Showing papers on "International human rights law published in 2010"

International human rights treaty to change social patterns: The convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women

Abstract: This paper analyzes empirically whether the ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), advocating the multiple dimensions of women’s rights, affects the level of women’s rights in a country. Measuring commitments to the CEDAW based on reservations by member states, I test whether the Convention enhances women’s rights; in particular, (i) whether the effects are stronger if a member country has a higher level of democracy; and (ii) whether the effects are most pronounced in the dimension of women’s social rights, a special focus of the Convention. Using panel data for 126 countries during 1981-2007, I do not find statistically significant effects of the CEDAW alone on any dimension of women’s rights. However, I do find a positive impact of the CEDAW on women’s social rights if combined with a higher degree of democracy. These findings are robust to the choice of control variables and the method of estimation. In particular, taking into account the potential reverse causality does not alter the main conclusions.

Explaining the Deterrence Effect of Human Rights Prosecutions for Transitional Countries

Abstract: Human rights prosecutions have been the major policy innovation of the late twentieth century designed to address human rights violations. The main justification for such prosecutions is that sanctions are necessary to deter future violations. In this article, we use our new data set on domestic and international human rights prosecutions in 100 transitional countries to explore whether prosecuting human rights violations can decrease repression. We find that human rights prosecutions after transition lead to improvements in human rights protection, and that human rights prosecutions have a deterrence impact beyond the confines of the single country. We also explore the mechanisms through which prosecutions lead to improvements in human rights. We argue that impact of prosecutions is the result of both normative pressures and material punishment and provide support for this argument with a comparison of the impact of prosecutions and truth commissions, which do not involve material punishment.

The Vulnerable Subject and the Responsive State

Abstract: Since there is also no U.S. constitutional guarantee to basic social goods, such as housing, education, or health care, the anti-discrimination, sameness-of-treatment approach to equality prevalent in the United States is particularly problematic. The discourse of human rights that supports claims to such goods in European and other countries does not exist in America. We have not ratified many of the international agreements, including those associated with economic rights, as well as CEDAW and CRC. The courts are little help. In fact, attempts to apply human rights ideals internally - to American practices and laws - have been met with resistance, if not outright rejection. Several Justices of the Supreme Court decried references to human rights principles used to bolster arguments about constitutionality under American precedent to be the application of "foreign fads" when (superior) American constitutional provisions should prevail.My development of the concept of vulnerability and the idea of a vulnerable subject began as a stealthily disguised human rights discourse, fashioned for an American audience. The concept has evolved from those early articulations, and I now think it has some significant differences as an approach, particularly in that a focus on vulnerability is decidedly focused on exploring the nature of the human part, rather than the rights part, of the human rights trope. Importantly, consideration of vulnerability brings societal institutions, in addition to the state and individual, into the discussion and under scrutiny. Vulnerability is posited as the characteristic that positions us in relation to each other as human beings and also suggests a relationship of responsibility between state and individual. The nature of human vulnerability forms the basis for a claim that the state must be more responsive to that vulnerability and do better at ensuring the "All-American" promise of equality of opportunity.

Decolonization and the Evolution of International Human Rights

Abstract: Introduction: The Politics of Decolonization and the Evolution of the International Human Rights Project 1. Human Rights and the Birth of the Third World: The Bandung Conference 2. "Transforming the End into the Means": The Third World and the Right to Self-Determination 3. Putting the Stamps Back On: Apartheid, Anticolonialism, and the Accidental Birth of a Universal Right to Petition 4. "It Is Very Fitting": Celebrating Freedom in the Shah's Iran, the First World Conference on Human Rights,Tehran 1968 5. "According to Their Own Norms of Civilization": The Rise of Cultural Relativism and the Decline of Human Rights Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index Acknowledgments

The Company You Keep: International Socialization and the Diffusion of Human Rights Norms

Abstract: Does membership in Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs) affect states’ human rights behavior? One might expect IGOs with a specific human rights mandate, like the International Labour Organization or the Council of Europe, to have a positive effect on the human rights practices of their member states. But what about other sorts of IGOs, particularly those with no direct connection to human rights issues? This study employs cross-national data on abuses of “physical integrity rights” for 137 countries over the period 1982–2000 to test the hypothesis that IGOs can promote the diffusion of human rights norms by providing venues for interstate socialization. Recent empirical work on IGOs has suggested that this sort of socialization effect can play an important role in promoting democracy and can also lead to a more general convergence among states’ interests. The results presented here suggest that IGOs can have a surprisingly powerful influence on states’ human rights practices as a result of this process.

Why Respecting Physical Integrity Rights Reduces Terrorism

Abstract: Does respect for human rights check or promote terrorism? This question is hotly debated within policy circles. Some hold that restricting human rights is a necessary if unfortunate cost of preventing terrorism. Others conclude that such abuses aggravate political grievances that contribute to terror. The authors demonstrate that theory and data support the latter position. They hypothesize that abuse of the subset of rights known as physical integrity rights fuels terrorism by making it more difficult for government authorities to collect intelligence on terrorists and by undermining domestic and international support for their counterterrorism efforts. They test this hypothesis using a data set that includes measures of both domestic and transnational terrorist attacks and find that respect for physical integrity rights is consistently associated with fewer terrorist attacks. This suggests that those interested in curtailing terrorism should press governments to more carefully respect physical integrity rights.

The International Law of Human Trafficking

Abstract: Although human trafficking has a long and ignoble history, it is only recently that trafficking has become a major political issue for states and the international community and the subject of detailed international rules. Anne T. Gallagher calls on her direct experience working within the United Nations to chart the development of new international laws on this issue. She links these rules to the international law of state responsibility as well as key norms of international human rights law, transnational criminal law, refugee law and international criminal law, in the process identifying and explaining the major legal obligations of states with respect to preventing trafficking, protecting and supporting victims, and prosecuting perpetrators. This book is a groundbreaking work: a unique and valuable resource for policymakers, advocates, practitioners and scholars working in this controversial and important field.

Socio-Economic Rights: Adjudication Under a Transformative Constitution

Abstract: Foreword Preface The struggle for recognition: Including socio-economic rights in the Constitution -- an historical overview A transformative jurisprudence on socio-economic rights Socio-economic rights in the context of the Bill of Rights Reconceiving reasonableness review: Sections 26 and 27 Children, education, persons deprived of liberty: Sections 28(1) (c), 29 and 35(2)(e) A new paradigm for evictions law: Section 26(3) Socio-economic rights in private law Responsive remedies Postscript Conclusion Table of Cases Table of Legislation Subject Index.

Human Rights in Social Science Textbooks: Cross- national Analyses, 1970-2008

Abstract: In reaction to the disasters of the first half the 20th century and World War II, a dramatic world movement arose emphasizing the human rights of persons in global society. The contrast—celebrated ...

Human Rights Committee

Abstract: Establishment and Composition The Human Rights Committee, though provided for in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (CCPR) Human Rights Conventions, CCPR - International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) as an international supervisory organ right from the beginning (Articles 28-45), changed in character during its long genesis. First envisaged was a body composed of nine members, tasked with fact-finding and conciliation, and against which findings access to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) should have been given. In the end, a different concept prevailed: the Committee consists of 18 members who need to be nationals of states parties. An important additional task of the Committee is the adoption of tGeneral Commentst. Further, the discussions of and statements on particular developments or drafts of other bodies or on the improvement of its own methods of work, demand considerable time during each Committee session. Keywords: CCPR; Human Rights Committee; International Court of Justice (ICJ)

Transnational Corporations and the Duty to Respect Basic Human Rights

Abstract: In a series of reports the United Nations Special Representative on the issue of Human Rights and Transnational Corporations, John Ruggie, has emphasized a tripartite framework regarding business and human rights that includes the state “duty to protect,” the TNC “responsibility to respect,” and “appropriate remedies” for human rights violations. This article examines the recent history of UN initiatives regarding business and human rights and places the tripartite framework in historical context. Three approaches to human rights are distinguished: moral, political, and legal. It is argued that the tripartite framework’s grounding of the responsibility of TNCs to respect human rights is properly understood as moral and not merely a political or legal duty. A moral account of the duty of TNCs to respect basic human rights is defended and contrasted with a merely strategic approach. The main conclusion of the article is that only a moral account of the basic human rights duties of TNCs provides a sufficiently deep justification of “the corporate responsibility to respect human rights” feature of the tripartite framework.

Human Rights in the Twentieth Century

Abstract: Introduction Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann Part I. The Emergence of Human Rights Regimes: 1. The end of civilization and the rise of human rights: the mid-20th century disjuncture Mark Mazower 2. The 'human rights revolution' at work: displaced persons in post-war Europe G. Daniel Cohen 3. Legal diplomacy: law, politics, and the genesis of postwar European human rights Mikael Rask Madsen Part II. Postwar Universalism and Legal Theory: 4. Personalism, community, and the origins of human rights Samuel Moyn 5. Rene Cassin: les droit de l'homme and the universality of human rights, 1945-66 Glenda Sluga 6. Rudolf Laun and the human rights of Germans in occupied and early West Germany Lora Wildenthal Part III. Human Rights, State Socialism, and Dissent: 7. Embracing and contesting: the Soviet Union and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948-58 Jennifer Amos 8. Soviet rights-talk in the post-Stalin era Benjamin Nathans 9. Charter 77 and the Roma: human rights and dissent in socialist Czechoslovakia Celia Donert Part IV. Genocide, Humanitarianism, and the Limits of Law: 10. Toward world law? Human rights and the failure of the legalist paradigm of war Devin O. Pendas 11. 'Source of embarrassment': human rights, state of emergency, and the wars of decolonization Fabian Klose 12. The United Nations, humanitarianism and human rights: war crimes/genocide trials for Pakistani soldiers in Bangladesh, 1971-4 A. Dirk Moses Part V. Human Rights, Sovereignty, and the Global Condition: 13. African nationalists and human rights, 1940s to 1970s Andreas Eckert 14. The International Labour Organization and the globalization of rights, 1944-70 Daniel Roger Maul 15. 'Under a magnifying glass': the international human rights campaign against Chile in the 1970s Jan Eckel.

Conflict and Compliance: State Responses to International Human Rights Pressure

Abstract: Preface 1. Introduction: Compliance Revisited 2. Human Rights Pressure and State Violations 3. Skeptics Under Fire: Human Rights Change in the Southern Cone 4. Bounded Optimism: The Limits of Human Rights Influence 5. State Responses in Global Perspective 6. Compliance and Resistance in International Politics Appendix: Measuring Human Rights Determinants Notes Index

International Human Rights Law

Abstract: PartIInternational Legal Systems and the Development of Human Rights Law 1 Introduction 2 Historical Antecedents of International Human Rights Law 3 International Law and Human Rights 4 The United Nations System and the Modern Human Rights Regime Part II The International Bill of Rights 5 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights 6 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 7 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Part III Regional Protection of Human Rights 8 European Human Rights I 9 European Human Rights II 10 The Inter-American System for the Protection of Human Rights 11 African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights 12 Other Regional Human Rights Instruments Part IV Group Rights 13 Equality and Non-Discrimination 14 The rights of Minorities 15 The Rights of Peoples and Indigenous Peoples 16 The Rights of Women 17 The rights of the Child 18 Rights of the Disabled 19 Rights of Refugees and Displaced Persons 20 Rights of Migrant Workers and their Families Part V Issues Arising in International Human Rights law 21 Human Rights and International Criminal Law 22 International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law 23 Torture as a Crime in International Law 24 Enforced Disappearances and International Law 25 Terrorism and International Human Rights Law Appendices A1Studying International Law of Human Rights: Sources and Further Research A2Table of Ratification of Human Rights Treaties

Teachers and Human Rights Education

Abstract: CONTENTS: Acknowledgements Acronyms and abbreviations Foreword Human rights: An agenda for action: 1. Three narratives 2. Contextualising human rights 3. Human rights frameworks 4. Human rights, justice and peace Politics, cultures and inequalities: 5. Women's human rights 6. Human rights and global change 7. Values, cultures and human rights Human rights and democracy in schools: 8. Children's human rights 9. Citizenship education and human rights 10. Human rights, politics and schooling Epilogue References Index.

Miseducating children about their rights

Abstract: This article concerns educating children in schools about their basic rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.The question we address is the teaching of responsibilities.We point out that although there is no mention of children’s responsibilities in the Convention, responsibilities are inherent in the concept of rights. Therefore, children’s rights education requires that children learn responsibilities that go together with rights. But we also point out that although there is a conceptual linkage between rights and responsibilities, effective education requires that the central focus is on rights and that children are given the opportunity to discover for themselves the connection between rights and responsibilities. That teachers unduly focus on responsibilities is miseducation about children’s rights. Our latter discussion is based on our observations of a children’s rights education program in Hampshire, England.

Law From Below: Women's Human Rights and Social Movements in New York City

Abstract: Despite the ambivalent history of the domestic application of human rights in the United States, human rights increasingly offer important resources for American grassroots activists. Within the constraints of U.S. policy toward human rights, they provide social movements a kind of global law ‘‘from below’’: a form of cosmopolitan law that subalterns can use to challenge their subordinate position. Using a case study from New York City, we argue that in certain contexts, human rights can provide important political resources to U.S. social movements. However, they do so in a diffuse way far from the formal system of human rights law. Instead, activists adopt some of the broader social justice ideas and strategies embedded within human rights practice. Human rights promise to provide social movements a kind of global law ‘‘from below,’’ in the terms that Santos and Rodriguez-Garavito (2005) have developed in their work on law and globalization from below. Yet it is widely recognized that mobilizing the human rights legal system requires extensive legal expertise as well as networks that reach into the transnational system (see Kennedy 2002; Merry 2006; Riles 2001). However, as a discourse and set of practices for asserting claims, the human rights system is surprisingly open to relatively powerless groups. Using a case study of two organizations in New York City that used a human rights framework to promote women’s rights, we show that human rights

Extraterritorial Use of Force Against Non-State Actors

Abstract: Introduction PART I: THE INTER-STATE RELATIONSHIP: EXTRATERRITORIAL USE OF FORCE AND SELF-DEFENCE AGAINST NON-STATE ACTORS 1. The Possibility of Self-Defence Against Non-State Actors 2. The Parameters of Self-Defence 3. Measures Taken Outside the Self-Defence Framework Part I Conclusion PART II: INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW 4. Force Against Non-State Actors as Armed Conflict 5. Non-Traditional Models of Armed Conflict 6. Status of Individuals and the Regulation of Force Part II Conclusion PART III: INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW 7. The Principal Practices and Primarily Affected Rights 8. Extraterritorial Applicability of Human Rights Law 9. Concurrent Applicability of International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law Part III Conclusion Concluding Chapter

ILO Convention No. 169 Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries 1989–2009: An Overview

Abstract: On 27 June 1989, by a majority of 328 votes for, one against and 49 abstentions, the International Labour Conference adopted the Convention No. 169 Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries, which came into force on 5 September 1991. Twenty years later, the Convention remains the only modern international legally binding instrument containing a series of novel provisions specifically devoted to the rights of indigenous peoples with a view to recognising, protecting and promoting their distinct identity. Despite its shortcomings and its few ratifications (just 20), the Convention has proved to be a significant departure for the defence and strengthening of indigenous rights at national, regional (especially that of Latin America) and universal level.

Children, But Not Really Humans? Critical Reflections on the Hampering Effect of the "3 p's"

Abstract: In this paper, the widespread use of the “3 p’s”, provision, protection and participation, to categorise children’s rights is critically examined. This conceptualisation is argued to have hampering effects on research in children’s rights, in that it frames the research in a problematic way and hinders the possibilities of attaining theoretically driven analyses. In the first part of the paper, the emergence and use of the 3 p’s is traced and discussed. Thereafter, an alternative language for constructing and analysing children’s rights is proposed, namely the vocabulary used for general human rights: civil, political and social rights. When children’s rights are placed within the development of human rights and conceptualised accordingly, a different understanding of the content of children’s rights surfaces. The theoretical contextualisation that is then added is suggested as a way of approaching contradictions and conflicts surrounding children’s rights issues with more theoretical depth and nuances.

Monitoring the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Innovations, Lost Opportunities, and Future Potential

Abstract: As the first human rights treaty of the twenty-first century, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD, or Convention) has an opportunity to progressively reconfigure the structure and process of human rights oversight. The Convention was opened for signature on March 30, 2007, and entered into force on May 3, 2008. On November 3, 2008, a monitoring Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Committee) was elected during the initial Conference of States Parties to protect the rights of the world’s largest minority, some 650 million persons with disabilities. The overall framework for monitoring and implementing the Convention resembles existing core human rights instruments, particularly the Enforced Disappearances treaty that was adopted eight days afterwards. At the same time, the Committee is endowed with several notable innovations of significant potential, especially in the breadth of reporting and investigative procedures, thereby offering prospects for other treaty bodies and the human rights system more generally. Accordingly, this Article examines the development of the CRPD Committee and assesses its potential for invigorating future United Nations monitoring reforms.Part I of the Article describes the Committee established by the United Nations to scrutinize the CRPD and highlights its advances over other human rights treaty bodies. Next, Part II looks at monitoring innovations that were suggested during the CRPD negotiations at a time when treaty body reform was a major subtext, but ultimately were not incorporated into the final instrument. In doing so, Part II considers how adoption of some of these oversight procedures could have affected broader human rights treaty reform efforts at the United Nations. Finally, Part III suggests creative avenues through which the Committee may yet progressively shape the direction of human rights treaty monitoring through innovative practices.

Right and Access to Healthcare for Undocumented Children: Addressing the Gap between International Conventions and Disparate Implementations in North America and Europe

Abstract: Limited access to healthcare for vulnerable immigrant children in Europe and North America is increasingly worrisome as immigration policies harden. This paper analyzes the gap between States’ obligations under international human rights law and the disparate local implementations in diverse countries. Studies that are both multidisciplinary and incorporate micro and macro level indicators are needed to reveal discrepancies between entitlements and access. It is argued that the lack of available data on the magnitude of the problem and on its individual and public health consequences stems from the conflicting situation faced by health institutions required to simultaneously protect the best interest of each child and allocate limited resources. Collaboration in research is urgently needed to assist policymakers and institutions make informed decisions.

Women's rights in the Middle East and North Africa : progress amid resistance

Abstract: Freedom HouseOs innovative publication WomenOs Rights in the Middle East and North Africa: Progress Amid Resistance analyzes the status of women in the region, with a special focus on the gains and setbacks for womenOs rights since the first edition was released in 2005. The study presents a comparative evaluation of conditions for women in 17 countries and one territory: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine (Palestinian Authority and Israeli-Occupied Territories), Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. The publication identifies the causes and consequences of gender inequality in the Middle East, and provides concrete recommendations for national and international policymakers and implementers. Freedom House is an independent nongovernmental organization that supports democratic change, monitors freedom, and advocates for democracy and human rights. The project has been embraced as a resource not only by international players like the United Nations and the World Bank, but also by regional womenOs rights organizations, individual activists, scholars, and governments worldwide. WomenOs rights in each country are assessed in five key areas: (1) Nondiscrimination and Access to Justice; (2) Autonomy, Security, and Freedom of the Person; (3) Economic Rights and Equal Opportunity; (4) Political Rights and Civic Voice; and (5) Social and Cultural Rights. The methodology is based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the study results are presented through a set of numerical scores and analytical narrative reports.

Redirecting human rights: facing the challenge of corporate legal humanity

Abstract: Introduction Human Rights Under Pressure? Corporate Human Rights? Law, Persons and Disembodiment The Liberal Subject of Rights, Capitalism and the Corporation A Genealogy of Quasi-Disembodiment in International Human Rights Law The Centrality of Human Embodiment Embodied Vulnerability and Human Rights Embodied Vulnerability and the Limits of Privatization: Reconsidering Property and Human Rights Some Brief Conclusory Thoughts and Future Research Directions Bibliography

The dramatic implications of Demir and Baykara

Abstract: This article discusses the significance of the landmark decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Demir and Baykara v Turkey, which reversed earlier jurisprudence to hold (i) that the right to collective bargaining is ‘an essential element’ of the right to freedom of association in Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) and (ii) embedded the jurisprudence of the International Labour Organisation and the European Social Charter into that right. The authors examine the ECtHR’s extension of the Demir and Baykara principle to include collective action and review the Strasbourg court’s jurisprudence generally on the right to strike. Full consideration is given to (i) the treatment of these developments by the English courts in Metrobus Ltd v UNITE the Union and EDF Energy Powerlink Ltd v RMT and (ii) their wider implications not only for British but also for European Union (EU) labour law. The authors consider the apparent collision between the trade union rights established under the ECHR in Demir and Baykara and the trade union liabilities introduced under EU law by the Viking and Laval judgments of the European Court of Justice, taking into account some significant issues that arose in the BALPA v British Airways litigation in 2008.