Human Rights Norms for a Globalized World: The Maastricht Principles on Extraterritorial Obligations of States in the area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Global Policy ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 458-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margot E. Salomon ◽  
Ian Seiderman
Author(s):  
Powderly Joseph ◽  
Silva Rafael Braga da

The women’s rights movement has secured important reforms aimed at realizing the promise of genuine equality and the universality of fundamental human rights norms. Giving substantive voice to the cultural rights of women has been an important feature of the discourse and has led to significant advances in recognizing the intersectionality of the forms of oppression experienced by women, the centrality of women’s agency in exercising their cultural rights, and the dangers of essentialized conceptions of the lived experiences of women. The chapter explores the extent to which gender issues are reflected in international cultural heritage instruments as well as in the practices and policy initiatives of UNESCO. It suggests that the advances made in the realization of women’s cultural rights have not yet been fully translated in the context of international cultural heritage law and practice.


Author(s):  
Hurst Hannum

This chapter focuses on human rights in Asia and the Pacific. On the level of purely legal commitments, the great majority of Asian and Pacific states have ratified both of the two major UN human rights treaties, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is the most developed of the sub-regional organizations with respect to human rights, although that development has been fairly recent and, to date, relatively minimal. However, attempts to characterize or distinguish different approaches to human rights in Asia frequently include reference to a number of arguments put forward to justify Asian exceptionalism in this field. Perhaps the most widely asserted argument contends that ‘Asian values’ are different from the Western values that animate today’s international human rights norms.


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 298-318
Author(s):  
Roman Girma Teshome

The effectiveness of human rights adjudicative procedures partly, if not most importantly, hinges upon the adequacy of the remedies they grant and the implementation of those remedies. This assertion also holds water with regard to the international and regional monitoring bodies established to receive individual complaints related to economic, social and cultural rights (hereinafter ‘ESC rights’ or ‘socio-economic rights’). Remedies can serve two major functions: they are meant, first, to rectify the pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage sustained by the particular victim, and second, to resolve systematic problems existing in the state machinery in order to ensure the non-repetition of the act. Hence, the role of remedies is not confined to correcting the past but also shaping the future by providing reforming measures a state has to undertake. The adequacy of remedies awarded by international and regional human rights bodies is also assessed based on these two benchmarks. The present article examines these issues in relation to individual complaint procedures that deal with the violation of ESC rights, with particular reference to the case laws of the three jurisdictions selected for this work, i.e. the United Nations, Inter-American and African Human Rights Systems.


2003 ◽  
Vol 20 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 140-172
Author(s):  
Pernille Ironside

This article examines the debate concerning the recent reinstatement of Shari`ah law with respect to criminal matters in Northern Nigeria. The discussion explores the inherent challenges in reconciling the equally entrenched and passionate views of pro-Shari`ah supporters on their right to freedom of religion with those that question its application in terms of human rights norms and obligations, and its constitutional legality. The analysis concludes that Shari`ah laws can coexist with Nigeria’s common law system and remain relevant in the context of Islam, provided that its principles are adapted and modernized to comport with international standards for due process and are interpreted and applied consistently.


Author(s):  
John Linarelli ◽  
Margot E Salomon ◽  
Muthucumaraswamy Sornarajah

This chapter recaps the main themes of the volume, ie that the international law of the global economy is in a state of disorder. Claims about the justice, fairness, or benefits of the current state of international law as it relates to the global economy are fanciful. A more credible picture emerges when one considers who is protected, against what, and those relations that are valued and those that are not. Moreover, these claims above all require a suspension of a reflective attitude about what international law actually says and does. When it comes to international economic law, power is masked behind a veil of neutrality when it certainly is not neutral in the interests it protects and offends. As for international human rights law, it overlooks the ways in which it props up extreme capitalism foreclosing the possibility of transformative structural change to neoliberal capitalism. In its most radical areas, human rights norms have been blocked from making demands on the design of the global economy precisely because of their transformative potential. Among the central critiques of international law presented in this book is that international law must be justifiable to those who are subject to it.


Author(s):  
Valentin Aichele

This chapter analyses the use and interpretation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in sixty-nine decisions of German federal courts between 2009 and mid-2016. German courts’ failure to be proactive in demonstrating ‘friendliness towards public international law’ when dealing with international human rights norms has been criticised. The National CRPD Monitoring Mechanism addressed problems in the application of the law. This chapter investigates the courts’ understanding of basic CRPD concepts, judicial techniques, interpretation methods and specific CRPD provisions. The importance of the concepts of self-executing provisions and direct effect is discussed. In quantitative terms, German courts have referred to the CRPD more often than any other UN international human rights instrument. Furthermore, in qualitative terms, federal courts have become more receptive towards the CRPD. However, it is clear that much of the potential for courts to use the CRPD in the realisation of the rights of persons with disabilities remains untapped.


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