Global Human Rights Governance Research Articles

Human rights globalization: How local and global actions institutionalize 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.

Bibliometric analysis of sustainable agriculture on human rights governance approach: concept of sustainability on human rights governance

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

The limits of global human rights promotion: Indonesia’s ambivalent roles in the UN Human Rights Council

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.

China and the Global Reach of Human Rights

AbstractThis 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.

The population and the individual: The human rights audit as the governmentalization of global human rights governance

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.

International order, the rule of law, and US departures from refugee protection

ABSTRACTCompliance with international human rights norms and respect for the rule of law are mutually sustaining pillars of a liberal international order. State behaviours undermining customary and jus cogens legal norms are exceptionally disruptive to possibilities of global justice. This article posits that non-refoulement and a responsibility to protect refugees are connected to universally binding and peremptory norms in important ways such that state violations of these principles undermine the premises of international legal order. The article focuses on US norm violations in these areas, contextualising policy changes under the Trump administration within previous US departures from refugee protection principles. Given the position of the United States as a hegemonic and democratic actor in the international system, the article argues that US actions contra non-refoulement and efforts to shirk refugee responsibility-sharing in the wake of jus cogens crimes are particularly damaging to the foundations of global human rights governance and attendant notions of legitimacy and the rule of law.

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.

Global human rights governance and orchestration: National human rights institutions as intermediaries

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.

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.

Global Human Rights Governance and Orchestration: National Human Rights Institutions as Intermediaries

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.