Globalization and Multi-cultural Knowledge of Human Rights

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.

Author(s):  
Penelope Weller

Contemporary mental health laws are embedded in basic human rights principle, and their ongoing evolution is influenced by contemporary human rights discourse, international declarations and conventions, and the authoritative jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECrtHR). The<em> Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities</em> (CRPD) is the most recent expression of international human rights applicable to people with disability including people with mental illness.3 It provides a fresh benchmark against which to assess the human rights compatibility of domestic mental health laws.


2007 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 282-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Eltis

“Privacy considerations no longer arise out of particular individual problems; rather, they express conflicts affecting everyone.”Along with the promise of assuaging the scourge of disease, the so-called genetic revolution unquestioningly imports a slew of thorny human rights issues that touch on matters such as dignity, disclosure, and the subject of this article – genetic testing and the social stigma potentially deriving therefrom.It is now rather evident that certain otherwise therapeutically promising forms of research can inadvertently involve social risks exceeding the individual preoccupations of eclectic study participants. With that as the case, the following proposes to examine the peculiar stigma attached to genetic information and its potential human rights implications extending beyond the insurance and employment context. In so doing, it raises the intersection of interests between self-identified members of historically vulnerable groups and the group itself, which the law seems to take for granted in the genetics context.


eTopia ◽  
2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharine Lu

For five and half years, Rebiya Kadeer was imprisoned as a political prisoner in China and was finally released in 2005 after Amnesty International campaigned for her release. Today, she now campaigns as a human rights activist against what many Uyghurs consider Chinese occupation of their homeland, Xinjiang. Although many organizationswork on human rights violations against the Uyghurs, Rebiya Kadeer has emerged as the primary symbol of Uyghur resistance in China, much like the Dalai Lama for Tibet.Her simultaneous position as both a human rights activist and resistance symbol offers a unique vantage point in exploring the relationship between memory, women, and nationalism. In sketching out these connections, this paper will analyze the agency and representation in the process of memory making and the gendering of resistance in relation to the life and memoir of Rebiya Kadeer. The political project of witnessing through representation offers a practical departure point for better understanding the formation of a feminine revolutionary subjectivity in contrast to the romanticized icon of the masculine, revolutionary hero. In proposing the relationship between memory, women and nationalism, this paper aims to ultimately understand whether the revolutionary subject has in effect become the human rights activist. And if this is the case, what then are the conditions for revolution, and is revolution possible within the logic of human rights discourse?


Refuge ◽  
1998 ◽  
pp. 31-36
Author(s):  
Maryanna Schmuki

This paper explores the social construction of women refugees from the perspective of the human rights regime with an eye to revealing whether the voices of refugee women are reflected. To this end the paper examines the development of women refugees as a category within human rights discourse and how this category has been bolstered by the concept of women's human rights within the last decade.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anatoli Rapoport

There is a synergetic complementary relationship between human rights education (HRE) and global citizenship education (GCE). Historically, however, HRE began to develop earlier than GCE. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether and to what degree a human rights narrative in the social studies standards of individual US states facilitates the introduction of the concept of global citizenship, and whether social studies standards connect human rights and global citizenship, contextually or thematically. The analysis demonstrates that despite an increased visibility of both concepts, state standards still fall short of demonstrating a clear connection between human rights and global citizenship or utilising a human rights discourse and paradigm to advocate for a broader exposure and acceptance of global citizenship


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (16) ◽  
pp. 47-56
Author(s):  
Ros Anita Karini Mohamed ◽  
Abdul Halim Ali

This paper will highlight the creative work ‘Ka-mana Terbangnya Si Burong Senja’ by A. Samad Said which features the issue of moral collapse. The short story of the study is seen as a human rights discourse that can provide awareness to society regarding human rights in the formation of social and cultural dynamics through the display of character and characterization of a fully significant immoral society. The work of A. Samad Said needs to be appreciated in terms of its inner meaning. The Taklif framework will be used to discuss the findings of the study because, in the Islamic view, in principle, the universe belongs to the One True God. By using a text analysis approach, the study will turn inward and bring the reader to be more open-minded in reading the author's message from the lens of Islam, which is back to the creator in the process of personality formation.


Author(s):  
Mziwandile Sobantu ◽  
Nqobile Zulu ◽  
Ntandoyenkosi Maphosa

This paper reflects on human rights in the post-apartheid South Africa housing context from a social development lens. The Constitution guarantees access to adequate housing as a basic human right, a prerequisite for the optimum development of individuals, families and communities. Without the other related socio-economic rights, the provision of access to housing is limited in its service delivery. We argue that housing rights are inseparable from the broader human rights discourse and social development endeavours underway in the country. While government has made much progress through the Reconstruction and Development Programme, the reality of informal settlements and backyard shacks continues to undermine the human rights prospects of the urban poor. Forced evictions undermine some poor citizens’ human rights leading courts to play an active role in enforcing housing and human rights through establishing a jurisprudence that invariably advances a social development agenda. The authors argue that the post-1994 government needs to galvanise the citizenship of the urban poor through development-oriented housing delivery.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 137
Author(s):  
Mariane Morato Stival ◽  
Marcos André Ribeiro ◽  
Daniel Gonçalves Mendes da Costa

This article intends to analyze in the context of the complexity of the process of internationalization of human rights, the definitions and tensions between cultural universalism and relativism, the essence of human rights discourse, its basic norms and an analysis of the normative dialogues in case decisions involving violations of human rights in international tribunals such as the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and national courts. The well-established dialogue between courts can bring convergences closer together and remove differences of opinion on human rights protection. A new dynamic can occur through a complementarity of one court with respect to the other, even with the different characteristics between the legal orders.


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