Source Of Human Rights Research Articles

The Protection of Human Rights in Indonesian Constitutional Law after the Amendment of the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia

The amendment to the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia has shown progress in respecting, protecting and fulfilling human rights in Indonesia. It is proven from the advanced provisions that have set the human rights material, starting from the affirmation of fundamental rights, individual rights, social rights, solidarity rights, and even the assertion of rights included in the category of not-derogable rights in the Second Amendment to the 1945 Constitution. The urgency of the Constitution 1945 as written constitution due to its status as the ultimate instrument to determine a norm (law), action or government policy, so it will not violate human rights and constitutional rights of the citizens. Thus, the Constitution is an important instrument in term of guaranty and ensuring that human rights within the Republic of Indonesia are protected, even though the source of human rights is not actually derived from the State but naturally originated from natural law, whether its universal validity is either affirmed or not in the Constitution. It shows progress in the level of regulation and protection of human rights in Indonesia.Related to the guarantee of the protection of human rights, one of the important material of the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia is the presence of a new judicial institution called the Constitutional Court, in addition to the Supreme Court. The existence of the Constitutional Court in Indonesia is an improvement in maintaining and upholding the Constitution and protecting human rights. Hence, the Constitutional Court referred to as “the Protector of Human Rights.” Protection of human rights is carried out through the exercise of authority as defined in Article 24C Paragraph (1) of the 1945 Constitution which is to review an Act against the Constitution, to judge on authority disputes of state institutions whose authorities are granted by the Constitution, to judge on the dissolution of a political party, and to judge on disputes regarding the result of a general election. Also, Article 24C Paragraph (2) obliges the Constitutional Court to render a judgment on the petition of the People’s Representative Council regarding an alleged violation by the President and the Vice President according to the Constitution. Keywords: Human Rights, Constitutional Law, Amendment to the Constitution.

Grounding Human Dignity and Rights: A Thomistic Response to Wolterstorff

Grounding Human Dignity and Rights:A Thomistic Response to Wolterstorff Paul A. Macdonald Jr. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH has taught consistently that there are basic human rights, such as the right to life, the right to the material means necessary properly to develop one's life, the right to be respected, the right to pursue truth freely, the right to worship God in accordance with the right dictates of one's conscience, and the right to be given the opportunity to work.1 Moreover, the Church has taught that the ground of these rights is the dignity and worth that all human beings inherently possess. For example, the Catechism of the Catholic Church says that "Being in the image of God the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone."2 And as a person—a possessor of a nature "endowed with intelligence and free will," in the words of Pacem in Terris—the human individual "has rights and duties, which together flow as a direct consequence from his nature."3 The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church puts the point this way: "the roots of human rights are to be found in the dignity that belongs to each human being" and that "the ultimate source of human rights is not found in the mere [End Page 1] will of human beings, in the reality of the State, in public powers, but in man himself and in God his Creator."4 The overall goal of this article is to defend the Church's teaching on human dignity and rights, and specifically the Church's claim that human dignity, as the ground of human rights and duties, derives from our being persons created in God's image. My defense unfolds in two main stages. First, in section I, I summarize Nicholas Wolterstorff's recent, important answer to the question of what grounds human dignity and rights, and specifically those rights that Wolterstorff calls natural human rights: legitimate claims against others to be treated in a certain way, which we retain not on account of the actions of others (conferring rights on us) but rather because qua human we possess great dignity and worth.5 Consistent with Catholic teaching, Wolterstorff holds that human beings possess great dignity and worth in virtue of standing in a certain relation to God. However, Wolterstorff denies that it is possible to ground human dignity and rights in either personhood or the imago dei. Instead, he argues that it is only because all human beings bear the property of being loved by God, with what he calls "attachment" love, that they possess great dignity and worth, in which human rights inhere. In the second, more extensive stage of my defense, drawing heavily on the thought of Thomas Aquinas, I reflect on and challenge Wolterstorff's claim that personhood and the imago dei cannot account for the dignity that grounds human rights. In section II, I show how, according to Wolterstorff's own criteria for what constitutes a dignity-based ground of human rights, [End Page 2] human beings possess rights- and duty-grounding dignity and worth as persons. In section III, I show how human beings possess rights- and duty-grounding dignity and worth as divine creations and image-bearers. Of course, from the Church's perspective, these claims speak to the same truth or reality: as divine creations and image-bearers, we are also persons ("endowed with intelligence and free will") who possess rights-and duty-grounding dignity and worth. What I argue, though, in an effort both to clarify and to bolster Church teaching, is that fully grounding human dignity and rights, or giving a complete account of human dignity and rights, requires affirming that human beings qua persons are divine creations and image-bearers, because it is only by affirming that we are divine creations and image-bearers that we can give a complete account for why we are also persons who possess dignity and rights. My main goal here is not to develop a Thomistic theory of rights or to ground a full theory of rights in Aquinas.6 Nor is it to defend the...

Axiology of human rights on the premises and determinants of contemporary discourse in the philosophy of international law

Considering the pluralism of the axiological sources of human rights, we claim that it is necessary to realize that we are facing at the moment an analytic extension of both the “number” of human rights (appearance of new generations of human rights), as well as the “quantitative quality” of human rights due to newly uncovered axiological sources such as the appearance of new values or a redefinition of existing ones. In the presented context of the axiology of human rights and the axiology of their protection, it is easy to observe the axiological pluralism of the two spheres as well as numerous attempts to make the exegesis and interpretation both relative and instrumental1 in a domestic, European, and international sphere. Attempts to limit human rights in a camouflaged manner in the jurisdiction practice of particular states are quite abundant and an axiological justification of legal solutions that would make the implementation and protection of those rights (in particular those of the third, fourth and fifth generations) ineffectual—de facto (not de iure, since from a formal and legal point of view they correspond to declared rights and, without exception, the protected ones) is the guarantee of community security and, paradoxically, the protection of other people (i.e., the protection of religious sentiments, family, public morality based usually on the rules of the dominant religion). When transposing these problematics from the state perspective to the intra- and trans-state level, we need to demonstrate that in the international law of protection of human rights, limitation of these rights may also take place as a result of extra-normative factors due to so-called “instrumental relativism”, applied in the function of current political interests for which intrinsic human dignity happens to be infringed. We also claim that the active factor of that critical crossing point is not faults in the law or its interpretation, nor is it faults of ethics, but rather the faults of what is going on within so-called Realpolitik.

The construction of human rights actorhood: Findings from the Korean General Social Survey

ABSTRACTThis article investigates the sources of human rights “actorhood”—the extent to which people understand, support and implement human rights—by examining a novel human rights survey that was embedded in the 2011 Korean General Social Survey. My research uses ordinary-least-squares regression analyses to explore the factors that lead to individual differences in awareness and engagement. I employ four broad theoretical frameworks to explain the determinants of human rights orientations: realism, cultural factors, psychology, and world polity. My results suggest that multiple theoretical frameworks collectively contribute to a better grasp of what shapes human rights actorhood in South Korea. In particular, global polity and psychological elements have strong effects on awareness and engagement, while human rights education, religion, and socioeconomic factors have less of an effect than we might assume. This article emphasizes the importance of human agency, suggesting that the analysis of individual human rights orientations can help to bolster both awareness of and engagement in the global human rights movement.

Godność jako logos życia

The text concerns the issue of dignity, which is the source of human rights as well as the particular freedoms: freedom of religion, conscience and thought. Because dignity is “absolute inner value” (I. Kant), it can be considered as the logos of human life – the immanent principle of his moral attitudes, duties, faith and the development of interpersonal relationships. For these reasons, we analyze the philosophical and theological contexts of dignity, in order to indicate also its transcendent foundations and determinants.

The rights of resettled refugees in the UK: lessons for 'new' resettlement states and rights based advocacy for refugees

Despite lengthy engagement with the international refugee regime, the UK has only recently begun an organised refugee resettlement program. This is smallest in magnitude of the five states compared here. Whether the UK fulfils its obligations towards those it resettles depends on the under-explored meaning of the term 'resettled refugee' - specifically for accompanying or subsequently arriving dependents of a refugee. The UK's performance varies across categories of resettled refugees and across different socio-economic rights. While many assume that the most important refugee rights are found in the Refugee Convention, other sources of human rights are at least as (and often more) important to resettled refugees. Domestic legal frameworks providing for rights largely directed at UK nationals have also benefited resettled refugees. The UK's inchoate response to the resettlement of Syrian refugees is used as a case study, evidencing key features and limitations of existing policy and possible future developments.

The rights of resettled refugees in the UK: lessons for 'new' resettlement states and rights based advocacy for refugees

Despite lengthy engagement with the international refugee regime, the UK has only recently begun an organised refugee resettlement program. This is smallest in magnitude of the five states compared here. Whether the UK fulfils its obligations towards those it resettles depends on the under-explored meaning of the term 'resettled refugee' - specifically for accompanying or subsequently arriving dependents of a refugee. The UK's performance varies across categories of resettled refugees and across different socio-economic rights. While many assume that the most important refugee rights are found in the Refugee Convention, other sources of human rights are at least as (and often more) important to resettled refugees. Domestic legal frameworks providing for rights largely directed at UK nationals have also benefited resettled refugees. The UK's inchoate response to the resettlement of Syrian refugees is used as a case study, evidencing key features and limitations of existing policy and possible future developments.

NATURALNE I SPOŁECZNE PRAWA CZŁOWIEKA W NAUCZANIU PAPIEŻA LEONA XIII

THE NATURAL AND SOCIAL HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE POPE LEON XIII’S TEACHINGSummary The aim of this paper is to show that the category of human rights, one of the fundamentals of the modern political debate, was present in the pope’s social teaching since its beginning, namely since the pontificate of Leon XIII (1878 – 1903). A comparison between the pope’s views and the liberal doctrine of human rights indicates that both in the pope’s teaching and in the liberal conceptions, not only the subject of those rights but also their object are repeatedly identical. Their origin though is undoubtedly different. For the liberals the source of human rights are the social convention and the positive law. For Leon XIII the fundamental of human rights is the conviction that human being as imago Dei possesses an inalienable dignity which constitutes the foundation and the source of his rights. The second source of human rights in the pope’s teaching is the natural law. Leon XIII considered the right to possess private property to be the most important of human rights. The conception of natural and social human rights developed by him was a turning point in the social teaching of the Catholic Church, and moreover it was Leon XIII who presented it for the first time.

Cooperating Alone: The Global Reach of U.S. Regulations on Conflict Minerals

In 2010, the United States Congress adopted the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The Act includes an unprecedented provision to curb the mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) of so-called conflict minerals: components found in many consumer electronics that are sometimes the source of human rights abuses in the mines and regions from which they originate. Companies traded on the U.S. Stock Exchange are now required to conduct due diligence assessments of their supply chains and disclose the presence of such conflict minerals. The mining of conflict minerals is a global problem for which international cooperation among States and companies seems the necessary solution. However, the United States acted alone; it unilaterally adopted regulations that focused on only one country—the DRC—and one set of targets—companies publicly traded in the United States. These regulations likely required less time to adopt and implement than traditional State-to-State cooperation. Critics might argue that conflict minerals originate not just from the DRC but also from other politically unstable nations, and companies publicly traded in the United States are not the only ones to integrate these minerals into their products. Yet, this Article argues that Dodd-Frank’s influence likely extends far beyond its stated geographical scope. This Article is the first to ground the U.S. rules on conflict minerals in the literature on unilateral regulatory globalization. That literature posits that, under the right conditions, a country’s unilateral regulations can unleash a “California Effect” that causes companies outside its jurisdiction and other States to voluntarily align with those regulations. By analyzing the conflict minerals regulations through the lens of unilateral regulatory globalization, this Article reveals the Dodd-Frank Act’s potential to reach beyond its stated goals and DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15779/Z388565 * J.D., 2015, U.C. Berkeley, School of Law. The author acknowledges with great appreciation Jamie O’Connell and Jerome Hsiang for their comments on earlier drafts, Katerina Linos for introducing me to concepts critical to this piece, and the editors of the Berkeley Journal of International Law for their diligent reviews and edits. Any remaining errors are mine. Published by Berkeley Law Scholarship Repository, 2016 2016] COOPERATING ALONE 217 enriches the existing literature by examining when regulations focused on business and human rights might trigger a California Effect. Abstract 216 Introduction 217 I. Conflict Minerals: Overview of the Problem 220 A. Human Rights Violations 220 B. The Electronics Industry and the Market for Conflict Minerals ...222 II. A Singular U.S. Policy Response: The Dodd-Frank Conflict Minerals Provisions 224 A. Overview of Dodd-Frank Conflict Minerals Regulations 224 B. Range of Possible U.S. Policy Responses 226 C. Implementation of Dodd-Frank 228 III. The Global Pull of an Enticing Market and Powerful Regulator 231 A. The Theory of Unilateral Regulatory Globalization 231 B. Can Dodd-Frank’s Conflict Minerals Provisions Unleash a “California Effect”? 235 1. Market Power 236 2. Regulatory Capacity 238 3. Preference for Strict Rules 238 4. Target Elasticity 239 5. Nondivisibility of Standards 240 6. Remaining Uncertainties 241 Conclusions 243 216 Introduction 217 I. Conflict Minerals: Overview of the Problem 220 A. Human Rights Violations 220 B. The Electronics Industry and the Market for Conflict Minerals ...222 II. A Singular U.S. Policy Response: The Dodd-Frank Conflict Minerals Provisions 224 A. Overview of Dodd-Frank Conflict Minerals Regulations 224 B. Range of Possible U.S. Policy Responses 226 C. Implementation of Dodd-Frank 228 III. The Global Pull of an Enticing Market and Powerful Regulator 231 A. The Theory of Unilateral Regulatory Globalization 231 B. Can Dodd-Frank’s Conflict Minerals Provisions Unleash a “California Effect”? 235 1. Market Power 236 2. Regulatory Capacity 238 3. Preference for Strict Rules 238 4. Target Elasticity 239 5. Nondivisibility of Standards 240 6. Remaining Uncertainties 241 Conclusions 243

Liao, S. Matthew. The Right to Be Loved.New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. 272. $45.00 (cloth).

Liao, S. Matthew. <i>The Right to Be Loved</i>.New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. 272. $45.00 (cloth).

Prawo naturalne a prawa człowieka: stanowisko Bertholda Walda

The article presents Berthold Wald’s views on the foundations of human rights. The author shares the views of the German thinker that the basis of these laws is the natural law, which in modern culture is neglected, contributing to the errors of embodying human dignity and freedom. Wald, in the author’s view, in an original way shows the rational and universal nature of the vision of the natural law of Thomas Aquinas as a source of human rights. He emphasizes that in the experience of one’s self you can read both the truth about this law and human rights. This makes this concept sound convincing and understandable for everyone, regardless of their temporal, cultural or philosophical background. For Walt, as for Mieczyslaw A. Krąpiec, the subject of rights is every human being because of his personal dignity, understood in a classical way, that is justified in human nature and not in its own qualities. In his presentation of the position of the German thinker, the author of the article exposes and delineates certain themes: defining natural law as a source of human rights and experiencing one’s own self in all aspects concerned and showing the dignity of the person as the foundation of rights.

The global constitutionalization of human rights: Overcoming contemporary injustices or juridifying old asymmetries?

Recent decades are marked by an impressive expansion of actors and legal structures intended to globally extend a certain ‘Western’ catalog of human rights. Recently, too, legal scholars have developed concepts to justify normatively the expansion of human rights (e.g. Habermas, Walker, Koskenniemi). This article reviews recent legal literature on global constitutionalization of human rights to reveal its blind spots, at two levels: i) the reaffirmation of European precedency for establishing the sources of human rights and ii) a lack of sociological tools for describing interpenetrations between law, power and social inequalities. In order to empirically illustrate these objections, the article analyses the recent global expansion of human rights of minorities, using two examples: cases treated by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Brazilian legalization of ancestral territories of afro-descendants. Finally, the article argues for a decentered perspective that (at the local level) connects human rights with concrete claims for justice.

The Culturalization of Human Rights Law by Federico Lenzerini (review)

Reviewed by: The Culturalization of Human Rights Law by Federico Lenzerini Julie Fraser, Ph.D. Candidate (bio) Federico Lenzerini, The Culturalization of Human Rights Law (Oxford University Press, 2014), ISBN 978-0-19-966428-3, 304pages. I. INTRODUCTION The apparent tension between human rights and cultural diversity is as old as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In an effort to ease this tension, Federico Lenzerini uses this book to promote the “culturalization” of human rights: a differentiated understanding of rights based on the specific needs of the people in each case. Lenzerini makes important contributions by setting out the foundations of human dignity and rights in societies around the world, and providing examples of cultural approaches to human rights law by international and regional bodies. The book is a thoroughly researched and well-argued contemporary analysis of the long-standing human rights debate on universalism and cultural relativism. The book proceeds in five chapters, first introducing the universalism debate before turning to sources of human rights and dignity in societies around the world. Lenzerini provides detailed examples of human rights in pre-colonial societies, analyzing, inter alia, the Code of Hammurabi, the Qur’an, Confucianism, the Constitution of the Iroquois Nations, and Aztec and Incan texts. He concludes that from ancient times, ideas of human rights existed well beyond the “West.”1 Chapter Two notes that despite the development of “universal” human rights law at the international level, different parts of the world have retained their specific views on rights through regional instruments.2 Chapter Three sets out the culturally based approaches to human rights evident in international and regional law and practice. The in-depth study, including the African, European, Inter-American, and UN systems, concludes that culture today is recognized as an element to be considered in human rights adjudication.3 The fourth and final chapters articulate the advantages of a culturally based approach to human rights, as well as a methodology for identifying universal standards. The crucial issue Lenzerini addresses is not whether human rights can be interpreted and implemented in a culturally sensible manner, but to what extent. II. CULTURALIZATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS Like others, Lenzerini submits that almost all human rights include a cultural dimension4 resulting from the fact that “culture” includes features that characterize a society or social group, including the modes of life, the value systems, and the traditions and beliefs.5 As culture can [End Page 1110] play such a critical role in shaping the content of human rights for an individual or community, Lenzerini questions the traditional view that human rights are “wholly universal.”6 He subscribes to “moderate cultural relativism,” holding that cultural variations are acceptable to the extent that they do not impact upon the “basic core of fundamental rights which are universal.”7 Lenzerini advocates the “culturalization” of rights, an interpretive process by which the content of rights is made relevant for and tailored to communities around the world. This is necessary as people’s expectations differ, and human rights standards should be flexible to allow different expectations to be met in concrete ways.8 This process sits in contrast to the strict application of rigid international human rights norms regardless of the historical, social, and cultural context of the individual/community in question. Lenzerini’s culturalization can be compared to other culturally sensitive approaches to human rights advocated by scholars including Sally Engle Merry, Eva Brems, Abdullahi An-Na’im, Tom Zwart, and Alison Renteln.9 Yvonne Donders asserts that cultural sensitivity in human rights implementation is now generally accepted.10 In support of his approach, Lenzerini cites a number of benefits, including better community acceptance of human rights, improved effectiveness, and greater state compliance. He claims that culturalization promotes the “cultural acceptance, assimilation, and legitimization of human rights.”11 As a result, human rights are not perceived as “abstract dictates” from the outside, but are “brought down to earth” and seen as a key component of the social dynamics.12 As such, people support human rights as embedded and necessary, which may in turn increase state compliance.13 While this may be the case for nation-states, the process will arguably be more complicated...

The Importance of Freedom of Religion as a Foundamental Human Right

The purpose of this paper is to present the importance of freedom or religion as a foundamental human right. Freedom of religion is one of the balancing factors in the life of the individuals, it is the most magnificent human identity which aims to achieve the purity of soul. Religion elevates the man to the highest human virtues and moral, helping for the normal functioning of society. This paper analize the fact that freedom of religion and beliefis is a basic right of every human being, it is an universal human right that worth for all persons equally anywhere, regardless of who they are, where they live, age, sex, race or ethnicity and what they believe or do not believe. Freedom of religion or belief is protected by Article 9 of the European Convention of Human Rights and other acts. So clearly religion has been an important source of human rights. Modern human dignity is based on the religious notion of holiness personified of every human being as a right universal human right, so freedom of religion and belief has its defense to respect the diversity because this contributes directly in the democracy, development, rule of law, peace and stability. So belief may not be limited under no circumstances. States should treat all individuals equally, without discrimination based on religion or belief. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n4s3p357

Prawa człowieka w ujęciu Hanny Waśkiewicz

Human rights are an issue of a particular importance. Hovewer, in opinion of Hanna Waskiewicz, there are still many unsolved problems concerning this field. One of such problems is defining the term of human rights. According to Hanna Waskiewicz, human rights originated from natural law. Human rights are presented as legal rights that every human being is entitled to in the same extent. In accordance to her work, human rights have four distinctive features. They are universal, inherent, inalienable and imprescriptible. Furthermore, she questions the legal basis of human rights and specifically, what type of legal norms the human rights came from. Hanna Waskiewicz has divided the possible solutions to this issue into two groups. The first group establishes that human rights have originated from positive law – the concept of relative human rights. The second group presents the natural law as the source of human rights – the concept of absolute human rights. Finally, Hanna Waśkiewicz wrote about the protection of human rights, as she in particular tried to answer who may threaten the essence of human rights, who defends them and in what ways the human rights can be protected.

Moral values as the binding force of the human rights

Moral values represent the binding force of human rights. They are primarily the binding force of norms of national legal systems, and then the binding force of legal norms of international law and international conventions and declarations on human rights. The very essence of moral values represents the primary issue for the creation of conventions and declarations which protect human rights. However, moral values are not merely that, they are also the source of human rights. If we start from the fact that the values were given and are, thus, indestructible by man, then they are the best possible foundations of human rights. Actually, all human rights are based upon the values given to people to exercise and protect them. As with any issue of binding force of legal norms of national legal systems, the issue of respecting declarations and conventions on human rights, the sanction is not and cannot be the source of the binding force of these norms and declarations. It must be something more durable, and these are just the values that are given to people. Therefore, we can assume that human rights are given and are independent of people, even when they are being oppressed and violated, human rights do not lose their value and its importance. Only an order of values does not allow human rights to be rejected and to enter into a vicious circle in which the man disappears. Distorted application of moral values, directly lead to the rejection of human rights. There is no establishment of human rights without accepting moral values, and they will then be a valid foundation of durable establishment of human rights. Only then and only in this way human rights will not remain a record on a piece of international paper.

Safeguarding the Universal Acceptance of Human Rights Through the Receptor Approach

The receptor approach relies on ethnographic research to identify social institutions and cultural values that match international human rights obligations. Where these institutions and values fall short, home-grown remedies are used to amplify them. The receptor approach provides a practical tool to activists and states. In addition, it welcomes culture as a potential source of human rights rather than dismissing it as an impediment to their protection. Yvonne Donders and Vincent Vleugel’s position that it is “old wine in new bags” is therefore unfounded. The same is true for their argument that it pits “the West against the rest.” Research shows that regional values are still notably different. States are entitled to take these cultural differences into account when implementing their human rights obligations. Denying them their right to do so will force Southern states to disengage.

I Book Review: A Journey to Some Unexplored Sources of Human Rights

I Book Review: A Journey to Some Unexplored Sources of Human Rights

Legitimizing Human Rights: Beyond Mythical Foundations and Into Everyday Resonances

What is the source of human rights’ resonance and does that legitimize working on human rights transnationally? This article responds both to human rights critics (among them relativists, poststructuralists, and some Queer theorists) and supporters (legal, philosophical, and historical universalists) who assume human rights’ source is in some sort of singular foundation. This is a shared misconception. Human rights’ global resonance does not come from one foundation but rather flows out of human rights’ mutually dependent groundings in law, politics, institutions, and norms. A key element to the intersections among these groundings is the impact of transnational conversations in which local actors have had a substantial stake and which have contributed to human rights’ continuing rearticulations. The vitality of the intersections between human rights and bottom-up social movements is what gives the lie both to overly top-down conceptualizations of human rights as well as to overly structuralist dismissals of human rights. Each de-emphasizes the essential role of human agency, the saliency of transnational normative networks, and the ways in which individual and collective action anchor human rights in contemporary politics. This will be illustrated by reference to movements for rights regarding sexual orientation and gender identity, even (or especially) in the controversial context of the Arab world. If this argument has merit, then we can move beyond the question of whether or not human rights in the abstract are inherently legitimate or illegitimate. Instead, the question becomes the degree to which specific human rights and specific human rights claims have flowed out of everyday local struggles. It is the answers to that question that will indicate the legitimacy and resonance (or lack thereof) of specific human rights.

The European Union and Human Rights after the Treaty of Lisbon

This article considers the state of human rights protection in the European Union (EU) after the Treaty of Lisbon. The Lisbon Treaty introduced significant changes to human rights protection in the EU, the most significant of which lie in the amendments to Article 6 of the Treaty on European Union. These provide that the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights is now legally binding, having the same status as primary EU law, and that the EU 'shall accede' to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). In the two years since the Lisbon Treaty came into force, the Charter has been referred to on many occasions by the European Court of Justice, and now operates as the primary source of human rights in the EU. This article examines the import of this case law, some of it ground-breaking and controversial, as well how the higher profile for human rights under the Charter is likely to change the nature of the EU's relationship with the ECHR. The article also examines the complex procedure for the EU's accession to the ECHR, which is now underway, highlighting particularly significant aspects of this. The article concludes with some general reflections about the status of human rights protection in the EU, suggesting that this has become one of the most significant areas of EU law which has had, and continues to have, a crucial impact on the EU's relationships with its Member States, the EU and international law. © The Author [2011]. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.