Showing papers on "International human rights law published in 2007"

Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice:

Abstract: ity between and within each country, the former allows the rich in both poor and rich countries to “intermingle” in the calculation of global inequality, which is then fully decomposable into the between and within country components. What the survey data show is that global inequality first increased between 1988 and 1993 and then decreased from 1993 to 1998, reflecting the stagnation of poor rural areas of China and India in the first period, and the slight catching up of poor rural areas in the second period. Furthermore, Milanovic shows that previous attempts at capturing this type of inequality reach conflicting conclusions regarding the trend, which in turn reflect different assumptions and data sources, most of which bias the calculated results downward. The final section discusses the future of global inequality, and what can be done to redress it. Where previous studies express confidence in a declining global inequality trend, Milanovic is less confident, suggesting that we can be certain only that inequality is high. Furthermore, since the trend depends heavily on the performance of one country— China, predictions about future trends are speculative at best. Milanovic is certain about two things. First, global inequality is immoral. Second, redistribution is possible and would be both moral and efficient to the development of humanity as a whole.

Human Rights and Empire: The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism

Abstract: Erudite and timely, this book is a key contribution to the renewal of radical theory and politics. Addressing the paradox of a contemporary humanitarianism that has abandoned politics in favour of combating evil, Douzinas, a leading scholar and author in the field of human rights and legal theory, considers the most pressing international questions. Asking whether there ‘is an intrinsic relationship between human rights and the recent wars carried out in their name?’ and whether ‘human rights are a barrier against domination and oppression or the ideological gloss of an emerging empire?’ this book examines a range of topics, including: * the normative characteristics, political philosophy and metaphysical foundations of our age * the subjective and institutional aspects of human rights and their involvement in the creation of identity and definition of the meaning and powers of humanity * the use of human rights as a justification for a new configuration of political, economic and military power. Exploring the legacy and the contemporary role of human rights, this topical and incisive book is a must for all those interested in human rights law, jurisprudence and philosophy of law, political philosophy and political theory.

Why Do Countries Commit to Human Rights Treaties

Abstract: This article examines states' decisions to commit to human rights treaties. It argues that the effect of a treaty on a state - and hence the state's willingness to commit to it - is largely determined by the domestic enforcement of the treaty and the treaty's collateral consequences. These broad claims give rise to several specific predictions. For example, states with less democratic institutions will be no less likely to commit to human rights treaties if they have poor human rights records, because there is little prospect that the treaties will be enforced. Conversely, states with more democratic institutions will be less likely to commit to human rights treaties if they have poor human rights records - precisely because the treaties are likely to lead to changes in behavior. These predictions are tested by examining the practices of more than 160 countries over several decades.

Transformation of Citizenship: Status, Rights, Identity

Abstract: In a spirit of stocktaking and identifying frontiers of research, this article reviews recent changes of citizenship in three dimensions: status, rights, and identity. With respect to status, it is argued that access to citizenship has been liberalized. On the rights dimension, there has been a weakening of social rights and rise of minority rights. Citizenship identities today are universalistic, which limits states' attempts to counter the centrifugal dynamics of ethnically diversifying societies with unity and integration campaigns.

Justice Lost! The Failure of International Human Rights Law To Matter Where Needed Most*

Abstract: International human rights treaties have been ratified by many nation-states, including those ruled by repressive governments, raising hopes for better practices in many corners of the world. Evidence increasingly suggests, however, that human rights laws are most effective in stable or consolidating democracies or in states with strong civil society activism. If so, treaties may be failing to make a difference in those states most in need of reform ‐ the world’s worst abusers ‐ even though they have been the targets of the human rights regime from the very beginning. The authors address this question of compliance by focusing on the behavior of repressive states in particular. Through a series of cross-national analyses on the impact of two key human rights treaties, the article demonstrates that (1) governments, including repressive ones, frequently make legal commitments to human rights treaties, subscribing to recognized norms of protection and creating opportunities for socialization and capacity-building necessary for lasting reforms; (2) these commitments mostly have no effects on the world’s most terrible repressors even long into the future; (3) recent findings that treaty effectiveness is conditional on democracy and civil society do not explain the behavior of the world’s most abusive governments; and (4) realistic institutional reforms will probably not help to solve this problem.

The Practice of Human Rights: Tracking Law Between the Global and the Local

Abstract: Introduction - locating rights, envisioning law between the global and the local Mark Goodale Part I. States of Violence: 1. Introduction Sally Engle Merry 2. The violence of rights - human rights as culprit, human rights as victim Daniel Goldstein 3. Double-binds of self and secularism in Nepal - religion, democracy, identity and rights Lauren Leve Part II. Registers of Power: 4. Introduction Laura Nader 5. The power of right(s) - tracking empires of law and new modes of social resistance in Bolivia (and elsewhere) Mark Goodale 6. Exercising rights and reconfiguring resistance in the the Zapatista Shannon Speed Part III. Conditions of Vulnerability: 7. Introduction Sally Engle Merry 8. Rights to indigenous culture in Colombia Jean Jackson 9. The 2000 UN Human Trafficking Protocol - rights, enforcement, vulnerabilities Kay Warren Part IV. Encountering Ambivalence: 10. Introduction Balakrishnan Rajagopal 11. Transnational legal conflict between peasants and corporations in Burma - human rights and discursive ambivalence under the US Alien Tort Claims Act John Dale 12. Being Swazi, Being Human - custom, constitutionalism and human rights in an African monarchy Sari Wastell 13. Conclusion - Tyrannosaurus Lex - The Anthropology of human rights and transnational law Richard Ashby Wilson.

The Impact of Human Rights Trials in Latin America

Abstract: Since the 1980s, states have been increasingly addressing past human rights violations using multiple transitional justice mechanisms including domestic and international human rights trials. In th...

Domestic Judicial Institutions and Human Rights Treaty Violation

Abstract: Democratic and autocratic states routinely violate their international agreements protecting human rights. Scholars typically study this phenomenon by focusing on ratification or compliance behavior separately. In our view, these behaviors are inherently linked, and our analysis should address the link explicitly. We consider how domestic judiciaries influence the joint choice to ratify and comply with international human rights regimes. Using data on the ratification status of states under the Convention Against Torture (CAT) and states' torture practices, we find that the joint probability of being ratified under the CAT and violating its terms decreases in the effectiveness of a state's judiciary; and that the joint probability of not being ratified and engaging in behavior proscribed by the CAT increases in the effectiveness of a state's judiciary. The paper suggests that while effective judiciaries offer the promise of an enhanced international human rights law, it is in part a false one. Where judiciaries constrain, states are more likely to avoid these regimes and violate human rights anyway. Where judiciaries do not constrain, states are likely to join and ignore their obligations.

Appendix One. Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity

Abstract: This appendix section of the book Cultural Rights in International Law: Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Beyond contains Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, adopted at the 31st UNESCO General Conference in October 2001. It lists 10 articles categorised under identity, diversity and pluralism, cultural diversity and human rights, cultural diversity and creativity, and cultural diversity and international solidarity. Finally, the appendix presents an annexure on main lines of an action plan for the implementation of the UNESCO declaration on cultural diversity.Keywords: cultural diversity; Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Subsidiarity as a Structural Principle of International Human Rights Law

Abstract: This article argues that the principle of subsidiarity should be recognized as a structural principle of international human rights law primarily because of the way that it mediates between the universalizing aspirations of human rights and the fact of the diversity of human communities in the world. The idea of subsidiarity is deeply consonant with the substantive vision of human dignity and the universal common good that is expressed through human rights norms. Yet, at the same time it promotes respect for pluralism by emphasizing the freedom of more local communities to realize their own ends for themselves. Looking at the place of subsidiarity in international law generally, the article argues that subsidiarity is a more accurate and powerful way of understanding the relationship of human rights to international law and to the roles of states in the global community. Using the constitutional structure of the European Union as a starting point, the article presents subsidiarity as a conceptual alternative to classic notions of state sovereigny, which relativizes but does not eliminate the roles of nation states. The analysis shows that in many ways, subsidiarity is already immanent in the existing structures and doctrines of international human rights law, and provides a better explanation for a number of otherwise problematic features of international human rights law, such as the "margin of appreciation" and reservations to universal human rights treaties. Finally, the article defends the idea and use of the principle of subsidiarity against critiques that resist the legal pluralism that subsidiarity fosters and protects. It argues that philosophical, legal and political objections to pluralism in international human rights law are misdirected, and that an international legal system structured in accordance with subsidiarity can best combine the values of universality and diversity that respect for human rights requires.

Business and Human Rights: The Evolving International Agenda

Abstract: The state-based system of global governance has struggled for more than a generation to adjust to the expanding reach and growing influence of transnational corporations, the most visible embodiment of globalization. This paper reviews two recent chapters in this endeavor, focused specifically on human rights: the "Draft Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights," adopted by the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights but not by its parent body, the UN Human Rights Commission (since replaced by the Human Rights Council); and the author's subsequent UN mandate as Special Representative of the Secretary-General "on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises." The paper analyzes key conceptual flaws of the draft Norms, noting the pitfalls of imposing on corporations, directly under international law, the same range of human rights duties that states have; it presents an empirical mapping of current international standards and practices regarding business and human rights, ranging from the most deeply rooted international legal obligations to voluntary initiatives; and it proposes a strategy for building on existing momentum in order to reduce human rights protection gaps in relation to corporate activities.

From the right to development to the rights-based approach: how ‘human rights’ entered development

Abstract: This article offers an intellectual genealogy of how the concept of human rights has entered the development discourse—from the formulation of a ‘right to development’ to the rhetorical incorporation of rights within prevailing discourse, to the articulation of a ‘rights-based approach’ to development. It concludes with some propositions about the important role that a focus on rights might play in the practice of international development.

Human Rights, Inc.: The World Novel, Narrative Form, and International Law

Abstract: In this timely study of the historical, ideological, and formal interdependencies of the novel and human rights, Joseph Slaughter demonstrates that the twentieth-century rise of world literatureand international human rights law are related phenomena. Slaughter argues that international law shares with the modern novel a particular conception of the human individual. The Bildungsroman, the novel of coming of age, fills out this image, offering a conceptual vocabulary, a humanist social vision, and a narrative grammar for what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and early literary theorists both call the free and full development of the human personality. Revising our received understanding of the relationship between law and literature, Slaughter suggests that this narrative form has acted as a cultural surrogate for the weak executive authority of international law, naturalizing the assumptions and conditions that make human rights appear commonsensical. As a kind of novelistic correlative to human rights law, the Bildungsroman has thus been doing some of the sociocultural work of enforcement that the law cannot do for itself. This analysis of the cultural work of law and of the social work of literature challenges traditional Eurocentric histories of both international law and the dissemination of the novel. Taking his point of departure in Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, Slaughter focuses on recent postcolonial versions of the coming-of-age story to show how the promise of human rights becomes legible in narrative and how the novel and the law are complicit in contemporary projects of globalization: in colonialism, neoimperalism, humanitarianism, and the spread of multinational consumer capitalism.Slaughter raises important practical and ethical questions that we must confront in advocating for human rights and reading world literature-imperatives that, today more than ever, are intertwined.

Child Soldiers, International Humanitarian Law, and the Globalization of Childhood

Abstract: This article reviews the development of the laws and treaties regulating the use of child soldiers and the political, social, and cultural context in which these developments are grounded. Humanitarian and human rights groups have undertaken a major initiative to end the use of young combatants. These efforts are part of a larger children's human rights project designed to create a universal definition of “childhood.” Casting the proposed ban on child soldiers in the language of human rights deflects attention from the enormity of the social and cultural changes involved in the proposed transnational restructuring of age categories. Treaty-making efforts reflect an emerging “politics of age” that shapes the concept of “childhood” in international law, and in which different international, regional, and local actors make use of age categories to advance particular political and ideological positions.

Human Rights Without Foundations

Abstract: Using the accounts of Gewirth and Griffin as examples, the article criticises accounts of human rights as those are understood in human rights practices, which regard them as rights all human beings have in virtue of their humanity. Instead it suggests that (with Rawls) human rights set the limits to the sovereignty of the state, but criticises Rawls conflation of sovereignty with legitimate authority. The resulting conception takes human rights, like other rights, to be contingent on social conditions, and in particular on the nature of the international system.

The Disabilities Convention: Human Rights of Persons with Disabilities or Disability Rights?

Abstract: The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is about more than making sure that existing human rights are applied to persons with disability. It also subtly reformulates and extends existing human rights to take into account the specific rights experience of persons with disability. In fact, the argument can be made that the Convention comes close to creating new rights, or at least very new ways of seeing common rights. This suggests a deeper point about the fragmentation of international human rights law and the increasingly recognized need to take into account the irreducibility of the experience of certain categories of persons. The Disabilities Convention has some interesting lessons to teach about human rights more generally.

Climate Change and International Human Rights Litigation: A Critical Appraisal

Abstract: Litigation over the effects of climate change has taken various forms, of which litigation based on international human rights law is perhaps the most ambitious. Plaintiffs argue that major emitters of greenhouse gases have violated rights to life and health by contributing to environmental and health injuries associated with global warming. International human rights litigation in international tribunals is unlikely to have any effect, but conceivably American courts might be open to these arguments in Alien Tort Statute litigation. If so, this would be a mistake. Because the health of the global climate is a public good, because American courts have limited ability to control the behavior of corporations on foreign territory, and because optimal climate policy varies greatly across countries, it is unlikely that American courts can provide remedies that are economically sound and politically acceptable.

Does Terror Threaten Human Rights? Evidence from Panel Data

Abstract: The paper presents a political economy model linking terror and governments' respect for human rights. Using panel data for 111 countries over the period 1973-2002, we then empirically analyze whether and to what extent terror affects human rights - measured by three indices covering a wide variety of human rights aspects. According to our results, terror substantially diminishes governments' respect for basic human rights such as absence of extrajudicial killings, political imprisonment, and torture. To some extent, civil rights are also restricted as a consequence of terrorism, while we find no effect of terrorism on empowerment rights.

Agenda Setting, the UN, and NGOs: Gender Violence and Reproductive Rights

Abstract: Preface Introduction: From the Margins to the Center -- Women's Rights, NGOs, and the United Nations 1. NGOs and UN Agenda-Setting: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Framing Strategies 2. Rallying for Peace and Equal Nationality Rights: Women's Organizations between 1915 and 1945 3. Equality, Development and Peace: The UN Decade for Women, 1975-1985 4. Women's Rights as Human Rights: The Case of Violence against Women 5. Reproductive Rights and Health: Women's Organizations and the Population Establishment 6. NGOs and International Organizations Appendix: UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Violence against Women Notes References Index

Indigenous rights and United Nations standards : self-determination, culture and land

Abstract: Introduction 1. Recognition of cultural membership 2. United Nations instruments on indigenous peoples 3. Emerging law: the United Nations draft declaration on indigenous peoples 4. Do indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination? 5. Indigenous cultural rights 6. Indigenous land rights Conclusions.

The Lost Promise of Civil Rights

Abstract: Abbreviations Used in the Text Introduction 1. Transition, Uncertainty, and the Conditions for a New Civil Rights 2. Claiming Rights in the Agricultural South 3. Claiming Rights in the Industrial Economy 4. The Work of Civil Rights in the Department of Justice 5. A New Deal for Civil Rights 6. Work and Workers in the NAACP 7. Litigating Labor in the Wartime NAACP 8. Eliminating Work from the NAACP's Legal Strategy 9. Brown and the Remaking of Civil Rights Notes Acknowledgments Index

Poverty and Fundamental Rights: The Justification and Enforcement of Socio-economic Rights

Abstract: Preface Foreword Introduction 1. Towards a Thin Theory of the Good Introduction Value and Point of View Nussbaum and the Notion of a Human Life Rawls and the Concept of the Person Drawing Fact and Value Together: Experience and Purpose In Defence of the Proposed Theory of Value Judgments of Priority Conclusion 2. The Justification of Fundamental Rights Introduction The Presuppositions of Agency and Fundamental Rights Nagel's Strategy: Impersonal and Personal Reasons Political Communities and the Justification of Fundamental Rights Objections Conclusion 3. Determining Our Unconditional Obligations Introduction Unanswered Questions About the Content of Rights Conditional and Unconditional Rights Translating Conditional Rights into Unconditional Rights The Assignment of Duties The Overall Decision Framework Conclusion 4. Justifying the Judicial Review of Fundamental Rights Introduction Theories of Judicial Review Disagreement, Rights, and Judicial Review A Thin Rights-Based Theory of Judicial Review Reaching Optimal Decisions Concerning Fundamental Rights: The Judiciary or the Legislature? Socio-Economic Rights and Judicial Review Conclusion 5. Judicial Review in Practice: The Reasonableness Approach and its Shortcomings Introduction Constitutional Interpretation in South Africa Grootboom: Reasonableness and the Minimum Core Treatment Action Campaign: Reducing Rights to Reasonableness An Alternative Reading of the Jurisprudence? Khosa: Reasonableness and the Confusion of Scope and Content Conclusion 6. Political Philosophy in Action: Developing the Minimum Core Approach to Socio-Economic Rights Introduction Linking Political Philosophy and Legal Doctrine The Case for a Minimum Core Approach Objections to the Minimum Core Approach The Notion of Priority and the Minimum Core Resources, Impossibility, and Rights The Availability of Resources Conclusion Conclusion: Implications for Policy in South Africa and Beyond The Right to Food in the United States, India, and South Africa The Right to Adequate Housing in the United Kingdom, India, and South Africa Conclusion Bibliography Index

Responsibility Beyond Borders: State Responsibility for Extraterritorial Violations by Corporations of International Human Rights Law

Abstract: States routinely provide support and assistance to their corporate nationals in their global trade and investment ventures. While states may not intend to allow corporate nationals to violate human rights in their extraterritorial operations, by their actions or omissions, states may facilitate, or otherwise contribute to, a situation in which such violations by a corporation occur. This article investigates the extent to which the extraterritorial activities of transnational corporations (TNCs) that violate international human rights law can give rise to home state responsibility. The analysis shows that home states of TNCs have obligations under international law in certain situations to regulate the extraterritorial activities of corporate nationals or the latter's foreign subsidiaries and can incur international responsibility where they fail to do so.

The Interplay between International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law in Situations of Armed Conflict

Abstract: International human rights law and international humanitarian law are traditionally two distinct branches of law, one dealing with the protection of persons from abusive power, the other with the conduct of parties to an armed conflict. Yet, developments in international and national jurisprudence and practice have led to the recognition that these two bodies of law not only share a common humanist ideal of dignity and integrity but overlap substantially in practice. The most frequent examples are situations of occupation or non-international armed conflicts where human rights law complements the protection provided by humanitarian law.This article provides an overview of the historical developments that led to the increasing overlap between human rights law and humanitarian law. It then seeks to analyse the ways in which the interplay between human rights law and humanitarian law can work in practice. It argues that two main concepts inform their interaction: The first is complementarity between their norms in the sense that in most cases, especially for the protection of persons in the power of a party to the conflict, they mutually reinforce each other. The second is the principle of lex specialis in the cases of conflict between the norms.

Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction

Abstract: Preface 1. Looking at rights 2. Historical development and contemporary concerns 3. Human rights foreign policy and the role of the United Nations 4. Torture 5. Deprivations of life and liberty 6. Balancing rights - free speech and privacy 7. Food, education, health, housing, and work 8. Discrimination and equality 9. The death penalty Final remarks References Further reading Annex: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Index

The Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities: A United Nations Convention

Abstract: The present report, which reviews and assesses 20 years of international cooperation related to the advancement of persons with disabilities in the context of development, should be read in conjunction with the report of the Secretary-General containing the findings of the fourth five-year review and appraisal of the World Programme of Action concerning Disabled Persons (A/58/61-E/2003/5). In his review, the Secretary-General discusses a strategic framework for the development and advancement of persons with disabilities, and presents recommendations on normative issues, policy options, and substantive planning and evaluation considerations for promoting the rights of persons with disabilities in the context of development.