Welcome
Dedicated to interdisciplinary and critical dialogue on human rights, the Rapoport Center’s Working Paper Series (WPS) publishes innovative papers by established and early-career researchers as well as practitioners. The goal is to provide a productive environment for debate about human rights among academics, policymakers, activists, practitioners, and the public.
Authors from all disciplines and institutions are welcome to submit papers. We publish papers on a variety of human rights and social justice topics, and we particularly welcome papers focusing on issues and topics affecting the Global South. We are especially interested in the following: reproductive justice and sexual rights; environmental justice and climate justice; peace and nuclear disarmament; inequality; and the future of work.
Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis and evaluated by the WPS interdisciplinary editorial committee, which includes graduate and professional students from across the University of Texas. The WPS committee provides comments and feedback to authors before the paper is published online. Publication in the WPS does not preclude future publication elsewhere; in fact, many of our working papers have since been published in academic journals and edited volumes.
Each year, the WPS publishes the winning paper from the Audre Rapoport Prize for Scholarship on Gender and Human Rights and the Zipporah B. Wiseman Prize for Scholarship on Law, Literature, and Justice.
Our Latest Posts:
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Striving for Solutions: African States, Refugees, and the International Politics of Durable Solutions
by Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso View/download paper Abstract How do international structure and African agency constrain or propel the search for truly “durable solutions” to the African refugee situation? This is the central question that I seek to answer in this paper. I would argue that existing approaches to resolving refugee issues in Africa are problematic, and key to…
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Re Georgio: An Intimate Account of Transgender Interactions with Law and Society
This post is one of our Audre Rapoport Prize for Scholarship in Gender and Human Rights, Working Papers .By Katherine Fallah View/download paper Winner, Audre Rapoport Prize for Scholarship on Gender and Human Rights (2018) Abstract: In its everyday operation, the law presumes to narrate trans stories and shape trans lives. This piece shines a light on law’s claims to authority over transgender identities and transgender bodies, and offers an alternate, intimate account of one…
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Reparation Through Transformation? An Examination of the ICC Reparation System in Cases of Sexual and Gender-Based Crimes
by Franziska Brachthäuser View/download paper Abstract With the introduction of Article 75 to the Rome Statute, the ICC has set the goal to establish a reparation system for victims of mass atrocities. While processes of reparation for victims are only beginning to take shape at the Court, problems become particularly complex in the context of sexual…
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Charting A New Human Rights Discourse ‘from the Territories’: Social Movements and Peace in Cauca, Colombia
by Patricia M. Rodríguez View/download paper Abstract Peace with social justice has been elusive in Colombia, despite the series of laws and the latest peace negotiations to end the armed conflict that started in the 1960s. Instead of accepting top-down state-led legislation as the final word, grassroots movements in Cauca came together locally, regionally, and nationally…
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Truth, National Reconciliation and Cultural Interventions: Lessons Learned from the South African TRC
by Michaela Bolton View/download paper Abstract The end of Apartheid marked the beginning of a South Africa that belongs to all who live in it. It was recognised by the Constitution that the pursuit of national unity required reconciliation. In response, the Truth and Reconciliation Committee (“TRC”) was established. Its central focus was to “promote unity…
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The Production of Precarity: How US Immigration “Status” Affects Work in Central Texas
by Leah Rodríguez View/download paper Abstract: This paper analyzes how US immigration law exacerbates the precarity of immigrants’ work situations in ways that demonstrate that insecure work is not a function of the neoliberal economic system alone; rather, it is partly a function of immigration law and bureaucracy. Precarious work situations of immigrants in the…
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Feminist Dilemmas: The Challenges in Accommodating Women’s Rights within Religion-Based Family Law in India
by Tanja Herklotz This paper finished third place in the the 2017 Audre Rapoport Prize for Scholarship on Gender and Human Rights. View/download paper Abstract: As with other postcolonial states, India maintains a so-called “personal law system” in the area of family law, according to which individuals are governed by the laws of their respective religious community. For…
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Decolonizing the International Criminal Court: Considering Questions of Bias in the Prosecution of African Leaders
by Mihret Getabicha View/download here. Abstract Although the establishment of the International Criminal Court remains a historic achievement in the field of international criminal law, the court is increasingly subject to criticism by some African leaders and due to the prosecution of African leaders. Understanding the reason for these critiques requires an appreciation of the innovations…
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Marielle Franco and the Brazilian Necropolis: Assassination and After Lives
By Xavier Durham On March 14, 2018, news of the murder of Rio de Janeiro Councilor Marielle Franco rocked Brazil. A queer black woman, mother, feminist, and champion of Rio’s favela residents, Franco was an outspoken critic of police brutality. Her ascension as a human rights activist and elected representative gave hope for favela residents,…
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