human rights final

According to Suzy Lee, what is the relationship between capitalism and the immigration
policy?

Capitalists prefer an immigration system as long as the immigrants are laborers and don’t have many rights

according to lee, do capitalists support immigration for cheap labor?

Yes, immigrants are seen by capitalists as cheap and controllable laborers

What was the goal of the 2006 immigration protests in the US?

To reform immigration legislation by making more humane, along with showing the importance of immigrants to American Society

Oppose the proposed Border Protection, Anti-terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005 (H.R. 4437)

How does the documentary Lost In Detention evaluate immigration policy in the US?

The Doc. evaluates immigration policy as harmful and flawed, while emphasizing systemic abuse due to aggressive deportation programs.

Beltran’s Pro-immigrant 2006 march meaning

A form of democratic, political representation, and expression of dignity.

Challenged exclusionary legislature and politics

Beltran’s Anti-immigrant 2006 march meaning

Threat to national identity

Beltran’s meaning of festive anger

a form of protest, showing that people can enjoy civil disobedience, and fighting for their rights

According to Beltrán, did the 2006 immigration protests constitute a counterpublic
movement?

Yes, the counterpublic movement was mostly inclusive to Latino people due to most of the deportation drama hurting them.

What is meant with counterpublic?

A social space for excluded groups to develop identities outside of the government; social groups etc.

How does De Genova evaluate ‘illegality’ of migrants?

De Genova sees illegality as a social condition brought about by governing bodies and their restrictive laws

What is the ‘homeland security state’ according to Nicholas De Genova’s definition
extended by Gonzales?

The post-9/11 intensified surveillance of noncitizens as internal security threats; esp. the undocumented

Have immigrants and Latino/as been passive subjects of this homeland security state?

No, many groups of undocumented immigrants began to protest their treatment, basically counterpublic again, but with smaller sub-sections. DACA, sit-ins, civil disobedience, etc.

According to Alfonso Gonzales, what are some of the structural problems with regards to
immigration?

poor immigration inforcement, deportation infrastructrue, reliance on cheap labor, unfair punishment, political exclusion

How does Gonzales discuss the anti-immigration bloc in the US

• constructs immigrants as threats

• fuels the homeland security state

• shapes both right-wing and centrist immigration politics

• criminalizes Latino migrants

• obstructs democratic and humane reform

How does Gonzales understand justice in general?

• Structural, not individual

• Democratic, not technocratic

• Collective, not exceptional

• Anti-racist and anti-exploitation

• Rooted in migrant political power

According to Rist, what did the appearance of the term “underdevelopment” convey

• that some nations were behind others

• that Western modernity was the only legitimate model

• that poverty was a technical problem solvable through development

• that intervention in poor countries was justified

• that global inequality could be naturalized and depoliticized

How does the “fourth point” in 1949 describe the living conditions of “more than half the
people of the world”?

“more than half the people of the world” as living in misery, poverty, and backwardness, lacking modern technology and needing Western expertise.
This framing laid the ideological foundation for the global development project.

Does globalization weaken the nation-state according to Randeria?

According to Randeria, globalization does not weaken the nation-state.
Instead, it reshapes the state into a weak-strong, cunning actor that uses globalization to avoid responsibility while retaining coercive and strategic power.

According to Baxi, what is the violence of developmentalism?

• the systematic, legalized, and normalized harms inflicted on marginalized groups by development projects

• the displacement, dispossession, and suffering they cause

• the silencing and devaluation of these populations through technocratic and state authority

For Baxi, development is not a neutral good—it is a regime of violence wrapped in the language of progress.

What is the main idea of the documentary Life & Debt with regards to development and
globalization?

Development discourse hides the reality that globalization is structured in favor of wealthy nations and corporations. Jamaica becomes a case study of how poor countries lose autonomy and become trapped in debt and dependency.

What is Development as Freedom as argued by Amartya Sen?

Development as Freedom argues that development is not about increasing national income but about expanding the freedoms and capabilities of people.
Economic growth is valuable only when it directly enhances human well-being and agency

What is the Capabilities Approach as discussed by Nussbaum? How is different from the
mainstream understanding of economic growth and signs of development?

Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach defines development as expanding the essential freedoms and opportunities people need to live dignified, fully human lives. Unlike mainstream development, which focuses on economic growth indicators like GDP, her approach evaluates how well individuals can actually function and flourish.

According to Sikkink, what is an international issue-network? What is its function in
terms of human rights?

According to Sikkink, an international issue-network is a loose, transnational coalition of activists, NGOs, experts, and supportive officials who coordinate across borders around a shared cause. In the realm of human rights, these networks help expose abuses, mobilize global pressure, and hold states accountable—often through the “boomerang pattern” when domestic channels are blocked.

What is a truth commission? How do they function in post-conflict reconstruction?
(Williams 2010).

A truth commission is a temporary, state-authorized body that investigates and publicly documents past human rights abuses after conflict or authoritarian rule. According to Williams (2010), it aids post-conflict reconstruction by acknowledging victims’ experiences, promoting accountability, and offering recommendations for reforms and reconciliation.

How did the truth commissions in Chile and Argentine function? (Zalaquett 1991, Pion-
Berlin 2004)

In Chile, the truth commission (Rettig Commission) functioned by documenting cases of disappearance, execution, and torture resulting in death, but it did not identify perpetrators—reflecting a political compromise that prioritized truth over punishment. In Argentina, the CONADEP truth commission gathered extensive evidence on disappearances, named perpetrators, and produced the Nunca Más report, which helped enable subsequent prosecutions—making Argentina’s process more confrontational and accountability-oriented than Chile’s.

Why did the British authorities arrest the ex-Chilean president Pinochet? (Pion-Berlin
2004)

British authorities arrested ex-Chilean president Pinochet in 1998 after a Spanish judge issued an international warrant accusing him of torture and other human rights crimes. As Pion-Berlin (2004) notes, the arrest was enabled by the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows states to detain and try perpetrators of severe human rights abuses when their home country does not.

What is universal jurisdiction? (Pion-Berlin 2004).

Universal jurisdiction, as described by Pion-Berlin (2004), is a legal principle allowing states to prosecute individuals for grave international crimes—such as torture, genocide, or crimes against humanity—regardless of where the crimes occurred or the nationality of the victims or perpetrators. Its purpose is to ensure accountability when a perpetrator’s home state is unwilling or unable to investigate or prosecute such violations.

What is torture according to the UN Convention against Torture (1987)?

According to the UN Convention Against Torture (1987), torture is any act by which severe physical or mental pain or suffering is intentionally inflicted on a person for purposes such as obtaining information or a confession, punishment, intimidation, coercion, or discrimination. It must be carried out by or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or someone acting in an official capacity, and it does not include pain or suffering arising only from lawful sanctions.

What is the Geneva Convention? How does it approach prisoners of war?

set of international treaties (first adopted in 1864 and expanded in 1949) that establish the standards of humanitarian law during armed conflict, especially the protection of civilians, wounded soldiers, and prisoners of war (POWs).

require that POWs be treated humanely, protected from violence, torture, intimidation, and humiliation, and provided with adequate food, shelter, and medical care. They cannot be prosecuted for lawful acts of war, must have access to communication with their families and the Red Cross, and must be released and repatriated after the end of hostilities.

According to Hooks and Mosher (2005), how did the Bush administration try to get away from the Geneva Convention for the torture of detainees after 9/11?

the Bush administration sought to evade the restraints of the Geneva Conventions by redefining detainees as “unlawful enemy combatants” rather than prisoners of war. This classification allowed officials to claim that Geneva protections—especially the prohibition on cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment—did not apply.

What two general problems arise from organized torture, according to Rejali?

• It produces unreliable information.
  Rejali argues that torture leads victims to say anything to stop the pain, resulting in false confessions, bad intelligence, and poor policy decisions.

• It corrodes institutions and democratic governance.
  Organized torture requires secrecy, deception, and the creation of parallel systems of power, which undermine rule of law, weaken public trust, and normalize abuses within the state.

According to Rejali, have ‘enhanced interrogations’ really produced critical intelligence in the war on terror, as claimed by the Bush administration

According to Rejali, “enhanced interrogations” did not produce the critical intelligence that the Bush administration claimed. He argues that torture is an ineffective method because it yields unreliable, misleading, or false information, and that there is no credible evidence showing it generated decisive breakthroughs in the war on terror.

How did the Bush administration react to the Abu Ghraib photos?

The Bush administration responded to the Abu Ghraib photos by framing the abuses as the actions of a few “rogue” soldiers, denying that they reflected official policy or systemic problems. Officials expressed shock and condemned the acts publicly, but they deflected responsibility away from senior leaders, insisting the incidents were isolated rather than connected to broader interrogation policies approved after 9/11.