Idea Of Universal Human Rights Research Articles

아브라함계 종교와 세계인권선언: 인권관념 비교연구

This article compares and analyzes the idea of human rights in Abrahamic religions. For this purpose, it reviews Abramamic religions’ contribution to the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), their theological interpretations of rights-claiming culture, and human dignity. The article identifies two components that have shaped their varied notion of human rights. The first is that the religions have regarded the universalist claim of human rights as a moral challenge against their religious doctrines, which was established to preserve their Divine revelations. The second is that their historical experiences - religious persecution for Judaism, the Enlightenment for Christianity, and the West European Colonialism for Islam - have respectively shaped their initial hostility towards the idea of human rights. The concept of human rights is commonly considered to be founded on the Judeo-Christian tradition and the Western experience of the Enlightenment. Judaism and Christianity, however, alongside Islam, have in actuality often repudiated the idea of universal human rights following the adoption of the UDHR. This paper demonstrates that this conceptual distance between religion and human rights has ultimately been narrowed due to an increase in shared dialogue. In short, the idea of human rights has earned its universality in Abrahamic religions through a set of debates and compromises.

Fundamental Rights—Comparison of the Approaches in the Canon Law and in the Civil Law

The Code of Canon Law of 1983 came up with a list of obligations and duties of the Catholic faithful. This list is analogical to those of the charters of fundamental rights and freedoms found in the documents of international law and in the constitutions of democratic countries. the inspiration of church law by civilian law was a reality from the very beginnings of the development of Canon Law: first by Roman Law, in the modern world by complex codifications of civil law, and after Vatican II also the idea of universal human rights. The specifics of the Catholic Church in relation to a democratic state is the incorporation of the subject of law into the Church through baptism which brings, above all, duties and obligations. Thus the catalogue which may now be seen in the Code contains first and foremost a list of duties, not rights, which are not stressed in the modern state. In fact, the modern state has very few demands; often just the payment of taxes and compulsory school attendance. The article deals with the individual obligations and rights found in the Code of Canon Law and compares them with their analogies in constitutions. The concept of civil and canonical norms tends to get closer primarily in the case of inspiration by natural law, whereas the obligations of the faithful represent a specifically ecclesiastical goals, for which no analogy in civil law can be found. After all, the supreme law of the Church is the salvation of souls, indeed, the state does not have such a supernatural goal.

Counting the Dead: The Culture and Politics of Human Rights Activism in Colombia

Counting the Dead: The Culture and Politics of Human Rights Activism in Colombia

In the Service of Power: The Global Political Economy of Citizenship and Human Rights

This article investigates how the idea of universal human rights has been co-opted by the prevailing (neo)liberal consensus in support of processes associated with capitalist globalization. So-called “civil and political” rights form the core of (neo)liberal values upon which free market, laissez-faire economics are based, but the idealism of the dichotomy of first and second generation rights is profoundly ideological. Through an examination of the idea of the international citizen, it is argued that the attempt to introduce a duty to promote the widest possible social good falls far short of an obligation to respond to claims for alternative conceptions of “economic and social” rights; far less alternative models of social affairs. Drawing on empirical evidence from Africa, the article contends that the dominance of (neo)liberal rights is integral to the emerging (neo)liberal constitution of the global order effected in the name of “human rights”, “democratization”, “citizenship”, “good governance” and “civil society”. Never in the recent past have the founding principles of universal rights been so instrumentalized in the service of power, to such an extent that … in the opening years of the twentieth-century, we can speak of a veritable apogee of hegemony and an unprecedented crystallization of the hatreds that it arouses. (Bessis, 2003) Rather than being essentially a product of modernity, as I have suggested, human rights are now seen as our principal hope for protection from modernity … As with all successful normative institutions, rights come to be seen as the answer to the very social problems of which they are, in fact, a primary symptom. (Hopgood, 2000)

Grundtvig om samfundspagt, gensidig frihed og menneskerettigheder i ca. 1840: Med en kommenteret tekstudgivelse.

Grundtvig om samfundspagt, gensidig frihed og menneskerettigheder i ca. 1840: Med en kommenteret tekstudgivelse[Grundtvig on the Social Contract, reciprocal Liberty and human Rights, c. 1840]By Kim Arne PedersenIn the current Danish debate, Grundtvig’s emphasis upon a fellowship of the folk [folkefællesskabet] is often perceived as standing in opposition to the idea of universal human rights as a foundational social concept. However, Grundtvig links together contract-theory and ideas upon liberty and upon human rights within his premise that every society, whether civic [borgerlig] or Christian, is founded upon a contract, a consensus which finds its expression in a covenant [,sammenfatning], a constitution [grundlov], which in Grundtvig’s view should be oral but which in his own writings can also be found in written form. This constitution comes about by the establishment of a pact [pagtsslutning], in the first place between God and man, creator and creature, thence in a derivative form in civic society between king and people. A society’s constitution expresses a dialogue-relationship between the two parties involved in the social compact, and upon this rests Grundtvig’s concept of dialogue-based liberty. The two-way I/you-relationship between God and man and between person and person is the basis of Grundtvig’s principle of freedom which Kaj Thaning concisely phrases thus: they alone are free who allow their neighbour to be free as well. On this principle of freedom rests Grundtvig’s concept of a pact, which is crucial to his notion of the Apostolic Creed as being the foundation of the Church and to his thinking on civic society. The Christian baptismal compact [dåbspagt] is entered into by God and man, the social compact in the first instance by king and people whose reciprocal freedom becomes the model for the citizens’ life with each other. This finds its expression in an oral English Summaries / danske resuméer but fixed agreement, a mutual pledge. The pledge binds fast the two parties to their rights and responsibilities and thus becomes the premise for Grundtvig’s Locke-inspired thinking on human rights. In the first transcribed text it is seen how Grundtvig incorporates human rights within an outline for a social constitution; and in the second text how, on the grounds of the oral and public character of the social compact, he rejects the Danish Royal Law [kongelov] of 1665, written down but at various times kept secret, as society’s foundation.

Swallowed futures, indigestible pasts Post-apocalyptic narratives of rights in Kleist and Doctorow

Previous analyses of the intertextual relations between Heinrich von Kleist's 'Michael Kohlhaas' (1810–11) and E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime (1976[1975]) have focused on adaptation, assessing the changes made to the original. By contrast, this article focuses on what motivates the choice of Kleist's novella as an intertext in the first place and argues for a different, narrative logic binding the two. Both texts fixate with great ambivalence on the potential for transcending pervasive difference in the general and common, and they are both post-apocalyptic responses, alternately tragic and ironic visions of transcended difference. Together, the two tell a story of the discursive formation and deformation of the idea of universal human rights – a story that suspends the discourse of human rights between two traumatic moments of articulation and violence (in the late 18th century and the mid-20th century, respectively) that animate, yet remain inaccessible to each text.

From Conquest to Constitutions: Retrieving a Latin American Tradition of the Idea of Human Rights

The article explores the historical roots of the Latin American region's strong commitment to the idea of universal human rights, focusing on four key intellectual moments: the ethical response to the Spanish conquest; the rights ideology of the continent's liberal republican revolutions; the articulation of social and economic rights in the Mexican Constitution of 1917; and the Latin American contributions to the genesis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Constructing a narrative from these examples, the article argues for the recognition of a distinct Latin American tradition within the global discourse of human rights.

Human Rights in Foreign Policy: Lessons for South Africa from Canadian Experience?

In order to narrow the 'compliance gap' between the 'idea of universal human rights and practices of human wrongs', differences in human rights understandings and practices between countries of the North and the South must be reduced. Towards this end, it is useful to critically examine the experiences of Northern countries which have long professed their dedication to human rights. This article specifically examines lessons for post-apartheid South Africa from Canadian experience - although the findings should be of wider interest. It reflects on three interrelated dimensions of Canada's international human rights activity, each of which resonates strongly in South Africa and elsewhere: (1) the preference for multilateralism; (2) the emphasis on 'quiet diplomacy' and 'constructive engagement'; and (3) the growing importance of actors in civil society, both independently and in conjunction with government policy makers. It finds that each of these dimensions is distinctly double-edged in its impact on Canada's human rights foreign policy. Only through a clear understanding of the strengths, limits, and interrelations of each of these policy dimensions can performance be improved and prevarication and hypocrisy limited.

Human rights and the responsibility of intellectuals

There is much richness in the responses of the participants in this symposium on Kosovo and I cannot possibly to do justice to all the interesting and provocative thoughts presented. What follows are some of my own thoughts about the conflict on Kosovo and its implications for human rights. I present these thoughts in relation to various--but not all--points brought up by the authors. I would like to begin by making some general observations about the relationship between intellectuals and human rights. Intellectuals were the creators of the idea of universal human rights; there is probably no greater legacy from the Enlightenment than the idea that there are universal norms and values that should govern human conduct (at that the same time, though, the idea of relativism, which is fundamentally incompatible with the idea of human fights, also emerged out of the Enlightenment and this is a point to which I will return later). In the modern era, it is intellectuals who continue to articulate idealized visions of the normative bases of social life and who play a special role as protectors of human fights and social justice. The idea that the intellectual is not simply a producer of ideas, but the conscience of society is built into many definitions of the intellectual. Consider the view of Edward Said, himself a leading public intellectual: the intellectual "is an individual endowed with a faculty for representing, embodying, articulating a message, a view, an attitude, philosophy or opinion to, as well as for, a public..." 1 The intellectual is someone"whose place it is to confront orthodoxy and dogma (rather than to produce them). . .who cannot easily be coopted by governments or corporations, and whose raison d'etre is to represent all those people and issues that are routinely forgotten or swept under the rug. The intellectual does so on the basis of universal principles: that all human beings are entitled to expect decent standards of behavior concerning freedom and justice from worldly powers or nations, and that deliberate or inadvertent violations of these standards need to be testified and fought against courageously." 2 The last part of Said's definition is notable for its overt normative injunction for the intellectual to act according to universal principles to protect the weak.

The ethical basis of humanitarian intervention, the security council and Yugoslavia

The article analyses the text of Security Council Resolutions on the conflict in the former Yugoslavia for the period between September 1991 and 1997. It searches for evidence of a shift on the part of the Council towards an acceptance of the idea of universal human rights and their importance to international peace and security. The article concludes that the Resolutions do suggest that such a shift is underway, and this contributes to a greater concern for justice as an element of order in international relations.

Asia, Europe and human rights: From confrontation to dialogue?

The new, so‐called ‘ethical’ foreign policy of the UK Government places the promotion of human rights at its heart, and emphasizes multilateral and especially European action as a key strategy for its implementation. The recent Asia‐Europe Meeting in London (ASEM‐2) was dominated by consideration of the East Asian financial crisis, and human rights issues appear to have been marginalized. This suggests that parallel Asia‐Europe NGO dialogue may play an important role in redressing the balance in favour of popular interests. The paper argues, however, that such an intercultural dialogue on human rights, though extremely welcome, should be informed by clear thinking about the relation between the idea of universal human rights and the claims of particular cultures. This requires an engagement with the ‘Asian values’ debate. In this connection, the paper argues that the first, crudely polemical phase of this debate has been superseded by much more refined ‘new Asian thinking’ about human rights and Asian culture. An important intellectual space has been created for productive dialogue between East Asian and Western human rights advocates. Just as the Asia‐Europe economic dialogue supplements that between East Asia and the USA, so Europe can supplement the political and intellectual role of the USA in the human rights dialogue with East Asia with distinctive contributions of its own.

Universal Rights and the Historical Context

A common assumption of communitarians and other moral relativists is that the idea of universal human rights cannot apply to societies outside the modern Western world. Their argument is that since a valid morality cannot but reflect the values that are actually held in this or that society, and since universal human rights are not generally recognised in pre-modern and non-Western societies, there are in fact no universal human rights. In this essay the communitarian argument is criticised on the grounds that it does not distinguish between positive morality (that is, what people, as a matter of fact, believe to be right and good) and normative morality (that is, what people should believe to be right and good, were they fully rational). Moreover, it is argued that a normative understanding of the morality of universal human rights need not involve us in any anachronistic reasoning about the moral character of people in ancient or culturally distant societies. Nor does it imply a rejection of what is sound in a communitarian argument about the importance of historical contexts.

The Possibility of a Cosmopolitan Ethical Order Based on the Idea of Universal Human Rights

The Possibility of a Cosmopolitan Ethical Order Based on the Idea of Universal Human Rights

Universalism, communitarianism and human rights: A reply to Chris Brown

In a recent issue of The International Journal of Human Rights (1/2 Summer 1997) Professor Chris Brown, a scholar distinguished particularly for his integration of the disciplines of international relations and political theory, launched a forceful attack on the idea of universal human rights. This response argues that Professor Brown's attack has three targets ‐ human rights activists, the idea of human rights and the philosophy of liberal universalism ‐ and that it fails in each case. It attacks human rights activists unsuccessfully because it caricatures their beliefs. It fails to undermine the idea of universal human rights because its own ethical theory requires some version of that idea. And it fails to refute liberal universalism because its own supposed alternative is implicitly both liberal and universalist. This article concludes by affirming that the very importance and contested character of the idea of universal human rights entails that serious critiques should be welcomed, and that Professor Brown's attack, though unsuccessful, has opened up an important space for dialogue.

Human Rights, Human Difference: Anthropology's Contribution to an Emancipatory Cultural Politics

The concept of universal cultural features or principles is not in itself incompatible with some forms of cultural relativism, but the idea of universal human rights poses special problems. "Rights," in the specific sense, cannot be universal attributes of "humanity," as anthropologically conceived, but general principles of right or justice may be so. Anthropology may be able to provide knowledge of universal attributes of humanity with ethical or moral implications that can help to define such concepts. More specifically, anthropological activism in defense of human difference provides an important lead for the formulation of a universal right to difference. This argument converges with a historical analysis of the social and historical origins of the concept of human rights and the ways the concept has become transformed and reoriented in the context of the contemporary crisis of the state and the rise of ethnic and identity politics. In this historical conjuncture, the criterion of difference has emerged as a central focus of rights struggles and discourses.

Human rights, democracy and ‘Asian values’

Abstract There is a widespread belief, both in Asia and in the West, that an ‘Asian challenge’ to the idea of universal human rights on the basis of ‘Asian values’ has become an important force in international relations. However, the nature of this challenge and even its very existence are subject to much confusion. The principal source of this confusion is the lack of consensus among Asians about the character of Asian values and how they are related to human rights and democracy. Analysis of concepts such as ‘Asia’ and ‘the West’ shows that each refers to a complex cultural reality. Almost all those values said to be ‘Asian’ are similar to conservative Western values, and all the questions about the relations between human rights and other values that have been said to arise from the distinct nature of Asian cultures have been, and are still being, debated in the West. Human rights are general principles that have to be interpreted in the light of the world's diverse cultures. The most important questi...

Islamic Law/Shari'a, Human Rights, Universal Morality and International Relations

In our age near the end of the 20th century, recently described as an age of a clash of civilizations,' there is a tremendous need for morality based on a common set of norms and values shared by the entire international community. If the underpinning of this needed international morality is not basically human rights, what else could unite humanity? During the United Nations Human Rights Conference in Vienna, June 1993, those participants-including this author-who are committed to the idea of universal human rights as a basis of international morality, felt disturbed by some presentations by non-Western politicians who contested the universality of this morality. In particular, delegations from Muslim countries were among the leading contesters of the universality of human rights. In Vienna, while human rights activists from Muslim countries-like Iran and the Sudan-were drawing attention to the severe violations of human rights in their own countries (acting in the basement of the Vienna Center, where the NGOs met during the June 1993 UN Conference),