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Rights Instruments (right + instruments)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Psychology40%
Humanities and Social Sciences40%

Kinds of Rights Instruments

  • human right instruments
    		•
  • international human right instruments
    		•

    Selected Abstracts

    MANDATORY HIV TESTING IN PREGNANCY: IS THERE EVER A TIME?

    DEVELOPING WORLD BIOETHICS, Issue 1 2008
    RUSSELL ARMSTRONG
    ABSTRACT Despite recent advances in ways to prevent transmission of HIV from a mother to her child during pregnancy, infants continue to be born and become infected with HIV, particularly in southern Africa where HIV prevalence is the highest in the world. In this region, emphasis has shifted from voluntary HIV counselling and testing to routine testing of women during pregnancy. There have also been proposals for mandatory testing. Could mandatory testing ever be an option, even in high-prevalence settings? Many previous examinations of mandatory testing have dealt with it in the context of low HIV prevalence and a well-resourced health care system. In this discussion, different assumptions are made. Within this context, where mandatory testing may be a strategy of last resort, the objections to it are reviewed. Special attention is paid in the discussion to the entrenched vulnerability of women in much of southern Africa and how this contributes to both HIV prevalence and ongoing challenges for preventing HIV transmission during pregnancy. While mandatory testing is ethically plausible, particularly when coupled with guaranteed access to treatment and care, the discussion argues that the moment to employ this strategy has not yet come. Many barriers remain for pregnant women in terms of access to testing, treatment and care, most acutely in the southern African setting, despite the presence of national and international human rights instruments aimed at empowering women and removing such barriers. While this situation persists, mandatory HIV testing during pregnancy cannot be justified. [source]

    Protection of Migrants' Human Rights: Principles and Practice

    INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, Issue 6 2001
    Heikki S. Mattila
    In principle, migrants enjoy the protection of international law. Key human rights instruments oblige the States Parties to extend their protection to all human beings. Such important treaties as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights have been ratified by more than 140 states, but many political, social or economic obstacles seem to stand in the way of offering those rights to migrants. In an attempt to bridge this protection gap, the more specifically targeted International Convention on the Protection of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families was created and adopted by the United Nations in 1990. This treaty is not yet in force, but the number of States Parties is increasing towards the required 20. In the past few years the human rights machinery of the United Nations has increased its attention towards migrants' human rights, appointing in 1999 the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants. Governments, as the acceding parties to international human rights instruments, remain the principal actors as guardians of the human rights of all individuals residing in their territories. Receiving countries are in a key position in the protection of the migrants that they host. However, active defence of migrants' rights is politically difficult in many countries where anti-immigrant factions are influential. Trafficking in migrants is one example of the complexity faced by states in formulating their migration policies. On the one hand, trafficking has made governments increasingly act together and combine both enforcement and protection. On the other, trafficking, with its easily acceptable human rights concerns, is often separated from the more migration-related human smuggling. The latter is a more contentious issue, related also to unofficial interests in utilizing cheap undocumented immigrant labour. [source]

    Beyond Balancing: Toward an Integrated Approach to Children's Rights

    JOURNAL OF SOCIAL ISSUES, Issue 4 2008
    Gary B. Melton
    Discussions of children's rights often are framed in terms of balancing,balancing parents' and children's rights, balancing rights to autonomy and protection, balancing rights and responsibilities. By its nature, such a comparative inquiry pulls for relativist reasoning, but such an approach undermines the universalism that is at the root of the concept of human rights. Like the international human rights instruments that preceded it, the Convention on the Rights of the Child is based on "recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family." Whether grounded in religious or secular ethical reasoning, human rights are directed toward a world in which the Golden Rule,a regime of mutual respect,serves as the guidepost for the social order. Building from that premise, recommendations are offered for social scientists' contributions to creation and preservation of such societies. [source]

    Children and Young People in Conflict with the Law: Asking the Hard Questions

    JUVENILE AND FAMILY COURT JOURNAL, Issue 4 2006
    ANDREW J. BECROFT JUDGE
    ABSTRACT Shocking crimes elicit calls to "get tough" on youth offenders, but knee-jerk responses are inappropriate and potentially dangerous. Although accountability and deterrence are important, rehabilitation is vital for young people who are more likely to benefit from such measures than their adult counterparts. However, balancing these factors raises a number of hard questions. For example, at what age should children be held criminally responsible for their actions, what is the correct role of welfare assistance in the process, and to what extent should state power to deal with child offending be transferred to families, victims, and communities? In assessing eight of these "hard questions," this paper calls for a principled approach to the treatment of child and youth offenders in line with international human rights instruments. [source]

    Assessing the viability of treatment rights for prisoners with personality disorder: Substance or substantive?

    PERSONALITY AND MENTAL HEALTH, Issue 3 2009
    Leon McRae
    Personality disorder (PD) has long been criticized as a diagnosis, not least for the issue of its supposed untreatability. This has precluded many offenders with PD from receiving treatment for their disorder in a secure hospital, with detention in the potentially deleterious penal environment the result. However, transfers for public protection continue to occur. A further problematic issue for treatment considerations when diversion from prison hangs in the balance is the removal of the need for proposed treatment to provide a therapeutic benefit under the recently amended Mental Health Act 1983. In light of these developments, this paper considers the significance of human rights instruments, such as the European Prison Rules 2006, which aim to offer rights to treatment, giving the offender with a diagnosis of PD access to adequate and sustaining treatment, both in prison and secure hospitals. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]