Selective Sovereignty and the Refugee Regime

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Lamis Elmy Abdelaaty
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Central Question ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
State Responses

This introductory chapter lays out the book’s central question: why do states sometimes assert, and at other times cede, their sovereign prerogatives in the face of refugee flows? The overview of refugee rights around the world presented in the chapter reveals two puzzling trends: governments treat some refugees well and others poorly (the “discrimination puzzle”), and governments often hand over asylum policymaking to the UN (the “delegation puzzle”). These patterns complicate a conventional wisdom that pits state sovereignty against human rights. This chapter’s discussion sets the stage for subsequent chapters by establishing the present-day significance of state responses to refugees, the prevalence of discrimination and delegation, and the inadequacy of existing explanations for these phenomena.

Discrimination and Delegation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lamis Elmy Abdelaaty
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
Second Stage ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Stage ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Successive Step ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
State Responses

What explains state responses to the refugees they receive? This book identifies two puzzling patterns: states open their borders to some refugee groups while blocking others (discrimination), and a number of countries have given the United Nations (UN) control of asylum procedures and refugee camps on their territory (delegation). To explain this selective exercise of sovereignty, the book develops a two-part theoretical framework in which policymakers in refugee-receiving countries weigh international and domestic concerns. Internationally, leaders use refugees to reassure allies and exert pressure on rivals. Domestically, policymakers have incentives to favor those refugee groups with whom they share an ethnic identity. When these international and domestic incentives conflict, shifting responsibility to the UN allows policymakers to placate both refugee-sending countries and domestic constituencies. The book then carries out a “three-stage, multi-level” research design in which each successive step corroborates and elaborates the findings of the preceding stage. The first stage involves statistical analysis of asylum admissions worldwide. The second stage presents two country case studies: Egypt (a country that is broadly representative of most refugee recipients) and Turkey (an outlier that has limited the geographic application of the Refugee Convention). The third stage zooms in on sub- or within-country dynamics in Kenya (home to one of the largest refugee populations in the world) through content analysis of parliamentary proceedings. Studying state responses to refugees is instructive because it can help explain why states sometimes assert, and at other times cede, their sovereignty in the face of refugee rights.

scholarly journals THE STATE'S RESPONSIBILITY IN THE WELFARE OF PEOPLE AND ECONOMIC RECOVERY IN THE FACE OF COVID-19 FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF LAW AND HUMAN RIGHTS

1970 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-198
Author(s):  
Serlika Aprita ◽  
Lilies Anisah
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Government Regulation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Problem Solver ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Government ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Impact

The Covid-19 pandemic was taking place in almost all countries around the world. Along with the increasingly vigorous government strategy in tackling the spread of the corona virus that was still endemic until now, the government had started to enforce the Large-Scale Social Restrictions (PSBB) with the signing of Government Regulation (PP) No. 21 of 2020 about PSBB which was considered able to accelerate countermeasures while preventing the spread of corona that was increasingly widespread in Indonesia. The research method used was normative prescriptive. The government put forward the principle of the state as a problem solver. The government minimized the use of region errors as legitimacy to decentralization. The government should facilitated regional best practices in handling the pandemic. Thus, the pandemic can be handled more effectively. The consideration, the region had special needs which were not always accommodated in national policies. The government policy should be able to encourage the birth of regional innovations in handling the pandemic as a form of fulfilling human rights in the field of health. Innovation was useful in getting around the limitations and differences in the context of each region. In principle, decentralization required positive incentives, not penalties. Therefore, incentive-based central policies were more awaited in handling and minimizing the impact of the pandemic.    

Human Rights and the State

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonia Cardenas
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Relations ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
National Human ◽  
The World ◽  
New Institutions ◽  
Human Rights Standards ◽  
National Human Rights Institutions

The modern state’s role vis-à-vis human rights has always been ambiguous. States are the basic guarantors of human rights protections, just as they can be brutal violators of human rights. This basic tension is rooted in the very notion of statehood, and it pervades much of the literature on human rights. As the central organizing principle in international relations, state sovereignty would seem to be antithetical to human rights. Sovereignty, after all, is ultimately about having the last word; it is virtually synonymous with the principle of territorial non-interference. Meanwhile, humanitarian intervention would at first glance seem to be a contravention of state sovereignty. Yet not all observers interpret human rights pressures as a challenge to state sovereignty. Modern states can be highly adaptive, no less so when confronted with human rights demands. One of the principal, if overlooked, ways in which states have adapted to rising global human rights pressures is by creating new institutions. This is reflected in the formation of national human rights institutions (NHRIs): permanent state bodies created to promote and protect human rights domestically. These state institutions are remarkable due to their rapid and widespread proliferation around the world, the extent to which they sometimes represent a strategy of appeasement but nonetheless can be consequential, and their potential for domesticating international human rights standards.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
pp. 145-156
Author(s):  
Carl Lindskoog
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
September 11 ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Immigration Detention ◽  
Freedom Of Movement ◽  
The World ◽  
Universal Human Rights

The conclusion examines the United States’ detention practices in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the global spread of immigration detention that saw countries around the world constructing their own detention regimes from the United States’ model. It then conducts a brief examination of the problem that emerges at the intersection of state sovereignty and universal human rights; it closes with a survey of the contemporary movement against immigration detention, asking what future there might be for a world in which liberty and freedom of movement are treated as inalienable human rights.

scholarly journals Electoral Governance and Human Rights Amid Pandemics in Africa: Key lessons from the Early COVID-19 Experience

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Mansha Mohee
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Initial State ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Infectious Disease Outbreaks ◽  
The Face ◽  
State Responses

Abstract Over 25 African countries had planned elections for 2020. In the face of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March, states resorted to one of two courses of action: adherence to planned electoral timelines in the shadow of the outbreak, which largely led to record low voter turnouts and hastened the spread of the virus; or adjourning elections with ill-defined election programming, constitutional tensions and unrest over delayed polls. The global health crisis not only frustrated the organization of the electoral process but set severe challenges to democracy, the rule of law and human rights in the region at a time of landmark elections, notably in Ethiopia, Burundi and Malawi. This article analyses initial state responses in electoral administration in light of international electoral norms, and interrogates the role of national and regional mechanisms in securing safe, inclusive, timely, free and fair elections amid new infectious disease outbreaks.

State of Play and the Road Ahead

2020 ◽  
pp. 213-221
Author(s):  
Margot E Salomon
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Democratic Deficit ◽  
The Road ◽  
World Today ◽  
Poverty And Inequality ◽  
The World ◽  
Key Features

This introductory chapter draws from, and builds on, the three chapters on human rights and poverty in this edited volume. It explores those contributions with an eye to what they advocate and as a basis for exposing obstacles to bringing human rights to bear on poverty and material inequality. Three key features that characterize the world today are addressed: a multilevel democratic deficit, a harmful commitment to growth, and a categorical absence of accountability for the state of poverty and inequality. This chapter reflects on the state of play and the road ahead and concludes by, querying whether international law in fact values people living in poverty and the limits of the human rights project in seeking to ensure that that it does.

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.

Warum moralisch sein?

2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-280
Author(s):  
Regina Kreide ◽  
Tilo Wesche
Keyword(s):  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Blind Spot ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Open Future ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Explosive Power ◽  
Moral Learning ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of

Abstract In his latest book, Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie, Jürgen Habermas attempts nothing less than a reconceptualisation of the history of human reason. Why, according to the central question that runs through the book like a red thread, can we, in the face of all social adversities and psychological obstacles, still be morally motivated to stand up for overcoming injustice in the world? This almost classic question about what I can hope for undoubtedly bears Kantian traits. And yet Habermas clearly goes beyond Kant. We argue that this becomes visible, first, in his post-metaphysical conception of motivation, which links individual and collective moral learning processes. The enormous explosive power of this conception comes into its own, secondly, especially against the background of some additional assumptions (trust, grief, open future). Nevertheless, thirdly, the question arises to what extent the Habermasian narrative of progress does not have a blind spot because it is in some sense not dialectical enough. The negative side of reason, which Adorno and Benjamin emphasised, are not included in the progress narrative, or only indirectly, which makes the conception of moral motivation seem weaker than it ought to be.

scholarly journals A (r)evolução do conceito de soberania estatal e a efetividade do princípio da dignidade da pessoa humana

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (41) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniela Menengoti Ribeiro ◽  
Simone Fogliatto Flores
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
De Se ◽  
The Face

RESUMOO presente artigo investiga a (r)evolução do conceito de soberania estatal em face da supremacia do princípio da dignidade da pessoa humana nas relações internacionais. Enfoca a relativização que a soberania dos Estados Nacionais vem sofrendo ante o caráter prioritário atualmente conferido ao princípio da dignidade da pessoa nas relações internacionais. A mundialização da justiça exige uma reestruturação da sociedade internacional que, na luta pela preservação dos direitos humanos, põe em xeque a manutenção da rigidez do Direito que os Estados possuem de se autodeterminar e de não sofrer intervenção de outros Estados ou organizações internacionais. O atual cenário internacional, com prioridade na defesa dos direitos humanos, não mais admite violações ao princípio da dignidade da pessoa, assistidas passivamente pela sociedade internacional. A origem e a (r)evolução histórica do conceito de soberania, assim como o fortalecimento do princípio da dignidade humana instigam a presente pesquisa. Assim, diante deste cenário mundial, exsurge o problema a ser debatido no artigo. O trabalho adota o método de abordagem dedutivo, e as pesquisas bibliográfica e documental como método de procedimento.PALAVRAS-CHAVEDireitos Humanos. Soberania. Dignidade Humana. Efetividade. ABSTRACTThis article investigates the (r)evolution of the concept of state sovereignty in the face of the supremacy of the principle of the dignity of the human in international relations. It focuses on the relativization that the sovereignty of the National States has suffered in the face of the priority given to the principle of the dignity of the human person in international relations. The globalization of justice requires a restructuring of the international society which, in the struggle for the preservation of human rights, puts in check the maintenance of the rigidity of the law that the states have of self-determination and of not being subject to intervention of other States or international organizations. The current international scenario, with priority in the defense of human rights, no longer admits violations of the principle of the dignity of the human being, passively assisted by international society. The origin and historical (r)evolution of the concept of sovereignty, as well as the fortification of the principle of human dignity instigate the present research. Thus, in light of this world scenario, the problem to be debated in the article excludes. The work adopts the method of deductive approach, and bibliographical and documentary research as method of procedure.KEYWORDSHuman Rights. Sovereignty. Human Dignity. Effectiveness.

Human Rights in the Seventy-Fifth Year of the UN

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-338
Author(s):  
Bertrand Ramcharan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Institutional Ethics ◽  
Human Predicament ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
The Right

AbstractAs part of the special issue on “The United Nations at Seventy-Five: Looking Back to Look Forward,” this essay looks at the UN's human rights efforts through the lens of the ethics of survival, normative ethics, the ethics of protection, institutional ethics, and the ethics of the human predicament in the face of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The essay finds that while the consecration of the right to life has made a contribution to the ethics of human survival, the overall impact of the human rights program has been marginal. Normative ethics shows the UN performing magisterially in drafting and adopting a body of international norms for the universal protection of human rights. However, when it comes to the ethics of protection, the UN performs poorly because of the numerous oppressive governments that control the world body. On the ethics of the human predicament, this essay finds that SDG 16, which is devoted to development, peace, justice, and strong institutions, has so far had little practical impact. Gross violations of human rights continue to take place in numerous parts of the world.

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