Human Rights in World Politics - Softcover

Brown, Seyom

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0321025474 ISBN 13: 9780321025470

Publisher: Pearson, 1999

Synopsis

Human Rights in World Politics is an introduction to the deeply held popular and intellectual convictions concerning human rights today, focusing on the globalization of human rights issues and struggles. Either in the form of international laws or as interventions on behalf of people who are purportedly denied justice in their own countries, human rights issues have found their way onto the center stage of the contemporary world politics arena. This unique text explores the questions and complex answers surrounding human rights struggles to show how and why these issues are one of the most critical facets of international politics today.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

Preface

World politics is increasingly about human rights.

Any program of international studies that neglects the subject of human rights would be as seriously deficient as one that neglects the subjects of war and peace, political economy, or the global environment.

Why? Why are so many human rights struggles— usually initiated by domestic groups that feel mistreated by those in control of their countries— now "going international"? To what extent is the globalization of human rights transforming the nation-state system? And what is the impact of this globalization on the ability of people in various communities to promote and to achieve the rights they believe are theirs?

My decision to write such a book is itself a symptom of the rise of human rights issues to the top of the agendas of statespersons and foreign policy analysts. The content and style reflect my professional locus as an international relations generalist who periodically participates in the policy making process. It thus differs somewhat from more specialized texts on human rights that have been published in recent years—which, from my perspective, do not adequately explain or convey how or why human rights struggles are now the very stuff of world politics.

This book is only an introduction to these questions and to their unavoidably complex answers. It is written for laypersons and students in introductory courses in foreign policy and international relations, not for legal theorists, professional philosophers, or international lawyers. I do, of course, cite works of such experts and even quarrel with some of them. I include a chapter on the competing philosophical traditions underlying contemporary human rights debates and another chapter on the key international covenants. But I do not engage here in the kind of advanced critical interpretation of these texts that might be appropriate in a scholarly treatise.

Nor do I attempt to arbitrate among the competing definitions of human rights and ideologies that accord priority to certain types of rights. To some champions of particular definitions and ideologies, my neutral stance /for example, my unwillingness to endorse the proposition that human rights are rights claimed or possessed by individuals but not rights claimed by groups) may itself appear to be an ideological position, and they may have a point. But my present intention is not to expound a philosophy of human rights. My aim is to introduce readers to the ways in which these competing views have become the very stuff of world politics.

As such, this book presents an introductory survey of deeply held, popular and intellectual convictions about human rights for which people around the world have been willing to fight, often violently. I focus on those ideas and struggles that have found their way into contemporary international arenas, either in the form of international laws and institutions or as interventions (proposed and actual) on behalf of people who are allegedly denied justice in their own countries. And I offer some of my own speculations on how this internationalization of human rights issues is likely to affect the future of world politics. ORGANIZATION

I have attempted to draw a fresh road map of the still roughly-charted domain of human rights in world politics— working as much as possible from primary sources and raw reports. The surveying and cartography has been informed, however, by a number of road maps already in existence. Closest to my own perspective is that of R. J. Vincent, Human Rights and International Relations (1986). I have also benefited from the knowledge and analysis in David P. Forsythe's Human Rights and World Politics (1989), and Jack Donnelly's International Human Rights (1993). Detailed analyses of the way human rights issues are handled in the United Nations are provided in the volume edited by Philip Alston, The United Nations and Human Rights: A Critical Appraisal (1992/. A thick collection of essays and documents on international human rights law is amassed by Henry J. Steiner and Philip Alston in their International Human Rights in Context: Law, Politics, Morals (1996).

Chapter 1 introduces the issues that are elaborated on in the subsequent chapters.

Chapter 2 provides a sampling of some of the most intense contemporary human rights conflicts, still largely unresolved, that have been injected into the arenas of international diplomacy.

Readers who seek to probe for the philosophical logic of the contending arguments in the human rights struggles should find Chapter 3 of particular interest. But don't expect too much. The excerpts and analyses of the philosophical literature are themselves inevitably controversial (whole bookshelves are devoted the views of each of the philosophers I have selectively quoted); my purpose is to whet appetites for more comprehensive and thorough study.

Chapter 4 introduces the reader to key provisions in the covenants, declarations, and commission and court decisions in the rapidly growing corpus of international human rights law. The analysis shows that an understanding of why and how these often highly ambiguous provisions were adopted is crucial for a realistic assessment of the usefulness and limitations of international legal action in the human rights field.

Chapter 5 assesses the variety of international pressures and instruments available to people attempting to improve their human rights situation. The analysis surveys the full spectrum of methods than can be utilized, depending on the circumstances—from governmental action, ranging from condemnatory resolutions through military intervention, by the United Nations or regional institutions to commercial boycotts organized by nongovernmental organizations to coercive direct action, even terrorism.

Five case studies, each one illuminating in detail various of the philosophical and practical issues assayed in the previous chapters, are presented in Chapter 6. One is the dramatic success story of the abolition of the South African apartheid regime. Another analyzes the inability of the concerned international community to mobilize effective pressures on the Government of China to induce it to reform its problematical human rights practices. The third case study deals with the culturally sensitive controversy over the ritual cutting of the genitalia of young females in many of the predominantly Muslim countries in Africa. The fourth case reviews the international intervention against "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia and Kosovo. The fifth analyzes the efforts to establish international tribunals with the power to try the perpetrators of at least the most heinous human rights crimes, such as genocide.

The way the United States in particular has been handling the growing prominence of human rights in world politics is analyzed in Chapter 7. The United States is singled out for analysis, since I can provide insights from my own participation in the policy process in this country and because what the United States chooses to push or oppose in the human rights field, like it or not, will profoundly affect the outcome of human rights struggles around the world in the years ahead.

Chapter 8 speculates on how the human rights developments discussed in the previous chapters are likely to affect the future of world politics: the structure and functioning of the state-sovereignty system itself and the prospects for the evolution of a significantly different system of world order and justice.

A guide to the proliferating source material in this field is provided in the Appendix. Prepared by Leslie Stebbins, Coordinator of Library Instruction at Brandeis University, the Appendix identifies the most useful hardcopy and electronic information on human rights available from governments, intergovernmental institutions, nongovernmental organizations, and independent experts.

Some of the most persistent and profound human rights dilemmas are illustrated in Controversy Boxes. These are specially designed to challenge students to debate and to make up their own minds on the central issues in this field; namely, which rights and duties should be prescribed for all people, which rights should be left to particular communities to adopt or reject for themselves, and which (and whose) rights should be accorded priority when they come into conflict?

From the Back Cover:

Focusing on the globalization of human rights issues and struggles, this unique and accessible text introduces students to the deeply-held popular and intellectual convictions concerning human rights today. Either in the form of international laws or as interventions on behalf of people who are purportedly denied justice in their own countries, human rights issues have found their way onto the center stage of the contemporary world politics arena. This engaging new primer explores the questions and complex answers surrounding human rights struggles to show how and why these issues are among the most critical facets of international politics today.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pearson
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0321025474
• ISBN 13: 9780321025470
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208