The West’s Adherence to Privileges, Cultural Contexts and Arguments on State Sovereignty Challenge Universal Human Rights

2018 ◽  
pp. 65-86
Author(s):  
Stephan P. Leher
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Universal Human Rights

Historical Wrongs and Human Rights in Sino-Foreign Relations: The Legacy of Extraterritoriality

2000 ◽  
Vol 9 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 129-146
Author(s):  
Eileen P. Scully
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Universal Human Rights

AbstractIn the battle for universal human rights, it may be said that sovereignty has become “the last refuge of scoundrels.” Certainly, this is the prevailing verdict of Western liberal activists with regard to the invocations of absolute self-determination and noninterference by authoritarian regimes in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Indonesia, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines. These Asia- Pacific governments have defended their heavy-handed response to internal dissent with the position that “State sovereignty is the basis for the realization of citizens’ human rights. If the sovereignty of a state is not safeguarded, the human rights of its citizens are out of the question.”

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
pp. 145-156
Author(s):  
Carl Lindskoog
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
September 11 ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Immigration Detention ◽  
Freedom Of Movement ◽  
The World ◽  
Universal Human Rights

The conclusion examines the United States’ detention practices in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the global spread of immigration detention that saw countries around the world constructing their own detention regimes from the United States’ model. It then conducts a brief examination of the problem that emerges at the intersection of state sovereignty and universal human rights; it closes with a survey of the contemporary movement against immigration detention, asking what future there might be for a world in which liberty and freedom of movement are treated as inalienable human rights.

Jacques Maritain and Human Rights

2020 ◽  
pp. 97-132
Author(s):  
Miguel Vatter
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Human Person ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Philosophical Foundation ◽  
Jacques Maritain ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Universal Human Rights

This chapter discusses the connection between Christian political theology and human rights in the thought of Jacques Maritain. It argues that Maritain understood universal human rights as part and parcel of a new ‘democratic’ Christian political theology centred on the struggle between multitude and empire and on the rejection of state sovereignty. The chapter shows that Maritain’s philosophical foundation of the universality of human rights is not based on a ‘metaphysics’ of the human person as much as it offers a biopolitical account of rights and adopts ideas of governmentality that parallel emerging neoliberal critiques of sovereignty. It ends with a discussion of Maritain’s turn to human rights in the context of his own struggle with anti-Semitism and establishes a comparison with Alain Badiou’s adoption of Paul’s political theology as the foundational discourse of egalitarian universalism.

Universal human rights and non-Western normative systems: a comparative analysis of violence against women in Mexico and Pakistan

2007 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
SILVIE BOVARNICK
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Violence Against Women ◽  
Culturally Specific ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Normative Systems ◽  
Universal Human Rights ◽  
The Way

How universally useful are human rights in addressing violence against women? This article addresses this question by looking at the link between gender, ethnicity and human rights to uncover the complexities that underpin current debates about universal justice and multiculturalism. While my discussion of rape in Mexico and Pakistan illustrates significant particularities with respect to how violence against women is constituted in these different cultural contexts, it also shows that culturally specific manifestations of violence against women often share striking similarities in the way that they are allowed to persist, justified and made invisible. As such, they are part of a global mechanism that reproduces gender subordination in a predominantly patriachal world.

Humanitarian Intervention: Theoretical Justifications vs. Practical Applications

1970 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 3-16
Author(s):  
Mark Farfan De Los Godos
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Humanitarian Mission ◽  
Universal Human Rights ◽  
Run Up ◽  
Armed Intervention ◽  
Globalized World ◽  
Universal Application

In an increasingly globalized world, humanitarian issues concerning the protection of universal human rights have run up against long-accepted principles of state sovereignty. This paper examines the theoretical justifications for international humanitarian intervention and finds that armed intervention in order to protect basic human rights can be justified, in principle. In reality, however, there are significant pragmatic problems that preclude a universal application of the theoretical justifications. These pragmatic problems must be overcome in order for a humanitarian mission to be both legitimate and successful.

Human Rights beyond the Double Bind of Sovereignty

2019 ◽  
pp. 81-88
Author(s):  
Mark Goodale
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Political Action ◽  
International System ◽  
The State ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Double Bind ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Universal Human Rights

This chapter responds to Kate Nash’s contribution by examining what she describes as the two sovereignties that shape the life of contemporary human rights: the first, the state sovereignty of the Westphalian international system within which institutionalized human rights are firmly embedded; the second, the popular sovereignty of democratic polities, which is anchored in shifting notions of citizenship, culture, and identity. As the chapter explains, this ‘double bind’ of sovereignty was already present from the time of the French Revolution, which instantiated a similar division between universal ideals and the interests of citizens living in particular nation-states. As between these two, as the chapter concludes, it would appear inevitable that the cosmopolitan aspirations of universal human rights are bound to give way to more modest articulations of rights and political action, that is, human rights understood and practised in the plural.

Popular Resource Sovereignty

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leif Wenar
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Resource Curse ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
The People ◽  
Rich Countries

Article 1 of both of the major human rights covenants declares that the people of each country “shall freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources.” This chapter considers what conditions would have to hold for the people of a country to exercise this right—and why public accountability over natural resources is the only realistic solution to the “resource curse,” which makes resource-rich countries more prone to authoritarianism, civil conflict, and large-scale corruption. It also discusses why cosmopolitans, who have often been highly critical of prerogatives of state sovereignty, have good reason to endorse popular sovereignty over natural resources. Those who hope for more cosmopolitan institutions should see strengthening popular resource sovereignty as the most responsible path to achieving their own goals.

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