‘Where Law and Politics Meet’ (original) (raw)
Related papers
'Where Law and Politics Meet' – Looking at Human Rights Law Through the Lens of Legitimacy
The final version of this lecture was published as: Oomen, B. (2015). Where Law and Politics Meet – Looking at Human Rights Law Through the Lens of Legitimacy. Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, 33(4), 506-516. This lecture starts with a confession. I find it very hard to delete the phone numbers of people who have passed away from my smartphone. This means that many great Dutch human rights scholars who are no longer among us still have a place in my phone - most notably Gerti Hesseling, Fried van Hoof and Peter Baehr. Of course, this often reminds me of them, most particularly in Peter's case. Peter used to live in Heemstede and his phone number started with the exact same digits as that of my parents. This means that every time I dial 023-528 my phone gives me the option of calling Peter Baehr, or my parents. Of course, I always go for the latter, but I would like to base this lecture on the question as to what I would say, should I be able to get a direct line with Peter Baehr today...
[The historian's] role is to put in order in its historical setting what we experience piecemeal from day to day, so that in place of sporadic experience, the continuity of events becomes visible. An age that has lost its consciousness of the things that shape its life will know neither where it stands nor, even less, at what it aims.
Human Rights Between Law and Politics : The Margin of Appreciation in Post-National Contexts
Human Rights Between Law and Politics : The Margin of Appreciation in Post-National Contexts, 2017
The author would like to acknowledge his appreciation to Tonia Novitz for helpful comments on an earlier draft. The usual disclaimers apply. 2 ' Conference on the Margin of Appreciation and Cultural Diversity in Europe ' , Centre for Excellence in Foundations of European Law and Polity at the University of Helsinki and Centre for Law and Cosmopolitan Values at the University of Antwerp, Helsinki, 7 May 2012. 3 For the present purposes, this largely refers to the Council of Europe mainly because, with 47 of Europe ' s 48 states, it is much more inclusive than the 28-member European Union, which has also only taken a formal interest in human rights comparatively recently. 1 Universalism and Relativism in the Protection of Human Rights in Europe: Politics, Law and Culture STEVEN GREER 1 I. INTRODUCTION F OR THE PURPOSES of this chapter, the two key concepts with which the conference prompting the publication of this volume was principally concerned 2-cultural diversity in Europe and the ' margin of appreciation ' doctrine-require some initial consideration. Broadly speaking, ' culture ' refers to shared habits of living, behaviour, thought, understanding and representation, including moral, political, social, economic and legal principles, and assumptions, artistic and architectural styles and traditions, cuisine, and even ways of sitting and sleeping. ' Cultural diversity '-a concept found in social science, social and political philosophy, and everyday politics and social discourse-can be normative, analytical/descriptive or both. It also connects intimately and directly with deeper and wider debates about universals and variations in human experience. The ' margin of appreciation ' , by contrast, is a doctrine found in some branches of public international law that refers to the room for manoeuvre that treaty bodies, such as the judicial institutions at Strasbourg, are prepared to accord national authorities in fulfi lling their treaty obligations. While in the European context, 3 this concerns how much uniformity and diversity there should be between different states with respect to human rights, it does not pertain only (or even mainly) to culture. By further contrast with the concept of cultural relativism, the margin of appreciation is entirely normative and has no descriptive or analytical dimensions.
The Perplexing Discourse of Human Rights (The New Digest, 4 de octubre de 2024)
The New Digest is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Last year, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) celebrated its 75th anniversary. Notwithstanding the usefulness it has so o en proved to have, as a MANAGING EDITORS-NEW DIGEST 25
The realisation of human rights: when theory meets practice
2013
Foreword/Voorwoord by Johan Vande Lanotte Introduction by the Editors PART I. INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW IN GENERAL The International Law of Human Rights Two Decades After the Second World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993 Antonio Augusto Cancado Trindade Article 1 UDHR: From Credo to Realisation Bas de Gaay Fortman Some Reflections on Balancing Conflicting Human Rights Pieter van Dijk Initial Assessment of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training GudmundurAlfredsson . PART II. EUROPEAN HUMAN RIGHTS LAW The Role of Dialogue in the Relationship Between the European Court of Human Rights and National Courts MichaelO'Boyle Significantly Insignificant? The Life in the Margins of the Admissibility Criterion in Article 35(3)(b) European Convention on Human Rights AntoineBuyse The Stubbornness of the European Court of Human Rights' Margin of Appreciation Doctrine Fried van Hoof Are Judges of the European Court of Human Rights so Qualified...
Human Rights, Movements and Law: On Not Researching Legitimacy
This article explores the relationship between social movements, human rights and law at different scales. I compare 'global constitutionalism' and 'subaltern cosmopolitanism' as approaches to movements, rights and law. As sociologists, we are especially well placed to address certain assumptions on which these inter-disciplinary approaches rely. I argue that assumptions about the relationship between social movements and human rights that are fundamentally normative limit our understanding of the diversity of organisational forms through which human rights are being defined, and of the complexity of multi-scalar law through which claims to justice are being made. In particular, the importance of the state and national law for institutionalising human rights norms should not be neglected by privileging either local or international law as the legitimate focus of democratic claims for justice.
A legal approach to human rights
Applied human rights
1.1 Introduction 1.2 The structure of this book 1.3 Building bridges and inclusive authorship References 2. A legal approach to human rights Bernd van der Meulen Abstract Key concepts 2.1 Introduction 2.2 On the plural nature of human rights 2.3 Working with law 2.4 Rules and rights 2.5 Establishing the situation 2.6 Classification of facts 2.7 Establishing the law 2.8 Other issues 2.9 The structure of human rights 2.10 Get up, stand up References Legal documents
Human Rights, Legitimacy, and International Law
The article begins with reflections on the nature, and basis, of human rights considered as moral standards. It recommends an orthodox view of their nature, as moral rights possessed by all human beings simply in virtue of their humanity and discoverable through the workings of natural reason, that makes them strongly continuous with natural rights. It then offers some criticisms of recent attempts to depart from orthodoxy by explicating human rights by reference to the supposedly constitutive connection they bear to the matter of political legitimacy. The second half of the article turns to the legitimacy of international law, with a special focus on international human rights law. An account is sketched of the legitimacy of international law based on the service conception of legitimate authority. The article concludes by discussing three sources of potential limitations on international law's legitimacy: pluralism, freedom (sovereignty) and exceptionalism.