Tag Archives: Human rights

The Algorithmic Frontier: AI, Political Science, and the Future of Human Rights

Posted on by
Reply

Anju Gupta

JECRC  University

 Jaipur,  India

https://orcid.org/0009-0005-6942-3583

Abstract

This paper examines the growing tension between technological innovation and the protection of human rights in the digital era, with particular emphasis on the privacy–security trade-off. While digital tools enhance communication, transportation, and public safety, they also expand the capacity for surveillance, data collection, and automated decision-making, increasing the risk of misuse, identity theft, discrimination, and other rights violations. The discussion highlights how encryption and anonymization can safeguard sensitive information, yet acknowledges that the same technological ecosystem can enable large-scale data breaches and intrusive monitoring through facial recognition, biometric identification, and AI-driven systems. To manage these risks, the paper argues for a multifaceted response that combines transparency and accountability by data-collecting organizations, ethical technology development that embeds privacy protections by design, robust legal frameworks for data protection and oversight, and sustained public awareness so individuals can better understand and mitigate online threats. Ultimately, the paper concludes that the digital age need not undermine human rights; with responsible governance and informed use, technology can support security while preserving dignity, freedom, and democratic values.

Keywords: privacy, surveillance, data protection, artificial intelligence

As we move further into the decade, the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Political Science has transitioned from a niche technical concern to a fundamental challenge for global human rights. In 2026, the proliferation of generative AI and predictive analytics is not merely changing how we govern—it is fundamentally altering the “Social Contract.” For the international political science community, specifically those focused on human rights, this shift demands a new vocabulary of resistance and a reimagined framework for justice.

One of the most pressing political issues today is the erosion of “Epistemic Security”—the ability of a society to distinguish fact from fabrication. Generative AI has weaponized the “marketplace of ideas.” With hyper-realistic deepfakes, we have entered an era of “The Liar’s Dividend,” where the very existence of AI allows bad actors to dismiss real evidence of human rights abuses as “synthetic.”

From a political science perspective, this shatters the foundation of democratic accountability. When the public cannot agree on a shared reality, the right to free and fair elections—and the right to information—is compromised. We are seeing a shift in political strategy where the goal is no longer to convince the electorate of a particular truth, but to exhaust them with so much “synthetic noise” that they withdraw from the political process entirely.

There is another problem and that is  accountability Gap

The transition from traditional bureaucracy to “Algocracy”—governance by algorithm—represents a significant shift in state power. AI systems are now routinely used in judicial sentencing, social welfare distribution, and migration management. While proponents argue this brings “Scientific Management” and efficiency, human rights advocates see a “Black Box” problem.

In political theory, the legitimacy of the state rests on the transparency of its decisions. However, many AI models are proprietary and inscrutable. If a citizen is denied asylum or a social safety net based on a biased algorithm, whom do they hold accountable? The programmer? The data set? The machine? This lack of transparency violates the right to due process and creates a new form of “digital disenfranchisement” that disproportionately affects marginalized populations.

AI has also enabled a level of “Ubiquitous Surveillance” that would have been unimaginable to 20th-century theorists. The combination of facial recognition, gait analysis, and predictive policing has turned the “Panopticon” into a digital reality.

For the IPSA Human Rights Committee, the concern is how these tools are used to stifle dissent. In several regions, AI is used to monitor political activists in real-time, predicting protests before they happen and “pre-emptively” neutralizing opposition. This “Predictive Authoritarianism” chills the freedom of assembly and association, as the mere knowledge of being watched by an infallible algorithm forces citizens to self-censor their political expressions.

AI has also resulted in the Geopolitics of the “Compute Divide”.

In International Relations (IR), power is being redefined by access to “Compute”—the hardware and data necessary to run advanced AI. This is creating a dangerous “North-South” divide. We are witnessing a form of “Data Colonialism,” where the Global South provides the raw data (often generated by its citizens without consent), while the Global North controls the refined AI models.

This “Compute Divide” has direct human rights implications. Countries without sovereign AI capabilities are forced to rely on foreign platforms that may not align with their cultural values or legal protections. It creates a hierarchy of nations where “digital sovereignty” is a luxury, leaving the rights of billions of people at the mercy of a few transnational corporations.

Perhaps the most profound impact is on the nature of political agency. If algorithms can predict—and influence—voter behavior with 99% accuracy, what remains of the “Autonomous Individual”? Political science must now grapple with the idea that the “voter” is being replaced by a “data profile.”

The challenge for the 21st century is to draft a “Digital Bill of Rights” that treats AI not just as a tool, but as a systemic force that requires global oversight. We must move toward “Human-in-the-Loop” governance, where the final decision in any matter affecting a person’s life, liberty, or livelihood remains a human responsibility.

Conclusion: A Call to Action for Political Scientists

The integration of AI into the political sphere is an “orbit-shifting” event. For the members of the IPSA, our task is to ensure that while technology evolves, the “Compass of Human Rights” remains fixed. We must advocate for the Decolonization of Data, the Auditability of Algorithms, and the Protection of the Epistemic Truth.

The new horizon of politics is digital, but our commitment must remain resolutely human. As we analyze these shifting power dynamics, let us ensure that innovation serves to expand human dignity, rather than providing new tools for its suppression.

Bearing the Risk, Missing the Reward: The Unequal Burden of the New Space Race

Posted on by
Reply

Cássius Guimarães Chai

RC26 Board Member

Full Law and Geopolitics Professor (PPGAERO/PROFIAP/UFMA & PPGD/FDV), Brazil

www.spaceweeknordeste.com

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5893-3901

Abstract

This paper revisits the foundational promise of Article I of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty that outer space shall be explored and used “for the benefit and in the interests of all countries,” and tests that promise against contemporary governance practices through the critical lens of Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL). It argues that the formal language of universality functions increasingly as legitimating rhetoric for a legal order that reproduces global hierarchy. The analysis highlights how ostensibly neutral allocation mechanisms for geostationary orbital slots and radio frequencies—administered through the International Telecommunication Union and structured around practical first-mover advantages—enable early access to become durable control, effectively enclosing finite orbital and spectrum resources. The paper further examines how accelerated commercialization and militarisation, including the rapid expansion of private satellite mega-constellations, intensify congestion and debris risks while concentrating economic gains in a small group of wealthy states and corporate actors. These dynamics externalize long-term hazards—such as collision cascades associated with the Kessler Syndrome—onto countries with limited space capabilities, mirroring patterns of environmental injustice identified by TWAIL scholarship. The paper concludes that achieving the treaty’s egalitarian intent requires more than fidelity to dated treaty language: it demands procedural inclusion, substantive participation by developing states in regulatory bodies, and concrete mechanisms for technology transfer and capacity building.

Keywords: Outer Space Treaty, TWAIL, space governance, orbital debris

The grand promise enshrined in Article I of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, that the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development, constitutes one of international law’s most ambitious normative declarations. It proclaims space as the “province of all mankind,” a common beyond terrestrial sovereign claims. However, viewed from the critical perspective afforded by Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), this foundational promise stands in stark and increasingly indefensible tension with present realities. The juridical architecture of space governance, far from guaranteeing equitable access and benefit-sharing, functions as a mechanism for consolidating the technological and economic primacy of a handful of wealthy states and their corporate proxies, thereby perpetuating the very structures of global inequality that TWAIL scholarship has long sought to unmask.

The TWAIL critique offers an indispensable hermeneutic for understanding why the “province of all mankind” remains a largely rhetorical flourish. It posits that international legal norms, including those governing outer space, were forged within a post-colonial order inherently reflecting the interests of powerful, developed states. The ostensibly neutral principle of equitable access is, in practice, subverted by operational realities. The prevailing regime for allocating geostationary orbital slots and radio frequencies, administered by the International Telecommunication Union, operates effectively on a “first-come, first-served” basis. This procedural framework creates an insurmountable first-mover advantage, allowing established spacefaring nations and their commercial entities to claim prime orbital real estate long before developing nations possess the technical and financial capacity to compete. The result is not a common management for universal benefit, but a de facto enclosure of a finite resource, sanctioned by a legal order whose structural biases TWAIL consistently foregrounds.

Furthermore, the accelerating commercialization and militarization of space exacerbate this foundational inequity. The deployment of vast satellite mega-constellations by private corporations, while offering global services, consumes enormous amounts of spectrum and orbital volume in Low Earth Orbit. This raises urgent concerns about the ability of non-spacefaring countries to ever achieve meaningful access. The orbital environment is rapidly becoming congested and polluted, predominantly by the actions of a few, yet the consequent risks of collision and debris proliferation fall disproportionately upon nations that have yet to launch their first satellite. This dynamic, wherein the costs and dangers of technological “progress” are externalized onto the global periphery, mirrors patterns of environmental injustice and resource extraction that TWAIL identifies as characteristic of neo-colonial legal and economic relations. The principle of the “province of all mankind” is thus inverted: the benefits are privatized and concentrated, while the long-term risks and burdens are socialized globally, with developing nations bearing a disproportionate share of the potential consequences of the Kessler Syndrome.

In conclusion, the intersection of space law’s foundational promise with TWAIL’s critical lens reveals a profound and disquieting juridical dissonance. The “province of all mankind” functions less as a binding normative commitment and more as a legitimating ideology for a system that entrenches global hierarchy. A genuinely equitable framework for space governance cannot be realized through a superficial adherence to dated treaty language; it demands a fundamental reimagination of the legal order itself. This reimagination must prioritize procedural inclusion, granting developing nations a substantive voice in the regulatory bodies that shape the future of the cosmos. It requires concrete mechanisms for technology transfer and capacity building that move beyond mere aspirational statements. Ultimately, the legitimacy of international space law hinges upon its capacity to transform the abstract promise of a shared celestial commons into a tangible reality of equitable participation and shared benefit. Without such a transformation, the law merely provides a veneer of legality to a new frontier of global disenfranchisement.

The Policeman Has Left the Building

Posted on by
Reply

On Human Rights, American Exceptionalism, and the Architecture of Convenient Conscience

 Swati Sakshi Mishra 

Geopolitical Journalist, MEA WorldWide

Masters, International Relations

JECRC University, India

https://orcid.org/0009-0003-0912-7913

Abstract
This essay interrogates the foundational myth of the postwar human rights regime: that its authority rested on universal principle rather than on the reputational arithmetic of American power. Beginning with the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by a United States that simultaneously practiced racial segregation, administered colonial territories, and engineered coups in Iran and Guatemala, the piece argues that rights language has functioned historically as a Cold War instrument, calibrated to discipline rivals while insulating its architect. The implicit bargain that sustained this architecture was never moral; it was reputational. Dictators observed limits not because Washington had a conscience, but because it had an image to protect. That calculation has now definitively ruptured. The essay documents how the active dismantling of multilateral commitments, from withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council and WHO to executive attacks on judicial independence, civil society, and press freedom, constitutes not isolationism but demolition: the meaningful difference between a state that stops attending the meeting and one that burns the meeting hall on its way out. Governments in Budapest, Ankara, and Riyadh do not feel embarrassed by Washington’s conduct; they feel vindicated. Against this backdrop of declining global freedom, shrinking civil-society funding, and institutions being starved rather than reformed, the essay advances a paradoxical claim: that the departure of the hegemon-patron may be the most honest moment human rights discourse has ever occupied. Stripped of its association with Western foreign policy, a contamination that postcolonial critics and feminist IR theorists had long diagnosed, the idea must now earn authority on its own terms. Youth-led mobilizations in Bangladesh, Kenya, Nepal, and Venezuela suggest that accountability does not require American endorsement; it requires publics angry enough and organized enough to demand rights as an autonomous political project. The policeman has left the building. The test is whether human rights ever meant anything beyond his convenience.

Keywords: human rights, American exceptionalism, multilateralism, reputational power, civil society, postcolonial critique, democratic backsliding

There is an old joke in international relations: human rights are what powerful states demand of weaker ones. It is not actually a joke.

When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948, the United States voted in favour. Eleanor Roosevelt had chaired the drafting committee. The symbolism was enormous, the sincerity, selective. At the time of signing, the US maintained legal racial segregation at home, ran a colonial administration in Puerto Rico, and was orchestrating coups in Iran and Guatemala within the same decade. The Declaration was a magnificent document. It was also, in significant part, a Cold War instrument, a rhetorical cudgel with which the West could beat the Soviet Union while (silently) exempting itself from the same blows.

You might think it’s cynicism. But (unfortunately) this is history.

For seventy years, the global human rights system operated on an implicit understanding: the United States was its guarantor of last resort. Flawed, hypocritical, frequently absent, but present enough to give the architecture some credibility. Dictators knew there were limits. Not because Washington had a conscience, but because it had an image to maintain. 

Reputational cost is a real cost in international politics, even when moral cost is not.

That calculation has now collapsed.

In the course of a single year, the Trump administration undermined trust in elections, attacked judicial independence, defied court orders, rolled back women’s rights, stripped protections from trans and intersex people, eroded privacy, and used government power to intimidate the media, law firms, universities, civil society organizations, and, remarkably, even comedians. Comedians. The regime that cannot tolerate a joke is historically not a regime that tolerates much else.

The US withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council, the World Health Organization, and announced plans to exit 66 more international institutions. You might its isolationism but Isolationism, my dear readers, is passive. This is active demolition. 

There is a meaningful difference between a country that stops attending the meeting and one that burns down the meeting hall on its way out.

The consequences are not abstract. Authoritarians worldwide have monitored this assault and learned that they are unlikely to be held accountable internationally in the near term. Observation and emulation are the sincerest forms of political flattery. When Budapest, Ankara, and Riyadh see Washington sanction ICC judges and call it foreign policy, they do not feel embarrassed. They feel vindicated.

Here is the deeper problem, and it requires some philosophical honesty to state: the human rights system was always underpinned more by American power than American principle. 

John Rawls built his theory of justice on the idea of a veil of ignorance, that we design fair rules when we do not know which position we will occupy. The American approach to human rights worked on the opposite logic. Washington always knew exactly which position it occupied, and designed the rules accordingly. What is remarkable is how long the rest of the world politely pretended otherwise.

Freedom House recorded its 19th consecutive year of declines in global freedom. Human rights funding globally faces a projected reduction of $1.9 billion by 2026 compared to 2023 levels. Civil society organizations are being defunded, banned, and in some cases disappeared. Nearly 44 percent of peacebuilding organizations surveyed would run out of funds by the end of 2027. The infrastructure of accountability is not being reformed. It is being starved.

So where does that leave human rights as a political project?

Precisely here: stripped of its most powerful patron, the idea must now justify itself on its own terms. That is, paradoxically, the most honest position it has ever been in. For decades, human rights advocacy was contaminated by association with Western foreign policy, a problem that scholars from the Global South, feminist IR theorists, and postcolonial critics had been raising long before it became fashionable to notice. When Amnesty International’s credibility depended partly on the State Department’s credibility, that was always a fragile foundation.

Civil society organizations are more important than ever and can play a critical role in defending rights, protecting minorities, and holding governments accountable. Youth movements in Bangladesh, Kenya, Nepal and Venezuela demonstrated in 2024 and 2025 that accountability does not require American endorsement. It requires people who are angry enough and organized enough to demand it themselves.

The policeman has left the building. He was, admittedly, a policeman who sometimes robbed the same houses he claimed to protect. His departure is not a tragedy for human rights. His departure is a test of whether human rights ever meant anything beyond his convenience.

The answer to that test will define the next century of global politics.

 Democracy and the Right to Welfare: Reclaiming Human Dignity through Social Rights 

Posted on by
Reply

Thiruppathi P. 

Ph.D. Scholar 

Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), University of Mysore, India. 

Chair of Comparative Politics SRC 

International Association for Political Science Students (IAPSS)

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4840-6782

Abstract

Human rights are widely treated as the normative foundation of contemporary democracy, yet democratic practice often privileges civil and political liberties while marginalizing socio-economic entitlements. This paper argues that democratic legitimacy remains incomplete unless the right to welfare is recognized and institutionalized as a core human right grounded in human dignity and natural justice, rather than as a discretionary state benefit. Drawing on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the tradition of social citizenship, it highlights how formal political inclusion can coexist with deep structural exclusion. The Indian experience of Dalits is used as an illustrative case: despite constitutional guarantees and access to electoral politics, persistent discrimination in education, health, housing, and other public goods reveals a democracy that is procedurally inclusive but substantively unequal. The analysis further emphasizes the role of political communication and framing in sustaining or contesting exclusion. When welfare is framed as entitlement and justice, it strengthens democratic participation; when framed as dependency, it legitimises stigma and weak enforcement. Reclaiming a rights-based language of welfare, inspired by Ambedkar’s vision of social democracy, the paper proposes a broader understanding of democracy as “dignity in action,” where social rights enable meaningful citizenship for historically marginalized groups.

Keywords: democracy, welfare rights, social citizenship, Dalits

 

Human rights have been touted as the pillars of contemporary democracy, infusing values of freedom, equality, and dignity. While civil and political rights like voting, freedom of speech, and fair treatment under law are touted, social and economic rights are relegated to the background. In order for democracy to be meaningfully inclusive, the right to welfare needs to be accepted as a core human right and not a state-derived indulgence (Beetham, 1999; Sen, 1999). 

This contends that democratic legitimacy is not complete without considering social exclusion and structural inequality—particularly for historically excluded groups such as Dalits in India. The withholding of welfare, dignity, and equal opportunity from the Dalits highlights the imperative necessity of inscribing social rights into the democratic order. Based on the prisms of political communication and rights-based language, this post contends for an expansive understanding of democracy: one that guarantees substantive equality, natural justice, and collective welfare. 

From Political Equality to Social Citizenship 

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) upholds both civil liberties and socio-economic rights (Articles 22–26). However, in practice, democracies often treat the latter as aspirational rather than enforceable. As T.H. Marshall (1950) argued, full citizenship involves not just legal equality but social rights—the right to education, livelihood, and health—which allow people to meaningfully participate in public life. 

Nowhere is this disparity more evident than in the life of Dalits in India. Even with constitutional guarantees and effective political rights, Dalits remain discriminated against in obtaining access to public goods, education, health services, and accommodations (Thorat & Newman, 2010). Their plight best illustrates what democracy 

without welfare rights is like—a society in which formal inclusion camouflages structural exclusion. This is a violation of not just human rights but also the concept of natural justice, which presumes fairness, impartiality, and protection against arbitrary denial of dignity. 

Rhetoric, Framing, and Political Inclusion 

Political communication is a central factor in reinforcing or challenging exclusion. The way in which an issue is “framed” determines public perception and policy measures, as pointed out by Entman (1993). When welfare is framed as an entitlement based on human dignity and natural justice, it enhances democracy; when framed as dependency or burden, it legitimates exclusion. 

In India, social welfare schemes for Dalits—e.g., scholarships, affirmative action, or housing schemes—are frequently articulated not as rights, but as concessions or appeasement. Public opinion and policy enforcement are shaped by this rhetorical articulation, dissolving the moral authority of social justice and intensifying stigma. 

On the other hand, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s call for social democracy rested on the premise that “political democracy cannot last unless it lies at the base of social democracy”. His conceptualization of the abolition of caste and welfare as human rights, and not state charity, is a progressive lesson in rights-based messaging and the moral ethics of natural justice. 

Welfare as a Human Right 

Identifying welfare as a human right changes the state’s role: not to give but to guarantee, not to be benevolent but accountable. This is vital for marginalized groups whose rights are perpetually delayed in practice. When Dalit groups insist on land, education, and healthcare, they are not claiming privilege—they are insisting on justice. These calls ring out in all contexts around the world: Black communities’ fight for social rights in the U.S., Latin American indigenous peoples, or refugees in Europe all attest to a common global shortfall of democratic inclusion. 

By restructuring welfare as a natural justice and democratic equity right, democracies allow the most vulnerable to assert their rightful position in the polity, not merely hope for symbolic representation. 

The Democratic Case for Social Rights 

Real democracy is not just a matter of voting—it’s a matter of living with dignity. When political regimes forget this, they open themselves up to solidifying economic inequality and caste or racial hierarchies, even as they may seem representative. To Dalits, social rights—enshrined through education, employment, access to healthcare, and protection from violence—are not merely a question of survival but of dignity and democratic citizenship. Without them, the promise of equality is rhetorical. 

Democratic democracies will hence need to reimagine participation as incorporating economic agency and social mobility. Welfare programs promoting equality must be articulated not only as state welfare measures but as rights from moral obligations of fairness and justice. 

Conclusion: Democracy as Dignity in Action 

The situation of Dalits in India provides a compelling case of why welfare has to be a fundamental democratic right. It teaches us that civil liberties are insufficient where social structures are oppressive. There can be no genuine democracy until and unless these inequalities are met head on through embedding welfare at the institutional, rhetorical, and ethical levels. By bringing political communication into alignment with a rights-based discourse, and by conceptualizing welfare as a necessary component of citizenship, democracies can become more humane, just, and inclusive. In this vision, human rights are not only safeguards against state tyranny but promises of human flourishing and natural justice—particularly for those who were previously excluded from it. 

References 

Beetham, D. (1999). Democracy and human rights. Polity Press. 

Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 51–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1993.tb01304.x 

Marshall, T. H. (1950). Citizenship and social class. Cambridge University Press. 

Sen, A. (1999). Development as Freedom Oxford University Press Shaw TM & Heard. The Politics of Africa: Dependence and Development. 

Thorat, S., & Newman, K. S. (Eds.). (2010). Blocked by caste: Economic discrimination and social exclusion in modern India. Oxford University Press. 

United Nations. (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights 

Internet Shutdowns and Human Rights Violations 

Posted on by
Reply

Laitonjam Muhindro, Ph. D

While internet shutdowns may appear to be an effective strategy for suppressing protests and maintaining order in the short term, they fundamentally infringe upon the fundamental human rights of freedom of expression and the right to access information. These rights are enshrined in Article 19(1)a of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and various United Nations resolutions that guarantee the protection of these freedoms. The implications of these shutdowns extend far beyond the immediate suppression of dissent, raising serious concerns about the long-term impact on democratic values and citizen engagement. This is to understand a comprehensive analysis of the human rights issues associated with the increasing prevalence of internet shutdowns, with a particular focus on the situation in India, specifically in the region of Manipur, as well as a broader global perspective. The study will delve into the various ways in which these shutdowns affect individuals and communities, examining the impact on their ability to exercise their rights and participate in public discourse. The imposition of preventive internet shutdowns by Indian authorities has become a disturbing trend, disrupting the daily lives of ordinary citizens without any conclusive evidence that they are effective in restoring peace and stability. Furthermore, these shutdowns severely impede access to essential information, particularly during times of crisis and emergencies, when access to timely and accurate information is most critical for the safety and well-being of the population.

Internet shutdown is becoming a global phenomenon where the controlling authority is treated as the most convenient and easy tactic to suppress issues immediately in the name of public order.  It is reported that 187 times were in 35 countries around the world during 2022 while compared to 76 times in 2016. Usually, an internet shutdown entails purposefully interfering with electronic communications or the internet to the point that they are rendered completely or partially inoperable. Internet shutdowns have occasionally impacted entire nations, but they usually target a specific population or geographic area to limit the free flow of information in that area. Full and localized shutdowns, bandwidth throttling, and service-based blocking of two-way communication platforms are examples of internet shutdowns, often known as “blackouts” or “kill switches.”

International law has established clear guidelines that acknowledge internet access as an essential requirement for both the practice and fulfillment of human rights, whether in digital spaces or in real life. The UN Human Rights Council has repeatedly stated that “the same rights individuals possess offline must also be safeguarded online” and has urged all nations to improve access to and utilization of the internet to foster the complete realization of human rights for everyone. States frequently depend on the justification of “national security” or “public order” to rationalize the interruption of internet services. In legal disputes concerning internet shutdowns, it is crucial to perform a comprehensive analysis of limitations to demonstrate to a court that a right has been violated and that this limitation fails to satisfy the criteria established by Article 19(3) of the ICCPR.

Necessity and proportionality

At the core of challenging internet shutdowns is demonstrating that such actions infringe upon the rights to freedom of expression and access to information, as well as other rights including health and education. Nevertheless, because freedom of expression is not an absolute right, it can be restricted under specific conditions, but only when such restrictions, in line with international human rights standards, are “established by law” and “essential” to guarantee “the respect for the rights or reputation of others” or for “the safeguarding of national security or public order, or public health or morals.”

Human Rights Values Praxis in India: Vishwaguru with Manual Scavengers

Posted on by
Reply

Ms. Sanghamitra Mallick

BITS Pilani K.K. Birla Goa Campus, India

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4722-1447

Abstract

This paper examines the contradiction between India’s constitutional and civilizational claim to uphold human dignity and the continued existence of manual scavenging among Dalit communities. It argues that, despite constitutional guarantees of equality, dignity and the abolition of untouchability, manual scavenging persists as a caste-based and degrading occupation rooted in historical social stratification. The study analyses the human rights framework surrounding the issue by linking the Indian Constitution with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and by highlighting the unfinished promise of justice for marginalised groups. It further reviews the legal and institutional context, especially the limitations of the 1993 law, uneven state implementation, weak enforcement, poor complaint mechanisms, and lack of political will. The paper also reflects on the paradox of technological advancement in India, where achievements in science and innovation coexist with continued dependence on human labour for hazardous sanitation work. It concludes that the eradication of manual scavenging requires not only stronger legal enforcement and accountability, but also sustained public investment in mechanisation, rehabilitation, and social transformation. Ending this practice is essential to realizing the constitutional spirit of justice, dignity, and equal citizenship in India.

Keywords: manual scavenging, human rights, caste discrimination, mechanisation

Introduction

India, the largest liberal democracy with a population of 1.4 billion, is a vibrant subcontinent with a rich historical and cultural legacy and often termed as a “Vishwaguru” cultural leader of the cosmos. The Indian constitution, enacted in 1950 post-Independence, accommodated the aspirations of the vulnerable population while absorbing the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of 1948 by the UN, which serves as a global benchmark for human rights. Despite the fact that India is hailed as a civilizational state and has evolved as a Constitutional democracy, the human rights situation of the marginalised section of the Indian society remains grim, despite the maker of the Indian Constitution Dr. B.R. Ambedkar whose experience as a Dalit was humiliation, denial of dignity and refusal of Human rights, that he has recorded all along through several of his seminal works. In spite of the fact that the Constitution of India abolished untouchability and advocated the dignified treatment of all human beings equally, the situation of the Dalit population nearly seventy years after the enactment of the Republic is precarious in such a manner that a sizeable number of them are involved in manual scavenging. 

Praxis of Human Rights Values from the Spirit of the Constitution 

A dehumanising occupation of manual scavenging, inheriting a social stratification called the caste system, where the dirty job of society is the yardstick for the Dalits, is constitutionally banned in India. While the spirit of the Constitution (Part III) promotes civil and political rights, the first generation of human rights, the constitution makers left the safeguard of socio-economic rights to the provinces of the then Indian Union, given the limitations of resource allocation through constitution as the “Directive Principles of State Policy” (Part IV) of the Indian Constitution. Thus, a Dalit in India, who is voiceless, is positioned between two columns of Constitutional protection. A) His civil rights are protected and he is an equal before the others, and yet B) his economic rights are to be protected by the Provincial Government, which is supposed to operate in fair terms in ensuring Justice, which is yet to be realised. This praxis would explain how and why manual scavenging in India is perpetuated despite the ban in the Constitution 

Institutional Limitations and Implementation Gaps 

The 1993 Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrine (Prohibition) Act fell under the state subject of health and sanitation, and under Article 252(1), applied only to states adopting it through a legislative resolution. The legal provision is unclear; for instance, the punishment clauses do not specify whether the employer or scavenger is liable for punishment or penalty. It is also a conflicting interest, while a scavenger wants to file a case against executive authority, the same authority is also one to grant permission for filing cases against themselves (Gochhayat, 2018). Since it is a state (Provincial Government) subject, adoption and enforcement differ across states, causing uneven implementation. There is no independent body with enough power to address complaints quickly. There is a lack of political will among states to implement it; some states acted only after the Supreme Court’s intervention.  Exploited by the only means of survival, the fear of social stigma, and the fear of losing their livelihood, manual scavengers often avoid reporting, which leads to poor monitoring data. In 2014, the Indian government, under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi, was installing toilets in rural villages to promote ‘open defecation free’ and eradicate manual scavenging in the country as the flagship project named as Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM). But the question is, who is going to clean the septic tanks in the absence of a suction pump (Wilson, 2016)?

Failure of Technological Implementation to Address the Problem in the Age of AI

In this technologically advanced era, there is a continuous dependence on human labour for hazardous tasks like manual scavenging. Indian has the capability to develop cryogenic engines and launch lunar missions, yet we hesitate to invest in technology that eliminates the need for manual toilet cleaning. Despite the fact that at present there are thousands of cases regarding septic tank and sewer deaths in India (Yacoob & Karthik, 2025). 

Conclusion and Recommendation 

Given AI and technological advancements, the mechanising process is feasible. Lawmakers must plan to eradicate this intolerable evil by sufficient budget allocation and concerted implementation of the mechanisation of scavenging in both urban and rural India. Robotic instruments must substitute for humans in getting down the underground drainage system. This is a classic case that depicts the praxis of Human rights Values in India, when a section of its Population hails the Indian State as a Vishwaguru and at the same time, its weaker sections are entrenched in a perpetuated social oppression.

References

Georg, R. (2014, January 28). Brief History of Class and Waste in India. Retrieved from https://longreads.com/2014/01/28/a-brief-history-of-class-and-waste-in-india-2/?

Gochhayat, R. (2018, April 13). Towards Genocide: Upper Caste Policy Over Manual Scavengers. Retrieved from https://www.roundtableindia.co.in/genocide-under-the-upper-caste-leadership/?

Mahananda, J. (2018, November 22). Only Manuwadi Hindutva gang can burn Indian Constitution. Retrieved from https://www.roundtableindia.co.in/only-manuwadi-hindutva-gang-can-burn-indian-constitution-2/

The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of dry Lartines (Prohibition) Act, 1993. (1993). Retrieved from www.indiacode.nic.in: https://www.indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/1581/1/199346.pdf

Wilson, B. (2016, August 24). Who will clean Swachh Bharat toilets, asks Wilson. Retrieved from https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/Who-will-clean-Swachh-Bharat-toilets-asks-Wilson/article14586879.ece

Yacoob, M., & Karthik, A. (2025, July 28). Let’s raise a stink over manual scavenging in Karnataka. Retrieved from https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/karnataka/2025/Jul/28/lets-raise-a-stink-over-manual-scavenging-in-karnataka

From Rancho Izaguirre, reflections to come

Posted on by
Reply

Miguel Ramírez

Master student in Carlos III University of Madrid

University of Guadalajara

https://orcid.org/0009-0009-6393-1295

Abstract

This essay reflects on the significance of Rancho Izaguirre, located in Teuchitlán, Jalisco, as a deeply disturbing manifestation of Mexico’s ongoing crisis of disappearances, impunity, and extreme violence. Beginning from a personal geographical and emotional proximity to the region, the text situates the March 2025 discovery of the site by the Jalisco Searching Warriors Collective within a broader context of institutional failure and civil society resistance. The essay examines how the evidence found at the ranch—human remains, clothing, shoes, and personal belongings—symbolizes both the brutality of organized crime and the insufficiency of the Mexican state’s response. It also highlights the essential role of search collectives, who, despite threats, criminalization, and even assassination, continue documenting atrocities and searching for truth and dignity for victims and their families. Drawing on official statistics and critical concepts such as Rossana Reguillo’s necromáquina, the piece argues that the Rancho Izaguirre case is not an isolated event but a harrowing expression of a systematic and widespread humanitarian crisis. Ultimately, it calls for legal accountability, collective memory, and a deeper public reflection grounded in human dignity and justice.

Keywords: enforced disappearances, impunity, justice

 

The place where I was born and the house where I grew up and lived the most memorable moments of my life is located just 60 kilometers away from Teuchitlán, a municipality in the State of Jalisco, México. Teuchitlán has been on the spotlight among activist and the national and international press in the last few weeks. 

         In Teuchitlán is located Rancho Izaguirre, a property that, in recent days, was secured by Mexican State authorities. This was because it is undeniably the physical space where, without any doubt, actions occurred that have irreversibly destroyed thousands of lives. All the evidence indicates that this place has served as a center of operations where a criminal group trains and disappears people according to their convenience.

The crescendo of the ‘Rancho Izaguirre narrative’ was undeniably triggered by the March 5th dissemination of a harrowing video attributed to the Colectivo de guerreros buscadores de Jalisco/Jalisco Searching Warriors Collective (Franco, Darwin, 2024). documenting their on-site inspection. For an international readership perhaps unfamiliar with this phenomenon, it is crucial to contextualize these collectives as a poignant manifestation of Mexico’s civil society response to the endemic crisis of desaparecidos, disappeared persons crisis. Their emergence underscores the perceived inadequacy and precariousness of the Mexican State’s official response to this profound human rights crisis (Franco, Darwin, 2025a).

These collectives of searchers, essentially grassroots search parties, represent an organized societal endeavor to locate fragmented and concealed human remains across diverse terrains. Confronting sophisticated and disturbing modus operandi of bodily disposal and evidentiary obfuscation, their reason is to provide solace and closure to families grappling with the agonizing ambiguity of disappearance. Operating under duress, these brave individuals often face criminalization from state actors and threats, intimidation, and violence from the very criminal elements seeking to perpetuate their impunity and conceal their barbarity. Undeterred, they venture into the abyss, meticulously documenting the unfathomable horror and savagery that unfolds with impunity across the nation daily.

It is pertinent to underscore here that a significant number of these courageous searchers have themselves fallen victim to assassination at the hands of organized criminal groups, as meticulously documented by the NGO ¿A dónde van los desaparecidos? /Where do the disappeared go? (Nuño, Analy y Ayala Martínez, Aranzazú, 2025).

This grim reality illuminates yet another dark and tragic dimension of this ongoing crisis, an inhumane entrenchment of impunity and the perpetuation of individual, familial, and collective suffering engendered by these disappearances, a chilling attitude that should rightfully terrify and concern us all.

The aforementioned video, capturing the Collective’s entry into the property, offers stark and brutal testimony. The documented scenes are nothing short of an indictment, reflecting the squalor and terror of a nation seemingly adrift in a crisis that elicits insufficient societal introspection, compounded by a tepid and inadequate institutional response. The visual inventory – hundreds of discarded garments and footwear strewn across the Rancho, personal items of individuals who once possessed their liberty and their lives – paints a visceral portrait of loss. The contentious issue of alleged clandestine crematories, purportedly utilized by organized crime to obliterate bodies and conceal homicides, has ignited a national debate, giving rise to the terrifying speculation of extermination camps run by criminal organizations (Ginés, Isabel,2025).

However, the Rancho Izaguirre saga is but another episode within a broader societal and institutional crisis of overwhelming magnitude. In the analytical framework proposed by Mexican researcher Rosana Reguillo, this constitutes yet another grim ‘postcard of horror,’ a stark tableau illuminating the brutal reality of a State seemingly subjugated by the violence and dynamics of the necromáquina, a lethal apparatus of human annihilation operating with near-total impunity across the national landscape (Reguillo, Rossana, 2025), relentlessly extinguishing the lives and liberties of individuals and families.

The disappeared persons crisis– brutally exposed at Rancho Izaguirre – undoubtedly represents the most harrowing manifestation of this necromáquina. The staggering statistics of disappeared persons in Mexico underscore the inescapable responsibility of the Mexican State. According to official government data, as of April 18, 2025, the number of individuals not located stands at a staggering 127,280 (The National Search Commission for Persons/Comisión Nacional de Busqueda, 2025). Pervasive impunity severely hinders the ability to definitively attribute culpability for these disappearances. An overwhelming majority of cases never reach judicialization. In its latest report on disappearances in Mexico, the United Nations Committee Against Forced Disappearance concluded that a mere 2% to 6% of cases have been brought before the courts, with only 36 convictions nationwide (United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances,2022). In 2023, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights noted the paltry figure of just 40 convictions for this crime, urging Mexico to rectify this trajectory of profound impunity (United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2023) While these figures are subject to updates and minor numerical variations, the near-absolute impunity surrounding this crime remains as an undisputed reality.

This context compels the conclusion that a robust and reliable information source for definitively establishing legal culpability for disappearances remains elusive. Nevertheless, it is a widely acknowledged fact that a significant proportion of disappearances have been perpetrated by crime organizations, often with the complicity or omission of state agents, as detailed within the aforementioned UN report.

Recently, on April, 2025, the Committee on Enforced Disappearances concluded that disappearances in Mexico occur in a systematic and widespread manner, a reality that led the Committee to activate for the first time the Article 34 of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons against Enforced Disappearance (Nucamendi, Marcos, 2025). Thus, the repercussions and possibilities surrounding this mechanism warrant a discussion for another time.

The necessary reflection, therefore, transcends the purely legal realm, yet crucially requires its foundation. In Mexico, the impunity surrounding the disappeared crisis is not merely a statistic; it represents a profound absence, a vital and social void. A disappeared human is absent from their life, from a specific place and environment where they are awaited, and thus perpetually missing. However, this absence extends to the collective consciousness. Impunity signifies the absence of an history, a narrative that must be reclaimed by our public institutions if we are to function as a community committed to justice and truth, and if our institutions are to respond to this fundamental yearning. Addressing this crisis requires dismantling impunity and contemplating how to transcend this devastating reality by learning from it, and mostly, honoring the memory of the hundreds of thousands of victims. Rancho Izaguirre stands as another harrowing tableau, which, while instilling fear and revulsion, must serve as a catalyst for a profound and urgently needed collective reflection on the excessive violence that plagues Mexico.

To contemplate the victims and to endeavor to reclaim their memory, articulating through our institutions a truth, even if merely juridical—as first step—, regarding these systematic and widespread outrages, is an imperative. The alternative consigns us to the Arendtian banality of evil (Arendt, Hannah, 2016), where an absence of reflection stands as fertile ground for mass violations of individual dignity. The crisis of violence in Mexico —the necromáquina—compounded by a pervasive impunity sustained by an overwhelming and inexplicable institutional and social normalization, a sort of lack of a proper construction of the collective memory in the way Hartog presents it (Hartog, François, 2007). This underscores the urgent need for a reflection that has yet to fully materialize but must come: a collective consensus that positions human dignity as the very nucleus of communal and individual action within Mexico.

As I was making the finals corrections to this text, the devastating news reaches me: María del Carmen Morales, who was searching for her disappeared son, Julian, since the beginning of 2024, committed member of the Colectivo guerreros buscadores de Jalisco —the collective that found and documented the atrocities of the Izaguirre ranch —and her son, Jaime Ramírez Morales, have been brutally murdered in Tlajomulco, Jalisco (Franco, Darwin, 2025b). This is undeniably another grim snapshot of the pervasive violence that destroys families and communities with total impunity across México. 

References. 

If You’re a Libertarian, Why Don’t You Support Reparations?

Posted on by
Reply

Juan Pablo Carbajal-Camberos 

PhD candidate Carlos III University of Madrid

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6410-5747

Abstract. This article argues that much of contemporary political libertarianism, particularly in Latin America, misreads its own philosophical foundations by defending market freedom while ignoring the historical injustices that shape unequal starting points. Using Robert Nozick’s theory of justice as a central reference, the text shows that even one of libertarianism’s most influential thinkers acknowledged that past injustices such as slavery, colonialism, and dispossession require rectification. From this perspective, the categorical rejection of reparations is not a coherent libertarian position but a contradiction. The article critiques self-proclaimed libertarian leaders, especially Javier Milei, for invoking the language of liberty while dismissing the compensatory measures needed to make liberty meaningful for all. It contends that freedom cannot be reduced to the absence of state intervention when economic and historical conditions severely limit real opportunities. In this sense, a serious commitment to liberty would require supporting mechanisms that address structural inequality and expand substantive freedom. Without such correction, contemporary libertarianism risks becoming an ideological defense of privilege rather than a principled theory of justice and equal freedom.

Keywords: libertarianism, reparations, historical injustice

In recent years, the “libertarian rhetoric” has gained ground in several Latin American countries through political, business, and religious channels. However, I believe there is a widespread misinterpretation of libertarian principles within the political sphere, leading to glaring inconsistencies and significant intellectual deficiencies.

One of the most notorious examples is the case of Javier Milei in Argentina, a —self-proclaimed— libertarian who fervently advocates for the destruction of the state. He has gone so far as to declare himself “the one who destroys the state from within” (sic), while promoting the privatization of public goods and the free market as a reductionist solution to all social problems. But if those who define themselves as libertarians believe that the market is the only legitimate arbiter of social relations, why do they unconditionally discard compensations when the original appropriations are clearly unequal?

The philosopher Robert Nozick, one of the most prominent theoretical figures of contemporary libertarianism or conservative liberalism—and frequently paraphrased by Milei—formulated a robust and profound conception of justice based on self-ownership, merit, and voluntary contract. Yet even Nozick—much to the surprise of many libertarians—admits that there are historical circumstances (such as slavery, colonialism, or dispossession) that result in unjust appropriations and would require compensation. In other words, Nozick himself admits that a libertarian society cannot be built without first addressing these injustices through substantive reparations.

This point is essential in deconstructing the false ‘libertarian narrative’ often boosted by economic aristocracies. A true libertarian could not endorse a society that privileges freedom without guaranteeing equal conditions for exercising that freedom in competition—could they? If they genuinely valued liberty as a fundamental and guiding principle of society, wouldn’t they seek mechanisms to enable more citizens to achieve higher levels of freedom?

Far from the ideals of the theoretical founders of libertarianism, contemporary libertarian proposals are more akin to a dystopia—like the one illustrated in the film In Time, where the rich live forever and the poor struggle to survive a single day—than the kind of libertarian societies imagined, for instance, by Robert Nozick.

There is, therefore, a fundamental contradiction in today’s self-proclaimed libertarians. They often invoke the names of great libertarian thinkers while ignoring their warnings (or perhaps they didn’t finish reading them). They reject progressive taxation, affirmative action, market regulation, and any attempt at wealth redistribution as threats to some “natural” order. But if they accept that historical injustices exist, how can they advocate for a “free” market that begins from radically unequal starting points?

Many libertarians present their ideology as a pure defense of liberty. But what they often defend is the freedom of the most powerful—the freedom to maintain privilege, not to level the playing field. This view justifies and reproduces structural inequalities under the camouflage of merit. In practical terms, if you were a serious libertarian, you would intuitively accept some egalitarian premises.

True freedom—the kind that allows people to live without fear, without hunger, and with real opportunities—cannot emerge in highly unequal societies or flourish atop historical injustices. To be a serious libertarian, start by demanding equal amounts of liberty and fair chances to access it. Otherwise, what you are defending is not freedom but modern barbarism.

The hijacking of Human Rights discourse: political manipulation and loss of impact

Posted on by
Reply

José Daniel Rodríguez Arrieta

Professor and Researcher at the School of Political Science, University of Costa Rica

Human rights PhD candidate in Carlos III University of Madrid

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4942-5993

Abstract

This article examines how human rights discourse has been increasingly instrumentalized by political actors, eroding its universal and transformative purpose. Drawing on discourse as a framework that not only reflects but constructs social reality, it argues that human rights language has become a site of ideological struggle where competing powers redefine justice, freedom, and equality to suit strategic interests. The text analyzes examples from domestic and international politics, showing how both ultra-conservative and progressive actors selectively invoke rights language to legitimize their agendas while narrowing the space for genuine emancipation. It also highlights geopolitical inconsistencies in the international application of human rights, particularly the unequal treatment of conflicts such as Ukraine and Palestine, as evidence of a broader crisis of legitimacy. The article further considers how authoritarian leaders appropriate rights-based rhetoric to defend repressive and exclusionary policies under the banner of tradition, sovereignty, or family values. It concludes that restoring the credibility of human rights requires detaching them from partisan manipulation and recommitting to their consistent, universal, and accountable application as a foundation for global justice.

Keywords: human rights discourse, political instrumentalization, geopolitical double standards, legitimacy crisis.

Human rights, born from the 1948 Universal Declaration as a beacon of justice and universal dignity, are now hijacked by political and social forces that turn them into a tool, abandoning their historical vocation. This phenomenon is not merely a historical accident but a process in which human rights discourse has been shaped and manipulated to serve ideological and geopolitical interests.

We understand discourse as a set of linguistic and symbolic practices that not only reflect reality but also construct it. Discourses are not neutral; they are vehicles of power that shape how societies understand and defend fundamental values such as justice, freedom, and equality. The discourse on human rights, therefore, does not merely respond to an ideal or the need to protect people—it has also become a battlefield where meanings are negotiated and different forms of power are deployed.

In this context, the appropriation of human rights discourse by political actors has led to a distortion that weakens its transformative power. A clear example is the culture war that has defined the relationship between the ultra-conservative right and progressive movements, particularly concerning the so-called “woke culture.” Donald Trump, in his attempt to delegitimize struggles for racial and gender equity, has turned the debate into a dichotomy between the defense of “individual rights” and what he calls “progressive authoritarianism.” This discourse, filled with terms like “freedom of speech” and “reverse discrimination,” empties historical struggles for the rights of the most vulnerable of their substantive content.

On the other hand, progressive movements have also engaged in the instrumentalization of human rights discourse. By placing inclusion and diversity struggles at the center, they have created a sort of discursive orthodoxy that allows no dissent. The defense of LGBTQ+ rights or the rights of racial minorities, in many cases, has given way to strategies that can lead to the censorship of dissenting opinions, paradoxically undermining the very defense of human rights.

From an international relations perspective, the manipulation of human rights discourse becomes even more evident in today’s geopolitical dynamics. Western powers, for instance, have positioned themselves as defenders of international humanitarian law in certain conflicts while applying a double standard in others. The support for Ukraine after the Russian invasion is a clear example: sanctions and international condemnation of Russia are based on the defense of human rights and the right to self-determination of peoples. However, this same fervor is not applied with the same intensity when it comes to Palestine, where human rights violations by Israel have been minimized or even ignored by the international community, exposing the hypocrisy of an international system that fails to apply its principles consistently—an international system that once prided itself on being grounded in human rights principles.

At the same time, authoritarian governments like Viktor Orbán’s in Hungary have adopted human rights language to justify regressive and ultranationalist policies. Orbán has presented his anti-LGBTQ+ laws as a “protection of traditional family values,” appealing to the right of nations to preserve their own principles. In Russia, Vladimir Putin invokes the defense of “traditional values” to justify political repression and the criminalization of dissent, cloaking his authoritarianism in the guise of human rights while actually stripping them of their emancipatory content.

This hijacking of human rights discourse presents a legitimacy crisis both nationally and internationally. When human rights are instrumentalized as a means to achieve specific political ends, they lose their ability to inspire profound and universal social reforms. The rhetoric of human rights, instead of being a force for justice, becomes a tool of power, selectively used depending on geopolitical or ideological contexts.

To restore the transformative power of human rights, it is essential to detach them from partisan and political agendas. This requires a reassessment of their universal character and a commitment to accountability that ensures their consistent application in all contexts. A critical and profound reflection is necessary—not only to dismantle current manipulations but also to reinvent a vision of human rights as a principle of global and universal justice.

Only in this way can human rights regain their credibility and once again serve as an authentic tool for social and political justice.