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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 2:25 am
Time: 2:25 am
Results for arbitrary executions
2 results foundAuthor: McPherson, Ella Title: ICTs and Human Rights Practice Summary: In 2010, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns, received a horrifying video from the UK’s Channel 4 that seemed to document the summary execution of Tamil prisoners by Sri Lankan soldiers. This anonymous video, shot on a mobile phone, was an extended version of a video that Heyns' predecessor, Philip Alston, had previously evaluated. If true, the video would be evidence of a grave violation of the right to life – evidence that could not have existed prior to the advent of video-enabled mobile phones. After receiving the first, shorter version of the video, Alston wrote the Sri Lankan government indicating that the footage warranted an independent investigation. In response, the Sri Lankan government claimed the video had been fabricated, citing analysis it commissioned from audio, video, ballistics, and forensic pathology experts. In turn, Alston also engaged experts, who instead found that the contents of the video indicated authenticity. Heyns gave the extended video to the same experts for review; by examining the footage for indications of editing and the details of the incidents recorded, these experts again concluded that the video depicted real executions. Heyns then reported these findings to the United Nations Human Rights Council, calling on the Sri Lankan Government to investigate the executions. This pioneering case, which demonstrated both the potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for expanding the documentation of human rights violations and the problem of verification this expansion poses, was an impetus for this report. ICTs are unsettling human rights practices across the board, including the key practices of preventing human rights violations, fact-finding cases of violations, and advocating for the amelioration of individual cases as well as for the promotion of a broader culture of human rights. Given the pace of innovation in the development and use of ICTs, our understanding of their impact on human rights often lags. Understanding this impact is crucial not just because of the opportunities ICTs create for human rights – which we can think of as affordances, or what ICTs allow their users to do. It is also crucial – due to the 'double-edged' nature of technology – because of the risks. Information and communication technology is a catchall category that refers to the hardware and software that facilitate the production, storage, transmission, and reception of digital information. The aim of this report, targeted at both practitioners and researchers, is to provide a snapshot of current initiatives and trends at the intersection of ICTs and human rights practices. Based on a review of primary materials documenting these initiatives and trends as well as on interviews with human rights defenders (HRDs), this report examines three key human rights practices in turn. In prevention, the use of ICTs includes their deployment to protect HRDs, to deter violations through police body-worn cameras, and for conflict prevention and early warning systems. These three uses address hotspots of right to life violations. They also create new security and privacy risks. In fact-finding, ICTs support both spontaneous and solicited civilian witnessing. ICTs facilitate fact-finders’ evaluation of human rights information for evidence – but they also complicate it because of the volume and verification challenges of social media information. Although generating robust evidence is a requirement of all human rights fact-finding, it is particularly relevant for cases involving the violation of the right to life, as one of the major challenges in this area is perpetrators’ refutation of allegations of violations. In terms of advocacy, ICTs provide new opportunities for reaching publics and advocacy targets. Because of social media’s particular characteristics and cultures, however, their use may jeopardize the visibility of particular categories of human rights information as well as the reputations of human rights organizations. Looking at opportunities and risks for human rights practices in the field is key for understanding how using ICTs can impact work to secure the right to life and other human rights. These opportunities and risks are not, however, distributed evenly. Their distribution is inflected by digital divides with respect to access to ICTs as well as with respect to digital literacy, or knowledge about how to use ICTs. These digital divides, as well as the nature of the opportunities and risks that the use of ICTs generates, are in turn influenced by ICTs' political economy, namely the power relations in which the use of particular ICTs are embedded. The conclusion of this report recommends that academics and practitioners take an approach to understanding ICTs and human rights practice that encompasses these aspects as a way to foreground the human rights concerns of redressing power abuses and enabling pluralism in the research, design, and deployment of these ICTs. Details: Cambridge, UK: University of Cambridge, Centre of Governance and Human Rights, 2015. 57p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 3, 2017 at: http://www.cghr.polis.cam.ac.uk/research-themes/human-rights-in-the-digital-age-1/ICTS_and_Human_Rights_Practice Year: 2015 Country: International URL: http://www.cghr.polis.cam.ac.uk/research-themes/human-rights-in-the-digital-age-1/ICTS_and_Human_Rights_Practice Shelf Number: 141319 Keywords: Arbitrary ExecutionsCommunication TechnologyExtrajudicial ExecutionsHuman Rights AbusesInformation Technology |
Author: Probert, Thomas, ed. Title: Unlawful Killings in Africa: a study prepared for the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Summary: This study presents the work of a Research Team convened by the Centre of Governance and Human Rights (CGHR) at the University of Cambridge. This team was tasked with surveying events and reporting from the African continent germane to the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, a mandate focused upon violations of the right to life contrary to international law. This mandate, together with the framing of the right to life itself, establishes a category of violations that will here be referred to as "unlawful killings". While there are many organisations monitoring and reporting on killings both globally and with particular African focus, most do so with the objective frame of reference of violence. The purpose of this report is to narrow that focus to the (international) legal frame of unlawful killing. This is undertaken with a view to increasing attention to the right to life, but also as a means of assisting the Special Rapporteur in prioritisation over the coming years. Since the international human rights framework, of which this mandate is part, speaks primarily to states or state-like actors and not to private individuals—the category of unlawful killings does not include every act of killing, however illegal in domestic law. However this is not to say that the international legal definition of an unlawful killing cannot accommodate killings which are not perpetrated by a state actor. The state’s dual obligation both to respect and to protect the right to life places certain types of killing by non-state actors within the scope of the mandate and therefore of this study. Unlawful Killings in Africa draws attention to the fact that both the level of state control (both direct and indirect) over the act of killing and the scale of the incidence of the killing can be relevant to determining whether that loss of life can be regarded from within the international human rights system. Details: Cambridge, UK: Centre of Governance and Human Rights, University of Cambridge, 2014. 268p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 3, 2017 at: http://www.cghr.polis.cam.ac.uk/research-themes/right_to_life/unlawful_killings_in_africa/unlawful_killings_report/pdf Year: 2014 Country: Africa URL: http://www.cghr.polis.cam.ac.uk/research-themes/right_to_life/unlawful_killings_in_africa/unlawful_killings_report/pdf Shelf Number: 141320 Keywords: Arbitrary Executions Extrajudicial ExecutionsHomicidesHuman Rights AbusesVigilantism |