Global Campus Open Knowledge Repository

Our Open Knowledge Repository is a digital service that collects, preserves, and distributes all digital materials resulting from the rich and varied production of the Global Campus of Human Rights. It is an ever growing collection which aims to give visibility to our research outputs, educational content, and multimedia materials; sustain open access for knowledge transfer; and foster communication within and beyond academia.

 

Communities in DSpace

Select a community to browse its collections.

Now showing 1 - 5 of 7

Recent Submissions

Thumbnail Image
Item
Between mission and manipulation: ethical dilemmas in NGO fundraising imagery
(2026) Teetz, Marieke Antonia; Gomes, Carla de Marcelino
This master’s thesis debates the ethical and unethical fundraising strategies, techniques, and practices that NGOs employ to promote their work. Against a widening global funding gap, many NGOs rely on emotionally charged appeals to attract donor attention. One technique to evoke strong emotions is the use of images depicting extreme poverty and suffering, known as ‘poverty porn.’ Despite well-documented consequences, from reinforcing harmful stereotypes to eroding dignity and the risk of compassion fatigue, the practice persists in some NGO fundraising. This raises a central moral dilemma: if ‘poverty porn’ is ethically indefensible for NGOs, yet donors are primarily responsive to it, what images can be used for fundraising, and where should the ethical line be drawn? This question becomes especially relevant when images of children are involved, given also the specific legal boundaries that apply. Employing a qualitative methodology, combining literature review and interviews with NGO practitioners, this thesis moves beyond establishing that ‘poverty porn’ exists to explaining how and why it persists. Findings demonstrate that the problem is structural: responsibility is displaced onto institutional funders and donors; organizations draw advantageous comparisons with their competitors; and as long as the sector’s overall attitude toward this type of imagery remains unchanged, individual sensitivity will not produce industry-wide changes. To support sustainable change, this thesis foregrounds community-centric, dignity-based fundraising as an ethical alternative, proposing a practical 4-step framework for image-based campaigns.
Thumbnail Image
Item
The Maria da Penha law: between norm and practice, intersectionality and the limits of gender justice in Brazil
(2026) Suko Tanaka, Carolina Aya; Simões Gaudêncio, Ana Margarida
This thesis examines the extent to which the Maria da Penha Law has been effectively implemented in Brazil two decades after its enactment, with particular attention to its origins in the Inter-American Human Rights System and its application to groups facing intersecting forms of discrimination. The law emerged as a direct response to Brazil’s international responsibility recognized in Maria da Penha Maia Fernandes v. Brazil, which revealed the State’s failure to exercise due diligence in preventing and responding to domestic violence against women. Although the law represents a landmark legal and institutional framework for addressing gender-based violence in Latin America, significant challenges continue to undermine its material effectiveness. Adopting a Human Rights-based and intersectional approach, the research employs qualitative doctrinal and jurisprudential analysis with particular emphasis placed on the experiences of black women, indigenous women and LGBTQ+ individuals, whose exposure to domestic violence is shaped by overlapping forms of discrimination, such as racism, coloniality, socio-economic marginalization and heteronormativity. The analysis demonstrates that, while the law has produced important formal advances, its application remains uneven and insufficiently responsive to structural inequalities. The thesis argues that Brazil has only partially fulfilled the reparative and preventive obligations established by the Inter-American system and that the internalization of international Human Rights standards has prioritized formal compliance over substantive equality, resulting in selective protection. The study concludes by proposing measures to strengthen the inclusive and intersectional effectiveness of the Maria da Penha Law. Keywords: gender-based violence; Maria da Penha Law; intersectionality; Inter-American Human Rights System; domestic violence.
Thumbnail Image
Item
The limits of state building. A comparative research on the negative aspects of state building regarding human rights in Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina
(2026) Smits, Pim Gerard Peter; Zrinščak, Siniša
This thesis focusses on the relation between state building and human rights and. How and why did the state building processes differentiate between Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. After the breakup of Yugoslavia both states conducted a state building process where in the areas of the government, legal settlement and output levels, different actions have been undertaken to produce strong state institutions. While this is normally seen as a prerequisite to adequate protection of human rights within states, this thesis has found that there are numerous negative consequences of this process for the human rights of both states. In Slovenia the process was done out of an ideological move away from Yugoslavia and because of this, identity played a large role. The largest issue was the discrimination on (former) Yugoslav minorities that came to be known as the erased. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, state building was centered around limiting the possibility of renewed violence. Because of this the process became more decentralized, and in turn giving way to the emergence of ethnically based politics and policies hindering successful state building.
Thumbnail Image
Item
Can intercountry adoption survive the human rights turn? The legitimisation of intercountry adoption within the human rights framework: a comparative discourse analysis of Sweden and the Netherlands
(2026) Schweiger, Priya; Fuentes, Alejandro
This thesis examines the changing legal and public discourse surrounding intercountry adoption in Sweden and the Netherlands, as both states initiated official inquiries into past adoption practices but ultimately reached different conclusions regarding the future of Intercountry Adoption. The thesis compares how two major receiving states, operating under the same international legal framework, including the 1993 Hague Convention, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), construct and negotiate the legitimacy of intercountry adoption in legal and public discourse, examining the role of the best interests of the child, alongside competing understandings of child protection, family, identity and justice. Through a Comparative Discourse Analysis, the thesis examines how intercountry adoption has historically and politically been legitimised as a humanitarian child-protection measure within international Human Rights law, and how contemporary Human Rights concerns increasingly challenge that legitimacy. The findings demonstrate that both inquiries question whether intercountry adoption can on a systematic level satisfy the best interests of the child, due to recurring structural irregularities, insufficient legal certainty and unequal power relations between sending and receiving states. While both countries conclude that the historical adoption system facilitated serious Human Rights violations, they differ in their assessment of its future. The Netherlands framed these structural deficiencies as incompatible with the best interests of the child and has therefore decided to phase out intercountry adoption. Sweden, by contrast, continues to regard intercountry adoption as a legitimate child-protection measure within exceptional circumstances, if responsibility is transferred from private intermediaries to the State. The thesis thereby contributes to a more differentiated understanding of the best interests of the child within intercountry adoption under International Human Rights Law. Keywords: Intercountry adoption, Hague Adoption Convention, Best interests of the Child, ECHR Right to Family Life, Sweden, Netherlands, Adoption Ethics
Thumbnail Image
Item
What place for religious actors in the reintegration of ex-combatants? Religion fostering human security in South Sudan’s disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration process
(2026) Seabra, Constança : Rodrigues Fraga dos Santos; Hanisek, Joel
Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) programmes have been prominently featured in United Nations’ peacebuilding operations from the last decade of the twentieth century onwards. Yet, the place occupied by religious actors in the drafting and implementation of DDR programmes has been largely absent both in policy and in academic literature. The present work identifies the assets brought by religious actors to human security in peacebuilding contexts and makes the argument for the same assets to be used in DDR. Thus, the present work aims to contribute to the development of DDR policy and to grasp how an integrated DDR approach that includes religious actors is needed to sustain peace. The South Sudanese DDR processed is analysed as a case study on how the failure of past DDR programmes could be mitigated if religious actors were approached as central to the reintegration of ex-combatants. The present discussion thus makes an analysis of past DDR lessons in the South Sudanese context and argues that the DDR process cannot result in sustainable peace if religious actors are not taken into account. Keywords: Disarmament; Demobilisation; Reintegration; Ex-combatants; Religious actors; South Sudan; Human security; Peacebuilding