From the diverse work and often competing insights of women's human rights activists, Brooke Ackerly has written a feminist and a universal theory of human rights that bridges the relativists' concerns about universalizing from particulars and the activists' commitment to justice. Unlike universal theories that rely on shared commitments to divine authority or to an 'enlightened' way of reasoning, Ackerly's theory relies on rigorous methodological attention to difference and disagreement. She sets out human (...) rights as at once a research ethic, a tool for criticism of injustice and a call to recognize our obligations to promote justice through our actions. This book will be of great interest to political theorists, feminist and gender studies scholars and researchers of social movements. (shrink)

This article makes an argument that using the term race and considering structural racial discrimination as such and the impacts on it of European colonialism are needed for Sweden’s observance of universal human rights. This argument is contrary to the view of the Swedish state and challenges an image of Sweden as a champion for universal human rights without any colonial history or racial problems of its own.

Universal Human Rights brings new clarity to the important and highly contested concept of universal human rights. This collection of essays explores the foundations of universal human rights in four sections devoted to their nature, application, enforcement, and limits, concluding that shared rights help to constitute a universal human community, which supports local customs and separate state sovereignty. The eleven contributors to this volume demonstrate from their very different (...) perspectives how human rights can help to bring moral order to an otherwise divided world. (shrink)

Universal Human Rights brings new clarity to the important and highly contested concept of universal human rights. This collection of essays explores the foundations of universal human rights in four sections devoted to their nature, application, enforcement, and limits, concluding that shared rights help to constitute a universal human community, which supports local customs and separate state sovereignty. The eleven contributors to this volume demonstrate from their very different (...) perspectives how human rights can help to bring moral order to an otherwise divided world. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: A Sense of Community and the Need for Trust Components of Common Identity Objections Considered Conclusion Acknowledgments References.

I argue that a reasonably comprehensive doctrine of human rights can be reconciled with at least a good deal of diversity in cultural belief and practice. The reconciliation cannot be achieved by trying to show that there is in fact a cross-cultural consensus about the existence of human rights, partly because no valid inference to the normative status of human rights can be drawn from the existence of such a consensus. However, by highlighting the (...) premises rather than the conclusions of normatively persuasive arguments for human rights, I argue that a reasonably comprehensive doctrine of universal human rights can be squared with what is known about the diversity of cultural beliefs and practices. This is because the (empirically plausible) denial that there is in fact a cross-cultural consensus about the existence of human rights can go hand-in-hand with cross-cultural endorsement of the normative considerations that underpin human rights doctrine. (shrink)

I argue that a reasonably comprehensive doctrine of human rights can be reconciled with at least a good deal of diversity in cultural belief and practice. The reconciliation cannot be achieved by trying to show that there is in fact a cross-cultural consensus about the existence of human rights, partly because no valid inference to the normative status of human rights can be drawn from the existence of such a consensus. However, by highlighting the (...) premises rather than the conclusions of normatively persuasive arguments for human rights, I argue that a reasonably comprehensive doctrine of universal human rights can be squared with what is known about the diversity of cultural beliefs and practices. This is because the (empirically plausible) denial that there is in fact a cross-cultural consensus about the existence of human rights can go hand-in-hand with cross-cultural endorsement of the normative considerations that underpin human rights doctrine. (shrink)

Abstract: Would a global commitment to international human rights norms provide enough of a sense of community to sustain a legitimate and sufficiently democratic global order? Sceptics worry that human rights cannot help maintain the mutual trust among citizens required for a legitimate political order, since such rights are now too broadly shared. Thus prominent contributors to democratic theory insist that the members of the citizenry must share some features unique to them, to the exclusion (...) of others—be it a European identity ( Habermas and Derrida 2003 ) or a national public culture generally shared only by the members ( Miller 1995, 2000 ). This essay considers and rejects these arguments. While stable, democratic redistributive arrangements do require trust and institutionalised means of trustworthiness; they need not rely on norms or values that distinguish members from non-members: such exclusion is not required. Thus human rights may be part of a common political identity. (shrink)

For over last 70 years, the concept of "return" attained primary focus for the national narrative of Palestinian struggle against devastating conditions, categorized as eviction from ancestral homeland, diffusion in all aspects and reconstitution of national unity. However, the very idea create fears among Israelis regarding their authority of whole Zionist enterprise, as well as demographic stability of Arab-Jewish ventures, with regards to the return of large number of Palestinians to their own places or any other part in Palestine. Discrimination (...) in opposition to Palestinians is no longer perpetrated fully by Israeli state, but common to its society, as well. Our article is an answer to the complicated question: Can refugees along with other displaced victims ever claim their right in entering Israel and Palestine, since this State includes Gaza and West Bank territories? Various articles have made an attempt to clarify the matter through some internal laws and have also interpreted the rights mentioned in ‘International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights’, particularly while clarifying the idea evolved from the typical term: 'his own country’. The article focuses on the viable first point, specifically on the claim as a right of the Diasporas return to the formerly called ‘Palestine’. Various resources are utilised for the purpose of the research. This includes books, scholarly researched articles and newspapers etc. The study is analytical in nature and based on qualitative research method. Most of the literature used for the article is Secondary. The conclusion drawn in precise manner is that the intentions are blended in repeated violations of human rights, along with ethnic and religious refining and various innumerable deficiencies, and try to become regularly involved in sensitive issues. This turned out to be disheartening for the people living there as no efforts are made for a truthful resolution. (shrink)

Bringing Human Rights Education to US Classrooms presents ten research-based human rights projects powerfully implemented in a range of U.S. classrooms, from elementary school through community college and university. In these classrooms, the students--primarily young people of color who have experienced or witnessed human rights abuses such as discrimination and poverty--are exposed for the first time to thinking about their own lives and the world through an empowering human rights lens. Unique in (...) integrating theory and classroom practice, and in addressing human rights issues with special relevance for communities of color in the US, Katz and Spero provide indispensable guidance for those studying and teaching human rights. (shrink)

The 2008 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) provides a landmark articulation of the universality of human rights. It affirms in strong terms that all human beings have a claim to full inclusion and equal participation in society, something denied to many because of disability. The CRPD is an ambitious document with far-reaching and fundamental implications. This interdisciplinary collection of essays takes up pressing philosophical, legal, and practical issues raised by the CRPD (...) and the ongoing process of its implementation. Combining clear legal and philosophical overviews with ground-breaking conceptual analyses, the collection aims to advance the academic debate about human rights and disability and to serve as a useful resource for policymakers, ethicists, disability activists, jurists, and all those interested in the human rights of persons with disabilities. With contributions by Jackie Leach Scully, Marcus Düwell, Jenny Goldschmidt, Sigrid Graumann, Caroline Harnacke, Jan Vorstenbosch, Esther van Weele, Joel Anderson, Jos Philips. (shrink)

This article takes up the educational challenge of the framers of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Specifically, the author explores the question of: how can we talk about a universal conception of human rights in a way that both respects the need for cultural pluralism and the necessity to protect those rights and freedoms that all people—regardless of differences such as race, class, culture, or religion—are entitled to? What metaphor or metaphors can (...) be useful for us to speak clearly and coherently about the issue of universal human rights in a diverse world? The author examines a prevailing yet problematic metaphor, which Makau Mutua critiques in his well-known essay ‘Savages, Victims and Saviors: The Metaphor of Human Rights.’ He then attempts to articulate some common values that can serve as a foundation for an alternative conception of human rights. Next, he proposes an alternative metaphor—the Buddhist notion of equalizing and exchanging self and other—that more aptly captures the complexity and contradictions of talking about universal human rights. Finally, he turns to the role of education in helping people become familiar with and respect this alternative metaphor. (shrink)

Conventional wisdom suggests that promoting self-determination for peoples and protecting the human rights of individuals are competing priorities. However, many recent international human rights documents include rights of peoples in their lists of basic human rights. In this paper, I defend including at least one people’s right, the right to self-determination, in the list of basic rights. Recognizing that self-determination is a constitutive element of human dignity casts state sovereignty in a (...) different light, with interesting consequences both for international law and for philosophical debates about the rights of minorities. (shrink)

In this analysis of William Talbott’s important book, I note with appreciation his defense of universal moral principles and of moral justification as a “social project,” his focus on the critique of oppression, and his emphasis on empathic understanding in the account of human rights. I go on to develop some criticisms regarding: 1) Talbott’s traditional understanding of human rights as holding against governments and not also applying to nonstate actors; 2) his account of the (...) interrelations among well-being, autonomy, claims for first person authority in moral judgment, and human rights; 3) his strongly rationalist and liberal individualist interpretation of moral judgment and autonomy; and 4) the lack of a role for intercultural dialogue about human rights, which nonetheless are held to apply to all human beings across cultures. In each case, I briefly consider what an alternative approach would look like. (shrink)

To counter possibilities for human rights as cultural imperialism, (1) I develop a notion of human rights as culturally particular and valid only locally. But they are an increasingly generalizable particularism. (2) Because the incommensurability of different cultures does not entail an uncritical tolerance of just about anything, but rather allows for an objectivating stance toward other communities or cultures, locally valid human rights have a critical capacity. (3) Locally valid human rights (...) promote a community's self-representation and thus allow for diversity, rejecting the coercive (mis)representation of a community or culture as incapable of representing itself. (shrink)

Recent developments in the Arab world reopen one of the most fertile debate topics in international relations theory: the universal nature of the concept “fundamental human rights” and their content. The perspectives are different, being influenced by an ideological background, especially theological, apparently contradictory, affecting the positions of major international actors, stimulating the revival of controversies on major differences between Western world and the developing societies. Through a balanced analysis, specific to critical postmodernism, of the way each (...) civilization (according to Samuel Huntington) relates to the human being and to its place within its own legal architecture, one can notice that, beyond any differences, joint elements can be identified for further integration into a common fundamental text conferring the consensual universality indispensable to such an important principle. (shrink)

"An important contribution to contemporary jurisprudential debate and to legal thought more generally, Just Interpretations is far ahead of currently available work."--Peter Goodrich, author of Oedipus Lex "I was struck repeatedly by the clarity of expression throughout the book. Rosenfeld's description and criticism of the recent work of leading thinkers distinguishes his work within the legal theory genre. Furthermore, his own theory is quite original and provocative."--Aviam Soifer, author of Law and the Company We Keep.

One of the most challenging issues in cross-cultural bioethics concerns the long-standing socio-cultural practice of female genital circumcision, which is prevalent in many African countries and the Middle East as well as in some Asian and Western countries. It is commonly assumed that FGC, in all its versions, constitutes a gross violation of the universal human rights of health, physical integrity, and individual autonomy and hence should be abolished. This article, however, suggests a mediating approach according to (...) which one form of FGC, the removal of the clitoris foreskin, can be made compatible with the high demands of universal human rights. The argument presupposes the idea that human rights are not absolutist by nature but can be framed in a meaningful, culturally sensitive way. It proposes important limiting conditions that must be met for the practice of FGC to be considered in accordance with the human rights agenda. (shrink)

Abstract: The emergence of cross-border communities and transnational associations requires new ways of thinking about the norms involved in democracy in a globalized world. Given the significance of human rights fulfillment, including social and economic rights, I argue here for giving weight to the claims of political communities while also recognizing the need for input by distant others into the decisions of global governance institutions that affect them. I develop two criteria for addressing the scope of democratization (...) in transnational contexts— common activities and impact on basic human rights —and argue for their compatibility. I then consider some practical implications for institutional transformation and design, including new forms of transnational representation. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction 1. Political Communities and Human Rights Impacts in Transnational Democracy 2. Transnational Representation: Extending Participation in Cross‐Border Decision Making Acknowledgments References.

Marxists should reconsider their usual attitude to universal human rights. On the Jewish Question did not reject the entire French Declaration of 1791. In 1843 Marx and Engels were close to Babouvism, the continuation of French rights. Nor was their view that the 1791 Declaration must be completed by economic and social rights; rather, their criticism concerned the reduction of universal rights to citizen rights because it left the state the final arbiter (...) of justice, denying the ‘voice from below’. The source of human rights cannot be the state or its hegemonic rule of law. The article concludes that a politics of human rights would return justice to individuals and create a counter-hegemony. (shrink)

Reflections on the UN Declaration of Bioethics and Human Rights written when it was not yet enacted.

This paper examines how the intercultural conception of human rights, fueled by the modes of reciprocal recognition associated with Hegel’s social philosophy, draws on traditional understandings of human dignity while avoiding the essentialism associated with those understandings. Part 1 summarizes core elements of an intercultural theory of human rights while addressing the general question of how that theory accommodates an understanding of the relationship of human dignity and human rights. Part 2 presents (...) the intercultural approach as committed to a view of human dignity focused on the intrinsic worth of individuals, but understood, not—with Kant—as an anthropologically inherent property, but as one forged in relations of intersubjective recognition. Part 3, critically engaging arguments of C Beitz and J Habermas, claims that an intercultural approach entails a status-based conception of human dignity, one that construes the latter, not as a metaphysically conceived inherent quality, but as a function of membership in a social order supportive of both liberal right claims and a republican commitment to rights systems generally. Drawing on the work of Hegel and critically engaging the position of A Sangiovanni, Part 4 construes human dignity in terms of a doctrine of human rights expressive of a common humanity, one understood, however, not as an essential attribute of human beings, but in terms of a globally realized legal-political order whose members are dispositionally committed to the worth of all members of the human community and the value of human community itself. Critically appropriating the work of H Arendt for the intercultural theory, Part 5 considers the centrality of actual politics to a dignitarian account of human rights. Part 6 construes human dignity, again with Kant, in terms of the principle of autonomy, but one understood, not abstractly, but—engaging Pico della Mirandola—as the fallibilistically conceived process of social learning on the part the members of the human community. Part 7 considers how the intercultural view, with the idea of social practice expressive of collective human agency, accommodates a concept of human dignity understood as the “foundation”—nuanced and variegated—of human rights. Part 8 details the specific normativity of an intercultural conception, asserting that despite and even because of its attention to the empirical realities of social, historical, and political life, that conception remains committed, as with essentialist views, to context-transcending norms capable of calling into question actual practices and policies. Here, recourse is had to a concept of recognition understood both as a principle of evaluation and as a social practice encompassing the activity of individuals and groups engaged in the discourse on human rights. (shrink)

This fully revised and extended edition of James Nickel's classic study explains and defends the conception of human rights found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent human rights treaties. Combining philosophical, legal, and political approaches, Nickel addresses questions about what human rights are, what their content should be, and whether and how they can be justified.

According to the orthodox or humanist conception of human rights, individuals have a moral duty to promote the universal realization of human rights. However, advocates of this account express the implications of this duty in extremely vague terms. What does it mean when we say that we must promote human rights satisfaction? Does it mean that we must devote a considerable amount of our time and resources to this task? Does it mean, instead, (...) that we must make occasional donations to charities working to advance human rights realization? In this essay, I argue that this duty can only be constructed as imperfect. This means that it confers agent-relative discretion on us to decide when, how, and to what extent to advance the human rights of others. It also means that it is neither correlative with rights nor enforceable. As I will explain, the main reason for this is that any attempt to construct it as a perfect duty would infringe the dignity of the potential duty bearers and thereby undermine the very values that human rights practice aspires to serve. Finally, I will conclude by providing some guidelines for those who wish to comply with their imperfect duties to improve the situation of those whose human rights are in peril. (shrink)

The discussion is based around these issues, history of Human Rights, timeline for Human Rights history, question asked in this regard and enemy and friend of ‘human rights’. Describing the problems and its resolve from logical reasoning perspective; intellectual argumentation based on logical reason of, what is universal human right, democracy and illegal wars in the world by super powers as example America? Attempt to describe the inner construction of a human (...) being-perfection-. Introduction to the concept of infallibility in different parts in the article, purify yourself and being purified. What is it, is it possible for a creation named human to be not fallible, is the idea or practicing it impossible or there is a great sphere of being able to practicing it and reaching the status if one finds guidance for the right way with peace and human rights prevailed in the world. Majority of the thought in the text, based on hadith-tradition- from the Prophet of Islam Peace upon Him and His family Ahl al-Bait Peace upon Them.Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2015 Vol.6 (1):15-21. (shrink)

Volume 10, Issue 2, June 2019, Page 281-288.

This project is, in part, motivated by my contention that one cannot adequately answer the question regarding the proper justification for human rights until one has answered the metaphysical question regarding the fundamental nature of human rights and the ontological question regarding the proper status of human rights. I offer a sustained analysis of metaphysical, ontological, and justificatory questions regarding human rights with the purpose of illustrating the point that theories that fail (...) to engage in such analyses are inadequate. In particular, this essay argues that Michael Ignatieff’s theory of human rights, as articulated in Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry, is philosophically inadequate because it fails to connect his justificatory arguments for human rights with metaphysical and ontological conceptions of and arguments for human rights. (shrink)

In philosophical debates on human rights between the East and the West, scholars argue whether rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and other international documents (in short, “international human rights”) are universal or culturally relative. Some scholars who emphasize the importance of East Asian cultures (such as the Confucian tradition) have different attitudes toward civil and political rights (CP rights) than toward economic, social, and cultural (...) class='Hi'>rights (ESC Rights). They argue that at least some international human rights on the list of CP rights are not universal and believe that East Asian cultures can contribute to the moral justification of ESC rights. This chapter introduces a philosophical argument to support a normative account of human rights. This normative account, called “the minimal account of human rights,” is based on the ideas of minimal values, especially essential necessities of dignity. Based on this account, we can explain why international human rights are both universal and justified by East Asian cultures, especially the Confucian tradition. To explain this minimal account and illustrate how it can be applied to debates on international human rights, this chapter focuses on debates on the international human rights to liberty on the list of CP rights and the human rights to health on the list of ESC rights. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Human Rights in Rawls's The Law of Peoples Human Rights as Universal Claim Rights Human Rights Minimalism and the Problem of Justification Acknowledgments Notes.