A Pragma-Dialectical Analysis of Chinese Government’s Argumentation: A Case of ‘Comment on Country Report of Human Rights Practice by the U.S. Department of State’

This paper, adopting pragma-dialecticalapproach, analyses the Chinese government’sargumentative discourse in response to theaccusation of its human rights practices byAmerican government, in order to explore theformer’s argumentation in resistance toAmerica’s hegemony. It takes “Comment onCountry Report of Human Rights Practices bythe U.S. Department of State”, three pieces ofofficial documents issued by Information Officeof State Council of China (“IOSC”) from 1995 to1997, as the research texts. It analyses theclaim (standpoint), argument (reason), argumentstructure and scheme to find out theargumentative strategies of IOSC in these fouraspects. It was found that: 1) in terms ofstandpoint, IOSC denied the view of U.S. sidethat China had human rights abuses in someparts of its Country Report; 2) in terms ofargument, IOSC mainly provided four types ofreasons: the U.S. counterpart distorted China’sdomestic human rights practices in some cases,neglected the progress of human rights theChinese government had made, took a blind eyeto America’s own severe human rights violations,and American government’s accusation throughCountry Report was the embodiment ofhegemony; 3) As to the argument structure, theChinese government adopted non-mixed complexargumentation with their various types ofmultiple, coordinate and subordinate structurein combination on human rights issue; 4) interms of argument scheme, IOSC mainly adoptedsymptomatic scheme in its discourse. The studyprovides practical values for the improvementof a development country’s international humanrights discourse in the argumentative lens.

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Macedonians in Greece and Albania: A Comparative Study of Recent Developments*

Nationalities Papers ◽

10.1080/009059999109163 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 27 (1) ◽

pp. 17-30 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Peter Hill

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Berlin Wall ◽

Human Rights Abuses ◽

Amnesty International ◽

Department Of State ◽

National Minorities ◽

Greek Government ◽

Recent Developments ◽

The Cold War ◽

The U.S

It has been said that the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 but the wall around Greece is still standing. It is ironic that, while the governments of Albania, Bulgaria and Rumania have, in recent years, taken measures to safeguard the rights of national minorities, the Greek government continues to stonewall on its own national minorities while fomenting rebellion among those in other countries. Nevertheless, the end of the Cold War has benefited the Macedonian minority in Greece. Greece has lost its paramount strategic importance for the western countries, which are now less likely to cast a blind eye on human rights abuses in that country. Conditions for the Macedonians in Greece have improved somewhat as individual members of the minority have become emboldened to demand their rights in public in recent years. They have attracted the attention of the U.S. State Department, Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch/Helsinki Watch, all the more so due to the heavy-handed attempts by the Greek authorities to silence recalcitrant members of the minority, as described below. The U.S. Department of State (1995: Greece 12) notes that the Greek government “continues to harass and intimidate some of these people.”

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Does Custom Have A Source?

AJIL Unbound ◽

10.1017/s2398772300002129 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 108 ◽

pp. 179-183 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Daniel Bodansky

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

International Law ◽

Death Penalty ◽

Political Rights ◽

Customary International Law ◽

Department Of State ◽

International Court ◽

Clear Idea ◽

Death Penalty Case ◽

The U.S

Customary international law often seems like a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. According to Manley O. Hudson, even the drafters of the International Court of Justice Statute “had no very clear idea as to what constituted international custom.” The situation has not changed much since then.I got my first taste of the difficulties in identifying custom when I was a junior attorney at the U.S. Department of State and was assigned the task of preparing the U.S. submission in a juvenile death penalty case before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The juvenile death penalty is prohibited by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the American Convention on Human Rights, but the question in the Inter-American Commission case was whether it is also prohibited as a matter of customary international law.

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Stories States Tell: Identity, Narrative, and Human Rights in the Balkans

Slavic Review ◽

10.5612/slavicreview.72.2.0306 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 72 (2) ◽

pp. 306-326 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Jelena Subotić

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

International System ◽

Western Balkans ◽

State Behavior ◽

Human Rights Abuses ◽

The Balkans ◽

Discourse Practices ◽

Political Choices ◽

Rights Discourse ◽

Human Rights Discourse

Jelena Subotić explores how the states of the Balkans construct their “autobiographies“—stories about themselves—and how these stories influence their contemporary political choices. By understanding where states’ narratives about themselves—stories of their past, their historical purpose, their role in the international system—come from, we can more fully explain contemporary state behavior that to outsiders may seem irrational, self-defeating, or simply, inexplicable. Subotić specifically addresses ways in which states of the western Balkans have built their state narratives around the issue of human rights. She explores, first, how a particular narrative of state and national identity produced—or made locally comprehensible—massive human rights abuses. She then analyzes why contemporary identity narratives make postconflict human rights policies very difficult to institutionalize. The article focuses specifically on the human rights discourse, practices, and debates in Serbia and Croatia.

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Human Rights Discourse and the U.S. Education Landscape

Refugees and Higher Education ◽

10.1163/9789004435841_009 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 113-128

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Rights Discourse ◽

Human Rights Discourse ◽

The U.S

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Wartime sexual violence: women’s human rights and questions of masculinity

Review of International Studies ◽

10.1017/s0260210507007310 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 33 (1) ◽

pp. 75-90 ◽

Cited By ~ 58

Author(s):

MIRANDA ALISON

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Sexual Violence ◽

Male Victims ◽

Human Rights Abuses ◽

Women’S Human Rights ◽

Women And Girls ◽

Rights Discourse ◽

Women's Human Rights ◽

Human Rights Discourse ◽

Further Development

This article examines wartime sexual violence, one of the most recurring wartime human rights abuses. It asserts that our theorisations need further development, particularly in regard to the way that masculinities and the intersections with constructions of ethnicity feature in wartime sexual violence. The article also argues that although women and girls are the predominant victims of sexual violence and men and boys the predominant agents, we must also be able to account for the presence of male victims and female agents. This, however, engenders a problem; much of the women’s human rights discourse and existing international mechanisms for addressing wartime sexual violence tend to reify the male-perpetrator/female-victim paradigm. This is a problem which feminist human rights theorists and activists need to address.

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The European Union Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime (EUGHRSR)

International Legal Materials ◽

10.1017/ilm.2021.8 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 60 (2) ◽

pp. 298-318

Author(s):

Tom Ruys

Keyword(s):

European Union ◽

Human Rights ◽

The European Union ◽

Human Rights Abuses ◽

Council Decision ◽

Council Regulation ◽

The U.S ◽

Country Specific ◽

Individual Human

On December 7, 2020, the Council of the European Union adopted two legal instruments, Council Decision (CFSP) 2020/1999 and Council Regulation (EU) 2020/1998, which together make up the new EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime (EUGHRSR). Similar to the U.S. “Global Magnitsky Act,” and in contrast with the EU's existing country-specific sanctions regimes, the EUGHRSR seeks to address human rights abuses worldwide, by providing for the imposition of travel bans as well as financial sanctions on individual human rights offenders—state and non-state alike. The list of designated (natural and legal) persons will be reviewed on a periodic basis.

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The new rebels

Lovecidal ◽

10.5422/fordham/9780823271092.003.0012 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Trinh T. Minh-ha

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Human Rights ◽

Civil Society ◽

Rule Of Law ◽

Human Rights Abuses ◽

Speaking Out ◽

Public Scrutiny ◽

And Control ◽

The U.S ◽

Chinese Civil Society

This chapter examines not only the unrest in Tibet but also that among China's civil society. It explores social media as a platform for speaking out against the human rights abuses, as well as the limitations of social media given the Chinese government's attempts at censoring these platforms on the matter of Tibet—an act that shares similarities with the U.S. government's own attempts at information surveillance and control as depicted in the previous chapters. The chapter then turns to Chinese civil society at large, as well as the emerging socio-political significance of the legal profession as China's rule of law consistently comes under public scrutiny.

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Guantanamo

Detain and Punish ◽

10.5744/florida/9781683400400.003.0006 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 99-125

Author(s):

Carl Lindskoog

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Human Rights ◽

The United States ◽

The Political ◽

Human Rights Abuses ◽

Guantanamo Bay ◽

Legal Challenges ◽

History Of ◽

Prison Camp ◽

The U.S

Chapter 5 examines the government’s first detention camp at the U.S naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the experience of the Haitian refugees—the original Guantanamo detainees—held there from 1991 to 1994. An important part of this history also involves the government’s detention of HIV-positive Haitians in the world’s first and only “HIV prison camp.” Examining the political and legal challenges to the government’s use of off-shore detention at Guantanamo, this chapter illuminates the history of the legal struggle over the government’s authority to detain in such extraterritorial facilities and debates over how far the U.S. Constitution might reach beyond the United States’ territorial boundaries, and when exercising the U.S. Constitution can lead to human rights abuses.

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The Future of Corporate Liability for Extra territorial Human Rights Abuses: The dutch Case Against Shell

AJIL Unbound ◽

10.1017/s2398772300009673 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 107 ◽

pp. 36-41 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Nicola Jägers ◽

Katinka Jesse ◽

Jonathan Verschuuren

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Oil Spills ◽

Nongovernmental Organization ◽

Human Rights Abuses ◽

Transnational Companies ◽

Royal Dutch Shell ◽

Petroleum Development ◽

Corporate Liability ◽

Dutch Court ◽

The U.S

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. limits the potential of the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) as a means of legal redress for victims of human rights abuses caused by transnational companies. Interestingly enough, almost simultaneously with the Kiobel decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, a Dutch court issued its rulings in five cases concerning Nigerian individuals, supported by a Dutch environmental nongovernmental organization (NGO), in their claims against Royal Dutch Shell (RDS), headquartered in the Netherlands, and its Nigerian subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, Ltd. (SPDC). These cases relate to oil spills for which the plaintiffs believed Shell should be held liable.

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R2P Sidelined: The International Response to China’s Repression of Muslim Minorities in Xinjiang

Global Responsibility to Protect ◽

10.1163/1875-984x-13010005 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

pp. 29-32

Author(s):

Rosemary Foot

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Responsibility To Protect ◽

Chinese Government ◽

Human Rights Abuses ◽

Normative Power ◽

International Response ◽

Mass Atrocity ◽

Wide Scale ◽

Atrocity Crimes ◽

Muslim Minorities

Abstract There has been a lack of recourse to the language of ‘The Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) in respect of reports that the Chinese government is perpetrating mass atrocity crimes against the Muslim minorities that reside in Xinjiang. What does this suggest about the overall normative power of R2P, and is the neglect of R2P reflective of a more general weakening in provisions designed to deal with wide-scale human rights abuses?

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