The Relationship Between Human Rights and Judicial Globalization (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Globalization of Law: Implications for the Fulfillment of Human Rights
How does the globalization of law, the emergence of multiple and shifting venues of legal accountability, enhance or evade the fulfillment of international human rights? The utility of law for the fulfillment of human rights can be summarized as a combination of normative principles, universal repertoire of definitions and boundaries, links to state enforcement, predictable processes for conflict resolution, and a doctrine of equal standing (Kinley 2009: 215)
Globalization has been a popular subject for decades and addressed in a wide variety of academic studies and popular readings. Scholars and advocates who work in the expanding field of human rights have been no exception and have contributed to the burgeoning literature on globalization. The Globalization of Human Rights and Globalization and Human Rights are two welcome additions to this body of literature. As their titles imply, the two volumes attempt to emphasize relatively different aspects of the relationship between two terms: globalization and human rights. Both volumes are undertaken with an understanding that there has been an increasing international acceptance of human rights at the normative level, but that the norms have not been applied to improve human rights conditions, and their meanings and relevance are contested. As the literature that came out in the 1990s pointed to state sovereignty as the main obstacle to globalization and raised hopes about transnational civil society and networks, 1 these two volumes examine a broader set of actors and the processes of globalization in addressing the practice and prospects of human rights.
Current Sociology , 2016
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 Evolution of Human Rights Law in the Age of Globalization
International Review of Social Sciences, 2020
This article explores the intricate relationship between human rights law and the phenomenon of globalization. It delves into the evolution of human rights principles amidst the complexities posed by the globalized world. By examining key historical developments and contemporary challenges, this research aims to elucidate the dynamic interplay between globalization and the advancement of human rights. The article critically analyzes the impact of globalization on the promotion and protection of human rights, considering the opportunities it presents as well as the potential risks and challenges it poses to the fulfillment of these rights. Additionally, it examines the role of international institutions, transnational corporations, and civil society in shaping human rights discourse within the globalized landscape. Through this comprehensive exploration, the article aims to offer insights into the evolving nature of human rights law in the era of globalization.
The Impact of the Inter-American Human Rights System beyond Latin America
Transformations on the Ground: The Impact of the Inter-American Human Rights System and Ius Constitutionale Commune on Latin America, 2023
Global human rights governance is at a critical juncture. International politics has turned distinctly hostile to human rights. Major powers in the current multi-polar world have embraced a transactional and anti-liberal foreign policy, with little salience given to human rights concerns. The European Union is consumed with disintegrating and nationalistic forces on its own continent, with the so-called populist resurgence underpinning a political vision that is overtly anti-rights. The international human rights regime appears powerless when confronted with entrenched rights-abusive regimes. Even in some scholarly Ivory Towers the international human rights project is dismissed as elitist, rigid and inflexibly imposing a universalising morality at the expense of local customs and standards of behaviour. Confronted with dramatic global inequalities and accelerating climate emergencies, international human rights are criticised for offering little, or no, practical assistance in efforts to bring about a more just and equal world for people, and for being underpinned by minimalist ambitions of the possibilities of a different, more sustainable and just world. It is precisely in relation to these overlapping political, socio-economic and intellectual challenges that I hope to offer in this chapter a partial corrective to the disparate gloomy assessments of the present state and possible future trajectories of international human rights. I will do so through a series of reflections on the contributions of the Inter-American Human Rights System (IAHRS) to the theory and practice of global human rights governance. More specifically, the chapter highlights three areas of contributions. First, by adopting a historical perspective on the institutional development of the IAHRS, we are reminded of the global and interconnected character of the evolution of the modern international human rights regime. Far from a straightforward narrative of the international human rights as a result of Western imposition, the origins and early developments of the IAHRS demonstrate the central protagonism of the Global South in the emergence and consolidation of global human rights governance. Second, the IAHRS has played a central role in the normative construction and evolving interpretations of international human rights standards. Third, the IAHRS has made important contributions to the theory and practice of human rights governance as an exemplar of how international law and institutions can advance the realisation of rights even in the absence of robust enforcement mechanisms and in often inhospitable political conditions.
The globalization of human rights
Journal of Global Ethics, 2009
The argument of this article is that what I term generic globalization has created unprecedented opportunities for advances in human rights universally, but that the dominant actually existing historical form of globalization – capitalist globalization – undermines these opportunities. Substantively, I argue that taking the globalization of human rights seriously means eliminating the ideological distinction that exists between civil and political rights on the one hand, and economic and social rights on the other. Doing this systematically undermines the three central claims of capitalist globalization – namely, that globalizing corporations are the most efficient and equitable form of production, distribution and exchange; that the transnational capitalist class organizes communities and the global order in the best interests of everyone; and that the culture-ideology of consumerism will satisfy our real needs.
The Jurisprudence of Human Rights in a Global Context
The International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Invention
This paper is a study of the conceptual dimensions of human rights gleaned from the writings of scholars and jurists, judicial precedent, and domestic and international human rights instruments, particularly under the United Nations System. Human rights have become an international subject and have today attained the status of a jus cogens rule of international law. The need to determine and clarify the history and dynamics of this subject has given impetus and inspiration to this paper. Applying a theoretical and doctrinal methodology, the paper set out to appraise the different dimensions, and for that matter ramifications, to the concept of human rights and how they affect our everyday life. The paper found, among other things, that human rights law and its observance are much more entrenched at the international forum than in domestic jurisdictions. The paper concluded that human rights issues are no longer a matter of domestic affairs of any nation in the light of extant intern...
Social Forces, 2009
Using an event history framework we analyze the adoption rate of national human rights institutions. Neo-realist perspective predicts adoption rates to be positively influenced by favorable national profiles that lower the costs and make it more reasonable to establish these institutions. From a world polity perspective adoption rates will be positively influenced by a world saturated with human rights organizations and conferences, by increasing adoption densities, and by greater linkages to the world polity. We find support for both perspectives in the analysis of the human rights commission. Only the changing state of the world polity is consequential for the founding of the classical ombudsman office. We discuss the national incorporation of international human rights standards and its relevance to issues of state sovereignty and national citizenship. The rise and expansion of the international human rights regime is a recent focus of sociological theory and research. Much theorizing revolves around the question of what such a regime implies for state sovereignty and national citizenship, and has accordingly centered on issues of treaty ratification and membership in international rights organizations. For both theory and research the crucial question is to ascertain the degree of importance to attach to national factors and historical legacies on the one hand, and on the other, the extent to which the outcomes of interest are driven by transnational dynamics. The literature includes those who assert that there are some discernable national economic, political and cultural