The Debasement Of Human Rights

Author : Aaron Rhodes
Publisher : Encounter Books
Page : 302 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2018-04-17
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781594039805

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The Debasement of Human Rights by Aaron Rhodes Pdf

The idea of human rights began as a call for individual freedom from tyranny, yet today it is exploited to rationalize oppression and promote collectivism. How did this happen? Aaron Rhodes, recognized as “one of the leading human rights activists in the world” by the University of Chicago, reveals how an emancipatory ideal became so debased. Rhodes identifies the fundamental flaw in the Universal Declaration of Human of Rights, the basis for many international treaties and institutions. It mixes freedom rights rooted in natural law—authentic human rights—with “economic and social rights,” or claims to material support from governments, which are intrinsically political. As a result, the idea of human rights has lost its essential meaning and moral power. The principles of natural rights, first articulated in antiquity, were compromised in a process of accommodation with the Soviet Union after World War II, and under the influence of progressivism in Western democracies. Geopolitical and ideological forces ripped the concept of human rights from its foundations, opening it up to abuse. Dissidents behind the Iron Curtain saw clearly the difference between freedom rights and state-granted entitlements, but the collapse of the USSR allowed demands for an expanding array of economic and social rights to gain legitimacy without the totalitarian stigma. The international community and civil society groups now see human rights as being defined by legislation, not by transcendent principles. Freedoms are traded off for the promise of economic benefits, and the notion of collective rights is used to justify restrictions on basic liberties. We all have a stake in human rights, and few serious observers would deny that the concept has lost clarity. But no one before has provided such a comprehensive analysis of the problem as Rhodes does here, joining philosophy and history with insights from his own extensive work in the field.

Author : Salvador Santino F. Regilme,Irene Hadiprayitno
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
Page : 215 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2022-06-17
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781978828421

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Human Rights at Risk by Salvador Santino F. Regilme,Irene Hadiprayitno Pdf

Human Rights at Risk brings together social scientists, legal scholars, and humanities scholars to analyze the policy challenges of human rights protection in the twenty-first century. The book focuses on international institutions, thematic blind spots in policy-making, and the role of the United States as a global and domestic actor in human rights protection.

Author : Alexandre Lefebvre
Publisher : Duke University Press
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2018-04-19
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780822371694

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Human Rights and the Care of the Self by Alexandre Lefebvre Pdf

When we think of human rights we assume that they are meant to protect people from serious social, legal, and political abuses and to advance global justice. In Human Rights and the Care of the Self Alexandre Lefebvre turns this assumption on its head, showing how the value of human rights also lies in enabling ethical practices of self-transformation. Drawing on Foucault's notion of "care of the self," Lefebvre turns to some of the most celebrated authors and activists in the history of human rights–such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Henri Bergson, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Charles Malik–to discover a vision of human rights as a tool for individuals to work on, improve, and transform themselves for their own sake. This new perspective allows us to appreciate a crucial dimension of human rights, one that can help us to care for ourselves in light of pressing social and psychological problems, such as loneliness, fear, hatred, patriarchy, meaninglessness, boredom, and indignity.

Author : David P. Forsythe
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 346 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 1989
Category : Political Science
ISBN : UOM:39015014942406

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Human Rights and World Politics by David P. Forsythe Pdf

Author : Nigel Biggar
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 375 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2020
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780198861973

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What's Wrong with Rights? by Nigel Biggar Pdf

What's Wrong with Rights? argues that contemporary rights-talk obscures the importance civic virtue, military effectiveness and the democratic law legitimacy. It draws upon legal and moral philosophy, moral theology, and court judgments. It spans discussions from medieval Christendom to contemporary debates about justified killing.

Author : Eric Heinze
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 207 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2023-09-19
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780262547246

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The Most Human Right by Eric Heinze Pdf

A bold, groundbreaking argument by a world-renowned expert that unless we treat free speech as the fundamental human right, there can be no others. What are human rights? Are they laid out definitively in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the US Bill of Rights? Are they items on a checklist—dignity, justice, progress, standard of living, health care, housing? In The Most Human Right, Eric Heinze explains why global human rights systems have failed. International organizations constantly report on how governments manage human goods, such as fair trials, humane conditions of detention, healthcare, or housing. But to appease autocratic regimes, experts have ignored the primacy of free speech. Heinze argues that goods become rights only when citizens can claim them publicly and fearlessly: free speech is the fundamental right, without which the very concept of a “right” makes no sense. Heinze argues that throughout history countless systems of justice have promised human goods. What, then, makes human rights different? What must human rights have that other systems have lacked? Heinze revisits the origins of the concept, exploring what it means for a nation to protect human rights, and what a citizen needs in order to pursue them. He explains how free speech distinguishes human rights from other ideas about justice, past and present.

Author : United States. Congress. House. Foreign Affairs
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 1300 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 1974
Category : Electronic
ISBN : STANFORD:36105045301632

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International Protection of Human Rights by United States. Congress. House. Foreign Affairs Pdf

Author : United States. Congress. House. Committee on Foreign Affairs. Subcommittee on International Organizations and Movements
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 1000 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 1974
Category : Human rights
ISBN : UIUC:30112101596689

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International Protection of Human Rights by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Foreign Affairs. Subcommittee on International Organizations and Movements Pdf

Author : Jakub Tyszkiewicz
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 244 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2021-12-06
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781000479843

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Human Rights and Political Dissent in Central Europe by Jakub Tyszkiewicz Pdf

This volume examines to what extent the positive atmosphere created by the Helsinki Accords contributed to the change in political circumstances seen in the countries of Central Europe, under Soviet domination. It focuses in particular on - firstly - a consequent new impetus to bolster human rights in international politics, as Western democracies - especially the US - integrated human rights concerns into its foreign policy relations with Soviet Bloc countries and - secondly – how this Western embrace of human rights seemed to create new incentives for increased dissident activity in Central and Eastern Europe and from 1976 onward. Finally, the book reminds us of the significant role of the Helsinki Accords in developing democratic practices in Eastern European societies under Soviet domination in 1975-1989 and in creating the conditions for the peaceful transition to democratic government in the years that followed. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of the history of communism, post-Soviet, Russian, and central and East European politics, the history of human rights, and democratization.

Author : Linda Hajjar Leib
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 192 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2010-12-17
Category : Law
ISBN : 9789004189935

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Human Rights and the Environment by Linda Hajjar Leib Pdf

This book explores the philosophical, theoretical and legal bases that underpin the linkage between human rights and the environment. Such linkage, grounded in reality, is an innovative way of addressing environmental issues through the lens of a well-established international human rights system. The book argues that a new set of environmental rights is gradually forging its way into international law and suggests a re-configuration of the human rights system in the context of sustainable development and the notion of solidarity rights. In doing so, two sets of concepts are considered: first, the possibility of a rapprochement between environmental ethics and the human rights doctrine and, second, the theoretical and practical links among the concepts of development, democracy, environment and sustainable development.

Author : Nathan A. Kurz
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 313 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2020-11-26
Category : History
ISBN : 9781108834926

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Jewish Internationalism and Human Rights after the Holocaust by Nathan A. Kurz Pdf

Nathan A. Kurz charts the fraught relationship between Jewish internationalism and international rights protection in the second half of the twentieth century. For nearly a century, Jewish lawyers and advocacy groups in Western Europe and the United States had pioneered forms of international rights protection, tying the defense of Jews to norms and rules that aspired to curb the worst behavior of rapacious nation-states. In the wake of the Holocaust and the creation of the State of Israel, however, Jewish activists discovered they could no longer promote the same norms, laws and innovations without fear they could soon apply to the Jewish state. Using previously unexamined sources, Nathan Kurz examines the transformation of Jewish internationalism from an effort to constrain the power of nation-states to one focused on cementing Israel's legitimacy and its status as a haven for refugees from across the Jewish diaspora.

Author : Roger Crisp
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 252 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2014
Category : Law
ISBN : 9780199668731

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Griffin on Human Rights by Roger Crisp Pdf

This volume presents responses to the work of James Griffin, one of the most significant contributors to the contemporary debate over human rights. Leading moral and political philosophers engage with Griffin's views - according to which human rights are best understood as protections of our agency and personhood - and Griffin offers his own reply.

Author : Paul Johnson
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 261 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2013-09-05
Category : Law
ISBN : 9781136218965

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Homosexuality and the European Court of Human Rights by Paul Johnson Pdf

Homosexuality and the European Court of Human Rights is the first book-length study of the Court’s jurisprudence in respect of sexual orientation. It offers a socio-legal analysis of the substantial number of decisions and judgments of the Strasbourg organs on the wide range of complaints brought by gay men and lesbians under the European Convention on Human Rights. Providing a systematic analysis of Strasbourg case law since 1955 and examining decades of decisions that have hitherto remained obscure, the book considers the evolution of the Court’s interpretation of the Convention and how this has fashioned lesbian and gay rights in Europe. Going beyond doctrinal analysis by employing a nuanced sociological consideration of Strasbourg jurisprudence, Paul Johnson shows how the Court is a site at which homosexuality is both socially constructed and regulated. He argues that although the Convention is conceived as a ‘living instrument’ to be interpreted ‘in the light of present-day conditions’ the Court’s judgments have frequently forged and advanced new social conditions in respect of homosexuality. Johnson argues that the Court’s jurisprudence has an extra-legal importance because it provides an authoritative and powerful discursive resource that can be mobilized by lesbians and gay men to challenge homophobic and heteronormative social relations in contemporary societies. As such, the book considers how the Court’s interpretation of the Convention might be evolved in the future to better protect lesbian and gay rights and lives.

Author : Clifford Bob
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2019-04-16
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780691189055

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Rights as Weapons by Clifford Bob Pdf

An in-depth look at the historic and strategic deployment of rights in political conflicts throughout the world Rights are usually viewed as defensive concepts representing mankind’s highest aspirations to protect the vulnerable and uplift the downtrodden. But since the Enlightenment, political combatants have also used rights belligerently, to batter despised communities, demolish existing institutions, and smash opposing ideas. Delving into a range of historical and contemporary conflicts from all areas of the globe, Rights as Weapons focuses on the underexamined ways in which the powerful wield rights as aggressive weapons against the weak. Clifford Bob looks at how political forces use rights as rallying cries: naturalizing novel claims as rights inherent in humanity, absolutizing them as trumps over rival interests or community concerns, universalizing them as transcultural and transhistorical, and depoliticizing them as concepts beyond debate. He shows how powerful proponents employ rights as camouflage to cover ulterior motives, as crowbars to break rival coalitions, as blockades to suppress subordinate groups, as spears to puncture discrete policies, and as dynamite to explode whole societies. And he demonstrates how the targets of rights campaigns repulse such assaults, using their own rights-like weapons: denying the abuses they are accused of, constructing rival rights to protect themselves, portraying themselves as victims rather than violators, and repudiating authoritative decisions against them. This sophisticated framework is applied to a diverse range of examples, including nineteenth-century voting rights movements; the American civil rights movement; nationalist, populist, and religious movements in today’s Europe; and internationalized conflicts related to Palestinian self-determination, animal rights, gay rights, and transgender rights. Comparing key episodes in the deployment of rights, Rights as Weapons opens new perspectives on an idea that is central to legal and political conflicts.

Author : Andrei Marmor
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 630 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2012-04-27
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781136344947

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The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Law by Andrei Marmor Pdf

The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Law provides a comprehensive, non-technical philosophical treatment of the fundamental questions about the nature of law. Its coverage includes law’s relation to morality and the moral obligations to obey the law, the main philosophical debates about particular legal areas such as criminal responsibility, property, contracts, family law, law and justice in the international domain, legal paternalism and the rule of law. The entirely new content has been written specifically for newcomers to the field, making the volume particularly useful for undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy of law and related areas. All 39 chapters, written by the world’s leading researchers and edited by an internationally distinguished scholar, bring a focused, philosophical perspective to their subjects. The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Law promises to be a valuable and much consulted student resource for many years.