scholarly journals Resisting Biopolitics

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ville Suuronen
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The Social ◽  
Technological Intervention ◽  
The Right

Hannah Arendt’s support for the “right to have rights” arises as a critical response to the modern biopolitical human condition. While Arendt’s reflections on human rights have received broad recognition, the question concerning the economic preconditions of citizenship in her work remains an unduly neglected subject. This article takes up this issue and argues that, for Arendt, the fulfillment of basic social rights is the sine qua non without which the fulfillment of political rights is impossible. Thinking with and against Arendt, I show that her famous distinction between the private, the social, and the political can be fruitfully reinterpreted as an argument for basic income. When Arendt’s reflections on human rights are read in the light of her ideas concerning technology and automation, she no longer appears as a theorist who ignores social justice, but as a thinker who seeks to counter the modern biopolitical human condition and open up new realms for democratic political action. Instead of ignoring social questions, Arendt argues that with the help of technology, we can strive to politicize fundamental social questions in a way that they would achieve a self-evident stature as human rights, and as fundamental human rights, rise above political debate, even though we would remain conscious of their political origins. Arendt does not simply exclude “the social questions” from politics but argues that this is what all technologically developed societies can strive to do. In Arendt’s futuristic vision, the private life of citizens will be politicized through technological intervention: ancient slaves will be replaced by machines. By comparing Arendt with Foucault and Agamben, I maintain that a critical reading of her work can provide us with a pathway toward understanding the right to life’s basic necessities, to zoe, as a future human right.

scholarly journals Indigenous Education and Human Rights

2007 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 425-453 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noam Schimmel
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Indigenous Education ◽  
Cultural Continuity ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
The Social ◽  
Majority Culture ◽  
Educational Programmes ◽  
The Right

AbstractThe right to an education that is consonant with and draws upon the culture and language of indigenous peoples is a human right which is too often overlooked by governments when they develop and implement programmes whose purported goals are to improve the social, economic and political status of these peoples. Educational programmes for indigenous peoples must fully respect and integrate human rights protections, particularly rights to cultural continuity and integrity. Racist attitudes dominate many government development programmes aimed at indigenous peoples. Educational programmes for indigenous peoples are often designed to forcibly assimilate them and destroy the uniqueness of their language, values, culture and relationship with their native lands. Until indigenous peoples are empowered to develop educational programmes for their own communities that reflect and promote their values and culture, their human rights are likely to remain threatened by governments that use education as a political mechanism for coercing indigenous peoples to adapt to a majority culture that does not recognize their rights, and that seeks to destroy their ability to sustain and pass on to future generations their language and culture.

The human right to health and the struggle for recognition

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 569-588 ◽  
Author(s):  
PATRICK HAYDEN
Keyword(s):  
Health Inequalities ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Right To Health ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
World Health ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Treatment Action Campaign ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Right ◽  
Struggle For Recognition

AbstractPersistent health inequalities exist globally, affecting high-income countries and blighting the developing world. Health inequalities currently are one of the greatest challenges facing realisation of the human right to health. This article argues that the struggle for the right to health in the face of such inequalities requires embracing three critical considerations: redistribution, representation, and recognition. While the analysis of the right to health has been formulated predominantly around theories of distributive justice, I suggest that a more normatively compelling account will link the politics of economic redistribution to the politics of sociocultural recognition. A recognition approach, which views rights claims as grounded on the vulnerability of the human condition, can show how rights are emergent in political action and that the ability to claim and exercise the human right to health is contingent upon recognition of diverse sociopolitical statuses. From this perspective, there are no ‘neutral’ constructions of the rights-bearing subject and conflict between different political framings of the right to health is a consequence of the struggle for recognition. This theme is illustrated by comparing conservative, affirmative, and transformative processes of recognition in the struggle for access to essential antiretroviral medicines by South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign.

The European Court of Human Rights has the Turkish Security Forces Held Responsible for Violations of Human Rights: The Case of Akdivar and Others

1997 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leo Zwaak
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Eastern Region ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
South Eastern ◽  
European Court ◽  
The Right

In this article, special attention will be given to the recent judgment of the European Court of Human Right in the case of Akdivar and Others v. Turkey. Since 1985, a violent conflict has raged in the South-Eastern region of Turkey, between the Turkish security forces and sections of the Kurdish population in favour of Kurdish autonomy, in particular members of the PKK (Workers' Party of Kurdistan). Since 1987, 10 of the 11 provinces of South-Eastern Turkey have been subjected to emergency rule, which was in force at the time of the facts complained of. The main issue in this case concerned the fact that during this conflict, a large number of villages have been destroyed and evacuated by the security forces. According to the applicants, the alleged burning of their houses by the security forces constituted, inter alia, a violation of Article 3 (the prohibition of torture and inhuman treatment or punishment) and Article 8 (the right of respect for private life, family life, and home) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (property rights).

scholarly journals THE RIGHT TO VOTE FOR NON-RESIDENT CITIZENS IN EUROPE

2016 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 859-894 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Lappin
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Right ◽  
European Court ◽  
Civil And Political Rights ◽  
Right To Vote ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Right

AbstractThe right to vote is the most important political right in international human rights law. Framed within the broader right of political participation, it is the only right in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights not guaranteed as a universal human right but rather as a citizen's right. While limitations on the right to vote are permissible in respect of citizenship and age, residency-based restrictions are not explicitly provided. However, recent judgments of the European Court of Human Rights endorse a view that voting rights may be conditioned on residency on the grounds of an individual's bond to their country-of-origin and the extent to which laws passed by that government would affect them. This article questions this proposition and explores whether disenfranchisement based solely on residency constitutes an unreasonable and discriminatory restriction to the essence of the right.

scholarly journals NEPRUŽANJE ZDRAVSTVENE SKRBI KAO POVREDA ČLANKA 3. EUROPSKE KONVENCIJE S POSEBNIM OSVRTOM NA PRAKSU SUDA U PREDMETIMA IZVAN KONTEKSTA ZADRŽAVANJA

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-104
Author(s):  
Maša Marochini Zrinski ◽  
Karin Derenčin Vukušić
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Right To Health ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Right To Health Care ◽  
European Court ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Character

The European Convention on Human Rights, as a main Council of Europe instrument for the protection of civil and political rights, does not guarantee the right to health care. However, the European Court of Human Rights broadly interprets Convention rights, and within the context of Articles 2, 3 and 8 of the Convention it gave certain indications that it might start dealing with the issue of health care. Without going into details of all the mentioned articles, this paper will analyse cases where the Court dealt with the issue of violation of Article 3 due to non-provision of health care outside the context of detention. Namely, within the context of detention, there is a clear obligation for states to provide health care, and the Court often relies on the reports of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. What we consider important to point out is the Court’s case-law on providing health care outside the context of detention, given the social character of the right to health care, which goes beyond the civil and political character of the Convention.

3. A legal right

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond Wacks
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The Right To Privacy ◽  
Individual Privacy ◽  
European Court ◽  
Us Supreme Court ◽  
The Right

Privacy is acknowledged as an essential human right, recognized by a number of international declarations, among which the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights are the most significant. Interpreting these provisions, the European Court of Human Rights provides important guidance in respect of the attempt to balance privacy against competing rights and interests, and this is briefly discussed. Leading decisions of the courts of various jurisdictions illustrate the problems of definition and the attempt to balance privacy against other competing rights. Cases before the US Supreme Court have generated an enormous, divisive debate concerning, in particular, the subject of abortion, which the Court has conceived to be an element of the right to privacy. A discussion of the celebrated US Supreme Court judgement in Roe v Wade is fundamental to an analysis of the meaning and limits of individual privacy.

The Human Right to Land, for Peasants and for All: Tracing the Social Function of Property to 1948

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-452
Author(s):  
Corina Heri
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Function ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Present Contribution ◽  
Collective Ownership ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Right ◽  
Implementation Gaps ◽  
Made In

ABSTRACT In 1948, Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) pioneered a right to (individual and collective) ownership of property. Today, the right to property—specifically the social function of property, which was a mainstay of the discussions—can be linked to the idea of a human right to land, which has been particularly prevalent in the discourse concerning the creation of human rights protections specific to peasants. The peasant rights process highlights a number of normative and implementation gaps in international human rights law, including relating to land use and tenure. The present contribution will argue that the claims made in this context are neither new nor niche but relate to universal human rights entitlements and have existed at least since the drafting of the UDHR. They are not only an iteration of an age-old class struggle but are at the forefront of a contemporary critique of the existing international legal system as a whole. While existing human rights, including the right to property, can be part of a response to these critiques, however, neither peasant rights nor the activists who promote them can be expected to resolve them alone.

Selective Conscientious Objection and International Human Rights

2002 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 145-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard Hammer
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Conscientious Objection ◽  
Freedom Of Religion ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Conscientious Objector ◽  
Human Right ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
International Human ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right

AbstractThe development of an international status for military conscientious objection received a strong backing by pronouncements from bodies like the Human Rights Committee that the capacity for objection can derive from the international human right to freedom of religion or belief of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Even with such pronouncements, questions remain in regard to the nature, boundaries and scope of this right. Most importantly, does this pronounced right allow for selective military conscientious objection within the international human rights system? This article will focus on the view that the capacity for military conscientious objection in the international human rights system derives from the right to freedom of religion and conscience. The implication of the international human right of freedom of religion or belief is important for its application to selective conscientious objection. However, even if the Human Rights Committee desires to limit the application of military conscientious objection, a selective objector can arguably still make the case for upholding a claim based on the human right and the manner in which it has been interpreted by the Committee and other international bodies. While on the one hand the focus on the human right to freedom of religion or belief can possibly provide the basis for a selective conscientious objector, it removes the possibility for claims that do not involve a religion or belief. The importance however of freedom of religion or behef should force a reviewing body to properly consider and measure the claim of a selective objector, with a view towards considering whether they are confronted with the manifestation of a belief and whether the state is violating such a seminal human right.

The citizen as mere human: Litigating denationalization in post-9/11 UK

2020 ◽  
pp. 146349962093135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caylee Hong
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Spatial Control ◽  
Political Subject ◽  
The Social ◽  
National Citizenship ◽  
Narrow Definition ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Right

Since the publication of The Origins of Totalitarianism in 1951, Hannah Arendt’s phrase the ‘right to have rights’ and her claim that having rights depends on belonging to and being recognized by ‘some kind of organized community’ have become key provocations on citizenship, statelessness and human rights. Arendt, however, has been criticized as perpetuating a state-centric framework that scholars and activists alike have sought to reimagine. In particular, the French political theorist Jacques Rancière argues that Arendt’s ‘right to have rights’ formula is based on an artificial distinction between the social and the political, which creates an overly narrow definition of the political subject. This article contends that in the post-9/11 era, the distinction, often attributed to Arendt, between ‘Man’ and ‘Citizen’ is increasingly blurred; yet it suggests that this blurring does not necessarily offer any emancipatory potential. It argues that while national citizenship is still meaningful, being a citizen may not be so different from being a mere human in certain contexts. The article examines three sets of cases shaping the United Kingdom’s ‘regime of nationality deprivation’ in which people are stripped of their UK citizenship for terrorism-related offences: Al-Jedda (2013), Pham (2015, 2018) and K2 (2015). First, it explores the tensions in the regime’s attempt to reconcile a fundamental inconsistency between the recognition of the human right to nationality and the sovereignty of the state to define the citizen; and second, it considers the regime’s spatial control of the denationalization process whereby denationalization orders are commonly issued and thus also contested when the targeted citizen is outside the UK’s jurisdiction.

Freedom of Language: A Universal Human Right to Be Recognised

2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
György Andrássy
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Moral Rights ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Civil And Political Rights ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Right

Human rights as legal rights originate from human rights as pre-existing moral rights; however, as pre-existing human rights are unwritten and invisible, it is uncertain whether all of these rights have been recognised and defined properly. This article advances the thought that if there are any human rights at all and if the civil and political rights recognised and defined by the United Nations represent these pre-existing human rights, then there must be at least one more such right, the right of all to freedom of language and, therefore, the United Nations ought to recognise and define this right too.

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