Showing papers on "Fundamental rights published in 2002"

The Preamble of the Constitution of the World Health Organization.

Abstract: This section looks back to some ground-breaking written contributions to public health, reproducing them in their original form and adding a commentary on their significance from a modern-day perspective To complement the theme of this month's Bulletin, Frank Grad comments on the Preamble to the Constitution of the World Health Organization (1) The Constitution was presented at the International Health Conference in New York on 22 July 1946 and signed by the "duly authorized" representatives of the governments participating The original version of the document, including the ornate and sometimes hesitant signatures, can be seen at http://wwwwhoint/library/historical/access/who/indexenshtml ********** In February 1946 the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations established a Technical Preparatory Committee of Experts to prepare an agenda for the International Health Conference in New York, to be held from 19 to 22 July 1946 The agenda included the preparation of a constitution for a World Health Organization (WHO) (2) The Conference eventually approved the WHO Constitution on 22 July, and designated an Interim Commission to carry out essential public health activities until the new organization was established The Interim Commission was to discharge the functions and duties of the Office Internationale d'Hygiene Publique, as well as those of the Health Organization that had been part of the Economic and Social Council of the defunct League of Nations Though much of the work of the League's Health Organization was continued, and its major contributions recognized, the Constitution of WHO owes little to the League of Nations Covenant Article XXIII of this Covenant contains a list of beneficial provisions, and only in its last subdivision, as an afterthought, one on how members of the League "(f) would endeavor to take steps in matters of international concern for the prevention and control of disease" (3) The Constitution approved by the International Health Conference has shown itself to be robust during the 54 years since it came into effect Nowhere is its strength more clearly seen than in its Preamble This part of a legal constitutional document has an important function: it states the principles on which the document is based, and implicitly asserts a claim to jurisdiction which may then be spelt out in the document itself Unlike the mixture of subjects enumerated in the Conventions of the League of Nations, the Preamble of the WHO Constitution is a masterfully coherent statement, claiming as its own the full area of contemporary international public health In the same spirit as the Charter of the United Nations, the Preamble asserts that the principles it states are basic to the happiness, harmonious relations and security of all peoples, thus expressing a modern set of universal aspirations Health, it says, is an essential condition for their attainment, and the highest possible attainment of health is a fundamental right of every human being without distinction of any kind The preamble defines health positively, as complete physical, mental and social well-being, not merely negatively as the absence of disease or infirmity The concept of public health is contemporary, but in its phrasing the Preamble echoes the rhetorical cadences of the Age of Reason in the last part of the 18th century In this view certain rights--such as those to health, or to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness--cannot be granted or denied by any government because they are fundamental, inalienable human rights, which all of us, being human, already have 1948, the year that WHO came into existence after 26 Member States had ratified its Constitution, is also the year that the United Nations General Assembly adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (4) The Preamble goes on to analyse the obligation of nations to contribute to the health of their people …

A Theory of Constitutional Rights

Abstract: PREFACE A Theory of Constitutional Rights and the British Constitution 1. The Content and Purpose of a Theory of Constitutional Rights 2. The Concept of a Constitutional Rights Norm 3. The Structure of Constitutional Rights Norms 4. Constitutional Rights as Subjective Rights 5. Constitutional Rights and Legal Status 6. The Limits of Constitutional Rights 7. The General Right to Liberty 8. The General Right to Equality 9. Rights to Positive State Action (Entitlements in the Wide Sense) 10. Constitutional Rights and Constitutional Rights Norms in the Legal System Postscript

Human Rights: A Political and Cultural Critique

Abstract: Preface Introduction Chapter 1. Human Rights as a Metaphor -The Metaphor of Human Rights -The Grand Narrative of Human Rights -The Metaphor of the Savage -The Metaphor of the Victim -The Metaphor of the Savior Chapter 2. Human Rights as an Ideology -The Authors of Human Rights -A Holy Trinity: Liberalism, Democracy, and Human Rights -Conventional Doctrinalists -The Conceptualizers -The Cultural Pluralists -Political Strategists and Instrumentalists Chapter 3. Human Rights and the African Fingerprint -Africa in a Rights Universe -Human Rights in Precolonial Africa -The Dialectic of Rights and Duties -The Duty/Rights Conception -Whither Africa? Chapter 4. Human Rights, Religion, and Proselytism -The Problem of Religious Rights -Demonizing the "Other" -Proselytization in Africa -The Legal Invisibility of Indigenous Religions -Ideals Versus Realities -The Moral Equivalency of Cultures* Chapter 5. The African State, Human Rights, and Religion -Religion and African Statehood -Identity Disorientation -The Culture of Silence and Postcolonialism -Counterpenetration as a Farce -Benin Returns to Its Roots Chapter 6. The Limits of Rights Discourse -South Africa: the Human Rights State -The Rights Framework as an ANC Strategy: A Snapshot of Apartheid -The Evolution of a Rights Approach -The Compromise of the Interim Constitution* -The 1996 Constitution as a Normative Continuum -The ANC's Gradualist Rights Approach -Land Reform as a Central Plank of the Struggle -Women in Post?Apartheid South Africa -The Status and Orientation of Post-Apartheid Courts -Humanizing the Instruments of Coercion -Rights Discourse Not a Panacea Conclusion Notes Index Acknowledgments

The minority rights revolution

Abstract: In the wake of the black civil rights movement, other disadvantaged groups of Americans began to make headway—Latinos, women, Asian Americans, and the disabled found themselves the beneficiaries of new laws and policies—and by the early 1970s a minority rights revolution was well underway. In the first book to take a broad perspective on this wide-ranging and far-reaching phenomenon, John D. Skrentny exposes the connections between the diverse actions and circumstances that contributed to this revolution—and that forever changed the face of American politics. Though protest and lobbying played a role in bringing about new laws and regulations—touching everything from wheelchair access to women’s athletics to bilingual education—what Skrentny describes was not primarily a bottom-up story of radical confrontation. Rather, elites often led the way, and some of the most prominent advocates for expanding civil rights were the conservative Republicans who later emerged as these policies’ most vociferous opponents. This book traces the minority rights revolution back to its roots not only in the black civil rights movement but in the aftermath of World War II, in which a world consensus on equal rights emerged from the Allies’ triumph over the oppressive regimes of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, and then the Soviet Union. It also contrasts failed minority rights development for white ethnics and gays/lesbians with groups the government successfully categorized with African Americans. Investigating these links, Skrentny is able to present the world as America’s leaders saw it; and so, to show how and why familiar figures—such as Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and, remarkably enough, conservatives like Senator Barry Goldwater and Robert Bork—created and advanced policies that have made the country more egalitarian but left it perhaps as divided as ever. Table of Contents 1. Introduction: How War and the Black Civil Rights Movement Changed America 2. “This Is War and This Is a War Measure”: Racial Equality Becomes National Security 3. National Security and Equal Rights: Limits and Qualifications 4. “We Were Advancing the Really Revolutionary View of Discrimination”: Designating Official Minorities for Affirmative Action in Employment 5. “In View of the Existence of the Other Significant Minorities”: The Expansion of Affirmative Action for Minority Capitalists 6. “Race Is a Very Relevant Personal Characteristic”: Affirmative Admissions, Diversity, and the Supreme Court 7. “Learn, Amigo, Learn!”: Bilingual Education and Language Rights in the Schools 8. “I Agree with You about the Inherent Absurdity”: Title IX and Women’s Equality in Education 9. White Males and the Limits of the Minority Rights Revolution: The Disabled, White Ethnics, and Gays 10. Conclusion: The Rare American Epiphany

The Future of Human Rights

Abstract: This monograph critically examines the contemporary discourses on the nature of 'human rights', their histories, the myths that are embedded in them, and contributes an alternative reading of those histories by placing the concerns and interests of the 'people in struggle and communities of resistance' at centre stage. It examines the cold reality that despite the last century being justly described as the century of human rights, the 'rightless and suffering peoples' still remain; it analyzes the gulf between the actuality and possibilities for the future. It analyzes the significance of the UN and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and goes on to study the more contemporary issues such as women's struggle to feminize the understanding and practice of human rights, the post-modernist critique of the universal idiom of human rights and, most pertinently for the current world scene, it analyzes the impact of globalization on the human rights movement. The new edition includes a discussion of the proposed United Nations norms regarding the human rights responsiblities of multinational corporations and other business entities.

Legal Pluralism and Dynamic Property Rights

Abstract: "Conventional conceptions of property rights focus on static definitions of property rights, usually as defined in statutory law However, in practice there is co-existence and interaction between multiple legal orders such as state, customary, religious, project and local laws, all of which provide bases for claiming property rights Legal anthropological approaches that recognize this legal pluralism are helpful in understanding this complexity Individuals may choose one or another of these legal frameworks as the basis for their claims on a resource, in a process referred to as “forum shopping” Legal pluralism can create uncertainty especially in times of conflict because any individual is unlikely to have knowledge of all types of law that might be relevant, and because rival claimants can use a large repertoire to lay claim to a resource However, at the same time the multiple legal frameworks facilitate considerable flexibility for people to maneuver in their use of natural resources Legal pluralism also introduces a sense of dynamism in property rights, as the different legal frameworks do not exist in isolation, but influence each other, and can change over time Unless these aspects of property rights are recognized, changes in statutory law intended to increase tenure security may instead increase uncertainty, especially for groups with less education and contacts This paper illustrates the implications of legal pluralism for our understanding of natural resource management and policies toward resource tenure, using the example of water rights (text of Abstract)

The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights

Abstract: The government of Burundi ratified this Organization of African Unity Charter on human rights on August 30, 1989; the government of Cameroon ratified it on September 18, 1989; and the government of Ghana ratified it on March 1, 1989. Relevant provisions of the Charter are reproduced in the Appendix to Annual Review of Population Law, Vol. 13, 1986 under section 410.

Human Rights: An Interdisciplinary Approach

Abstract: Acknowledgements Chapter 1: Introduction: thinking about human rightsRealities, Concepts, The social sciences, Beyond human rights law, ConclusionChapter 2 Origins: the rise and fall of natural rightsWhy history? On rights and tyrants, Justice and rights, Natural rights, The age of revolutions, The decline of natural rights Chapter 3 After 1945: the new age of rightsThe UN and the human rights revival, The Universal Declaration, From theory to practice: (a)The Cold War, (b)After the Cold War, ConclusionChapter 4 Theories of human rightsWhy theory? Human rights theory: (a) Rights (b) Other values (c) Human nature (d) Conflicts of rights (e) Democracy (f) ConclusionChapter 5 The role of the social sciencesIntroduction: human rights and social science, The dominance of law, Political science, Sociology, Psychology, Anthropology, International relations, ConclusionChapter 6 Universality, diversity and difference: culture and human rights The problem of cultural imperialism, Cultural relativism, Minority rights, Indigenous peoples, The right to self-determination, The rights of women Chapter 7 Idealism, realism and repression: the politics of human rightsThe real politics of human rights, The boomerang theory, The national politics of human rights, The statistics of human rights, NGOs in world politicsChapter 8 Development and Globalization: economics and human rightsDevelopment versus human rights? The right to development, Globalization, International financial institutions, Economic and social rightsChapter 9 Conclusion: human rights in the twenty-first centuryLearning from history, Objections to human rights, Problems of intervention, Concluding remarksReferences Index

Rights of Inclusion: Law and Identity in the Life Stories of Americans with Disabilities

Abstract: "Rights of Inclusion" provides an innovative, accessible perspective on how civil rights legislation affects the lives of ordinary Americans. Based on eye-opening and deeply moving interviews with intended beneficiaries of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), David M. Engel and Frank W. Munger argue for a radically new understanding of rights - one that focuses on their role in everyday lives rather than in formal legal claims. Although all 60 interviewees had experienced discrimination, none had filed a formal protest or lawsuit. Nevertheless, civil rights played a crucial role in their lives. Rights improved their self-image, enhanced their career aspirations and altered the perceptions and assumptions of their employees and coworkers - in effect producing more inclusive institutional arrangements. Focusing on these long-term life histories, Engel and Munger incisively show how rights and identity affect one another over time and how that interaction ultimately determines the success of laws such as the ADA. For anyone concerned with rights, disability and the law, "Rights of Inclusion" should be a landmark work.

Protecting the endangered human: toward an international treaty prohibiting cloning and inheritable alterations.

Abstract: I. INTRODUCTION We humans tend to worry first about our own happiness, then about our families, then about our communities. In times of great stress, such as war or natural disaster, we may focus temporarily on our country but we rarely think about Earth as a whole or the human species as a whole. This narrow perspective, perhaps best exemplified by the American consumer, has led to the environmental degradation of our planet, a grossly widening gap in living standards between rich and poor people and nations and a scientific research agenda that focuses almost exclusively on the needs and desires of the wealthy few. Reversing the worldwide trends toward market-based atomization and increasing indifference to the suffering of others will require a human rights focus, forged by the development of what Vaclav Havel has termed a "species consciousness."1 In this Article we discuss human cloning and inheritable genetic alterations from the human species perspective, and suggest language for a proposed international "Convention of the Preservation of the Human Species" that would outlaw all efforts to initiate a pregnancy by using either intentionally modified genetic material or human replication cloning, such as through somatic cell nuclear transfer. We summarize international legal action in these areas over the past five years, relate these actions to arguments for and against a treaty and conclude with an action plan. B. HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE HUMAN SPECIES The development of the atomic bomb not only presented to the world for the first time the prospect of total annihilation, but also, paradoxically, led to a renewed emphasis on the "nuclear family," complete with its personal bomb shelter. The conclusion of World War II (with the dropping of the only two atomic bombs ever used in war) led to the recognition that world wars were now suicidal to the entire species and to the formation of the United Nations with the primary goal of preventing such wars.2 Prevention, of course, must be based on the recognition that all humans are fundamentally the same, rather than on an emphasis on our differences. In the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis, the closest the world has ever come to nuclear war, President John F. Kennedy, in an address to the former Soviet Union, underscored the necessity for recognizing similarities for our survival: [L]et us not be blind to our differences, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and the means by which those differences can be resolved .... For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.3 That we are all fundamentally the same, all human, all with the same dignity and rights, is at the core of the most important document to come out of World War II, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the two treaties that followed it (together known as the "International Bill of Rights").4 The recognition of universal human rights, based on human dignity and equality as well as the principle of nondiscrimination, is fundamental to the development of a species consciousness. As Daniel Lev of Human Rights Watch/Asia said in 1993, shortly before the Vienna Human Rights Conference: Whatever else may separate them, human beings belong to a single biological species, the simplest and most fundamental commonality before which the significance of human differences quickly fades .... We are all capable, in exactly the same ways, of feeling pain, hunger, and a hundred kinds of deprivation. Consequently, people nowhere routinely concede that those with enough power to do so ought to be able to kill, torture, imprison, and generally abuse others .... The idea of universal human rights shares the recognition of one common humanity. and provides a minimum solution to deal with its miseries.5 Membership in the human species is central to the meaning and enforcement of human rights, and respect for basic human rights is essential for the survival of the human species. …

Constitutional Provisions for Individual Human Rights (1977-1996): Are They More Than Mere "Window Dressing?"

Abstract: This global cross-national study seeks to build upon earlier studies that have tested the impact of constitutional provisions upon state human rights behavior. I examine across a twenty-year period the impact of constitutional provisions for six individual freedoms and four due process rights on state abuse of the right to personal integrity Here I find statistical evidence that some constitutional provisions do matter, even when controlling for democracy and for other factors known to influence human rights behavior. While none of the constitutional provisions for individual freedoms is statistically significant, two of the due process provisions (provisions for fair and public trials) do decrease substantially the likelihood that states will abuse their own citizens' human rights. The other two due process provisions, which have become almost universal, the ban against torture, and the writ of habeas corpus, are quite disappointing in that they do not produce the expected impact. Over the long term, the...

Open coordination against poverty: the new EU `social inclusion process'

Abstract: Until the mid 1990s, the notion of Social Europe was primarily associated with the introduction of binding supranational rules aimed at safeguarding and possibly upgrading the social protection systems of the Member States. The political and institutional obstacles to such kind of rules were well known in practice and well understood in theory - especially in the wake of the negative vs. positive integration debate. But 'hard law' seemed to be the only effective strategy of action, given the low impact of weaker institutional tools such as recommendations, on the one hand, and the growing incentives for 'social dumping' generated by the completion of the internal market, on the other hand. The second half of the 1990s witnessed a gradual change of climate and perspective. Binding legislation continued to be seen as a very important ingredient of Europe's social dimension: indeed the debate on fundamental rights and on a possible fully-fledged EU constitution shifted the front of legal ambitions even further. But at the same time another strategy of policy intervention started to be considered and experimented with, resting on a complex mix of soft institutional ingredients, endowed with a strong potential of conditioning the direction of change at the national level. Originally applied in the area of employment, this new approach was then extended to other policy sectors - and most notably, policies to combat social exclusion - under the name of 'open method of coordination' (OMC), coined during the Portuguese Presidency in 2000. The main institutional ingredients of the OMC are common guidelines, national action plans, peer reviews, joint evaluation reports and recommendations. None of such instruments has a binding character, underpinned by legal enforcement powers. Moreover, while providing policy actors with a relatively clear agenda, the mix of these ingredients leaves ample room

The Chechen Wars: Will Russia Go the Way of the Soviet Union?

Abstract: Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin improvised a system of "asymmetric federalism" to help maintain its successor state, the Russian Federation. However, when sparks of independence flared up in Chechnya, Yeltsin and, later, Vladimir Putin chose military action to deal with a "brushfire" that they feared would spread to other regions and eventually destroy the federation. Matthew Evangelista examines the causes of the Chechen Wars of 1994 and 1999 and challenges Moscow's claims that the Russian Federation was too fragile to withstand the potential loss of one rebellious republic. He suggests that the danger for Russia lies less in a Soviet-style disintegration than in a misguided attempt at authoritarian recentralization, something that would jeopardize Russia's fledgling democratic institutions. He also contends that well-documented acts of terrorism by some Chechen fighters should not serve as an excuse for Russia to commit war crimes and atrocities. Evangelista urges emerging democracies like Russia to deal with violent internal conflict and terrorism without undermining the fundamental rights and freedoms of their citizens. He recommends that the United States and other democracies be more attentive to Moscow's violations of human rights and, in their own struggle against terrorism, provide a kind of role model.

Time for a United Nations 'Global Compact' for Integrating Human Rights into the Law of Worldwide Organizations: Lessons from European Integration

Abstract: The 'Global Compact', launched by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1999, calls upon business to 'support and respect the protection of international human rights within their sphere of influence and (to) make sure their own corporations are not complicit in human rights abuses'. This article calls for a complementary 'Global Compact' between the UN and UN specialized agencies, as well as with other worldwide public organizations such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), so as to integrate universally recognized human rights into the law and practice of intergovernmental organizations, for example by requiring them to submit annual 'human rights impact statements' to UN human rights bodies and to engage in transparent dialogues about the contribution by specialized agencies to the promotion and protection of human rights. The globalization of human rights and of economic integration law offers mutually beneficial synergies: protection and enjoyment of human rights depend also on economic resources and on integration law opening markets, reducing discrimination and enabling a welfare-increasing division of labour. As a corollary, economic, legal and political integration are also a function of human rights protecting personal autonomy, legal and social security, peaceful change, individual savings, investments, production and mutually beneficial transactions across frontiers. The proposed 'integration approach' differs from the 1945 paradigm of 'specialized agencies' and state-centred international law

Gender and the politics of rights and democracy in Latin America

Abstract: List of Tables Abbreviations Acknowledgements Notes on the Contributors The Local, the Regional and the Global: Transforming the Politics of Rights M.Molyneux & N.Craske Engendering the Right to Participate in Decision-making: Electoral Quotas and Women's Leadership in Latin America M.N.Htun & M.P.Jones Getting Rights for those without Representation: The Success of Conjunctural Coalition-building in Venezuela E.J.Friedman Taking the Law into their Own Hands: Women, Legal Reform and Legal Literary in Brazil F.Macaulay In Pursuit of the Right to be Free from Violence: The Women's Movements and State Accountability in Uruguay N.Johnson Constructing Citizenship in the Poblaciones of Santiago, Chile: The Role of Reproductive and Sexual Rights C.Willmott Indigenous Women, Rights and the Nation-State in the Andes S.A.Radcliffe Economic and Social Rights: Exploring Gender Differences in a Central American Context J.Gideon The Struggle by Latin America Feminists for Rights and Autonomy V.Vargas Index

Animals as Objects, or Subjects, of Rights

Abstract: From the earliest times, animals were understood as objects of human rights. That result did not depend on some limited understanding of their capabilities for cognition and sensation, but rather rested on the strong sense that without domestication human beings could not secure their own advancement. The modern claims for animal rights cannot therefore be justified by an appeal to some newer and deeper understanding of the subject, but must rest on the claim that what they share with human beings is more important than what separates them. Those common elements do justify some level of animal protection but does not justify the radical transformation of social institutions that would flow from the recognition, as Steven Wise has advocated, of the basic libertarian rights of freedom from human domination and exploitation.

Resisting the Merger and Acquisition of Human Rights by Trade Law: A Reply to Petersmann

Abstract: Petersmann's proposal for the enforcement of human rights through the WTO is presented as though it were simply a logical development of existing policies, rather than representing a radical break with them. In a form of epistemological misappropriation he takes the discourse of international human rights law and uses it to describe something which is in between a Hayekian and an ordoliberal agenda. It is one which has a fundamentally different ideological underpinning from human rights law and would have extremely negative consequences for that body of law. Many of his characterizations of the existing state of the law - whether at the national, EU or international levels - are questionable. What is needed is for all participants in the debate over the future relationship between trade and human rights, be they ordoliberals such as Petersmann or mainstream human rights proponents, to move beyond such analyses and to engage in a systematic and intellectually open debate which acknowledges the underlying assumptions and meets a higher scholarly burden of proof than has so far been the case.

Overlegalizing Human Rights: International Relations Theory and the Commonwealth Caribbean Backlash Against Human Rights Regimes

Abstract: This article raises the intriguing claim that international law can be overlegalized. Overlegalization occurs where a treaty's substantive rules or its review procedures are too constraining of sovereignty, causing governments to engage in acts of non-compliance or even to denounce the treaty. The concept of legalization and its potential excesses, although unfamiliar to many legal scholars, has begun to be explored by international relations theorists analyzing the effects of legal rules in changing state behavior. This article bridges the gap between international legal scholarship and international relations theory by exploring a recent case study of overlegalization. It seeks to understand why, in the late 1990s, three Commonwealth Caribbean governments denounced human rights treaties and withdrew from the jurisdiction of international tribunals. I refer to these events as the Caribbean backlash against human rights regimes. My study of this backlash has two objectives. The first is to show how overlegalizing human rights can lead even liberal democracies to reconsider their commitment to international institutions that protect those rights. The second objective is to assess three competing international relations theories that seek to explain the conditions under which states comply with their treaty commitments. To provide a more persuasive analysis of these issues, the article includes empirical data analyzing changes in the filing and review of international human rights petitions against Caribbean governments during the 1990s.

The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Federal Question

Abstract: Two years ago, von Bogdandy addressed in this journal the evolution of the core foundations of the European Union, by raising the central question whether the Union is or should be a human rights organization.1 The article followed Alston and Weiler’s powerful clamour, in the framework of a broader project, for an EU human rights policy,2 a claim with which von Bogdandy took issue. Since then, the EU Charter of fundamental rights has been finalized, and its scholarly fall-out is enormous, both because the final fate of the Charter is not yet settled and because the Charter is the centrepiece of the current EU constitutionalization process. Political developments are moving at such a pace that the questions whether the EU is in need of a human rights policy or whether it is becoming a human rights organization are now overshadowed by the tall presence of the Charter. The Convention on the future of the European Union is currently looking at how the Charter could be incorporated in the EU’s basic constitutional document. If such incorporation takes place, fundamental rights protection will, apparently at least, be at the core of the European integration process. What will the Charter do to that process? Past experience with bills of rights in federal States shows the strong centralizing force of such documents. It is perhaps for that reason that the Charter contains a strongly-worded horizontal provision which clearly seeks to contain any centralizing effect. Article 51 Charter provides:

Human rights or wrongs? the struggle for a rights-based response to trafficking in human beings

Abstract: A unique opportunity for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and advocates to contribute to the development of a human rights-based response to the trafficking of human beings now exists. Many governments have signed a new international treaty on trafficking and are in the process of adopting domestic anti-trafficking laws. However, as explained in this article, most government officials are uninformed about the causes and consequences of trafficking, and the appropriate rights-based legal responses. NGOs can bring their expertise and a human rights framework to the debate by working with government officials to draft and implement new trafficking laws and policies. This article offers a brief introduction and guidance to some of the challenges that NGOs will face in their advocacy work

From Kosovo to Kabul: Human Rights and International Intervention

Abstract: Introduction - "the idea of the age" human rights-based "humanitarianism" the attraction of ethical foreign policy the limits of human rights theory international law and the challenge of human rights war - the lesser of two evils the retreat from political equality conclusion - humanism or human rights.

Accountability and Legitimacy in the European Union

Abstract: FOREWORD BY THE RT HON CHRISTOPHER PATTEN, MEMBER, EUROPEAN COMMISSION LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS PART I: INSTITUTIONS AND DECISION-MAKING PART II: CONSTITUTIONALISM AND THE FUTURE OF EUROPE PART III: FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND SOCIAL RIGHTS PART IV: NEW GOVERNANCE AND THE EUROPEAN UNION PART V: ENLARGEMENT AND THE MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE CONCLUDING REMARKS SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

The Critique of Rights in Critical Legal Studies

Abstract: This piece presents a critique, developed by a faction of the group that called itself critical legal studies, of rights as they figure in legal and general political discourse. This rights critique, like critical legal studies in general, operates at the uneasy juncture of two distinct, sometimes complementary and sometimes conflicting enterprises, which I will call the left and the modernist/postmodernist projects.

Debating Human Rights in China: A Conceptual and Political History

Abstract: Debating human rights in China : introductory perspectives -- The conception of human rights in the West : historical origins and contemporary controversies -- Culture and human rights : between universalism and relativism -- China and the introduction of Western thought -- Ideas of human rights in the early twentieth century : the quest for national salvation -- The new culture movement and beyond : human rights and the liberation of the individual -- The Nanking decade, 1927-1937 : liberal and radical voices on human rights -- Human rights debates in wartime China : between individual freedom and national salvation -- The 1950s : human rights debates on two sides of the Taiwan Strait -- The domestic challenge over human rights : the Democracy Wall activists and the official reaction, 1978-1982 -- A contested and evolving discourse : human rights debates since the late 1980s -- The Chinese human rights debate : conclusion and prospects (Less)

Reclaiming and rebuilding the history of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Abstract: The political history of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is not well known and obscurity has fostered a number of assumptions that require inspection. Recent scholarship challenges the notion that the UDHR was uniquely sponsored and promoted by the Western powers, and indeed raises questions about great power support for efforts to craft international human rights standards. This article explores four political myths about the Universal Declaration, each of which contains a grain of truth, but each of which also misleads. If the historical role of large states in advancing human rights norms is exaggerated, the role and contribution of small states has likewise been overlooked. The Universal Declaration is a negotiated text and many states participated in its construction. Its legitimacy extends from the political process that gave it shape and all states thus have an interest in small states reclaiming their share in its history.

Accountability : an essential aspect of school governance

Abstract: The South African education system is still in a transformation process. Old apartheid structures and governance are objects of restructuring and transformation. The transformation of the education system is carried out to promote and uphold the founding principles of the Constitution and the fundamental rights and freedoms of every person. Among the many aspects of the education system that need to be redressed is the management of schools. In this article, the author highlights problems and issues emerging from democratisation of the management of schools. In particular, the problems emanating from accountability questions such as: Whose responsibility is it? What are the place, position and responsibilities of parents in school governance? What are their duties and responsibilities with regard to accountability? The author attempts to identify essentials and forms of accountability within the spectrum of school governance and the focus is on the accountability of parents and the accountability of principals and teachers to the school-governing body. Comments and recommendations are stated in the final section.

Property rights in women’s empowerment in rural India: a review

Abstract: This paper examines the importance of property rights in women’s empowerment in rural India. Arguments justifying the need for granting property rights to women are presented and the distinction is made between legal (formal) and customary (informal) rights. The ineffectiveness of legal right in absence of customary rights has been discussed. Customary rights also become ineffective due to other institutional impediments. These impediments have been discussed. The results of extensive field work in rural West Bengal and Orissa have been presented to illustrate the pattern of development process that poor rural women want and in which the property right is only one component, not the only component.

Translating Filártiga: A Comparative and International Law Analysis of Domestic Remedies for International Human Rights Violations

Abstract: Human rights activists, litigators and scholars are actively seeking means to hold accountable those responsible for egregious human rights abuses. In the absence of effective international enforcement mechanisms, domestic courts play an important role in the effort to implement international human rights norms. In most of the world, domestic enforcement efforts focus on criminal prosecutions. Most dramatically, Chilean General Augusto Pinochet was arrested in England in 1998 and held for extradition to Spain to face criminal charges. By contrast, efforts in the United States have focused on civil human rights litigation. Had General Pinochet come to the United States instead of to England, he is far more likely to have been sued than arrested. Civil human rights litigation in the United States began in 1980 with the Second Circuit’s decision in Filartiga v. Pena-Irala, 630 F.2d 876 (2d Cir. 1980), followed by a series of cases that have further developed U.S. civil remedies for international human rights violations. U.S. attorneys regularly ask why there have been no Filartiga lawsuits in other countries. The key to unraveling this puzzle is to recognize the impact of differences in legal procedure and legal culture. Several procedural and cultural characteristics of the U.S. legal system lead to civil lawsuits for human rights violations. Other legal systems offer instead a range of administrative and judicial remedies for wrongs that may be styled as human rights violations, torts or crimes; filed against both domestic and foreign defendants; for violations committed both at home and abroad. These varied legal mechanisms represent the “translation” into domestic legal systems of the international law principle of accountability for human rights violations. Each implements the international mandate to hold responsible perpetrators of human rights abuses, provide remedies for victims of those violations, and deter future abuses.Victims of human rights violations the world over face disheartening struggles for justice as they seek remedies for their injuries, punishment of those responsible, and assurance that future abuses will be deterred. They utilize a wide range of international and domestic mechanisms in that quest, including both criminal and civil actions. An understanding of the varied means by which common goals can be attained contributes to the development of these remedies and strengthens accountability principles.

The Human Rights Obligations of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Abstract: Introduction History, Structure and Policy Evolution 'Rights' and 'Obligations': Practical implications The Relationship to International Law The relationship to International Human Rights Law Sources of International Human Rights Obligations Possible Avenues for Redress or Reparation Conclusions.