Human Rights in AI Facial Recognition
Human Rights in AI Facial Recognition: a look into China’s abuse of AI technology Author: Caroline Adams AI Facial Recognition AI Facial Recognition has become one of the most controversial topics in the digital era. It is a successful tool and measure in biometrical technological advances. However, it has ethical barriers and dangers to human […]
Nationalism in Question
This articles questions the definition of nationalism and the social constructs that redefine it today. The author argues that nationalism is commonly understood in a dualistic dichotomy – either positive or negative. This is partly a problem of the different contextual circumstances within which nationalism occurs, and partly a response to the challenges of understanding such a complex and dynamic phenomenon. Three dualisms are discussed: West vs the rest; civic vs ethnic; and liberal vs illiberal nationalism. This paper argues that these popular analytical simplifications map hide the wider positive/negative poles and also mask the exclusionary dimension.
The creation of Iraq’s food insecurity 1980-2008
The fertile lands between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and the wheat planes just south of Basra were, until the 1980s, the base of a robust agricultural sector in modern Iraq. This essay traces the steady and tragic decline of the Iraqi food system over the last 3 decades, emphasizing the political and economic policies of the US, Turkey, the former Baathist regime in Iraq, and the UN.
The Politics and Marketing of Transition: Macedonian Parliamentary Elections 2002
JULIJANA MLADENOVSKA analyses the Macedonian elections of 2002, and concludes that few parties went to the people with concrete messages. It would be better for the parties in Macedonia to attempt to meet the real needs of the voters. The Macedonian citizen, regardless of his ethnic background and his/her fears related to the violent conflicts and an uncertain future, is growing to be a serious critic of the groups and individuals leading Macedonian political life. It is time for a more responsible and honest political leadership.
Sudan: Another resource war?
The world’s attention was recently attracted to the Darfur region in the west of Sudan, where the conflict has escalated in recent weeks, fearing a second Rwanda might take place. An estimated 1,000 people per week are dying in the region.
Permanent Emergency Powers in France: The ‘Law to Strengthen Internal Security and the Fight Against Terrorism’ and the Protection of Human Rights
On November 1, 2017, France introduced a new Counter-Terrorism Law ending a two-year state of emergency and making many of the exceptional measures taken under the state of emergency permanent law. Taking into account past practices of ethnic profiling displayed by the French police, the passing of the law constitutes a worrisome development and raises a number of concerns about France’s compliance with its human rights obligations. The paper discussed these implications of the new law in the wider context of counter-terrorism trends.
Keywords: counter-terrorism, ethnic profiling, human rights, state of emergency
Post tenebras lux
The Burundi war is sordid like all the other wars in the world. For this reason it must not be singled out. Burundi is plunged into mourning by a violence that the international community, out of ignorance or oversimplification, tends to simply portray as an ethnic war between Hutus and Tutsis, fanned by ancestral antagonism between these two communities. It’s utterly wrong. The Burundi war is complex and frightfully modern. It is a war for trifling political power and control of the resources. It simply uses the most fallacious pretexts (ethnic group, region, political affiliation) to disguise its true face. In so doing, it utterly resembles so many other armed conflicts in the world