wr2014_web_0

WORLD REPORT 2014ForewordWorld Report 2014 is Human Rights Watch’s 24th annual review of human rightspractices around the globe. It summarizes key human rights issues in more than90 countries and territories worldwide, drawing on events from the end of 2012through November 2013.The book is divided into three main parts: an essay section, photo essays, andcountry-specific chapters.Reflecting on the “Rights Struggles of 2013,” Executive Director Kenneth Rothhighlights three main themes. In Syria, the slaughter of civilians continued withonly a weak international response, straining the “Responsibility to Protect,” orR2P, doctrine, which commits world governments to respond to imminent orongoing mass atrocities. Elsewhere, governments are engaged in what Roth calls“abusive majoritarianism”—expressing outward commitment to democracy whilein reality using the real or perceived preferences of the majority to limit dissentand suppress minorities. And in the United States, new disclosures about the useof dragnet surveillance and targeted drone killings have fueled debate about thetactics of counterterrorism. But Roth sees encouraging signs. The R2P doctrineappears to be holding up enough to provide at least some help in several Africancountries facing mass atrocities, including the Central African Republic, SouthSudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo; public reaction has been strongagainst what Roth calls “feigned democracy”; and the US government facesincreased pressure to change current counterterrorism practices. In addition, henotes improvements in the machinery that helps to defend human rights, includingthe United Nations Human Rights Council. The year 2013, he concludes, mayhave had “more than enough suffering,” but it also featured a “vigorous movementfighting back.”Next, Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno charts Human Rights Watch’s evolvingapproach to current global policies aimed at curbing drug use and the multi-billiondollar illegal drug trade (“The Human Rights Case for Drug Reform”). For manyyears, Human Rights Watch documented widespread abuses that governmentscommitted in the name of combatting drugs. But research in several countries ledus to the increasing conviction that, when it came to personal use and possessionof drugs, the criminalization of drugs was not only ineffective and corrosiveVIII