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View all past Essay Contest winners below. Click on the winner to see their paper abstract.
Graduate School of Arts and Science, Graduate
Enforcing Respect for Indigenous People’s Right to Self-Determination: Establishing Mandatory Due Diligence Requirements for Canadian Transnational Mining Companies
This paper focuses on the ways in which Canada’s extractive corporations infringe upon the economic, social and cultural rights of indigenous communities who live in the vicinity of their extractive projects. By paying homage to indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination and their right to autonomously manage their own natural resource wealth free from outside interference if they so please, it will be argued that Canadian extractive corporations will be better placed to receive a “social license to operate (SLO),” which is increasingly being recognized as essential in regards to preventing community-opposition to development and private-sector projects. Part and parcel to receiving an SLO is understanding and acknowledging indigenous peoples’ right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC). This paper hopes to add to the existing literature on the topic by showcasing that receiving FPIC by indigenous peoples is ultimately in the best interests of corporations in that it reduces the likelihood that there will be community opposition to their projects through respecting the economic, social and cultural rights of these communities. Lastly, it will be argued that the Government of Canada should enact legislation that establishes mandatory requirements for Canadian extractive corporations to abide by in terms of respecting the FPIC of indigenous peoples both domestically and abroad.
Columbia College, Undergraduate
A Reevaluation of Human Rights Advocacy Surrounding Female Genital Cutting
This paper is a proposal for a project that takes a human rights approach to the issue of Female Genital Cutting, or FGC. It gives a background of FGC, incorporating a discussion of the practice within the context of both human rights and public health. It discusses the shortcomings of the most common human rights advocacy strategies and discussion surrounding it, namely, that simply criminalizing FGC is often less effective and does not address the root problem. People tend to view criminalization as a route to women's equality in patriarchal cultures, instead of the other way around. Conversations about FGC usually do not mention male circumcision, though many of the same human rights concerns come into play for both practices. The paper will describe a proposed new approach to tackling the issue of FGC from a human rights perspective which involves research, policy analysis, education, and selective decriminalization of the practice. It emphasizes the importance of a focus on women in communities where FGC is widely practiced when collecting data, including those who perpetuate the practice themselves. It advocates for decriminalization and development of safe medical standards for less invasive forms of FGC, to provide a route for women who will inevitably receive the procedure to do so safely. Finally, it expresses the importance of education and grassroots community efforts working to eliminate patriarchal ideas behind the practice of FGC, and working towards true equality.
Human Rights and Development Practice: Dismantling Aid Conditionalities for LGBTI People
The Detention of Asylum Seekers in the United States: A Theoretical, Legal, and Practical Assessment
This essay concerns the American system of detention for immigrant asylum seekers. It details this system’s current structure, in which detention can occur during multiple phases of the asylum application process, whether upon arrival, while waiting for processing, or before deportation. The paper then proceeds to assess the system from three perspectives: theoretical, legal, and practical. The tripartite analysis suggests that, firstly, states detain immigrants for administrative, protective, and deterrence reasons. The biggest problem with these theories justifying the detention of immigrants and, in particular, the detention of asylum seekers, is that they consider immigrant detention in terms of national interests; thus, these justifications fail to consider the rights of the individual. In contrast, both domestic and international legal regimes seek to balance the interests of the state against the rights of the individual, thereby limiting immigrant detention policies by allowing detention only in specific circumstances and by specifying procedural requirements which must be met in order to detain immigrants. However, current U.S. policy and practice fail to conform to the balance established by law. For example, the American government does not treat detention as a last resort and does not require the government to justify detention on a case-by-case basis. Furthermore, the immigrant detention system, in practice, systematically mistreats immigrants by placing them in detention centers which are abusive and harmful as well as which utilize illegal practices. Thus, although immigrant detention of asylum seekers itself is not legally, theoretically, or practically problematic, current U.S. practice fails on all three fronts and must therefore be reformed.
Mailman School of Public Health and School of International and Public Affairs, Graduate
The Funding of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights: How to Leverage Participatory and Gender Transformative Grantmaking Approaches
Women and girls around the world have yet to realize their sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). This paper addresses what the institutional philanthropic sector, including private and public foundations, women’s funds, and corporations/corporate foundations, can do to best leverage their funds to fulfill the SRHR of women and girls, and a broader gender equality agenda. It examines the current state of funding for women’s and girls’ initiatives, with an analysis of positive trends and areas of concern. It contends that there is room for growth in the magnitude of funds, as well as in the sophistication of funding strategies of institutional funders interested in investing in the health and human rights of women and girls. This paper makes the case that funders should incorporate two innovative approaches into their funding strategies: (1) participatory grant-making practices and values and (2) gender transformative grant-making. Participatory grant-making ensures that solutions are crafted and driven by the communities themselves, who are the recipients of programs. It necessitates deepened connections and collaboration with women’s rights organizations that are already embedded in local communities. A gender transformative approach to grant-making leads the philanthropic sector in a direction in which gender norms are recognized and elevated as an essential element of public health, rights based, and equality strategies. It is also inclusive of men, boys, and LGBTQ individuals and is fully intersectional by considering how multiple factors, including race, class, age, gender, and sexual orientation, among others interact to simultaneously marginalize people who are affected by them. A gender transformative lens enables funders to make strategic investments by funding programs that authentically tackle the roots of gender inequality, and thus lead to longer-term, more sustainable change.
Juvenile (In)Justice: A Global Flaw
Child incarceration, otherwise referred to as “juvenile justice,” is intrinsically at odds with the rights outlined in the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). In signing the UNCRC, nations around the world promised their children special protections from discrimination (article 1), violence, neglect, and abuse (article 6), and mandated that the primary consideration in all matters concerning children be the best interests of the child (article 21). However, these promises continue to be breached around the globe, as States essentially desert their children in so-called “juvenile justice” institutions—systems embedded with various levels of corruption that manifest themselves in various forms of physical, mental, and sexual violence. Examining case studies from South Asia, England and Wales, and finally, the United States, I argue that child incarceration is by definition a systematic violation of the universal rights of the child. While systems of juvenile detention often parade as welfare-oriented, these systems are actually highly politicized, their aims involving not the best interests of the child, but rather the state’s desire to display its ‘power to punish’ and to assert a façade of social control. Finally, I argue that child incarceration functions, paradoxically, as both the chicken and the egg in a vicious cycle of violence by and against children—a cycle that Retributive approaches to juvenile justice, while seemingly logical, fail to take into account.
