7. Reform and challenges: the future of the United Nations

2015 ◽  
pp. 135-148
Author(s):  
Jussi M. Hanhimäki
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Human Security ◽  
International Support ◽  
Development Policies ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
To Come

The United Nations is structurally flawed and its operations are cumbersome. Despite being able to come up with excellent ideas, it often lacks the means of implementation. The UN is in need of reform, but reforming the system and obtaining world-wide international support are not new aims. ‘Reform and challenges: the future of the United Nations’ asks: how can this enormous institution that represents widely different interests from around the world be improved? How can its effectiveness be enhanced? In what ways can the UN's development policies be changed to improve the chances of success in the struggle against poverty? How can the UN safeguard both human security and human rights assertively?

The Future of Human Rights: A View from the United Nations

2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Gilmour
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
The Other ◽  
World Summit ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Peace And Development ◽  
Made In

Ever since the Charter of the United Nations was signed in 1945, human rights have constituted one of its three pillars, along with peace and development. As noted in a dictum coined during the World Summit of 2005: “There can be no peace without development, no development without peace, and neither without respect for human rights.” But while progress has been made in all three domains, it is with respect to human rights that the organization's performance has experienced some of its greatest shortcomings. Not coincidentally, the human rights pillar receives only a fraction of the resources enjoyed by the other two—a mere 3 percent of the general budget.

THE UNITED NATION’S ‘BEIRUT DECLARATION AND ITS 18 COMMITMENTS ON FAITH FOR RIGHTS’: A CRITIQUE FROM AN ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVE

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-112
Author(s):  
Fajri Matahati Muhammadin
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Islamic Perspective ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The United Nations

In March 2017, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN OHCHR) launched a “Faith for Rights” initiative. This initiative aims to gather the adherents of various religions around the world and show that they support human rights as part of their religion. This Faith for Rights initiative hosted a workshop in Beirut, which resulted in a document titled “the Beirut Declaration and the 18 Commitments on Faith for Rights” which is the centre of this article. Islam is one of the faiths claimed to be represented in this initiative. However, is Islam truly represented properly? Did this initiative properly accommodate Islamic teachings? First, this article notes that Islam does believe in human rights and has its own concept of it. Second, this article continues by examining the Beirut Declaration and its 18 Commitments on Faith for Rights and seeing whether the points agreed are consistent with Islamic principles. It is found that this document does not accommodate Islam properly. It is not suggested that Islam does not recognize human rights. However, the concept of human rights agreed by this document does not represent and even breaches the teachings of Islam. This article, therefore, recommends that Muslims should not accept “the Beirut Declaration and the 18 Commitments on Faith for Rights”, and instead they should accept the concept of human rights which are properly prescribed in the noble teachings of Islam. This article emphasizes that in the future, Muslim representatives to human rights initiatives must be weary and never agree on any declaration that might contravene any Islamic teachings or which could lead to such possibilities such as this.

scholarly journals The Carpets and Karma: the resilient story of the Tibetan people in two settlements in India and Nepal

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Venkat Rao Pulla ◽  
Kanchan Prasad Kharel
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Focus Groups ◽  
Work Ethic ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Philosophy Of Life ◽  
Carpet Industry ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The United Nations

This paper is about the Tibetan people in two settlements, mainly in Nepal and India. Tibetan ref-ugees started crossing the Himalayan range in April 1959, in the wake of the Dalai Lama’s flight into exile and landed mostly in Nepal and India. Tibetans around the world do not know their fu-ture nor do they appear unduly worried. Most of them appear resilient and hopeful to see a ‘free Tibet’ a dream closer to their hearts, someday in the future. In this paper, we delve at their deep association between their philosophy of life based on the principles of ‘karma’ and their everyday economic avocation of weaving ‘carpets’. We find that these people weave their lives around kar-ma and the carpets. Karma embodies their philosophical and spiritual outlook while carpets, mats and paintings symbolise their day-to-day struggles, enterprises to cope, survive, thrive and flour-ish. The ‘karma carpet’ symbolises their journey into the future. The Tibetans although a refugee group do not have the same rights and privileges comparable to other refugees living in the world decreed under the United Nations Conventions. In this paper, we present the socio-economic situ-ation of these refugees, their enterprise and their work ethic that makes them who they are in the Nepalese and in Indian societies. For this research, we have triangulated both desk studies and personal narratives from focus groups and interviews to present a discussion centred on the Ti-betan struggle for human rights and their entrepreneurship through the carpet industry mainly in Nepal and India.

The Politics of Proximity: The Italian Response to the Albanian Crisis

1998 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 203-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ted Perlmutter
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Popular Opinion ◽  
Italian Case ◽  
Humanitarian Mission ◽  
Neighboring Country ◽  
The Future ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
To Come ◽  
First Time

This article focuses on the apparent disjunction between the Italian reluctance to allow Albanians to come as refugees and Italy's enthusiastic leadership of the United Nations military-humanitarian mission. It explains the Italian response both in terms of Italian popular opinion regarding Albanians and Italy's concern for the impression on Europe that its politics would make. Italy's leadership of the mission represents the first time a medium-sized power has assisted a neighboring country with whom it has had deep historical connections. The conclusion argues that such proximate interventions are likely to increase in the future, and spells out the implications of the Italian case.

Part V Institutions and Actors, Ch.25 From Commission to the Council: Evolution of UN Charter Bodies

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kothari Miloon
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Periodic Review ◽  
Universal Periodic Review ◽  
Human Rights Council ◽  
The World ◽  
State Actors ◽  
The United Nations

This article examines the evolution of the United Nations� (UN) human rights agency from the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) into the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). It explains that UNHRC was created in March 2006 to replace the UNCHR and become the world�s premier human rights body. It evaluates the effectiveness of the UNHRC�s peer-review human rights mechanism called the Universal Periodic Review. This article also offers some suggestions on how to improve the performance of the UNHRC including changes in size and distribution of membership, membership criteria, voting patterns and participation of non-state actors.

The Missiological Significance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

2000 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugene Heideman
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Fiftieth Anniversary ◽  
Universal Declaration ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
The World ◽  
The United Nations

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations, 10 December 1948, is the international affirmation of faith in fundamental human rights. As the most widely officially adopted creed in the world, it is of great significance for persons engaged in cross-cultural and international missions. As we have recently recognized the fiftieth anniversary year of its adoption, missiologists must continue to struggle with issues it raises, such as the relation of Christian liberty to human rights, the relation of “rights” to “duties,” and the theological basis for a doctrine of human rights.

scholarly journals Article 1: Definition of a Child

2022 ◽  
pp. 407-412
Author(s):  
Gerison Lansdown ◽  
Ziba Vaghri
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Working Group ◽  
Human Being ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
To Come ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Polish Government

AbstractWhile all international human rights treaties apply to children, only the Convention explicitly elaborates who is defined as a child. Article 1 defines the child as a human being who is below the age of 18 years. Majority is set at age 18 unless, under domestic law, it is attained earlier. During the negotiations of the text of the Convention, there was significant debate regarding definitions of both the commencement and the ending of childhood. The initial text, proposed by the Polish Government, drawing on Principle 1 of the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child, 1959, provided no definition of childhood at all (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Rädda barnen (Society: Sweden), 2007, p. 301). However, government delegates on the Working Group immediately highlighted the need for clarification. The first revision of the text therefore proposed that a child is a human being from birth to the age of 18 years unless majority is attained earlier. However, with regard to the beginning of childhood, the Working Group were unable to come to a consensus. An unresolvable division persisted on whether childhood, in respect of the Convention, commenced from the point of conception, or from birth (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Rädda barnen (Society: Sweden), 2007, pp. 301–313). The conflict was ultimately resolved by removing any reference to the start of childhood.

Launching of the International Year of the World's Indigenous People *

1993 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 9-11
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
The World ◽  
Fundamental Freedoms ◽  
The United Nations

1993 has been declared the International Year of the World's Indigenous People (IYWIP) by the United Nations. The major objectives of the IYWIP are to increase international co-operation in finding solutions to the problems faced by the world's 300 million indigenous people and to promote and encourage respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms throughout the world.

Global Intersectionality and Contemporary Human Rights

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johanna Bond
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Intergovernmental Organization ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Intersectionality Theory ◽  
The World ◽  
The United Nations

The book enriches our understanding of international human rights by using intersectionality theory, the concept that aspects of identity, such as race and gender, are mutually constitutive and intersect to create unique experiences of discrimination and subordination, to examine contemporary human rights issues. Perpetrators of sexual violence in armed conflict, for example, often target victims based on both gender and ethnicity. Human rights remedies that fail to capture the intersectional nature of human rights violations do not offer comprehensive redress to victims. The book explores the influence of intersectionality theory on human rights in the modern era and traces the evolution of intersectionality as a theoretical framework in the United States and around the world. The book draws upon critical race feminism and human rights jurisprudence to argue that scholars and activists have under-utilized intersectionality theory in the global discourse of human rights. As the central intergovernmental organization charged with the protection of human rights, the United Nations has been slow to embrace the insights gained from intersectionality theory. Global Intersectionality argues that the United Nations and other human rights organizations must more actively embrace intersectionality as an analytical framework in order to fully address the complexity of human rights violations around the world.

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