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In today's digitally connected world, privacy has transformed from a fundamental human right into a multifaceted challenge. As technology enables the seamless exchange of information, the need to protect personal data has grown exponentially. Privacy has emerged as a critical concern in the digital age, as technological advancements continue to reshape how personal information is collected, stored, and utilized. This paper delves into the fundamental principles of privacy and explores the potential harm that can arise from the mishandling of personal data. It emphasizes the delicate balance between safeguarding individuals' privacy rights and fostering innovation in a data-driven society. By analyzing key privacy principles and their implications, this paper explores the foundational privacy principles that define the concept of privacy while delving into the potential harms that can arise when these principles are violated.

In 1974, the United States Congress asked a question prompting a national conversation about ethics: which ethical principles should govern research involving human participants? To embark on an answer, Congress passed the National Research Act, and charged this task to the newly established National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. The Commission's mandate was modest however, the results were anything but. The outcome was "The Belmont Report:" a trio of principles -- respect for persons, beneficence, and justice -- serving as an ethical compass for scientists, researchers, and institutional review boards (IRBs). Almost 50 years later, the utility, legacy, and ingenuity of "The Belmont Report" continues to be both admired and challenged. Critics argue that Belmont is not fit for the 21st century, while supporters praise "Belmont" for its enduring wisdom. The goal of this paper is to equip IRB practitioners with the tools necessary to maximally interpret "The Belmont Report" and meaningfully engage in ethical analysis that reconsiders outmoded legacy thinking and fixed decision-making. Through historical and contextual reflection, this paper describes how IRB practitioners can contemporize review of ethical human research using their moral imagination - a skill found at the intersection of creativity, deliberation, and empathy.

The "Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities" was adopted with the intent of bringing about a paradigm shift in the way the general population perceives disability. The paper reports the findings of a qualitative inquiry that used a phenomenological approach to discuss the social grievances of persons with disabilities from a human rights-based perspective and in the context of the middle-income small island nation of The Maldives. Fifteen participants with disabilities, as well as carers and parents of children with disabilities, took part in the study. The findings indicated that the environment is physically disabling, and opportunities for participation, including access to quality education, and social protection for people with disabilities, are limited. The findings speak to the need for a shift in the social view that persons with disabilities are dependants to enabling human diversity and facilitating the capabilities of persons with disability, their dignity and meaningful engagement in society. The paper concludes there is a need to explore further approaches to encouraging a shift in society and using a human rights approach to social protection to make progress towards the "Leave No One Behind Agenda of 2030."

This paper explores how the concept of plurilingualism is positioned to act as an impetus for linguistic and cultural inclusion in human-rights-based language education. Drawing on frameworks foregrounding descriptors for plurilingualism and democratic citizenship, the paper employs discourse analysis and sorting techniques to identify and align strategies of linguistic and cultural inclusion found in multimodal plurilingual task artefacts collected from a multi-year, multi-site research partnership between a Canadian university and the Italian Ministry of Education. The findings reveal that the implementation of plurilingual tasks aligns with key elements of democratic, rights-based language education, including critical understanding of communication, openness to cultural otherness, cooperation skills, and the valuing of cultural diversity. The findings of this paper contribute to further understanding of the concept of plurilingualism and to empirically informed perspectives on pedagogies that support language rights as human rights in education.

Purpose: This paper will identify and further explore the ideals versus realities of learning poverty and the consequential effects on our moral obligations and responsibilities. The wealthy nations are now under further pressure to recognise and realise their moral obligations to enabling social justice in the context of access, and distribution, of vaccines for the poorer nations. Learning poverty has always been a feature of our global economic, and institutional order, and has become an increasingly important factor in achieving justice. Design/methodology/approach: The study focusses on a human rights approach to learning poverty and the ideals versus the realities of what we are beginning to see in the times of a global pandemic. The major challenges to justice is inherent to the recognition that wealthy nations continue to have a pivotal role in the reduction of poverty. The identified major challenges in the context of learning poverty are: "nation states and the global pandemic", "international interactions and learning poverty" and "global institutions and learning inequalities". In particular, the authors explore the concept of ideals versus realities through three "challenges", which continues to challenge any semblance of justice in the current global vaccine distribution. Nation states and borders, international interactions and global institutions remain barriers in overcoming what is becoming a reality of learning poverty. Findings: This paper seeks to look beyond the economics of vaccine trade and seek a way to accept a moral claim of justice for all. The authors consider how wealthy nations are active participants in the emergence of learning poverty for many nations. Originality/value: By exploring the ideals versus realities of learning poverty, and human rights, the authors highlight some of the challenges, and wealthy nations moral obligations, through the emergence of a new dimensional indicator of poverty, learning poverty.

Background: Negative attitudes remain a major barrier to the equality of people with disability, especially when coupled with the lack of autonomy imposed on many people. This paper analyses how disability self-advocacy groups seek to change community attitudes and work towards systemic change by mobilising knowledge from their lived experience. Methods: The paper applies a cycle of praxis community development approach (a cycle of experience, learning and reflection, synthesis and planning, and implementation and review) to conceptualise and analyse their activities. The methods were a desktop document search, focus groups and reflective analysis with members of two self-advocacy groups. Findings: A synthesised data analysis found that applying the four-part community development framework was useful to understand the practice and the purpose of work by self-advocacy groups to change attitudes. The analysis also demonstrates the benefits for advocates and codesigned activities to intentionally apply the cycle of praxis model to guide their future efforts to change attitudes. Conclusions: The research provides evidence that self-advocacy groups achieve sustained impacts on attitudes in the community, beyond the direct benefit to their members. Government investment in self-advocacy has potential to leverage wider system change in attitudes to achieve policy goals for the rights of people with disability. Methodologically, the research also has implications for the benefit of inclusive roles in reflective analysis to understand the lived experience of how practices contribute to system change. The design is an opportunity for inclusive researchers to intentionally incorporate reflective analysis into research processes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the current position and possibilities of teacher education for diversity in Japan, with reference to discussions on teacher education for diversity in other countries. To achieve this purpose, we pose the following two research concerns. One is the organization of international trends in teacher education for diversity and the clarification of their characteristics. The other is the clarification of the characteristics and challenges of current teacher education for diversity in Japan from the perspective of teacher education policy and practices in teacher preparation programs. In terms of the first concern, we focus on trends in discussions of teacher education for diversity in the United States and Europe, from which it is evident that teacher education for diversity is not simply about correcting the achievement gap in the context of educational equity but is designed to create an equitable and inclusive society. This is a rethinking of teacher education in relation to the state of society and has the potential to take the debate on attempting to ensure equity in the school setting one step further. Regarding the second concern, we focus on human rights education in teacher education and analyze the contents of human rights education syllabi in teacher preparation programs, finding therein a focus on the development of knowledge and understanding of individual issues related to human rights and the historical contextualization of issues. This means that human rights education in teacher preparation focuses on how to teach and promote human rights education in schools, so that teachers have few opportunities to consider the relationship between themselves and human rights, such as how they perceive human rights in society.

Despite the legislation put in place by the United Nations, Africa continues to grapple with issues of monosexism and heterosexism. In fact, of the 54 African countries, 33 have criminalised queer relationships, a legacy primarily attributed to colonial rule. However, social work literature has recently introduced a culturally sensitive model for working with the LGBTQIA+ community, known as Queer affirmative action. By utilising available literature and adopting an intersectional approach, which was collected and analysed through PRISMA, this paper aims to discuss the Africanising of sexuality in Africa. It argues that it is crucial to undertake a critical analysis of the colonial legacy and its impact on queer identities. Furthermore, the article posits that social work education must incorporate knowledge of the intersection of gender, sexuality, and other identity markers to form an inclusive and comprehensive approach towards practice. An affirmative philosophy to social work practice can serve as a counterweight to all punitive and discriminatory practices. Thus, in Africa, the most effective way to improve the well-being of queer individuals is to eradicate structural forms of inequality and decriminalise same-sex consensual relationships.

Studies on digital rights in education have both gained attention and provided a framework for research, policy and practice in educational research within the field of educational technology. The potential benefits we appreciate in Internet use are inseparable from the maximum risks involved. Faced with this responsibility, individuals demand that their rights and freedoms be guaranteed in the digital environment according to their various roles as students, teachers, families or staff. This scoping review selects and analyses 54 theoretical and empirical studies from the last decade (2013-2023), identifying the main topics investigated as privacy protection in online environments, right to digital security or cybersecurity, and right to digital education. The review underscores the need to guide efforts towards digital education for citizens because the legal regulation of rights and responsibilities is necessary but insufficient. The paper also makes arguments about acceptance, limitations and implications for teacher training.

On 23 December 1994, the UN General Assembly adopted a plan of action for the United Nations decade for human rights education (HRE). 30 years later, this challenge is still increasing. As Hannah Arendt pointed out, human rights are valuable only as political rights, not for abstract individuals but for natural communities. While HRE in schools and classrooms is in focus, the context of adult education transfers philosophical and political thoughts into an educational context, particularly concerning biographical traumatic situations such as refuge and expulsion. Therefore, this paper presents and explains adult education approaches which facilitate coping strategies with ethical perplexities by evaluating the 30 Articles of the UNO Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.

Having contributed to the UNESCO report "Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education" as a member of the International Commission and as Chair of the research-drafting committee of this commission, the author now takes the liberty of making some personal notes on the reflections advanced therein. This brief article is divided into three sections. The first presents the main foundations of the social contract of educational modernity (nineteenth century). The second discusses how this contract has to be renewed today. The third advocates the need to value the common in education, based on five main ideas: cooperation (in pedagogy), convergence (in curriculum), collaboration (in teaching), conviviality (in schools), and capillarity (in society). Finally, the epilogue defends the urgency of placing human rights at the center of the process of renewing the social contract for education.

On June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court issued the "Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization" decision, overturning 50 years of protected abortion rights in the United States. The decision directly impacts the way social work educators address current social issues that relate to bodily autonomy and social justice. This paper used mixed methodology to collect quantitative and qualitative survey data from MSW students to explore how they perceive the overturning of "Roe v. Wade," how the topic was covered in their social work courses, and receive recommendations on how it should be taught. Constructivist Grounded Theory and Thematic Analysis were used to code for reoccurring and emergent themes. Findings indicate that students believe the "Dobbs" decision was not discussed enough in social work courses, that students believe reproductive justice discussions should be grounded in NASW values, and that students view the "Dobbs" decision negatively. Student suggestions for teaching reproductive justice are to focus on educational information, try to avoid politics, and set a civil classroom tone. The aim of this research study is to elevate the voices of students as educators grapple with navigating how the "Dobbs" decision impacts micro- and macro-level curriculum.

Students are increasingly relying on contract cheating (CC), a phenomenon in which a third party completes the assignment, quiz, or homework for students in exchange for a fee. Using an exploratory qualitative method and underpinned by critical theory and social responsibility theory, this study explored the perceptions of faculty members regarding CC in the United Arab Emirates' (UAE's) higher education institutions. In particular, this study addressed how faculty members perceive and deal with CC in contexts where policies towards the practice are absent from higher institution honour codes. Using thematic analysis, the results showed that CC arouses the indignation of faculty and staff to the violation of individual and religious rights. Also, they believe they have a sense of responsibility towards students and the community. The results also showed that faculty members' hesitation in reporting CC incidents was due to their perceived lack of support from higher administration institutions and the lack of clear procedures in ethical manuals. This paper concludes with practical recommendations for faculty and staff, managers, department heads and decision makers to mitigate this phenomenon proactively.

This article is a call for collective action across health equity researchers and advocates to build a more just world. We attempt to make sense of senseless structural and interpersonal brutality in the context of the current political climate across the United States, whereby the spectrum of gender nonconformity has been and continues to be stigmatized. From drag performance to transgender identities to gender-affirming health care, extremists have instrumentalized primary levers of democracy--the courts, legislatures, and social media--to attempt to outlaw and eradicate gender expansiveness and those who provide forms of support and care, including gender-affirming medical care, to transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive (TNBGE) individuals.

This paper offers the intellectual goals and content that guided a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) K-12 Summer Institute entitled "The Role of Geographic Mobility in the African American Freedom Struggle." Readers are provided background and concepts for exploring Black geographies of mobility in classrooms. Geographic mobility is a core democratic principle important to understanding the African American Freedom Struggle and the politics of mobility, a recognition that the very dynamics of where, when, and how we move is a product of the exercise of social power and the distribution of rights. Institute teachers worked to develop content expertise and knowledge necessary to answer three major questions: (1) In what ways has geographic mobility been used as a means of racial control and exclusion against African Americans? (2) In what ways have African Americans used geographic mobility as a form of resistance, resilience, and world-making? (3) In what ways have racialized mobility patterns and practices shaped U.S. landscapes and people's experiences, well-being, and vulnerability in those places?

The Bay Area Third World Strikes, 1968-1969: Coalitional Activism and Chicanx Campus Politics. This essay looks at the 1968-1969 Third World Strikes at San Francisco State and UC Berkeley through the lens of coalitional politics and activism. While the paper looks closely at Chicanx campus politics, the goal is to move away from a nationalist or Maoist reading of the two strikes. During these two events, Chicanx activism has to be read in conjunction with African American, Asian American, Native American, and white campus politics. This coalitional politics represented a temporary rupture of U.S. political behavior and manifested a utopic moment when an alternative political possibility was glimpsed. The essay ends exploring the limits of coalitional politics and activism, especially as nationalism and identity politics came to the fore.

This paper examines the openings for educational change enabled by framing inequality through the concept of rights, considering how variations of this framing have emerged historically and in current debates. Taking as our starting point the 1970 publication Rights and Inequality in Australian Education, we suggest that it is important to pay attention to the ways in which rights gain force within social action and through demands made by differently constituted publics. In the 1960s and 1970s, a right to educational equality garnered greater recognition, prompting moves towards needs-based funding and curriculum diversification, led by the Commonwealth Schools Commission. These moves were responsive to social movements that helped to shape new publics. In a second and more politically conservative moment, rights and inequality were increasingly separated in policies influenced by neoliberalism. We argue that the strategies currently adopted by Indigenous scholar-activists are promoting a return to a rights-based perspective, which is distinctive in casting inequality as ontological and epistemic violence.

This paper describes a qualitative participatory action research study applying critical cosmopolitan literacies principles with pre-service English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers to address global human rights issues through international English youth literature. Using literary works on sociopolitical issues alongside critical pedagogy engagements and teaching practicum in various educational settings, the author as a teacher-researcher attempts to raise the student teachers' critical awareness to issues of power, privilege, and social justice embedded in the multicultural and multimodal texts. Analysis of the qualitative data indicates important outcomes in terms of an enhanced understanding of critical human rights issues pertaining to the formation of student teachers' identities as global-conscious and socially responsible educators. Meanwhile, with explicit guidance from the teacher educator, the student teachers also develop communicative intercultural competence, high-order thinking skills, and learning agency by engaging in multiliteracies practices within a cosmopolitan literacies orientation.

Every individual's language rights are just as important and, often, even equate to healthcare rights during the COVID-19 pandemic. During this crisis, essential and lifesaving information and updates about local and international efforts to respond to and mitigate the impacts of the pandemic have to be made available using language(s) accessible and understandable to as many groups of people as possible. Using the lens of language justice, this paper analysed 238 official - information materials on COVID-19 from social media pages of the Department of Health (DOH) regional offices in hopes of unpacking the injustice that those who speak minor languages in multilingual Philippines experience. The hegemonic presence of major languages in the materials was observed as a majority of the information materials were published in Tagalog and English, whereas the Mother Tongues were unequally represented. The researchers argue that more Filipinos are at risk of contracting the virus, as the languages in which lifesaving information are presented are limited and unequal. Autonomy and decentralisation of local government offices and representation of speakers of the minority languages in the production and publication of materials will be an inclusive, sustainable, and participatory community approach to COVID-19 as a language rights emergency.

This paper examines the development of indicators measuring attacks on education through a case study of the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA). As GCPEA and its partners have brought the problem of attacks on education to the attention of global civil society, they have engaged in contestation to define attacks on education and construct indicators to track the relevant violations. These debates are significant in that indicators are a tool of global governance that shape policymaking and resource allocation. The discussion draws on the author's decade of experience working among groups focused on the protection of education, including direct involvement developing indicators on attacks on education, and on three sets of qualitative interviews. It analyses how resource limitations, organisational agendas, challenges of measurement and verification, and global power dynamics exert pressure towards a more narrow understanding of attacks on education. This limits the transformative potential of the protecting education agenda. The discussion illustrates that EiE actors must consider the ways that they measure their work in ongoing conversations about creating a decolonial and more equitable field of practice.

Academic researchers publish their work in various formats, such as papers, patents, and research reports, on different academic sites. When searching for a particular researcher's work, it can be challenging to pinpoint the right individual, especially when there are multiple researchers with the same name. In order to handle this issue, we propose a name disambiguation scheme for researchers with the same name based on heterogeneous academic sites. The proposed scheme collects and integrates research results from these varied academic sites, focusing on attributes crucial for disambiguation. It then employs clustering techniques to identify individuals who share the same name. Additionally, we implement the proposed rule-based algorithm name disambiguation method and the existing deep learning-based identification method. This approach allows for the selection of the most accurate disambiguation scheme, taking into account the metadata available in the academic sites, using a multi-classifier approach. We consider various researchers' achievements and metadata of articles registered in various academic search sites. The proposed scheme showed an exceptionally high F1-measure value of 0.99. In this paper, we propose a multi-classifier that executes the most appropriate disambiguation scheme depending on the inputted metadata. The proposed multi-classifier shows the high F1-measure value of 0.67. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PRCBC was a legal challenge to the fees imposed on the citizenship application of a child born in, and who has never left, the UK. The Home Secretary imposed legal fees which were well in excess of the costs associated with the citizenship application. In return, this effectively prevented the applicant, and many others alike, from obtaining British citizenship. Many commentators expected the Supreme Court to strike down the fees and reinforce the importance of citizenship and the rule of law. Instead, the court unanimously upheld the legality of the high fees and rooted their conclusion in ordinary rules of statutory interpretation. To some, PRCBC represents a U-turn from the Court's decision in UNISON, which struck down high fees required by employment tribunal applications for failing a reasonable affordability test. Is PRCBC representative of a shift in the highest court to a less interventionist judicial philosophy? This paper examines whether the Supreme Court's decision in PRCBC can convincingly be reconciled with UNISON by considering the nature of constitutional rights, as well as the relationship between primary and delegated legislation. This paper reveals the flaws in some commentators' criticism of PRCBC and argues that the two cases are compatible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technology qualifying as human mood enhancement can be developed, on the one hand, for the well-being and mental health of their users (therapy) and, on the other hand, for changing the mood of their users above levels of normality (enhancement). Such technology provokes debates concerning its societal, ethical and legal consequences for individuals and society as a whole. This paper's aim is twofold. It first aims to show an overview of the often-occurring arguments in the ethics debate about mood enhancement technology and outline which arguments should be considered relevant for supporting the legislative debate. The second aim of the paper is to highlight some of the main legal aspects concerning this technology through the human rights lens of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to review the rising tide of Illiberalism and its growing influence on democratization. Illiberalism, in counter to liberal democracy, refers to the kind of rule that is somewhat democratic but not genuinely democratized. Political leaders distort the mechanism of conducting elections, influence the coverage of the media, and use the notion of nationalism to strengthen their position. The qualitative method of research has been adopted whereas primary and secondary sources are adopted for data collection. Case studies from the United States under Donald Trump, India under Narendra Modi, and Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdogan illustrate these phenomena. It shows that such practices of illiberalism erode democratic institutions, civil liberties, and checks and balances in the country. The paper suggests steps for improving the electoral oversight, media freedom, Global cooperation and civic education. All these measures are critical for the sustainability of democratization in the wake of surging illiberal forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the 1980s, revisionist Sunni Islamist thinkers have engaged in a hermeneutical effort to argue for the full acceptance of non-Muslims as equal political participants and citizens in an Islamic polity. A key text in their argument is the so-called Constitution of Medina, regulating the interaction between the newly arrived followers of Muhammad and the existing tribes in Medina who were either polytheists or Jews. This paper investigates the sira literature of Muslim Brotherhood in order to gauge the degree to which the life of the Prophet has been reinterpreted to enable such novel readings. It analyzes three popular Muslim Brotherhood siras, by the Syrian Mustafa al-Sibai (1960s), the Egyptian Muhammad al-Ghazzali (1980s), and the Libyan Ali al-Sallabi (2000s). The paper detects important developments in these siras' treatments of Muhammad's engagement with non-Muslims—including their interpretations of the Constitution of Medina. These developments, however, do not reflect the radical rethinking of civil society and civility found in the abovementioned revisionist Islamist literature; rather, they evince a more classical Islamist interest in the Prophet as a propagator of Islam as a law and system. That said, this sira literature should be viewed as a genre aiming at the ideological education of brotherhood members, rather than the theoretical exploration of political theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Main goal of patients’ rights is to protect the dignity and the privacy of the individual who is asking for healthcare services, based on the UDHR (Article 5 and 12) where the individuals have the right to be free from cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. Some of the rights that patents must have should be regulated with national law, having into account their culture, economic and social levels in the society. The most important issue related with patients’ right is the issue of ethics during the treatment, but in general it has to do with the beginning and the end of the human life, as depending of national laws regulated in each country (as it is mentioned in the European Framework for patients’ rights). Irrespectively of the healthcare system of the country in Europe, the first attempt for defining and putting together all patients’ rights as one, was in 1994, where was established the Amsterdam Declaration on the promotion of the rights of patients in Europe. This Declaration was established in behalf of the citizens of Europe (to see their rights, reinforce their role in collaboration and trust between healthcare providers and patients, increase patients’ awareness for their active role in their rights as patients and increase the collaborations with policy makers in the field). This Declaration and other Conventions and Legal Acts from 19941, the specific and non negotiable rights that every patient have to know that he/she possesses and every healthcare provider and worker has to respect are: the respect for dignity, integrity, privacy and nondiscrimination. So, the main goal of this paper is: to show to the readers how the issue of healthcare protection and the protection of patients’ rights is regulated within the laws in the R. of North Macedonia and with that to make further researches in the issue of protection of patients’ rights (cooperation with foreign laws, their implementation in practice etc.). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows how the capture and circulation of data about social lives are enabled through digitalisation and market logics and practices. Drawing on Australia's new Consumer Data Right, a state-led initiative that creates access rights to personal data, we distinguish between market promises and the translation of market models in actually existing markets and regulatory frameworks. 'Life's work' is brought to market through promises to fix the problems of essential service markets by harnessing data. We argue that the Consumer Data Right is underpinned by a more ambitious vision to create future markets that transcend individual sectors through aggregation across the economy. These visions are silent on how the data, which cannot be owned and therefore cannot be commoditised, is capitalised. We show the Consumer Data Right's discursive, administrative, regulatory and technical aspects through which the previously hard-to-penetrate spaces of the home and everyday life become enrolled in circuits of value, both present and future. This involves technical standard setting by state agencies for accreditation, consent and approval processes; discourses of trust and calculative devices to promote consumer control; and weak de-identification and deletion requirements that grant data an afterlife beyond the original agreed use. This paper calls for greater attention to the enabling role of the state in digital markets as a counterbalance to the focus on the state's regulatory and constraining role. We argue for a more staged approach to market-making analysis to show how the state lays the market foundations that can then be deepened through practices of intermediation and capitalisation by private firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a culmination of an empirical study which sought to investigate the ethical dilemmas and Clientelism in the allocation of low-cost houses. Section 26 (1) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 eloquently states that ‘everyone has the right to have access to adequate housing’. Low-cost houses commonly known as ‘RDP houses’ are government’s approach in responding and respecting the constitutional right to adequate housing for all deserving South Africans. This paper argues that the low-cost housing system in South Africa is concocted by ethical dilemmas and conflict of interest such as corruption, nepotism, administrative discretion, and policy dilemmas amongst others. The paper adopts a combination of mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative research approaches) and content analysis. The paper followed a case study approach whereby 10 selected villages within the jurisdiction of the Greater Giyani Local Municipality, Limpopo Province were randomly sampled for data collection. Therefore, questionnaires were administered and collected, interviews conducted and documents relating to the discourse of this study were analysed in context of the general objectives of the study. This was done with a view of proposing recommendations that can be used to minimise and curb unethical conduct and the use of public goods for the benefit of political parties, particularly those running the machinery of government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many States in Africa, the Americas, and Europe have accepted binding regional human rights obligations and international monitoring in addition to the United Nations Charter-Based system of human rights protection, which is applicable to all States, and the United Nations Treaty-Based system, which is only applicable to States parties. In the context of this paper, regional human rights regimes are seen as nested sub-regimes of international human rights practice that are comparatively coherent on their own. The European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1950), the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights (1969), and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (1981) are the three regional human rights documents that are examined. This paper scrutinizes the circumstances leading to the establishment of the regional human rights enforcement mechanisms, the nature and scope of rights and guarantees, and safeguarding procedures under these instruments. It, in fact, examines whether the enforcement mechanisms are, consistent with State sovereignty, and whether they are gradually enhancing the promotion of fundamental human rights and freedoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As stated in the Venice Commission Report, the rule of law embraces several aspects, such as legality, legal certainty, prevention of abuse (misuse of powers), equality before the law and non-discrimination, and access to justice. Stability and consistency of law and legitimate expectations as a part of legal certainty are key factors in every democratic country. However, even for countries where democratic standards are highly developed, achievement of all aspects of the rule of law can be a challenge. Areas such as spatial planning and building are very dynamic in their core. However, this should not be an obstacle for stable and long-term regulation. Western democracies are characterized by the long-lasting acts and other regulation in building and spatial planning. Croatia, however, has constant changes in the basic regulation covering mentioned areas. For example, in issuing a building permit, the procedure can be so long lasting that all the relevant regulation may change in the meantime. This affects the investor, the owner of the property and possibly infringes their constitutional rights. Since the issuing of a building permit is in the area of administrative law, the aim of this paper is to analyse which constitutional rights may be affected during frequent changes of basic regulation. The other aim is to research and analyse whether national bodies and courts protect constitutional guarantees in administrative proceedings, and if not, what are the reasons for such practice. This paper is divided into five sections: background and regulatory framework, the rule of law in spatial planning and building, right to a fair trial, protection of property in administrative matters, and conclusion. Methodology used in this paper is normative, comparative, teleological and deductive. The research includes relevant regulation and available domestic and case law of the European Court on Human Rights. Paper is based on domestic and international documentation issued by relevant bodies, such as European Commission Reports, Venice Commission Report, etc. Teleological method is used for interpretation of the regulation and deductive method for the conclusion. Teleological method is used also for recommendations regarding a better application of the principle of the rule of law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes meaning constructions in picket signs containing My Body My Choice (MBMC) within Viewpoint Spaces network theory (Dancygier 2012). It is specifically concerned with multilayered conceptual structures where viewpoints are stacked in the construal of this picket sign slogan, which can be interpreted as: as it is about my body, it should be my choice that matters. To fully understand its use, the viewer requires several pieces of pertinent information, including, for instance, that those who use the phrase to protest vaccine mandates are unlikely to be those who would use it to support abortion rights, even though the phrase ostensibly expresses invariable support for every individual’s right to bodily autonomy. It provides an elaborate account of how multiple pieces of knowledge of different viewpoints, such as invoked frame knowledge of the abortion-rights movement and presupposed knowledge triggered by linguistic constructs, are stacked and (de-)compressed into the overall construal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study endeavors to examine the phenomenon of whistleblowing within the context of freedom of expression. The paper is organized into three key segments, each addressing distinct aspects. Initially, it delves into the challenges and complexities inherent in conceptualizing whistleblowing. Subsequently, the paper establishes a theoretical foundation for the fundamental rights approach to whistleblowing, laying the groundwork for the final section: an analysis of whistleblowing cases through the lens of the European Court of Human Rights' case law. The research methodology employed comprises secondary analysis (desk research) and legal case studies. The study aims to achieve a dual purpose: firstly, to offer a comprehensive understanding of the legal analysis and interpretation of whistleblowing; and secondly, to elucidate the evolving legal standards and criteria governing whistleblowing in the context of freedom of expression over recent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper introduces the emergence, development of the constitutional social rights, and gives a historical overview to these rights in the 20th century. The aim of the paper is to show when the social idea and the appearance of social rights in the constitution began in the Hungarian constitutional system. However, according to the Hungarian legal literature, the first constitutional declaration of social rights in Hungary took place with the adoption of the 1949 constitution (Act XX of 1949), but as a result of my research I will show that in fact social provisions can be found in Article 6 of the so-called final Constitution of the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The paper shows how social provisions appeared in the so-called minor constitution of 1946, and then describes the social law provisions of the socialist constitution of 1949. The paper also shows how the social provisions of the 1949 Hungarian People's Republic Constitution changed between 1949 and 1989, and then describes in detail the changes in the social provisions of the Hungarian Constitution as a result of the political transition in 1989. The paper concludes with a description of the historical development of social rights in the 1989 constitution of the Hungarian People's Republic, without going into the new Fundamental Law in force in 2012. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political participation literature has documented a long-term trend of the normalization of noninstitutional participation that is often equated with the conventionalization of engagement in protest politics. Less is known on the extent to which noninstitutional forms are differentiated by their mobilization context. Population surveys find it difficult to contextualize individual engagement, and on-site surveys point to effects that are hard to generalize. This study fills this gap by emphasizing differentiation and distinguishing participation according to the issue of engagement. It introduces a conceptual distinction between political insiders and outsiders, defined based on the extent to which they are embedded in the organizational landscape of the dominant cleavage dimension. Using an original survey conducted in Germany during the Covid-19 crisis, the analysis demonstrates that general-population surveys are fit to examine issue-specific participation patterns. The results expose an insider and outsider divide, captured by the effect of attitudinal and behavioral indicators, and demonstrates that the two groups are equally likely to participate in noninstitutional forms. However, insiders engage on the established issues of climate and anti-racism, whereas outsiders engage on the new issues of Covid-19 related economic assistance and civil liberties restrictions. In addition, dynamic models reveal that noninstitutional participation is rooted in volatile issue preferences. Overall, the paper argues that participation during the Covid-19 crisis has furthered the trend towards a differentiated protest arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States held in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that there is no constitutional right to abortion. In one swoop, the Court overturned Roe v. Wade and its progeny, Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito reasoned that the appropriate stage for abortion issues is at the state level, with legislatures and its constituents to decide. This new delegation of authority has left an ample amount of gray area—chiefly among them where, when, and how a woman would procure an abortion in the postRoe United States. While states like California, New York, and Illinois aim to provide ample access for a woman to terminate a pregnancy, states like Texas, Oklahoma, and Mississippi have restricted abortion to an absolute minimum. This paper will discuss whether the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico could be another option for women, albeit likely affluent, to travel to and from to terminate their pregnancy. Additionally, this paper will compare Puerto Rico’s abortion law— where some legislators attempted to put into place a twenty-four-week ban— to southeastern states’ laws as well as some neighboring nations in the Caribbean. This will require a comparison of statutes, cases—federal, state, and territorial—and statistics. The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico held long ago in People v. Duarte Mendoza that Roe applies to the U.S. territory, and this Paper predicts that women, who can travel from Florida to Puerto Rico, for example, can procure an abortion. For the reasons mentioned below, it appears likely, or at least feasible, that women living in states with restricted abortion access will travel to the archipelago to terminate their pregnancies [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the era of digitization, data has become a pivotal force driving advancements across various sectors and transforming legal systems worldwide. China, in particular, is exploring new data-driven governance models. A prime example of this is its integration of the patent system with the Social Credit System (SCS). This paper aims to fill the void in theoretical research on this subject, moving beyond the prevalent narrative of the SCS as either a tool of state surveillance or a reputation-based regulatory mechanism. Instead, it introduces the concept of personalized law in the context of China's patent system. The paper suggests that the integration of social credit data within China's patent law system aligns the system's operations more closely with its objectives. This offers a personalized approach that provides individual market entities with tailored incentives based on their unique characteristics. To analyze this approach, the paper proposes a novel four-part analytical framework: profiling, personalization, communication, and adjustment. The paper then applies this framework to the two core mechanisms that result from the integration of the patent system with the SCS: the Reward and Punishment Mechanism and the Tiered Regulation Mechanism. This analysis reveals that these mechanisms are still in the stage of crude personalization and grapples with challenges such as narrow data scope, lack of transparency, and over-penalization. The paper discusses two implications of personalized law reform: the redistribution of power toward administrative bodies--which necessitates a rebalancing of powers to avoid abuse and protect individual rights--and the possible expansion of the law's functions--which might not align with existing normative theories and might have unintended consequences. The process of personalization requires scholars and policymakers to adapt and refine these theories as well as to identify and eliminate unintended consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the major limitations of the cultural relativist contention is its property to rank group rights above and beyond individual rights. This paper, however, contends that such a postulation is utilitarian in character. It suggests that what is good for the many is conclusive as to the justness of an outcome. The paper further underscores that IHRs regime must be seen as an indivisible structure of interconnected sets of rights and freedoms within which the significance of each right and/or freedom is augmented or guaranteed by the synchronous protection of all other rights and/or freedoms. This proposition is pertinent to the enduring tension between IHRs standards and cultural practices in the African debate on human rights. Indeed, when juxtaposed against IHRs standards, certain cultural practices are evidently inimical to the inherent human dignity, contrary to the universal vision for the human rights regime. It stands to reason that, in the event of an irreconcilable friction between individual and group rights, the former must supersede the latter. The paper concludes that the long-standing normativity of specific traditional or cultural practices cannot plausibly be invoked as a defense for the continuation of harmful cultural practices, such as FGM, considering that such practices hardly ever fall within the meaning of the group right to culture under IHRL and are, therefore, pernicious to the IHRs standards as culturally constituted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Culture, health, and medicine intersect in various ways—and not always without friction. This paper examines how liberal multicultural states ought to interact with diverse communities which hold different health-related or medical beliefs and practices. The debate is fierce within the fields of medicine and bioethics as to how traditional medicines ought to be regarded. What this debate often misses is the relationship that medical traditions have with cultural identity and the value that these traditions can have beyond the confines of the clinical setting. This paper will attempt to bring some clarity to the discussion. In so doing, it will delve into some controversial areas: (1) the debate around whether liberal states ought to embrace multiculturalism, (2) the existence and nature of group-differentiated rights, (3) the question of whether healthcare systems ought to embrace medical pluralism, and (4) what this would entail for policymakers, clinicians, and patients. Ultimately, I argue that liberal democratic states with multicultural populations ought to recognize medical pluralism as a matter of respecting group-differentiated and individual human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights to the Member States has given rise both to a controversial phraseology and a controversial case-law. This paper offers a reconstruction of the constitutional intent and proposes a conceptualization in conformity with the structural function and the constitutional contemplation of the pouvoir constituent. As to the phraseological debate, it demonstrates that the Charter's application to the Member States may occur by reason of either "implementation" or "interpretation" of EU law and the two strands are embraced but not synthetized by "scope" as a collective term. As to the substantive debate, it demonstrates that the CJEU's case-law on "implementation" is not only amorphous but also inconsistent with the Charter's constitutional mandate. The paper proposes a novel approach based on the notion that the application to the Member States is accessory to the supremacy of EU law. The paper's argument is presented in the following steps. First, the paper presents the pristine rationale and constitutional function of the application to the Member State through its emergence and historical context. Second, it provides a taxonomy and critical overview of the CJEU's amorphous case-law and presents the Court's futile attempt to create a coherent doctrine that faithfully reproduces the constitutional contemplation behind the diagonal application and that reflects the division of competences between the EU and its Member States. Third, it sets out the proposed doctrine of "displacement." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Annuals of the Administration & Law / Roczniki Administracji i Prawa is the property of Oficyna Wydawnicza Humanitas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Bibliotekar (0006-1816) is the property of Serbian Library Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Using the lenses and language of therapeutic jurisprudence, this paper will argue that the rights of pregnant workers are vulnerable in a post-Brexit climate. Whilst the sunset clause from the Retained EU Law Bill, which would have caused all retained EU law to automatically expire at the end of 2023 unless expressly stated otherwise by Ministers, was lifted, the original drafts of the Bill made clear the government's lack of respect for and interest in protecting workers' rights (amongst others). Furthermore, despite the abandonment of the sunset, the now legislated Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023, aiming to deal with all laws that were once of European origin, still gives Ministers wide powers with limited input from Parliament to change EU derived legislation and replace with UK provision. Using an example from employment law, specifically, pregnant workers, this paper will show that the Act is a therapeutic jurisprudence unfriendly bottle as it has the potential to violate positive physical, social, and psychological outcomes. Recognising that these laws are currently vulnerable, we urge the government to keep intact (and potentially enhance) the laws protecting pregnant workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]