AAAS Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program

Papers and Documents

A wide variety of papers and documents, peer-reviewed and otherwise, have been published over the years which provide important demonstations of and insights to the use of geospatial technologies. Some of the papers relate directly to the use of such technologies within human rights activities, and some represent potential future applications and enhancements.

Local determinants of African civil wars, 1970-2001
In large-N investigations, civil conflicts - like any significant political event - tend to be studied and understood at the country level. Popular explanations of why and where civil wars occur. however, refer to such factors as ethnic discrimination, wealth inequalities, access to contrabands, and peripheral havens. The intensity of such factors varies geographically within states. Therefore, any statistical study of civil war that uses country-level approximations of local phenomena is potentially flawed. In this paper, we disaggregate the country and let 100 x 100 km grid cells be the units of observation. Having developed geo-referenced conflict data front Uppsala/PRIO's (more)...

Loss of Life Caused by the Flooding of New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina: Analysis of the Relationship Between Flood Characteristics and Mortality
In this article a preliminary analysis of the loss of life caused by Hurricane Katrina in the New Orleans metropolitan area is presented. The hurricane caused more than 1,100 fatalities in the state of Louisiana. A preliminary data set that gives information on the recovery locations and individual characteristics for 771 fatalities has been analyzed. One-third of the analyzed fatalities occurred outside the flooded areas or in hospitals and shelters in the flooded area. These fatalities were due to the adverse public health situation that developed after the floods. Two-thirds of the analyzed fatalities were most likely associated with the (more)...

Mapping CHILDEX and its Indicators: A Geographic Distribution of the Children’s International Rights Index
The violation of children's human rights represents one of the most serious contemporary threats to peace. UNICEF has generated data suggesting that children's issues constitute one of the lowest priorities for the international community, thereby aggravating potential long-term world-wide conflicts. Not surprisingly, there is a poor understanding about the factors that influence children's human rights violations. In order to contribute to its explanation, a composite Children's International Rights Index (CHILDEX) was developed. The CHILDEX is based on 13 indicators ranging from child labour to recruitment in armies and irregular groups. The objective of this study was to map CHILDEX to (more)...

Mapping Environmental Injustices: Pitfalls and Potential of Geographic Information Systems in Assessing Environmental Health and Equity
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have been used increasingly to map instances of environmental injustice, the disproportionate exposure of certain populations to environmental hazards. Some of the technical and analytic difficulties of mapping environmental injustice are outlined in this article, along with suggestions for using GIS to better assess and predict environmental health and equity. I examine 13 GIS-based environmental equity studies conducted within the past decade and use a study of noxious land use locations in the Bronx, New York, to illustrate and evaluate the differences in two common methods of determining exposure extent and the characteristics of proximate populations. (more)...

Mapping Ethnic Violence
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Mapping indigenous lands
The mapping of indigenous lands to secure tenure, manage natural resources, and strengthen cultures is a recent phenomenon, having begun in Canada and Alaska in the 1960s and in other regions during the last decade and a half. A variety of methodologies have made their appearance, ranging from highly participatory approaches involving village sketch maps to more technical efforts with geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing. In general, indigenous mapping has shown itself to be a powerful tool and it has spread rapidly throughout the world. The distribution of mapping projects is uneven, as opportunities are scarce in many (more)...

Mapping massacres: GIS and state terror in Guatemala
This paper employs GIS (geographic information systems) technology to visually display the locations of massacres associated with Guatemala’s civil war. While there have been other, more general maps published depicting the spatial dimensions of violence in Guatemala, few other maps depict this information at the department level, nor have they included information on indigenous populations and physical geography. These maps are part of the emerging field of human rights GIS. For example, over the past two decades, maps have become tools of empowerment in Central America and elsewhere, maps usually made with GIS technology. Indigenous groups in many countries in particular have embraced GIS technology and have begun to use maps (more)...

Mapping Migrant Deaths in Southern Arizona: The Humane Borders GIS
Thousands of migrants die annually crossing the desert into the United States. Humane Borders is a Tucson, Arizona non-profit agency that provides migrants with strategically placed drinking water stations. We also work for immigration reform. Through cooperation with the U.S. Border Patrol and local medical examiners we produce maps showing the locations where migrants died. After ESRI donated ArcView 9.1, we launched an ambitious GIS program. Using personal geodatabases, we first create better migrant death maps. We then built Spanish-language warning poster that deter entry into the United States and (more)...

Mapping War Crimes -- CIS Analyzes Ethnic Cleansing Practices in Bosnia
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New perspectives on old patterns: forced migration of Haitians in the Dominican Republic
This unique, interdisciplinary study utilises demographic data as well as interviews to identify patterns of the forced migration and experiences of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent who left the Dominican Republic and entered Haiti between August 1999 and July 2000. While forced migration of Haitians from the Dominican Republic is the subject of reports and international legal proceedings, there has been little quantitative data on this sensitive issue. This study offers the first statistical analysis of migration flows through a demographic assessment of this vulnerable population. We present several key findings regarding the patterns in the outflow, the characteristics (more)...

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