The fifth chapter contains entries for works on contemporary Judaism and human rights. The volume concludes with author, title, and subject indexes.

Following on the heels of his critically acclaimed God of Abraham, Lenn E. Goodman here focuses on rights, their grounding in the deserts of beings, and the dignity of persons. In an incisive contemporary dialogue between reason and revelation, Goodman argues for ethical standards and public policies that respect human rights and support the preservation of all beings: animals, plants, econiches, species, habitats, and the monuments of nature and culture. Immersed in the Jewish and philosophical sources, Goodmans (...) argument ranges from the fetus in the womb to the modern nation state, from the problems of pornography and tobacco advertising to the rights of parents and children, individuals and communities, the powerful and powerless--the most ancient and the most immediate problems of human life and moral responsibility. Guided by the probing argumentation that Goodman lays out with distinctive, often poetic clarity, the reader will emerge enlightened and prepared to respond with intelligence and commitment to the sobering moral challenges of the coming century. This is a book for anyone concerned with law, ethics, and the human prospect. (shrink)

Lenn Goodman argues forcefully that the Jewish tradition has a significant contribution to make to the general discourse on ethical issues. His goal in this book is to seek within the Jewish tradition, and in its interaction with other currents of Western thought, the foundations on which to build - without recourse to the privilege of "revelation" - public ethical theory.

This book deals with the thorny issue of human rights in different cultures and religions, especially in the light of bioethical issues. In this book, experts from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Daoism, Hinduism and Confucianism discuss the tension between their religious traditions and the claim of universality of human rights. The East-West contrast is particularly evident with regards to human rights. Some writers find the human rights language too individualistic and it is (...) foreign to major religions where the self does not exist in isolation, but is normally immersed in a web of relations and duties towards family, friends, religion community, and society. Is the human rights discourse a predominantly Western liberal ideal, which in bioethics is translated to mean autonomy and free choice? In today's democratic societies, laws have been drafted to protect individuals and communities against slavery, discrimination, torture or genocide. Yet, it appears unclear at what moment universal rights supersede respect for cultural diversity and pluralism. This collection of articles demonstrates a rich spectrum of positions among different religions, as they confront the ever more pressing issues of bioethics and human rights in the modern world. This book is intended for those interested in the contemporary debates on religious ethics, human rights, bioethics, cultural diversity and multiculturalism. (shrink)

The general concern of the paper is to ponder whether religious views inform ethical views? This is explored through the issue of animal rights within Judaism. There is not only a great divergence, even today worldwide, on the realm of freedom that non-humans may enjoy, but historically this group of individuals has been most restricted in their behaviour, and level of value, by the Western religious worldviews. Hence it would be instructive to see to what extent an ethical attitude (...) toward animals is present, or absent, and whether the religious prescriptions are justified by moral reasoning. And where we have found textual basis, as we have here, for taking the moral considerability of animals seriously, the next question is: has our moral sense been informed by a religious tradition? And has this led to changes in our secular understanding of ethical treatment toward animals? Or has there been a moral intuition there all along in humans, which has incidentally been expressed in a religious mode? (shrink)

That Jews are concerned about human rights is distinct from why Jews should be concerned about rights in the first place. This project analyzes the reasons Jews in the twentieth century put forward to convince co-religionists to take rights seriously. Focusing on the content of these arguments facilitates dividing the proffered rationales into three broad categories--the temporal, the innate, and the philosophical. Analysis of each category reveals subdivisions, reflecting the many ways Jews try to persuade each (...) other to care about human rights. This taxonomy, unlike others, highlights the different ways in which Jews conceptualize the burning ethical questions of our day: of how and why to be Jewish and modern. These rationales therefore are understood to function as moral reasons and, as such, can be assessed by their relative claims. (shrink)

That Jews are concerned about human rights is distinct from why Jews should be concerned about rights in the first place. This project analyzes the reasons Jews in the twentieth century put forward to convince co‐religionists to take rights seriously. Focusing on the content of these arguments facilitates dividing the proffered rationales into three broad categories—the temporal, the innate, and the philosophical. Analysis of each category reveals subdivisions, reflecting the many ways Jews try to persuade each (...) other to care about human rights. This taxonomy, unlike others, highlights the different ways in which Jews conceptualize the burning ethical questions of our day: of how and why to be Jewish and modern. These rationales therefore are understood to function as moral reasons and, as such, can be assessed by their relative claims. (shrink)

This collection of provocative essays by one of the twentienth century's most distinguished theologians deals with topics as diverse as the right to work, nuclear war, the Olympic Games, and Judaism and Christianity--all within the frameWork of human rights. Jurgen Moltmann believes that the dignity of the human being is the source of all human rights; if this dignity is not acknowledged and exercised, human beings cannot fulfil their destiny of living as the image (...) of God. In the first part, 'Human Rights', Moltmann urges Christians not to abandon the discussion of and the fight for human rights, but instead tore-examine human rights against a background of suffering and struggle. Part Two, 'Responsibility for the World and Christian Discipleship', considers Luther's doctrine of two kingdoms and Barth's doctrine of the lordship of Christ with respect to contemporary ethical and political decisions. Part Three, 'Christian Criticism of Religion' begins with a masterly analysis of religion and culture in Europe and then goes on to a theological critique of the American dream. (shrink)

Many will readily acknowledge there being rights of humans which trump the rights of states. Thus, these rights are aptly labeled ‘Human Rights,’ by which we may measure and admonish state-conduct. However, in contemporary Human Rights discourse, there is an emerging strand of thought in the academy that is Anti-Human Rights. To understand the foundations of Anti-Human Rights discourse, and to address the arguments that have been put forth, I (...) analyze and incorporate the works of John O. Nelson, Raymond Geuss, Wendy Brown, and Slavoj Žižek. Based on the same, I argue that the core arguments to these assertions are unpersuasive. I attempt at viewing Human Rights justification in different terms, and, to argue for the legitimacy of Human Rights while abandoning the search for justifications in nature, U.S. Foreign Policy, or Neo-Marxist views. (shrink)

Human rights stem from community values; therefore, even today they may develop only on the basis of the values of a particular community. When the interests of a society change, new threats to the same value originate. A constant scientific dialogue is necessary in order to neutralise these threats effectively. The current socio-cultural context reveals the problems related to the legal protection of human dignity through a contraposition of instrumental and teleological attitude towards the human dignity. (...) The article discusses ideological provisions theological ideas of Judaism, Christianity, natural rights, especially the provisions of the Stoa, and the concept of I. Kant which became the grounds for declaring every person to be equally respectable and for recognising every person as a subject of law. This enabled people to create individual social value under the conditions of dignified existence. The author also discusses the extent to which the ideological excursus allows filling in the gaps of legal protection and serving the present universal consent on the common value human dignity. (shrink)

MacDonald argues that a suite of genetic and cultural adaptations among Jews constitutes a “group evolutionary strategy.” Their supposed genetic adaptations include, most notably, high intelligence, conscientiousness, and ethnocentrism. According to this thesis, several major intellectual and political movements, such as Boasian anthropology, Freudian psychoanalysis, and multiculturalism, were consciously or unconsciously designed by Jews to promote collectivism and group continuity among themselves in Israel and the diaspora and undermine the cohesion of gentile populations, thus increasing the competitive advantage of Jews (...) and weakening organized gentile resistance. By developing and promoting these movements, Jews supposedly played a necessary role in the ascendancy of liberalism and multiculturalism in the West. While not achieving widespread acceptance among evolutionary scientists, this theory has been enormously influential in the burgeoning political movement known as the “alt-right.” Examination of MacDonald’s argument suggests that he relies on systematically misrepresented sources and cherry-picked facts. It is argued here that the evidence favors what is termed the “default hypothesis”: Because of their above-average intelligence and concentration in influential urban areas, Jews in recent history have been overrepresented in all major intellectual and political movements, including conservative movements, that were not overtly anti-Semitic. (shrink)

This essay aims to show that the nations of Central America must create access to safe and legal abortion as well as promote a political dialogue on the subject that is based on reason and science, rather than religion. Not only does prohibiting abortion constitute a violation of women's human rights, but, based on international human rights law as well as the minimum duties of civil ethics, failing in to provide such access or dialogue would mean (...) failing to meet the standards of a legitimate democratic state. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to provide an adequate theoretical framework to understand the biological basis of human rights. We argue that the skepticism about human rights is increasing especially among the most rational, innovative and productive community of intellectuals belonging to the applied sciences. By using examples of embryonic stem cell research, a clash between applied scientists and legal scientists cum human rights activists has been highlighted. After an extensive literature review, this paper (...) concludes that the advances in applied sciences proven by empirical evidence should not be restricted by normative theories and philosophies of the social sciences. If we agree on these premises that Human Rights are biological, then biology can provide a framework of cooperation for social and applied scientists. (shrink)

Despite the fact that by the end of the nineteenth century philosophically Natural Rights had been severely undermined, and that the British Idealists found anathema most of the principles upon which they relied, such theories still had a currency among some political polemicists. The Idealists retained the vocabulary and transformed the meaning to refer to those rights which it is imperative that the state or society recognise as indispensable to social existence. The criterion of such necessity was their (...) contribution to the common good. Such thinks as Green, Bosanquet, Ritchie, Jones and Watson offer a developmental view of Natural Rights, acknowledging that societies evolve giving rise to more refined versions of what constitutes the common good. While the idea of Human Rights depends upon the existence of a moral community, the common good is not necessarily judged only in relation to that community. There is nothing sacred about state borders or sovereignty, and the extension of the moral community beyond such arbitrary limits is both possible and desirable. This way of conceiving Natural Rights has become one of the dominant ways, in a variety of forms, of characterising the post 1945 Human Rights Culture. © 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

The fundamental message of Jewish thought in Levinas' version can be summarized by the following quote: It ties the meaning of all experiences to the ethical relation among humans; it appears to the personal responsibility of man, who, thereby, knows himself irreplaceable to realize a human society in which humans treat one another as humans. This realization of the just society is ipso facto an elevation of man to the society with God. This society is human happiness itself (...) and the meaning of life. Therefore, to say that the meaning of the real must be understood in function of ethics, is to say that the universe is sacred. But it is sacred in an ethical sense. Ethics is an optics of the divine. No relation to God is more right or more immediate.The Divine cannot manifest itself except through the neighbor. For a Jew, incarnation is neither possible, nor necessary. After all, Jeremiah himself said it: ‘To judge the case of the poor and the miserable, is not that to know me? says the Eternal’. DL 209. The quote at the end is from Jerem. 22:16.The One who is revealed in this ethical religion differs greatly from the almighty and triumphant God whose image dominates any thought in which politics procures the highest perspective. The ‘Master of the world’ is power-less against human violence and sin, vulnerable and persecuted. His passing by is not in the thunderstorm, not in the earthquake, and not in the fire either, but ‘after the fire there was a voice of subtle silence’ (1 Kings 19:11–12). God penetrates the world almost imperceptibly, in extreme humility. AV 211–212 (ECED). Cf. Kierkegaard vivant (Paris: Gallimard 1966), pp. 286–288. (shrink)

Now remembered primarily as Franz Kafta's friend and literary executor, Max Brod was an accomplishered thinker and writer in his own right. In this volume, he considers the nature and differences between Judaism and Christianity, addressing some of the most perplexing questions at the heart of human existence. “One of the most famous and widely discussed books of the 1920’s, Max Brod’s Paganism—Christianity—Judaism, has at last found its way into English translation to confront a new generation of readers. Max (...) Brod is best remembered today as the literary editor and friend of Franz Kafka. In his day, however, he was the more famous of the two by far. A major novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and composer, he was also, as this book demonstrates, a serious thinker on the perennial questions that are at the heart of human existence. . . .Some of his judgments are open to question. Still, with all its limitations, this is a forthright and passionate proclamation of the uniqueness of Judaism. Paganism—Christianity—Judaism was an intellectual and spiritual event when it was first published and it remains a valuable document even now.” —Rabbi Jack Riemer, Hadassah. (shrink)

This book is intended not only for scholars and students in humanities, history (esp. the history of ideas), Jewish studies, philosophy (esp. the history of philosophy), and Christian theology, but also for those concerned with the roots of anti-Semitism and with the need for toleration and intercultural pluralism. Modernity and the Final Aim of History: * Combines the development of German philosophy from the Enlightenment to Idealism, and from Idealism to the revolutionary turning-point of the mid-nineteenth century with the Jewish (...) question; * Shows the close entwining of anti-Jewish prejudices with awareness of the importance of Judaism in the formation of modern thought; * Points out the hopes, obstacles, compromises, and disappointments of Jewish emancipation right up to the appearance of racial anti-Semitism; * Traces the changes in the debate over Judaism from the theological perspective to the philosophical and from the philosophical to that of the economic and naturalistic; * Underlines the dangers to toleration that arise from seeing human history as directed towards a single aim; *Can be used in university courses and seminars, as well as in research groups. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Increasingly, global businesses are confronted with the question of complicity in human rights violations committed by abusive host governments. This contribution specifically looks at silent complicity and the way it challenges conventional interpretations of corporate responsibility. Silent complicity implies that corporations have moral obligations that reach beyond the negative realm of doing no harm. Essentially, it implies that corporations have a moral responsibility to help protect human rights by putting pressure on perpetrating host governments involved in (...) human rights abuses. This is a controversial claim, which this contribution proposes to analyze with a view to understanding and determining the underlying conditions that need to be met in order for moral agents to be said to have such responsibilities in the category of the duty to protect human rights. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Why People Matter: A Christian Engagement with Rival Views of Human Significance ed. by John F. KilnerLaura AlexanderWhy People Matter: A Christian Engagement with Rival Views of Human Significance Edited by John F. Kilner grand rapids, mi: baker academic, 2017. 240 pp. $26.99Although Why People Matter does not use the word, it is an apologetic for the Christian faith and ethical tradition. Its argument begins with (...) a moral intuition that the authors take to be near universal: "people matter." If Christian theological and ethical thought can be shown to explain and shore up the notion that [End Page 190] "people matter" better than other ethical outlooks—and the authors believe it can—then the work will have (1) established a proper moral foundation for holding and acting on the conviction that people matter and (2) provided a reasoned argument for why Christianity as a fundamental belief system is better and truer than the other ethical systems examined.The text of Why People Matter is accessible and well written. The essays weave together coherently around two central ideas: each human person has inherent, inalienable dignity, and Christianity is the truest way of understanding and acting on that conviction. To demonstrate what Christianity has to offer, the book begins (after a summative introduction by Kilner) with a set of essays describing five ethical outlooks: utilitarianism, collectivism, individualism, naturalism, and transhumanism. In each, a different author lays out an ethical foundation and concept of the outlook, shows how the concept illuminates why "people matter," explains why it may seem compelling, and argues that it fails to grasp something crucial about why people matter and how to live as if they matter. As Kilner puts it, "each [outlook] recognizes and champions something important that is missing in other ways of thinking. However, each is dangerously reductionistic by making that missing element the all-encompassing focus of its approach" (190).Next, Kilner examines the Christian conviction that every human being is made in the image of God. He argues that this conviction, rightly understood, provides the only adequate foundation for the idea that "people matter." Respect for the image of God leads to proper respect for the human rights of others. Following this, David Gushee analyzes biblical passages and themes to argue that encounters with human beings are always also encounters with God; thus, we must treat people accordingly.Why People Matter accomplishes its purpose as an apologetic, and it seems especially likely to help committed Christians understand how their moral convictions can hold up in debates with common Western philosophical ethical outlooks. A wise friend once described C. S. Lewis (referenced several times in the work) as "a master of convincing Christians that what they already believe is true." That sort of persuasion is one of the appropriate goals of apologetic, and Why People Matter seems likely to achieve it.I have two comments on areas where readers may come away unsatisfied. First, the contributors' descriptions of the ethical outlooks they discuss are necessarily brief; those who hold these outlooks would likely wish to quibble with or nuance their arguments. Second, the work addresses only Western philosophical outlooks; the authors do not engage non-Christian religious traditions. In the spirit of interreligious cooperation, this is an excellent decision: frankly, I would not want to read a work that spent several chapters explaining why Christian ethical thought is superior to the ethical thought of, say, Hinduism or Judaism. But the work does leave unanswered, and unasked, the question [End Page 191] of whether a reader who does come to reject individualism, transhumanism, and so on might not just as well embrace Islam or Buddhism as Christianity.That said, this is an engaging work on the title question. It traces the basic contours of certain ethical outlooks, shows their strengths and potential weaknesses, and argues for a deep understanding, based in Christian Scripture and ethical thinking, of why people matter.Laura AlexanderUniversity of Nebraska at OmahaCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

During the last years, there has been an increasing discussion on the role of business in human rights violations and an increase in human rights litigation against companies. The result of human rights litigation has been rather disillusioning because no corporation has been found guilty and most cases have been dismissed. We argue that it may nevertheless be a useful instrument for the advancement of the business and human rights agenda. We examine (...) the determinants of successful human rights litigation in terms of judicial, educational, and regulatory effects. This article reviews more than 40 corporate foreign direct liability cases and their effects on corporate human rights policies and conduct. The review shows that most corporations adjusted their human rights policies and adopted additional measures to cope with human rights issues during or shortly after the legal proceedings. Opening legal channels for human rights litigation may be one way for governments to incentivize firms to respect human rights. These findings have implications for the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights as well as on our interpretation of the most recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Kiobel v. Shell. (shrink)

Can we respond to injustices in the world in ways that do more than just address their consequences? In this book, Brooke A. Ackerly argues that what to do about injustice is not just an ethical or moral question, but a political question about assuming responsibility for injustice. Ultimately, Just Responsibility offers a theory of global injustice and political responsibility that can guide action.

"Human dignity" has been enshrined in international agreements and national constitutions as a fundamental human right. The World Medical Association calls on physicians to respect human dignity and to discharge their duties with dignity. And yet human dignity is a term--like love, hope, and justice--that is intuitively grasped but never clearly defined. Some ethicists and bioethicists dismiss it; other thinkers point to its use in the service of particular ideologies. In this book, Michael Barilan offers an (...) urgently needed, nonideological, and thorough conceptual clarification of human dignity and human rights, relating these ideas to current issues in ethics, law, and bioethics. Combining social history, history of ideas, moral theology, applied ethics, and political theory, Barilan tells the story of human dignity as a background moral ethos to human rights. After setting the problem in its scholarly context, he offers a hermeneutics of the formative texts on Imago Dei; provides a philosophical explication of the value of human dignity and of vulnerability; presents a comprehensive theory of human rights from a natural, humanist perspective; explores issues of moral status; and examines the value of responsibility as a link between virtue ethics and human dignity and rights. Barilan accompanies his theoretical claim with numerous practical illustrations, linking his theory to such issues in bioethics as end-of-life care, cloning, abortion, torture, treatment of the mentally incapacitated, the right to health care, the human organ market, disability and notions of difference, and privacy, highlighting many relevant legal aspects in constitutional and humanitarian law. (shrink)

In the absence of effective judicial remediation mechanisms after business-related human rights violations, companies themselves are expected to establish remediation procedures for affected victims and communities. This is a challenge for both companies and victims since comprehensive company-based grievance mechanisms are currently missing. In this paper, we explore how companies can provide effective remediation after human rights violations. Accordingly, we critically assess two different approaches to conflict resolution, alternative dispute resolution and restorative justice, for their potential (...) to provide dialogue-based, non-judicial remediation. We argue that remedy through agreement-driven ADR mechanisms risks marginalizing the interests and concerns of victims and affected community members, particularly in weak institutional contexts. Hence, we develop a dialogue-driven framework for corporate remediation of human rights violations grounded on RJ principles. This restorative framework provides a comprehensive CGM that focuses on the harms and needs of victims and aims at restoring justice through restorative dialogue. Based on a prompt discovery and a thorough investigation of the grievance, companies should design and prepare the remediation process together with victims, offenders and affected community members. Through restorative dialogue with the affected parties about the circumstances and impacts of the wrongdoing, companies can repair the harm, regain legitimacy amongst stakeholders as well as transform their business practices to avoid future human rights violations. (shrink)

This paper critically investigates the implementation of the UN guiding principles on business and human rights (UNGPs) into the corporate setting through the concept of ‘translation’. In the decade since the creation of the UNGPs, little academic research has focussed specifically on the corporate implementation of human rights. Drawing on qualitative case studies of two multinational corporations—an oil and gas company and a bank—this paper unpacks how human rights are translated into the corporate context. (...) In doing so, the paper focuses on the “resonance dilemma” translators encounter, the strategies used to make human rights understandable and palatable, and the difficulties that emerge from this process. We contend that the process of making human rights understandable and manageable can change their form and content, which may act as an obstacle to human rights realisation and corporate accountability for human rights. (shrink)

As corporations are going global, they are increasingly confronted with human rights challenges. As such, new ways to deal with human rights challenges in corporate operations must be developed as traditional governance mechanisms are not always able to tackle them. This article presents five different views on innovative solutions for the relationships between business and human rights that all build on empowerment, dialogue and constructive engagement. The different approaches highlight an emerging trend toward a (...) more active role for corporations in the protection of human rights. The first examines the need for enhanced dialogue between corporations and their stakeholders. The next three each examine a different facet of empowerment, a critical factor for the respect and protection of human rights: empowerment of the poor, of communities, and of consumers. The final one presents a case study of constructive corporate engagement in Myanmar (Burma). Altogether, these research projects provide insight into the complex relationships between corporate operations and human rights, by highlighting the importance of stakeholder dialogue and empowerment. All the five projects were presented during the Second Swiss Master Class in Corporate Social Responsibility, held in Lausanne, Switzerland on December 12, 2008. The audience for this conference, which examined business and human rights, was composed of researchers, governmental representatives, and business and non-governmental organization practitioners. (shrink)

:Recent years have seen an increase of interest on the part of human rights theorists in the “supply-side” of human rights, i.e., in the duties or obligations correlative to human rights. Nevertheless, faced with the practically urgent and seemingly simple question of who owes the duties related to international human rights, few human rights theorists provide an elaborate answer. While some make a point of fitting the human rights (...) practice and hence regard states as the sole human rights duty-bearers merely by referring to that practice, others criticize the “state-centric” approach to human rights duty-bearers and expand the scope of the latter to include any international institution beyond the state and even private actors. Curiously, however, even those more expansive accounts of human rights duty-bearers are usually very evasive about why it should be so and especially how it should work. The time has come to broach anew the issue of the bearers of human rights duties, and responsibilities of international institutions in human rights theory, addressing two challenges: focusing on relational and directed human rights duties specifically and not on duties of global justice in general, thereby distinguishing between human rights duty-bearers and other bearers of responsibilities for human rights, on the one hand, and accounting for and justifying the point of international human rights law and practice in this respect, thereby also securing internal arguments for reform, on the other. The essay’s argument is four-pronged. It starts with a few reminders about the relational nature of human rights and the relationship between human rights and duties and what this means for the specification of human rights duties. It then focuses more specifically on the identification of human rights duty-bearers, i.e., states and international institutions of jurisdiction like the European Union, and the allocation of human rights duties to them. The third section of the article is devoted to the concurrent moral responsibilities for human rights that are incurred by other various responsibility-bearers outside institutions of jurisdiction. In the final section, the essay considers the revolution potential of the EU’s fast-developing human rights’ duties, and discusses the normative implications of the development of universal international institutions’ human rights duties stricto sensu for international law and politics more generally. (shrink)

This book provides a critical account of the main controversies involving Norman Geras, one of the key modern political thinkers. It moves from his youthful Trotskyism on to his book on Rosa Luxemburg, then his classic account of Marx and human nature, and his highly regarded discussion of Marx and justice. Following this, Geras tried to elaborate a Marxist theory of justice, which involved taking on-board aspects of liberalism. Next he attacked the post modernism of Laclau and Mouffe and (...) criticised Rorty’s pragmatism, and then elaborated a contract of mutual indifference from a detailed study of the Holocaust. Lastly he wrote a book on human rights and humanitarian intervention, defending the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Cowling varies from exposition and admiration, to ideas about how Geras’s work should be interpreted, to criticism of his Trotskyism and of his support for the invasion of Iraq. The book will appeal to readers interested in Norman Geras and Marxism in particular, and social and political theory in general. (shrink)

In this chapter, I bring non-ideal theory to bear on the ethics of immigration. In particular, I explore what the obligations of liberal states would be if they were to attempt to implement migration arrangements that conform to liberal-cosmopolitan principles. I argue that some of the obligations states have are feasibility-insensitive, while some are feasibility-sensitive. I show that such obligations can have as their content both the inclusion and exclusion of prospective immigrants, and that they can be grounded in the (...) requirements of liberal justice, mere capacity to assist, as well as past or foreseeable contribution to harm. The chapter therefore explores the possibility of an international migration regime that takes human rights seriously whilst avoiding the twin pitfalls of strict immigration restrictions and the complete liberalization of immigration. (shrink)

Genetic enhancement is the modification of the human genome for the purpose of improving capacities or ‘adding in’ desired characteristics. Although this technology is still largely futuristic, debate over the moral issues it raises has been significant. George Annas has recently leveled a new attack against genetic enhancement, drawing on human rights as his primary weapon. I argue that Annas’ appeal to human rights ultimately falls flat, and so provides no good reason to object to (...) genetic technology. Moreover, this argument is an example of the broader problem of appealing to human rights as a panacea for ethical problems. Human rights, it is often claimed, are ‘trumps’: if it can be shown that a proposed technology violates human rights, then it must be cast aside. But human rights are neither a panacea for ethical problems nor a trump card. If they are drafted into the service of an argument, it must be shown that an actual human rights violation will occur. Annas’ argument against genetic technology fails to do just this. I shall conclude that his appeal to human rights adds little to the debate over the ethical questions raised by genetic technology. (shrink)

Victim's Stories and the Advancement of Human Rights takes on a set of questions suggested by the worldwide persistence of human rights abuse and the prevalence of victims' stories in human rights campaigns, truth commissions, and international criminal tribunals: What conceptions of victims are presumed in contemporary human rights discourse? How do conventional narrative templates fail victims of human rights abuse and resist raising novel human rights issues? What (...) is empathy, and how can victims frame their stories to overcome empathetic obstacles and promote commitment to human rights? How can victims' stories be used ethically in the service of human rights? The book addresses these concerns by analyzing the rhetorical resources for and constraints on victims' ability to articulate their stories and by clarifying how their stories can contribute to enlarged understandings of human rights protections and deepened commitments to realizing human rights. It theorizes the normative content that victims' stories can convey and the bearing of that normative content on human rights. Throughout the book, published victims' stories-including stories of torture, slavery, genocide, rape in wartime, and child soldiering-are analyzed in conjunction with philosophical arguments. This book mobilizes philosophical theory to illuminate victims' stories and appeals to victims' stories to enrich the philosophy of human rights. (shrink)

In recent years, due to factors such as rising sea levels, several island nations such as Maldives, Tuvalu, Kiribati, and the Marshall Islands are in danger of disappearing completely. When the land of an island country disappeared, the human rights protection of Environmentally Displaced Persons in the migration process and the possible loss of their unique culture, language, and lifestyle have aroused great concern. We call such Environmentally Displaced Persons as EDPs. This study selects the EDPs’ data of (...) 241 countries or regions from 2008 to 2018, establishes an ARIMA model, and predicts the future population of EDPs. By combining the influencing factors of cultural loss, the risk assessment model of cultural loss is established to evaluate the possibility of cultural loss during the migration process of EDPs. We have established a Bayesian Network and a Fault Tree Model to demonstrate the improvement brought about by the implementation of policy recommendations from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives and use the method of fault tree analysis to illustrate the importance of policies from the degree of probability reduction after policy changes. Finally, based on the above model establishment and data analysis, corresponding countermeasures are proposed to protect EDPs’ human rights from being violated and their culture will not be lost. (shrink)

The concept of non-discrimination has been central in the feminist challenge to gendered violence within international human rights law. This article critically explores non-discrimination and the challenge it seeks to pose to gendered violence through the work of Judith Butler. Drawing upon Butler’s critique of heteronormative sex/gender, the article utilises an understanding of gendered violence as effected by the restrictive scripts of sex/gender within heteronormativity to illustrate how the development of non-discrimination within international human rights law (...) renders it ineffective to challenge gendered violence due to its own commitments to binarised and asymmetrical sex/gender. However, the article also seeks to encourage a reworking of non-discrimination beyond the heteronormative sex binary through employing Butler’s concept of cultural translation. Analysis via the lens of cultural translation reveals the fluidity of non-discrimination as a universal concept and offers new possibilities for feminist engagement with universal human rights. (shrink)

The concept of vulnerability is widely used in human rights policy documents, reports, and case law focusing on the impacts of climate change on human rights. In academic discussions, the concept, however, has also sparked a discussion on its benefits and challenges for the advancement of human rights, especially concerning the principles of equality and non-discrimination. This article aims at contributing to this debate from a frame-analytical perspective. In social sciences, frame-analysis is a form (...) of discourse analysis which focuses on the consequences of different concepts for legal, political, and social discussions and norms. With the example of selected UN documents on different human rights issues in the context of climate change, the article, firstly, analyzes whether and how the concept of vulnerability is defined in the documents and why it is used in the documents. Secondly, it is elaborated to which individuals and groups the concept is applied. Thirdly, it is discussed how vulnerability is conceptualized in relation to or in distinction to the concepts of inequality and discrimination. In a further section it is analyzed what narratives are mobilized by the frame of vulnerability. The article concludes that from a discourse-analytical perspective the frame of vulnerability mobilizes problematic narratives which has gendered and racialized implications for those labeled vulnerable. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Engaging the Doctrine of Israel: A Christian Israelology in Dialogue with Ongoing Judaism by Matthew LeveringJustin Schembri O.P.Engaging the Doctrine of Israel: A Christian Israelology in Dialogue with Ongoing Judaism by Matthew Levering (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2021), 547 pp.Engaging the Doctrine of Israel not only presents an interesting take on an old and complex problem but also is intriguing in its basic thesis and overall development. In this (...) book, Levering attempts, and succeeds, to marry a scripturally grounded dialogue with ongoing Judaism with the necessary presuppositions of Christian dogmatics. He does so in order to understand the central realities of God's biblical people Israel and to shine a light on how these realities must inform Christian thought (3).Such a volume fills a gap in research, since Christian dogmatic studies [End Page 1437] often suffer a lack of appreciating just how important understanding "Israel's covenantal life" is for Christian doctrine (3). Thus, while Levering tells us that this book is "the dogmatic sequel" to his Engaging the Doctrine of Marriage (1), the content of the book cannot be divorced from its scriptural foundation, nor from a contemporary dialogue with Israel.After an ample introduction (1–47), Levering begins his treatment of the matter by explaining the necessary hermeneutical framework in which such an engagement can take place (48–109). This foundational chapter not only provides the grounding for the chapters that follow but also examines the pitfalls to avoid in dialoging with ongoing Israel. In particular, Levering finds a balance in the need for both Christians and Jews to retain core beliefs and a recognition that both sides have suffered from unnecessary and painful biases that have hurt dialogue in the past (52–53).Since Levering is writing from the point of view of a Christian, he is right to point out that a healthy and fruitful dialogue with Judaism in the present moment requires both a solid foundation in Christian doctrine and an acknowledgement of how the New Testament has been misused to reject and subject the Jewish people to injustice over the centuries. Thus, in agreement with the author, I too think that Christian–Jewish dialogue plays a vital role not only in healing such biases but also in bridging needless gaps between the two groups (108–109).This crucial chapter is followed by an examination of six different areas (110–443) in which Levering engages with Israel's doctrine through a Christian lens. In each case, a similar format is found in the sense that Levering first introduces the topic and then engages with different Jewish and Christian scholars in order to elicit a more robust space for dialogue to happen. Each topic of study, then, is brought to a conclusion wherein Levering explicates both the pitfalls to be avoided and what truth can Christians glean.The first area to be discussed is creation (110–46). In this chapter, Levering examines why is it important for both Jews and Christians alike to affirm that omnipotent God created creation ex nihilo. The author is right to point out that if God did not create creation out of nothing, then God is not omnipotent but rather merely a "powerful finite being" (111).While I would have like to see a more robust exegetical analysis on Gen 1:1–2 (especially with regards to bǝrē'šît, since it is not so certain that this prepositional phrase should be interpreted temporally), the author is right to move beyond the metaphysical question of creation ex nihilo, to point out that creation is "also rooted in God's speaking, and thus his Word," since creation must be understood as the way in which God establishes "a dialogic communion" (124) with creation. After all, it is the Word which is [End Page 1438] fundamental; God speaks and practically invites creation to take its place amongst the grooves that God has made.What is more is that this Word, as Levering acknowledges, is both divine and human, since it is the Word of God written in human language. Thus, in Scripture, we cannot escape the "divine–human collaboration" (145) that is willed by... (shrink)

In this article, we examine the continuity of harms and traumas experienced by women before, during and after war and other mass violence. We focus on women because of the particular challenges they face in accessing justice due to patriarchal structures and ongoing discrimination in the political, economic and social, as well as legal spheres, and because of the gendered nature of the crimes and harms they experience. We use the four key pillars of transitional justice identified by the United (...) Nations as a framework to analyse how these harms are addressed in the context of criminal prosecutions, truth commissions, reparations and institutional reform. We conclude that a gender-transformative approach to transitional justice that focuses on transforming psychosocial, socioeconomic and political power relations in society is needed in order to attain human rights for women and build a sustainable peace. (shrink)

Is the Confucian tradition compatible with the Western understanding of human rights? Are there fundamental human values, regardless of cultural differences, common to all peoples of all nations? At this critical point in Communist China's history, eighteen distinguished scholars address the role of Confucianism in dealing with questions of universal human rights.

In this article I draw on resources from the African philosophical tradition to construct a theory of human rights grounded on dignity that presents a challenge to the globally dominant, autonomy-based approach. Whereas the latter conceives of human rights violations as degradations of our rational nature, the former does so in terms of degradations of our relational nature, specifically, our capacity to be party to harmonious or friendly relationships. Although I have in the past presented the (...) basics of the Afro-relational approach, in this article I defend it from objections and also go on the offensive by arguing that understanding the human rights violations of torture and rape to be (roughly) behavior that treats innocent parties in an extremely discordant or unfriendly way is, if not more plausible than standard Kantian understandings, then at least a promising alternative to them. (shrink)