The lady's page at UNSW:

http://www.law.unsw.edu.au/profile/dorothea-anthony

Would somebody kindly explain to me what exactly is the "fundamental human rights principle of indivisibility"?

Whatever it is, it is much more important than not being put in a concentration camp, a dirty prison or in front of a firing squad for having an non-authorized opinion.

Maybe her supervisors at the University can tell us?

One wonders what sort of society Cuba would have been able to produce, without the decades of sanctions imposed by the US? Something too successful to be allowed to evolve (without continual running interference) perhaps?

Nut job Castro replaced a clinically corrupt extreme right wing, Marco style government/dictatorship, who presided over clinically poor masses and a tiny cabal of comparatively rich folks!

I say nut job, given only a narcissistic nut job would have initiated the missile crisis and the following decades of economic sanctions!

None of which impacted negatively on Castro, who had many South American friends!

Even so none of its citizens are deprived of among other things affordable health care/dental care? Both of which seemed to have promoted health tourism?

Of course socialism that close to home couldn't be allowed to succeed that close to the US border!

Thus we had the crippling economic sanctions imposed by the US, which cannot compete, even so,with Cuban universal health, on either costs or excellent best practice?

What they need now is state owned thorium based nuclear energy. Which would power up their domestic economy and allow them to irrigate with desalinated water or convert seawater into diesel and or methanol to run their converted cars and trains or electrify them?

Cheap energy, reliable water, food self sufficiency and low cost labor would enable a flourishing footwear and textile industry to complement American industrial revival?

I don't hold out a lot of hope for American style capitalism to replace what Cuba has now!

Given there are places in the states hardly any better off!

Ultimately the proof is in the pudding and apples for apples comparisons? Not what some right wing ideologue says it is!

I think cooperative capitalism is the way forward for an economically free Cuba?
Alan B.

I do hope for the world's sake and for those of us who worked hard for our PhDs that your supervisor and examiner knock out your circular, sentimental writings from your thesis. Read the other comments and consider them. Then re read your words and think. You might learn something about why you are doing a thesis and remove your naive partisan views from future work

"Cuba is a classic example of a country targeted for its human rights record. Western governments and human rights groups have long charged Cuba with breaching basic liberties. Whether or not evidence can be furnished of any breach is immaterial. The United States used the charges to justify the CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961, and to justify imposing decades of harsh economic blockades."

Dorothea, I think some reading of history is required. The Castro Governement's human rights record had absolutely nothing to do with the Bay of Pigs invasion. Particularly given the original planning was done in early 1960.

Things that did matter were:

Castro's nationalization of US company assets in Cuba
Castro's growing ties with the Soviet Union

"Yet there is a problem with making a human rights assessment of the Cuban situation and Castro's legacy. The problem is that the present language of human rights cannot adequately capture the types of rights that exist in the type of society that Cuba represents, namely, a socialist society."

This is a statement that I find to be unparalleled bilge. Why should "socialist" societies be allowed to construct a different set of human rights?

Dorothea,
Thousands of people ( at one time an average of 2000 per year) drowned trying to get out of Cuba- not into it.

The Iron Curtain was built be communists to stop people getting out of Communist countries.

Were all those fleeing people stupid ?

Surely you can see the fundamental problem with communism? It centres all power- judicial, legislative, executive and economic at one point.

Surely the 20th century must have taught you the truth of the old adage:- All power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Grow up

Regards from an old man whose eyes are open.

The other posters have expressed their outraged and rightly so. The communist regime in Cuba replaced one set of horrors with another that was far worse - education and health care not withstanding. Everyone wanted to get out to the US, where the capitalist exploitation so hated by Ms Anthony was rife.

My main concern is that Ms Anthony can hold views of the extreme, irrational left wing, so obviously absent of intellectual rigour and be a PhD candidate in law for a prestigious university. She is entitled to her views but do I, as a taxpayer, have to pay for her training?