate biodiversity within existing rubber-dominated landscapes while maintaining yields, and ensure rigorous biodiversity and social standards via the development of a sustainability initiative

A review of estimating population exposure to sea-level rise and the relevance for migration

This review analyses global or near-global estimates of population exposure to sea-level rise (SLR) and related hazards, followed by critically examining subsequent estimates of population migration due to this exposure. Our review identified 33 publications that provide global or near-global estimates of population exposure to SLR and associated hazards. They fall into three main categories of exposure, based on definitions in the publications: (i) the population impacted by specified levels of SLR; (ii) the number of people living in floodplains that are subject to coastal flood events with a specific return period; and (iii) the population living in low-elevation coastal zones. Twenty of these 33 publications discuss connections between population migration and SLR. In our analysis of the exposure and migration data, we consider datasets, analytical methods, and the challenges of estimating exposure to SLR followed by potential human migration. We underscore the complex connections among SLR, exposure to its impacts, and migration. Human mobility to and from coastal areas is shaped by diverse socioeconomic, demographic, institutional, and political factors; there may be 'trapped' populations as well as those who prefer not to move for social, cultural, and political reasons; and migration can be delayed or forestalled through other adaptive measures. While global estimates of exposed and potentially migrating populations highlight the significant threats of SLR for populations living in low-lying areas at or near coastlines, further research is needed to understand the interactions among localised SLR and related hazards, social and political contexts, adaptation possibilities, and potential migration and (im)mobility decision-making