The Self Comes to Know Itself by Retelling Itself: Beliefs, Identities, and Human Rights

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-186
Author(s):  
Bertrand Borg ◽  
Omar Grech ◽  
Colm Regan
Keyword(s):  
ICL Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-105
Author(s):  
Markku Suksi

Abstract New Caledonia is a colonial territory of France. Since the adoption of the Nouméa Accord in 1998, a period of transition towards the exercise of self-determination has been going on. New Caledonia is currently a strong autonomy, well entrenched in the legal order of France from 1999 on. The legislative powers have been distributed between the Congress of New Caledonia and the Parliament of France on the basis of a double enumeration of legislative powers, an arrangement that has given New Caledonia control over many material fields of self-determination. At the same time as this autonomy has been well embedded in the constitutional fabric of France. The Nouméa Accord was constitutionalized in the provisions of the Constitution of France and also in an Institutional Act. This normative framework created a multi-layered electorate that has presented several challenges to the autonomy arrangement and the procedure of self-determination, but the European Court of Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee have resolved the issues regarding the right to vote in manners that take into account the local circumstances and the fact that the aim of the legislation is to facilitate the self-determination of the colonized people, the indigenous Kanak people. The self-determination process consists potentially of a series of referendums, the first of which was held in 2018 and the second one in 2020. In both referendums, those entitled to vote returned a No-vote to the question of ‘Do you want New Caledonia to attain full sovereignty and become independent?’ A third referendum is to be expected before October 2022, and if that one also results in a no to independence, a further process of negotiations starts, with the potential of a fourth referendum that will decide the mode of self-determination New Caledonia will opt for, independence or autonomy.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 94
Author(s):  
Iqbal Hasanuddin

ABSTRACT: This paper tries to give a philosophical foundation to the rights to freedom of religion/belief. So far, the rights to freedom of religion/belief have been considered legitimated because resulted in General Assembly of the United Nations as mutual consensus of all nations around the world. Although, the normativity of the rights to freedom of religion/belief based on that mutual consensus is not ethical-philosophical, but political. By the justice argument of John Rawls and the self-ownership argument of Robert Nozick, this paper tries to give a moral foundation to the guarantee of respect and protection of the freedom of religion/belief. KEYWORDS: freedom of religion/belief, human rights instruments, forum internum, forum eksternum, justice, slef-ownership.ABSTRAK: Tujuan makalah ini adalah memberikan pendasaran filosofis bagi hak atas kebebasan beragama/berkeyakinan. Sejauh ini, hak atas kebebasan beragama/berkeyakinan (KBB) dipandang sebagai sesuatu yang bersifat normatif, karena dihasilkan dalam sidang-sidang Majelis Umum Perserikatan Bangsa-bangsa (PBB) sehingga telah menjadi konsensus bersama bangsa-bangsa di seluruh dunia. Namun demikian, normativitas hak atas KBB yang didasarkan pada konsensus bersama itu masih bersifat politis, belum memiliki dasar etis-filosofis. Melalui argumen keadilan yang didasarkan pada pemikiran John Rawls dan argumen kepemilikan-diri yang didasarkan pada pemikiran Robert Nozick, makalah ini mencoba memberikan landasan moral bagi jaminan penghormatan dan perlindungan bagi kebebasan beragama/berkeyakinan. KATA-KATA KUNCI: kebebasan beragama/berkeyakinan, instrumen-instrumen HAM, forum internum, forum eksternum, keadilan, kepemilikan-diri.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Herring

AbstractThis paper will explore the difficulties facing law in promoting compassion and responding to caring relationships. These include the difficulties in determining whether a person has demonstrated compassion and in enforcing any legal requirement for compassion. The paper will use the ethics-of-care literature to critique two key legal tools: human rights and the concept of best interests. These concepts are typically designed to promote individualistic abstract understandings of the self, which are problematic when used in the setting of intimate relationships. However, this paper will suggest that it might not be necessary to abandon the concepts of rights and best interests. They may be useful for setting the boundaries for a space in which appropriate care and compassion can be exercised. It will also be suggested that both rights and best interests are not immune from a relational analysis and might, with appropriate modification, be used to promote the exercise of compassionate relational care.


Author(s):  
Jay Drydyk

Responding to a call by Pierre Sané, Secretary-General of Amnesty International, for a worldwide political movement to overcome the social damage that has been wrought by economic globalization, this paper asks whether such a movement can invoke current conceptions of human rights. In particular, if human rights are Euro-centric, how well would they serve the self-understanding of a movement that is to be global, culturally pluralistic and counterhegemonic to Northern capital? I argue that it is not human rights that are Eurocentric, but only certain conceptions of human rights. Properly understood, human rights are justifiable from within all cultures. Moreover, current conceptions of human rights are not as narrow as they were in 1948, when the Universal Declaration was drafted. Nearly five decades of international dialogue have transformed human rights discourse in ways that are profoundly anti-Eurocentric, and further transformations are already underway. There are resources of moral and political experience, within all cultures, which argue strongly in favor of these transformations. Therefore, a more consistent and more complete knowledge of human rights can emerge cross-culturally if the dialogue is not abused and if the relevant moral and political experience is let into the dialogue from all quarters.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 268-285
Author(s):  
Barbara J. Lowe

The “right to belong” is a human right in two ways. First, there is the right to belong in a limited sense, i.e., to the extent necessary for individuals to secure all other human rights, such as those recognized by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Second, there is a deeper aspect of the right to belong, that which is necessary to flourish as a human being. To establish, first, that the right to belong in a limited sense should be a human right, I draw upon Hannah Arendt’s claim that stateless persons are without rights, as only communities can grant them. I argue that this limited level of belonging is a necessary but insufficient condition for human flourishing. Full human flourishing requires belonging on a deeper level. To articulate the nature of this deeper level of belonging I draw on Simone Weil’s definition of the “need for roots” and John Dewey and Jane Addams’ constructions of the self as social. I then show how “belonging” in a deeper sense necessarily connects with how a person is perceived and received by individuals and institutions in a community and argue that full perception by and participation in a community is necessary for humans to flourish. Thus, the right to belong imposes an ethical obligation on other members of the community to perceive undocumented immigrants as full human persons with the potential to lead flourishing lives.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document