The current century has witnessed immense improvement and re-conceptualization of standards and sovereignty of human rights in Latin America. With the endemic repression and violations of human rights throughout Latin American in the mid to late 20th century, the International human rights regime, an amalgam of international and intergovernmental organizations and bodies, expanded exponentially. By conducting investigations within certain countries, or simply monitoring overt violations of human rights, the international human rights regime stimulated global awareness of violations of human rights in different countries; soon to follow was change in domestic policy in response to international policy. This also led to increased opposition by domestic NGOs against repressive governments or dictatorships largely responsible for human rights violations. Just as well, a number of organizations and groups aided domestic non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in their growing efforts to establish judicial practices that better protected human rights. Declarations, conventions, and charters, established a number of values that served as the credo for the organizations that constituted the international human rights regime. Over time, more and more countries were pressured and held accountable for these values, which developed into universal standards for human rights practices. Thus the International Human right regime and the pressure they imposed upon governments ultimately resulted in widespread positive changes in human rights. Argentina and Chile experienced similar periods of extreme human rights violations. The response of the international human rights regime to the crimes against humanity, and the pressure placed on these count... ... middle of paper ... ...es’ constitutions, the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, according to Wright, “pressed for the acceptance of its rulings in Argentine courts” (166). Not only international efforts, but also domestic efforts, to apply international jurisprudence to local courts were on the rise. For example, in 1995, CELS launched its “program for the application of international law to human right in local courts” based on the amendments to the Argentine constitution (Wright 166). Just as well, human rights lawyers pushed “courts to embrace the international principle that crimes against humanity cannot be amnestied” (Wright, 167). In sum, the International human rights lobby wanted each country to mold its human rights jurisprudence around the rulings of international human rights law, and domestic actors adopted the same goal.
The question is whether a state is looking inward or outward for a deepened understanding and heightened application of human rights. The nation-state, which is authorized to transform principles into both policy and practice, is the central resolution to the question. However, nation-states are faced with the challenge of balancing their sovereignty with the moral necessity to produce enforceable regulations that both establish and protect global citizenship. Although there is a national interest in building a reputable international rapport, it cannot be denied that sovereignty is always an ingrained issue. In return, nation states attempt to limit the extent to which it involves itself in the addressing of human rights violations abroad. For example, although countries delegate authority to international institutions, they do so conditionally and preserve the right to disengage. Furthermore, solidarity joins sovereignty as another hindrance to a post-national world comprised solely of human rights. For as long as human rights include positive rights, such as freedom from poverty, there is a requirement for thick solidarity, a form of global community commitment. Necessitating a sense of collective responsibility, thick solidarity is increasingly
Center for the Study of Human Rights, Columbia University. (1994) Twenty-five Human Rights Documents. New York: Columbia University.
Human Rights Watch investigates and reports on Human Rights violations throughout the world, it can be broken into regions: Africa Watch, Americas Watch, Asia Watch, and Middle East and North Africa Division. As a bibliographical note indicates in the online Archival Collections at Columbia University, "Issues raised by HRW include social and gender discrimination, torture, military use of children, political corruption, and abuses in criminal justice systems, and violations of humanitarian and international law."2
With rampant violation of the human rights norm, are norms relevant in international politics? What significance do they hold if they do not inform policy decisions? Can anything be done in order to strengthen the normative element of human rights protection on a large scale? Constructivists declare that norms, principles, regimes or ideas are important factors at play in the international system mitigating pure self-interest and power politics that dictate behavior, as per the dominant realist worldview. However, to what extent norms actually influence decision-making is the true test to the relevance of constructivist arguments. Are norms and ideas affecting state interests in any real ways? I will argue that the human rights norm does not have a meaningful impact on policy, while admitting that it does indeed exist in some form. And, in order for it to be significant, it must be internalized beyond the system level.
By the fall of 1981, the Argentinean government under the leadership of General Galtieri and the military junta was experiencing a significant decrease of power. Economical...
Treaties are the highest source of international law besides jus cogens norms that have binding effect on the parties that ratify them.2 International human rights treaties rely on the “name and shame” mechanisms to pressure states to improve practices.3 However with “toothless” international human rights norms, moral coercion is not always effective. An empirical study conducted by Professor Oona Hathaway assessing the effect of human rights treaty ratification on human rights compliance, maintains in its findings that ratification of human rights treaties has little effect on state practices.4 States do not feel pressured to comply and change their practices, rather, signing treaties is “more likely to offset the pressure rather than augment it.”5 So, is it time to abandon human rights treaties and remit protection of human right to domestic institutions. Hathaway posits elsewhere that despite this treaties “remain an indispensable tool for the promotion of human rights.”6 Instead of getting rid of the treaty system, it is necessary to enhance the monitoring and enforcements mechanism to strengthen the human rights regime to ensure compliance.7 This article evaluates the extent to which international law serves as a useful tool for protection of human rights.
This essay considers that the violation of human rights can indeed be address by extraterritorial jurisdiction throw the human rights legal framework, mainly throw treaties as showed jurisprudence.
Generally, when most think of a crime against humanity, the most common synonym is genocide. Kosovo, Cambodia, Sudan, and Poland are all instances when genocide occurred and the public rightly labeled these instances as crimes against humanity. Within our modern world there are means other than the preconceived notion of genocide to systematically remove a specific group from their rights as humans. Using the relations between Mexico and the United States as an example, the need for a broadened interpretation of human rights violations will be established.
...th 2001). Roth argues that the concept of international jurisdiction is not a new idea but was exercised by the US government in the 1970 after an aircraft hijacking. Also the war crime courts established after the end of World War II exercised international jurisdiction. In fact the Geneva Convention states that is a person regardless of their nationality should be brought before the court of any state in which that person has committed grave breaches of law and convention. Roth states that the concept of international jurisdiction is not a new one but that only in recent years have states been willing to act on universal jurisdiction and go after criminals of the international community regardless of their stating or power within the international community. Roth believes in the ability and authority of international organizations and institutions (Roth 2001).
ABSTRACT: This paper defends the claim that the contemporary canon of human rights forms an indivisible and interdependent system of norms against both "Western" and "Asian" critics who have asserted exceptionalist or selectivist counterclaims. After providing a formal definition of human rights, I argue that the set of particular human rights that comprises the contemporary canon represents an ethical-legal paradigm which functions as an implicit theory of human oppression. On this view, human rights originate as normative responses to particular historical experiences of oppression. Since historically known experiences of oppression have resulted from practices that function as parts of systems of domination, normative responses to these practices have sought to disarm and dismantle such systems by depriving potential oppressors of the techniques which enable them to maintain their domination. Therefore, human rights norms form a systematic and interdependent whole because only as parts of a system can they function as effective means for combatting oppression and domination.
In this paper, I will attempt to show that while it is true that International law reflects the character of the society, it would be also correct to say that the opposite is correct.
... human rights within their own jurisdictions in one shape or another, the claim for a universal consensus on human rights is still a challenge and will continue to be. Those who try to impose their view on human rights on other societies fail to realize how diverse the world today is and how much culture and tradition have an impact on a country/states society and view. Cultural arrogance is not a means to developing an understanding between states. The challenge is to work towards the indigenization of human rights and the assertion within each country's traditions and history. Standards being internationally can only become reality when applied by countries within their own legal systems. Working unitedly in making decisions on the basis of what is best instead of following a single doctrine can encourage compromise to a worldwide mutual agreement of human rights.
One of the challenges that Amnesty International faces is the plethora of human rights violations that need addressing. They are one organization, albeit a powerful one, but they cannot solve all the world’s problems. They will need to prioritize which issues are essential and which cases they should take on. (“Many rights, some wrong,” 2007) Amnesty International cannot fight all of the battles of the world on its own. There are too many individuals needing assistance, and too many causes needing support. They will need to decide which battles to fight, and which can wait for another day or another
The Declaration encompasses political, civil, social, economic and cultural rights. Publicity has great impact on the implementation of human rights law. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other NGOs produce annual reports on countries or themes, which give invaluable information about human rights violations. Human Rights Watch, for example, conducts regular, systematic investigations of human rights abuses in some seventy countries around the Human Rights Watch refuses to recognize the ways in which a human rights paradigm rooted in capitalist values (i.e. only civil and political rights) may not be suited to countries searching for a socialist alternative in their struggle to liberate themselves from centuries of imperialism. After all, countries such as Venezuela and Cuba are forced to exist in a global context in which the most powerful nation on earth is using all of its resources to undermine them, not in the name of democracy or human rights, but because they dare to challenge the hegemony of the United States by promoting alternative
Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the discourse of international human rights and its importance has increasingly become indoctrinated in the international community. In the context of political and economic development, there have been debates on how and which rights should be ordered and protected throughout different cultures and communities. Though there is a general acceptance of international human rights around the globe, there is an approach that divides them into civil and political rights and social and economic rights, which puts emphasis where it need not be.