中国建立国家人权机构的必要性

人权作为一种信仰和理念已深入人心,人权保护事业在联合国的主持下迅速开展,国际、区域和国内三个层面的人权保护体系均已建立。然而时代之变迁使得现有体系仍难以满足需求,建立一个专门保护人权的国家机构应运而生。以国家人权保护的法律义务为基础,提出中国建立国家人权机构的必要性。     

中美人权观之比较

近代以来,尤其是第二次世界大战以后,人权成为全球性的主导价值观念。联合国制定的一系列人权文件,特别是《世界人权宣言》和两个国际人权公约,得到了世界各国的高度评价和普遍支持。中国和美国都公开宣布,赞同联合国阐发的人权理想,愿意通过国际合作促进世界人权的发展。为此,两国都参加了许多国际人权公约,并成为联合国下属人权机构的活跃成员。但是,一旦离开对人权的抽象承认,涉及到具体的人权事务,中美两国就表现出巨大的观念差异。这些差异可能产生于社会政治制度的不同,也可能产生于历史文化传统的不同,     

国际人权保护与尊重国家主权

国际人权保护是现今国际人权活动中的一项重要内容。以美国为首的西方国家把国际人权保护同尊重国家主权的原则对立起来,为其干涉别国内政制造借口。其实,国际人权保护与尊重国家主权是一致的。国家主权没有过时,国际人权保护以尊重国家主权为前提,不能以人权为借口干涉别国内政,国际干预也不能单方面地进行。     

美国在国际人权领域中的霸权主义行径

回顾国际人权领域半个多世纪的历史，我们一方面看到联合国为促进和保障人权所建立的历史性功绩，推动了世界人权事业的发展。另一方面我们也看到由于经济发展水平不同，价值观不同，社会制度、历史和文化背景各异，国际社会对人权概念的认识和理解以及对人权行为的判断标准相去甚远。特别是美国等西方国家凭借自己的政治经济军事实力，硬是把自己的意识形态和价值观念塞进国际人权领域，挑起国际人权领域中的激烈斗争，造成世界的对抗、冷战、动荡和战争。　　一、美国在国际人权公约问题上的霸权主义表演　　《经济、社会和文化权利国际公…     

《公民权利和政治权利国际公约》在我国的适用

《公民权利和政治权利国际公约》是国际人权保护领域的一个非常重要的公约 ,我国政府已于 1998年签署了该公约。为使之在国内生效 ,各国作法不同 ,我国倾向于采取直接纳入作法 ,这样 ,该公约一经全国人大常委会决定批准 ,将在全国适用。为确保公约在我国的正确实施 ,有必要对这一问题进行分析研究。     

什么是“概念车”

维护和促进人权与基本自由，是联合国的根本宗旨之一。为贯彻这一宗旨，联合国建立了一系列审议人权问题和监督人权状况的国际机构。     

水人权与国家义务

水资源缺乏和污染构成的水源危机,引发笔者对水人权的思考.水人权是生存权的基本内容之一,是实现其他人权的前提,国际法上已确认水人权是一项基本的人权.水人权的实现需要国家履行包括尊重,保护、满足(确保)及促进的人权保障义务.     

反思与借鉴:普适性人权与转型社会中国人权发展评述——兼论转型社会中国人权事业发展之进路

普适性人权基于人类最基本的需要而肯定了人之所为人的价值,因此得以由国际人权宪章演进并确立了国际社会的共识,并建立起了诸多参与广泛、影响深远的国际保护机制。然而人权的普适性并非全部,在肯认人权普适性的基础上,应以本国特殊情况坚持人权的特殊性落实和深化普适性的人权。对于普适性的反思表明必须将人权普适性置于时代背景下予以重新审视。其中最核心的一个问题即是重新梳理人权普适性与特殊性的关系。审视百年中国人权事业发展,一定程度上存在着过于注重人权的特殊性、而忽视人权普适性的倾向。因此,当务之急,应结合中国转型社会的特点,摆正人权普适性与特殊性的关系,在此基础上,重构人权发展之进路。     

必须走出人权概念的误区

一、《联合回宪章》和《世界人权宣言》 所宣布的人权是一个完整的概念 一个国家的人权状况如何,具体反映在每个人身上,应该以他们的物质生活、精神面貌、社会风尚、道德水平和法治精神为依据。人权是一个完整概念,决不能仅以某个公约的某项规定来判断一个国家人权状况的好坏,然后攻其一点,不及其余。例如,中国目前还没有废除死刑,有些国家就说中国没有人权,因而不能撤销对中国的武器禁售令。这是以人权问题为借口,达到其某种政治图谋。 事实上,当联合国1945年10月24日正式成立的时候,50个创始会员国在《联合国宪章》序言里就庄严宣告,“欲免后世再遭今代人类两度身历惨不堪言之战祸”,“重申基本人权,人格尊严与价值,以及男女与大小各国平等权利之信     

联合国反腐败立法对我国追捕外逃贪官的意义

2003年联合国先后通过了两部反腐败公约,这两部公约对我国追捕外逃贪官具有重大现实意义:首先,两公约为我国司法机关开展追捕工作提供了国际法依据;其次,世界上绝大多数国家签署反腐败公约表明国外已不再是中国贪官的享乐天堂;第三,联合国反腐败公约颁布一年多时间以来,已有不少外逃中国贪官被缉捕回国。     

Human Rights in a Post‐Brexit UK

This special issue was written to reflect on the current role of human rights in the United Kingdom, seventy years after the United Nations General Assembly voted in favour of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Human rights are explored by the authors in this issue from a wide variety of perspectives. Some authors are critical of the failure of the state to implement human rights principles in practice; others lament how human rights often appear of little relevance to most people’s lives in the UK. The overall message, however, remains consistent: a human rights framework brings many positive elements to our country, ensuring it is a society where individuals, no matter their actions or characteristics, are treated with dignity.     

ASEAN and human rights: resisting Western pressure or emulating the West?

Abstract

Observers of Southeast Asian affairs commonly assume that the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are reluctant to pursue liberal agendas, and that their main concern is to resist pressure from Western powers to improve their human rights practice. This article, however, argues that such a conventional view is too simplistic. The Southeast Asian countries have voluntarily been pursuing liberal agendas, and their main concern here is to be identified as ‘Western’ countries – advanced countries with legitimate international status. They have ‘mimetically’ been adopting the norm of human rights which is championed by the advanced industrialized democracies, with the intention of securing ASEAN's identity as a legitimate institution in the community of modern states. Ultimately, they have been pursuing liberal agendas, for the same reason as cash-strapped developing countries have luxurious national airlines and newly-independent countries institute national flags. Yet it should be noted that the progress of ASEAN's liberal reform has been modest. A conventional strategy for facilitating this reform would be to put more pressure on the members of ASEAN; however, the usefulness of such a strategy is diminishing. The development of an East Asian community, the core component of which is the ASEAN–China concord, makes it difficult for the Western powers to exercise influence over the Southeast Asian countries. Hence, as an alternative strategy, this article proposes that ASEAN's external partners should ‘globalize’ the issue of its liberal reform, by openly assessing its human rights record in global settings, with the aim of boosting the concern of its members for ASEAN's international standing.     

When US Scholars Speak of 'Sovereignty', What Do They Mean?

The term 'sovereignty' figures prominently in international affairs and academic analysis. But does 'sovereignty' mean the same thing in different countries and political cultures? In this article, we examine conceptions of sovereignty as they appear in the writings of US scholars of international law and those international relations scholars who deal with international law, in order to obtain a clearer picture of what 'sovereignty' means in American academic discourse. At first glance, the US literature is dominated by two distinct conceptions of sovereignty: (1) a statist conception that privileges the territorial integrity and political independence of governments regardless of their democratic or undemocratic character; (2) a popular conception that privileges the rights of peoples rather than governments, especially when widespread human rights violations are committed by a totalitarian regime. On closer examination, what seem to be two conceptions are in fact different manifestations of a single, uniquely American conception of sovereignty which elevates the United States above other countries and protects it against outside influences while concurrently maximising its ability to intervene overseas.     

Workers without rights as citizens at the margins

This article presents a normative account of citizenship which requires respect for labour rights, as much as it requires respect for other human rights. The exclusion of certain categories of workers, such as domestic workers, from these rights is wrong. This article presents domestic workers as marginal citizens who are unfairly deprived of certain labour rights in national legal orders. It also shows that international human rights law counteracts the marginal legal status of this group of workers. By being attached to everyone simply by virtue of being human, irrespective of nationality, human rights can complement citizenship rights when both are viewed as normative standards. The example of domestic work as it has been approached in international human rights law in recent years shows that certain rights of workers are universal. Their enjoyment cannot depend on citizenship as legal status or on regular residency. The enjoyment of labour rights as human rights depends, and should only depend, on the status of someone as a human being who is also a worker.     

The international rule of law

ABSTRACT

The rule of law is a moral ideal that protects distinctive legal values such as generality, equality before the law, the independence of courts, and due process rights. I argue that one of the main goals of an international rule of the law is the protection of individual and state autonomy from the arbitrary interference of international institutions, and that the best way to codify this protection is through constitutional rules restraining the reach of international law into the internal affairs of a state. State autonomy does not have any intrinsic value or moral status of its own. Its value is derivative, resulting from the role it plays as the most efficient means of protecting autonomy for individuals and groups. Therefore, the goal of protecting state autonomy form the encroachment of international law will have to be constrained by, and balanced against the more fundamental goal of an international rule of law, the protection of the autonomy of individual persons, best realized through the entrenchment of basic human rights.     

What Role for Human Rights in Business?

The Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) were endorsed by the United Nations Human Rights Council in June 2011, following the six‐year mandate of the Special Representative to the Secretary General (SRSG) on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises. The SRSG developed a framework comprised of three pillars: (1) States have a duty to protect against human rights abuses committed by third parties, including business enterprises; (2) business enterprises have a responsibility to respect human rights; and (3) victims of business‐related human rights abuses need access to effective remedies. In particular, guiding principle (GP) 11 provides that business enterprises should respect human rights, that is, they should avoid infringing on the human rights of others and address adverse human rights impacts with which they are involved. This article considers the implications of the Guiding Principles' framework for business; the continuing role of conventional accountability mechanisms in providing access to remedy for victims under the third pillar of the framework; and developments in ‘hard law', with a particular focus on the approach by the UK, since the introduction of the UNGPs, before turning, briefly, to the future for business and human rights.     

Supporting Dictatorship and Promoting Human Rights? UN Technical Assistance to Egypt

Abstract

Does UN human rights technical assistance weaken or strengthen authoritarian dictatorship in Egypt? Drawing on interviews with UN, donor and domestic human rights non-governmental organization representatives conducted in Egypt in 2007 and 2010, this article focuses on the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)/Egypt's BENAA Human Rights Capacity Building Project. The UNDP partnered with the Egyptian government to train public officials in human rights protections and to facilitate elite socialization, a strategy recommended by social constructivism. Critics, however, assert that such technical assistance strengthens rather than weakens authoritarianism. This article explores conflicts between UN and state goals in implementing technical assistance projects, as well as competing assumptions about norm diffusion and internalization held by supporters and critics of the programme.     

论社区警务中的人权关怀

我国自20世纪90年代以来,不断加强社区警务建设,取得了显著成就。在我国社会主义市场经济、民主法制、权利保障不断发展和完善的历史潮流中,不断强化公安机关和社区民警的人权意识,增强对社区民众的人权关怀,应该成为我国社区警务建设的关键性环节。     

The Review of Victoria's Guardianship Legislation: State Policy Development in an Age of Human Rights

This article considers the Victorian government's decision to review the state's guardianship legislation and notes the significant place international human rights developments are playing in that review. The article recognises the opportunities these developments present for reworking the guardianship legislation to increase the autonomy and decision-making power of people with disabilities, but also considers the challenge these developments present to ensuring that society continues to protect its most vulnerable citizens.     

National Human Rights Institutions: Domestic implementation of international human rights law

Does adopting a National Human Rights Institution (NHRI) make states’ international commitments to not torture more constraining? Many researchers have explored international human rights treaties’ abilities to constrain leaders from violating human rights, some focusing exclusively on the United Nations Convention Against Torture (CAT). Thus far, findings are not promising unless certain domestic conditions apply such as sufficient democratic space to air grievances or independent judiciaries. This article continues to explore domestic conditions by focusing on another liberal institution—National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs). Torture is usually a secretive practice, and NHRIs act as information providers to potential mobilizers and domestic legal systems assuring international legal commitments are not empty promises. Using statistical analysis on 153 countries over the years 1981–2007, I find that when a country has ratified the CAT, the presence of an NHRI substantively decreases the chances the state will be an egregious offender.