Liberal Dilemmas of Human Rights Monitoring

Abstract

Human rights protection is precarious in postconflict situations. While war-induced, human rights violations quickly subside after a ceasefire, and a honeymoon period, like the one a new president enjoys, lasts only as long as everyday problems do not become daunting. New human rights challenges emerge, both civil and political, associated with postconflict democratization and group rights of ethnic groups in conflict. In addition, economic, social, and cultural rights begin with demands for humanitarian assistance and soon provide an agenda for economic reforms and opportunities, which are critical to sustaining peace. Addressing some or all of these categories of rights also creates dilemmas which result from their very success, related to increased demands on limited political resources and institutions resulting from increased participation. Humanitarian relief needed for survial is most important in the first phases of postconflict peacekeeping, but peacebuilding involves a sustainable expansion of all five categories of human rights, while developing a rule-of-law framework to protect them. Functioning courts monitored by NGOs are particularly challenging in the less institutionalized, corrupt polities in which peacebuilding often occurs. TANs are a potent way to address human rights violations, even as nationalist elites resent foreign intrusion in matters considered vital to national security.1 Unfortunately, the less developed and law-regulated the polity, the less likely it is that an indigenous human rights culture with robust NGOs and courts to enforce the law will exist.KeywordsCivil SocietyHumanitarian InterventionGeneva ConventionHumanitarian ReliefAdvocacy NetworkThese 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.