Vacancy for position of International Research Associate, Kathmandu
- South Asia Forum for Human Rights -
Last Date: 15 September 2008

Position: International Research Associate
Duty station: Kathmandu
Duration: 24 months
(Commencing from November 2008 – October 2010)
Research fee: HKD 9500/- (Net)

Features of the Project

The Understanding Impunity: Failures and Possibilities of Rights, Truth, Justice and Reparation is a three years long project commencing December 2007. The overall objective is to develop pluralistic perspectives on the end of impunity and to expand the research and action-oriented discourse on the subject across South Asia on the basis of a more substantial body of factual knowledge and conceptual clarity on the complex character of impunity and its political tenacity.

This project hopes to uncover the various ways in which impunity works, affects citizens' rights and contributes to the cycle of violence that South Asian societies are unable to break. By doing this it hopes to hold the State accountable for failing to in its promise to uphold the rule of law and fulfill commitments to international conventions.

The specific objectives of the Project are as follows:

• To document how impunity works at various levels;
• To develop a rational and just framework of liability and compensation, based on empirical and rational evidence of harm cause by State violence, human rights abuses, including physical and mental injury, emotional and moral harm, livelihood losses, and afflictions and agonies born by social collectives;
• To build public pressure and strengthen the ongoing advocacy campaigns for justice and reparation for victims of political violence, including sexual violence, through a regional consultation;
• To conceptualize the methodologies of a remedial framework against sexual violence and a system of accountability in South Asia via a systematic survey of the literature on sexual violence and the domestic legal framework.

• To develop a broad theoretical framework on dimensions of impunity and failures of rights to truth, justice and reparation in line with the national and international human rights and humanitarian perspectives;
• to capture and analyze the egregiousness of sexual violence on women in conflict situations and its differential impact on their rights to life and the implications for human security and the principles of reparation;
• to lead the project’s attempts to capture women’s experiences and narratives of conflict and violence, with regard to their corporeal integrity, sexual security, reproductive rights as well as the mainstream implications of violence against women for reparation and restoration of human security;
• to document and analyze the phenomenon of silent acquiescence in sexual violence against women within the victim communities for the sake of "honor" and to avoid "shame";
• to develop a comprehensive survey and analysis of the literature on sexual violence in South Asia;
• to analyze the qualitative and quantitative data collected from the four regions – Northeast, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and Gujarat;
• to help the project director in guiding the researchers in the field as well as the researchers based in Kathmandu

• A candidate must have a Masters Degree in Law or Social Science and specialization in international human rights and humanitarian law.

• Must be acquainted with the histories and experiences of conflict in Gujarat, Kashmir, Northeastern States and Punjab;
• must have at least 7 years of experience in researching and writing on the issues of human rights, conflicts, justice, governance and the rule of law;
• the candidates must have three years of field work experience in research; and,
• fluent in speaking and writing English.