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Begin New Search Topic Human Rights Content Type Working Paper Publication Year within 25 Years

491. Justice in International Economic Law? From the 'International Law among States' to 'International Integration law' and 'Constitutional Law'

Author:
Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann
Publication Date:
12-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Research Papers Archive
Abstract:
The UN Charter and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties require interpreting treaties and settling international disputes “in conformity with the principles of justice and international law.” This contribution discusses procedural and substantive principles of justice which the international judge may take into account in interpreting international economic agreements. The “sovereign equality of states” underlying the “international law of coexistence” as well as the “international law of intergovernmental cooperation” must be interpreted in conformity with the universal recognition of human dignity as a source of inalienable human rights. The universal recognition of economic and social human rights further requires taking into account solidarity principles, as proposed also by the sociological approach to international law. The constitutional structures and citizen-oriented functions of the law of international economic organizations liberalizing and regulating mutually beneficial market transactions among citizens require judges to engage in a careful balancing of state-centered and citizen-oriented principles of international law, including respect for the emerging human right to democratic decision-making. This modern “international integration law” and the increasing number of “international constitutional rules” promote the reconciliation of the various state-centered approaches, human rights approaches, sociological approaches and policy-approaches to international law as a system not only of international rules and “legal pluralism” but also of constitutionally limited decision-making processes and struggles for human rights.
Topic:
Economics, Human Rights, International Law, Treaties and Agreements, and United Nations
Political Geography:
Vienna

492. Escaping the Cultural Context of Human Rights

Author:
Andrew Fagan
Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
The contemporary age appears beset and driven by moral and political disputes, disagreements, fundamental misunderstandings, and mutual incomprehension. Secularists and religious believers systematically argue past one another. Doctrinal differences across and within religious communities persist despite, in many cases, centuries of dialogue and debate. Many of these disputes are neither trivial nor banal, but go to the heart of some of the most enduring and fundamental political questions and concerns. Foremost among them is the question: how can we co-exist in a peaceful and harmonious manner that does not entail a wholesale renunciation of those constitutive beliefs and practices that make us who we are? How can we be and let be? The search for a sufficiently robust common ground is increasingly urgent and appears increasingly difficult to achieve at regional, national, and international levels. Some readers might balk at this particular characterization of the world “out there,” for some, a solution may appear readily at hand, requiring only sufficient political will and courage to be realized. On this view, the moral and legal doctrine of human rights provides the normative cement capable of overcoming conflict and holding the world together. For many advocates of human rights the doctrine and its core principles are neither partial nor contingent. Human rights, it is argued, address a global community of morally equal individuals. The right to life and the right to be free from torture are absolute and immutable. Simplifying a very complicated series of philosophical arguments, no rational individual, however powerful, is considered rationally capable of rejecting the universal application of such core principles. The doctrine of human rights is a necessary and sufficient means for resolving the phenomenon of moral and political conflict and offers a sustainable answer to the question of how we might live together despite our deep differences.
Topic:
Development, Human Rights, Human Welfare, and Politics

493. Beyond Power Politics: International Law and Human Rights Discourse in the Post-9/11 World

Author:
J. Peter Pham
Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
In the early 1970s, legal scholars began reexamining the dominant legal paradigms within Western polities with a skeptical view of their underlying doctrines and arguments. While the critique was radical in the context of its time, the critical legal movement itself, both inside and outside academia, has largely become somewhat passé as its valid insights have either been absorbed into mainstream juridical scholarship or largely superseded by newer fields of legal inquiry that it had nurtured, including feminist jurisprudence, critical race theory, and postmodern scholarship.
Topic:
Development, Human Rights, Non-Governmental Organization, and Politics

494. The Promise and Peril of Public Anthropology

Author:
Ben Feinberg
Publication Date:
08-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
In recent years, as we accelerate our planetary experiment into increasing violence and social inequality, cultural anthropologists have increasingly expressed their befuddlement about why, amid all the clamor and reckless talk about the state of the world that characterizes public discourse, our voice has been notably absent. We have moved from the introspection of the 80s, when the big debates within the discipline involved tearing at our own flesh and flaunting the sackcloth of self-doubt: how do know what we know about other people? Are we not projecting our colonialist narratives onto the weak? Who the Hell do we think we are to talk so pompously and authoritatively about them? Emerging from this doubt, we remembered that, at the same time that we sparred with each other and devoured our elders in the hidden corners and footnotes of obscure journals, our discipline has actually reached a near-unanimous consensus—as strong as the consensus for evolution among physical anthropologists or for global warming among climate scientists—on a number of vitally important issues that are relevant to the masses outside our club, and could, if applied by the right people, actually benefit society and serve in defense of human rights.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Human Rights
Political Geography:
United States

495. Globalization and the Construction of Universal Human Rights

Author:
Eric K. Leonard
Publication Date:
08-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
Every human rights scholar and activist must eventually engage the question of whether a set of universal human rights exists. For international relations scholars, this is an interesting debate, whether one is immersed in human rights research or not. The reason for the interest in the question is its focus on notions of authority and rule in the international system. If one accepts that a universal understanding of human rights exists, then one accepts that the relevant actors of the international community agree to uphold a common norm or set of norms despite the obvious differences in culture and history. In essence, an investigation into universal human rights is an investigation into the normative underpinnings of our global society and the actors that construct the rules for this society. This question becomes even more interesting given the intensification of the globalization process and the increased interdependence of traditional state actors, along with the increased relevance of non-actors.
Topic:
International Relations, Civil Society, Globalization, and Human Rights

496. In Plain Sight? Human Trafficking and Research Challenges

Author:
Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick
Publication Date:
04-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
The recently released exploratory work, In Modern Bondage: Sex Trafficking in the Americas, edited by David E. Guinn and Elissa Steglich, is a helpful analysis of the state of trafficking for sexual exploitation in Central America and the Caribbean. The book makes two things clear: how far researchers have been able to come given the scarcity of reliable data; and how much work remains to be done before a clear picture of the nature and magnitude of trafficking and the best means for its eradication is obtained.
Topic:
International Relations, Human Rights, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
Central America and Caribbean

497. Combating the Proliferation and Impact of Small Arms and Light Weapons

Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
South Eastern Europe Clearinghouse for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons
Abstract:
The proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) has in recent years become recognized as a principal element of ongoing regional instability in various parts of the world. The recent conflicts in South East Europe are no exception as they have been fuelled and exacerbated by a plentiful supply of illicit arms and ammunition. In addition, easy access to SALW has further destabilized this part of Europe by contributing to organized crime activities such as trafficking and has the potential to support terrorism.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Relations, and Human Rights
Political Geography:
Europe

498. Transnational feminism: Political strategies and theoretical resources

Author:
Brooke A. Ackerly and Bina D'Costa
Publication Date:
03-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Australian National University Department of International Relations
Abstract:
Despite sharing many successes at promoting international collaboration, enabling effective responses to politically powerful states, increasing awareness of formerly invisible violations of the human rights of women, and gaining ground in many countries and in international law, women's human rights activists have many differences among them—in resources, location, issue-focus and strategies. It is appropriate to pay attention to these differences, particularly as they create challenges to the movement for women's rights. However, we argue that the women's human rights discourse—as developed and deployed by women's human rights activists—can be a resource for addressing these challenges internal to the movement while facing current challenges from outside the movement. Attentive to the politics of defining a movement and its spokespeople, the article includes an extensive methodological discussion. We arrive at our conclusions after observing a broad range of women's activism and interpreting the reflections of a wide range of activists. Taken together, they offer a view of human rights as indivisible and of the rights of all humans as interrelated. This view is useful for self-reflection within women's movements and for the ability of participants of various women's movements to use the women's human rights framework for meeting contemporary challenges.
Topic:
Development, Gender Issues, Human Rights, and Politics

499. Global Health Governance: Conflicts on Global Social Rights

Author:
Wolfgang Hein and Lars Kohlmorgen
Publication Date:
08-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
This paper analyses the impact of new institutional structures in global health governance on the realization of social rights in poor countries. Meanwhile, health is broadly seen as an import precondition for social and economic development. This leads to an integration of the “diseases of the poor” (basically infectious diseases) into strategies of fighting poverty. Considering the example of global HIV/AIDS politics, the paper argues that new governance modes increase the participation of civil society groups and affected communities, but that they are also frequently instrumentalised by powerful actors to pursue their particular interests. In fact, increasing resources are mobilized for the fight against poverty related diseases. The paper concludes that global health governance is characterized by a combination of moral values and material interests which does not guarantee a comprehensive realization of social rights, but which allows some progress in the fight against poverty-related diseases – a precondition of the possible further realization of social rights.
Topic:
International Relations, Health, and Human Rights

500. Zimbabwe's Operation Murambatsvina: The Tipping Point?

Publication Date:
08-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Operation Murambatsvina (Restore Order) cost some 700,000 Zimbabweans their homes or livelihoods or both and otherwise affected nearly a fifth of the troubled country's population. Its impact, as documented in a scathing UN report, has produced a political shock that has returned Zimbabwe to the international spotlight and made the quality of its governance almost impossible for its regional neighbours to ignore, however difficult they find it to be overtly critical. While an immediate requirement is to reverse as thoroughly as possible the disastrous humanitarian effect s of the operation, action is urgently needed to address Zimbabwe's larger governance problem. This will require effort s on three parallel tracks -- the maintenance of overt international pressure, support for building internal political capacity and, above all, active regional diplomacy to facilitate political transition.
Topic:
Government, Human Rights, and United Nations
Political Geography:
Africa and Zimbabwe