The International Law of Human Rights in the Middle Twentieth Century

1973 ◽  
pp. 75-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
John P. Humphrey
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law

Introduction

Veiled Power ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Doreen Lustig
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Private Business ◽  
Business Corporation ◽  
Conceptual Analogy ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Corporations have limited responsibilities in international law but enjoy far-reaching rights and privileges. International legal debates often conceive of this issue as a problem of business accountability for human rights violations. Conceptually, the issue of corporations in international law has focused on whether or not they are, or ought to be, recognized as ‘subjects’ of responsibility in international law and on the adequate conceptual analogy to the corporation. The introduction presents an alternative way of thinking about the role of international law and its relevance to the private business corporation. It traces the emergence of the contemporary legal architecture for corporations in international law and shows how modern international law constitutes a framework within which businesses and governments allocate resources and responsibilities—a framework that began to operate as early as the late-nineteenth century and continued throughout the twentieth century.

Famine Crimes in International Law

2003 ◽  
Vol 97 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Marcus
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Natural Disaster ◽  
Major Element ◽  
Foreign Minister ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
Weather Patterns ◽  
Ethiopian Government ◽  
The Government

Some of the worst human rights catastrophes of the twentieth century were famines created or manipulated by governments. In 1932 at least five million Ukrainians starved to death, while hunger was largely unknown across the border in Russia.The Soviet government imposed disastrous grain quotas on the Ukraine, then let its own citizens literally collapse in the streets while it exported grain to further its “revolutionary” objectives.The Ethiopian famine of 1983-1985, preserved in popular memory as a natural disaster of biblical proportions, most fiercely struck those parts of the country that harbored irredentist movements. In a stunning, but telling, rejoinder to international pity for the purportedly hapless Ethiopian government, the Ethiopian foreign minister told a U.S. chargé d’affaires that “food is a major element in our strategy against the secessionists.” Since 1994, more than two million out of a population of twenty-two million in North Korea have starved to death, while South Koreans, affected by similar weather patterns, have remained completely untouched by famine. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), trying to distribute aid earmarked for famine victims, have watched helplessly as the government callously interfered and have arrived at the conclusion that “the authorities are deliberately depriving hundreds of thousands of truly needy Koreans of assistance.”

An Old Judge Remembers

2002 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gunnar Lagergren ◽  
George H. Aldrich
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
European Court ◽  
The Hague

Gunnar Lagergren has performed many notable functions in the course of the twentieth century, most of which resulted in significant contributions to international law and, in particular, to the settlement of international disputes. As an arbitrator, he handled a number of important cases, including that between India and Pakistan concerning the Rann of Kutch and the Taba boundary arbitration between Egypt and Israel. He served with distinction on a number of important tribunals, including the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg and the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal at The Hague, where he was its first President.

Catholicism and the Evolution of International Law Studies in Italy

2020 ◽  
pp. 215-233
Author(s):  
Mirko Sossai
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
International Community ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Holy See ◽  
Alternative Approaches ◽  
The Great War

Although there has been no Christian doctrine of international law in Italy, Catholicism still represented a source of inspiration for various scholars during the twentieth century when addressing the question of the foundations of international law. In a period of predominant positivism, alternative approaches, rooted in the universalistic view of the Catholic Church, sought to offer a narrative of the origins of international law, based on the idea of continuity with the ancient civitas christiana. This chapter seeks to assess how the scholarly debate took into account developments in the Catholic understanding of the role of law in the international community. Three key episodes are considered: the note of Pope Benedict XV qualifying the great war as ‘useless slaughter’; the ambivalent reaction of the Holy See to the birth of universal organizations; and the position of the Papacy vis-à-vis the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Picking Battles

2019 ◽  
pp. 216-232
Author(s):  
Rotem Giladi
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
International Society ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Genocide Convention ◽  
Mandate System

Race is one of the more ubiquitous, yet least explored, shifts in twentieth-century international law. From law that was founded in key areas and concepts on racial distinctions, international law quickly came to denounce various manifestations of race theories and racial discrimination. The establishment of the UN reflected a racialized understanding of the international society assumptions of the League of Nations mandate system. The 1948 Universal Declaration addressed entitlement to human rights without distinction of race, yet the Genocide Convention extended protection to racial (identity of) minority groups. In South Africa, race policies provided both the impetus and multiple occasions for formulating claims about a new, de-racialized international law from 1946 onwards. At these struggles against apartheid, binary political confrontations could take form as competing visions of international law, both old and new. This chapter charts the sites of contestation over apartheid and its effects on international law.

Tracing the Relational Internationalist Perspective in Europe After the Second World War

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roxana Banu
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Private International Law ◽  
World War ◽  
Analytical Point ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Second World ◽  
Point Of Reference

This chapter describes the internationalist thinking in private international law after the Second World War and the extent to which internationalist scholars of this period took the individual or the state as the analytical point of reference. It shows how, around the middle of the twentieth century, Henri Batiffol in France and Gerhard Kegel in Germany reawakened an interest in theoretical discussions around the justice dimensions of private international law, while also attempting to repurpose and validate private international law methodology and techniques. Furthermore, this chapter provides an in-depth reading of English private international law scholarship after the Second World War in order to show how English scholars tried to reconstruct private international law theories focused on vested rights as human rights theories.

scholarly journals Judicial Enforcement of Socioeconomic Rights: A Comparison between Transformative Projects in India and South Africa

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natasha G. Menell
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
International Law ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Socioeconomic Rights ◽  
Transformative Potential ◽  
Article 5

Cornell International Law Journal: Vol. 49 : No. 3 , Article 5.Constitutionally enshrined socioeconomic rights are a topic of enduring controversy. Societies overcoming exploitive regimes in the twentieth century have experienced popular demand for rapid economic and social transformation. Even before the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, emerging constitutional democracies debated the transformative potential of enforceable socioeconomic rights.Opponents of constitutionalizing socioeconomic rights have not disputed the need for transformation in such societies, but argue that such rights are non-justiciable because they present pressing questions of social policy best left to the democratically accountable actors in government. A related objection proposes that judicial enforcement of socioeconomic rights is dangerous to a system of separation of powers.

scholarly journals WATER FOR ALL? DEVELOPING A HUMAN RIGHT TO WATER IN NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL LAW

2016 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 771-789 ◽  
Author(s):  
The Rt Hon Lady Justice Arden
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
International Law ◽  
Universal Declaration ◽  
European Convention ◽  
World War ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way

Human rights are one of the great ideas of the twentieth century. After World War II, first Eleanor Roosevelt in relation to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (‘the Universal Declaration’), and then later the drafters of the European Convention on Human Rights (‘the European Convention’) saw human rights as the way to make the world fairer and safer.

International law, philosophy of

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allen Buchanan
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Moral Evaluation ◽  
Legal Institutions ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Hellenistic Philosophy ◽  
Second Category

The philosophy of international law has a long history, reaching back on some accounts beyond the Medieval period to late Hellenistic philosophy. In the twentieth century work in this field was limited, at least among analytic philosophers. From the late 1970s onward, a rich literature developed on global justice, human rights, just war theory, and other key issues of direct relevance to the philosophy of international law, but for the most part it did not directly engage international law or international legal institutions. Quite recently, interest in the philosophy of international law has re-awakened. The questions the philosophy of international law tries to answer may be divided into two categories: international jurisprudence and the morality of international law. The first includes: (a) is what we call international law really law and if so what makes a norm an international law (as distinct from, say, a political or social norm) and (b) how do we know whether a norm is an international law? International jurisprudence explores fundamental conceptual and epistemic questions about international law, typically with an eye toward determining how and to what extent international law differs from domestic (national) law. The second category encompasses the reasoned moral evaluation of existing international law and legal institutions and principled proposals for reforming them.

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