The Congo Free State, Atrocity Tales, and Human Rights History

2020 ◽  
pp. 9-37
Author(s):  
Derrick M. Nault
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
International System ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Free State ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
Congo Free State ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
Human Rights History

Chapter One, which explores the colonial roots of human rights, suggests that ideas resembling modern human rights first emerged in the 1890s in response to atrocities in the Congo Free State. It shows that as reports of horrific abuses of Africans under Belgian King Leopold II’s rule circulated worldwide, a shocked international community, using language and concepts resembling contemporary human rights discourses, was stirred to challenge violations of Africans’ rights, propose ways to prevent future infractions, and demand punishments for perpetrators of mass atrocities. While these nineteenth-century visions of human rights did not immediately lead to an international system of human rights protection, the chapter suggests that they nonetheless represented an important precedent for contemporary human rights norms and institutions.

scholarly journals Chinese Foreign Direct Investment and Human Rights in Kenya: A Mutually-Affirming Relationship?

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-154
Author(s):  
Rosemary Mwanza
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Foreign Direct Investment ◽  
Direct Investment ◽  
International Investment ◽  
Reciprocal Relationship ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
Investment Arbitration ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
Chinese Foreign Direct Investment

Does the increase in Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows into Kenya portend doom for human rights in the country? The prominent narrative has been that FDI undermines human rights in host states, especially those in the developing world. This narrative is countered by claims that there exists a mutually affirming relationship between FDI and human rights. Proponents of this view posit that FDI facilitates the diffusion of human rights norms and correlates with the improved rule of law in host states. They also point to emerging human rights jurisprudence in international investment arbitration as evidence of a reciprocal relationship between FDI and human rights. In light of these arguments, this paper analyses the extent to which such a reciprocal relationship bears out between Chinese FDI and human rights in Kenya. It will be demonstrated that given the lack of a framework for human rights accountability for corporations at the international level, the restrictive treatment of human rights in international investment arbitration tribunals and weak institutional capacity in host states, a positive overlap between FDI and human rights is hardly a panacea for human rights protection in Kenya. Therefore, a synergy of legal measures and non-legal measures provide a pragmatic approach to insulate human rights from violations that may be associated with Chinese FDIs.

Triage

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emilie M. Hafner-Burton
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Legal Reform ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
Effective Implementation ◽  
The Core ◽  
International Human ◽  
Core Idea ◽  
Human Rights Norms

This chapter advocates a process called “triage” for resource allocation that requires investing more heavily in areas where the evidence indicates that human rights promotion is most likely to work. It argues that the universality of human rights norms, which are the bedrock of the international human rights legal system and the core idea of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is not a tenable guide for the most effective implementation of human rights norms. It explains why human rights is a matter of national interest and how assessments of leverage impact human rights. It shows how triage can help stewards in the area of international legal reform and concludes by outlining steps that could transform the process through which government stewards work to protect human rights and increase the returns on international promotion efforts for human rights protection.

scholarly journals National Wisdoms and the ASEAN Human Rights Legal Regime

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 46
Author(s):  
Heribertus Jaka Triyana
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Disaster Management ◽  
Disaster Response ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
Legal Regime ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
Human Rights Based Approach

Recently, the discourse on the relation between local wisdom and human rights shows its relevance. This article describes and critically examines the human rights norms and procedures with regards to common local wisdoms to remedy and redress human rights problems in South East Asian countries. It takes an example of redressing problem in rights to development and also focuses on the application of the ASEAN agreement on Disaster Management Response to contextualize role and influence of local wisdoms to manage and to mitigate disaster response within the ASEAN human rights protection. This writing also highlights that human rights based approach is needed in the implementation of the ASEAN human rights norms and mechanisms in accordance to local wisdoms of respective countries where disaster occurs.

European Court of Human Rights

2003 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 309-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luzius Wildhaber
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
International System ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
European Court ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights ◽  
Evolutionary Interpretation

SummaryThe aim of the European Court of Human Rights is to bring about a situation in which individuals are able to get effective guarantees of their rights within their national legal systems. With this in mind, the author reviews some of the recent developments in cases before the court relating to evolutionary interpretation of the provisions of the convention, the role of the separation of powers in ensuring the protection of freedoms under the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and the notion of human dignity within the convention framework. The author also considers the growing case load before the court and the need for reform and concludes by pointing out that the European system is the most effective international system yet for securing human rights protection.

Africa and the Shaping of International Human Rights

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derrick M. Nault
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Political Dissent ◽  
International Human ◽  
Congo Free State ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
Human Rights History ◽  
Postcolonial History

Africa throughout its postcolonial history has been plagued by human rights abuses ranging from intolerance of political dissent to heinous crimes such as genocide. Some observers consequently have gone so far as to suggest that human rights are a concept alien to African cultures. The International Criminal Court (ICC)’s focus on Africa in recent years has reinforced the region’s reputation as a hotspot for human rights violations. But despite Africa’s notoriety concerning human rights, Africa and the Shaping of International Human Rights argues that the continent has been pivotal for helping shape contemporary human rights norms and practices. Challenging prevailing Eurocentric interpretations of human rights’ origins and evolution, it demonstrates that from the colonial era to the present Africa’s peoples have drawn attention to and prompted novel ways of thinking about human rights through their encounters with the world at large. Beginning with the depredations of King Leopold II in the Congo Free State in the 1880s and ending with the ICC’s current activities in Africa, it reveals how African events, personalities, groups, and nations have influenced the trajectory of human rights history in intriguing and critical ways, in the end enlarging and universalizing a major discourse of our time.

scholarly journals Human rights violation: Responsibility of international organizations or of their member states

2012 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 507-527
Author(s):  
Jelena Stojsic
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
International System ◽  
Member States ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
Indirect Control ◽  
European Court ◽  
International Instruments ◽  
Human Rights Violation

Although international organizations as subjects of international law are obliged to respect fundamental human rights in their acting, a very small number of them are contracting parties to international instruments for human rights protection, unlike their member states, which are contracting parties to many of them. As international organizations take more and more activities that can and often result in violation of human rights there is an obvious problem to what forum victims of those violations can turn to for determining responsibility of the international organization. The European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice have developed through their practices modalities for indirect control of acts of international organizations by controlling the acts of their member states, which result from their duties as members of those organizations. The paper assumes that such control is efficient and that it fills the void in the international system of determining responsibility for violation of human rights through acts of international organizations according to which, the states basically keep on being responsible for violation of human rights.

scholarly journals Constructing an Inadequate Human Rights Regime: Indonesia and the Deliberate Weakening of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights Authority

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darwis
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Stability Theory ◽  
Political Will ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
Hegemonic Stability

The establishment of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights in 2019 provided hopes for the advancement of human rights in Southeast Asia. As a region that puts forward the notions of consensus and non-sovereignty, concluding regional human rights norms is seen as a first step in solidifying human rights protection in the region. Unfortunately, since its establishment, the commission has failed to fulfill the expectations to implement protection-based regional norms in Southeast Asia, measured by their failure to effectively respond to systemic human rights abuses in the region. This article employs the Neoliberal Institutionalist’s view of Hegemonic Stability Theory (specifically to Robert Keohane) in analyzing how regional hegemons such as Indonesia, have deliberately directed the establishment of a weak human rights regime, in the form of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights, which is proven by; (1) The Commission’s deficiencies in human rights protection, and (2) Indonesia’s lack of political will in solidifying human rights regimes in Southeast Asia.

Reassessing Truth Commissions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bronwyn Leebaw
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
Quantitative Studies ◽  
Interesting Pattern ◽  
Human Rights Norms

Truth commissions are temporary institutions that are tasked with investigating patterns of political violence under a prior regime as part of a process of political change. In the past, truth commissions were generally seen as a “second best” alternative in contexts where prosecuting past abuses was deemed unrealistic. Today, they are regarded as important tools for pursuing a wide array of goals, from democratization and reconciliation to human rights protection and individual healing. Early scholarship on the development of truth commissions focused on comparative democratization and on typologies that could be used to predict various transitional justice outcomes. More recently, scholars in the field of international relations have undertaken qualitative and quantitative studies in hopes of understanding what is driving the development of truth commissions. However, opinions differ as to the causes, consequences, and moral implications of truth commissions. Some attribute the proliferation of truth commissions to the growing strength of human rights norms and advocacy, whereas others argue that they merely function to manage the balance of power in transitional contexts, or serve as a basis for advancing values such as justice, democracy, and peace. These debates seem to have only intensified as truth commission scholarship continues to grow. One interesting pattern is that a number of scholars, have questioned the effectiveness of truth commissions in satisfying their own claims to investigate the “truth” about past abuses.

Holes in the Rights Framework: Racial Discrimination, Citizenship, and the Rights of Noncitizens

2006 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
James A. Goldston
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Ethnic Origin ◽  
The Body ◽  
Citizenship Status ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
Legal Standards ◽  
Public Benefits ◽  
Human Rights Norms

In recent years, states have increasingly exploited their traditional discretion over matters of citizenship to carve out significant exceptions to the universality of human rights protection. This primarily occurs in two ways: through denial and deprivation of citizenship and through the imposition of illegitimate distinctions between citizens and noncitizens. The results of such actions may be physical expulsion, disenfranchisement, exclusion from access to public benefits, and acts of violence and discrimination. The potential for abuse is heightened for racial and ethnic minorities. Racial discrimination is a major cause of denationalization and restrictive access to citizenship. And citizenship status is often used as a proxy for racial grounds in justifying denial of other human rights. The treatment of noncitizens compellingly tests societies' commitments to the rule of law. This essay explores how human rights norms—particularly the body of law that forbids discrimination on grounds of racial or ethnic origin—can be deployed to combat the worst effects of citizenship denial and ill-treatment of non-citizens. It recommends that the problem be addressed through three principal activities: documentation and public education; clarification and distillation of legal standards related to citizenship; and enforcement of existing norms, including those prohibiting racial discrimination.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document