Making Human Rights a Reality - Softcover

Hafner-Burton, Emilie M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0691155364 ISBN 13: 9780691155364

Verlag: Princeton University Press, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

In the last six decades, one of the most striking developments in international law is the emergence of a massive body of legal norms and procedures aimed at protecting human rights. In many countries, though, there is little relationship between international law and the actual protection of human rights on the ground. Making Human Rights a Reality takes a fresh look at why it's been so hard for international law to have much impact in parts of the world where human rights are most at risk. Emilie Hafner-Burton argues that more progress is possible if human rights promoters work strategically with the group of states that have dedicated resources to human rights protection. These human rights "stewards" can focus their resources on places where the tangible benefits to human rights are greatest. Success will require setting priorities as well as engaging local stakeholders such as nongovernmental organizations and national human rights institutions. To date, promoters of international human rights law have relied too heavily on setting universal goals and procedures and not enough on assessing what actually works and setting priorities. Hafner-Burton illustrates how, with a different strategy, human rights stewards can make international law more effective and also safeguard human rights for more of the world population.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Emilie M. Hafner-Burton is a professor in the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego, and director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation. She is the author of Forced to Be Good and recipient of the Karl Deutsch Award.

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"Making Human Rights a Reality is an important book for lawyers, political scientists, activists, and practitioners within the international human rights system. It manages to be unsentimental and committed at the same time, casting a cold eye on the present state of international human rights enforcement while offering a promising and innovative strategy for the future. In the best tradition of international law-international relations scholarship, Hafner-Burton understands and deploys both law and power."--Anne-Marie Slaughter, Princeton University

"Hafner-Burton has developed an ambitious, thought-provoking, and sometimes controversial proposal for reforming the international monitoring mechanisms that protect the rights of individuals and groups. This book is an important contribution to the burgeoning interdisciplinary literature on international human rights law and institutions."--Laurence R. Helfer, Duke University

"Making Human Rights a Reality cogently sums up the case that the standard, dominant approach to human rights promotion is ineffective. More than any other single book, this one lays out the problems and proposes a clear, alternative, and incentive-driven strategy based on targeting carrots and sticks where they will have the greatest impact. Even those who might disagree with Hafner-Burton will profit from her diagnosis and strategic prescriptions."--Jack L. Snyder, Columbia University

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Making Human Rights a Reality

By Emilie M. Hafner-Burton

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2013 Princeton University Press
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-15536-4

Contents

Preface...........................................................ixResearch..........................................................xiiiIntroduction......................................................xv1 The Problem of Human Rights.....................................1Part I The Calculus of Abuse......................................192 Contexts........................................................213 Rationales......................................................29Part II International Law.........................................414 The International Human Rights Legal System.....................445 Scholarly Perspectives..........................................676 Practitioner Perspectives.......................................867 System Reform...................................................116Part III A Stewardship Strategy...................................1358 The Status Quo..................................................1389 Nongovernmental Organizations...................................15110 National Human Rights Institutions.............................16411 Triage.........................................................17612 Making More of Law and Power...................................193Notes.............................................................199Index.............................................................267

Chapter One

The Problem of Human Rights

On June 12, 2009, Iran held a presidential election whose outcome was preordained. The next day, authorities declared the incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner. Protests erupted. Millions of people flooded the streets to dispute the results. The world watched while the government responded with sweeping human rights violations.

Plainclothes forces attacked a Tehran University dormitory and reportedly killed student protesters. The government banned foreign journalists from the streets after arresting almost one hundred people, including former government ministers and senior political figures. Among the casualties was Neda Agha, a young bystander killed by riot police who became an icon for the antigovernment movement. Protests continued and the government responded with more violence. Thousands would be arrested over the next few months as the death toll mounted.

Undeterred, President Ahmadinejad was sworn into office for a new term in August. Meanwhile, show trials began against detainees, many allegedly coerced into falsely confessing that they had participated in a foreign-backed attempt to overthrow the government. Security officials shut down the offices of a committee that collected information about torture and other abuses against protesters and detainees. Journalist Ali Reza Eshranghi was sent to prison, followed by scholar Kian Tajbakhsh and other prominent intellectuals, political figures, and journalists. Many were sentenced to death; some have been executed.

By law, none of this should have happened. International customary law prohibits extrajudicial killing and torture. And since 1975, Iran has been a party to the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a global treaty that prohibits torture as well as cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. The treaty requires fair public hearings by competent, independent, and impartial tribunals established by law. It also mandates that everyone have the right of peaceful assembly.

Iran is not alone, of course. Most governments swear to pursue, promote, and protect human rights. They make legally binding promises, which they break when convenient.

While the data aren't perfect, organizations have been building records of human rights abuses. Figure 1 summarizes what they show worldwide since the 1970s for a wide array of abuses—murder, torture, political imprisonment, and forced disappearances along with other violations of political rights and civil liberties, including censorship and the suppression of political association as well as workers' rights. The dotted lines depict the total number of countries that have ratified the principal treaty outlawing these crimes, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, thought to be one of the most effective international legal instruments for protecting human rights. The striped boxes show every year that a number of those countries, despite belonging to this treaty, were alleged by credible sources to engage in these prohibited acts.

There is unabashedly good news in one category—disappearances are declining from their peak two decades ago. That effect stems mainly from democratization in Latin America, which removed from power military dictators who made a habit of disappearing their political opponents. On all the other rights shown in figure 1, the rise in global membership in this human rights treaty has run in parallel with a rise in measured abuse. Countries are good at joining treaties, but bad at honoring commitments. The same patterns are evident in other human rights treaties as well. In spite of the expanding international legal system outlawing these acts, reports of human rights abuse endure.

Why do countries legally devoted to human rights on paper so often break the law? More important, what can be done to close the gap between paper and practice? This book aims to answer those questions. It looks at whether more international legal instruments and procedures would be helpful while probing the actions that states can take in tandem to the large and increasingly elaborate international human rights legal system.

Ever since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights more than six decades ago, it has been clear that the world needs to do more to respect the human rights that are integral to life with dignity. That's not the issue. Instead, today the questions concern strategy. What's the best strategy for promoting respect for human rights?

Governments and NGOs have created a system of international law and procedures based on universal principles. Membership is growing across a wide array of international treaties and institutions. That approach articulates a powerful vision for the promotion of human wellbeing everywhere. It already has made significant achievements. The approach has shifted the goalposts for what is acceptable and also motivated foreign policy on human rights. But for many victims of tyranny, brutality, discrimination, and deprivation, the results of that universal approach have been underwhelming. For some, the approach is alienating because the system of international norms and procedures is at odds with accepted local cultures and social practices. A fresh look at how the system works—and its troubles—is overdue.

Understandably, a sober appraisal of the human rights promotion system is not a popular activity. Legal scholar Makau Mutua ventures an explanation for why this is so. Until recently, he suggests, "human rights scholars and activists have been reluctant to ask uncomfortable questions about the philosophy and political purposes of the human rights movement. Such questions are often taken as a mark of disloyalty to the movement, or an attempt to provide cover and comfort to those states that would violate its norms.... The result is a paucity of good critiques about one of the most powerful ideologies of modern times."

Given how much is at stake, critical evaluations of efforts to promote human rights are...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Princeton University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2013
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0691155364
• ISBN 13: 9780691155364
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 296
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Princeton University Press; https://press.princeton.edu/books; ; 7th Floor, New South Building; PRINCETON; NJ; 8544; USA
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