Constituting Human Rights

Global civil society and the society of democratic states are the two most inclusive and powerful global practices of our time. In this book, Frost claims that, without an understanding of the role that individual human rights play in these practices, no adequate understanding of any major feature of contemporary world politics from 'globalisation' to 'new wars' is possible. Constituting Human Rights, therefore argues that a concern with human rights is essential to the study of International Relations.

Global civil society and the society of democratic states are the two most inclusive and powerful global practices of our time. In this book Frost claims that, without an understanding of the role that individual human rights play in these practices, no adequate understanding of any major feature of contemporary world politics from 'globalization' to 'new wars' is possible. Therefore, Constituting Human Rights argues that a concern with human rights is essential to the study of international relations. Global civil society comprises those millions of people worldwide who claim first generation rights for themselves. By doing so they constitute one another as civilians. The language of rights used in this practice indicates that it is a practice that is open to all and without borders. Strikingly, the validity of claims made in it are not conceptually linked to any specific legal system or sovereign state. Within democratic states, however, the participants constitute one another as holders of citizenship rights, as people with a right to participate in self-government.; Frost holds that the rights claims made in this practice are only real insofar as they build on the civilian rights of the earlier practice. An understanding of the centrality of rights claims and the practices in which they are located provides a much needed guide to all of us concerned to understand contemporary international relations and concerned about ethical conduct in world affairs. This exercise in constitutive theory puts forward a powerful tool with which to tackle some of the pressing ethical issues of our time such as those to do with refugees, asylum seekers, new wars, secessionist movements, international labour practices and many more.

The emergence of transnational social movements as major actors in international politics - as witnessed in Seattle in 1999 and elsewhere - has sent shockwaves through the international system. Many questions have arisen about the legitimacy, coherence and efficiency of the international order in the light of the challenges posed by social movements. This book offers a fundamental critique of twentieth-century international law from the perspective of Third World social movements. It examines in detail the growth of two key components of modern international law - international institutions and human rights - in the context of changing historical patterns of Third World resistance. Using a historical and interdisciplinary approach, Rajagopal presents compelling evidence challenging debates on the evolution of norms and institutions, the meaning and nature of the Third World as well as the political economy of its involvement in the international system.

DIVBrings together essays that examine contestation and contingency in today's human rights politics /div

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. A burgeoning human rights movement followed, yielding many treaties and new international institutions and shaping the constitutions and laws of many states. Yet human rights continue to be contested politically and legally and there is substantial philosophical and theoretical debate over their foundations and implications. In this volume, distinguished philosophers, political scientists, international lawyers, environmentalists and anthropologists discuss some of the most difficult questions of human rights theory and practice: what do human rights require of the global economy? Does it make sense to secure them by force? What do they require in jus post bello contexts of transitional justice? Is global climate change a human rights issue? Is there a human right to democracy? Does the human rights movement constitute moral progress? For students of political philosophy, human rights, peace studies and international relations.

Philosophy in International Context Philosophie im internationalen Kontext, In this collection of papers on human rights, loanna Kuçuradi conceptualizes human rights as ethical principles, as well as premises for legislation and for legal reasoning. She attempts, by doing so, to show the significance of clear concepts for the protection of human rights in practice. Taking this conception of human rights as her point of departure, she also discusses the specificities of law, of the state and of politics that hold the most promise, under present-day conditions, for the protection of human rights and the prevention of their violation.

This book critically examines the contemporary discourses on the nature of 'human rights', their histories, the myths that are embedded in them, and contributes an alternative reading of those histories by placing the concerns and interests of the 'people in struggle and communities of resistance' at centre stage. The work analyses the significance of the United Nations (UN) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and goes on to study the more contemporary issues such as women's struggle to feminize the understanding and practice of human rights, the postmodernist critique of the universal idiom of human rights and, most pertinently for the current world scene, it analyses the impact of globalization on the human rights movement. The volume includes a discussion on the proposed UN norms regarding the human rights responsibilities of multinational corporations and other business entities.