The Harvard Human Rights Journal is pleased to launch its interview-based initiative, featuring conversations with human rights academics and practitioners concerning a diverse set of human rights issues. Our first featured interview is with Osama Siddique, an Associate Professor at Lahore University of Management Sciences, recent S.J.D. graduate from Harvard Law, and Pakistani legal scholar. […]
The Power of Social Media in Developing Nations: New Tools for Closing the Global Digital Divide and Beyond
On January 28, 2011, Egypt’s President, Hosni Mubarak, took the drastic and unprecedented step of shutting off the Internet for five days across an entire nation. His reason for doing so was simple: to halt the flow of communication and coordinated assembly taking place over social media platforms, like Facebook and Twitter. That Mubarak took […]
Ladies in White: The Peaceful March Against Repression in Cuba and Online
The Ladies in White, also known as “Las Damas de Blanco,” are a dissident group of women in Cuba who engage in forms of civil disobedience in opposition to Fidel and Raul Castro’s regime. The Ladies organized in 2003, after their loved ones were unjustly incarcerated for political dissidence. On March 17, 2010, one of […]
Corporate Accountability to Human Rights: The Case of the Gaza Strip
This article discusses the human rights obligations of corporations that operate in bilateral zones of conflict. It analyzes the commercial activity of Israeli corporations in the Palestinian Gaza Strip from within the framework of the evolving jurisprudence on the human rights obligations of corporations. In recent years, greater attention has been paid to the role […]
Balancing Rights or Building Rights?
In 2007, after more than 20 years of exhaustive negotiations, drafts and re-drafts between indigenous groups and member states, the United Nations (“UN”) finally adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (“Declaration”) by an overwhelming majority.
A “Bilingual” Approach to Language Rights
This Article was born out of a question posed to me by my eight-year-old son, Leo, who has been raised as a bilingual speaker of Spanish and English. Leo’s question arose in response to a proposal to eliminate the brief weekly Spanish lesson provided to the children at his public elementary school in Austin, Texas. […]