Hostname: page-component-7b9c58cd5d-sk4tg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-15T01:27:14.740Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Human Rights ‘Fact’ Production and Why It Matters: Myanmar as a Case in Point

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Ken MacLean
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Ken MacLean's Crimes in Archival Form (University of California Press, 2022) explores the many ways in which human rights ‘facts’ are produced rather than found. Using Myanmar as a case study, the book examines the fact-finding practices of a human rights group, two cross-border humanitarian agencies, an international law clinic, and a global campaign led by a nongovernmental organization. Foregrounding fact-finding in critical yet constructive ways prompts overdue conversations about the possibilities and limits of human rights documentation as a mode of truth-seeking. In raising these issues, the book calls on practitioners and scholars alike to be more transparent about how human rights ‘fact’ production works, why it is important, and when its use should prompt concern.

Keywords

MyanmarHuman RightsAdvocacyFact-FindingArchive
Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 20 , Issue 18 , October 2022 , e6
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2022

References

Article 19. 2022. ‘UN: Human Rights Council Adopts Resolution on Disinformation.’ Civic Space, 5 April. www.article19.org/resources/un-human-rights-council-adopts-resolution-on-disinformation.Google Scholar
Becker, Howard. 2017. Evidence. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eichorn, Kate. 2008. ‘Archival Genres: Gathering Texts and Reading Spaces.’ Invisible Culture: An Electronic Journal for Visual Culture (12): 1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engle, Karen. 2015. ‘Anti-Impunity and the Turn to Criminal Law in Human Rights.’ Cornell Law Review 100(5): 1070–127.Google Scholar
Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar. iimm.un.org.Google Scholar
Karen Human Rights Group. 2007. Shouldering the Burden of Militarization: SPDC, DKBA, and KPF Order Documents and Forced Labor Since September 2006. Mae Sot, Thailand: Karen Human Rights Group.Google Scholar
McPherson, Poppy. 2021. ‘U.S. Court Orders Facebook to Release Anti-Rohingya Content Records for Genocide Case.’ Reuters, 23 September. www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/us-court-compels-facebook-release-records-anti-rohingya-content-report-2021-09-23.Google Scholar
Mégret, Frédéric. 2016. ‘Do Facts Exist, Can They Be “Found,” and Does It Matter?‘ In The Transformation of Human Rights Fact-Finding, edited by Alston, Philip and Knuckey, Sarah, 27–48. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milmo, Dan. 2021. ‘Rohingya Sue Facebook for £150bn over Myanmar Genocide.’ The Guardian, 6 December. www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-sue-facebook-myanmar-genocide-us-uk-legal-action-social-media-violence.Google Scholar
Syrian Archive. syrianarchive.org.Google Scholar
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). 2022. ‘Rohingya Refugee Crisis Explained.’ News, 13 July. Washington, DC: UNHCR. www.unrefugees.org/news/rohingya-refugee-crisis-explained.Google Scholar
Wikipedia. 2022. ‘Disinformation in the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine.’ Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation_in_the_2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine-Genocide_in_Donbas.Google Scholar