A Brief Institutional and Procedural History of the Inter-American System of Human Rights

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Schhnsteiner
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
American System ◽  
History Of

Forced Disappearances in the Inter-American Human Rights System

2021 ◽  
pp. 251-261
Author(s):  
Sandra Serrano
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Institutional History ◽  
New Wave ◽  
American System ◽  
System P ◽  
Human Rights Movement ◽  
Regional System ◽  
History Of

The chapter explains the approach taken toward disappearances by the mechanisms that comprise the Inter-American System of Human Rights. Inter-American jurisprudence is a tool that is not only useful in litigation within the regional system but also constitutes a fundamental tool which can be adapted for domestic litigation and the construction of public policies in the countries in the region. The chapter argues that the institutional history of the Inter-American System has been shaped by victims and their families as well as by a human rights movement that was itself forged in the struggle against the gravest human rights violations of authoritarian regimes, which were often committed against political opponents. Today that system serves to respond to the new wave of disappearances in post-transitional contexts.

Zainichi (Korean Residents in Japan)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kiyoteru Tsutsui
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Korean Peninsula ◽  
International Norms ◽  
Japanese Government ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Citizenship Rights ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
History Of

This chapter examines the complicated history of Zainichi, Korean residents in Japan, who came to Japan during the colonial era. After 1945, Zainichi lost all citizenship rights and had to fight for many rights, but the division in the Korean peninsula cast a shadow over Zainichi communities, hampering effective activism for more rights in Japan. Focusing on the issue of fingerprinting—the most salient example of rights violations against Zainichi—the chapter demonstrates how, since the late 1970s, global human rights principles have enabled Zainichi to recast their movement as claims for universal rights regardless of citizenship and to use international forums to pressure the Japanese government, leading to the abolition of the fingerprinting practice. Zainichi achieved similar successes in other areas of rights except for political rights, where international norms do not clearly support suffrage for noncitizens. Zainichi also contributed to global human rights by advancing rights for noncitizen minorities.

Genealogies of Human Rights

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Flynn
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
History Of

This commentary on essays by Koskenniemi, Brett, Moyn, and Tasioulas analyses the relations between several ways of doing the history of human rights—depending on whether they focus on the substance, range of application, or political salience of human rights—and ways of doing the philosophy of human rights. More specifically, it argues that Moyn and Tasioulas are talking past each other when debating how we should think about the function of human rights. It concludes by considering topics on which philosophers and historians might fruitfully collaborate in thinking about human rights.

Reading Statelessness

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lyndsey Stonebridge
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
The Novel ◽  
History Of The Novel ◽  
Political Sovereignty ◽  
History Of

Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the failure of human rights to address statelessness is well known. Less commented upon is how important literature was to her thought. This chapter shows how Arendt’s 1940s essays on Kafka connect the history of the novel to shifting definitions of legal and political sovereignty. Arendt reads The Castle as a blueprint for a political theory that is also a theory of fiction: in the novel K, the unwanted stranger, demolishes the fiction of the rights of man, and with it, the fantasy of assimilation. In a parallel move, Kafka also refuses to assimilate his character into the conventions of fiction. Arendt’s reading changes the terms for how we might approach the literature of exile and of human rights.

scholarly journals The Struggle Against Torture: Challenges, Assumptions and New Directions

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 324-333
Author(s):  
Tobias Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Multiple Forms ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
Current State ◽  
New Directions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Emerging Themes ◽  
Short Essay ◽  
Forms Of Violence

Abstract This short essay offers a broad and necessarily incomplete review of the current state of the human rights struggle against torture and ill-treatment. It sketches four widespread assumptions in that struggle: 1) that torture is an issue of detention and interrogation; 2) that political or security detainees are archetypal victims of torture; 3) that legal reform is one of the best ways to fight torture; and 4) that human rights monitoring helps to stamp out violence. These four assumptions have all played an important role in the history of the human rights fight against torture, but also resulted in limitations in terms of the interventions that are used, the forms of violence that human rights practitioners respond to, and the types of survivors they seek to protect. Taken together, these four assumptions have created challenges for the human rights community in confronting the multiple forms of torture rooted in the deep and widespread inequality experienced by many poor and marginalized groups. The essay ends by pointing to some emerging themes in the fight against torture, such as a focus on inequality, extra-custodial violence, and the role of corruption.

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