scholarly journals Rights for Some, Not for Others: On the Move and Margins of Human Rights

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (Summer) ◽  
pp. 47-59
Author(s):  
Yumna Jamal
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
World Order ◽  
Freedom Of Movement ◽  
International Borders ◽  
Gender Hierarchies ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Right ◽  
Human Rights Discourse

Rights are meant to make meanings and to have positive impacts on people’s lives. By having space ordained by the interests of dominant powers and people confined within a space that is delineated, controlled, and divided into class, racial, and gender hierarchies, the right to space and freedom of movement, mostly for those in the Global South, is rendered meaningless. Drawing on my lived experience, I explore the connection between space and power on two different levels: national institutions, and across international borders over six-years period between 2011 and 2016. Reflecting on the policies and politics of space, I examine the implications of control over space on people’s lives and identities. I argue that the dominant discourse of human rights, as it appears, not only violates the basic right to free choice but also serves as instrumental to the maintenance of the current world order and hierarchies. The fact that rights, today, very much rest on spatial, capital, gender, and racial divisions suggests that the UN human rights political project is insufficient and requires us to seriously consider its devastating effects, even when these are unintentional. Thus, we must rethink rights beyond nation-state and its ideological institutions and open up its scope for constructive alternative mechanisms and strategies that center the marginalized rather than maintain a hierarchal system in which some people are unfairly privileged over others. Until we rethink and rewrite international human rights discourse in a way that stands for justice for all and that fosters creative alternatives, it will continue to be hollow, dysfunctional, and even instrumental to existing racial, class, and gender hierarchies.

The Taming of the Shrill: From Indicators to Indicatorization

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-115
Author(s):  
Siobhán Airey
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Task Force ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Right To Development ◽  
International Economic Relations ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
The Right ◽  
High Level ◽  
Human Rights Discourse

This article addresses the specific norm-generation function of indicators in a human rights context, focusing on ways that indicators foreground and legitimize as ‘truth’ particular worldviews or values. It describes the stakes of this process through elaborating on the concept of ‘indicatorization’, focusing on one moment in which the relationship between human rights and development was defined through indicators: the indicatorization of the Right to Development by a un High Level Task Force in 2010. In this initiative, different perspectives on human rights, equality, participation and development from within the un and the World Bank were brought together. This resulted in a subtle but significant re-articulation of ideas contained in the 1986 un Declaration on the Right to Development. The article argues that how indicatorization happens, matters, and has important implications for the potential role of human rights discourse within international economic relations.

Islamic Law and Human Rights

2015 ◽  
pp. 818-842
Author(s):  
Shannon Dunn
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Legal Traditions ◽  
Universal Human Rights ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Human Rights Discourse ◽  
Second World

This article explores the question of whether Islamic law and universal human rights are compatible. It begins with an overview of human rights discourse after the Second World War before discussing Islamic human rights declarations and the claims of Muslim apologists regarding human rights, along with challenges to Muslim apologetics in human rights discourse. It then considers the issues of gender and gender equality, feminism, and freedom of religion in relation to human rights. It also examines four basic scholarly orientations to the topic of Islam and human rights since the end of the Second World War: a model that privileges a secular (non-religious) paradigm for rights; a Muslim apologist model, which privileges a purely “Islamic” conception of rights over secular models; a Marxist/postcolonial critique of rights as a western imposition of power; and a Muslim reformist paradigm of rights that highlights points of continuity between western legal and Muslim legal traditions.

scholarly journals SEBUAH WACANA HAM TENTANG “HAK ATAS KEPEMILIKAN”

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 35
Author(s):  
Nalom Kurniawan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
The Right ◽  
Different Characteristics ◽  
Human Rights Discourse

Among vatious rights in the human rights discourse. The right of ownership is one of the rightswhich is interesting to discuss. It is because regulations of rights of ownership is not stated inthe derivation of the UDHCR (ICCPR/ICESCR) covenant. Moreover, various concepts andviews on the rights of ownership have different characteristics and uniqueness. Protection ofthe right of ownership may conflict with other rights (public interest).

scholarly journals Review of Reproductive Rights as Human Rights: Women of Color and the Fight for Reproductive Justice by Zakiya Luna (New York University Press)

Lateral ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Djuna Hallsworth
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Reproductive Justice ◽  
New York University ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Human Rights Discourse

Zakiya Luna’s rich study combines comprehensive discourse analysis of political rhetoric and archival documents with her own ethnographic experiences within the reproductive justice movement. This book is an entry point into this often-marginalized arena, presenting a unique perspective informed by years of participant observation and thorough research which has produced additional projects, attesting to Luna’s expertise in this field of study. As a woman of color, Luna’s work is symbolically significant, and her intersectional lens renders this study broadly applicable to scholars of law, sociology, and gender studies, to policymakers and activists, and, indeed, to all women, who the reproductive justice movement indirectly or directly impacts. In tracing the way that reproductive justice has been framed as a “human right,” Luna addresses the potential for the human rights discourse to deliver on its intrinsic promise to secure freedom and equity for all.

Conclusion: An Intersectional Future for Human Rights

2021 ◽  
pp. 245-250
Author(s):  
Johanna Bond
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Human Rights Organizations ◽  
International Human ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
Human Rights Discourse ◽  
The Way

Intersectionality has changed the way we think about human rights. It offers a complex, comprehensive, and nuanced approach that redounds to the benefit of victims seeking redress. It allows victims to articulate the multiple and intersecting forms of subordination that have negatively affected their lives. Intersectionality rejects the anemic and siloed approach to human rights that invariably fails to capture and remedy the complex, intersectional violations that characterize the lived experience of subordination for many people. Intersectionality has positively influenced human rights discourse ranging from the UN human rights treaty bodies to local human rights organizations that have incorporated the theory into their organizational missions. The theory is gaining ground in international human rights discourse, and it will continue to transform and expand our vision of appropriate remedies for human rights violations. Only by more accurately conceiving of intersectional human rights violations can we hope to provide meaningful and comprehensive remedies to those who have experienced violations of their rights.

scholarly journals The 2013 Elections in Zimbabwe: End of an Era for Human Rights Discourse?

2013 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 99-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cornelias Ncube
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
The State ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Strained State ◽  
Civil And Political Rights ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
The Right ◽  
Human Rights Discourse

This paper examines the implications of Zimbabwe's 2013 harmonised elections on the opposition's continued deployment of the rights-based discourse to make moral and political claims against and demands of the state. Since 2000, two polarising strands of the human rights discourse −1) the right to self-determination and 2) civil and political rights – were deployed by the state and the opposition, respectively, in order to challenge extant relations and structures of power. The acutely strained state–society relations in post-2000 Zimbabwe emanated from human rights violations by the state as it responded to challenges to its political power and legitimacy. However, the relative improvement in the human rights situation in the country since the 2009 coalition government came into office, and during and since the recently concluded peaceful 2013 elections – the flawed electoral process itself notwithstanding – suggests a need for alternative new ways to make moral and political demands of the state in the future.

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