人权的宪法保障解析

保障人权业已成为当代世界政治发展的主题,同时,也是社会主义民主政治建设的重要目标。人权与宪法相伴相随、密不可分。宪法作为现代民主国家的根本大法,是人权据以实现的最高准则。宪法作为人权保障书,既确认已有人权,又保障人权的实现和发展。现代宪法主要是通过合理配置权力、规定基本人权原则、确认人权内容和建立宪法保障制度来实现对人权的保障。     

Competitive diplomacy in Southeast Asia

A series of diplomatic manoeuvres by China and Japan in Southeast Asia has underlined their increasing competition for regional influence. While there is inherent strategic value to the promotion of ties with Southeast Asia's dynamic economies, the moves are also reflective of their common national-rejuvenation programmes.     

The Islamic State and Southeast Asia

Up to a thousand Southeast Asians have travelled to the Middle East to fight for the Islamic State. While some may return to Southeast Asia and engage in terrorist operations, the greater threat is that the Islamic State's rise in international prominence will foment homegrown extremism and terrorist activity.     

US rebalance: potential and limits in Southeast Asia

A central theme of US policy towards Asia during 2012 has been the strengthening of America's military deployments, political relationships and economic partnerships in Southeast Asia. It is evident that China's growing power and assertiveness have provided an important stimulus for renewed US policy activism in a sub-region towards which some observers had detected neglect by Washington over the previous decade. But while Southeast Asian states may take advantage of renewed American interest to hedge against China's rise, most of them will keep their strategic options open.     

Competing Concerns: Balancing Human Rights and National Security in US Economic Aid Allocation

This paper theorizes that the effect of human rights violations on US economic aid is conditioned by the salience of US national security concerns. National security concerns will be more salient in situations where recipients contribute to maintaining US security and in temporal eras when the USA is perceived as being under increased external threat. As the relational and temporal salience of national security increases, any negative effect of human rights violations on US economic aid should decrease. I test this hypothesis by examining US economic aid allocations to states from 1977 to 2005. The results show that the salience of national security concerns present in the US-recipient relationship does condition the relationship between human rights violations and US economic aid. There are also significant differences between different temporal eras of US foreign aid allocation. Future work should address how conflicts between interests and values in US foreign policy are negotiated.     

Rethinking Human Rights in York as a Human Rights City

Human rights is in crisis in the UK. It lacks significant political backing and public support. This ‘insider account’ of York becoming a human rights city suggests that there is a need to rethink approaches to human rights. The article looks at the strategies adopted in the city; the annual city‐based indicator report which provides the key reference point for all local activities; and the declaration of York as a ‘human rights city’ in 2017 alongside its subsequent impact. The discussion is linked to two debates within human rights: how to define and build a culture of human rights, and what it means for human rights to be truly relevant at a local level. The new approach advocated can be summarised as participatory, locally informed, and related to everyday concerns.     

Human Rights and Sovereignty in the ASEAN Path Towards a Human Rights Declaration

Sovereignty and non-interference principles are trademarks of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) regional approach. Starting from 1993, ASEAN has been developing a process aimed at creating a human rights system. This process reached its acme in August 2013 when the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD) was formally launched. In the frame of the tension between sovereignty and human rights, the paper firstly analyzes the roots of the ASEAN path towards the creation of the regional human rights system grounded on the Vienna World Conference debate. Next comes an analysis of the political commitments assumed by ASEAN in the last 20 years in the process of creating a human rights body in the region. Furthermore, the paper presents an in-depth analysis of the most problematic issues connected with the nature, functions, mandate, and purposes of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Human Rights Commission (2009). This is followed by an analysis of the AHRD.     

ASEAN and the securitization of transnational crime in Southeast Asia

This article studies the securitization of transnational crime by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) since 1996–97. It first introduces transnational crime as a criminal matter before positioning it within the international security debate through an elaboration of the Copenhagen School and its securitization theory. It then examines whether transnational crime has been articulated in security terms in the ASEAN rhetoric. The article demonstrates that the member states have made statements in which they make claims about security in the context of crime. Yet, there is little evidence that this has encouraged regional policy-makers to adopt common security responses. ASEAN has failed to implement joint actions due to domestic circumstances but also because of its own consensus model and resistance to institutional reforms. Finally, the article suggests that the problem of transnational crime could be dealt with more effectively if it was approached primarily as a criminal matter rather than as a security issue.     

Transgressiveness,civil society and Internet control in Southeast Asia

This paper assesses the potential of ASEAN Plus Three (APT) to catalyze a process of economic and political integration in East Asia. The analysis first illustrates APT participants’ projected views of APT’s opportunities and limitations and then assesses the motives and objectives driving APT cooperation. Following a review of the major achievements of APT, the study gives an outlook on APT’s relevance and prospects. The findings of the article are that most APT states do not advocate ideas of distinctive pan-East Asian regionalism, but rather take an Asia-Pacific perspective. Only Malaysia and China appear to be promoting more exclusive forms of East Asian regionalism. Within APT, China is aggressively pushing a strong China–ASEAN axis, whereas Japan is seeking to balance China’s efforts and step up its political and economic cooperative profile in the region. A look at the achievements of APT does not suggest a rapid spread of pan-East Asian regionalism. On the contrary, the proposed ASEAN–China FTA proposal has triggered fierce competition between Japan and China and thus divided APT even further. Moreover, it is not at all certain whether the ASEAN–China FTA plan is going to work out in the end, due to objections from various ASEAN members, including a somewhat capricious Malaysia. Whereas pan-East Asian integration efforts are unlikely, the APT process is attractive enough to keep Japan and China, who are competing for influence in Southeast Asia, committed to the APT process. Regardless of APT’s internal fragmentation, its dynamic has already begun to change the political and economic landscape of East Asia. Thus, ASEAN has been able to enhance its leverage vis-à-vis Japan and China, profiting from their strategic opposition. Japan’s reluctance to discuss trade liberalization with ASEAN members already appears to be crumbling, as it is struggling to preclude Chinese domination.     

Human Rights in Kosovo

The emotions surrounding the question of Kosovo’s future owe their intensity to the long history of human rights abuses in the province. The years 1945–1966 and 1987–1999, in particular, saw harsh repression of local Albanians and a systematic favoring of local Serbs. Since June 1999, the province has been under international supervision, and, in this period, Serbs complain that they have been the victims of repeated acts of violence at the hands of Albanians. This article provides an overview of human rights abuses since 1945 and closes with a brief assessment of the international plan presented by UN mediator Martti Ahtisaari in February 2007.