The Transformative Potential of Human Rights

1999 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Melinda Jones
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Transformative Potential

In Lieu of a Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Linarelli ◽  
Margot E Salomon ◽  
Muthucumaraswamy Sornarajah
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Current State ◽  
Neoliberal Capitalism ◽  
Transformative Potential ◽  
International Economic Law ◽  
Human Rights Norms

This chapter recaps the main themes of the volume, ie that the international law of the global economy is in a state of disorder. Claims about the justice, fairness, or benefits of the current state of international law as it relates to the global economy are fanciful. A more credible picture emerges when one considers who is protected, against what, and those relations that are valued and those that are not. Moreover, these claims above all require a suspension of a reflective attitude about what international law actually says and does. When it comes to international economic law, power is masked behind a veil of neutrality when it certainly is not neutral in the interests it protects and offends. As for international human rights law, it overlooks the ways in which it props up extreme capitalism foreclosing the possibility of transformative structural change to neoliberal capitalism. In its most radical areas, human rights norms have been blocked from making demands on the design of the global economy precisely because of their transformative potential. Among the central critiques of international law presented in this book is that international law must be justifiable to those who are subject to it.

scholarly journals Implementation of the recommendations of the Inter- American Commission on Human Rights in the Brazilian constitutionalism: proposals and perspectives

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-119
Author(s):  
Melina Girardi Fachin ◽  
Flávia Piovesan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Retrospective Analysis ◽  
Latin American ◽  
International System ◽  
Case Law ◽  
American System ◽  
Methodological Research ◽  
Transformative Potential

Based on the study of some Brazilian cases submitted to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, this article aims to identify proposals to overcome common Latin- American challenges in the implementation of international recommendations. In the first part, in a retrospective analysis, several emblematic Brazilian cases and their domestic impacts and changes are addressed. In a second part, with a prospective view guided by the domestic contributions to which the Inter-American System is oriented, highlights the current system’s challenges. At this stage, proposals to overcome challenges are outlined, especially regarding the obstacles to implement the Commission’s recommendations, where the main results of the article arise. The reason for this study stands on the conviction that the compliance with international recommendations is the element that guarantees the exercise of the transformative potential of Human-Rights Systems. With the methodological research based on a bibliographical research and case law, the role of the Inter-American Commission is redesigned in the light of a dialogical triad composed by the organs of the International System, the States constitutionalism and organised civil society.

Framing, truth-telling, and the limits of local transitional justice

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Adam Kochanski
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Truth Telling ◽  
Transformative Potential ◽  
National Power ◽  
Legitimacy Crisis ◽  
Principal Method

Abstract Transitional justice (TJ) is undergoing a legitimacy crisis. While recent critical TJ scholarship has touted the transformative potential of locally rooted mechanisms as a possible means to emancipate TJ, this burgeoning literature rests on shaky assumptions about the purported benefits of local TJ and provides inadequate attention to local-national power dynamics. By taking these factors into consideration, this article contends that local TJ efforts can be used to deflect justice in manners that paradoxically allow ruling parties to avoid human rights accountability and to conceal the truth about wartime violations. It further argues that the principal method by which justice is subverted is not through overt manipulation by abusive governments, but rather, through subtle and indirect ‘distortional framing’ practices, which ruling parties use to set discursive limits around discussions of conflict-related events and to obfuscate their own serious crimes. After developing this argument theoretically, the case study of Cambodia is considered in detail to reveal and to trace the processes by which distortional framing has been used as a technique to deflect justice.

scholarly journals Trans Men Giving Birth and Reflections on Fatherhood: What to Expect?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Margaria
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Birth Registration ◽  
Trans Men ◽  
Transformative Potential ◽  
European Court ◽  
Domestic Courts

Abstract What was long feared by legislators and courts has now become reality: trans men give birth to their own children and request to be designated as their ‘fathers’ for the purpose of birth registration. This article sheds light on the transformative potential of such procreative scenarios and the following legal claims for fatherhood. An argument is made that they invite essential reflections on what it means to be a father today and, in so doing, they prompt a (re)construction of legal fatherhood which includes care as a relevant, paternal parameter. By focusing on ongoing cases decided by English and German courts, however, this article shows that domestic courts’ understanding of fatherhood has essentially preserved its conventionally heteronormative, biological, and mediated nature. Yet, the game is still open and an application pending before the European Court of Human Rights may breathe fresh air into the debate.

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.

The Transformative Potential of a Vulnerability Focus in Basic Assistance Policies

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veronika Flegar
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Substantive Equality ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
Transformative Potential ◽  
Universal Human Rights ◽  
Economic Participation

The term 'vulnerability' is often used in law and policy to refer to disadvantaged, marginalized or excluded human beings. This book explores how a vulnerability focus in basic assistance policies can contribute to substantive equality and therefore to the realization of universal human rights in the migration context. It concentrates on the potential that such a vulnerability focus can have to mitigate stigmatization and stereotyping and to facilitate socio-economic participation.

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