The Responsibility of States

2019 ◽  
pp. 146-186
Author(s):  
Madison Powers
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Institutional Agents ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Supranational Institutions ◽  
Special Responsibility ◽  
Global Advantage ◽  
Moral Limits

This chapter explores the rationale for the special responsibility of nation-states to secure human rights and structural justice. It explains what makes states unique moral agents, in particular their responsibility to address structurally unjust conditions that give rise to human rights violations within their borders. However, it rejects prominent arguments for the conclusion that states have only a preventive and remedial role in the presence of domestic structural unfairness and human rights violations. The chapter defends the Principle of Interstate Reciprocity, which sets moral limits on the pursuit of national benefit, global advantage, and the exercise of power over others, and it concludes with an account of four unfair forms of control exercised by various supranational institutions, often in combination with powerful states and other non-state institutional agents.

Well-Being and Human Rights

2019 ◽  
pp. 116-145
Author(s):  
Madison Powers
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Institutional Agents ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Right ◽  
Crucial Part ◽  
Control Theories

This chapter demonstrates how the conception of well-being developed in this book is a crucial part of the rationale for human rights. A variant of interest-based theories of human rights is defended against a number of objections. These objections include criticisms raised by proponents of control theories, dignity-based theories, and critics who maintain that the function of human rights is not limited to considerations of how human rights matter to the right-holder. The argument builds on an account of the contingent, but widespread linkage between structural unfairness and human rights violations to defend a pragmatic approach to problems of assigning responsibility for human rights. It addresses the specification of counterpart duties that correlate with human rights claims, and it offers guidance on questions pertaining to the more general responsibilities of institutional agents, paradigmatically nation-states, for maintaining background conditions of structural fairness.

scholarly journals The work of transnational forensic medicine experts in colonised zones: the Palestinian case

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 17-33
Author(s):  
Suhad Daher-Nashif
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Forensic Medicine ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Archival Data ◽  
Post Mortem ◽  
Institutional Agents ◽  
Military Forces ◽  
Dead Bodies ◽  
Shed Light

This article aims to shed light on the post-mortem practices for Palestinian dead bodies when there is suspicion of human rights violations by Israeli military forces. By focusing on the case of Omran Abu Hamdieh from Al-Khalil (Hebron), the article explores the interactions between Palestinian social-institutional agents, Israeli military forces and international medico-legal agents. Drawing on ethnographic and archival data, the article explores how the intersectionality between the various controlling powers is inscribed over the Palestinian dead bodies and structures their death rites. The article claims that inviting foreign medico-legal experts in the Palestinian context could reveal the true death story and the human rights violations, but also reaffirms the sovereignty of the Israeli military forces over the Palestinian dead and lived bodies.

scholarly journals Silence as Complicity: Elements of a Corporate Duty to Speak Out Against the Violation of Human Rights

2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Wettstein
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Corporate Responsibility ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Duty To Protect ◽  
The Way

ABSTRACT:Increasingly, global businesses are confronted with the question of complicity in human rights violations committed by abusive host governments. This contribution specifically looks at silent complicity and the way it challenges conventional interpretations of corporate responsibility. Silent complicity implies that corporations have moral obligations that reach beyond the negative realm of doing no harm. Essentially, it implies that corporations have a moral responsibility to help protect human rights by putting pressure on perpetrating host governments involved in human rights abuses. This is a controversial claim, which this contribution proposes to analyze with a view to understanding and determining the underlying conditions that need to be met in order for moral agents to be said to have such responsibilities in the category of the duty to protect human rights.

scholarly journals International Security Presence in Kosovo and its Human Rights Implications

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (80) ◽  
pp. 131-154
Author(s):  
Remzije Istrefi
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Security ◽  
Peace Building ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Legal Implications

AbstractIn this article I will examine the powers and activities of NATO-led Kosovo forces (KFOR) and their impact on human rights protection in Kosovo. Through this examination, I seek to answer the following questions: which KFOR actions affected the human rights of Kosovars? Does KFOR carry out responsibilities and abide by the obligations normally imposed upon nation-states? And is there a solution available when the alleged violator is KFOR? KFOR is responsible for carrying out military tasks and for ‘shouldering’ UNMIK and local security forces in some civilian peace-building tasks. In the course of the exercise of its mandate, there were alleged complaints of human rights violations by KFOR. The legal implications of these alleged complaints against KFOR (in)actions will also be discussed.

Social representations of human rights violations: Further evidence

2001 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alain Clémence ◽  
Thierry Devos ◽  
Willem Doise
Keyword(s):  
Cluster Analysis ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Costa Rica ◽  
Young People ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Questionnaire Study ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
High Tolerance ◽  
Individual Actions

Social representations of human rights violations were investigated in a questionnaire study conducted in five countries (Costa Rica, France, Italy, Romania, and Switzerland) (N = 1239 young people). We were able to show that respondents organize their understanding of human rights violations in similar ways across nations. At the same time, systematic variations characterized opinions about human rights violations, and the structure of these variations was similar across national contexts. Differences in definitions of human rights violations were identified by a cluster analysis. A broader definition was related to critical attitudes toward governmental and institutional abuses of power, whereas a more restricted definition was rooted in a fatalistic conception of social reality, approval of social regulations, and greater tolerance for institutional infringements of privacy. An atypical definition was anchored either in a strong rejection of social regulations or in a strong condemnation of immoral individual actions linked with a high tolerance for governmental interference. These findings support the idea that contrasting definitions of human rights coexist and that these definitions are underpinned by a set of beliefs regarding the relationships between individuals and institutions.

American and Canadian Civil Actions Alleging Human Rights Violations Abroad by Oil and Gas Companies

2008 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 653 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Horlick ◽  
Joe Cyr ◽  
Scott Reynolds ◽  
Andrew Behrman
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
Forum Non Conveniens ◽  
The Government ◽  
Oil And Gas Companies ◽  
Political Question ◽  
The U.S

Under the United States Alien Tort Statute, which permits non-U.S. citizens to bring lawsuits in U.S. courts for human rights violations that are violations of the law of nations, plaintiffs have filed claims against multinational oil and gas corporations for the direct or complicit commission of such violations carried out by the government of the country in which the corporation operated. In addition to exercising jurisdiction over U.S. corporations, U.S. courts have exercised jurisdiction in cases involving non-U.S. defendants for alleged wrongful conduct against non-U.S. plaintiffs committed outside the U.S.The exercise of jurisdiction by U.S. courts over non-U.S. defendants for alleged wrongful conduct against non-U.S. plaintiffs committed outside of the U.S. raises serious questions as to the jurisdictional foundation on which the power of U.S. courts to adjudicate them rests. Defences that foreign defendants can raise against the exercise of jurisdiction by the U.S. courts are an objection to the extraterritorial assertion of jurisdiction, the act of state doctrine, the political question doctrine, forum non conveniens, and the principle of comity. These defences are bolstered by the support of the defendant’s home government and other governments.

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