Liberal Human Rights Research Articles

Transformed Understanding or Enlightened Ableism? The Gap Between Policy and Practice for Children with Disabilities in Aotearoa New Zealand

The concept of inclusion in the New Zealand legislative and policy environment is articulated in a liberal human rights discourse intended to redress past practices of segregation and exclusion. Such discourse has provided the early childhood sector with new ways to speak about disability and inclusion. There is, however, a growing body of evidence to show that how teachers speak about inclusion is frequently not reflected in practices in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) settings. The emerging evidence reported in this article is drawn from an ongoing research project which, in part, examines the views of inclusion elicited through semi-structured interviews with teachers, owners and managers in long-day ECEC—the facilities designed to accommodate adults’ usual working hours. The larger study aims to examine tensions and complexities for teachers, owners and managers in long-day ECEC alongside the views and experiences of parents of children with disabilities. The concept of ‘enlightened ableism’ is introduced to frame an argument that teacher-speak, while overtly liberal, may be combining with a nervousness about disability and inclusion that raises challenges for progressing inclusive practice. Furthermore, current discursive contradictions between liberalism and neoliberalism in the sector appear to be contributing to some teachers’ uncertainty about ways to progress beyond the rhetoric of inclusion. The study is embedded in the Disability Studies literature and informed by Foucauldian theorising about discourse and power. This paper responds to the question: Has legislation and policy transformed understandings about disability and inclusion or merely provided an enlightened rhetoric, which serves to mask the continuation of ableist practices and thinking in the sector?

Are Land Deals Unethical? The Ethics of Large-Scale Land Acquisitions in Developing Countries

Proponents of large-scale land acquisitions (LaSLA) argue that poor countries could benefit from foreign direct investment in land (World Bank 2011), while opponents argue that LaSLA is nothing more than neo-colonial theft of poor peasants’ livelihoods, i.e., land grabbing (Borras and Franco in Yale Hum Rights Dev L J, 13: 507–523, 2010a). To ensure responsible agricultural investments (RAI), a voluntary “code of conduct” for land acquisitions has been proposed by the World Bank (2011) and the FAO (2012). A critical reaction to the “code of conduct” approach is the proposal for a set of minimum human rights principles, suggested by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, De Schutter (2009). Even more critical of the “code of conduct” approach are Borras and Franco in Yale Hum Rights Dev L J, 13(2): 507–523, 2010a, who propose empowering small-scale farmers by giving them land sovereignty so that they are assured control over their land. This paper is a review of the governance and ethics issues connected to LaSLA. It has four main objectives: First, it offers a critical presentation of three major governance approaches to LaSLA: the “liberal code of conduct” (FAO and the World Bank), the ‘critical liberal human rights’ approach (De Schutter) and the ‘Marxist’ approach (Borras and Franco). Second, it discusses the notion of a human right to land, with reference to John Locke’s theory of appropriating land. Third, it discusses the issue of ensuring an inclusive process in LaSLA. Finally, an argument is made for instituting a (global) obligation to refrain from participating in or benefitting from institutional schemes that facilitate negative land grabbing (Pogge in Politics as usual: what lies behind the pro-poor rhetoric? Polity Press, Cambridge 2010).

The Principled Imperative to Recognise Same-Sex Unions in the EU

EU law governing the recognition of same-sex relationships suffers from a lack of principled underpinnings which would ensure equality of treatment in cross-border situations. This can be attributed to the fact that the law remains shackled by an intergovernmental legislative process which prefers compromise to clarity of purpose.1 Notwithstanding the pragmatism of a neutral approach in terms of enabling the adoption of legislation, as well as for the avoidance of dissent, it is argued in this article that the EU should engage with policy questions regarding family law in greater depth insofar as it has competence to do so. In particular, it is submitted that a Union which is founded, at least in part, on a liberal human rights tradition should aim towards the adoption of private international law solutions which favour a liberal, pluralist approach to the family unit. The alternative is to perpetuate inequality of civil rights within the Union and to deny principles which are embraced in the Treaties. In view of the intergovernmental nature of the legislative process, it falls to the Court of Justice to articulate the fact that EU law ought to leave no room for the Member States to discriminate against the mobility of families of same-sex couples. This is particularly true now that the Union has a distinct, justiciable bill of rights in the form of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Freedom of Thought, Religion, and Liberal Neutrality

Freedom of thought deserves recognition as one of the greatest human freedoms, and yet it has not received its due in the philosophical and legal study of basic rights and liberties. This essay provides a minor corrective. I begin by outlining the significance of thinking, and I describe the current place of freedom of thought in liberal political theory and human rights discourse. I then offer a working definition of “thought,” following which I address the question of whether freedom of thought is a distinct basic right. I subsequently consider ways in which freedom of thought can be abrogated, distinguishing three basic categories of freedom-of-thought violations and supplying analytical treatment of examples in each category. I then apply the analysis to a series of important freedom-of-thought issues that touch upon religion, in order to make headway on special and pressing challenges for freedom of thought and religious liberty alike. The analysis that I provide clarifies moral and legal parameters for permissible investigations of people’s thoughts, and it identifies limitations on efforts to modify individuals’ thinking that are applicable to both government and private parties. My case furnishes elements of a workable conception of liberal neutrality, as well; I offer those rudiments prior to concluding.

Fundamental Rights Enforcement- The Role of the Office of Public Defender of Lagos State of Nigeria

Court rules for enforcing human rights should, firstly, be flexible and liberal, and, secondly, should be liberally applied and purposively interpreted. The goal should be to advance and realize the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and international instruments. Arid legalism should be a thing of the past. Human rights enforcement procedure should be so simple and user-friendly that non-lawyers with average high school education will be able to prepare and file human rights suits with little or no professional help.The Office of the Public Defender of Lagos State is the first of its kind in Nigeria. The legal staff of the OPD, though government employees, launch and fight human rights suits against government agencies. And they do so vigorously.The Nigerian legal community, particularly the judges, are yet to imbibe the liberal human rights civilization ushered in by the Constitution of Nigeria in 1999. When they do so, the work of the OPD will prosper even more.

The Human Rights Debate in the External Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church*

This article analyses the ideological and institutional context of the document The Russian Orthodox Church's Basic Teaching on Human Dignity, Freedom and Rights (Osnovy ucheniya Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi o dostoinstve, svobode i pravakh cheloveka), issued by the Bishops' Council of the Moscow Patriarchate in 2008, with the particular aim of shedding light on its nature as an instrument of the external relations and foreign politics of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). Through a documentation of the milestones in the Russian Orthodox human rights discourse and through a semantic analysis of the key terms used, the article shows how the ROC's rhetorical self-positioning vis-à-vis the liberal human rights regime changes over time and shifts from an outright opposition to a more conciliatory attitude. The article is based on internet sources, in particular various websites related to Russian Orthodox institutions, as well as observations and interview material.

The Grammar of Rights in Colonial Contexts: The Case of Palestinian Women in Israel

This article examines the limitations of human rights activism in a colonial context by invoking the voices, experiences, and insights of Bedouin women living in Israel. Through extensive interviews, Bedouin women living in unrecognized villages in the Naqab/Negev reveal their struggles as unrecognized and “invisible” members of society. The article explores the ways in which the prevailing “grammar of rights”—the formal and informal mechanisms constructed and maintained by the colonial power to accord or withhold rights—delimits and confines the lives of the women, and also human rights activism. The women’s personal stories are juxtaposed against the legal justifications used to regulate and discriminate against them, as members of the indigenous Palestinian community, within the context of a “fear industry”. The article explores, from the perspective of the interviewed women, the internalization of that culture of fear, where they are constructed as the ones to be feared, and its personal, familial, and communal implications. The interviewed women offer a critique of the existing human right framework, and question whether a human rights activism operating in a colonial context can be an emancipating force, so long as it is constrained by the regime’s rules. Furthermore, their voices assert that acknowledging historical injustice and its effect on women’s rights is central to re-thinking feminist human rights activism. The article ends by returning to the voices of women living in the unrecognized villages of the Naqab/Negev to investigate whether, and how, feminist politics and human rights activism could operationally function together within the context of Israeli state law. The article concludes that, in order to create a “grammar of rights” that is based on equality, respect, and dignity, and which challenges the balance of power in colonial contexts, it is essential to fully include the lived experiences and insights of “invisible” and unrecognized women.

The Gift of Ruling: Secularization and Political Authority

The author believes that the absolutizaton of liberal democracy and human rights when they are not subject to critical analysis, as well as the start of transformation of the USA from republic to empire, and the democracy – to the manipulative power of the elite, which were perhaps inherent to the very nature of American models of republic and democracy, put forward the problem of the return of irrationalism into mass consciousness and politics. In the context of this problem the author analyzes Western political philosophy and theology for the last few years, paying special attention to theological grounds for the appearance of liberalism.

Statelessness, sentimentality and human rights

This article considers the ongoing difficulties for mainstream political theory of actualizing human rights, with particular reference to Rorty’s attempt to transcend their liberal foundations. It argues that there is a problematic disjuncture between his articulation of exclusion and his hope for inclusion via the expansion of the liberal human rights culture. More specifically, it shows that Rorty’s description of victimhood is based on premises unavailable to him, with the consequence that stateless persons are rendered inhuman, and, further, that his accounts of sentimentality and solidarity have limited potential for the inclusion of such victims within the liberal ‘community of justification’. In the final analysis, the article argues that there is a substantial mismatch between Rorty’s dependence on both liberal norms and international political practice, and his hopes for the human rights culture to include those stripped of human dignity.

Human Rights: Contested, Triumphant, and Hegemonic

The Liberal Project and Human Rights: The Theory and Practice of a New World Order. By John Charvet, Elisa Kaczynska-Nay. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 434 pp., $29.99 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-0-521-70959-0). Civilising Globalisation: Human Rights and the Global Economy. By David Kinley. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 256 pp., $39.99 (ISBN-13: 978-0-511-65596-8). Human Rights in Asia: A Reassessment of the Asian Values Debate. Edited by Leena Avonius, Damien Kingsbury. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 254 pp., $90.00 hardcover (ISBN-13: 978-0-230-60639-5). The idea of human rights permeates virtually every aspect of international politics today, whether invoked by political elites, advocates, or academics. Arguments appealing to human rights have been advanced to both justify and denounce wars; human rights are invoked as the rallying cry for both advocates and critics of free trade; and depending on who one asks, the advent of liberal, rights-based government may either be the endpoint in humankind's ideological evolution that cannot be improved upon (Fukuyama 1992) or may simply be an ideological smokescreen behind which powerful actors seek to eliminate rival ideologies and political movements (Gong 1984). Yet despite the widespread violation of human rights throughout the globe, and the profound double standards with which even liberal states behave when it comes to human rights, the various norms embodied in international human rights law are endorsed by a vast majority of states, global corporations are increasingly accepting human rights concerns as relevant to their activities, and it is becoming much more difficult for perpetrators of human rights atrocities to escape the reach of international criminal justice. Human rights have indeed become a “hegemonic discourse” in at least two senses. First, they have become the most broadly endorsed basis for the expression of political legitimacy, and second, the idea of human rights has become the chosen conceptual framework for discussing, debating, and attempting to improve the human condition throughout the globe (Donnelly 2003:38). At the same time, this process that Kirsten Sellars (2002) once called the “rise and rise of human rights” has not been uncontested. The theory and logic of liberal human rights have come under assault from a host of critics in academic circles, including communitarians, Marxists, cultural relativists, post-structuralists, and authoritarians. Furthermore, human rights as political practice have been viewed with suspicion by corporate …

To the Orphaned, Dispossessed, and Illegitimate Children: Human Rights Beyond Republican and Liberal Traditions

After the Helsinki Accords, the collapse of the Soviet Union and its empire, and the collapse of states in Africa and elsewhere, many in the West have come to envisage the enforcement of human rights as a practical matter. Human rights are thus incorporated in normative regimes under the rubrics of either the rule of law or the responsibility to protect to be held against the purveyors of violence. I do not discount the normative underpinnings of the related stands taken today by states and transnational and national civil society organizations. I wish to insist on the futility of envisaging human rights merely as legal standards and norms and on the need to revisit the question of the human on whom rights are bestowed. The present article is an exercise in historical and comparative analysis of what human rights meant to Haitian slaves in the eighteenth century when, as happened in France and the United States, notions of human rights emanated in a constitutional scheme intended to protect the newly freed slaves against violence from the prevailing post-Enlightenment political, economic, and ideological systems—all of which had been integral to the processes of enslavement. It is my contention that, like Haitian slaves, anti-colonialists and some postcolonial entities found liberal human rights schemes to be equally implicated in modern violence and therefore responded by proposing novel grounds for imagining human rights outside of the strictures of liberal constitutionalism.

Reflections and Legal Analysis of the Relationship between “Religious Government and Human Rights” from the Perspective of Grand Ayatullāh Muntazirī

AbstractThis article discusses the book "Religious Government and Human Rights" (Hukūmat-i dīn-i wa huqūq-i insān) by the Shiite Grand Ayatullāh Husayn 'Alī Muntazirī (1922-2009). In this work, he explicitly tackles central issues of religious government and discusses its incongruity with human rights. He advocates the recognition of human rights along general lines, and positions himself firmly against absolutist Islamic rule, thereby undermining the concept of religious authority currently prevalent in the Islamic Republic. Muntazirī justifies these moves by applying the traditional method of jurisprudence (usūl al-fiqh), calls for re-arranging the system of how sections of the law are structured and even for the possibility of adding entirely new articles. Iğtihād for him is the renewal of jurisprudence in accordance with the Zeitgeist, with changing social conditions and with scientific discoveries. Jurisprudence, in contrast to revelation, is the work of man and can therefore be questioned and adapted in the light of the principles of reason ('aql). Muntazirī calls for a fresh review of jurisprudence based on the liberal human rights of our time. He also stresses the permanent and universal character of these natural and fundamental rights, which apply in all situations and under all conditions despite cultural and religious differences. For Muntazirī, these fundamental rights are deduced from the very essence of man's existence (insāniyat-i insān), which constitutes their only legitimate source. The roots for Muntazirī's oppositional and critical stance towards the Islamic Republic and its despotic system of rule lie first and foremost in his negative personal experiences with the system. Gradually, these gave way to a critical and more liberal concept of religion and political authority in his thought.

New Directions in Feminism and Human Rights

On the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, feminists are at a critical juncture to re-envision and re-engage in a politics of human rights that underscores the creative displays of grassroots resistance by women globally and affirms transnational feminist solidarity. In highlighting feminisms and human rights that are antiracist and social justice oriented, this issue highlights new research that reveals the transformative potential of a feminist human rights praxis that embraces collective justice. In this introduction, we discuss dominant critiques of human rights frameworks and explore critical human rights activism ‘from below’ in order to establish the context for this special issue on new directions in feminism and human rights.

Making migrant domestic work visible: The rights based approach to migration and the ‘challenges of social reproduction’1

ABSTRACT In recent years, the production of a gendered and racialised underclass of non-citizen domestic workers has come to play an increasingly important role in meeting the socially reproductive needs of middle class Malaysian households. This article considers the extent to which rights based approaches to migrant worker rights endorsed by both International Organisations and regional and local (Malaysian) nongovernmental organisations are sufficient in tackling the problems and issues faced by female migrants employed as domestic workers. The first part of the article critically engages with the dominant ‘rights based approach to migration’ endorsed, in particular, by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) suggesting that this approach fails to make a substantive commitment to gender justice, not least, because of the way in which domestic work remains a largely invisible and frequently unrecognised form of employment. The second part of the article draws upon data collected from key activist organizations engaged in struggles on behalf of migrant domestic workers in Malaysia. This discussion is situated within the broader context of debates over the role of economic rights within feminist understandings and critiques of human rights and ‘rights based approaches’. Noting the dominance of the issue of violence against women (VAW) within feminist human rights discourse, I argue that whilst the VAW framework is a useful tool for understanding how and why women migrants may be vulnerable to abuse, it is perhaps not enough and there is a need to think more critically about how questions of women's economic status and ‘rights’ feature in discussions of the gendered and racialised nature of (care) work in the global economy.

A Decade of Disquieting Diplomacy: South Africa, Zimbabwe and the Ideology of the National Democratic Revolution, 1999–2009

AbstractReflections on South African diplomacy regarding Zimbabwe, inspired by hopes that Nelson Mandela’s discourse of cross‐border support for liberal human rights would continue after his departure, are pervaded by disquiet. They suggest that Thabo Mbeki’s ‘quiet diplomacy’ during the decade of his incumbency indicated either cynical realpolitik or enthusiastic support for a dictator, under the guise of supporting Zimbabwean sovereignty and pan‐Africanism. This more nuanced article takes ideas seriously by closely examining a long Mbeki text on the question of Zimbabwe, underpinned by the Soviet‐inspired ‘national democratic revolution’ ideology. This ‘NDR’ discourse illustrates much about the contradictions of ‘marxists’ in power in a world far from approaching the ideology’s progenitors’ expectations, regarding both foreign policy and further realms of ‘democracy’. Examination of the text thus illustrates the petards upon which many African rulers rest, pointing to even more disquiet for advocates of liberal (or socialist) democracy – abroad and at home.

Gendered political economy and the politics of migrant worker rights: the view from South-East Asia

Focusing on the South-East Asian region and looking specifically at activism around the position of migrant domestic workers in the region, this article seeks to evaluate why migrant activist organisations appear to have had, at best, modest influence on gendering the International Labour Organization's approach to labour rights. The author argues that this is largely due to how dominant understandings of labour rights have neglected the significance of social relations of reproduction (i.e. those ‘care-related’ activities associated with the household) to the functioning of the labour market. Furthermore, a transnationalisation of social relations of reproduction is manifested in the increased feminisation of labour migration in the region and this highlights further problems with dominant labour rights perspectives that remain largely state-centric in their approach. The significance of South-East Asian states in promoting localised regimes of citizenship/immigration and industrial relations greatly limits the ability of activist groups to claim and utilise the language of human rights. Nonetheless, the article argues that a concern with the human rights of female migrants can potentially destabilise dominant understandings of labour and human rights. More generally, the article seeks to demonstrate the insights that a critical feminist human rights approach can bring to studies of work and employment within international political economy.

The Liberal Project and Human Rights: The Theory and Practice of a New World Order. By John Charvet and Elisa Kaczynska-Nay. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 446p. $81.00 cloth, $29.99 paper. - Human Rights Matters: Local Politics and National Human Rights Institutions. By Julie A. Mertus. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009. 240p. $55.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.

The Liberal Project and Human Rights: The Theory and Practice of a New World Order. By John Charvet and Elisa Kaczynska-Nay. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 446p. $81.00 cloth, $29.99 paper. - Human Rights Matters: Local Politics and National Human Rights Institutions. By Julie A. Mertus. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009. 240p. $55.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.

‘ONE VAGINA TO GO’

Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues and the accompanying global ‘anti-violence against women’ activist project by now has come to embody female liberation from violence all over the world. What has ...

Workers' Rights as Human Rights

In the wake of a series of prolabor Supreme Court decisions in Canada, the mantra of “workers' rights as human rights” has gained unprecedented attention in the Canadian labor movement. This article briefly reviews the Canadian labor movement's recent history with the Supreme Court before arguing that elite-driven judicial strategies, advocated by several academics and Canadian unions, threaten, over time, to depoliticize traditional class-based approaches to advancing workers' rights. The argument is premised on the notion that liberal human rights discourse does little to address the inequalities in wealth and power that polarize Canadian society along class lines.

Open Adoption and the Politics of Transnational Feminist Human Rights

This brief essay offers a rumination on the history and implications of open adoption, with a particular focus on the ways the practice grew out of the women's rights movement of the 1970s and on the ways racial inequities impacted child adoption before and after the rise of openness movements. It draws on a surge of recent scholarly work on child adoption to explore connections between race, child welfare, women's rights, and transnationalism. It also raises the question of child adoption as a human rights issue by considering together activist trends in domestic and international adoption. Finally, it suggests that paired with the political movement for more openness in adoption, the developing field of “adoption studies” may help pave the way for making adoption a more ethical practice.