Reinvigorating Human Rights for the Twenty-First Century

Human Rights Law ◽

Role Of Government ◽

Law And Politics ◽

International Human ◽

Human Rights Norms

The development of international human rights law ranks among the most significant accomplishments in international relations since 1945. However, the continuing success of human rights is not inevitable, and increasingly expansive calls for new rights or attempts to address all social problems from a human rights perspective may, ironically, undermine their legitimacy. This tendency is evidenced by the conflation of human rights with individual criminal responsibility; justification of the use of force based on appeals to protect human rights and promote democracy; marginalization of the role of government; the proliferation of new rights; and failure to appreciate the inherent flexibility of human rights norms. This chapter calls for returning to the notion of ‘human rights’ as international human rights law and maintaining the distinction between law and morality or law and politics. Recognizing that these concepts are created and enforced differently does not diminish any of them; rather, it reinforces the fact that social progress can only be achieved by appealing to law, politics, and morality, not by promoting human rights as a panacea that can remedy all wrongs.

Municipal Courts and the International Interpretive Principle: Al-Kateb v Godwin

University of New South Wales Law Journal ◽

10.53637/jfvk4689 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 43 (3) ◽

Author(s):

Michael Kirby

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Common Law ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

Global Problems ◽

The Common ◽

International Human ◽

Human Rights Norms ◽

Constitutional Adjudication

This article examines the decision in Al-Kateb v Godwin (2004) 219 CLR 562. It revisits the suggested ‘heresy‘ that international human rights law may influence the interpretation of the Australian Constitution and other legal texts. Accessing universal human rights law, including in constitutional adjudication, was endorsed in the Bangalore Principles on the Domestic Application of International Human Rights Norms 1988. The author suggests that interpreting statutory language in this way is not dissimilar to the common-law principle of interpreting statutes so as to uphold basic rights. But should an analogous approach be permissible in deciding the meaning of constitutional language? Although arguably invoked by the majority of the High Court in Mabo v Queensland [No 2] (1992) 175 CLR 1, in the context of declaring the common-law, so far this approach has not been accepted for constitutional elaboration in Australia. But should this be so in the age of global problems and internationalism?

8. Human rights in the postwar period

The Politics of International Law ◽

10.1093/hepl/9780198791201.003.0008 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 169-191

Author(s):

Nicole Scicluna

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Legal Framework ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

Legal Principles ◽

Law And Politics ◽

Late Twentieth ◽

International Human ◽

Late Twentieth Century

This chapter focuses on human rights, a perfect topic through which to study the interaction between law and politics in international relations. The topic of human rights offers a microcosm of the clashes and contradictions between realism and idealism, legal principles and political expediencies, state and non-state actors, and collective and individual rights, which characterize international order. The chapter defines human rights and outlines their international legal framework. The chapter then traces the postwar evolution of international human rights law (IHRL). It explains how, by the late twentieth century, the concept of human rights had captured the global imagination. It also explores the international political context in which the rise of human rights took place, including decolonization and the explosion in rights-based civil society activism in the 1970s. Finally, the chapter analyses the efficacy of IHRL in a world of sovereign states, before assessing the cultural relativist critique of human rights, which challenges their claim to universality, often from the perspective of postcolonial societies.

International Constitutional Law and Judicial Review of Domestic Human Rights Legislation

ICL Journal ◽

10.1515/icl-2018-0064 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 13 (2) ◽

pp. 87-118

Author(s):

Laura-Stella Enonchong

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

International Law ◽

Constitutional Law ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

Domestic Sphere ◽

Human Rights Regime ◽

International Human ◽

Human Rights Norms

Abstract This article discusses the idea of international human rights law as ‘constitutional law’. It applies the French concept of Le contrôle de conventionnalité des lois, to demonstrate the constitutional potentials of international human rights law in the domestic sphere. In most monist constitutional systems based on the French civilian model, international law takes precedence over acts of parliament and other domestic legislation. Due in part to that hierarchy, conventionnalité permits the courts to review domestic law for compatibility with international law. From that perspective, international human rights norms can be said to have assumed a ‘para-constitutional’ function. Using two case studies from francophone Africa, this article argues that conventionnalité has the potential to play a significant role in the domestic implementation of international human rights and ultimately contributing to a more comprehensive domestic human rights regime.

International Human Rights in Canada: At the Juncture of Law and Politics

International Journal of Legal Information ◽

10.1017/s0731126500011525 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 41 (1) ◽

pp. 1-15 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Faisal Bhabha

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Legal Status ◽

Access To Justice ◽

Supreme Court Of Canada ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

Law And Politics ◽

The Status ◽

International Human

Thank you for the opportunity to address the very timely topic of international human rights law from the Canadian perspective. As my title suggests, my analysis of this topic sits at the intersection of law and politics, as so much of international law necessarily does. I will proceed in three parts. First, I will provide a sketch of the political context, drawing from recent events and trends, to describe a conflicted official government approach to international human rights. Next, I will examine the formal legal status of international human rights law in Canada, drawing selectively from key Supreme Court of Canada decisions. This will be far from a comprehensive account. Finally, I will discuss the recent adoption of the newest international human rights treaty, the disability convention, and discuss calls to promote access to justice at the international level for breaches of Convention norms domestically. Notwithstanding important efforts to advance the status of international human rights law in Canada, my overall observation is that, in both law and politics, the Canadian approach to international human rights is predominantly inward looking.

International Human Rights Law and Practice in Latin America

International Organization ◽

10.1162/002081800551235 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 54 (3) ◽

pp. 633-659 ◽

Cited By ~ 134

Author(s):

Ellen L. Lutz ◽

Kathryn Sikkink

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Latin America ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

International Consensus ◽

State Compliance ◽

International Human ◽

Human Rights Norms ◽

The Right

Human rights practices have improved significantly throughout Latin America during the 1990s, but different degrees of legalization are not the main explanation for these changes. We examine state compliance with three primary norms of international human rights law: the prohibition against torture, the prohibition against disappearance, and the right to democratic governance. Although these norms vary in their degree of obligation, precision, and delegation, states have improved their practices in all three issue-areas. The least amount of change has occurred in the most highly legalized issue-area—the prohibition against torture. We argue that a broad regional norm shift—a “norms cascade”—has led to increased regional and international consensus with respect to an interconnected bundle of human rights norms, including the three discussed in this article. These norms are reinforced by diverse legal and political enforcement mechanisms that help to implement and ensure compliance with them.

The Paris Agreement as a Human Rights Treaty

Human Rights and 21st Century Challenges ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198824770.003.0016 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 323-347

Author(s):

John H Knox

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Human Rights ◽

Paris Agreement ◽

Environmental Harm ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

Previous Decade ◽

International Human ◽

Human Rights Norms

This chapter examines the Paris Agreement on climate change in light of international human rights law, with particular attention to the human rights language included in the Paris Agreement. The chapter reviews the efforts over the previous decade to characterize climate change as a threat to human rights; describes the evolution of human rights obligations relating to environmental harm in general and to climate change in particular; and assesses the new climate regime in light of these norms. It concludes that the Paris Agreement is consistent with the human rights obligations relating to climate change in many respects, but that states must strengthen their commitments in order to fulfil those obligations completely. Finally, the chapter examines how human rights norms may influence climate policy in the future.

The Human Rights of Minority Women: Romani Women's Rights from a Perspective on International Human Rights Law and Politics

International Journal on Minority and Group Rights ◽

10.1163/157181110x12595859744123 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 17 (1) ◽

pp. 1-45 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Camilla Ida Ravnbøl

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Minority Group ◽

Minority Women ◽

Humanitarian Law ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

Law And Politics ◽

New Findings ◽

International Human

AbstractThis article explores the complexities surrounding the human rights of minority women. With analytical focus on Romani women in Europe it seeks to contribute with new insight into the grey areas of rights issues, where groups within special rights categories share different human rights concerns, by being both women and members of a minority group. Through an investigation of how contemporary human rights law and politics serve to address the concerns of Romani women, it sheds light on the challenges that the Romani women's issue presents to the international human rights framework. These challenges go beyond the Romani issue only and into larger issues of women and minorities. It raises questions as to whether the historical separation between categories of gender and race/ethnicity within the international community in practice has become a gap that isolates Romani women from the human rights attention that they claim. It is argued that in order to strengthen the validity of human rights in the lives of Romani women, as a framework that ensures their full and equal protection, special attention needs to be given to interrelated grounds and forms of discrimination. “Intersectionality” is re-introduced as a concept to frame such new approaches to the human rights of Romani women. The article is a summary version of the thesis “The Human Rights of Minority Women: Challenging International Discourses with the Case of Romani Women”, for which the author was awarded the Martin Alexanderson Research Scholarship, administered by the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Lund, Sweden. This summary version brings forward the main arguments of the thesis which was an awarded EMA thesis 2006–2007 of the European University Institute in Venice. For this reason it does not present any new findings or data after 2007 but merely summarises the main chapters of the thesis. The thesis investigated the complexities surrounding Romani women's human rights at UN and European level. Thus, national systems and the regional systems in the Americas and Africa are excluded. The empirical data comes primarily from the European region.

Legalities Unbound?

Journal of Law Religion and State ◽

10.1163/22124810-00701004 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

pp. 57-88

Author(s):

Helge Årsheim

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Theory And Practice ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

International Courts ◽

International Human ◽

Human Rights Norms ◽

Domestic Level ◽

Monitoring Practice

International human rights law (ihrl) has traditionally enjoyed an uneasy relationship with customary, religious, and indigenous forms of law. International courts and tribunals have considered these non-state forms of law to represent both structural and material challenges to the implementation of human rights norms at the domestic level. Over the course of the last decades, however, the theory and practice of human rights has increasingly started recognizing and accommodating multiple legal orders. This article traces the gradually increasing accommodation of legal pluralism in ihrl in the monitoring practice of four un human rights committees over a period of 20 years, looking in particular at the increasing recognition of religious forms of legality across the committees.

Navigating Human Rights in a ‘Post-Human Rights’ Era

Asia Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law ◽

10.1163/15718158-21020001 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 21 (2) ◽

pp. 139-194

Author(s):

Rhona Smith ◽

Sean Molloy

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

United Nations ◽

Southeast Asian ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

State Compliance ◽

International Human ◽

Human Rights Norms ◽

The Relationship

Abstract International human rights law and mechanisms tasked with promoting state compliance with it are being increasingly challenged. Opposition is originating from, amongst others, countries that have historically supported the global human rights project. These new trends and sites of contestation bolster opposition from other countries and regions that have consistently diverged from international human rights norms. Examining the relationship between the United Nations human rights system and states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in this broader context of opposition to human rights, this article argues that existing theories on why states do, or ought to, comply with international human rights law are often inadequate to either explain or inspire state adherence to human rights norms. What is required, this article will argue, is not another theory but rather more targeted and incremental efforts to address the gap between rhetoric and compliance.

Weaponisation of the war on terror and the sidestepping of human rights norms: Seeking a balance between the terrorism (prevention) (amendment) act 2013 and Nigeria’s obligation under international human rights law

University of Cape Coast Law Journal ◽

10.47963/ucclj.v1i1.227 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 107-134

Author(s):

Olusola Babatunde Adegbite

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

War On Terror ◽

International System ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

International Human ◽

Human Rights Norms ◽

Democratic Norms ◽

Terrorism Prevention

In an era of escalation in terrorism and terrorist related criminalities, the international system continues to innovate on how best to contain its scourge, particularly within the confines of established democratic norms. As a response to Security Council resolution 1373 adopted on 28 September 2001, United Nations (UN) member states began to craft domestic counterterrorism legislations to criminalise terrorist activities on their home-soil, as well as extraterritorially. Responding as other nations, Nigeria enacted the Terrorism (Prevention) (Amendment) Act 2013. However, the Act and others like it, have thrown up troubling questions about weaponization of the war on terror, and the need to balance the war with the protection of human rights. This article examines the continued sidestepping of human rights norms in the war against terror. It presents this conflict within the context of Nigeria’s domestic counterterrorism law, highlighting some dangerous provisions in the Act which directly impugns on its obligation under International Human Rights Law (IHRL). It advocates an urgent review in the Act that will reflect the current mood of the UN human rights system, as well as the country’s obligation under IHRL