The Human Right to Land, for Peasants and for All: Tracing the Social Function of Property to 1948

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-452
Author(s):  
Corina Heri
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Function ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Present Contribution ◽  
Collective Ownership ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Right ◽  
Implementation Gaps ◽  
Made In

ABSTRACT In 1948, Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) pioneered a right to (individual and collective) ownership of property. Today, the right to property—specifically the social function of property, which was a mainstay of the discussions—can be linked to the idea of a human right to land, which has been particularly prevalent in the discourse concerning the creation of human rights protections specific to peasants. The peasant rights process highlights a number of normative and implementation gaps in international human rights law, including relating to land use and tenure. The present contribution will argue that the claims made in this context are neither new nor niche but relate to universal human rights entitlements and have existed at least since the drafting of the UDHR. They are not only an iteration of an age-old class struggle but are at the forefront of a contemporary critique of the existing international legal system as a whole. While existing human rights, including the right to property, can be part of a response to these critiques, however, neither peasant rights nor the activists who promote them can be expected to resolve them alone.

scholarly journals Indigenous Education and Human Rights

2007 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 425-453 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noam Schimmel
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Indigenous Education ◽  
Cultural Continuity ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
The Social ◽  
Majority Culture ◽  
Educational Programmes ◽  
The Right

AbstractThe right to an education that is consonant with and draws upon the culture and language of indigenous peoples is a human right which is too often overlooked by governments when they develop and implement programmes whose purported goals are to improve the social, economic and political status of these peoples. Educational programmes for indigenous peoples must fully respect and integrate human rights protections, particularly rights to cultural continuity and integrity. Racist attitudes dominate many government development programmes aimed at indigenous peoples. Educational programmes for indigenous peoples are often designed to forcibly assimilate them and destroy the uniqueness of their language, values, culture and relationship with their native lands. Until indigenous peoples are empowered to develop educational programmes for their own communities that reflect and promote their values and culture, their human rights are likely to remain threatened by governments that use education as a political mechanism for coercing indigenous peoples to adapt to a majority culture that does not recognize their rights, and that seeks to destroy their ability to sustain and pass on to future generations their language and culture.

The Human Right to Science and Its Relationship to International Environmental Law

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 625-656
Author(s):  
Anna-Maria Hubert
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Right ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Environmental Regimes ◽  
The Right

Abstract This article explores the potential contribution of international human rights law – specifically, the oft-neglected ‘right to science’ – to the interpretation, operation and progressive development of international environmental law. Science and its applications play a critical role in environmental protection. At the same time, society faces persistent controversies at this interface. Environmental regimes may lack sufficient norms and tools for regulating upstream science and innovation processes because they tend to focus narrowly on physical harms to the environment and may not address the wider ethical, legal, social and political concerns. The human right to science, which is codified in various international and regional human rights instruments, may serve to augment international environmental law and contribute to more effective, equitable and democratically legitimate and accountable processes and outcomes in relation to the application of science and technology in environmental regimes. The article begins by outlining the scope and contents of, as well as the limitations on, the right to science, focusing on Article 15(1)(b) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and its overlaps with the norms of international environmental law.1 It then analyses the ways in which the right to science may influence the development of international environmental law by elucidating mechanisms for the integration of a human rights perspective in science and technology and by outlining its potential substantive contributions to the development of international environmental law.

scholarly journals THE RIGHT TO VOTE FOR NON-RESIDENT CITIZENS IN EUROPE

2016 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 859-894 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Lappin
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Right ◽  
European Court ◽  
Civil And Political Rights ◽  
Right To Vote ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Right

AbstractThe right to vote is the most important political right in international human rights law. Framed within the broader right of political participation, it is the only right in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights not guaranteed as a universal human right but rather as a citizen's right. While limitations on the right to vote are permissible in respect of citizenship and age, residency-based restrictions are not explicitly provided. However, recent judgments of the European Court of Human Rights endorse a view that voting rights may be conditioned on residency on the grounds of an individual's bond to their country-of-origin and the extent to which laws passed by that government would affect them. This article questions this proposition and explores whether disenfranchisement based solely on residency constitutes an unreasonable and discriminatory restriction to the essence of the right.

scholarly journals Participación inclusiva en los museos a favor de las personas con discapacidad

2019 ◽  
pp. 90-99
Author(s):  
Julio Meza Díaz
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Function ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Derechos Humanos ◽  
Palabras Clave ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Right ◽  
Culture Development

El presente artículo trata sobre la función social del museo y sus acciones a favor de los derechos igualitarios de las personas con discapacidad, dentro de lo establecido por la Convención Sobre los Derechos de las Personas con Discapacidad (CDPD). Los museos pueden efectivizar los derechos contenidos en el artículo 30 de la CDPD, es decir, el derecho a la accesibilidad a la cultura y a la posibilidad del desarrollo de una agencia artística.  Palabras clave: museos, discapacidad, derechos humanos, accesibilidad a la cultura, desarrollo de la agencia en el campo de la cultura.   AbstractThis paper deals with the social function of the museum and its actions in favor of the equal rights of persons with disabilities, within the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CDPD). Museums can make effective the rights contained in article 30 of the CRPD, that is, the right to access to the culture and the right to the possibility to develop an artistic agency. Keywords: museums, disability, human rights, accessibility to culture, development of the agency in the field of culture.

scholarly journals The Right of Self-Determination: Its Emergence, Development, and Controversy

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Munafrizal Manan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Right ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
International Human ◽  
The Right ◽  
Right Of Self Determination

This paper discusses the right of self-determinationfrom  international  law  and international human rights law perspective. It traces the emergence and development of self-determination from political principle to human right. It also explores the controversy of the right of self-determination. There have been different and even contradictory interpretations of the right of self-determination. Besides, there is no consensus on the mechanism to apply the right of self-determination. Both international law and international human rights law are vague about this.

The Limits of Law

2020 ◽  
pp. 109-130
Author(s):  
Michelle Jurkovich
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Right ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Right To Food ◽  
International Human ◽  
The Right

This chapter considers the puzzling role of international law around the right to food and examines why the existing law has been unable to generate norms within the advocacy community. It explores the reasons why international anti-hunger organizations rarely legitimate the right to food in legal terms and how this case can challenge the understanding of the relationships between norms, human rights, and law. It also provides a conceptual discussion of the distinction between formal law and norms, underscoring the importance of not conflating the two concepts. The chapter argues that many international anti-hunger organizations still do not conceptualize food as a human right, making international human rights law less relevant. It looks at the hunger case that suggests there is nothing automatic about law generating norms among activists or society at large.

Pre-Conviction Detention before the International Criminal Court: Compliance or Fragmentation?

2010 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 295-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergey Golubok
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Criminal Proceedings ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Personal Liberty ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
The Right

AbstractThis article analyses nascent case law of the International Criminal Court on provisional detention at the investigation stage and in the course of trial (together referred to as “pre-conviction detention”) vis-à-vis the standards developed in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, being a reflection of “internationally recognized human rights” to which the ICC, according to its Statute, must adhere. At least several instances of presumed inconsistencies are detected. It is argued that international criminal tribunals should above all comply with standards set by international human rights law for domestic criminal proceedings, in particular when the most fundamental and basic human right ‐ the right to personal liberty ‐ is affected. Failure to comply entails a serious risk of hazardous fragmentation.

The Right to Read

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lea Shaver
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Reading Material ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Right ◽  
Right To Read

Reading – for education and for pleasure – may be framed as a personal indulgence, a moral virtue, or even a civic duty. What are the implications of framing reading as a human right? Although novel, the rights-based frame finds strong support in international human rights law. The right to read need not be defended as a “new” human right. Rather, it can be located at the intersection of more familiar guarantees. Well-established rights to education, science, culture, and freedom of expression, among others, provide the necessary normative support for recognizing a universal right to read as already implicit in international law. This Article is the first to call for recognition of a right to read. Once recognized in principle, it remains necessary to translate the right to read from a vague ideal into concrete content. As a starting point, the right to read requires that every person be entitled to education for literacy and the liberty to freely choose the reading material they prefer. The right to read also means that everyone must have access to an adequate supply of reading material. Law and policy must be designed to ensure that books, ebooks, and other reading materials are made widely available and affordable – even to the poor and to speakers of minority languages. Reframing reading as a human right ultimately points to a reorientation of copyright law, as well as obligations upon publishers and technology companies to facilitate access for readers of all income levels and in every language. The conceptual elaboration of the right to read also holds lessons for rights theorists and advocates, as an illustration of an “intersectional” approach to human rights scholarship and advocacy.

scholarly journals Resisting Biopolitics

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ville Suuronen
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The Social ◽  
Technological Intervention ◽  
The Right

Hannah Arendt’s support for the “right to have rights” arises as a critical response to the modern biopolitical human condition. While Arendt’s reflections on human rights have received broad recognition, the question concerning the economic preconditions of citizenship in her work remains an unduly neglected subject. This article takes up this issue and argues that, for Arendt, the fulfillment of basic social rights is the sine qua non without which the fulfillment of political rights is impossible. Thinking with and against Arendt, I show that her famous distinction between the private, the social, and the political can be fruitfully reinterpreted as an argument for basic income. When Arendt’s reflections on human rights are read in the light of her ideas concerning technology and automation, she no longer appears as a theorist who ignores social justice, but as a thinker who seeks to counter the modern biopolitical human condition and open up new realms for democratic political action. Instead of ignoring social questions, Arendt argues that with the help of technology, we can strive to politicize fundamental social questions in a way that they would achieve a self-evident stature as human rights, and as fundamental human rights, rise above political debate, even though we would remain conscious of their political origins. Arendt does not simply exclude “the social questions” from politics but argues that this is what all technologically developed societies can strive to do. In Arendt’s futuristic vision, the private life of citizens will be politicized through technological intervention: ancient slaves will be replaced by machines. By comparing Arendt with Foucault and Agamben, I maintain that a critical reading of her work can provide us with a pathway toward understanding the right to life’s basic necessities, to zoe, as a future human right.

Human Rights and the Commons: Exploring Approaches to the Governance of Land and Natural Resources beyond Indigenous Peoples’ Rights. The Case of Peasants

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-33
Author(s):  
Stefania Errico ◽  
Priscilla Claeys
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Rural Workers ◽  
The Commons ◽  
The Right

Abstract Worldwide, 2.5 billion people today depend on lands managed through customary, community-based tenure systems. Although land and natural resources are recognised as essential elements for the realisation of many human rights, international human rights law does not recognise a human right to land, except for indigenous peoples. With the recent adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and other people working in rural areas (undrop), the right to land is now recognised for new categories of rural workers. This article explores the governance of land and natural resources beyond the case of indigenous peoples’ rights. It argues that undrop contains key and mutually reinforcing elements of the human rights and collective action approaches to the governance of land and natural resources, and therefore has the potential to ensure the social and environmental ‘viability’ of the commons.

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