Pub Date : 2016-12-21DOI: 10.1163/15718158-01702006
S. Richmond
This article examines the influence and interpretation of international law in Australia’s policy and conduct regarding captured individuals during the recent Afghanistan Conflict. By critically analysing declassified government documents, Parliamentary statements, and original interview data with former Foreign Minister and Defence Minister Stephen Smith, I advance a two-pronged argument. First, contrary to what other sombre studies of the anti-torture norm might predict, Australia’s understanding of fundamental international legal rules pertaining to captured individuals in armed conflict – including the humane treatment principle and the prohibition on torture – helped regulate its policies and actions during the Afghan war. By regulate, the article posits that Australia’s policies and behaviour were governed or controlled in part by a felt sense of legal obligation among some key policy-makers. Second, like its allies Britain and Canada, Australia claimed it did not formally detain individuals during the initial years of the Afghanistan Conflict, even though it appears to have factually captured and transferred some people to United States (US) and Afghan authorities. As the war dragged on, and Australia’s troop contributions increased and local hostilities worsened, Australia – again like its allies – relied on detainee agreements and changed its conduct to try to protect captured individuals and transferees from abuse. Despite such agreements and changes, critics contend that transferred captives faced a significant risk of torture in Afghan jails, particularly those run by the country’s intelligence agency. This suggests that state and non-state views of what the prohibition on transferring to possible torture requires in practice are less settled than related shared understandings of other fundamental prisoner protections in international law and armed conflict.
{"title":"Transferring Responsibility?: The Influence and Interpretation of International Law in Australia’s Approach to Afghan Detainees","authors":"S. Richmond","doi":"10.1163/15718158-01702006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15718158-01702006","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the influence and interpretation of international law in Australia’s policy and conduct regarding captured individuals during the recent Afghanistan Conflict. By critically analysing declassified government documents, Parliamentary statements, and original interview data with former Foreign Minister and Defence Minister Stephen Smith, I advance a two-pronged argument. First, contrary to what other sombre studies of the anti-torture norm might predict, Australia’s understanding of fundamental international legal rules pertaining to captured individuals in armed conflict – including the humane treatment principle and the prohibition on torture – helped regulate its policies and actions during the Afghan war. By regulate, the article posits that Australia’s policies and behaviour were governed or controlled in part by a felt sense of legal obligation among some key policy-makers. Second, like its allies Britain and Canada, Australia claimed it did not formally detain individuals during the initial years of the Afghanistan Conflict, even though it appears to have factually captured and transferred some people to United States (US) and Afghan authorities. As the war dragged on, and Australia’s troop contributions increased and local hostilities worsened, Australia – again like its allies – relied on detainee agreements and changed its conduct to try to protect captured individuals and transferees from abuse. Despite such agreements and changes, critics contend that transferred captives faced a significant risk of torture in Afghan jails, particularly those run by the country’s intelligence agency. This suggests that state and non-state views of what the prohibition on transferring to possible torture requires in practice are less settled than related shared understandings of other fundamental prisoner protections in international law and armed conflict.","PeriodicalId":35216,"journal":{"name":"Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89860646","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-12-21DOI: 10.1163/15718158-01702007
J. Kallie, C. Brolan, Nicola Richards
Integrating the right to health is pivotal in progressing health and development in the Pacific. The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) agenda provides an opportunity for this, given the relationship between health, human rights, climate change and sustainable development. The right to health's content can be utilised to progress country obligations in various ways: through facilitating implementation of Universal Health Coverage, supporting the development of health metrics, and assisting in equitable health policies. Cumulatively, such measures can act as process and outcome indicators of a state's progressive realisation toward achieving the right to health. In analysing the status of the law and policy relating to the right to health, this study has established a right to health baseline for the Pacific region at sdg commencement, contributing both to monitoring and evaluation, and promoting visibility of this often overlooked region. Methods included a systematic review of the literature on the right to health, and review of six structural rights indicators in existing law and policy relating to the right to health in the 16 Pacific Island Forum countries and territories, 14 of which are recognised as small island developing states. Findings confirm the right to health's marginalisation in the region. The ratification of United Nations (un) treaties, integration of international human rights obligations into domestic law and policy, and compliance with reporting requirements were found to be piecemeal and ad hoc at best. We argue that while legal recognition is only one step in the process of realising the right to health, the existence of right to health law and policy is a pivotal start if there is to be equitable implementation of the sdg health agenda. We also recommend Pacific nations develop one reporting framework, which can double to meet their reporting requirements under un treaty bodies and sdg 3 global health commitments.
{"title":"Searching for the Elusive? Examining the Right to Health’s Status in the Pacific","authors":"J. Kallie, C. Brolan, Nicola Richards","doi":"10.1163/15718158-01702007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15718158-01702007","url":null,"abstract":"Integrating the right to health is pivotal in progressing health and development in the Pacific. The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) agenda provides an opportunity for this, given the relationship between health, human rights, climate change and sustainable development. The right to health's content can be utilised to progress country obligations in various ways: through facilitating implementation of Universal Health Coverage, supporting the development of health metrics, and assisting in equitable health policies. Cumulatively, such measures can act as process and outcome indicators of a state's progressive realisation toward achieving the right to health. In analysing the status of the law and policy relating to the right to health, this study has established a right to health baseline for the Pacific region at sdg commencement, contributing both to monitoring and evaluation, and promoting visibility of this often overlooked region. Methods included a systematic review of the literature on the right to health, and review of six structural rights indicators in existing law and policy relating to the right to health in the 16 Pacific Island Forum countries and territories, 14 of which are recognised as small island developing states. Findings confirm the right to health's marginalisation in the region. The ratification of United Nations (un) treaties, integration of international human rights obligations into domestic law and policy, and compliance with reporting requirements were found to be piecemeal and ad hoc at best. We argue that while legal recognition is only one step in the process of realising the right to health, the existence of right to health law and policy is a pivotal start if there is to be equitable implementation of the sdg health agenda. We also recommend Pacific nations develop one reporting framework, which can double to meet their reporting requirements under un treaty bodies and sdg 3 global health commitments.","PeriodicalId":35216,"journal":{"name":"Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74728926","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-12-21DOI: 10.1163/15718158-01702004
M. Humphrey
9/11 introduced a new phase in US foreign policy launching the war on terror. Integral to this new US global counterinsurgency was the use of torture as technique deployed to save US lives threatened by international terrorism. President George Bush’s declaration in 2001, ‘Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists’ expresses the logic of counterinsurgency strategy to divide the world into friends and enemies. The division of the world into friends and enemies is based on asymmetrical counterconcepts based on the negation of the ‘Other’. This article argues that the legitimation of torture in the Cold War and Post 9/11 eras arises from imperial/global politics based on a counterinsurgency, terror and torture nexus. Through an analysis of the role of torture in Cold War US counterinsurgency policy in Latin America it argues that torture was a technique of governance to produce victims and forge new political subjectivities. In the Latin American dictatorships abduction, detention and secrecy created legal voids that allowed torture. Post 9/11 global counterinsurgency practices are differentiated between geographical zones identified as the zone of integration and zone of intervention. It is in the zone of intervention that torture has been deployed as a technique in which the distinction between civilian and terrorist has become blurred. It argues that Obama’s failure to close Guantanamo Bay prison as promised reveals that global counterinsurgency continues and that the issue of the US military or intelligence resort to torture remains live despite legal and political attempts to stop it.
{"title":"Permission to Torture: Reflections on Post 9/11 Erosion of Human Rights through a Cold War Counterinsurgency Lens","authors":"M. Humphrey","doi":"10.1163/15718158-01702004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15718158-01702004","url":null,"abstract":"9/11 introduced a new phase in US foreign policy launching the war on terror. Integral to this new US global counterinsurgency was the use of torture as technique deployed to save US lives threatened by international terrorism. President George Bush’s declaration in 2001, ‘Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists’ expresses the logic of counterinsurgency strategy to divide the world into friends and enemies. The division of the world into friends and enemies is based on asymmetrical counterconcepts based on the negation of the ‘Other’. This article argues that the legitimation of torture in the Cold War and Post 9/11 eras arises from imperial/global politics based on a counterinsurgency, terror and torture nexus. Through an analysis of the role of torture in Cold War US counterinsurgency policy in Latin America it argues that torture was a technique of governance to produce victims and forge new political subjectivities. In the Latin American dictatorships abduction, detention and secrecy created legal voids that allowed torture. Post 9/11 global counterinsurgency practices are differentiated between geographical zones identified as the zone of integration and zone of intervention. It is in the zone of intervention that torture has been deployed as a technique in which the distinction between civilian and terrorist has become blurred. It argues that Obama’s failure to close Guantanamo Bay prison as promised reveals that global counterinsurgency continues and that the issue of the US military or intelligence resort to torture remains live despite legal and political attempts to stop it.","PeriodicalId":35216,"journal":{"name":"Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85941456","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-12-21DOI: 10.1163/15718158-01702002
Yeşim Yıldız
Torture and confession are like ‘the dark twins’ as Foucault argued. Definitions of torture from the 3rd century to the 21st century indicate confession as its primary motive. Systematic use of torture and confession has also characterised the Turkish state’s policy in Diyarbakir Military Prison against the Kurdish prisoners in the early 1980s. The detainees and the prisoners were routinely forced to repent and confess regardless of their organisational links or the crimes attributed to them. Wide, systematic and routine use of forced confessions in the prison showed that the significance of confession policy in Diyarbakir prison does not arise from their truth status or their effectiveness in intelligence gathering, but from their truth-effects. Although intelligence gathering was one of the objectives of the regime, the policy of confession was used primarily to establish dominance over the accused and to discipline and control the prisoners and the Kurdish population. Drawing upon Foucault, I will further argue that forced production of confession functioned as a ritual of truth-production and subjectification binding the prisoner to the dominant regime of power and truth and transforming him into a docile and obedient subject.
{"title":"Forced Confession as a Ritual of Sovereignty: The Case of Diyarbakır Military Prison in Turkey","authors":"Yeşim Yıldız","doi":"10.1163/15718158-01702002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15718158-01702002","url":null,"abstract":"Torture and confession are like ‘the dark twins’ as Foucault argued. Definitions of torture from the 3rd century to the 21st century indicate confession as its primary motive. Systematic use of torture and confession has also characterised the Turkish state’s policy in Diyarbakir Military Prison against the Kurdish prisoners in the early 1980s. The detainees and the prisoners were routinely forced to repent and confess regardless of their organisational links or the crimes attributed to them. Wide, systematic and routine use of forced confessions in the prison showed that the significance of confession policy in Diyarbakir prison does not arise from their truth status or their effectiveness in intelligence gathering, but from their truth-effects. Although intelligence gathering was one of the objectives of the regime, the policy of confession was used primarily to establish dominance over the accused and to discipline and control the prisoners and the Kurdish population. Drawing upon Foucault, I will further argue that forced production of confession functioned as a ritual of truth-production and subjectification binding the prisoner to the dominant regime of power and truth and transforming him into a docile and obedient subject.","PeriodicalId":35216,"journal":{"name":"Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87285813","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-06-15DOI: 10.1163/15718158-01701002
Minh Do
Although rule of law and human rights have been mentioned in the documents of the Vietnamese Communist Party since 1997 and were adopted in the 1992 constitution (amended 2001) and the new constitution in 2013, it is hard to be optimistic about their practical application. This research explores influences of the rule of law on the protection of human rights in Viet Nam. The article starts by reviewing concepts of the rule of law, mechanisms of protection of human rights, and the impacts of the rule of law on human rights in general. From analysing the current situation of the rule of law and the impacts of the rule of law on the protection of human rights in Viet Nam, this research offers some solutions for improving constitutional mechanisms to protect human rights.
{"title":"The Impact of the Rule of Law on Protection of Human Rights in Viet Nam","authors":"Minh Do","doi":"10.1163/15718158-01701002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15718158-01701002","url":null,"abstract":"Although rule of law and human rights have been mentioned in the documents of the Vietnamese Communist Party since 1997 and were adopted in the 1992 constitution (amended 2001) and the new constitution in 2013, it is hard to be optimistic about their practical application. This research explores influences of the rule of law on the protection of human rights in Viet Nam. The article starts by reviewing concepts of the rule of law, mechanisms of protection of human rights, and the impacts of the rule of law on human rights in general. From analysing the current situation of the rule of law and the impacts of the rule of law on the protection of human rights in Viet Nam, this research offers some solutions for improving constitutional mechanisms to protect human rights.","PeriodicalId":35216,"journal":{"name":"Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15718158-01701002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72473056","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-06-15DOI: 10.1163/15718158-01701007
Thi Nga Le
Over the last few years, Viet Nam’s economy has developed quickly and changed social values through global integration. The numbers of children who have been victims and witnesses of crime have increased. From the most common points of entry into a criminal case, there should be a set of regulations governing the rights of child victims and child witnesses in all stages of the criminal process and the child welfare system. The article argues that the rights of children as victims and witnesses in criminal cases in Viet Nam still lack the necessary safeguards and are not compatible with international law. Although the criminal justice system of Viet Nam has been improved to protect children’s rights, there are still many challenges to ensure and protect the rights of children when they participate in the criminal justice system as victims and witnesses. To narrow the gap between the international standards and the national legal system in juvenile criminal justice in Viet Nam, this article examines the problems in criminal justice to protect child victims and child witnesses in Viet Nam. The research is based on international standards of juvenile criminal justice and uses comparative and quantitative methods. It discusses how the national criminal justice system can be reformed to prevent child victims and witnesses from being abused.
{"title":"Rights of Child Victims and Child Witnesses in Criminal Justice in Viet Nam","authors":"Thi Nga Le","doi":"10.1163/15718158-01701007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15718158-01701007","url":null,"abstract":"Over the last few years, Viet Nam’s economy has developed quickly and changed social values through global integration. The numbers of children who have been victims and witnesses of crime have increased. From the most common points of entry into a criminal case, there should be a set of regulations governing the rights of child victims and child witnesses in all stages of the criminal process and the child welfare system. The article argues that the rights of children as victims and witnesses in criminal cases in Viet Nam still lack the necessary safeguards and are not compatible with international law. Although the criminal justice system of Viet Nam has been improved to protect children’s rights, there are still many challenges to ensure and protect the rights of children when they participate in the criminal justice system as victims and witnesses. To narrow the gap between the international standards and the national legal system in juvenile criminal justice in Viet Nam, this article examines the problems in criminal justice to protect child victims and child witnesses in Viet Nam. The research is based on international standards of juvenile criminal justice and uses comparative and quantitative methods. It discusses how the national criminal justice system can be reformed to prevent child victims and witnesses from being abused.","PeriodicalId":35216,"journal":{"name":"Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89851513","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-06-15DOI: 10.1163/15718158-01701005
T. Lam
Viet Nam is attempting to develop a judicial reform strategy to uphold the rule of law and to protect the rights and interests of its people. However, the protection of the rights for criminal suspects in Viet Nam is still limited. In practice, there are still many legal constraints that limit the protection of a suspect’s rights in police custody.First, torture and other forms of ill treatment exist in the investigative phase and the court often condones these practices, regardless of whether the person charged has the constitutional right to both presumption of innocence and freedom from torture and other forms of ill-treatment. Second, the rules on police questioning of suspects and the taking of statements are vague and not respected carefully in reality. The absence of respect for these rights has several negative consequences for the suspect as it opens the way for torture and other forms of inhuman treatment to be used to extort confessions.So far, however, there has been little discussion about the right to silence for suspects in Viet Nam. Most studies on the rights of suspects have only been carried out in a small number of areas and limited to analysing the legal regulations protecting the general rights of the accused. No reliable study has been conducted on whether Viet Nam should guarantee the right to silence. Therefore, this article will explore the requirements needed to guarantee the right of the individual to protect himself or herself from self-incrimination in Viet Nam.
{"title":"The Suspect’s Right to Silence in Viet Nam","authors":"T. Lam","doi":"10.1163/15718158-01701005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15718158-01701005","url":null,"abstract":"Viet Nam is attempting to develop a judicial reform strategy to uphold the rule of law and to protect the rights and interests of its people. However, the protection of the rights for criminal suspects in Viet Nam is still limited. In practice, there are still many legal constraints that limit the protection of a suspect’s rights in police custody.First, torture and other forms of ill treatment exist in the investigative phase and the court often condones these practices, regardless of whether the person charged has the constitutional right to both presumption of innocence and freedom from torture and other forms of ill-treatment. Second, the rules on police questioning of suspects and the taking of statements are vague and not respected carefully in reality. The absence of respect for these rights has several negative consequences for the suspect as it opens the way for torture and other forms of inhuman treatment to be used to extort confessions.So far, however, there has been little discussion about the right to silence for suspects in Viet Nam. Most studies on the rights of suspects have only been carried out in a small number of areas and limited to analysing the legal regulations protecting the general rights of the accused. No reliable study has been conducted on whether Viet Nam should guarantee the right to silence. Therefore, this article will explore the requirements needed to guarantee the right of the individual to protect himself or herself from self-incrimination in Viet Nam.","PeriodicalId":35216,"journal":{"name":"Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83539885","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-06-15DOI: 10.1163/15718158-01701006
T. M. Dinh
This article examines the rights of victims of crime in the Vietnamese criminal justice system. It aims to evaluate how crime victims are treated by looking at both legal regulations on crime victims’ rights protection and victims’ personal experiences of rights. This article will answer two questions: (i) what rights do crime victims have under Vietnamese Law; and (ii) how do they exercise their rights in practice? Data related to victims’ rights experiences is collected from 312 court judgments, three court observations, three victim interviews and three other interviews from 2008 to 2013. The research found that the Vietnamese criminal justice system provides weak legal protection of crime victims’ rights and victims’ rights that have tended to be neglected in criminal proceedings. The author proposes some suggestions to better amend the system of criminal procedure law and promote victims’ rights in practice.
{"title":"The Rights of Victims in Viet Nam","authors":"T. M. Dinh","doi":"10.1163/15718158-01701006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15718158-01701006","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the rights of victims of crime in the Vietnamese criminal justice system. It aims to evaluate how crime victims are treated by looking at both legal regulations on crime victims’ rights protection and victims’ personal experiences of rights. This article will answer two questions: (i) what rights do crime victims have under Vietnamese Law; and (ii) how do they exercise their rights in practice? Data related to victims’ rights experiences is collected from 312 court judgments, three court observations, three victim interviews and three other interviews from 2008 to 2013. The research found that the Vietnamese criminal justice system provides weak legal protection of crime victims’ rights and victims’ rights that have tended to be neglected in criminal proceedings. The author proposes some suggestions to better amend the system of criminal procedure law and promote victims’ rights in practice.","PeriodicalId":35216,"journal":{"name":"Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82247231","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-06-15DOI: 10.1163/15718158-01701004
Thi Thanh Hai Nguyen
This article explores how business activities have impacted on human rights in the energy industry by looking at the implications of the involuntary resettlements in hydro power dam projects in the affected communities in Viet Nam. It argues that despite the government’s consideration of hydropower as a main avenue to meet the need for energy demands with huge potential benefit for the national economy, the development of hydroelectric projects in Viet Nam has had certain human rights concerns. The risk for human rights violation may occur at any stage before, during and after the implementing of dam development projects. However, the most affected group is the displaced people as the result of the involuntary resettlement process. While the government has issued some policies, strategies and programmes to affected communities, these responses, however, were insufficient to adress concerns and lacked a human rights based approach. This article finds that the people and community being displaced due to the construction of the dam have been facing a number of human rights concerns, including the violation of particular rights such as the right to livelihood/food security, right to land, and the right to culture.
{"title":"Business and Human Rights in Viet Nam: The Human Rights Implication of Involuntary Resettlements for Hydro Power Dams","authors":"Thi Thanh Hai Nguyen","doi":"10.1163/15718158-01701004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15718158-01701004","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores how business activities have impacted on human rights in the energy industry by looking at the implications of the involuntary resettlements in hydro power dam projects in the affected communities in Viet Nam. It argues that despite the government’s consideration of hydropower as a main avenue to meet the need for energy demands with huge potential benefit for the national economy, the development of hydroelectric projects in Viet Nam has had certain human rights concerns. The risk for human rights violation may occur at any stage before, during and after the implementing of dam development projects. However, the most affected group is the displaced people as the result of the involuntary resettlement process. While the government has issued some policies, strategies and programmes to affected communities, these responses, however, were insufficient to adress concerns and lacked a human rights based approach. This article finds that the people and community being displaced due to the construction of the dam have been facing a number of human rights concerns, including the violation of particular rights such as the right to livelihood/food security, right to land, and the right to culture.","PeriodicalId":35216,"journal":{"name":"Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81160770","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-06-15DOI: 10.1163/15718158-01701003
Van Nghia Hoang
This article’s overall goal is to examine the development of constitutional rights and their mechanisms for protection and promotion in Viet Nam through the case of the right to environment. Utilising legal methods, as well as qualitative and quantitative methods, the research investigates the ways in which the right to environment has been protected in Viet Nam through examining the case of the Thi Vai River. Given the strengths and weaknesses of Viet Nam’s existing legal system and its mechanisms for human rights protection through accessing the case of the citizen’s right to environment, the article proposes several recommendations for better protecting and promoting constitutional rights. These include further improving its legal system, establishing independent institutions and effective mechanisms (such as the Constitutional Council, Ombudsman, a National Human Rights Body, and an Environmental Court), and enhancing education, training and dissemination of international human rights law and constitutional rights for all.
{"title":"Enhancing Mechanism for Protection of Constitutional Rights in Viet Nam Today: The Case of the Right to Environment","authors":"Van Nghia Hoang","doi":"10.1163/15718158-01701003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15718158-01701003","url":null,"abstract":"This article’s overall goal is to examine the development of constitutional rights and their mechanisms for protection and promotion in Viet Nam through the case of the right to environment. Utilising legal methods, as well as qualitative and quantitative methods, the research investigates the ways in which the right to environment has been protected in Viet Nam through examining the case of the Thi Vai River. Given the strengths and weaknesses of Viet Nam’s existing legal system and its mechanisms for human rights protection through accessing the case of the citizen’s right to environment, the article proposes several recommendations for better protecting and promoting constitutional rights. These include further improving its legal system, establishing independent institutions and effective mechanisms (such as the Constitutional Council, Ombudsman, a National Human Rights Body, and an Environmental Court), and enhancing education, training and dissemination of international human rights law and constitutional rights for all.","PeriodicalId":35216,"journal":{"name":"Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89525882","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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