Researchers at Newcastle University are drafting a bill that will strengthen human rights.

Article 22 will identify the law and policy changes that are needed to secure economic and social rights in Britain. This includes workers’ rights, as well as the right to:

• adequate housing, education, health, food, and social security
• an adequate standard of living

• A social justice story: read more about Article 22

An international exhibit blends historic photographs and oral histories. It uses these to convey the history of African Americans in Pittsburgh.

Newcastle University’s relationship with the African-American freedom struggle is personified by:

• our honorary doctorate for Dr Martin Luther King Jr in 1967
• the city-wide commemoration of that moment in Freedom City 2017

It compels us to continually embed social justice as part of the University’s work.

In his speech at Newcastle, Dr King asked listeners to understand the intertwined dimensions of the three great challenges confronting the world. These are the problems of war, poverty and racism. His words ring ever truer today.

Freedom City 2017

Freedom City 2017 is an exhibition featuring the legacy and memory of civil rights in the American city of Pittsburgh. It draws on a powerful combination of voices and images.

The exhibition pairs:

• historic photographs from a long-time Black Pittsburgher, Charles ‘Teenie’ Harris, with
• excerpts of oral histories drawn from an ongoing project headed by Newcastle historian, Dr Benjamin Houston

“We used this combination of voices and images to foreground Pittsburgh’s black experience as complicating our understanding of how race is lived in segregated contexts. In this way, we hope to testify to African-American resiliency but also the undeniably powerful impact that race and poverty have in shaping their world,” Dr Houston said.

Above all else, direct testimony from Black Pittsburghers and photographs that document their world embodies the central message of Dr King's Newcastle speech. This is that racism looms over our world and yet ‘aspirations for freedom and human dignity’ remain as unquenchable as ever. It is wholly consistent with Dr King's vision that everyday people have knowledge and can speak their own truths to power and understanding.

• Dr Benjamin Houston is Senior Lecturer in Modern US History in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Newcastle University

Professor Rhona Smith is the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia.

UN Special Rapporteurs serve in their individual capacity. They are not remunerated. They report every year to the United Nations Human Rights Council. Rapporteurs monitor, report and advise.

During her missions, Professor Smith meets with the highest level of government ministers, members of the diplomatic community, representatives of civil society organisations and other stakeholders.

She undertook her seventh mission to Cambodia from 29 April to 9 May 2019, at the invitation of the Royal Government.

Investigating Cambodia’s anti-drug campaign

Cambodia is in the second year of an extensive anti-drug campaign.

Thousands of arrests and pre-trial detention have had a huge impact on already overcrowded prisons. During earlier visits, Professor Smith observed and discussed this with prison governors, the Minister of Interior (Deputy Prime Minister) and the Minister of Justice.

In May 2019, Professor Smith visited a district hospital, social affairs centre and drug rehabilitation centre. She investigated community-based treatment programmes for drug users with dependency issues.

Investigating forced relocation

A field trip to Kampong Chhnang followed up her previous mission in November 2018. She visited some of the Khmer and ethnic Vietnamese floating communities in Tonle Sap.

Thousands of households are being relocated to dry land. These include many poor families reliant on fishing for their livelihood.

For ethnic Vietnamese, the problems of relocation are compounded. They are currently not recognised in Cambodia, despite living there for generations, and cannot own land.

This fieldwork contrasts with the many land rights, contested land concessions and forced relocations Professor Smith has worked on over the years.

A six-month delay in the forced relocation was secured in November. In May, the complex situation was again discussed with the Provincial Governor and a range of senior officials. Follow-up meetings with the Minister of Land Management and Urban Planning and the Minister of Interior were also held.

Rights and freedoms

Human rights are interdependent, indivisible and interrelated. Unsurprisingly, most issues investigated by the Special Rapporteur involve a range of rights and freedoms.

Professor Smith has regularly expressed concern at the restrictions on civil society and political space. Indeed, while she was in Cambodia, she spoke at two workers rallies for International Labour Day on 1 May and commented on freedom of expression and media restrictions on World Press Freedom Day on 3 May. Professor Smith presented her report to the UN in September 2019.

“Peace without justice is unsustainable; development without freedom leaves people behind.”

• Professor Rhona Smith is Professor of International Human Rights and Head of the Law School at Newcastle University