Showing papers on "International human rights law published in 1996"

The community of rights

Abstract: The main thesis of this essay is that human rights, correctly understood, entail a certain communitarian conception of human relationships, one that is characterized by mutuality of consideration and social solidarity. Because such a human grouping is based on human rights, it can appropriately be called a “community of rights”.

A "Violations Approach" for Monitoring the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Abstract: This chapter reviews the problems that the current performance standard of "progressive realization" entails for monitoring economic, social, and cultural rights, and proposes a "violations approach" as a more feasible and effective alternative. It focuses on three types of violations approach: violations resulting from actions and policies on the part of governments; violations related to patterns of discrimination; and violations taking place due to a state's failure to fulfill the minimum core obligations contained in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Covenant). In addition to the Covenant, several international human rights instruments enumerate economic, social, and cultural rights. These include the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The implementation and monitoring of the rights articulated in the Covenant have been hampered by conceptual and methodological difficulties.

Human Rights, Culture and Context: Anthropological Perspectives

Abstract: A world characterized by ethno-nationalist struggles, civil wars, and political violence has led anthropologists to examine in more detail the relationships between state violence, ideas about "culture", and the activities of human rights organizations. This text considers recent theoretical insights into the politics of identity and traces the concrete interconnections created by the globalization of human rights. Drawing on case studies from around the world - Guatemala, Mauritius, Amazonia, Hawaii, Iran, the United States and Mexico - this collection documents how transnational human rights discourses and legal institutions are materialized, imposed, resisted and transformed in a variety of contexts.

The Ideology of Human Rights

Abstract: This piece argues that although human rights is an ideology although it presents itself as non-ideological, non-partisan, and universal. It contends that the human rights corpus, taken as a whole, as a document of ideals and values, particularly the positive law of human rights, requires the construction of states to reflect the structures and values of governance that derive from Western liberalism, especially the contemporary variations of liberal democracy practiced in Western democracies. Viewed from this perspective, the human rights regime has serious and dramatic implications for questions of cultural diversity, the sovereignty of states, and the universality of human rights.

Constructing Democracy: Human Rights, Citizenship, And Society In Latin America

Abstract: Introduction: Human Rights and the Construction of Democracy (Elizabeth Jelin and Eric Hershberg.) Settling Accounts With The Past: Human Rights In Processes Of Regime Transition Adjusting the Armed Forces to Democracy: Successes, Failures, and Ambiguities in the Southern Cone (Carlos H. Acua and Catalina Smulovitz.) Human Rights in Democratization Processes (Manuel Antonio Garretn.) The International Scene: Networks And Discourses The Emergence, Evolution, and Effectiveness of the Latin American Human Rights Network: (Kathryn Sikkink.) The Looting of Democratic Discourse by the Guatemalan Military: Implications for Human Rights (Jennifer Schirmer.) Citizenship In Democracy: Some Conceptual Issues Citizenship Revisited: Solidarity, Responsibility, and Rights (E. Jelin.) The State, the Market, and Democratic Citizenship (Fbio Wanderley Reis.) Structures Of Discrimination: Individual And Collective Rights Indigenous Rights: Some Conceptual Problems (Rodolfo Stavenhagen.) Racial Inequalities in Brazil and Throughout Latin America: Timid Responses to Disguised Racism (Carlos Hasenbalg.) Women, Gender, and Human Rights (E. Jelin.) Crime and Individual Rights: Reframing the Question of Violence in Latin America (Teresa P.R. Caldeira. ) Conclusion Convergence and Diversity: Reflections on Human Rights (E. Jelin and E. Hershberg.).

International human rights in context : law, politics, morals : text and materials

Abstract: PART A: CONTEMPORARY HUMAN RIGHTS: BACKGROUND AND CONTENT 1. Introduction to Human Rights Issues and Discourse 2. Up to Nuremberg: Background to the Human Rights Movement 3. Civil and Political Rights 4. Economic and Social Rights PART B: WHAT ARE RIGHTS, ARE THEY EVERYWHERE, AND EVERYWHERE THE SAME? CHALLENGES TO UNIVERSALISM AND CONFLICTS AMONG RIGHTS 5. Rights, Duties, and Cultural Relativism 6. Conflicting Traditions and Rights: Illustrations PART C: INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS 7. The Need for International Institutions and their Challenge to Notions of Sovereignty 8. Intergovernmental Enforcement of Human Rights Norms: The United Nations System 9. Treaty Organs: The ICCPR Human Rights Committee 10. Regional Arrangements 11. Civil Society PART D: STATES AS PROTECTORS AND ENFORCERS OF HUMAN RIGHTS 12. Interpenetration of International and National Systems: Internal Protection of Human Rights by States 13. Enforcement by States against Violator States PART E: CURRENT TOPICS 14. Massive Human Rights Tragedies: Prosecutions and Truth Commissions 15. Self-Determination and Autonomy Regimes 16. Globalization, Development, and Human Rights Annex on Documents Annex on Citations Index of Subjects Index of Authors Quoted

Impunity and human rights in international law and practice

Abstract: Roht-Arriaza explores the basis in international law to investigate past human rights violations, to prosecute perpetrators, and to provide redress for victims.

Getting Lesbian and Gay Issues on the International Human Rights Agenda

Abstract: The first openly homosexual person spoke in a UN human rights forum in August 1992, "amidst some open hostility to his remarks."3 The speaker noted that lesbian women and gay men were totally unrepresented in UN work and had no organizations with consultative status. Organizations of lesbian women and gay men were first accredited to a UN meeting in 1993, the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights, where three organizations participated. The first lesbian and gay organization to gain consultative status with the Economic and Social Council was the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA), approved by a rollcall vote in July 1993. Approval required that ECOSOC abandon its tradition of making such decisions by consensus. In September 1993, the

Democracy and Human Rights

Abstract: The values of freedom, respect for human rights and the principle of holding periodic and genuine elections by universal suffrage are essential elements of democracy. In turn, democracy provides the natural environment for the protection and effective realization of human rights. These values are embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and further developed in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which enshrines a host of political rights and civil liberties underpinning meaningful democracies.

The Letter of the Law: The Scope of the International Legal Obligation to Prosecute Human Rights Crimes

Abstract: In the past several years, Argentina, Cambodia, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Uruguay, and South Africa have each granted amnesty to members of the former regime that commanded death squads that tortured and killed thousands of civilians within their respective countries. With respect to four of these countries (Cambodia, El Salvador, Haiti, and South Africa), the United Nations pushed for, helped negotiate, and/or endorsed the granting of amnesty as a means of restoring peace and democratic government. At the preparatory conference for the establishment of a permanent international criminal court in August 1997, the U.S. Delegation circulated a paper suggesting that the proposed permanent court should take into account such amnesties in the interest of international peace and national reconciliation when deciding whether to prosecute. Numerous scholars have made the case against granting amnesty to those who commit violations of international humanitarian law (the laws of war), or who commit other serious human rights crimes (genocide, torture, and crimes

Woman Ikat Raet Long Human Raet O No? Women's Rights, Human Rights and Domestic Violence in Vanuatu

Abstract: There has been much recent debate about women's rights and their relation to human rights. Debates about domestic violence in Vanuatu are situated in this global frame but also in a regional and historical context dominated by the relation between kastom (tradition) and Christianity. This article depicts the dynamics of a conference on Violence and the Family in Vanuatu held in Port Vila in 1994, in terms of the competing claims of universal human rights and cultural relativism. The allegedly western character of human rights which focus on the individual and civil and political rights is often contrasted with the non-western stress on collectivities and the rights to economic development and self-determination. These sorts of ideological oppositions in international politics reverberate in domestic politics as well, and especially in those which situate women and men as subjects in conflict, as they are in many domestic disputes.

Body Parts: Property Rights and the Ownership of Human Biological Materials

Abstract: In "Body Parts", E. Richard Gold examines whether the body and materials derived from it - such as human organs and DNA - should be thought of as market commodities and subject to property law. Analyzing a series of court decisions concerning property rights, Gold explores whether the language and assumptions of property law can help society determine who has rights to human biological materials. Gold observes that the commercial opportunities unleashed by advances in biotechnology present a challenge to the ways that society has traditionally valued the human body and human health. In a balanced discussion of both commercial and individual perspectives, Gold asserts the need to understand human biological materials within the context of human values, rather than economic interests. This perceptive book will be welcomed by scholars and other professionals engaged in questions regarding bioethics, applied ethics, the philosophy of value, and property and intellectual property rights. Given the international aspects of both intellectual property law and biotechnology, this book will be of interest throughout the world and especially valuable in common-law (most English-speaking) countries.

Unleashing Rights: Law, Meaning, and the Animal Rights Movement

Abstract: "Unleashing Rights" is a study of the animal rights movement's efforts to advance social reform through the deployment of legal language and practices. The study looks at how prevailing understandings of rights language have shaped the attempt to put forth the idea that animals have rights, and how this attempt, in turn, offers the opportunity to reconstruct the meaning of rights. The book also examines the way litigation has influenced the movement's activities and opportunities for success.Presented here is an investigation of the legal system through a decentered, cultural approach. Legal languages and practices are viewed as a part of everyday life--constructed, used, and interpreted not only by those who run official legal institutions but also by everyday people with a legal consciousness. Using this approach, the book questions whether the deployment of rights and litigation by animal rights advocates has challenged prevailing legal meaning.Looking to both the constitutive and instrumental aspects of law, and to how each informs the other, "Unleashing Rights "finds that the resort to rights and litigation has advanced movement goals and contributed to alternative constructions of legal meaning. The study concludes that despite their many constraints, both rights talk and litigation are powerful resources for those who seek change, especially when used by strategically minded activists."Unleashing Rights" is a book that illustrates the relationship between law, social movement activism, and social change. The book joins the ongoing debate within public law scholarship that is concerned with the effectiveness of legal strategies and languages. The book also speaks to those interested in the general study of social movements and in the particular study of the animal rights movement. With its cultural approach focused on rights language and the construction of meaning, the work will be of interest to the disciplines of law and political science, as well as those who study sociology, anthropology, and philosophy.Helena Silverstein is F. M. Kirby Assistant Professor of Government and Law, Lafayette College.

Trade and human rights

Abstract: The paper analyzes the moral, philosophiacal and economic arguments for and against linking trade and human rights. It finds that while claims of universality of labour standards are overblown, addressing the legitimate concerns that citizens of one country may have about what they deem "poor" conditions of work or "exploitation" of children by parents or employers in other countries does not require the use of trade sanctions.

Advancing Reproductive Rights Beyond Cairo and Beijing

Abstract: This article provides an overview of gender issues related to reproductive health and human rights and identifies provisions of international human rights documents concerning reproductive health. These documents include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women Convention on the Rights of the Child European Convention on Human Rights American Convention on Human Rights African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights Cairo Program of Action and Beijing Declaration. The Cairo and Beijing documents are the most comprehensive in protecting the right to survival liberty and security the highest standard of living the benefits of scientific progress information education family integrity and nondiscrimination concerning sex age and disabilities. Human rights are violated directly by nations by national failure to provide reproductive services and by other patterns of discrimination in access to services in general and among subgroups such as adolescents. Committees created by the conventions must monitor national performance based on a set of agreed-upon standards and nations must enact laws that protect womens rights. Some committees use the Cairo Program of Action as the standard. The Cairo plan reaffirms that "everyone has the right to life." The lack of effective means of birth spacing and fertility control endangers womens survival and health. Womens ability to survive pregnancy is an issue of their being "equal in dignity and rights." The Beijing Platform goes farther to condemn "torture involuntary disappearance sexual slavery rape sexual abuse and forced pregnancy."

Encyclopedia Of Human Rights

Abstract: This book defines the concept of human rights in all its diversity: the rights of individuals, peoples and nations; the rights to employment, education, culture and personal development; rights to a peaceful existence and to a clean, healthy environment; rights in the workplace; rights of special groups, such as the handicapped and the homeless; rights in war; and rights on land, sea and air It also defines basic human needs, the right to assembly, and the right to cultural enjoyment,and analyzes legal decisions and international accords that have made these terms concrete realities The encyclopaedia analyzes and reproduces the national and international documents and instruments which have affirmed or violated rights It also includes landmark legal and legislative decisions in the field of human rights There is also information on more than 130 non-governmental and intergovernmental organizations, such as the UN, the OAS and the Council of Europe All entries in this second edition have been updated to reflect current events, including new treaties, covenants and UN reports

The European Social Charter

Abstract: This thoroughly revised edition of a standard work on the European Social Charter of 1961 describes and analyses the amended Charter of 1996 and the Optional Protocol of 1995, with detailed attention to the jurisprudence of the independent Committee of Experts under those revised instruments. It also takes into account the substantial changes in the operation of the supervisory mechanism which have made the mechanism much more effective. The author's commentary proceeds in the broader context of international social and economic rights as expressed in the European Convention on Human Rights, European Union social law and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Do Bills of Rights Matter? The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Abstract: Although constitutional protection for rights is increasingly popular, there is little systematic research on the extent to which bills of rights affect the process of government. This article examines the effects a bill of rights may be expected to produce, and then uses a quasi-experimental design to analyze the effects of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms on the Canadian Supreme Court's agenda. The data suggest that the Charter indeed has influenced the Court's agenda, although the effects are more limited than generally recognized. More important, the data suggest that a number of the influences often attributed to the Charter likely resulted instead from the growth of what I call the support structure for legal mobilization, consisting of various resources that enable litigants to pursue rights-claims in court. The political significance of a bill of rights, then, depends on factors in civil society that are independent of constitutional structure.

Legacies of Nuremberg: Medical Ethics and Human Rights

Abstract: The 50th anniversary of the Doctors Trial at Nuremberg provides an important opportunity to reflect on its legacy to both medical ethics and human rights. While many contemporary physicians view medicine's involvement in Nazi Germany as of only historical interest, the articles by Katz, 1 Sidel, 2 Barondess, 3 Faden et al, 4 Harkness, 5 Sonis et al, 6 and Seidelman 7 eloquently demonstrate that there is much we can learn by confronting the crimes committed by the Nazi physicians. After World War II, the Allies prosecuted the major surviving Nazi war criminals in an international military tribunal before judges from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the former Soviet Union. That trial resulted in making new international law and can properly be seen, together with the promulgation of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as the birth of the international human rights movement. The trial

US hegemony and the project of universal human rights

Abstract: Description Human rights is often claimed as the 'idea' of our time. However, although considerable time, energy and resources have been invested in the idea, and extravagant claims are often made about progress in providing machinery for the protection of human rights, there are few signs that violations are any less common than in the past. This book argues that while the USA was instrumental in establishing the 'idea' of human rights as a dominant theme in the day-to-day rhetoric of international relations, powerful economic and political interests succeeded in ensuring that a strong international regime for the protection of human rights did not emerge. Contents The Mountbatten Centre for International Studies - Acknowledgements - Introduction - Universal Human Rights and International Regimes - Human Rights and Post-War Reconstruction - An International Bill of Human Rights - Human Rights and Hegemony - The International Covenants on Human Rights - Implementation and Foreign Policy - Conclusion and Speculation - Appendix I: Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Appendix II: International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights - Appendix III: International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - Bibliography - Index.

The Council of Europe and Minority Rights

Abstract: The Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (Framework Convention)2 represents the latest step taken to protect minority groups in Europe.3 The revolution that has occurred in Europe since 1989 has reawakened many minority issues that had lain relatively dormant during Soviet domination of the eastern part of the region4 and a plethora of measures, at the regional and international

Sustainable Development and Human Rights: An Integrated Conception

Abstract: This article seeks to present an integrated conception of sustainable development, with particular emphasis on the contribution of international human rights law and theory. Part II considers a structural conception of sustainable development. Part III considers parallels between sustainable development and self-determination. Part IV provides some general reflections on international environmental law and international human rights law in terms of analogous concepts, principles and systems. What similarities are there and what differences? Part V considers the progress made towards recognition of a “human right to the environment”. Part VI considers how international environmental claims could be brought within the existing international human rights complaint systems. Part VII analyses the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the Lopez Ostra case (1994), the leading case on environmental claims to have reached that Court.

Human Rights and Ethnic Conflict Management: The Case of Nigeria

Abstract: Against the background of the debate among scholars of human rights over whether group rights exist, and if they do, whether they are compatible with individual rights, this article tries to show that in divided multi-ethnic societies there is a need to balance the two kinds of rights. It approaches human rights from a conflict-management perspective and argues that there are interests and demands of a group nature which individual rights cannot satisfy and that, in fact, the observance of group rights is often a necessary condition for the enjoyment of individual rights. This is especially so in countries where there are deep and structural socio-economic and political cleavages among ethnic groups and where the state is not an autonomous agency or neutral umpire, as is assumed by liberal scholars. The underlying premise of the article is that human rights are neither natural nor given, and therefore that the kinds of rights demanded as well as the purposes for which they are demanded are often indicative of the kinds of balances that need to be made between individual and group rights. The article discusses the human rights approach to ethnic conflict management in Nigeria from these standpoints.