Human Rights and the Pink Tide in Latin America: Which Rights Matter?

Latin America witnessed the election of ‘new Left’ governments in the early 21^st century that, in different ways, sought to open a debate about alternatives to paradigms of neoliberal development. What has this meant for the way that human rights are understood and for patterns of human rights compliance? Using qualitative and quantitative evidence, this article discusses how human rights are imagined and the compliance records of new Left governments through the lens of the three ‘generations’ of human rights — political and civil, social and economic, and cultural and environmental rights. The authors draw in particular on evidence from Andean countries and the Southern Cone. While basic civil and individual liberties are still far from guaranteed, especially in the Andean region, new Left countries show better overall performances in relation to socio‐economic rights compared to the past and to other Latin American countries. All new Left governments also demonstrate an increasing interest in ‘third generation’ (cultural and environmental) rights, though this is especially marked in the Andean Left. The authors discuss the tensions around interpretations and categories of human rights, reflect on the stagnation of first generation rights and note the difficulties associated with translating second and third generation rights into policy.     

Human Rights: A New Standard of Civilization?

This is an edited text of the fifth John Vincent Memorial Lecture delivered at the University of Keele on 9 May 1997 in which Jack Donnelly attacks the still common scepticism about international human rights - although from an unorthodox angle.     

High Court Review 2010: The Resurgence of Rights?

In 2010 the High Court delivered several judgments with potentially significant implications for the protection of human rights in Australia. It invoked the doctrine of the implied constitutional freedom of communication in Aid/Watch; found that offshore processing of asylum seekers must comply with procedural fairness and natural justice; invalidated elements of the SA government's control order scheme as it encroached on the independence of the judiciary; and invalidated amendments to electoral laws that shortened the period for enrolment. In this review we evaluate the implications of these decisions in the wider context of the protection of human rights in Australia. We argue that while these decisions have made an important contribution to restating the boundaries of rights protection, there are significant limitations in relying on judicial review as a mechanism of rights protection within the Australian constitutional framework.     

Human Rights and Multinationals: Is there a Problem?

In recent years interested individuals and pressure groups have expressed considerable concern over the alleged complicity of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in violations of human rights. While such allegations are not historically unprecedented, the context in which they arise has changed. In particular, the increased integration of the global economy has created a perception that MNEs should take more responsibility for the social dimension of their actions, a perception that enterprises themselves have in part accepted through inter alia the issuing codes of corporate conduct. Furthermore, the rise of identity and lifestyle politics has made MNEs, as purveyors of products and services that help to define consumer lifestyles, a target of concern. These changes have significant implications for the evolution of human rights theory. In particular, they require a shift in the traditional view that corporations can only be victims of violations of human rights committed by states, towards one that extends responsibility for the commission, prevention and avoidance of such violations to MNEs themselves. On the other hand, there exist strong arguments against such an extension of human rights responsibilities. In particular, it is said that MNEs should only be responsible for the conduct of their business and should not be forced to involve themselves in such wider social issues. They are also private law entities and so should not possess the same responsibilities as states. This articles posits that such arguments in favour of extension, though strong and likely to remain influential, cannot answer the need for an extension of responsibility for human rights violations to MNEs where appropriate, on the basis that any attack on human dignity, whatever that legal nature and functions of its originator, must be liable to legal sanction. The technical legal means by which this might be done are considered. None the less, the article ends with a caution that any extension of human rights responsibilities to MNEs must not be allowed to deflect attention from the primary responsibility of states, as the most likely perpetrators of human rights violations, to avoid human rights violations on their own part and to establish a legal order in which the risk of such violations committed by private entities can be minimized, whether through effective national regulatory laws or international agreements on standards of corporate conduct.     

1993 Elections Highlight Tibetan Rights

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Who Has the Rights to Talk About the Human——Rights of Tibetans

At present, Tibetan human rights are a hot topic amongst some people right around the world. On the face of it they sound plausible. But as a matter of fact, they have absolutely no idea of what “Old Tibet” （referring to the time before the peaceful liberation in 1951） was really like, how the Tibetan slaves/serfs lived in old Tibet and how they survived in an appalling lack of numan rights in those days.     

Human Rights Fighter Praises Feudal Serfdom

TheoldTibetunderthe14thDalaiLamahadnohumanrights.Inthe1980s,however,thischiefrenresentativeofthefeudalserfsystemovernightbecamea"humanrightsfighter".Repeatedly,heexcitedlyaccusedtheCentralGovernmentofviolatinghumanrights.Therearesomethingsintheworldwhicha…     

South Korea’s North Korean Image Problem: Human Rights under the Spotlight

ABSTRACT

The 2014 United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea (UN COI) had a decisive impact on South Korea’s approach to North Korea’s human rights abuses in the several years following its release. This article interprets moves within South Korea to support the UN COI’s recommendations as taken in the interests of ontological security, or a stable sense of identity, which has also driven the state’s broader initiatives on image management and nation branding. It extends the boundaries of nation-branding research by considering why and how a state may adopt policies that enhance its moral visibility and reputation in world affairs. It considers how a positive reputation is enhanced by demonstrating good international citizenship, promoting the visibility of state identity parameters beyond its culture and core industries. This article interprets the South Korean government’s efforts to act on North Korean human rights following the UN COI, as well as the significance of being seen to be doing so at home and abroad as security-giving behaviour asserting its moral authority in relation to North Korea. It explores how a longstanding policy of relative silence on North Korea’s human rights record acceded to identity-driven pressures arising from the UN COI and influencing South Korea’s international image-management strategy between 2014 and 2017.     

‘Supplicant Nationalism’ in Slovakia and Wales: Polyethnic Rights During the Nineteenth Century

During the nineteenth century, nationalists in Wales and Slovakia attempted to promote national goals by attempting to persuade English and Hungarian leaders to freely grant collective rights to the ‘subordinate’ nation. This strategy of ‘supplicant’ nationalism included effusive declarations of loyalty to the common state, exaggerated claims to moral superiority, and flattering comments about the ‘dominant’ nation. Supplicant nationalism closely resembles what Will Kymlicka called the struggle for ‘polyethnic rights’, but can still be seen as a form of nationalism.     

National Minority Rights vs. State Sovereignty in Europe: Changing Norms in International Relations?

Abstract. The 1990s debate on minority rights clearly indicates that minority issues are among the most controversial subjects of international relations. Questions concerning national minorities gained new prominence in international relations, especially in East Central Europe, following the end of the Cold War. Between 1990 and 1995 the formulation of international standards regulating state conduct towards national minorities was a priority for European organisations. This standard setting episode raises several important questions. Why did national minorities reappear on the international agenda after 1989? How were they responded to? Why did state sovereignty continue to take precedence over minority rights?     

‘How Time Flies’: Celebrating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the 1960s

Recent histories of human rights have identified the 1970s as the most decisive epoch in the birth of the modern rights era. These works have tended toward a parenthetic dismissal of the period 1948–70 as years of interregnum, of marginal impact to the ‘breakthrough’ moment which followed. This article argues for a more complex periodisation, and reclaims the importance of the 1960s. Far from an undifferentiated abyss, the two decades between the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the 1968 International Human Rights Year held their own shifts, integral to the evolution of modern human rights. A crucial transition in the status of the UDHR occurred across the mid-1960s, roughly aligned with the terminal years of liberal post-colonialism. Through a comparison of two hitherto neglected events in the history of human rights, the fifteenth and twentieth anniversary commemorations of the UDHR, in December 1963 and 1968, this article traces the trajectory of that transition. These commemorations, concentrated moments of explicit reflection on the meaning of human rights, encapsulated the gulf between the early and the late 1960s. In the space of five years, any vestigial consensus on the vision enunciated in 1948 was obliterated.     

‘Making Black More Beautiful’: Black Women and the Cosmetics Industry in the Post-Civil Rights Era

This article explores how the ‘Black is Beautiful’ movement transformed attitudes towards beauty standards within black communities and how the cosmetics industry tried to capitalise on these shifts in their marketing strategies. It charts how redefined beauty standards generated a proliferation of cosmetics companies and products exclusively for black women, and their success attracted widespread attention from across the industry. However, this article demonstrates that while the cosmetics industry removed certain racialised barriers to mainstream American beauty culture, the commodification of the language and imagery of “Black is Beautiful” in cosmetics advertising often reinforced gendered expectations as well as heightening tensions within black communities in regard to colourism and business ownership.     

Liberalism in Progress—From Equal Rights to Global Participation

Abstract

Michael Walzer defends a political liberalism that upholds the right to share in substantive goods as well as to enjoy civil liberties, and that supports the value and rights of particular ethnic, cultural, and religious communities. But Walzer tends to see the political sphere as one in which conflict continually threatens, and particular commitments must be suppressed or constrained. I propose what might be termed a "progressive" politics, in which particular identities and relationships are appreciated as the bases of meaningful social agency, and in which particular communities come together around problems of mutual concern to establish common ground and working relationships in a participatory democracy.     

Was James Madison Ever for the Bill of Rights?

Abstract

This article revisits the question whether James Madison believed the Bill of Rights improved the Constitution. In particular, it asks whether the evidence supports the argument that Madison was persuaded that bills of rights serve an important educative function in constitutional government. It concludes that the evidence does not support this argument and suggests that Madison did not believe that the Bill of Rights improved the Constitution.