EU membership conditionality in promoting acceptance of peremptory human rights norms: a case study in Albania considering public opinion

2020 ◽  
pp. 88-109
Author(s):  
Ridvan Peshkopia ◽  
Drin Konjufca ◽  
Erblin Salihu ◽  
Jonida Lika
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Eu Membership ◽  
Human Rights Norms

Mexico and the R2P Challenge: The Commitment Trap

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-50
Author(s):  
Arturo C. Sotomayor
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Latin American Country ◽  
Critical Case ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
International Commitments ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
Critical Case Study

In recent years, Mexico has presented mostly favourable views of the R2P concept. This is a radical change, since historically it had been a strong advocate of non-intervention norms. This essay argues that Mexico’s R2P position has been shaped and constrained by two incoherent domestic narratives: democratization and the war on drugs. These two narratives have led to an inconsistent and ambiguous record of compliance with human rights norms and R2P principles. Mexican authorities, who had been championing for the implementation of R2P, have now become victims of their own international commitments. This Latin American country thus needs to reconcile its two distinct domestic agendas if it aims to be seen as an R2P advocate. The goal of this study is to explore the inherent complex and at times contradictory relationship between domestic demands for democratization and securitization and R2P commitments, using Mexico as a critical case study.

The management (or lack thereof) of COVID-19 in Brazil: implications for human rights and public health

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Erick da Luz Scherf ◽  
Marcos Vinicius Viana da Silva ◽  
Janaina S. Fachini
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Health Management ◽  
Inductive Reasoning ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Public Health Institutions ◽  
Health Institutions ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
The Right

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how the COVID-19 pandemic has been managed in Brazil, especially at the Federal Administrative level, with the focus being on the implications for human rights and public health in the country. Design/methodology/approach The research is built on a qualitative design made up of a case-study and review of the literature and is based on inductive reasoning. Findings Main conclusions were that: by not making sufficient efforts to safeguard the lives of Brazilians or to strengthen public health institutions amid the pandemic, Bolsonaro’s Administration may be violating the rights to life and health, among others, by omission; it was demonstrated that the President has worked unceasingly to bulldoze anti-COVID-19 efforts, which can be better explained through the concepts of necropolitics and neoliberal authoritarianism. Research limitations/implications One of the limitations to this research is that this paper was not able to discuss more thoroughly which other human rights norms and principles (apart from the right to health, life and the duty to protect vulnerable populations) have possibly been violated amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the country. Overall, this research can help expand the literature on human rights in health management during and after emergency times. Originality/value This paper focuses on recent events and on urgent matters that need to be addressed immediately in Brazil. This study provides an innovative health policy/human rights analysis to build an academic account of the ongoing pandemic in the largest country in South America.

scholarly journals Human Rights Education for Lawyers: A Case Study into Universality and Its Relativism

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Liudmila Ulyashyna
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
International Human ◽  
Legal Contexts ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
Human Rights Standards ◽  
Implementation Status

Normative universality in the international human rights law shall be rooted into national legal contexts for its effective implementation. Human Rights training for lawyers ensures that lawyers receive appropriate education for the practical application of the principle of universality. The case study shows that learners often lack the knowledge of the peculiarities of international human rights law, which differ from the ”classical” public law notions. Human rights training curricula should include topics, which form lawyers’ understanding of international and national legal regimes in their interdependency. Concepts of ”International Human Rights Standards”, ”Implementation and de facto implementation”, ”Status and Role of Individual/Human Rights Defender” being delivered to learners increase their knowledge and awareness of the direct applicability of international human rights norms and make them effective actors of the two-way process facilitating “a cross-fertilization” between national law and international human rights standards.

scholarly journals Reconstructing Westphalian Sovereignty as an Effort to Enforce Human Rights Case Study: Humanitarian Intervention in the Libyan Conflict

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Anna Kharisma Fehmita Mubin
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Causal Explanation ◽  
International Community ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Human Rights Norms

State sovereignty and humanitarian intervention are two sides of a coin, presenting a threat to human rights enforcement, especially when human rights violation is done by the state. Failure from a state to provide human rights protection for its citizen will lead to intervention from the international community to enforce human rights in the name of humanitarian norms. The humanitarian intervention will indirectly weaken the principles of Westphalian state sovereignty as the main premise in the politics of international relations. This article is a case study of the Libyan conflict in 2011. This study uses the constructivism approach to analyze the contrasting relation between the principles of traditional Westphalian sovereignty and humanitarian intervention concept, and how this relationship may shift the human rights norms in the international community. In the constructivism approach, it is not enough to offer a causal explanation in order to understand international politics. Instead, it needs a more interpretative understanding. Hence, this study is conducted with a qualitative method, a critical approach to human rights in contemporary international politics.

scholarly journals Is Religious Intolerance Good for Your Health?

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 201-227
Author(s):  
Ciarán Burke
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Interesting Case ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
International Convention ◽  
Religious Intolerance ◽  
Legal Responses ◽  
Fit For Purpose ◽  
Korean State ◽  
Human Rights Norms

Abstract Legal responses to the covid-19 pandemic have varied widely. Korea represents an interesting case study, as it seemed particularly well prepared, having enacted legislation in the wake of the mers outbreak, in 2015, to tackle future pandemics. This obviated recourse to emergency powers legislation, and couched Korea’s response in normal legislation, which tends to raise fewer human rights concerns than may arise under emergency measures. Despite this, however, Korea’s response to covid-19 raises significant questions about its compliance with core human rights norms under the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, including freedom of religion and non-discrimination. These arose with regard to the state’s treatmennt of members of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus (scj), a relatively small, occasionally controversial, religious group. The treatment of the scj by the Korean state raises questions about whether its legal approach to tackling covid-19 was fit for purpose.

Questions of life and death: (De)constructing human rights norms through US public opinion surveys

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 142-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandria Nylen ◽  
Charli Carpenter
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
National Security ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
Public Opinion Surveys ◽  
International Human ◽  
Human Rights Norms

AbstractPublic opinion polls on national security issues are often seen as indicators of the strength of international human rights norms. By contrast, we hypothesise that the very act of answering poll questions can weaken citizens’ understandings of important international human rights laws and norms in the very moment they are being measured. We ground this discussion empirically by analysing a new dataset of post-9/11 survey questions on two US national security policies at odds with international human rights norms: ‘enhanced interrogations’ and ‘targeted killing’. In so doing, we encourage a widened research agenda on how international legal and normative understandings are transmitted to the public through surveys. We conclude by highlighting substantive implications for norm scholars and policy implications for norm advocates.

Reservations to Human Rights Treaties: A Case Study on the Practice of Czechoslovakia and Its Successor States

2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 371-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimír Týč ◽  
Linda Janků ◽  
Katarína Šipulová
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Czech Republic ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
Standard Component ◽  
International Human ◽  
Human Rights Norms

Conformity with human rights norms is currently a standard component of democratic states’ policies. However, this conformity is reflected not only in domestic binding catalogues of human rights embodied in constitutions, but also in the continuous rise of international control and treaty commitments. States are widely expected to commit to and ratify international human rights documents. Nevertheless, a great deal of the research on state commitments disregards the effects and changes which might be brought upon these ratifications by the submission of reservations. This article proposes an in-depth analysis of state commitments and the practice of submitting reservations in two case studies: the Czech Republic and Slovakia, together with their common predecessor, communist (and, briefly, democratic) Czechoslovakia, and maps the way these regimes, in their different stages of transitional development, worked with reservations. This contribution has been elaborated within the framework of the project „International Human Rights Obligations of the Czech Republic: Trends, Practice, Causes and Consequences“, GA13-27956S, supported by the Czech Science Foundation GAČR.

scholarly journals Using Human Rights Treaties to Resolve Ambiguity: the Advent of A Rights-Conscious Charming Betsy Canon

2007 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 237
Author(s):  
Melissa A Waters
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
High Court ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
International Human ◽  
Human Rights Norms

This article considers the role of international human rights law in the domestic context, and examines in particular the use of what the author calls a "rights-conscious Charming Betsy canon", whereby judges in New Zealand, Canada, the United States and Australia have interpreted statutory provisions (focusing on the case study of immigration law) so as to be consistent with international human rights norms. The author also considers the more radical use of the canon, proposed in particular by the High Court of Australia's Justice Kirby, which proposes that even constitutional texts may be interpreted to be consistent with international law, and discusses the threat this poses to traditional common law dualism.

scholarly journals Human Rights between the Local and Global

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-107
Author(s):  
Andrew Wolman
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
The Core ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
Institutional Relationships

Over the last two decades, municipal human rights institutions have proliferated around the world. One of the newest examples of such initiatives is the Seoul Human Rights Ombudsperson Office, which was established in January 2013 as one of the core institutions of human rights protection in Seoul, Korea. This article will present a case study of the operations of the Seoul Human Rights Ombudsperson Office based on interviews and documentary research. It will focus on the question of how this newly established institution fits into the existing human rights regime, and in particular address three distinct issues, namely the degree to which the Seoul Human Rights Ombudsperson Office reflects local versus national or international influences, the types of institutional relationships it has with other human rights actors, and the degree to which it implements local versus national or international human rights norms.

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