Human Rights in the Age of Globalisation: Challenges and Opportunities

A special issue of Laws (ISSN 2075-471X). This special issue belongs to the section "Human Rights Issues".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (26 February 2026) | Viewed by 3140

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Law School, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, UK
Interests: critical military studies (anti-militarism); socio-legal studies; gender and criminal law; freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; regional and international human rights law

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue aims to explore the complex and multifaceted relationship between globalisation and human rights, incorporating diverse theoretical, empirical, and socio-legal perspectives. The focus will include, but is not limited to, key issues such as intersectional discrimination, gender-based violence, militarisation, migration, and socio-legal inequalities. It welcomes contributions that critically assess how global economic, political, and legal structures influence human rights enforcement. It will also investigate the role of international institutions, state policies, and legal frameworks in either reinforcing or challenging systemic inequalities.

This Special Issue also explores how localised legal and social movements influence international human rights discourses and vice versa. It encourages research that examines how grassroots movements, feminist legal activism, and transnational advocacy contribute to shaping the evolving human rights discourse, highlighting the dynamic interplay between local activism and global human rights frameworks. By exploring these approaches, we aim to underscore the ways in which local actors actively shape and contest global legal and policy frameworks. 

Furthermore, this Special Issue invites critical engagement with decolonial perspectives on human rights. It seeks to interrogate how colonial legacies continue to shape global human rights and how decolonial approaches challenge Eurocentric legal and political structures. Contributions that explore resistance, alternative epistemologies, and postcolonial critiques of international human rights mechanisms are particularly encouraged.

The Special Issue invites research that examines these dynamics through various methodological lenses, from legal analysis to ethnographic fieldwork. While contributions from all approaches are welcome, special attention will be given to feminist, critical, and empirical perspectives that emphasise the lived experiences of marginalised communities. 

By bringing together diverse contributions from scholars, activists, and legal practitioners, this Special Issue aims to deepen our understanding of the interplay between law, power, and human rights in a globalised world. It invites research that critically engages with globalisation’s paradoxical impact on human rights, offering both theoretical insights and empirical case studies. 

Dr. Demet Asli Caltekin
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • globalisation and human rights
  • intersectional discrimination
  • gender-based violence
  • militarisation and law
  • socio-legal inequalities
  • feminist legal activism
  • transnational human rights movements
  • state and institutional accountability
  • resistance and legal activism
  • sexualities and gender

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 267 KB  
Article
Combating Cyberbullying Among Children: A Comparative Legal Analysis of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan
by Zhyldyz Tegizbekova and Talgat Sarsenbayev
Laws 2026, 15(2), 14; https://doi.org/10.3390/laws15020014 - 27 Feb 2026
Viewed by 850
Abstract
The paper compares legal mechanisms addressing child cyberbullying in Kyrgyzstan (KG) and Kazakhstan (KZ). Using doctrinal and comparative methods, we analyze statutes, regulations, and institutional practices, along with recent survey evidence on prevalence, reporting behavior, and institutional trust. KZ has established a comprehensive [...] Read more.
The paper compares legal mechanisms addressing child cyberbullying in Kyrgyzstan (KG) and Kazakhstan (KZ). Using doctrinal and comparative methods, we analyze statutes, regulations, and institutional practices, along with recent survey evidence on prevalence, reporting behavior, and institutional trust. KZ has established a comprehensive framework: it defines bullying and cyberbullying, imposes administrative liability (including parental liability for minors), strengthens criminal penalties for sustained harassment, implements a rapid content takedown procedure, and mandates school prevention programs with helpline support. KG relies on general protections of honor, dignity, and health; has recently reintroduced administrative fines for online insults and defamation; and issues ministry guidelines on school prevention, but lacks a specific legal definition or unified protocol. We find low trust in school remedies and underreporting in both countries, especially KG, while KZ’s new measures improve visibility and early responses but raise implementation issues (e.g., proof of “systematic” conduct, due-process safeguards for removal, tailored measures for child offenders). Both systems require a balanced mix of sanctions, prevention, and support. We recommend that Kyrgyzstan codify clear definitions and enforcement procedures, and that Kazakhstan refine enforcement, transparency, and restorative options. Full article
22 pages, 278 KB  
Article
Narrative Injustice and the Legal Erasure of Indigeneity: A TWAIL Reframing of the Kashmiri Pandit Case in Postcolonial International Law
by Shilpi Pandey
Laws 2025, 14(6), 96; https://doi.org/10.3390/laws14060096 - 10 Dec 2025
Viewed by 1410
Abstract
This article examines the persistent legal invisibility of the Kashmiri Pandits within international frameworks on indigenous rights and internal displacement. Despite meeting definitional criteria under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, [...] Read more.
This article examines the persistent legal invisibility of the Kashmiri Pandits within international frameworks on indigenous rights and internal displacement. Despite meeting definitional criteria under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, the community remains unrecognised as either indigenous or internally displaced. Drawing on Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), constructivist norm diffusion and decolonial intersectional critique, this article argues that this exclusion arises not from normative ambiguity but from geopolitical selectivity and epistemic suppression. Through doctrinal analysis of India’s treaty commitments, including its accession to the Genocide Convention (1959) and its interpretative reservation to Article 1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) (1979), this study reveals how recognition is constrained by state narratives of sovereignty and secularism. Supported by evidence from the NHRC inquiry, IDMC displacement data, and comparative experiences such as Native American recognition this paper demonstrates that categories of protection in international law are applied unevenly, depending on political compatibility rather than legal principle. It calls for renewed engagement with epistemic justice and narrative accountability in rethinking indigeneity and displacement in postcolonial contexts. Full article
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