Collective & Developmental Rights – Journalists for Human Rights

14 Feb

The Problem with the COP26

Talia PirschCollective & Developmental Rights, Newspaper, Social & Economic Rights

From October 31st to November 12th of this year, over 190 world leaders and close to 40,000 delegates gathered in Glasgow UK for the COP26 (the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties). This year’s summit aimed to promote further action to reach the goals set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement, encourage countries […]

25 Nov

Your Internet Privacy and What’s at Stake: The Weaponization of the Digital World

Sarina MacleodCivil & Political Rights, Collective & Developmental Rights, Newspaper

With the recent shift to an almost entirely digitized world, algorithms are drastically changing the way we use the internet, or more accurately, how the internet uses us. Before, planning trips and booking accommodations would take substantial amounts of research. Now, one quick search of the town you wish to go to, and your entire […]

17 Nov

Social Media: A Human Rights Issue?

Camille DeslongchampsCivil & Political Rights, Collective & Developmental Rights, Newspaper

My parents have warned me countless times about the dangers of social media. I had to beg them to allow me to download Instagram and Snapchat, even (embarrassingly) creating powerpoints to demonstrate my responsibility. Now, however, I regret it. Earlier this year, Frances Haugen, former Facebook (now Meta) employee, leaked hundreds of internal documents, alleging […]

04 Nov

Misgendering: A Human Rights Violation in Canada

Talia PirschCollective & Developmental Rights, Newspaper, The Americas

On September 29th, 2021, the British Colombia Human Rights Tribunal ruled that the intentional misgendering of a person in the workplace consists of a human rights violation. After a heated argument regarding their pronouns, Jessie Nelson, a non-binary and gender-fluid individual who uses they/them pronouns, was fired from their job as a server at restaurant […]

04 Nov

The Humanitarian Plight of the Uyghur Minority

Haajar Khalid Abu IsmaliAsia, Civil & Political Rights, Collective & Developmental Rights, Newspaper, Social & Economic Rights

The Uyghur community in Xinjiang, China has been subject to horrific human rights violations. Forced sterilization, torture, sexual abuse, and cultural genocide are a handful of the crimes this minority has suffered over the past years and continues to suffer today. An article by the BBC from June 1st states that “China has detained more […]

08 Jun

Key Forces Behind China’s Uyghur Detention Camps: Why we repeatedly feel powerless in the face of catastrophe

Derya Ekin2020 – 2021, Asia, Civil & Political Rights, Collective & Developmental Rights

According to experts and US government officials, since April 2017, between 800,000 to 2 million Uyghurs and other Muslims, including ethnic Kazakhs and Uzbeks, have been detained in high security prison camps in Xinjiang. The ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) describes them as “re-education camps” necessary to provide vocational training and deradicalization in response […]

05 May

Canada, It’s Time to Really Step Up Against the Uyghur Genocide

Mackenzie Birbrager2020 – 2021, Asia, Civil & Political Rights, Collective & Developmental Rights

The systematic genocide against the Uyghur ethnic group in the East Turkestan region (known in China as Xinjiang province) is not new news. The earliest known Chinese government document which laid the blueprints for the mass internment campaign, which the Uyghur have been subjected to for over five years, is from May 2013. Since 2016, […]

25 Mar

Ecocriticism: Conservation in East Africa

Sophie Crawford2020 – 2021, Africa, Collective & Developmental Rights, Social & Economic Rights

The following piece of writing is an essay on ecocriticism adapted by the author from McGill’s student journal, Environmentalist Movements in the Global North and Global South – Roots, Character, Connections, to form a feature-length article. What is the environment? What is nature? And how do we – as humans – fit into all of […]

17 Mar

The War for Water: The Barriers to Clean Drinking Water for Indigenous Peoples in Canada

Sophie Sklar2020 – 2021, Collective & Developmental Rights, Editors' Picks, Social & Economic Rights, The Americas

Access to clean drinking water is not represented equally across Canada, with those living on Indigenous reservations being disproportionately affected by a lack of quality water infrastructure compared to the rest of Canada. Yet according to the United Nations, “The right to water entitles everyone to have access to sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and […]

25 Feb

The Jailing of Environmentalists in Iran

Atussa Kian2020 – 2021, Civil & Political Rights, Collective & Developmental Rights, Middle East

Over the past few decades, Iran has transformed from being the greenest nation in the Middle East to a country grappling with worsening air pollution and rising temperatures. Today, the capital city of Tehran is among the most polluted cities in the world. The rise in air pollution, which in part consists of uranium particles […]