Human Rights as Peacemaker: An Integrative Theory of International Human Rights

Abstract

International human rights law reflects a growing and evolving appreciation for the inherent dignity and worth of every individual. The human rights project has grown from its roots in Western society to a world embracing conversation, its rhetoric adopted even by those unwilling to support its values as the price of admission to the community of civilized nations.In their effort to enhance and expand the scope of human rights protections, advocates have increasingly reached beyond traditional human rights sources to include International humanitarian law (IHL) and international criminal law (ICL). This reflects an effort to both enhance the recognition of human rights even in situations of conflict and buttress human rights protections by drawing upon shared issues of concern and sanction (e.g. genocide, torture, discrimination, arbitrary arrest or detention, and due process). The existence of multiple legal regimes addressing similar issues offers fruitful opportunities for cross pollination, where the answers offered by one regime “may be borrowed and adapted to solve the challenges faced by another.” Efforts at expansion and integration based on the ideal of human dignity and worth, however, share a common flaw: they mistake means for motive. Human rights clearly express a moral dimension. For many the “human rights project seems to represent an endeavor of self-evident and self-confirming virtue.” Nonetheless, the human rights project did not originate solely as a movement of moral reform. As stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “[The] recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world...[w]hereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind….[I]f man is not to be compelled…to rebellion against tyranny and oppression… human rights should be protected by the rule of law.” Regardless of its inherent moral merits, human rights law as law emerged as a means of promoting and sustaining peaceful coexistence.To demonstrate the salience of this perspective, I will begin by reviewing the development of human rights, humanitarian law and international criminal law in light of how they promote peace by protecting human dignity. Based on the observation that the human rights project is an evolving process rather than the achievement of final goals or ends, this analysis will occur in three stages. I will start by tracing the emergence of each field up to World War II, exploring the development of the three central pillars of the human rights project: international human rights law, international humanitarian law and international criminal law. In part II, I will explore how World War II galvanized the international human rights project as an international project pushing towards greater and deeper integration of the three areas. Part III covers the development following the war. Finally, in part IV I will consider some of the implications of this new perspective on key issues of concern: the role of rule of law, democracy promotion, development and the challenge of cultural relativism.