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

2008 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 689-716 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emilie M. Hafner-Burton
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Nongovernmental Organizations ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
News Media ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
International Pressure ◽  
International Human ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
Naming And Shaming ◽  
The Relationship

“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.

scholarly journals Reconciliation between the Islamic Human Rights and International Law: Prospects and Complications

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 609
Author(s):  
Siamak Karamzadeh ◽  
Massoud Alizadeh
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Historical Aspect ◽  
Historical Fact ◽  
International Human ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between International Human Rights and Islamic Law has been always an arguable debate at the international level. This issue can be considered by jurists in two aspects. First, from National Law perspective, especially in the countries in which the law, to some extent is affected by Islamic rules. Second, by view of International Law to see that to what extent, there would be compatibility or likely contradiction between human rights norms and Islamic Law.Considering the historical aspect of the issue, this article is suggesting that although from the outset, International Law tried to separate religion from policy, but this historical fact would not prevent theoretical conciliation between religion and Human Rights rules. The review of the content of International Human Rights Law reveals that the rules in the systems in most part are compatible. However, in some cases the incompatibility between these two group pf rules is observed. The existence of different basis under Islamic Law and International Law makes the least difference unavoidable. The constant dialogue between Islamic scholars and publicists can decrease this difference in future.

scholarly journals Navigating Human Rights in a ‘Post-Human Rights’ Era

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-194
Author(s):  
Rhona Smith ◽  
Sean Molloy
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
State Compliance ◽  
International Human ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract International human rights law and mechanisms tasked with promoting state compliance with it are being increasingly challenged. Opposition is originating from, amongst others, countries that have historically supported the global human rights project. These new trends and sites of contestation bolster opposition from other countries and regions that have consistently diverged from international human rights norms. Examining the relationship between the United Nations human rights system and states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in this broader context of opposition to human rights, this article argues that existing theories on why states do, or ought to, comply with international human rights law are often inadequate to either explain or inspire state adherence to human rights norms. What is required, this article will argue, is not another theory but rather more targeted and incremental efforts to address the gap between rhetoric and compliance.

Germany

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentin Aichele
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Direct Effect ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Public International Law ◽  
Monitoring Mechanism ◽  
International Human ◽  
Human Rights Norms

This chapter analyses the use and interpretation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in sixty-nine decisions of German federal courts between 2009 and mid-2016. German courts’ failure to be proactive in demonstrating ‘friendliness towards public international law’ when dealing with international human rights norms has been criticised. The National CRPD Monitoring Mechanism addressed problems in the application of the law. This chapter investigates the courts’ understanding of basic CRPD concepts, judicial techniques, interpretation methods and specific CRPD provisions. The importance of the concepts of self-executing provisions and direct effect is discussed. In quantitative terms, German courts have referred to the CRPD more often than any other UN international human rights instrument. Furthermore, in qualitative terms, federal courts have become more receptive towards the CRPD. However, it is clear that much of the potential for courts to use the CRPD in the realisation of the rights of persons with disabilities remains untapped.

Municipal Courts and the International Interpretive Principle: Al-Kateb v Godwin

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Kirby
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Common Law ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Global Problems ◽  
The Common ◽  
International Human ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
Constitutional Adjudication

This article examines the decision in Al-Kateb v Godwin (2004) 219 CLR 562. It revisits the suggested ‘heresy‘ that international human rights law may influence the interpretation of the Australian Constitution and other legal texts. Accessing universal human rights law, including in constitutional adjudication, was endorsed in the Bangalore Principles on the Domestic Application of International Human Rights Norms 1988. The author suggests that interpreting statutory language in this way is not dissimilar to the common-law principle of interpreting statutes so as to uphold basic rights. But should an analogous approach be permissible in deciding the meaning of constitutional language? Although arguably invoked by the majority of the High Court in Mabo v Queensland [No 2] (1992) 175 CLR 1, in the context of declaring the common-law, so far this approach has not been accepted for constitutional elaboration in Australia. But should this be so in the age of global problems and internationalism?

scholarly journals Are Rights Out of Time? International Human Rights Law, Temporality, and Radical Social Change

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 817-838 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn McNeilly
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Change ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Judith Butler ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
The Future ◽  
International Human ◽  
The Relationship

Human rights were a defining discourse of the 20th century. The opening decades of the twenty-first, however, have witnessed increasing claims that the time of this discourse as an emancipatory tool is up. Focusing on international human rights law, I offer a response to these claims. Drawing from Elizabeth Grosz, Drucilla Cornell and Judith Butler, I propose that a productive future for this area of law in facilitating radical social change can be envisaged by considering more closely the relationship between human rights and temporality and by thinking through a conception of rights which is untimely. This involves abandoning commitment to linearity, progression and predictability in understanding international human rights law and its development and viewing such as based on a conception of the future that is unknown and uncontrollable, that does not progressively follow from the present, and that is open to embrace of the new.

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