Four storylines – ‘trust and truthfulness’, ‘misuse of resources’, ‘effectiveness of proposed action’, and ‘money and manipulation’ – are discussed in terms of how participants use them to weaken the standing of the appeal makers and to ascribe a moral position to themselves, whilst remaining passive to the appeal.

The article discusses the implications of such positioning for the local moral order, its wider cultural significance, and its implications for campaigning. It claims that the relationship between appeal makers and potential moral actors is an important factor in fostering or hindering social responsibility and collective action. As such, it argues for increased attention to be paid to it by researchers.

 The central part of the article sets out eight core elements that should be included in an HRIA in any field and highlights good and bad practice with regard to each element. This analysis provides the starting point for a better shared conception of what the HRIA process should involve. Three further suggestions are then made to improve future practice: enhancement of collective understanding of key methodological aspects of the HRIA process; more effective and practical support and guidance for those undertaking assessments; and the monitoring of HRIAs in order to highlight and publicize both good and bad practice. On the basis of this, the article concludes by arguing that HRIAs should not be rejected as tools for human rights measurement, but rather strengthened and enhanced.

However, several discrepancies between words and deeds were identified. Firstly, children were not heard to the extent expected in light of the Swedish legislation, and the children’s individual grounds for asylum were seldom addressed in interviews with them. Secondly, children’s responses were not taken seriously in the assessment of asylum claims. Finally, the ‘best interests’ paragraph in the legislation was mainly used to legitimate rejected asylum applications.

Despite the aspirations of civil servants to take individual children’s needs and rights into account, a number of challenges often cause children’s rights to be neglected. These include the officer’s fear of reviving children’s traumatic past experiences, mistrust regarding the grounds of asylum claims, and the lack of time caused by under-resourcing. The main finding drawn from the study is that, at the Migration Board, children’s rights are treated as secondary to the national interest of keeping overall migration numbers down. A solution to this problem, presented in the article, would be to more clearly assess children’s asylum claims in light of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Such a rights-based approach to the best interests of the child would help officials to act within their discretion.

International and European human rights standards provide little guidance on the choice between single and multiple institutions, meaning that the decision is essentially a pragmatic one. On several grounds a single NHRI is likely to prove more able to protect and promote the rights of vulnerable groups. It will provide a unified legal framework, be cost-effective, be readily accessible to those who need to use it, and present a clear profile to the public and to the authorities.

Advocates of multiple institutions correctly point to the need for human rights bodies that are sensitive to the particular needs of different vulnerable groups and politically and culturally accessible. Yet the reality is that not all vulnerable groups can benefit from such separate institutions and the economies provided by a single institution with a broad mandate will provide the best service, provided that they come with inbuilt guarantees of attention to the interests of all groups.

The article has four parts. First, it provides a brief literature review on TJ and investigates the relationship between TJ and human rights. Second, the article offers a concise theoretical background on the notion of impunity, considering its nature and sustaining mechanisms. Third, the case of Argentina is examined, looking at the years of military rule and the reforms undertaken since transition. Fourth, the persistence of continuities between past and present human rights abuses in Argentina is unpacked, by offering an empirical consideration of impunity and its consequences; the lack of successful police reform; and a social context that tolerates human rights violence.

The combined lenses of TJ and human rights can be useful for practitioners to spot continuities in human rights violations and enable them to develop policies and strategies that better address the causes of human rights abuses.

A case study of the author’s dance/movement therapy group with ex-combatant teenagers illustrates a methodology – based in kinesthetic empathy – for fostering a sense of collective agency and self-worth, and a restored capacity for positive interaction. Through improvisational dancing and dramatizations of their time with the rebel army, the 12 youths dispelled long suppressed rage and practiced reconnecting with others. Given the liberty within a safe space to acknowledge their experiences, and mourn their suffering and that of those whom they had caused to suffer, the former boy soldiers discovered a route to reconciliation with a community that had shunned them for years. The youths’ earnest public dramatization of their wartime history prompted local elders to welcome them to assume productive adult roles in the devastated area’s development.