Global Intersectionality and Contemporary Human Rights

Author(s):  
Johanna Bond

The book enriches our understanding of international human rights by using intersectionality theory, the concept that aspects of identity, such as race and gender, are mutually constitutive and intersect to create unique experiences of discrimination and subordination, to examine contemporary human rights issues. Perpetrators of sexual violence in armed conflict, for example, often target victims based on both gender and ethnicity. Human rights remedies that fail to capture the intersectional nature of human rights violations do not offer comprehensive redress to victims. The book explores the influence of intersectionality theory on human rights in the modern era and traces the evolution of intersectionality as a theoretical framework in the United States and around the world. The book draws upon critical race feminism and human rights jurisprudence to argue that scholars and activists have under-utilized intersectionality theory in the global discourse of human rights. As the central intergovernmental organization charged with the protection of human rights, the United Nations has been slow to embrace the insights gained from intersectionality theory. Global Intersectionality argues that the United Nations and other human rights organizations must more actively embrace intersectionality as an analytical framework in order to fully address the complexity of human rights violations around the world.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Johanna Bond

Intersectionality theory posits that aspects of identity, such as race and gender, are mutually constitutive and intersect to create unique experiences of discrimination and subordination. Perpetrators of sexual violence in armed conflict, for example, often target women on the basis of both gender and ethnicity. When human rights actors intervene on behalf of those harmed by sexual violence in armed conflict, they must understand the intersectional complexity of those violations. Global Intersectionality and Contemporary Human Rights examines the influence of intersectionality theory on human rights law in the modern era and its evolution as a theoretical framework in the United States and around the world. This volume draws on feminist theory, critical race theory, and human rights jurisprudence to argue that scholars and activists have underutilized intersectionality theory in the global discourse of human rights. This chapter introduces readers to the book’s argument that the United Nations and other human rights organizations must do more to actively embrace intersectionality as an analytical framework for the promotion of human rights around the world.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Ilmiyanor

The issue of a Human Rights Violation against the Rohingya Ethnic Minority in Myanmar has captured the attention of the world public, including ASEAN and the United Nations itself has also participated in responding to the problem. This issue is about human rights violations in that scope and has something to do with the International Criminal Court.


2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Gilmour

Ever since the Charter of the United Nations was signed in 1945, human rights have constituted one of its three pillars, along with peace and development. As noted in a dictum coined during the World Summit of 2005: “There can be no peace without development, no development without peace, and neither without respect for human rights.” But while progress has been made in all three domains, it is with respect to human rights that the organization's performance has experienced some of its greatest shortcomings. Not coincidentally, the human rights pillar receives only a fraction of the resources enjoyed by the other two—a mere 3 percent of the general budget.


1982 ◽  
Vol 12 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 16-21
Author(s):  

Ethiopia is one of the oldest countries in the world. Except for a brief five year period of Italian occupation (1936-41), Ethiopia, in the span of its thousands of years of existence, was never conquered and administered by a foreign power. Therefore, the tradition of permanent emigration or seeking asylum in foreign countries is an alien concept to the Ethiopian people.Ancient and medieval Ethiopia is depicted as having existed in isolation from contemporaneous states and empires. This attribution of isolationism, compactly expressed by Edward Gibbon’s oft quoted statement that “the Ethiopians slept nearly a thousand years, forgetful of the world by whom they were forgotten,” is not at all borne by historical facts.


Author(s):  
Jan Wouters ◽  
Michal Ovádek

This chapter focuses on the relationship between international law, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and the EU. International law features with respect to the EU both as an object of the EU's internal fundamental rights regime and as a source of human rights obligations. Whereas the latter reflects the original conception of international human rights law, the former is capable of generating unease due to the scope for contravening the principle of supremacy of international law. Moreover, although the ECHR can, in principle, be regarded as international law, it is of special importance to the legal order of the EU and its Member States, in addition to representing the most developed regional regime of human rights protection in the world. The specific character of the EU as neither a typical international (intergovernmental) organization nor a state often complicates the relationship with international law further. Nonetheless, Article 3(5) TEU requires the EU to contribute, in its international relations, ‘to the protection of human rights as well as the strict observance and the development of international law, including the respect for the principles of the United Nations Charter’. The chapter then looks at other Council of Europe instruments and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD).


Author(s):  
Kothari Miloon

This article examines the evolution of the United Nations� (UN) human rights agency from the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) into the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). It explains that UNHRC was created in March 2006 to replace the UNCHR and become the world�s premier human rights body. It evaluates the effectiveness of the UNHRC�s peer-review human rights mechanism called the Universal Periodic Review. This article also offers some suggestions on how to improve the performance of the UNHRC including changes in size and distribution of membership, membership criteria, voting patterns and participation of non-state actors.


AJIL Unbound ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 113 ◽  
pp. 331-335
Author(s):  
Jimena Reyes

Until recently, the United Nations and regional systems of human rights protection had shown considerable reluctance to address human rights violations resulting from corruption. Instead, these actors would underline the negative impacts of corruption on human rights without identifying corruption itself as a violation of human rights. Since 2017, however, this has begun to shift. The UN, regional human rights institutions, and civil society have begun to devise concrete ways for human rights institutions and instruments to better contribute to the fight against corruption. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (“the Court”), in particular, has taken preliminary steps to establish a legal link between corruption and human rights violations.


2018 ◽  
Vol 112 (4) ◽  
pp. 745-751 ◽  

On June 19, 2018, the United States withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council. Announcing this decision, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley characterized the Council as “a protector of human rights abusers and a cesspool of political bias.” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo observed that while “the United States has no opposition in principle to multilateral bodies working to protect human rights,” nonetheless “when organizations undermine our national interests and our allies, we will not be complicit.” The withdrawal occurred one day after the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights criticized the United States in a speech at the Human Rights Council for its “unconscionable” practice of forcibly separating undocumented families entering the United States. In August, U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton stated that in addition to withdrawing from the Council, the United States would also reduce its assessed contribution to the United Nations by the amount that would ordinarily flow to the Human Rights Council and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.


2020 ◽  
pp. 097359842094343
Author(s):  
Anupama Ghosal ◽  
Sreeja Pal

The issue of Human Rights features as a prominent agenda of the United Nations and its related international organizations. However, when it comes to precise formulation of a country’s foreign policy in bilateral or multilateral forums, the issues of trade and national security find priority over pressing human rights violations occurring within the countries engaged in the diplomatic dialogue. An often-employed reason behind such an approach is the need to respect sovereignty and non-interference of a country in diplomacy. This article aims at analysing the potential which diplomacy holds to pressurize recalcitrant regimes to respect human rights. In doing so, the article tries to explore the ambit of Human Rights Diplomacy and the relationship between agenda of politics and human rights.


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