Human Rights Reporting: Rights,Responsibilities, and Challenges

This essay critically examines the intersections between news media and human rights in the context of the existing human rights framework. A survey of the fundamental provisions of international human rights law and of the evolving case law of human rights organs relating to media freedom and responsibilities reveals that existing gaps and underspecified obligations render problematic the normative guidance offered by the framework in addressing the pertinent human rights issues. However, this is part of the story. The problems associated with normative guidance are compounded by media practitioners’ contending approaches on the role of the media as “promoters of human rights.” The interplay between these factors is then examined through the prism of the two communities’ converging commitment to “truth-seeking.” This commitment can provide entry points to a more constructive engagement between the news media and the human rights community.     

On Studying Public Budgets

Editors' Note: The articles included in this section of the journal are revised versions of the papers presented at the conference on "Major Budgetary Problems in the Eighties" held in Siena, Italy, November 4–5, 1981, under the auspices of the Centro Studi Fondazione Adriano Olivetti, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and the Gruppo Monte dei Paschi di Siena.     

Human Rights in the Public Sector

This article examines how universal human rights have been given practical effect in the UK through the Human Rights Act. It focusses on the role of human rights in public services and using the duty placed on public officials as a lever to bring about positive change.     

Civil Rights and Political Human Rights: Contesting Human Rights Failures within the Minimally Democratic State

Allen Buchanan argues that democracy ought to be added to the list of basic human rights, but he limits the conception of democracy to a minimum of electoral representation within the nation state, effectively collapsing human rights into civil rights. This, however, leaves him unable to address the problem of human rights failures occurring within established states that meet his standard of minimal democratic representation. In order to address this problem, I appeal to James Bohman's conception of the political human rights of all members of humanity, as opposed to the civil rights of the citizens of particular states. I argue that while this provides the basis on which to address the problem of human rights failures within minimally democratic states, Bohman's conception also entails the potential for deep tensions to arise between the different claims of civil and human rights.     

Human Rights,Intellectual Property,and Struggles for Recognition

This article examines recent controversies over the relationship between human rights and intellectual property rights (IPRs). Many activists have claimed that IPRs conflict with human rights. Others have argued that IPRs are themselves human rights. The article approaches the debate as an opportunity to clarify the nature of IPRs in relation to human rights, as well as the nature of contemporary struggles over these rights. After surveying the dual expansion of both human rights and IPRs and rejecting the view that IPRs are rooted in human rights, the author investigates the example of the HIV/AIDS crisis and the global Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines in order to illustrate attempts to represent IPRs as an outright threat to human rights. Highlighting the limitations of a human rights-based critique of IPRs, he concludes by proposing to study contemporary conflicts over IPRs and human rights as struggles for recognition and as struggles over the institutionalization of a transnational “recognition order.”

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Human Rights Violations,Weak States,and Civil War

This study examines the role of human rights violations as a harbinger of civil wars to come, as well as the links between repression, state weakness, and conflict. Human rights violations are both part of the escalating process that may end in civil war and can contribute to an escalation of conflict to civil war, particularly in weak states. The role of government repression and state weakness in leading to civil war is tested empirically. The results show that both closely correlate with civil war onset, especially if they are observed in combination. A two-stage model shows that, while low-level conflict leads to human rights violations, they increase the risk of an escalation to civil war in turn. Human rights violations are identified as an important aspect of understanding civil war onset as the result of an escalation over time and a clear early warning sign of wars to come.     

Justice,Human Rights,and Reconciliation in Postconflict Cambodia

Retribution? Restitution? Reconciliation? “Justice” comes in many forms as witnessed by the spike in war crimes tribunals, Truth &; Reconciliation Commissions, hybrid tribunals and genocide trials. Which, if any form is appropriate should be influenced by the culture of the people affected. It took Cambodia over three decades to finally address the ghosts of its Khmer Rouge past with the creation of a hybrid Khmer Rouge Tribunal. But how meaningful is justice to the majority of survivors of the Khmer Rouge auto-genocide when only a handful of top officials are tried? Further, given the persistent abuse of political and economic rights in post-conflict Cambodia, we are skeptical that justice or reconciliation is presently possible.     

Outsiders Inside and Insiders Outside: Linking Transnational and Domestic Public Action for Human Rights

Human Rights Review - “Is the traditional divide between domestic and international politics breaking down?” and, if so, with what effects on transnational human rights activism? This...     

Five Challenges to Legalizing Economic and Social Rights

In recent years, dozens of human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs) across the globe have begun to advocate for economic and social rights, which represents a significant expansion of the human rights movement. This article investigates a central strategy that NGOs have pursued to realize these rights: legalization. Legalization involves specifying rights as valid legal rules and enforcing them through judicial or quasi-judicial processes. After documenting some of the progress made toward legalization, the article analyzes five unique challenges involved in legalizing economic and social rights. It is important to identify these challenges because they must be overcome if the human rights movement wishes to refute the notion that economic and social rights are inherently non-justiciable (and therefore, to some, invalid as rights). These challenges also point to the possibility that legalization is not the only, or even the best, strategic pathway to realize economic and social rights effectively.