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Law Enforcement and the Non-Conventional Human Right to Life

Nils Melzer

in Targeted Killing in International Law

This chapter addresses the question of whether the conventional right to life has become part of general international law and, if so, whether it may be derogated from under the rules of general ... More

This chapter addresses the question of whether the conventional right to life has become part of general international law and, if so, whether it may be derogated from under the rules of general international law. It also examines the territorial scope of the non-conventional right to life. It argues that, today, the jus cogens character of the right to life has become virtually unassailable. Outside the conduct of hostilities, even a single targeted killing carried out by State agents in deviation from the normative paradigm of law enforcement constitutes an unjustifiable violation of international jus cogens.Less

Care Theory and International Relations

Daniel Engster

in The Heart of Justice: Care ethics and Political Theory

This chapter explores the question: What does it mean to care for others in international relations? Sara Ruddick, Fiona Robinson, and others have outlined international relations theories based upon ... More

This chapter explores the question: What does it mean to care for others in international relations? Sara Ruddick, Fiona Robinson, and others have outlined international relations theories based upon care ethics, but their accounts are fairly general and say little about the rights and policies necessary for establishing caring relations among people across the world. The first half of this chapter develops a human rights framework based upon human beings' universal duty to care for others. The chapter argues that this framework avoids the central shortcomings of other international rights frameworks, and more generally provides a standard of justice that should be reasonably acceptable to people from diverse cultural and religious backgrounds. The second half of the chapter outlines some specific strategies and policies for enforcing human rights abroad and caring for distant others. In the last section, the chapter discusses the conditions under which care theory might justify the use of military force, especially for the sake of intervening into other countries for humanitarian purposes.Less

United Nations Human Rights Law

Steven Wheatley

in The Idea of International Human Rights Law

Chapter 3 tells the story of human rights in the United Nations. The work shows how we can understand the UN as a complex system of regulatory authority, which evolves with changes in the behaviours ... More

Chapter 3 tells the story of human rights in the United Nations. The work shows how we can understand the UN as a complex system of regulatory authority, which evolves with changes in the behaviours of the Member States and United Nations bodies as they respond to new information. The analysis demonstrates that, up until the 1960s, human rights provided a set of moral guidelines only, informing states how they should treat those subject to their jurisdiction and control. That was until the newly independent African countries joined the Organization and turned their attention to the problem of systematic racial discrimination in southern Africa, especially after the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre, when UN action against South Africa and South West Africa (Namibia) transformed the non-binding moral code contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into a body of international human rights law, with the development explained by the importance of subsequent agreements and practices in the evolution of the regulatory authority of the United Nations.Less

Conclusion: A Stand-in for the Universal Declaration, 1789–1948

Dan Edelstein

in On the Spirit of Rights

From the perspective of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, the French Declaration of 1789 seemed like the foundation of a new international doctrine. Its principles would be echoed, often ... More

From the perspective of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, the French Declaration of 1789 seemed like the foundation of a new international doctrine. Its principles would be echoed, often verbatim, in the many constitutions drafted during the first half of the nineteenth century, in Spanish America and throughout Europe; and it served as the model for international jurists, for a future, more complete international declaration of rights, which would include social and economic rights as well as political ones. This account of the Declaration’s legacy contrasts with a popular view that credits the Catholic Church with leading the push for an international declaration. But this account rests on the false assumption that the Church had been opposed to human rights until the 1930’s, and it excessively downplays the role of international lawyers and legal associations in leading the push for an international declaration.Less

Human Rights Law: The Law of Human Dignity

Jennifer Moore

in Humanitarian Law in Action within Africa

This chapter examines international human rights law and its role in ensuring respect for human dignity as well the additional norms it provides to empower members of societies emerging from armed ... More

This chapter examines international human rights law and its role in ensuring respect for human dignity as well the additional norms it provides to empower members of societies emerging from armed conflict and repression. It emphasizes the symbiotic relationship between civil-political rights and socioeconomic rights, along with the creative tension between individual and collective rights. It compares the regional human rights frameworks established in Africa, Europe, the Americas, and the Middle East. It also considers the relationship between socioeconomic security and human liberty, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the interdependence of fundamental rights and freedoms. Finally, the chapter discusses human rights protections that are laid out in the constitutions of individual states, with particular reference to Uganda, Burundi, and Sierra Leone.Less

Novel Subjects and Enabling Fictions: the Formal Articulation of International Human Rights Law

Joseph R. Slaughter

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

The United Nations delegates' encryption of Robinson Crusoe within the text of Article 29 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights, illustrates something of the historical cooperation between the ... More

The United Nations delegates' encryption of Robinson Crusoe within the text of Article 29 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights, illustrates something of the historical cooperation between the novel and human rights between what is typically regarded as the sociocultural work of literature and the civil and political work of law. This chapter focuses on the formal, historical, rhetorical, and institutional conditions of international human rights law that make it especially dependent upon cultural forms to give its precepts moral force. It begins by analyzing the image of the human person, and the development of its personality, that the law both takes for granted and articulates, situating this figure at the intersection of natural and positive law approaches to personhood. Abstract rhetorical structures of the law in the chapter become most technically refined and commonly legible in the literary conventions of the Bildungsroman.Less

Conclusion

William J. Talbott

in Human Rights and Human Well-Being

This chapter retraces the history of moral development to show how it is possible for us to have discovered a meta-theoretical principle of moral improvement, the main principle. The main principle ... More

This chapter retraces the history of moral development to show how it is possible for us to have discovered a meta-theoretical principle of moral improvement, the main principle. The main principle explains why guarantees of the fourteen human rights on the chapter’s list would be moral improvements in any human society. The fourteen rights on the chapter’s list include almost all of the rights in the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but also include a number of rights not in the UNUDHR. So the main principle helps to unify the rights in that document and points to future improvements. The chapter concludes with a reminder that the possibility of future moral improvement depends on there being lots of reasonable disagreement in the ongoing social process of the free give-and-take of opinion.Less

The Continuing Universality of the Universal Declaration

Rosalyn Higgins Dbe Qc

in Themes and Theories

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has provided an essential starting point for what is proving, over fifty years on, to be a momentous journey in human history. Much has been resolved and has ... More

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has provided an essential starting point for what is proving, over fifty years on, to be a momentous journey in human history. Much has been resolved and has developed yet further since 1948. But it is a sad reality that, after all these years, there is still disagreement as to the real universality of the rights proclaimed in the Universal Declaration. Resistance to the universality of the Universal Declaration and the International Bill of Rights takes many forms, such as Western states’ rejection of economic, social, and cultural rights as universal rights. There are Islamic states that deem certain rights in these instruments to be incompatible with Islam. Further, the desirable policy of perpetuating tribal cultures has sometimes also clashed with notions of universality. And China offers particular perspectives on the question of universality. All the leading instruments, regional as well as international, prohibit torture and cruel or inhuman treatment and punishment. This chapter also discusses freedom of religion and women’s rights in the context of the Universal Declaration.Less

Historical Background

Carolyn Evans

in Freedom of Religion under the European Convention on Human Rights

This chapter explains the history and development of the Convention through the drafting of the history of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to explain the intended interpretation of Article ... More

This chapter explains the history and development of the Convention through the drafting of the history of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to explain the intended interpretation of Article 9. The intention of the Convention, based upon the work of the United Nations, is described as ‘securing the universal and effective recognition and observance of the rights’, but certain aspects, such as the protection of religious freedom, were controversial at the time and were particularly debated within the establishment, more so in the Universal Declaration. The travaux préparatories may be limited in discussing and understanding what the drafters intended to protect in Article 9, and also in Article 2 of the First Protocol, but several significant points are made regarding the right to freedom of religion.Less

Customary Human Rights Law

Steven Wheatley

in The Idea of International Human Rights Law

Chapter 5 looks at customary human rights law, explaining how we can think about custom as a self-organizing system, the emergent property of the performative acts of states, who literally ‘speak’ ... More

Chapter 5 looks at customary human rights law, explaining how we can think about custom as a self-organizing system, the emergent property of the performative acts of states, who literally ‘speak’ customary human rights into existence; customary law then binds the same countries that brought it into existence, exhibiting the characteristics of a complex system. Complexity serves to remind us of the importance of path dependence, the power of events, and possibilities of change as states respond to new information. The work shows how the measures targeting apartheid South Africa after the Sharpeville Massacre resulted in the first customary human right on the prohibition of racial discrimination, as well as an evolution in the methodology for custom-formation, allowing reference to General Assembly resolutions and law-making treaties. The chapter further demonstrates how the status of persistent objector was denied to apartheid South Africa, confirming the non-negotiable character of fundamental human rights.Less

Hinduism and Human Rights Discourse

Arvind Sharma

in Hinduism and Human Rights: A Conceptual Approach

Chapter 1 argued that conceptions of human rights can be recognized within Hinduism, once the categories which correspond to them in the Hindu tradition are identified. One must now contend with the ... More

Chapter 1 argued that conceptions of human rights can be recognized within Hinduism, once the categories which correspond to them in the Hindu tradition are identified. One must now contend with the fact that human rights discourse in the West is neither monolithic nor static. This chapter addresses the following question: does the Hindu tradition possess the resources to interact with diverse and evolving patterns of human rights discourse? It begins by considering the two traditions embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It then examines how Hindu thought may be related to the idea of generations of human rights within human rights discourse. The final section discusses matters at the cutting edge of human rights discourse: those having to do with the evolution of international humanitarian law as it embodies the evolving tradition of human rights norms and standards.Less

Arguing for Human Rights: Labor Rights as Human Rights

Mathias Risse

in On Global Justice

This chapter examines whether labor rights are human rights. Labor rights appear in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and are covered by the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and ... More

This chapter examines whether labor rights are human rights. Labor rights appear in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and are covered by the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. Nevertheless, there are three primary objections to the notion that labor rights are human rights: the nature-of-rights objection, the inferior urgency objection, and the cultural imperialism objection. In light of the persistent skepticism confronting the idea of labor rights as human rights, the chapter traces the historical development that brought labor rights into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It also considers whether we can derive labor rights from the various substantive sources of membership rights in the global order.Less

The First Lady and the Philosopher: Eleanor Roosevelt, Charles Malik, and the Human Rights Project

Mary Ann Glendon

in The Forum and the Tower: How Scholars and Politicians Have Imagined the World, from Plato to Eleanor Roosevelt

This chapter describes how Lebanese philosopher Charles Malik and Eleanor Roosevelt worked closely with a multinational committee of philosophers and diplomats to produce the 1948 Universal ... More

This chapter describes how Lebanese philosopher Charles Malik and Eleanor Roosevelt worked closely with a multinational committee of philosophers and diplomats to produce the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Universal Declaration became the model for most post-World War II rights declarations; it was the polestar for the movements that brought about the relatively peaceful collapse of totalitarian governments in Eastern Europe; and it remains the single most important reference point for cross-national discussions of how to order lives together on an increasingly interdependent planet. It also stands as a monument to what can be achieved through creative collaboration between statespersons and scholars, a collaboration that in some cases extends not only across disciplines but over generations.Less

The Beginning of Modern International Human Rights Law (Background to the Birth of the European Convention)

Ed Bates

in The Evolution of the European Convention on Human Rights: From Its Inception to the Creation of a Permanent Court of Human Rights

This chapter examines the international human rights law background to the creation of the ECHR system. It looks at the main steps taken in the field of the international law of human rights in the ... More

This chapter examines the international human rights law background to the creation of the ECHR system. It looks at the main steps taken in the field of the international law of human rights in the late 1940s, after World War Two. It comments on the writing and views of Hersch Lauterpacht, one of the leading intellectual forces on international human rights law at the time. It addresses and examines the failures of the United Nations to create effective human rights institutions and systems in the immediate post war period, focussing on the work of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.Less

Human Dignity in the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights

Jean-Paul Costa

in Understanding Human Dignity

The chapter first gives several examples of where ‘dignity’ (or ‘a person’s dignity’, or ‘human dignity’) has been a central element in the reasoning of the Court, or in the arguments advanced by ... More

The chapter first gives several examples of where ‘dignity’ (or ‘a person’s dignity’, or ‘human dignity’) has been a central element in the reasoning of the Court, or in the arguments advanced by judges in separate opinions. Based on this analysis, the principal question addressed is why the Court draws on ‘dignity’, a word neither explicitly nor, implicitly mentioned in the text of the Convention or the Protocols. What are the reasons for having—or not having—recourse to the concept of dignity in judicial decisions? Is there any objective reason for such choice? Or does it depend on the subjective preferences of the judges sitting on the bench? Is ‘dignity’ necessary for judicial decision-making in order to reach a specific conclusion in a case? Or does ‘dignity’ simply reinforce the legal reasoning of the Court, enabling the Court to give more weight to the arguments of one of the parties in the case? Finally, the chapter looks for a possible conceptual link between human dignity and human rights, insofar as this arises from the jurisprudence of the Strasbourg Court.Less

Religion, Human Rights, and Public Reason: The Role and Limits of a Secular Rationale

David Little

in Religion and Human Rights: An Introduction

This chapter examines the interrelationships among religion, human rights, and public reason as well as the claim that human rights language is “secular.” In particular, it considers three serious ... More

This chapter examines the interrelationships among religion, human rights, and public reason as well as the claim that human rights language is “secular.” In particular, it considers three serious problems raised by the exclusion of religious warrants as a basis for justifying human rights by the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent human rights documents: whether it is possible to justify human rights apart from religious belief; the suspicion about what it means to embrace human rights as “a secular system”; and the perception that human rights are superior to religious beliefs. It also attempts to make sense of human rights language as the drafters understood it by relating it to John Rawls's idea of public reason.Less

The Human Rights Tradition and Amnesty International

in Cultural Dilemmas of Progressive Politics: Styles of Engagement among Grassroots Activists

This chapter reviews the cultural traditions on which contemporary human rights work relies, with a special focus on three defining documents. Two of these—the French Declaration of the Rights of Man ... More

This chapter reviews the cultural traditions on which contemporary human rights work relies, with a special focus on three defining documents. Two of these—the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen and the U.S. Bill of Rights—date from the age of democratic revolutions. These documents, along with thinkers such as Locke and Voltaire, helped construct the tradition of human rights. The third document is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted by the United Nations shortly after World War II. The UDHR has become the sacred text of the contemporary human rights movement. The discussion of these documents is intended as a sketch of the most important elements of the historical deposit contemporary human rights work draws upon, not an intellectual history of this tradition. The second half of the chapter takes a quick look at the organizational structure and history of Amnesty International and then examines Amnesty's appropriation of the human rights tradition, focusing on the rules it has adopted to govern its work and how it defines its organizational “mandate.”Less

The Nature Of Social Injustice And Its Impact On Public Health

Barry S. Levy and Victor W. Sidel

in Social Injustice and Public Health

This chapter describes the nature of social injustice and its impact on public health. It defines social injustice in two ways: as the denial or violation of economic, sociocultural, political, ... More

This chapter describes the nature of social injustice and its impact on public health. It defines social injustice in two ways: as the denial or violation of economic, sociocultural, political, civil, or human rights of specific populations or groups in a society based on the perception of their inferiority by those with more power or influence; and as policies or actions that adversely affect the societal conditions in which people can be healthy. The chapter describes a wide range of adverse health consequences that result from social injustice. Boxes in the chapter describe concepts of social justice, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Declaration of Health Rights. The chapter describes what needs to be done to address social injustice.Less

Compulsory Development: Narrative Self-sponsorship and the Right to Self-Determination

Joseph R. Slaughter

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

Fifty years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), human rights have been rearticulated explicitly as a program for development; nonetheless, the human person(ality) ... More

Fifty years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), human rights have been rearticulated explicitly as a program for development; nonetheless, the human person(ality) remains both the fundamental principle behind the law and its ultimate referent — the projected vanishing point of the convergence of human rights and development discourses. According to international law, the rights to development and self-determination derive from and realize the dignity and worth of the human person and the sovereignty of the human personality. In the “global information age,” human personality development (Bildung) becomes quantitative as well as qualitative. The relatively recent appointment of a right to development among the list of fundamental human rights makes explicit some of the unstated assumptions about the human personality and its free and full development that underpinned the UDHR.Less