Featured Publications

Bilateral Investment Treaties and Land Reform in Southern Africa

A special international legal regime exists to protect cross-border investments, including ownership of land and property.  A new publication from Rights & Democracy, " Bilateral Investment Treaties and Land Reform in Southern Africa" by Luke Eric Peterson and Ross Garland, will examine exactly how this regime may provide enhanced rights for investors and in some cases, could complicate efforts by governments to pursue land reform initiatives designed to remedy historic inequalities.  The study includes case examples from Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa.

Legal Opinion on the Right to Property from a Human Rights' Perspective

The concept of property rights is often associated with commercial rights protecting corporate ownership of goods, land, or scientific innovation.  However this narrow reading obscures the importance of the right to property as a human right and the social function of property as a dimension of other human rights including the human rights to food, housing and social security. 

The legal opinion was commissioned by Rights & Democracy and written by Dr. Christophe Golay and Ms. Ioana Cismas at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights.  It compiles and comments upon existing instruments and jurisprudence at the international, regional and national levels.  The authors conclude that the human right to property has two main components: on one hand it is essential for the protection of human life and dignity, and on the other hand it may be limited in order to resolve social injustices and advance the human rights of specific disadvantaged individuals or groups.

The legal opinion will be of interest to academics and human rights activists working on questions related to access to land, the right to food and the right to housing as well as foreign investment and the activities of transnational corporations.

Also of interest: 

Human Rights & Bilateral Investment Treaties:  Mapping the role of human rights law within investor-state arbitration (2008)

Human Rights and Bilateral Investment Treaties

Mapping the role of human rights law within investor-state arbitration.

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The Fight for Human Rights in Africa: Perspectives on the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights

The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights which in 2007 celebrated its twentieth anniversary is Africa’s key institution charged with the promotion and protection of human rights. In 2005, the African Commission and Rights & Democracy entered into a partnership which for the first time saw Canadian lawyers posted to the African Commission’s Secretariat for two years. Working with and learning from their colleagues at the Secretariat, these Canadians were able to make important contributions to the fulfilment of the Commission’s mandate. Drawing on their experiences, these Canadians describe in the chapters of this volume the African Commission’s mandate and opportunities for human rights promotion and protection.

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The Civil Society and Security Sector Reform in Indonesia: 1998-2006

This is a summary of a study that examined Indonesian civil society organizations’ efforts to promote security sector reform, from 1998 to 2006. Despite some progress, the security apparatus continues to resist change by denying occurrences of human rights violations and enjoying impunity for past and present abuses. Security institutions and actors continue to carry out political roles and resist being subject to civil political authority, including civil law.

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The Human Right to Food in Haiti: Report of an International Fact-finding Mission

This report of an international fact-finding mission to Haiti is the third in a series of country-level assessments on the human right to food. The report documents the causes of hunger in Haiti, identifies right to food violations observed during the assessment process and makes a series of recommendations to government, the donor community and civil society.

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No Way Out

The study presents examples of labour disputes that have arisen from the privatisation of state-owned-enterprises in China. It analyses the overall process of restructuring and shows how workers' rights were systematically discarded during the process. The report illustrates four cases in which laid-off workers sought judicial recourse through China's legal system.

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Democracy, a Universal Value?

"Democracy: A Universal Value?" was the title of R & D's annual conference in 2007. This publication groups together some of the important papers delivered at the conference, including on the topics of social democracy in Bolivia, secularisation, Islam and democratisation in Turkey, and the relationship between civil society and the national human rights commission in Korea.

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Public Interest Litigation and Political Activism in China

They appear in Chinese courts to contest the price of a highway toll, the absence of a receipt for a meal served at the canteen on a train, or the appearance of parking metres that impede access to a bicycle path. They do this with the intention of bringing about political change in a country that is resistant to this kind of questioning. These Chinese lawyers are carefully choosing causes that do not attack the government head on, while offering the possibility of spurring important changes in government policy. In this study, researcher Yiyi Lu examines this bold yet prudent approach to promoting the primacy of the law and awareness of human rights in China.

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Portrait of the Indigenous Women of Asia

Published by the Asian Indigenous Women’s Network (AIWN) and the Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN: Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara), in partnership with Rights & Democracy.

This information kit highlights the work of indigenous women who are acting at the local, national and international levels to have their rights respected. It is an adaptation of the document Indigenous Women of the Americas.

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Governing Diversity - Democratic Solutions in Multicultural Societies

How to democratically govern multi-ethnic, multi-national, and multi-religious societies remains a major challenge for political leaders and policy makers throughout the world. This book, containing ten policy papers, draws on the expertise of Canadian and international specialists to highlight some of the key issues and challenges, as well as to provide certain policy suggestions.

Download PDF | Table of Contents

Right to Food in Nepal

Report of an International Fact-Finding Mission

This report documents the experience of an international team of human rights advocates and their Nepali counterparts to talk about the challenges faced in accessing sufficient, nutritious and safe food in Nepal. The report will be of interest to human rights practitioners, social justice activist and development agencies who have adopted or who are considering the adoption of a human rights framework for poverty alleviation programming.

Human Rights Impact Assessments for Foreign Investment Projects

Learning from Community Experiences in the Philippines, Tibet, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Argentina, and Peru

This report is the result of a three-year research project that developed a draft methodology for human rights impact assessments and applied it to selected case examples. The report includes an overview of the debate about corporate accountability and human rights, a summary of the approach adopted by the project’s international advisory committee and the results of the five case studies.

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The Human Right to Food in Malawi: Report of an International Fact-Finding Mission

This report and the fact-finding mission on which it is based, summarize some of the obstacles faced by communities in Malawi as they seek to apply sustainable solutions to the problem of persistent hunger in their country.

Documenting Women's Rights Violations by Non-state Actors

This manual provides tools to human rights activists and defenders who investigate violence perpetrated against women by non-state actors.

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Indigenous Women of the Americas - Second edition

Rights & Democracy, in partnership with Enlace - the Continental Network of Indigenous Women - and Quebec Native Women. Information kit on the work of Indigenous Women for the respect of their rights.

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Where Are The Girls?

Girls in fighting forces in Northern Uganda, Sierra Leone and Mozambique: Their lives during and after war

Dyan Mazurana and Susan McKay’s study "Where are the Girls?" raises our awareness of the militarization of the lives of girls in fighting forces and the role they play. The authors use data gleaned from their research in Northern Uganda , Mozambique and Sierra Leone to reveal that girls in fighting forces are not, and never have been, simply “camp followers.”

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