Law and politics in post-colonial Asia

Documentation on human rights in Asia
Asian foundations, associations and NGOs
Projects and campaigns
Asian values

Documentation on human rights in Asia

• Derechos Human Rights: South Asia
  Derechos Human Rights is the first internet based human rights organization. Its purpose is to work for the promotion and respect of human rights all over the world, for the right to privacy and against impunity for human rights violators. It also coordinates several human rights mailing lists, publish an internet human rights journal, and work on the preservation of memory and for justice for the disappeared
  This web site contains links to reports on the human rights situation of the Asian countries.
• Human Rights Library: Asia
  The University of Minnesota Human Rights Library was inaugurated December 1988 on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The principal focus of the Human Rights Library is to help train effective human rights professionals and volunteers. The Human Rights Library shows a waste archive on Human Rights in Asia and related links.
• Human Rights Watch: Asia
  Human Rights Watch is the largest human rights organization based in the United States. Human Rights Watch researchers conduct fact-finding investigations into human rights abuses in all regions of the world. Human Rights Watch then publishes those findings in dozens of books and reports every year, generating extensive coverage in local and international media (Asian division).
• INCORE - A guide to Internet sources on Human Rights
  INCORE was founded in 1993 in a joint initiative between the University of Ulster and the United Nations University. INCORE aims to address the management and resolution of conflict via a combination of research, training, and other activities which inform and influence national and international organizations working in the field of conflict.
  A guide to Internet sources (e.mail lists and newsgroups, news Sources, academic articles and reports, non governmental organizations, maps) on conflict and ethnicity worldwide and specifically in the different region of Asia (country guides).
• IPCS - Institute Of Peace and Conflict Studies
  IPCS is a think tank based in New Delhi, India. The site offers news reports, opinions, and analyses relating to issues of conflict in India, as well as other regions of South Asia. Sections on, for example, Kashmir and India-Pakistan contain a series of news reports and articles. Information on IPCS projects and seminars is also available.
• Human Rights in South Asia: Selected Internet Resources
  HRSA have compiled together a list of links to various reports and documents, specifically relevant to human rights in South Asia. This includes information and resolutions made by international bodies.
• UNHCR - United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
  The UNHCR provides regular news, maps on the refugee situation information and reports on its work in Asia which can be downloaded in pdf format.

Asian foundations, associations and NGOs

• Asian Human Rights Commission
  The AHRC is an organization that seeks to achieve the following objectives: a) protect and promote human rights by monitoring, investigation, advocacy, and taking solidarity actions. b) Work towards social equality, with particular emphasis on social groups who have suffered discrimination in the past, such as women and children and minorities, including Dalits. d) Develop a speedy communication system using modern communication techniques to encourage quicker actions to protect human rights, redress wrongs and prevent violations in future.
• Asienhaus Essen
  The German Asia Foundation aspires to contribute to a more diversified image of the countries and people of Asia and to promote the intercultural dialogue for peace and social justice on all levels.
  The Asia House intends to be a meeting place for people with different interests in Asia. Various groups of immigrants from Asian countries meet regularly in the Asia House.
• Hurights Osaka
  Hurights Osaka web site offers: collection of basic international human rights documents; information on social, economic and cultural situations in the Asia-Pacific; materials on human rights education.
  The foundation produces also: research (study in collaboration with experts in Japan and other countries in the region on a range of issues such as marginalization of indigenous peoples, minorities, refugees, migrant workers and other vulnerable groups; discrimination based on social status; and development and human rights); education and training; publication - production of materials either in English or Japanese languages; consultancy - provision of advisory services on human rights programs and research.

Projects and campaigns

• SAFHR - South Asia Forum for Human Rights
  SAFHR set up in 1990, is a regional public forum for the promotion of respect for universal values of human rights, the interdependence of rights and the indivisibility of rights.
  SAFHR's programmes address some of the core concerns of the human rights agenda - displacement of indigenous peoples and minorities, refugees and migrants, impunity, inter-state and intra-state conflicts and peace accords, militarization and the strengthening of peace constituencies in civil society. The perspective is to link these issues in a framework of human rights, peace, tolerance, governance and democracy.
  SAFHR has pioneered in the region such innovative strategies as trans border people to people 'political' dialogues through support for initiatives like the Pakistan India Peoples' Forum for Peace and Democracy.
• Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy
  TCHRD is the first Tibetan non governmental organization (NGO) to be formed with the goal of protecting and promoting human rights of the Tibetan people. It was founded in January. Its mission is to highlight the human rights situation in Tibet and to promote principles of democracy in Tibetan community. Its objectives are to protect and promote human rights of Tibetan people and to build Tibetan society based on the principles of human rights and democracy.
• Center for Justice and Peace in South Asia
  CJESA is a web-based discussion group on topics such as human rights, dalits, minority rights, language rights, gender inequality, indigenous and native peoples, children's rights, women's rights.

Asian Values

• Asian values may not be so particularly Asian, by Hugh Cortazzi, Former British career diplomat and ambassador to Japan from 1980 to 1984.
• Asian Values Debate. Resources on the Asian values debate selected by Vincent Ferraro, Professor of International Politics at Mount Holyoke College.
• Aa. Vv., "Asian Values" and Democracy in Asia, Proceedings of a Conference held on 28 March 1997 at Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan, as Part of the First Shizuoka Asia-Pacific Forum: The Future of the Asia-Pacific Region
• Dallmayr, F. Asian Values and Universality
• Langguth, G. Dawn of the "Pacific Century?", in "aussenpolitik", vol. 47/No. 4, 1996
• Lawson, S. Cultural Traditions and Identity Politics: Some Implications for Democratic Governance in Asia and the Pacific, State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Project, Australian National University, Discussion Paper No 97/4
• Lee, K.-Y. Melt-Down in East Asia, Speech by Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore. The James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Rice UNiversity, Houston TX, October 23, 1998
• Madsen, R. After Liberalism: What if Confucianism Becomes the Hegemonic Ethic of the Twenty-first Century?, JPRI Working Paper #14, November 1995
• Mallaby, S. In Asia's Mirror: From Commodore Perry to the IMF, in "The National Interest", Issue 52, Summer 1998, pp. 13-22
• Sen, A. Human Rights and Asian Values: What Lee Kuan Yew and Le Peng don't understand about Asia
• Sen, A. Human Rights and the Westernizing Illusion
• Tu, W.M. Asian Values and the Asian Crisis: A Confucian Humanist Perspective, Talk given at the James A. Baker III Institute for public Policy, Rice UNiversity, Houston TX (October 17, 1998)