Ricardo Tranjan and Manjana Milkoreit, both international students, have each been awarded Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships, Warren Clarke and Jessica West have each won Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarships, and Branka Marijan has won the Canadian Council on International Law's (CCIL's) John Humphrey Student Fellowship in International Human Rights. The Vanier and Bombardier awards are the most prestigious scholarships available to Ph.D. students through the Social Sciences and Humanities...

According to Pakistan's ruling elite, the arch-rival is India. But India's arch-rival is China. The simple distinction is critical for engagement with India. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited India in November and China in December, but not Pakistan. Analysts, too, need to switch their analytical frame from the India-Pakistan-U.S. subcontinental to the India-China-U.S. strategic triangle.

 Part of the reason for outsiders' confusion is that while Pakistan makes no secret of its...

Contradicting irrational international exuberance, India suffers from some glaring governance deficits. It ranks 134th in the world under the United Nations' human development index, 133rd in the World Bank's ease of doing business, and is 84th in terms of freedom from corruption. Almost a quarter of Indian MPs face criminal charges. Yet, thanks to gaming the system, no senior politician has been convicted of corruption or crime.

The much trumpeted rule of law is more notional than real in...

WATERLOO - As part of the federal government's recent Canada Research Chair appointments, Wilfrid Laurier University received $1.4 million in funding to support the Canada Research Chair in International Human Rights over the next seven years.

The funding represents a renewal of Dr. Rhoda Howard-Hassmann's seven-year, Tier 1 appointment as Canada Research Chair in International Human Rights in the social sciences and humanities category. Her original appointment began in 2003.

"We are very...

"The Director of the Balsillie School, Ramesh Thakur, warmly congratulates Laura Reidel on the publication of her article on cultural rights in the Journal of Human Rights. It is a fabulous achievement to have a major article by a graduate student published in a leading scholarly international journal and a validation of the quality of our graduate program. I am even more thrilled to learn that Laura's article formed the basis for a discussion at the University of Connecticut (where the...

The China-U.S. relationship will be the pivot of the post-unipolar world order. Western perceptions of China tend to oscillate between confrontation and fascination, either inflating or downsizing its importance. The benign view sees China taking its rightful place as a responsible stakeholder in the management of regional and world order; the pessimistic assessment worries about its potential for mischief across a broad range of issues around the world.

Driven by strategic narcissism, the...

The China-U.S. relationship will be the pivot of the postunipolar world order. Western perceptions of China tend to oscillate between confrontation and fascination, either inflating or downsizing its importance. The benign view sees China taking its rightful place as a responsible stakeholder in the management of regional and world order; the pessimistic assessment worries about its potential for mischief across a broad range of issues around the world.

Driven by strategic narcissism, the $3...

Australian businessman Stern Hu has been convicted of taking bribes and stealing state secrets and sentenced to 10 years jail in China. International standards of a free and fair trial do not seem to have been met.

 Did the Rudd government do all within its powers to help him? Did the Howard government do enough, and early enough, to help Australian citizen David Hicks who was caught up in the nightmare of Guantanamo?

 Canadians too have been caught up in nightmarish situations overseas - from...

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Human rights regimes in the Americas, Serrano and Popovski (eds)

United Nations University Press, 2010, ISBN 978-92-808-1176-6

5

Human rights and the state in Latin America

Ramesh Thakur and Jorge Heine

In one of those extraordinary coincidences that suggest a rich vein of

irony runs through history, on 10 December 2006, International Human

Rights Day, General Augusto Pinochet, who ruled Chile with an iron

fi st from 1973 to 1990, passed away. Pinochet's government engaged in

some of the worst human...