Showing papers on "Fundamental rights published in 1993"

International Human Rights

Abstract: Part One: Introduction and Theory 1. Human Rights as an Issue in World Politics 2. Theories of Human Rights 3. The Relative Universality of Human Rights 4. The Domestic Politics of Human Rights: Dirty Wars in the Southern Cone Part Two: Multilateral, Bilateral, and Transnational Action 5. Global Multilateral Mechanisms 6. Regional Human Rights Regimes 7. Assessing Multilateral Mechanisms 8. Human Rights and American Foreign Policy: Cold War Cases 9. Human Rights and Foreign Policy 10. Transnational Human Rights Advocacy 11. Comparing International Actors and Evaluating International Action 12. Responding to Human Rights Violations in China: Tiananmen and After 13. Humanitarian Intervention Against Genocide 14. Globalization, the State, and Human Rights 15.(Anti-)Terrorism and Human Rights

Outline of a Theory of Human Rights

Abstract: Although the study of citizenship has been an important development in contemporary sociology, the nature of rights has been largely ignored. The analysis of human rights presents a problem for sociology, in which cultural relativism and the fact-value distinction have largely destroyed the classical tradition of the natural-law basis for rights discourse. This critique of the idea of universal rights was prominent in the work of Marx, Durkheim and Weber. However, recent developments in the organisation of nation states, the globalisation of political issues, the transformation of family life, and changes in medical technology in relation to human reproduction have brought the question of human rights to the forefront of social and political debate. The paper argues that a sociology of rights is important, because there are obvious limitations to the idea of citizenship, which is based on membership of a nation state. Existing conceptualisations of citizenship require the supplement of rights theory. It i...

A Right-Based Critique of Constitutional Rights

Abstract: 'Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights)." 'Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override.'2 'There would be no point in the boast that we respect individual rights unless that involved some sacrifice, and the sacrifice in question must be that we give up whatever marginal benefits our country would receive from overriding these rights when they prove inconvenient.'3 These are familiar propositions of political philosophy. What do they imply about institutions? Should we embody our rights in legalistic formulae and proclaim them in a formal Bill of Rights? Or should we leave them to evolve informally in dialogue among citizens, representatives and officials? How are we to stop rights from being violated? Should we rely on a general spirit of watchfulness in the community, attempting to raise what Mill called 'a strong barrier of moral conviction' to protect our liberty?4 Or should we also entrust some specific branch of government-the courts, for example-with the task of detecting violations and with the authority to overrule any other agency that commits them?

Natural Relations: Ecology, Animal Rights and Social Justice

Abstract: In this challenging book, Ted Benton takes recent debates about the moral status of animals as a basis for reviewing the discourse of 'human rights'. Liberal-individualist views of human rights and the advocates of animal rights tend to think of individuals, whether humans or animals, in isolation from their social position. This makes them vulnerable to criticisms from the left which emphasise the importance of social relationships to individual well-being. Benton's argument supports the important assumption, underpinning the cause for animal rights, that humans and other species of animal have much in common, both in the conditions for their well-being and their vulnerability and harm. Both liberal rights theory and it socialist critique fail adequately to theorize these aspects of human vulnerability. Nevertheless, it is argued that, enriched by feminist and ecological insights, a socialist view of rights has much to offer. Lucid and wide-ranging in its argument, Natural Relations enables the outline of an ecological socialist view of rights and justice to begin to take their shape.

Liberal Rights: Collected Papers 1981-1991

Abstract: 1. Introduction: 'Liberal rights: two sides of the coin' 2. Theoretical foundations of liberalism 3. A right to do wrong 4. Locke, toleration and the rationality of persecution 5. Mill and the value of moral distress 6. Religion and the imagination in a global community: a discussion of the Salmon Rushdie affair 7. Legislation and moral neutrality 8. Particular values and critical morality 9. Rights in conflict 10. Welfare and the images of charity 11. John Rawls and the social minimum 12. Citizenship, social citizenship and the defence of welfare rights 13. Homelessness and the issue of liberty 14. Can communal goods be human rights? 15. When justice replaces affection: the need for rights 16. Rights and majorities: Rousseau revisited.

Examining Property Rights and Investment in Informal Settlements: The Case of Jordan

Abstract: The conventional approach to "property rights" and how they are established and assigned to individuals in society assumes a consensual process in which rational individuals compare the benefits and costs of establishing such rights. Drawing on a case study along the periphery of Amman, Jordan, this paper attempts to examine the meaning of "rights" in the context of conflicting claims to land. Furthermore, the paper questions the assumed causal relationship between legal rights, security of tenure, and investment in land.

Reconceiving Rights as Relationship

Abstract: The author proposes a new understanding of rights as relationship and constitutionalism as a dialogue of democratic accountability. She takes the position that all rights and the concept of rights should be viewed in terms of relationship and that this view provides a better way of resolving rights problems. It is suggested that the focus of decisions regarding rights should be on the kind of relationship we want to foster and the different concepts and institutions that will contribute to that end. In the proposed model, protected rights would be derived from inquiries into what is necessary to create the relationships needed for a free and democratic society. Using this framework, the author argues against constitutionalizing property and concludes by discussing the Alternative Social Charter as an outline of a model of constitutionalism for democratic accountability.

Women's International Human Rights Law: The Way Forward

Abstract: This article is a report of a consultation of lawyers from Africa the Americas Asia Australia and Europe held at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in August 1992. The participants brought legal theory and practice to bear on the relationship between international human rights and womens rights in order to develop legal strategies to promote and protect womens international human rights. Although this article is a report of that consultation it is by no means the report as there are as many reports as participants. However the real impact of the event will be realized only when the findings of the consultation are used to prevent investigate and punish violations of womens human rights. The purpose of this report is to offer some idea of the multiple perspectives that emerged on the consultation themes. The themes were: i. to review the progress of womens rights and identify challenges and prospects; ii. to recharacterize internationally protected human rights to accommodate womens experiences of injustice; iii. to guarantee specific human rights of women; and iv. to make international human rights law more effective for women. The papers presented at the consultation (as amended in response to discussion following presentation) will form the basis of a forthcoming book on Womens International Human Rights Law. (excerpt)

Human Rights in Europe: A Study of the European Convention on Human Rights

Abstract: The origins and history of the Convention the rights guaranteed I the rights guaranteed II the rights guaranteed III the scope of rights and freedoms the rights guaranteed by the Protocols the European Commission of Human Rights the European Court of Human Rights the Committee of Ministers the Convention in context. Appendix - the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

Judicial Power and the Charter: Canada and the Paradox of Liberal Constitutionalism

Abstract: Acknowledgements. Introduction. Part I: Judicial Review and Constitutional Interpretation. 1: Judicial Review and the Paradox of Liberal Constitutionalism. 2: The Dimensions of Constitutional Interpretation. Part II: The Supreme Court and the Charter. 3: Fundamental Freedoms. 4: Legal Rights, Fundamental Justice, and Criminal Procedure. 5: Equality Rights. Part III: Public Policy and the Charter. 6: Democracy, Public policy, and the Charter. 7: Confronting Judicial Supremacy. Conclusion. Appendix: The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Notes. Bibliography. Index of Cases Cited. Subject Index

The Abolition of the Death Penalty in International Law

Abstract: Foreword Preface to the Third Edition Table of cases Table of International Instruments Abbreviations Introduction 1. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Recognition of the Right to Life 2. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: drafting, ratification and reservation 3. Interpretation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 4. Towards abolition: the Second Optional Protocol and other developments in the United Nations 5. International humanitarian law 6. International criminal law 7. European human rights law 8. Inter-American human rights law 9. African human rights law Conclusion Appendices: I. Universal Declaration of Human Rights II. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights III. Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights IV. Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Aimed at Abolition of the Death Penalty V. General Comment 6(16) (excerpts) VI. Convention against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment VII. Convention on the Rights of the Child VIII. Safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty IX. Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War X. Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilians XI. Protocol Additional I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions and Relating to The Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts XII. Protocol Additional II to the 1949 Geneva Conventions and Relating to The Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts XIII. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court XIV. Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms XV. Protocol No. 6 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms Concerning the Abolition of the Death Penalty XVI. Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union XVII. European Union Minimum Standards Paper XVIII. Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe Commitments XIX. American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man XX. American Convention on Human Rights XXI. Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty XXII. African Charter of Human and Peoples' Rights XXIII. African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child XXIV. Arab Charter on Human Rights Bibliography Index.

A System of Rights

Abstract: 1. On the Logic of Justifying Political Authority 2. The Concept of Rights 3. Rights as Valid Claims 4. Human Rights 5. Civil Rights 6. Democratic Institutions 7. Democracy and Rights 8. Allegiance and the Place of Civil Disobedience 9. Justifying Coercion: The Problem of Punishment 10. Modes of Punishment 11. The Right of Inmates to Work 12. A System of Rights 13. Critical Justification

Development Aid and Human Rights Revisited

Abstract: Part 1 Rhetoric and reality: human rights conditionality not yet development co-operation - a quick portrait of development aid. Part 2 What before how - a global policy?: The United Nations development finance agencies The European Community donor policies. Part 3 Controversial practice: punishment for the sins of their rulers beyond punishment. Part 4 Back to basics taking human rights seriously - rule of law in development (aid) the economics of human rights how to make it work - merging women-in-development and human rights summing up.

Human rights in the twenty-first century : a global challenge

Abstract: Section I:Interdependence and Solidarity: Is the Human Rights Approach Relevant? Section II: Discrimination: The Need to Respect Equality and Diversity. a) Exclusion of Women from Equitable Participation. b) Exclusion of Ethnic, Religious, and Racial Minorities from Equitable Participation. c) Equality Rights and Disabled Persons. Section III: Violence: The Need to Respect Human Life and Dignity. a) State Violence. b) Non-State Actors and Violence. c) The Human Rights Response to Violence. Section IV: Evolution of Human Rights into New Areas. a) The Right to Food. b) The Right to Health. c) The Right to Environment. d) A New Framework for Refugees and Displaced Persons. e) Development and Human Rights. Section V: New Threats to Human Rights through Science and Technology -- The Need for Standards. a) Mass Communications and Human Rights. b) Information Technology and Confidentiality. c) Medical Ethnics and Human Rights. d) Reproduction, Technologies and Human Rights. Section VI: Achieving Human Rights Goals. a) Improving Present Structures. b) Shifting the Paradigm. Index.

Between freedom and subsistence : China and human rights

Abstract: Set in the context of international human rights law, this book offers a comprehensive analysis of China's human rights theory and practice since 1949. It combines legal and institutional documentation with cultural explanation and social, political, and economic analysis. Particular attention is paid to developments in human rights in the post-1978 modernization era, particularly in the period since the tragic events of 1989.

The Fruits of Revolution: Property Rights, Litigation, and French Agriculture, 1700-1860.

Abstract: Presents a study which attempted to evaluate the French Revolution by examining the political economy of drainage and irrigation. Reason for the lack of investment in agriculture prior to the revolution; Transaction costs involved with improving land; Empirical study of drainage in Normandy from 1700 to 1860.

Eastern Orthodoxy and Human Rights

Abstract: The brutality of the holocaust in Europe during World War II precipitated international concern with human rights. Today all countries at least rhetorically attest to their adherence to the international standards of human rights developed by the United Nations and regional organizations beginning with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on 10 December 1948, even when they are in gross violation of these standards. Yet it is important to keep in mind that philosophical thought articulating a conception of individual rights emerged late in the history of humankind. Prior to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that is, before the Renaissance and the liberal political philosophers, a secular notion of individual human rights had not been conceptualized and hence had no meaning. By contrast, notions of the "good" or "virtuous" life and of justice suffused pre-modern thought. The moves toward the integration of Western Europe in recent decades presume a common intellectual heritage among "Europeans." The notion of individual human rights, particularly as embodied in the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, constitutes an important dimension of the emerging Europe. In so far as some East European countries aspire to become part of the new Europe an analysis of shared commonalities becomes essential. The extent to which individualism, individual rights, and pluralism can flourish in eastern Europe seems critical for their ability to become part of democratic Europe. This study scrutinizes one aspect of the broad problem of a shared value system between western and eastern Europe; namely, the extent to which the religious heritage of Eastern Orthodoxy, practiced in the Balkans, Russia, and other East European states, is compatible with the Western conception of individual rights. The analysis will focus on, but not be limited to, Greece, the one Eastern Orthodox state currently a member of the European Community and never under communist rule. The difficulties Greece has had and is contin-

The rights of the child.

Abstract: Children adults and national political and legislative bodies need to know that children have certain basic human rights and what they are. To that end a working group of the United Nations developed the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is a consensus and compromise between different legal systems and cultural traditions based upon universally recognized human rights which has become a widely accepted legal framework for promoting and protecting the rights of children. Civil political economic social and cultural rights are included together in the text. The text also holds that states must make the conventions principle and provisions known widely to adults and children alike. 129 states had ratified the convention by February 1993 effectively giving their commitment to create the necessary conditions for the effective exercise of the rights recognized therein. The framework established by the convention for meaningful action and cooperation at national and international levels has also expanded to include the formation of a Committee on the Rights of the Child which had been commissioned to examine states progress in realizing recognized rights. States send periodic progress reports to the commission so that they may self-evaluate their achievements while also submitting their policies to public scrutiny. Requests for technical assistance or advice may also be made in these reports.

Human Rights and African Women: A Comparison of Protection Under Two Major Treaties

Abstract: In July 1985, representatives of 157 countries gathered in Kenya for the largest, best publicized international conference ever hosted on African soil. The several thousand delegates and observers at the "World Conference to Review and Appraise the Achievements of the United Nations Decade for Women: Equality, Development and Peace" sought to chart a new course for women. With its parallel sessions for official governmental representatives and unofficial NGO members, the Nairobi meeting was intended to encourage serious efforts by all states that joined in the conference, or which had ratified major human rights documents, to reduce economic, political, and social barriers to the advancement of women. The resulting document-the Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women--focused on equality, development, peace, and numerous areas of special concern to females.2 In 1993, the goals of the conference have not yet been realized. Discussion of equality, the "right to development," and peace, in the terms established by the Forward Looking Strategies, remains well removed from the reality of daily life in most societies, including almost all societies south of the Sahara.

The United Kingdom' Part in the Preparation of the European Convention on Human Rights, 1950

Abstract: ON 23 September 1953 the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (the European Convention on Human Rights) entered into force.2 The UK government, which had signed it on 4 November 1950, was on 8 March 1951 the first State to deposit an instrument of ratification. Despite repeated calls for the provisions of the Convention to be incorporated into UK domestic law3 and a substantial body of jurisprudence which has acknowledged its significance,4 the Convention is still in the category described recently as an "unincorporated treaty".5 The purpose of this article is not to review the intervening 40 years6 but to examine, in the particular context of legal advice tendered, the pre-ratification attitude of UK government departments and the government itself-then the Labour administration of Clement Attlee-towards the concept and formulation of such a convention. As the European Convention was not the first writing on a hitherto blank page, it is necessary to examine the part played by the United Kingdom in the wider human rights background out of which the Convention emerged.

Human Rights And Power

Abstract: This paper is an initial attempt to link the concepts of human rights and power from a social constructionist perspective. It looks at aspects of the social history of natural and human rights and the relationship of this history to extant power relations. It suggests that conceptions of human rights have both challenged and sustained particular forms of power, thus playing a highly ambivalent role. The paper also examines and criticises the philosophical underpinnings of liberal and marxist approaches to the concept of human rights. In a concluding section it considers the possibility of constructing a power analysis which might provide a way of anchoring the concept of human rights in social practices.

Rights at Work: Employment Relations in the Post-Union Era

Abstract: With growing international competition, American firms have been gaced with increasing pressures to produce better products, cut costs, and improve efficiency. As a result, American employers have changed many of their long-standing labor priorities. Work-force stability has become less important; long-term commitments have become less attractive; and labor costs, especially fringe benefits, have come under increased scrutiny. With this large reorganization of work forces and priorities, Americans are again faced with the significant questions of what rights workers have --and should have --in the workplace. In the current environment, employers have a greater need for highly motivated, hard-working, skilled employees, and have often developed innovated forms of management to enlist these worker's support. So too, national legislation has granted workers new rights in recent years, such as mandatory early notification of plant closings, greater rights for workers with disabilities, and increased protection for older workers. State legislators have also enacted expanded protection for workers, and state courts have been rewriting basic legal doctrines governing workers' rights in ways that favor employees. In this book, Richard Edwards explores workers' rights and the institutions that have defined and are now enforcing them. He looks closely at the decline of American unions and its effect on traditional rights. As unions have been transformed from major institutional players in the American economy to much more marginal brokers enrolling only a small minority of American workers, political support for workers' rights has diminished. Edwards also traces the American state courts' and the ongoing revision of the legal interpretations of employment contracts and employers' promises, a development which he believes may revolutionize traditional employment law. Rights at Work cuts through the debate between employers' groups and workers' advocates to find a new common ground. Edwards argues that a new system of employment relations offers a ""win-win"" opportunity, and he proposes some innovative public policy strategies that could protect workers' rights while enhancing employers' ability to succeed in a highly competitive global market.

The State and Human Rights in Africa in the 1990s: Perspectives and Prospects

Abstract: The debate on human rights has concentrated on violations for good reasons. Violations occur more often than implementations, and with dire consequences for the victims. Moreover it is those entrusted with implementing human rights obligations the states, that often turn out to be the worst violators. Yet very little effort is made to understand this phenomenon. It is often assumed that human rights violations are acts of bad governments or political leaders. This is especially the case in explaining human rights

Rights and deprivation

Abstract: This thesis is concerned with rights-based justifications for redistribution. Orthodox views are critically examined in three of the chapters. The case against fundamental moral rights to welfare, not derived from other more fundamental moral rights or principles, is pressed in chapter three. Chapter five distinguishes between rights-based and equality-based justifications for redistribution and argues that Ronald Dworkin's idea of a right to equal respect and concern is best understood as an equality-based justification. The enabling model of rights and deprivation is introduced in chapter six. This model says that liberty rights require that others ensure that the right-holder enjoys the means to do what he or she has the right to do as well as not interfere with him or her doing what he or she has the right to do. It is found to break down because it is unable to accommodate the right to do wrong. The other four chapters are concerned with defending an alternative model of rights and deprivation. The groundwork for this alternative model - the development model of rights and deprivation - is laid in chapters two and four. Chapter two presents a person-affecting theory of rights. The two principal conclusions of the development model of rights and deprivation are defended in chapter seven. It is argued, first, that from both of the abstract moral rights to liberty introduced in chapter four flow certain derivative rights against others to have one's needs met and, second, that the state is required to promote and protect particular forms of culture as well as to meet certain sorts of personal needs including special needs, collective needs, and the unmet personal needs that arise when the prevailing methods of meeting those needs breaks down. The final chapter discusses two general issues relating to the development model of rights and deprivation.

The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act

Abstract: This is the text of Sir Robin Cooke’s contribution to the New Zealand Law Conference held in Wellington on 3 March 1993. In it, he explains the symbolic significance of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and offers his view on how judges should approach its interpretation. He describes the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 as a confirmation of New Zealand’s “commitment to rights and freedoms implicit in modern democracies”. He argues that even if society falls short of these ideals, the law should express the values that it aims to serve. So he says that judges must not decline to decide a case simply because it is difficult to apply generalised rights in individual cases. In his view, a Bill of Rights must be interpreted generously and simply, whether it is entrenched law or not. Abstract by Elizabeth Chan.