Governing Relationships: The New Architecture in Global Human Rights Governance
The global human rights regime has undergone extraordinary expansion in the last thirty years. It is particularly notable for its profusion of state and non-state actors and levels of formal articulation. This article seeks to make legible the human rights governance architecture from the global to the local level, within an issue-specific domain. Orchestration theory is employed as a general mode of governance, with application across political units and political levels. Orchestration applies when a focal actor enlists and supports third-party actors to address the target indirectly in pursuit of shared governance objectives. Using the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT) as an example, the article explores the authority relationship across two central political units (the orchestrator and intermediary), with a focus on how this new global human rights architecture may offer a way of bridging the steps separating international instruments from practices on the ground.
- Research Article
1
- 10.2139/ssrn.2482615
- Aug 20, 2014
- SSRN Electronic Journal
The global human rights regime has undergone extraordinary expansion in the last thirty years. It is particularly notable for its profusion of state and non-state actors and levels of formal articulation. This article seeks to make legible the human rights governance architecture from the global to the local level, within an issue-specific domain. Orchestration theory is employed as a general mode of governance, with application across political units and political levels. Orchestration applies when a focal actor enlists and supports third-party actors to address the target indirectly in pursuit of shared governance objectives. Using the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT) as an example, the article explores the authority relationship across two central political units (the orchestrator and intermediary), with a focus on how this new global human rights architecture may offer a way of bridging the steps separating international instruments from practices on the ground.
- Research Article
- 10.54254/2753-7048/2025.30820
- Dec 18, 2025
- Lecture Notes in Education Psychology and Public Media
Global human rights governance is confronted with multiple challenges such as political polarization, economic sanctions, and trust crises, and the deficit problem is not optimistic. Existing theories mostly attribute the predicament of global human rights governance to resource scarcity and uneven distribution, further deducing that human rights standards vary with national conditions. However, the resources required to promote the realization of human rights through governance are not merely an issue of resource development, but also involve how resource endowments can facilitate the maximum realization of human rights through various rights chains. Amartya Sens exchange entitlement theory holds that the fundamental causes of poverty and famine lie in the lack and imbalance of exchange entitlements. By extension, the deep implication and underlying logic of the global human rights governance deficit is the "exchange entitlement deficit," which is specifically manifested in the imbalance of exchange mechanisms for political rights and interests, economic resources, and social opportunities, as well as the insufficient supply of international human rights system public goods in terms of "transparency guarantees" and "protective security." To address the deficit dilemma in global human rights governance, we should improve the exchange entitlement mechanism for human rights in the international arena, ensure that citizens' political rights and economic, social, and cultural rights are protected by institutions, reduce the transaction costs and information costs for people to realize their human rights, and truly establish the belief in human rights in the international community.
- Research Article
19
- 10.1017/s0305741019000833
- Jul 11, 2019
- The China Quarterly
This article examines the complex dialogical relationship between China and the global reach of human rights. It charts the transformation of China from a human rights exception and a human rights pariah state to an active participant in, and shaper of, global human rights governance. It looks at such transformation as dynamic social and political processes full of contradictions and the negotiated outcome of China's communicative engagement with “moral globalization” in a world morally divided on the meaning of human rights. It contends that the global reach of human rights understood asadvancingrather thanperfectingglobal justice will always remain contentious, as it is contingent on the possibility of open public reasoning across cultures and national boundaries in a global moral conversation. It also argues that China has resourcefully used the idiom of human rights for two specific purposes. One is to justify and rationalize its “developmental relativism” as an excuse for practices that condone continued political repression in China; the other is to internalize politics of contestation within the institutions of global human rights governance by shifting the centre of gravity of both the normative debate and the practical application of human rights.
- Research Article
18
- 10.1163/19426720-01302005
- Aug 3, 2007
- Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations
There is very little research on whether global human rights regimes serve as tools for the promotion of a domestic agenda of rights within democratic states, although their role under authoritarianism has been extensively analyzed. This article offers a case study of the impact of one such regime, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, on domestic advocacy in democratic Argentina. The effectiveness of the convention at the domestic level depends, at least in part, on the extent to which it empowers activists within states to make claims on behalf of children. The article identifies an increase in claims-making on behalf of children since the convention was ratified and discusses its role in bringing about legislation that establishes children as rights-bearing individuals. Nevertheless, the deterioration in children's social rights over the same period raises doubts as to whether the domestic incorporation of the convention, on its own, can create social and economic entitlements for children. KEYWORDS: children, rights, global norms, domestic activism, Argentina. ********** The past two decades have witnessed the proliferation of international and institutions aimed at strengthening human rights globally. Regime change to democracy in regions like Latin America and Eastern Europe have further contributed to the democratic norms cascade, and many of the newly installed democratic states have actively sought to incorporate international treaties or conventions into their domestic political structures. (1) Yet, while there is an extensive literature that focuses on the role played by global human rights regimes and transnational networks in addressing gross human rights violations under authoritarianism, there is still little detailed analysis on the role of global regimes as tools for the promotion of a domestic agenda of rights within democratic states. The aim of this article is to help fill that gap. We focus on the domestic impact of one global regime, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), on the politics of children's rights in Argentina. In this way, we hope to address the question of whether the ratification by a democratic state of global human rights regimes such as the CRC provides networks and organizations with effective advocacy tools through which rights claims can be made or grievances redressed. The article proceeds in the following way. In the first section, we discuss the emergence of rights-based regimes such as the CRC, which we see as part of the trend to global governance. We then identify the guiding principles of the CRC and the nature of the rights it embodies. In the final section, we explore the extent to which the CRC has helped advance an agenda of children's rights in Argentina. Has the CRC reshaped the advocacy politics of Argentine civic organizations that have emerged around the defense of the rights of children and young people? What kind of rights can be claimed domestically under the CRC? How do domestic activists evaluate the CRC? These are the central questions we address here. Global Governance Regimes and Domestic Rights Global governance regimes have emerged in areas ranging from the ways in which financial risks and credits are assessed and allocated to the that discursively regulate how governments behave and power is deployed in trade, investment, the environment, labor, health, development, and. human rights. Some regimes, such as those that govern trade and the global financial architecture, are more detailed and more closely policed than others. Global regimes in areas such as health, labor standards, and social inclusion remain, in sharp contrast, under-resourced and have weaker powers of implementation. (2) Nevertheless, there is a marked global trend toward establishing global social and political standards, especially in contrast to the period before 1989. Democratization, understood as the establishment of the rule of law and minimum civil and individual liberties, is now a central plank of the international order. …
- Research Article
2
- 10.1093/icon/moy086
- Dec 31, 2018
- International Journal of Constitutional Law
Human rights are increasingly the justification and rationale for techniques of measurement, verification, assessment, monitoring, and review. These different forms of auditing operate across fields and engage many different actors—states, international organizations, and multinational firms—as both subjects and auditors alike. It is, then, plausible to describe the global governance of human rights as becoming increasingly characterized by a culture of auditing. This article argues that this tendency is the result of certain systemic characteristics which produce what Foucault describes as governmental rationalities or “governmentality”: attempts to conduct the conduct of actors who are ostensibly autonomous, through programmatic manipulation of conditions. Human rights auditing, in other words, is a governmental technique that arises almost inevitably from the structure of the international human rights system. The article argues that the governmentalization of global human rights governance that results from the proliferation of auditing has the effect of producing what Foucault described as the “fundamental caesura” between individual and population. The individual diminishes as a source of concern and certainly as an active agent, and is replaced by a primary focus among the powerful on monitoring, measuring, and manipulating the population for benign ends. This has the effect of denuding human rights of the radical potential they possess.
- Research Article
28
- 10.1177/1354066114548079
- Oct 6, 2014
- European Journal of International Relations
The United Nations remains the principal international governmental organisation for promoting human rights. However, serious concerns focus on persistent compliance gaps between human rights standards and domestic practice. In response and against a backdrop of growing regime complexity, United Nations human rights agencies have increasingly sought to bypass states by coordinating new forms of non-state and private authority. International Relations scholarship has captured this governance arrangement using the concept of orchestration, defined as when an international organisation enlists and supports intermediary actors to address target actors in pursuit of international governmental organisation governance goals. This article explores the implications of an orchestration topology for human rights governance by analysing national human rights institutions in the context of an established global human rights regime and its dedicated orchestrator: the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. I use the experience of national human rights institutions to further refine the concepts of managing versus bypassing states to capture how networked intermediaries are affected by, and respond to, new opportunities within international governmental organisation structures. The article identifies the conditions under which orchestration may be particularly well-suited to a human rights governance function. It further examines the analytical limitations of this mode of influence for addressing a multi-level compliance gap, as well as what the analysis means for international organisations and understanding orchestration more generally.
- Research Article
- 10.2139/ssrn.2470499
- Jul 25, 2014
- SSRN Electronic Journal
The United Nations remains the principal international governmental organisation (IGO) for promoting human rights. However, serious concerns focus on persistent “compliance gaps” between human rights standards and domestic practice. In response and against a backdrop of growing regime complexity, UN human rights agencies have increasingly sought to bypass states by coordinating new forms of non-state and private authority. IR scholarship has captured this governance arrangement using the concept of orchestration, defined as when an international organisation enlists and supports intermediary actors to address target actors in pursuit of IGO governance goals (Abbott & Snidal 2014). This paper explores the implications of orchestration for human rights governance by analyzing National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) in the context of an established global human rights regime and its dedicated orchestrator: the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. I use the experience of NHRIs to further refine the concepts of managing versus bypassing states to capture how intermediaries are affected by and respond to new opportunities within IGO structures. The paper identifies the conditions under which orchestration may be particularly well-suited to a human rights governance function. It further examines what the analysis means for international organisations more generally.
- Book Chapter
- 10.7765/9781526131836.00010
- May 11, 2021
This chapter unites the work of Oakeshott and Foucault on the nature of the relationship between teleocratic law and governance. It argues that what Foucault labelled "governmentality" is chiefly the result of purposive social action. In the modern State such social action tends to take place within the complex of law, discipline and security, producing a regulatory or managerial approach which derives from law but achieves its purposes through what Foucault called "tactics" rather than laws. That is, while law is able to declare purposes and also specify intermediary objectives on the way to achieving those ends, it is unable in itself to realise them: it cannot in itself affect change at the desired level of the population. Instead, it must give rise to more indirect means for manipulating conditions within the population so as to "conduct conduct" more subtly. While, in other words, law becomes oriented to teleocracy, it retains elements of nomos which prevent it from bringing about social change on its own. Governmentality is understood therefore as the means of circumventing this problem. The chapter ends by arguing that just as the State was "governmentalised" by imagining the State as having the purposive of improving well-being - declared in law but achieved through regulatory "tactics" - so a sphere of global human rights governance is now being "governmentalised" by imagining the international community as having the purpose of improving well-being universally. Here, human rights law declares the relevant ends, and gives rise to the deployment of regulatory "tactics" for achieving them.
- Research Article
2
- 10.1080/14754835.2024.2324202
- Mar 14, 2024
- Journal of Human Rights
We introduce this special issue with an elaboration of the concept of human rights globalization as a dynamic process that involves local and global action by civil society and other actors to strengthen governments’ accountability to global human rights norms and standards. This process challenges economic globalization that prioritizes international trade and financialization over human rights. Recent decades have seen growing movements of activists appealing to global human rights norms as they mobilize popular pressure on local and national authorities. We provide a brief overview of contributions to this special issue, which describe these movements and their impacts on the long-term strengthening of global human rights governance.
- Research Article
14
- 10.1080/13569775.2020.1720065
- Jan 29, 2020
- Contemporary Politics
ABSTRACTPost-authoritarian Indonesia has emerged as a state advocating human rights values in the Asia-Pacific region. However, its policies in promoting these values at the global level remain limited. This can be seen in Indonesia’s reluctance to strengthen global human rights governance, particularly in the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council. In addressing the puzzle, this article shows that Indonesia’s standpoint on the global human rights issue does not stem from Indonesia’s search for autonomy from Western values. Rather, it is suggested that Indonesia’s historical memory is behind Indonesia’s reluctance to strengthen global governance dealing with human rights issues. Specifically, Indonesia’s history in protecting its territorial integrity under UN scrutiny during the authoritarian regime (1967-1998) shapes its current approach to the separatist movement in Papua provinces. Moreover, its role as a voice for developing countries, which is an integral part of its historical memory, causes Indonesia to protect abusive regimes.
- Book Chapter
1
- 10.1057/978-1-137-57486-2_10
- Jan 1, 2016
Tocci starts off by recalling that values, prime amongst which human rights and fundamental freedoms, democracy and free market capitalism, have traditionally been the lynchpin of the transatlantic bond. Based on this broadly shared bedrock of liberal values, her chapter gauges the effectiveness of the transatlantic partners to enshrine individual human rights in the global governance architecture. In particular, it concentrates on a political norm in-the-making—the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). To what extent are the European Union and the United States, in partnership and/or independently, succeeding in entrenching R2P as an accepted political norm at the global level? In particular, to what extent are non-Western powers, notably the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) endorsing R2P? How did the international response to the conflicts in Libya and Syria affect the global conversation over R2P?
- Single Book
6
- 10.1093/oso/9780198822844.001.0001
- Sep 20, 2018
This book deals with human rights action planning, as a largely under-researched area, from theoretical, doctrinal, empirical, and practical perspectives in order to put forward a new account of such planning. As such, the present work provides one of the most comprehensive studies of human rights planning to date. At the theoretical level, by advancing a novel general theory of human rights planning, it offers an alternative to the traditional state-centric model of planning. This new theory contains four sub-theories: contextual, substantive, procedural, and analytical ones. At the doctrinal level, a textual analysis of core human rights conventions is conducted in order to reveal the scope and nature of the obligation to adopt a national human rights action plan and to consider how to ensure that states are in compliance with this obligation. At the empirical level, a cross-case analysis of national human rights action plans of fifty-three countries is conducted exploring the major problems of these plans in different phases and uncovering the underlying causes. At the practical level, both national and supra-national human rights governance systems are examined. At the supra-national level, a networked model of global human rights governance is suggested as a practical response strategy against the extant global governance system which hardly works as an integrated system. At the national level, after suggesting the establishment of a nation-wide network for implementing human rights, the essential parts of human rights action planning are probed in four phases putting forward some methodological techniques for each phase.
- Research Article
1
- 10.1051/e3sconf/202130602008
- Jan 1, 2021
- E3S Web of Conferences
This study aims to examine social justice and human rights from the government’s perspective to promote Sustainable Development as well as from an agricultural perspective. This research method is qualitative research with literature study. literature study is carried out to find out various distances or findings that have not been found in previous research as a comparison in conducting current research. The literature findings show that some of the main topics appear most frequently based on data from Scopus, vosviewer and Nvivo12 plus. The results of this study of Global Governance of Human Rights with a total of 78 documents, but it is not comparable to the reality on the ground; namely, there are still many cases of human rights, racism and conflicts between black and white groups. Second, Global Human Rights Governance has an important role in the methodology of human rights analysis. From the perspective of global governance, the concept of sustainability is correlated with the idea of human rights such as the emergence of development in rural communities’ agricultural land which causes changes in their livelihoods as farmers which affect the economy and the surrounding environment. In the concept of SDGs, justice is one of the concepts that is of concern to the government that must be developed through a governance approach
- Book Chapter
- 10.7765/9781526131836.00011
- May 11, 2021
This chapter describes a series of regulatory “tactics” for the conducting of conduct with respect to improving human rights performance, and maps the contours of what it calls the “governmentalisation of global human rights governance”. It draws on the work of Miller and Rose to describe this as a phenomenon of “governing human rights at a distance”. It demonstrates that this consists of three broad and overlapping categories of tactics: auditing and other methods borrowed from financial management and accounting; the pluralisation and atomisation of governing functions; and the specification of new subjectivities. Taken together, these result in the creation of a regulatory sphere in which actors are continually enjoined to monitor themselves and others in light of human rights obligations or “responsibilities”; in which the governing of human rights is dispersed between public authorities, NGOs and other civil society actors, businesses and international organisations; and in which this entire range of actors, and even human individuals themselves, are re-conceived as being “human rights governors” in their own right.
- Book Chapter
- 10.1057/9780230375918_3
- Jan 1, 2012
This reply illustrates the complexity of the legal standing of the EU2 at the UN, taking the UN Human Rights Council (hereinafter HRC) as a relevant case. The aim of this contribution is to unpack this complexity and to outline in general terms the institutional setting for the EU’s participation in human rights multilateral fora.3 A wide range of bodies fall within this description. Virtually all UN institutions and specialized agencies perform actions that are relevant for human rights promotion. The EU often contributes to this work. For instance, the EU participated in the negotiations of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Right to Food, adopted by the Food and Agriculture Organization in 2004.4 On 16 June 2010, the head of the EU Delegation to the UN in New York took the floor in the Security Council on behalf of the EU on the issue of children affected by armed conflict and again on 26 October 2010 concerning women’s rights in conflict and post-conflict situations. Another example relates to UN human rights treaty law. The EU has become party to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in light of the fact that this convention, in its Article 44, foresees the possibility of participation by regional integration organizations.5KeywordsMember StateSecurity PolicyObserver StatusFundamental FreedomLisbon TreatyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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