scholarly journals Dalit cosmopolitans: Institutionally developmental global citizenship in struggles against caste discrimination

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 280-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis Cabrera
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Global Citizenship ◽  
Institutional Transformation ◽  
Global State ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
Caste Discrimination ◽  
Cosmopolitan Citizenship ◽  
International Engagement ◽  
Implementation Gaps

AbstractBesides stating that global or cosmopolitan citizenship is an incoherent concept in the absence of a global state, some critics assert that it represents a form of Western-centric moral neoimperialism. This article develops some responses to such objections through examining the efforts of Indian activists who have undertaken intensive international engagement in their struggles against caste discrimination. The National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights has sought to close domestic rights-implementation gaps for Dalits (formerly called untouchables) in part through vertical outreach to United Nations human rights bodies. This mode of outreach is shown to represent an important practice of global citizenship, and to challenge a view of South agent as primarily passive recipients of moral goods within a global citizenship frame. Further, the Dalit activists’ global citizenship practice is shown to be significantly ‘institutionally developmental’, in that it highlights implementation gaps in the global human rights regime and can contribute to pressures for suprastate institutional transformation and development to address them. NCDHR actions are, for example, highly salient to the recently renewed dialogue on creating a World Court of Human Rights.

scholarly journals Protecting expressions of Folklore within the Right to Culture in Africa

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 48
Author(s):  
Enyinna Sodienye Nwauche
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Substantive Content ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
United Nations Declaration ◽  
The Right

This paper explores the protection of expressions of folklore within the right to culture in Africa by considering three issues, which are the increased understanding of the right to culture in national constitutions and the recognition that customary law is a manifestation of the right to culture; an expanded understanding of the substantive content of the article 15(1) of the International Covenant for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as part of the right to culture; and the recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples marked significantly by the 2007 United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People. The paper demonstrates how a human rights regime may assist in overcoming some of the deficiencies in the national protection of expressions of folklore in Africa.

Global Justice and Global Citizenship

2020 ◽  
pp. 52-70
Author(s):  
Luis Cabrera
Keyword(s):  
Global Justice ◽  
Global Citizenship ◽  
Institutional Transformation ◽  
Global Level ◽  
Global State ◽  
Developmental Approach ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Further Development

While the concept of global citizenship has a pedigree dating back more than 2000 years, as well as many current advocates and interpreters, scholarly critics tend to dismiss it as simply incoherent. How, they ask, can it be possible to practice global citizenship in the absence of some global state? This chapter argues that, although the full formal trappings of citizenship are not likely to emerge anytime soon at the global level, individuals can make important contributions toward realizing its substance there. In assuming duties to promote comprehensive rights protections for others who do not share their state citizenship, and promoting the sort of supra-state institutional transformation that could more reliably secure such protections, they can enact some key aspects of global citizenship. Further, such an institutionally developmental approach to global citizenship is shown to be less distinct than claimed from domestic conceptions, which define citizenship partly in terms of ideals and practices that are acknowledged to need further development.

scholarly journals Review Article: Curiosity, Paradox and Dissatisfaction: Queer Analyses of Human Rights

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-165
Author(s):  
Anthony J. Langlois
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Common Theme ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
Sexuality And Gender ◽  
International Human ◽  
And Gender

Three recent books are discussed which offer queer analyses of attempts to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people from violence and discrimination using the international human rights regime. A common theme is the way in which equal rights are invoked and institutionalised to address prejudice, discrimination and violence. The take, however, is critical: while it may be a remarkable turn of events that the United Nations (UN) and similar institutions have become LGBTI advocates, such Damascene conversions generate their own dilemmas and rarely resolve structural and conceptual paradoxes. This article foregrounds the curiosity of queer scholars engaged with the application of human rights to matters of sexuality and gender, observes how they articulate the paradoxes and dissatisfactions that are produced in this normatively and politically charged field, and draws out the limitations and complexities of rights politics in combating systemic exclusion.

The United States and Human Rights Marginalization at the International Court of Justice, 1945–1950

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-33
Author(s):  
Olivier Barsalou
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Government ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
International Court ◽  
Judicial Proceedings ◽  
Advisory Opinions

Abstract Using the 1950 International Court of Justice (ICJ) Paris Peace Treaties advisory opinions as a vantage point, this articles explores the changing attitude of the American government towards the emerging United Nations human rights regime and the latter became entangled in Cold War politics. The first part situates the contribution of this article within the postwar human rights historiography. The second part explores how US legal advisors constructed arguments destined to insulate the American domestic legal system from the alleged domestic disruptive effects of the new human rights. The final section delves into the cases of Cardinal Mindszenty of Budapest and Archbishop Stepinac of Zagreb, and how they reverberated at the ICJ. It argues that US legal advisors sought to turn the human rights violations that triggered the judicial proceedings into violations of treaty provisions. In the process, the ICJ validated this transformation and, thus contributed, to marginalizing the emerging United Nations human rights regime.

Introduction: Appraising the United Nations Human Rights Regime

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alston Philip ◽  
Mégret Frédéric
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
Constant Change ◽  
New Instruments

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the UN rights regime, which has changed dramatically in almost every respect. In normative terms, major new instruments have been adopted addressing the situation of persons with disabilities, disappearances, indigenous peoples, and many other groups, and the rights of LGBTI persons are now squarely on the agenda from which they were then almost entirely absent. In terms of staff, the relatively small Center for Human Rights has been replaced by an Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. These dynamics illustrate the extent to which the place of human rights within the broader constellation of global governance is susceptible to constant change. The chapter then considers what is, or should be, involved in the process of evaluating or appraising the effectiveness of the UN human rights regime as a whole and of individual human rights organs.

The Changing Value and Meaning of Citizenship

Fully Human ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 28-54
Author(s):  
Lindsey N. Kingston
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Complex Concept ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
The World

Chapter 1 shows how the value and meaning of citizenship have evolved within political thought, with particular attention to the intensification of debates in relation to the protection of modern human rights. With the creation of the United Nations and the adoption of rights norms, the international community made assumptions about identity and membership that effectively limited the inclusiveness of so-called universal rights. By privileging state sovereignty and legal nationality, the human rights regime created protection gaps for noncitizens and people at the margins. Scholars continue to debate whether globalization has eroded the importance of state citizenship and the nation-state, or whether it has in fact strengthened the state’s role in the world system. I argue that citizenship continues to have persistent power and appeal, and that this complex concept is often conversely viewed as a right, an identity, and a commodity.

Part I The Human Rights Mandate of the Principal Organs, 1 The Security Council

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mégret Frédéric
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Human Rights Standards

This chapter discusses the Security Council, which may be the least obvious organ within the United Nations to have a human rights role, yet may also be one of those that can make the most difference when it comes to the upholding of human rights standards internationally. For a human rights regime that is notoriously devoid of much enforcement power, the Security Council comes with a much sought after resource, in the form of the ability to use coercive means against states. Ultimately, the Security Council’s practices provide rich terrain for analysing prospects for human rights at the United Nations, as well as the evolving role of human rights not only as something that is promoted by the United Nations but which shapes, and even constitutes, its authority going forward.

The UN Human Rights Council: A New ‘Society of the Committed’ or Just Old Wine in New Bottles?

2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 809-823 ◽  
Author(s):  
NICO SCHRIJVER
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
First Year ◽  
Institution Building ◽  
Human Rights Council ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
Un Reform ◽  
The Status ◽  
The United Nations

This article provides an assessment of the replacement of the UN Commission on Human Rights by the Human Rights Council, with a view to ascertaining whether the human rights architecture of the United Nations is now in better or worse shape. Institutionally, it is unique in that an international organ is dismantled and replaced by a new one for the sake of achieving greater effectiveness. What are the chances for success? For a proper assessment, the article first examines the status, functioning, and falling into disgrace of the UN Commission on Human Rights and, second, reviews the establishment of the new Human Rights Council as part of the UN reform process and identifies the new features of the Council compared with the previous Commission. Third, it discusses the work of the Council in its first year, in particular the extensive June 2007 decision on institution building of the UN Human Rights Council. The article concludes that the Council had a far from fresh and easy start, but that its establishment and functioning so far are not a radical departure from the acquis of the UN human rights regime. The first years of the Council are crucial for solid institution building and functioning credibly in an action-oriented way. The first members on the Council bear the heavy responsibility of seizing this historic opportunity.

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