Showing papers on "International human rights law published in 2008"

On human rights

Abstract: Introduction PART I: AN ACCOUNT OF HUMAN RIGHTS I. Human Rights: The Incomplete Idea II. First Steps in An Account of Human Rights III. When Human Rights Conflict IV. Whose Rights? V. My Rights: But Whose Duties? VI. The Metaphysics of Human Rights VII. The Relativity and Ethnocentricity of Human Rights PART II: HIGHEST LEVEL HUMAN RIGHTS VIII. Autonomy IX. Liberty X. Welfare PART III: APPLICATIONS XI. Discrepanices Between the Best Philosophical Account of Human Rights and the International Law of Human Rights XII. A Right to Life, A Right to Death XIII. Privacy XIV. Do Human Rights Require Democracy? XV. Group Rights

Sticks and Stones: Naming and Shaming the Human Rights Enforcement Problem

Abstract: “Naming and shaming” is a popular strategy to enforce international human rights norms and laws. Nongovernmental organizations, news media, and international organizations publicize countries' violations and urge reform. Evidence that these spotlights are followed by improvements is anecdotal. This article analyzes the relationship between global naming and shaming efforts and governments' human rights practices for 145 countries from 1975 to 2000. The statistics show that governments put in the spotlight for abuses continue or even ramp up some violations afterward, while reducing others. One reason is that governments' capacities for human rights improvements vary across types of violations. Another is that governments are strategically using some violations to offset other improvements they make in response to international pressure to stop violations.

Human Dignity and judicial Interpretation of Human Rights

Abstract: The Universal Declaration on Human Rights was pivotal in popularizing the use of ‘dignity’ or ‘human dignity’ in human rights discourse. This article argues that the use of ‘dignity’, beyond a basic minimum core, does not provide a universalistic, principled basis for judicial decision-making in the human rights context, in the sense that there is little common understanding of what dignity requires substantively within or across jurisdictions. The meaning of dignity is therefore context-specific, varying significantly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and (often) over time within particular jurisdictions. Indeed, instead of providing a basis for principled decision-making, dignity seems open to significant judicial manipulation, increasing rather than decreasing judicial discretion. That is one of its significant attractions to both judges and litigators alike. Dignity provides a convenient language for the adoption of substantive interpretations of human rights guarantees which appear to be intentionally, not just coincidentally, highly contingent on local circumstances. Despite that, however, I argue that the concept of ‘human dignity’ plays an important role in the development of human rights adjudication, not in providing an agreed content to human rights but in contributing to particular methods of human rights interpretation and adjudication.

International covenant on civil and political rights

Abstract: 1.1 The authors of the communication are R.I.H., born on 10 April 1971, and his wife, S.M.D., born on 15 April 1971. They present the communication on their own behalf and that of their four children, two of whom are minors: R.R.H., born on 1 January 2002, and M.R.H., born on 1 January 2003. The authors also have two adult children, Ri.R.H., born on 7 August 1996, and Ra.R.H., born on 3 April 1995.

Out of Darkness into Light? Introducing the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Abstract: On 13 December 2006, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and an associated Optional Protocol. The formulation of the CRPD has been hailed as a great landmark in the struggle to reframe the needs and concerns of persons with disability in terms of human rights. The CRPD is regarded as having finally empowered the world's largest minority to claim their rights, and to participate in international and national affairs on an equal basis with others who have achieved specific treaty recognition and protection. This essay interrogates the intellectual antecedents of the CRPD and its continuity and discontinuity with 25 years of international law and its struggles with disability and human rights. It then explores the text of the CRPD, critically examining its potential contribution to the realisation of the rights of persons with disability.

Courting social justice : judicial enforcement of social and economic rights in the developing world

Abstract: 1. Introduction: the elements of legalization, and the triangular shape of social and economic rights Varun Gauri and Daniel M. Brinks 2. Litigating for social justice in post-apartheid South Africa: a focus on health and education Jonathan Berger 3. Accountability for social and economic rights in Brazil Florian F. Hoffmann and Fernando R. N. M. Bentes 4. Courts and socio-economic rights in India Shylashri Shankar and Pratap Bhanu Mehta 5. The impact of economic and social rights in Nigeria: an assessment of the legal framework for implementing education and health as human rights Chidi Anselm Odinkalu 6. The implementation of the rights to health care and education in Indonesia Bivitri Susanti 7. A new policy landscape: legalizing social and economic rights in the developing world Helen Hershkoff 8. Transforming legal theory in the light of practice: the judicial application of social and economic rights to private orderings Daniel M. Brinks and Varun Gauri.

Review of the Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the Issue of Human Rights and Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises, Professor John Ruggie to the United Nations Human Rights Council, Protect, Respect and Remedy: A Framework for Business and Human Rights Ah/Hrc/8/5, 7 April 2008

Abstract: The responsibilities of Transnational Corporations (TNCs) in the area of human rights have been on the international agenda for sometime now and have gain more momentum in the last two decades. In the past, several attempts were made under the auspices of the United Nations to devise a framework for controlling Transnational corporations without much success. In the face of increasing allegation of human rights abuses by TNCs, the United Nations Sub-commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights approved the 'Norms on Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights' (Norms).

The 'punitive turn' in juvenile justice: Cultures of control and rights compliance in western Europe and the USA

Abstract: Separate systems of justice for children and young people have always been beset by issues of contradiction and compromise. There is compelling evidence that such ambiguity is currently being `resolved' by a greater governmental resort to neo-conservative punitive and correctional interventions and a neo-liberal responsibilizing mentality in which the protection historically afforded to children is rapidly dissolving. This resurgent authoritarianism appears all the more anachronistic when it is set against the widely held commitment to act within the guidelines established by various children's rights conventions. Of note is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, frequently described as the most ratified human rights convention in the world, but lamentably also the most violated. Based on international research on juvenile custody rates and children's rights compliance in the USA and Western Europe, this article examines why and to what extent `American exceptionalism' might be permeating European nation states.

Shame on You: The Impact of Human Rights Criticism on Political Repression in Latin America

Abstract: The most commonly used weapon in the arsenal of human rights proponents is shaming the violating government through public criticism. But does this really affect the behavior of the violator? This study examines how governments that are targeted for human rights criticism respond to subsequent contentious challenges. Analyzing 873 challenges in seven Latin American countries between 1981 and 1995, it is found that human rights criticism does lead governments to reduce repression of subsequent challenges in cases where there are relatively strong economic ties to other countries. However, the duration of this impact is relatively short—less than 6 months. Examination of the source of human rights criticism shows that criticism by NGOs, religious groups, and foreign governments was more effective than criticism from inter-governmental organizations.

Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and International Human Rights Law: Contextualising the Yogyakarta Principles

Abstract: On 26 March 2007, a group of human rights experts launched the Yogyakarta Principles on the Application of Human Rights Law in Relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (the Yogyakarta Principles). The Principles are intended as a coherent and comprehensive identification of the obligation of States to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights of all persons regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Since their launch the Principles have attracted considerable attention on the part of States, United Nations actors and civil society. It is likely that they will play a significant role within advocacy efforts and, whether directly or otherwise, in normative and jurisprudential development. The present article constitutes the first published critical commentary on the Principles. It seeks to situate them within the contexts of (a) the actual situation of people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities, and (b) the applicable international human rights law as it stands today. Thus situated, the Yogyakarta drafting process and the outcome text are examined. The final section of the article comprises a preliminary review of the impact and dissemination of the Principles.

Human rights education: An evaluation of university seminars.

Abstract: . Human rights have advanced to an important category of peace and international politics in recent decades. The reference document for human rights is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which emphasizes, among other things, the relevance of human rights education. However, this topic has been largely neglected in empirical research until now. Peace psychology might contribute to a better understanding of human rights education. The present article examines effects of human rights education on knowledge, attitudes, and commitment concerning human rights. Three university seminars dealing with human rights as one of two principal topics formed the background for three quasiexperimental studies with pre-/posttest designs. All studies demonstrate that even short-time human rights education can increase the knowledge about human rights and enhance positive attitudes and commitment concerning human rights. The discussion stresses the importance of further empirical studies on human right...

International Human Rights Law and the Politics of Legitimation: Repressive States and Human Rights Treaties

Abstract: This study explores, with quantitative data analyses, why nation-states with very negative human rights records tend to sign and ratify human rights treaties at rates similar to those of states with positive records. The study’s core arguments are (1) that the deepening international human rights regime creates opportunities for rights-violating governments to display low-cost legitimating commitments to world norms, leading them to ratify human rights treaties without the capacity or willingness to comply with the provisions; and (2) that among repressive regimes, autonomous ones that are less constrained by domestic forces are more likely to ratify human rights treaties as symbolic commitment, because these sovereigns are free to entertain high levels of decoupling between policy and practice, while constrained governments are more reluctant to incite domestic (and foreign) oppositions and interest groups. The combined outcome is that repressive states ratify human rights treaties at least as frequently as non-repressive ones – particularly those repressive states that have greater autonomy. Our cross-national time-series analyses provide supportive evidence for these arguments.

Redesigning the European Court of Human Rights: Embeddedness as a Deep Structural Principle of the European Human Rights Regime

Abstract: The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is the crown jewel of the world's most advanced international system for protecting civil and political liberties. In recent years, however, the ECtHR has become a victim of its own success. The Court now faces a docket crisis of massive proportions, the consequence of the growing number of states subject to its jurisdiction, its favourable public reputation, its expansive interpretations of individual liberties, a distrust of domestic judiciaries in some countries, and entrenched human rights problems in others. In response to this growing backlog of individual complaints, the Council of Europe has, over the last five years, considered numerous proposals to restructure the European human rights regime and redesign the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This article argues that these proposals should be understood not as ministerial changes in supranational judicial procedure, nor as resolving a debate over whether the ECtHR should strive for individual or constitutional justice, but rather as raising more fundamental questions concerning the Court's future identity. In particular, the article argues for recognition of ‘embeddedness’ in national legal systems as a deep structural principle of the ECHR, a principle that functions as a necessary counterpoint to the subsidiary doctrine that has animated the Convention since its founding. Embeddedness does not substitute ECtHR rulings for the decisions of national parliaments or domestic courts. Rather, it requires the Council of Europe and the Court to bolster the mechanisms for governments to remedy human rights violations at home, obviating the need for individuals to seek supranational relief and restoring countries to a position in which the ECtHR's deference to national decision-makers is appropriate.

International Human Rights Law and the Politics of Legitimation Repressive States and Human Rights Treaties

Abstract: This study explores, with quantitative data analyses, why nation-states with very negative human rights records tend to sign and ratify human rights treaties at rates similar to those of states with positive records. The study's core arguments are (1) that the deepening international human rights regime creates opportunities for rights-violating governments to display low-cost legitimating commitments to world norms, leading them to ratify human rights treaties with- out the capacity or willingness to comply with the provisions; and (2) that among repressive regimes, autonomous ones that are less constrained by domestic forces are more likely to ratify human rights treaties as symbolic commitment, because these sovereigns are free to entertain high levels of decoupling between policy and practice, while constrained governments are more reluctant to incite domestic (and foreign) oppositions and interest groups. The combined outcome is that repressive states ratify human rights treaties at least as frequently as non-repressive ones - particularly those repressive states that have greater autonomy. Our cross-national time-series analyses provide supportive evidence for these arguments.

Global Human Rights and State Sovereignty: State Ratification of International Human Rights Treaties, 1965–20011

Abstract: This research seeks to understand the factors that lead nation-states to ratify international human rights treaties in the contemporary world, despite their potential cost for state sovereignty. We argue that normative pressure from international society, along with historical contingencies during the Cold War, encouraged many states to ratify these treaties. We present an event-history analysis of ratification of seven key international human rights treaties in 164 countries in the period between 1965 and 2001. The results lend support to the world society argument as well as to our historical argument and also specify that normative pressure and imitation have been important factors shaping states’ decisions to ratify international human rights treaties.

The Impartiality of International Judges: Evidence from the European Court of Human Rights

Abstract: Can international judges be relied upon to impartially resolve disputes? If not, what are the sources of their biases? Answers to these questions are critically important for the functioning of an emerging international judiciary, yet we know remarkably little about international judicial behavior. An analysis of a new dataset of dissents in the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) yields a mixed set of answers. On the bright side, there is no evidence that judges systematically employ cultural or geopolitical biases in their rulings. There is some evidence that career insecurities make judges more likely to favor their national government when it is a party to a dispute. Most strongly, the evidence suggests that international judges are policy seekers. Judges vary in their inclination to defer to member states in the implementation of human rights. Moreover, judges from former Socialist countries are more likely to find violations against their own government and against other former Socialist governments, suggesting that they are motivated by rectifying a particular set of injustices. I conclude that the overall picture is positive for the possibility of impartial review of government behavior by judges on an international court. Like judges on domestic review courts, ECtHR judges are politically motivated actors in the sense that they have policy preferences on how to best apply abstract human rights in concrete cases, not in the sense that they are using their judicial power to settle geopolitical scores.

The Minimum Core of Economic and Social Rights: A Concept in Search of Content

Abstract: Within the catalogue of rights, whether conceived in constitutional or international terms, economic and social rights are said to be especially indeterminate. This Article inquires into the conceptual foundations of a minimum core of economic and social rights. The concept of the minimum core has been applied to provide determinacy and even justiciability to the rights to food, health, housing, and education, and also (most ambitiously) to give substance to minimum legal obligations in both national and global distributive justice debates. This Article brings together the methodological insights of comparative constitutional law and international human rights, and traces the ways in which concepts are borrowed from each field. By doing so, this Article disaggregates three contrasting approaches to giving content to the minimum core - that of ascertaining the normative essence, minimum consensus or minimum obligation of economic and social rights. This Article further demonstrates how each approach is ultimately unable to provide an account that satisfies the proclaimed aims of the minimum core's proponents. It ends by gesturing towards alternative ways of approaching a universalized discourse of minimums in economic and social rights.

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.

Toward a New Sociology of Rights: A Genealogy of “Buried Bodies” of Citizenship and Human Rights

Abstract: Although a thriving social science literature in citizenship has emerged in the past two decades, to date there exists neither a sociology of rights nor a sociology of human rights. Theoretical obstacles include the association of rights with the philosophical discourse of normativity, the abstraction of universalism, and the individualism attributed to rights-bearers. Parallel historical obstacles dating from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948 include American exceptionalism and racism, cultural relativism, the institutional primacy of sovereignty, and the privileging of civil rights over socioeconomic rights. Except in the United States, today human rights discourse is the lingua franca of global struggles*; building a sociology of rights as a collective project is now imperative. This article unearths and reconstructs 60 years of political clashes, intellectual debates, and struggles for inclusion and recognition surrounding human rights and citizenship—much of which has been hidd...

Human Rights at the UN: The Political History of Universal Justice

Abstract: IntroductionPart I: Human Rights Foundation in the First Half of the Twentieth Century 1. First Expressions of International Human Rights Ideas 2. The Decline of Human Rights between World Wars 3. The Human Rights Crusade in the Second World War 4. Human Rights Politics in the United Nations CharterPart II: UN Negotiations and the Modern Human Rights Framework 5. Laying the Human Rights Foundation 6. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights 7. The CovenantsPart III: The Impact of Civil Society and Decolonization 8. The Human Rights of Special Groups 9. The Right to Development 10. Looking at Human Rights since 1990 and in the Future

Reevaluating Regional Human Rights Litigation in the Twenty-First Century: The Case of the Inter-American Court

Abstract: This article addresses the radical transformation over the past two decades of the political landscapes over which regional human rights courts exercise jurisdiction. Considering briefly the European Court of Human Rights, but focusing primarily on its Inter-American counterpart, the article posits several hypotheses concerning the means of maximizing courts’ effectiveness in today’s political context. The article recommends that the Inter-American Court: 1) consider intensifying its use of live fact-finding; 2) ensure that state recognitions of responsibility do not allow governments to manipulate Court proceedings; and 3) issue grounded jurisprudence that is maximally relevant to domestic human rights conditions.

A Theory of Interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights

Abstract: 1. Human Rights, Legality, and the ECHR Introduction Background to and a Very Brief History of Human Rights No One-Size-Fits-All Theory of Human Rights Human Rights as Conditions of Legitimacy Human Rights, Legal Rights, and Interpretivism Conclusion 2. Autonomous Concepts, Conventionalism, and Judicial Discretion Introduction The Emergence of Autonomous Concepts Good-Faith Violations of the ECHR A More Recent Example of an Autonomous Concept Autonomous Concepts and Judicial Discretion Need for Harmonization and Uniform Application? Autonomous Concepts as Disagreement Does Disagreement Entail Judicial Discretion? Possible Choices 3. Intentionalism, Textualism, and Evolutive Interpretation Introduction Originalism in Constitutional Law Golder v UK: VCLT and the Case of Unenumerated Rights After Golder: the ECHR as a Living Instrument The Failures of Originalism The Object and Purpose of the ECHR Evolutive Interpretation: Truth Not Current Consensus 4. Two Concepts of the Margin of Appreciation Introduction Theories of International Human Rights Law The Substantive Concept of the Margin of Appreciation The Structural Concept of the Margin of Appreciation Consensus and Public Morals 5. Liberal Principles of Human Rights Interpretation Introduction Rights, Interests, and Reasons Liberal Egalitarian Theories of Rights: Rawls and Dworkin Rawls's Theory of Rights Dworkin's Rights as Trumps Liberal Egalitarian Principles for the Interpretation of the Limitation Clauses 6. Public Morals, Consensus, and Rights Inflation: A Critque Introduction Public Morals and the Moralistic Preferences of the Majority Consensus, Piecemeal Evolution, and Legality Rights Inflation: Hatton and the Right to Sleep Well

From Pariah State to Global Protagonist: Argentina and the Struggle for International Human Rights

Abstract: Democratizing states began in the 1980s to hold individuals, including past heads of state, accountable for human rights violations. The 1984 Argentine truth commission report (Nunca Mas) and the 1985 trials of the juntas helped to initiate this trend. Argentina also developed other justice-seeking mechanisms, including the first groups of mothers and grandmothers of the disappeared, the first human rights forensic anthropology team, and the first truth trials. Argentines helped to define the very term forced disappearance and to develop regional and international instruments to end the practice. Argentina thus illustrates the potential for global human rights protagonism and diffusion of ideas from a country outside the wealthy North. This article surveys Argentina's innovations and proposes possible explanations, drawing on theoretical studies from transitional justice, social movements, and norms cascades in international relations.

Law and Social Movements

Abstract: Contents: Series preface Introduction. Part I Analytical Frameworks and Methodological Principles: Legal mobilization and social movements: notes on theory and its applications, Michael W. McCann Positivism, interpretivism, and the study of the law, Gerald N. Rosenberg Causal versus constitutive explanations (or on the difficulty of being so positive...) Michael McCann. Part II Legal Framing and Claiming by Social Movements: Right, rage and remedy: forms of law in political discourse, John Brigham The structural context of novel rights claims: southern civil rights organizing 1961-1966, Francesca Polletta Human rights in Israel/Palestine: the history and politics of a movement, Lisa Hajjar So help me God: a comparative study of religious interest group litigation, Jayanth K. Krishnan and Kevin R. den Dulk The ADA on the road: disability rights in Germany, Katharina C. Heyer Rights as excess: understanding the politics of special rights, Jonathan Goldberg Hiller and Neal Milner. Part III Legal Leveraging Power: Contestation, Containment, Cooptation: Law as a weapon in social conflict, Austin T. Turk Legal mobilization as a social movement tactic: the struggle for equal employment opportunity, Paul Burstein Comparing women's rights litigation in the Netherlands and the United states, Susan M. Olson Long-term strategies in Japanese environmental litigation, Robert L. Kidder and Setsuo Miyazawa Fufubessi movement in Japan: thinking about women's resistance and subjectivity, Ki-young Shin Law and the protection of cultural communities: the case of native American fishing rights, Michael R. Anderson Legal control of the southern civil rights movement, Steve E. Barkan Social movements, law and society: the institutionalization of the environmental law movement, Cary Coglianese. Part IV Law, Change, and Hegemony: Assessing Legal Mobilization Politics: Rights and social movements: counter-hegemonic strategies, Alan Hunt Race reform and retrenchment: transformation and legitimation in antidiscrimination law, Kimberle Williams Crenshaw Family, law and sexuality: feminist engagements, Susan B. Boyd Postmodernism, protest, and the new social movements, Joel F. Handler International law and social movements: challenges of theorizing resistance, Balakrishnan Rajagopal Name index.

The Trust in Indicators: Measuring Human Rights

Abstract: Debates over the best way to identify human rights violations, assess compliance with treaty obligations, and measure human rights progress over time have preoccupied scholars and practitioners for many years. These debates have been especially pressing in the field of economic, social, and cultural rights, where the need for new methodologies has been felt most urgently. Quantitative data has been forwarded as a central tool in the drive for better methods of assessment, monitoring, and advocacy. Among quantitative tools, human rights indicators have been identified as especially powerful. Rights indicators are understood to have a variety of advantages: they render complex data simple and easy to understand; they can be designed to demonstrate compliance with obligations, fulfillment of rights, and government efforts toward these goals; and they are capable of capturing progress over time and across countries. This Article closely examines the use of indicators by U.N. bodies charged with monitoring State compliance with human rights treaties. The Article places these efforts to create human rights indicators in conversation with scholarship on audit and standardization from the social sciences. We conclude that while there are very real drawbacks involved in the indicators project, debates about indicators may provide advocates with new opportunities to use the language of science and objectivity as a powerful tool to hold governments to account. However, because human rights compliance indicators threaten to close space for democratic accountability and purport to turn an exercise of judgment into one of technical measurement, advocates of human rights would do well to remain vigilant to effects of the elisions at work in the indicators project. The conundrum of democratic accountability and the failure to clearly locate responsibility for judgment in international human rights assessment exercises are not products of the tools chosen to carry out those exercises, but are instead structural problems, foundational to international human rights law as it exists today. Thus, some of the core problems we argue are inherent in the indicators project would still be present even if quantitative indicators were banished from human rights assessment projects. Nonetheless, the use of quantitative indicators tends to disguise those problems as technical ones of measurement and data availability. The Article unfolds as follows: in Section I, we explore some of the conditions leading to the increasing reliance on indicators for monitoring the fulfillment and/or enjoyment of international human rights, especially economic and social rights. Using the example of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, we consider the way in which that treaty's monitoring committee has shifted from attempting to create and directly apply indicators in the measurement of compliance with treaty obligations to calling on States to identify and implement their own indicators. In Section II, we discuss several of the problems integral to the use of indicators in human rights contexts and what those difficulties have in common with the wider turn to auditing practices in management and control contexts. In Section III, we examine the ongoing efforts of the human rights treaty bodies and the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to create international indicators applicable to all States, and we assess that effort in light of the problems discussed in Section II, as well as considering issues of authority and judgment in human rights law. Section IV considers human rights indicators as a technology of global governance, warning that-if not carefully designed to do otherwise-human rights compliance indicators have a tendency to close off spaces for participation and democratic contestation.

Anti-imperialism trumps human rights: south africa's approach to the darfur conflict

Abstract: South Africa’s position on the Darfur conflict has surprised and disappointed activists and officials calling for a strong international response to one of world’s most severe humanitarian and human rights crises. In the UN Human Rights Council, Pretoria has consistently sought to dilute efforts to address this conflict (Human Rights Watch 2007a; Jibril 2007). For example, in 2006 it opposed a resolution critical of Khartoum’s notorious conduct in Darfur, supporting instead a weaker resolution that excluded any reference to follow-up action by the Council and to the Sudanese government’s duty to protect civilians (United Nations Office at Geneva 2006). In 2007, in its capacity as a newly elected member of the UN Security Council, South Africa backed Sudan in rejecting the option of sanctions against combatants who attack civilians and obstruct peace efforts and against parties to the conflict that refuse to co-operate with UNAMID, the UN-AU peacekeeping force in Darfur.

The Rights of Irregular Migrants

Abstract: This article considers the question of what legal rights should be possessed by those who reside and work in a democratic state without the legal authorization of the state, given the background assumption that the state is morally entitled to exclude such migrants. I argue that irregular migrants are morally entitled to a wide range of legal rights, including basic human and civil rights, but also rights to wages, workplace protections, and even rights to public education for their children. In order for these rights to be realized in practice, I argue, states ought to create a firewall between those charged with protecting and enforcing these rights and those charged with enforcing immigration laws.