Islamic Law and Human Rights

Author(s):  
Shannon Dunn

This article explores the question of whether Islamic law and universal human rights are compatible. It begins with an overview of human rights discourse after the Second World War before discussing Islamic human rights declarations and the claims of Muslim apologists regarding human rights, along with challenges to Muslim apologetics in human rights discourse. It then considers the issues of gender and gender equality, feminism, and freedom of religion in relation to human rights. It also examines four basic scholarly orientations to the topic of Islam and human rights since the end of the Second World War: a model that privileges a secular (non-religious) paradigm for rights; a Muslim apologist model, which privileges a purely “Islamic” conception of rights over secular models; a Marxist/postcolonial critique of rights as a western imposition of power; and a Muslim reformist paradigm of rights that highlights points of continuity between western legal and Muslim legal traditions.

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTOPHER MOORES

AbstractThis article discusses British civil liberties organisations hoping to engage in a broader human rights politics during and immediately after the Second World War. It argues that various movements and organisations from sections of the British Left attempted to articulate a human rights politics which incorporated political, civil, social and economic rights during the 1940s and early 1950s. However, organisations were unable to express this and mobilise accordingly. This reflected the collapse of the popular-front-style alliances forged in the 1930s and the difficulties in articulating political positions distinct from the ideological polarisation that emerged with the onset of the Cold War.


Politeja ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2(71)) ◽  
pp. 67-77
Author(s):  
Ildus Yarulin ◽  
Evgeny Pozdnyakov

One of the issues constantly discussed in the context of human rights is their assessment as universal or relative. International human rights norms are universal, which corresponds to the nature of human rights. The process of universalization of human rights began after the second world war with the creation of the United Nations, whose Charter declared its determination to reaffirm faith in the fundamental rights of the individual, in the equality of men and women and in the equality of nations large and small. These intentions of the organization were confirmed by the adoption of universal documents: the International Bill of Human Rights, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, the International Covenants on Human Rights, opened for signature on December 16, 1966, and other acts. However, the problem lies in the fact that human rights recognized at the international level as universal and enshrined in international instruments, which must be respected by all and everywhere, lose the signs and qualities of universality under the influence of various socio-cultural, national traditions and customs, religious and other factors, and acquire the meaning or status of relative ones.


1995 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 227-229 ◽  

In the twentieth century, and particularly under the influence of the Second World War, the international community, in the interests of normal relations, has considered it necessary to agree on certain fundamental principles, such as the observance of universal human rights, the right of nations to self-determination, the equality of the rights of big and small nations, impermissibility of aggression, and liberation from the yoke of colonialism. These principles are written in international conventions, the UN charter and several of its resolutions, and recognized by the majority of states.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002085232098559
Author(s):  
Céline Mavrot

This article analyses the emergence of administrative science in France in the wake of the Second World War. The birth of this discipline is examined through the history of its founders, a group of comparatist aiming at developing universal administrative principles. The post-war context prompted the creation of checks and balances against administrative power (through oversight of the legality of administrative action) and against the powers of nation states (through human rights and international organizations). Administrative science and comparative law were meant to rebuild international relations. The history of this discipline highlights a legal project to redefine the role and limits of executive power at the dawn of the construction of a new world order. Points for practitioners Looking at long-term developments in the science of administration helps to inform administrative practice by providing a historical and reflective perspective. This article shows how a new understanding of the administrative reality emerged after the fall of the totalitarian regimes of the first half of the 20th century. It highlights the different ways in which administrative power was controlled after the Second World War through greater oversight over administrative legality, the establishment of universal administrative principles and the proclamation of human rights. Questions of administrative legitimacy and the limitation of administrative power are still very much part of the daily practice of executive power, and represent a central aspect of administrative thinking.


Author(s):  
Михаил Елизаров

Born out of the ashes of the Second World War, the United Nations has made a major contribution to maintain international peace and security. Based on common goals, shared burdens and expenses, responsibility and accountability, the UN helped to reduce the risk of a repetition of a Word War, to reduce hunger and poverty, and promote human rights. But today, the legitimacy and credibility of the UN have been seriously undermined by the desire of some countries to act alone, abandoning multilateralism. So, do we need the UN today?


2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Piet J. Strauss

After the Second World War, there was a universal rise and greater acknowledgement of human rights, which entered churches and ecumenical organisations’ way of thinking. Human rights influenced the church’s understanding of justice and human dignity both internally and externally. The concept of human dignity came from the biblical believe that man is created in the image of God. In South Africa human rights were also increasingly recognised and respected. A charter of human rights was included as chapter 2 of the 1996 Constitution and churches regard human dignity as a central tenet of their approach to members and non-members. Differences between church and state on the issue have arisen as the result of differences on the freedom of religion. Church and state in South Africa can complement each other in the promotion of human dignity.Opsomming: Kerk en staat in Suid-Afrika en menseregte. Na die Tweede Wêreldoorlog is menseregte wêreldwyd erken en aanvaar. Dit was ook die geval in kerke en ekumeniese organisasies. Menseregte het kerke se siening van geregtigheid en menswaardigheid in hulle interne sowel as eksterne optrede beïnvloed. Die begrip menswaardigheid het ontstaan uit die bybelse oortuiging dat die mens na die beeld van God geskape is. In Suid-Afrika is menseregte ook toenemend erken en aanvaar. ’n Verklaring van menseregte is as hoofstuk 2 in die 1996-grondwet ingesluit en kerke beskou menswaardigheid as toonaangewend in hulle benadering van mense binne en buite die kerk. Verskille tussen die kerk en die staat in Suid-Afrika oor menseregte het ontstaan as gevolg van verskille oor die inhoud van die vryheid van godsdiens. Teen hierdie agtergrond kan kerk en staat mekaar egter aanvul in die bevordering van menseregte.


2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-407 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaheen Sardar Ali

AbstractThis socio-legal narrative investigates the journey from “biological” to “societal” filiation undertaken by Islamic and international law regimes in their endeavors to ensure a child's right to name and identity. Combining a discussion of filiation—a status-assigning process—with adoption and kafāla (fostering) as status-transferring mechanisms, it highlights a nuanced hierarchy relating to these processes within Muslim communities and Muslim state practices. It questions whether evolving conceptions of a child's rights to name and identity represent a paradigm shift from “no status” if born out of wedlock toward “full status” offered through national and international law and Muslim state and community practices. The article challenges the dominant (formal, legal) position within the Islamic legal traditions that nasab (filiation) is obtainable through marriage alone. Highlighting inherent plurality within the Islamic legal traditions, it demonstrates how Muslim state practice and actual practices of Muslim communities on the subject are neither uniform nor necessarily in accordance with stated doctrinal positions of the juristic schools to which they subscribe. Simultaneously, the paper challenges some exaggerated gaps between “Islamic” and “Western” conceptions of children's rights, arguing that child-centric resources in Islamic law tend to be suppressed by a “universalist” Western human-rights discourse. Tracing common threads through discourses within both legal traditions aimed at ensuring children a name and identity, it demonstrates that the rights values in the United Nations Convention on Rights of the Child resonate with preexisting values within the Islamic legal traditions.


Author(s):  
Ådne Valen-Sendstad

In this chapter I discuss three new ways, of understanding human dignity. First, Christopher McCrudden’s concern is with the fact that there is no common understanding of the concept. He argues that dignity is a placeholder. It is open to interpretations from a diversity of normative understandings, – religious and secular. Still, he argues for a core of overlapping content within the diversity of understandings. Second, Catherine Dupré understands human dignity as a heuristic concept, open for new interpretations. The concept is in itself inexhaustible. New meanings develop in confrontation with new issues. Observing that the concept has become one of the pillars in European law and democracies, and has been crucial in several junctions when dictatorships has fallen and democracies has been established after the Second World War, she finds that the concept comes to its right in particular in transitional and transformative situations. Finally, Costas Douzinas does not work with the concept human dignity but with the concept of the human, to whom human dignity is designated in the human rights. I reinterpret his theory to also cover the normative concept human dignity. It is brought into force by proclamations, and as such becomes a transformative and life changing concept in particular for people living in need of dignity.


2020 ◽  
pp. 21-44
Author(s):  
Paul Thompson ◽  
Ken Plummer ◽  
Neli Demireva

This chapter traces the engine of the pioneers' success and discusses their earlier lives, hinting or reflecting on how these experiences may have shaped their research. It begins by analyzing how the pioneers' were influenced by the communities where they grew up. Looking at the pioneers' families as a whole, even though this generation for which unprecedented university expansion brought rare opportunities for upward mobility, the chapter examines the pioneers' working-class families and old Oxbridge intellectual aristocracy. It notes that some of the key factors which brought them opportunities were due to national social changes and international events. The chapter also looks at how the older generation generally benefitted from Second World War experiences that took them out of their social-class cocoon. The chapter then discusses the pioneers who chose to explore other cultures rather than to research their own communities. It emphasizes social class injustice, racism, and gender injustice.


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