scholarly journals FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND AND THE GRAY ZONE OF VICHY

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh McDonnell

This article examines the 1994–1995 controversy surrounding President François Mitterrand’s past involvement with Vichy France through the concept of “the gray zone.” Differing from Primo Levi’s gray zone, it refers here to the language that emerged in France to account for the previously neglected complicity of bystanders and beneficiaries and the indirect facilitation of the injustices of the Vichy regime. The affair serves as a site for exploring the nuances and inflections of this concept of the gray zone—both in the way it was used to indict those accused of complicity with Vichy, and as a means for those, like Mitterrand, who defended themselves by using the language of grayness. Paying attention to these invocations of the gray zone at this historical conjuncture allows us to understand the logic and stakes of both the criticisms of Mitterrand and his responses to them, particularly in terms of contemporaneous understandings of republicanism and human rights.

Author(s):  
Thibaut Raboin

This chapter considers the narrativisation of seventeen asylum cases in British newspapers between 2003 and 2014 in around 150 press articles, a BBC Two documentary, documentation produced by NGOs and some international legal documents. The chapter unpacks three aspects that are crucial for the problematisation of asylum: firstly, the way narratives produce a specific temporality allowing for the exposition of happier futures in the UK, and the expression of colonial imaginaries. Secondly, the importance of LGBT human rights in the way the social problem is perceived, and consequently, can be solved. Finally, the way LGBT asylum cases serve to powerfully stage the position of the British state and its liberal subjects in an LGBT-positive state: they are a site for the negotiation of what it means to uphold sexual rights.


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Burcu Togral Koca

Turkey has followed an “open door” policy towards refugees from Syria since the March 2011 outbreak of the devastating civil war in Syria. This “liberal” policy has been accompanied by a “humanitarian discourse” regarding the admission and accommodation of the refugees. In such a context, it is widely claimed that Turkey has not adopted a securitization strategy in its dealings with the refugees. However, this article argues that the stated “open door” approach and its limitations have gone largely unexamined. The assertion is, here, refugees fleeing Syria have been integrated into a security framework embedding exclusionary, militarized and technologized border practices. Drawing on the critical border studies, the article deconstructs these practices and the way they are violating the principle of non-refoulement in particular and human rights of refugees in general. 


Author(s):  
Richard Caplan

States – Western ones, at least – have given increased weight to human rights and humanitarian norms as matters of international concern, with the authorization of legally binding enforcement measures to tackle humanitarian crises under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. These concerns were also developed outside the UN Security Council framework, following Tony Blair’s Chicago speech and the contemporaneous NATO action over Kosovo. This gave rise to international commissions and resulted, among other things, in the emergence of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) doctrine. The adoption of this doctrine coincided with a period in which there appeared to be a general decline in mass atrocities. Yet R2P had little real effect – it cannot be shown to have caused the fall in mass atrocities, only to have echoed it. Thus, the promise of R2P and an age of humanitarianism failed to emerge, even if the way was paved for future development.


Author(s):  
Shai Dothan

There is a consensus about the existence of an international right to vote in democratic elections. Yet states disagree about the limits of this right when it comes to the case of prisoners’ disenfranchisement. Some states allow all prisoners to vote, some disenfranchise all prisoners, and others allow only some prisoners to vote. This chapter argues that national courts view the international right to vote in three fundamentally different ways: some view it as an inalienable right that cannot be taken away, some view it merely as a privilege that doesn’t belong to the citizens, and others view it as a revocable right that can be taken away under certain conditions. The differences in the way states conceive the right to vote imply that attempts by the European Court of Human Rights to follow the policies of the majority of European states by using the Emerging Consensus doctrine are problematic.


Author(s):  
Lisa Rodgers

‘Ordinary’ employment contracts—including those of domestic servants—have been deemed to attract diplomatic immunity because they fall within the scope of diplomatic functions. This chapter highlights the potential for conflict between these forms of immunity and the rights of the employees, and reflects on cases in which personal servants of diplomatic agents have challenged both the existence of immunity and the scope of its application. The chapter examines claims that the exercise of diplomatic immunity might violate the right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and the way in which courts have dealt with these issues. The chapter analyses diplomats’ own employment claims and notes that they are usually blocked by the assertion of immunity, but also reflects on more recent developments in which claims had been considered which were incidental to diplomatic employment (eg Nigeria v Ogbonna [2012]).


2021 ◽  
Vol 127 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-134
Author(s):  
Jay Szpilka

While the subject of women’s activity in historical and contemporary punk scenes has attracted significant attention, the presence of trans women in punk has received comparatively little research, in spite of their increasing visibility and long history in punk. This article examines the conditions for trans women’s entrance in punk and the challenges and opportunities that it offers for their self-assertion. By linking Michel Foucault’s notion of parrhesia with the way trans women in punk do their gender, an attempt is made at showing how the embodied experience of a trans woman making herself heard from the punk stage can serve as a site of ‘gender pluralism’.


2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Kennedy

Abstract This paper argues that André Siegfried’s writings on Canada played a critical role in shaping his vision of French national identity. Siegfried’s studies of Canada have long been praised for their insight, but recent scholarship has emphasized his role in promoting both anti-Americanism and an exclusionary vision of what it meant to be French during the first half of the twentieth century. For Siegfried, Canada represented a site of managed contestation between British and French culture but also an early example of the deleterious effects of Americanization. His problematic view of French Canada as essentially conservative and unchanging in the face of such challenges reinforced his conviction that France itself should remain true to “traditional” values. The exclusionary implications of his ideas were most evident when Siegfried appeared to accommodate himself to the Vichy regime, but they also persisted after the Second World War.


Author(s):  
Jennie Edlund ◽  
Václav Stehlík

The paper analyses the protection granted under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights for different immigration cases. The way the European Court of Human Rights determines compliance with Article 8 for settled migrants differs from the way the Court determines compliance for foreign nationals seeking entry or requesting to regularize their irregular migration status. The paper argues that the European Court of Human Rights application of different principles when determining a States’ positive and negative obligations is contradicting its own case law. It also argues that the absence of justification grounds for the refusal of foreign nationals who are seeking entry lacks legitimacy. By treating all immigration cases under Article 8(2) the paper suggests that the differentiation between cases should be based on how a refusal of entry or an expulsion would impact on the family life. The paper also suggests that more consideration should be given towards the insiders interests when balancing the individual rights against the state's interests. These changes would lead to a more consistent and fair case law and generate a more convergent practice by the states which will increase the precedent value of the Court's judgements.


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