Preferential trade agreements have become common ways to protect or restrict access to national markets in products and services. The United States has signed trade agreements with almost two dozen ...countries as close as Mexico and Canada and as distant as Morocco and Australia. The European Union has done the same. In addition to addressing economic issues, these agreements also regulate the protection of human rights. InForced to Be Good, Emilie M. Hafner-Burton tells the story of the politics of such agreements and of the ways in which governments pursue market integration policies that advance their own political interests, including human rights.
How and why do global norms for social justice become international regulations linked to seemingly unrelated issues, such as trade? Hafner-Burton finds that the process has been unconventional. Efforts by human rights advocates and labor unions to spread human rights ideals, for example, do not explain why American and European governments employ preferential trade agreements to protect human rights. Instead, most of the regulations protecting human rights are codified in global moral principles and laws only because they serve policymakers' interests in accumulating power or resources or solving other problems. Otherwise, demands by moral advocates are tossed aside. And, as Hafner-Burton shows, even the inclusion of human rights protections in trade agreements is no guarantee of real change, because many of the governments that sign on to fair trade regulations oppose such protections and do not intend to force their implementation.
Ultimately, Hafner-Burton finds that, despite the difficulty of enforcing good regulations and the less-than-noble motives for including them, trade agreements that include human rights provisions have made a positive difference in the lives of some of the people they are intended-on paper, at least-to protect.
The book offers a comprehensive and clear introduction for students and those interested in human rights, written by a renowned human rights expert. It not only provides an introduction to the ...diversity of issues, actors and institutions in human rights policy and politics, but also offers assistance and suggestions on how the complex reality of human rights politics can be described and analysed with the help of political science and related disciplines. It deals with civil society engagement in human rights as well as state obligations and international efforts to protect human rights. This is an open access book.
A stunningly original look at the forgotten Jewish political roots of contemporary international human rights, told through the moving stories of five key activists The year 2018 marks the seventieth ...anniversary of two momentous events in twentieth-century history: the birth of the State of Israel and the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Both remain tied together in the ongoing debates about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, global antisemitism, and American foreign policy. Yet the surprising connections between Zionism and the origins of international human rights are completely unknown today. In this riveting account, James Loeffler explores this controversial history through the stories of five remarkable Jewish founders of international human rights, following them from the prewar shtetls of eastern Europe to the postwar United Nations, a journey that includes the Nuremberg and Eichmann trials, the founding of Amnesty International, and the UN resolution of 1975 labeling Zionism as racism. The result is a book that challenges long-held assumptions about the history of human rights and offers a startlingly new perspective on the roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
What are the origins of the idea of human rights and universal human dignity? How can we most fully understand -- and realize -- these rights going into the future? InThe Sacredness of the Person, ...internationally renowned sociologist and social theorist Hans Joas tells a story that differs from conventional narratives by tracing the concept of human rights back to the Judeo-Christian tradition or, alternately, to the secular French Enlightenment. While drawing on sociologists such as Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Ernst Troeltsch, Joas sets out a new path, proposing an affirmative genealogy in which human rights are the result of a process of "sacralization" of every human being.
According to Joas, every single human being has increasingly been viewed as sacred. He discusses the abolition of torture and slavery, once common practice in the pre-18th century west, as two milestones in modern human history. The author concludes by portraying the emergence of the UN Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 as a successful process of value generalization. Joas demonstrates that the history of human rights cannot adequately be described as a history of ideas or as legal history, but as a complex transformation in which diverse cultural traditions had to be articulated, legally codified, and assimilated into practices of everyday life. The sacralization of the person and universal human rights will only be secure in the future, warns Joas, through continued support by institutions and society, vigorous discourse in their defense, and their incarnation in everyday life and practice.
In Flora!, co-authored by Geoffrey Stevens, the politician and humanitarian Flora Isabel MacDonald tells her amazing journey, from her childhood in Cape Breton through her years in backroom politics ...and elected office, ending with her exceptional humanitarian work in war-torn Afghanistan and other developing countries.
This book identifies and explains the key analytical issues (state knowledge, causation, and reasonableness) that need to be considered in determining whether a State is responsible under the ...European Convention on Human Rights for omissions. In addition to this technical analytical question, the book also reflects upon what is at stake for the political community when the triggering, the content, and the scope of positive human rights obligations are determined. A central question is then how the search for a balance between intrusion and restraint by the State, between protection and freedom from invasion, defines this community and pulls the analysis of state responsibility for omissions in different directions. Designed to become the main reference source concerning ECHR positive obligations, this book makes four main contributions. First, it covers an important gap by isolating and studying the separate analytical elements (state knowledge, causation, and reasonableness) underlying state responsibility for failure to fulfil positive obligations. It explains the structure of review, the analytical steps taken to ascertain state responsibility for omissions. Secondly, the book offers a serious appreciation of the dangers associated with positive obligations whose scope might be too expansive or content too intrusive. Thirdly, it explains the different types of positive obligations. Fourthly, it offers the first examination of the conceptual hurdles if positive obligations under the ECHR were to be applied extraterritorially.
At a time when a global consensus on human rights standards seems to be emerging, this rich study steps back to explore how the idea of human rights is actually employed by activists and human rights ...professionals. Winifred Tate, an anthropologist and activist with extensive experience in Colombia, finds that radically different ideas about human rights have shaped three groups of human rights professionals working there--nongovernmental activists, state representatives, and military officers. Drawing from the life stories of high-profile activists, pioneering interviews with military officials, and research at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva,Counting the Deadunderscores the importance of analyzing and understanding human rights discourses, methodologies, and institutions within the context of broader cultural and political debates.
A comparative investigation into the revolution in private law in the era of human rights
Scotland and South Africa are mixed jurisdictions, combining features of common law and civil law traditions. ...Over the last decade, a shared feature in both Scotland and South Africa has been a new and intense focus on human rights.
In Scotland, the European Convention on Human Rights now constitutes an important element in the foundation of all domestic law. Similarly, the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, adopted in 1996, has a Bill of Rights as its cornerstone. This binds the legislature, the executive, the judiciary and all organs of state - and also private parties.
In some ways, the Scottish and South African experience could not be more dissimilar, and the 'constitutional moments' from which these documents sprang were very different. At the same time, the parallels are close and compelling. This book, written by experts from both jurisdictions, examines exactly how human-rights provisions influence private law, looking at all branches of the subject. Moreover, it gives a unique perspective by comparing the approach in these kindred legal systems, providing a benchmark for both.
Frank, fascinating memoir from Northern Irish peace activist, human rights defender and former politician who has broken the mould in so many ways - in her work on domestic violence; in her ...co-founding of the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition; and in her fight for peace and human rights both at home and globally.
