Human Rights

Discovery in the Amazon

Publication Date: June 01, 2004

In a world of increasingly fluid boundaries, public and private managers often face ethical challenges that cross familiar geographical and cultural lines. This disguised case recounts the experience of a chemical engineer from Brazil who...

A Duty to Leak?

Publication Date: February 01, 2004

This case describes the challenge faced by the executive director of a (disguised) human rights watchdog agency. The state wants to increase the number of inmates in its prisons (without increasing the size of the facilities). This requires the...

Shelter and Poverty Assistance in Nouakchott

Publication Date: August 08, 2003

In the summer of 2002 the Commissariat for Human Rights, Poverty Alleviation, and Social Inclusion, an agency of the government of Mauritania, had to decide whether and how to modify its Twizé program of shelter and poverty assistance...

The Constitutional Right to Housing in South Africa: The Government of the Republic of South Africa vs. Irene Grootboom (Sequel)

Publication Date: October 01, 2001

This is an 8-page sequel to HKS Case 1627.0. The 1996 "post-apartheid" constitution of South Africa enumerates a variety of specific rights, among them a guarantee of access to housing and a right to shelter for children. Yet many millions of...

The Challenge of Participation: Drafting Mauritania's PRSP (B)

Publication Date: October 01, 2001

In the late 1990s, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, under heavy pressure to find ways to relieve developing countries of large volumes of accumulated public debt, devise a way they believe offers a way to link such debt relief...

The Challenge of Participation: Drafting Mauritania's PRSP (A)

Publication Date: October 01, 2001

In the late 1990s, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, under heavy pressure to find ways to relieve developing countries of large volumes of accumulated public debt, devise a way they believe offers a way to link such debt relief...

The Good Commissioner

Publication Date: April 01, 2001

A high-ranking district administrator in India, upon taking office, is informed that his predecessor agreed to acquire a plot of land for a local jail. When he learns that the landowner is the wife of an influential local politician, he becomes...

Testing the Reach of International Law: The Effort to Extradite General Augusto Pinochet to Spain

Publication Date: September 01, 2000

When the former military dictator of Chile, Augusto Pinochet, arrives in London for medical treatment in September 1998, there is no hint, in advance, that a major precedent in international law is about to be set. That, however, is what takes...

Reducing the Complaints Backlog at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Publication Date: March 01, 2000

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is the agency charged with investigation of non-criminal complaints of civil rights-related violations in the U.S. workplace, including racial and gender discrimination. This case describes the...

Legislation and Leadership: The Maintenance of Parents Bill Debate

Publication Date: August 01, 1999

To what extent should legislators and legislation be shaped by public opinion? The question lies at the heart of Singapore's 1995 struggle with the issue of whether or not to effectively mandate "filial piety" -- the traditional Asian obligation...

Legislation and Leadership: The Maintenance of Parents Bill Debate: Sequel

Publication Date: August 01, 1999

To what extent should legislators and legislation be shaped by public opinion? The question lies at the heart of Singapore's 1995 struggle with the issue of whether or not to effectively mandate "filial piety" -- the traditional Asian obligation...

San Francisco's Juvenile Justice System: Trying to Do Right by Kids Who Do Wrong

Publication Date: June 01, 1998

This juvenile justice policy case describes the strategic challenge faced by a San Francisco consultant, asked by the city's Mayor Willie Brown, to resolve a bitter and long-standing dispute as to how to structure the city's approach to youthful...