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Erasing the Citizen: Civil Death and the Erosion of Human Rights in Nicaragua

Nicaragua’s Ortega-Murillo regime has weaponized Civil Death–the erasure of citizenship and legal identity–to silence dissent and consolidate power. By revoking nationality, deleting records, and seizure of property, the Nicaraguan regime’s repression has extended beyond its borders. Through Risse and Ropp’s “Spiral Model” of human rights norms, this paper argues that Nicaragua’s shirking of international accountability demonstrates a broader regression in norm internalization. Thus, Civil Death in Nicaragua serves as an instrument of both human rights and authoritarian control.

Posted On : Published By : Caleb Crocker
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Free Speech: a Tool for the Oppressed or the Oppressors?

Freedom of expression, while legislated to a greater or lesser degree depending on the state in question, remains a foundational right of every liberal democracy in the world. The wide adoption of this humanistic ideal between the 18th and 19th centuries revolutionized a formerly exclusive landscape of social and political expression. The issue then was a generally monolithic and massively repressive social order, to which the codification of free speech provided a necessary counterbalance. The issue today, in our increasingly interconnected world, however, is a new hazard of informational liberty. The dizzying scale of online informational resources and opinion sharing platforms has massively diluted the quality and integrity of our political discourse. The apparent question, then… does free speech always make us more free?

Posted On : Published By : John Bollinger