Chains of Justice: The Global Rise of State Institutions for Human Rights (Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights) - Hardcover

Cardenas, Sonia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0812245393 ISBN 13: 9780812245394

Verlag: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

National human rights institutions—state agencies charged with protecting and promoting human rights domestically—have proliferated dramatically since the 1990s; today more than a hundred countries have NHRIs, with dozens more seeking to join the global trend. These institutions are found in states of all sizes—from the Maldives and Barbados to South Africa, Mexico, and India; they exist in conflict zones and comparatively stable democracies alike. In Chains of Justice, Sonia Cardenas offers a sweeping historical and global account of the emergence of NHRIs, linking their growing prominence to the contradictions and possibilities of the modern state.

As human rights norms gained visibility at the end of the twentieth century, states began creating NHRIs based on the idea that if international human rights standards were ever to take root, they had to be firmly implanted within countries—impacting domestic laws and administrative practices and even systems of education. However, this very position within a complex state makes it particularly challenging to assess the design and influence of NHRIs: some observers are inclined to associate NHRIs with ideals of restraint and accountability, whereas others are suspicious of these institutions as "pretenders" in democratic disguise. In her theoretically and politically grounded examination, Cardenas tackles the role of NHRIs, asking how we can understand the global diffusion of these institutions, including why individual states decide to create an NHRI at a particular time while others resist the trend. She explores the influence of these institutions in states seeking mostly to appease international audiences as well as their value in places where respect for human rights is already strong.

The most comprehensive account of the NHRI phenomenon to date, Chains of Justice analyzes many institutions never studied before and draws from new data released from the Universal Periodic Review Mechanism of the United Nations Human Rights Council. With its global scope and fresh insights into the origins and influence of NHRIs, Chains of Justice promises to become a standard reference that will appeal to scholars immersed in the workings of these understudied institutions as well as nonspecialists curious about the role of the state in human rights.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Sonia Cardenas is Associate Academic Dean and Professor of Political Science at Trinity College and author of Human Rights in Latin America: A Politics of Terror and Hope and Conflict and Compliance: State Responses to International Human Rights Pressure, both available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

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Chapter 1
The Self-Restraining State?

High up the embankment of Agra Fort, next to a sweeping view of the Taj Mahal, is a nondescript archway with a marble plaque. The tablet marks the spot of a legendary chain from the seventeenth century. The unusual chain was according to some accounts made of gold, was eighty feet long, and had sixty bells attached to it, linking Agra Fort to a post by the nearby riverbank. It was known simply as the "chain of justice," and forging it was one of Nuruddin Jahangir's first acts as leader of the Mughal Empire. The plan was for ordinary people to go to the palace and rattle the chain to get the emperor's attention. As Jahangir described it in his memoir, "If those engaged in the administration of justice should delay or practice hypocrisy . . . the oppressed might come to this chain and shake it so that its noise might attract attention." While little is known about whether the chain was used or why Jahangir had it built, most intriguing is the chain's symbolism. It represented a potent idea: individuals suffering injustice at the hands of the empire had a right to seek redress directly from the emperor. Regardless of Jahangir's commitment to justice, the chain may also have helped him extend his rule. From the emperor's vantage point, the chain could rein in dissenting administrators, persuading them to act justly or suffer the consequences. Perhaps most important, the chain might rechannel popular discontent against the empire, making it more likely that the aggrieved would seek justice over rebellion.

Jahangir's chain of justice stands as a powerful if unexpected metaphor for contemporary human rights practice. Though four centuries have passed, modern states and their leaders still act remarkably similarly to the logic that propelled Jahangir. States today routinely undermine human rights at the same time that they create mechanisms to advance those rights. In a global context of widespread and ongoing abuse, recognizing the potentially complex motives underlying the creation of government institutions devoted to human rights becomes crucial. When today's states support human rights mechanisms, they rarely do so without some measure of self-interest, even if the mechanisms themselves prove influential. Like Jahangir's chain of justice, the human rights institutions that states create can have multiple and seemingly contradictory meanings: they can be deliberate attempts to retain and extend state control—not abdicate it—even as they shift the social, political, and legal landscape in unexpectedly significant ways.

Among human rights mechanisms, few are as potentially important but have generated as little attention as national human rights institutions (NHRIs). NHRIs are administrative bodies responsible for promoting and protecting human rights domestically. They have proliferated dramatically since the 1990s; and today over one hundred countries have NHRIs, with dozens of others actively seeking to join the global trend. These institutions come under various names (including human rights commissions, ombudsman offices, and public defenders), and they are found in states of all sizes, from the Maldives and Barbados to South Africa, Mexico, and India. They exist in Western countries like France, Germany, and Canada, just as they are emerging in the conflict zones of Iraq and Afghanistan. Across borders, NHRIs also have become exceedingly active, leading to the formation of international and regional networks of NHRIs; a full-blown system of formal accreditation; legal standing in some international organizations; and an accompanying cottage industry of meetings, consultancies, training programs, and websites. For a field dominated by actors from "above" and "below" the state, the entry of the state itself into the business of human rights represents a formidable development in world affairs.

States began creating NHRIs late in the twentieth century, as human rights norms and discourse rose visibly to prominence. The idea was that if international human rights standards were ever to take root, they had to be firmly implanted within countries—within domestic laws and administrative practices and even systems of education. International laws and institutions would not suffice, just as social movements and committed activists would be unable on their own to carry the burden of human rights reform. NHRIs were instead viewed as uniquely positioned to implement human rights effectively. They were located within the state but independent of it, so they could potentially imbue the state with both legitimacy and credibility. Situated between the state and society, they might also serve as able interlocutor; and ensconced between the state and international system, global coordination could be maximized. Added to this distinctiveness is a vast array of possible NHRI functions: advising governments, processing complaints, monitoring violations, conducting inquiries, preparing reports, sometimes investigating abuses and interacting with courts, training government officials, devising media campaigns, diffusing human rights materials nationwide, and shaping school curricula. Given this potentially broad, even exhaustive, array of activity, it is easy to see how expectations can quickly outpace performance. The result has been a world of markedly similar institutions with important local differences inflected into them, a juxtaposition that has made understanding NHRIs as fascinating as it is challenging.

In keeping apace with these developments, the research on NHRIs has quickly grown in volume and scope, as scholars and practitioners from around the world have looked to document the expansion and significance of these institutions. This book joins this endeavor, contributing to existing work in several distinct ways. First, I offer a theoretically and politically grounded account of NHRIs, complementing most of the work in this area, which is richly descriptive and legalistic. Second, my analysis is historical and global in scale, rather than focused on a single NHRI or particular region, though I draw heavily on my own and others' empirical case studies. My objective is to provide a broad overview of NHRIs, appealing to both specialists immersed in the workings of these institutions and nonspecialists curious about the role of the state and human rights. Third, I view NHRIs through an institutionalist lens, focusing on related issues of institutional creation, design, and influence and on the path dependencies partially connecting these. In a sense, the story I tell of NHRIs is also a broader story of how the state as complex actor negotiates human rights claims among competing demands and moves to occupy rights discourse and space: in this account, for example, NHRIs are strategically deployed by state and nonstate actors as a new site of struggle, at the same time that NHRIs themselves reconstitute the state and society. Fourth, my analysis is an explicit attempt to speak to an audience of academics and practitioners, an effort to bridge the divides between analytically informed research, the world of human rights practice, and the actuality of people's lives. This leads me to approach the research in somewhat pragmatic and eclectic ways, with room for normative conclusions. Finally, to offer a broad-gauged and comprehensive overview of NHRIs, I examine questions of both institutional creation and influence: Why do states create NHRIs, and what is the impact of these institutions? Embedded within these central questions are related issues of global diffusion, institutional design, and perverse outcomes, also featured as key themes throughout the book.

For good or ill, mundanely or radically, NHRIs are now part of contemporary human rights struggles—a reality that human rights histories, theories, and strategies must be able to accommodate,...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0812245393
• ISBN 13: 9780812245394
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 482
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar