Human Rights Global Markets

Koen De Feyter, who has chaired Amnesty International's Working Group on economic, social and cultural rights, shows the many ways in which rampant market economics in today's world leads to violations of human rights. He questions how far the present-day international human rights system really provides effective protection against the adverse effects of globalization. This accessible and thought-provoking book shows both human rights activists and participants in the anti-globalization movement that there is a large, but hitherto untapped, overlap in their agendas, and real potential for a strategic alliance between them in joint campaigns around issues they share.

Special adoption price: $95.00/copy, 10 or more At a time of great change, turmoil, and contradiction in international human rights law and politics, authors Jeanne M. Woods and Hope Lewis have responded to the growing need for a classroom text that focuses squarely on economic, social, and cultural rights--"the neglected step-children of the human rights family"--and their intimate inter-relationship to civil and political rights. Students and instructors will find the results informative and provocative. Intended for use in law school, graduate, and undergraduate survey courses, as well as seminars on human rights, this book will be useful for teachers using both international and comparative approaches. The text is divided into four accessible parts: I. "Human Rights and the Global Marketplace: Discursive Themes" introduces the nature and scope of human rights discourse. II. "International Instruments and Their Implementation" takes students through an array of international and regional human rights treaties that address economic, social, and cultural rights. III. "Power, Politics, and Poverty: Structural Challenges to the Realization of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights" addresses major controversies in, and barriers to, the realization of socio-economic and cultural rights. IV. "Comparative Approaches" is valuable for international human rights, comparative law, and comparative constitutional law courses. Throughout the book, the authors provide notes, questions, and further reading suggestions to stimulate classroom discussion, debate, and research. The volume also includes valuable appendices, with a bibliography of relevant texts and articles and a selection of NGOs that focus on these issues. Published under the Transnational Publishers imprint. Winner of the Notable Contribution in the Field of Human Rights Scholarship award at the US Human Rights Network National Conference in Chicago in April 2008

Advocacy organizations are viewed as actors motivated primarily by principled beliefs. This volume outlines a new agenda for the study of advocacy organizations, proposing a model of NGOs as collective actors that seek to fulfil normative concerns and instrumental incentives, face collective action problems, and compete as well as collaborate with other advocacy actors. The analogy of the firm is a useful way of studying advocacy actors because individuals, via advocacy NGOs, make choices which are analytically similar to those that shareholders make in the context of firms. The authors view advocacy NGOs as special types of firms that make strategic choices in policy markets which, along with creating public goods, support organizational survival, visibility, and growth. Advocacy NGOs' strategy can therefore be understood as a response to opportunities to supply distinct advocacy products to well-defined constituencies, as well as a response to normative or principled concerns.

The ideology of human rights protection has gained considerable momentum during the second half of the twentieth century at both national and international level and appears to be an effective lever for bringing about legal change. This book analyzes this strategy in economic and commercial policy and considers the transportation of the 'public law' discourse of basic human rights protection into the 'commercial law' context of economic policy, business activity and corporate behaviour. The volume will prove indispensable for anyone interested in human rights, international law, and business and commercial law.

The fatal embrace of human rights and neoliberalism Drawing on detailed archival research on the parallel histories of human rights and neoliberalism, Jessica Whyte uncovers the place of human rights in neoliberal attempts to develop a moral framework for a market society. In the wake of the Second World War, neoliberals saw demands for new rights to social welfare and self-determination as threats to “civilisation”. Yet, rather than rejecting rights, they developed a distinctive account of human rights as tools to depoliticise civil society, protect private investments and shape liberal subjects.

In this landmark volume, Alison Brysk has assembled an impressive array of scholars to address new questions about globalization and human rights. Is globalization generating both problems and opportunities? Are new problems replacing or intensifying state repression? How effective are new forms of human rights accountability? These essays include theoretical analyses by Richard Falk, Jack Donnelly, and James Rosenau. Chapters on sex tourism, international markets, and communications technology bring new perspectives to emerging issues. The authors investigate places such as the Dominican Republic, Nigeria, and the Philippines. The contemporary world is defined by globalization. While global human rights standards and institutions have been established, assaults on human dignity continue. These essays identify the new challenges to be faced, and suggest new ways to remedy the costs of globalization.