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.     

由人权保障原则看人本政府的构建

人权保障是近现代民主法治国家的宪政原则。人权保障的主张萌芽于古希腊,文艺复兴时期其思想体系才得以最终确立,作为一项政治原则,被近现代以后各国宪法普遍确立。由人权保障的宪政原则必然演绎出人本政府的要求,人本政府要求政府必须强化公共服务职能。从管理学角度讲,要实现政府身份的转变,要界定政府的职能范围,要把握政府服务内容,要注重政府服务绩效,要打破政府公共物品供给的垄断性。从法学角度讲,政府要构建成有限政府、正当程序政府和责任政府。     

The Consistency of the U.S. Supreme Court's "Pro-State" Bloc

This article examines the bloc of U.S. Supreme Court justicesthat produced the "pro-state" decisions in United States v.Lopez, Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida, and Printz v. UnitedStates. We are concerned primarily with the bloc's coherenceand consistency across other cases of interest to state governmentsover the 1994–1996 terms. The labeling of individual justicesand the Court in general as "pro-state" depends in part on thecases subjected to analysis; the greater the inclusiveness ofthe list of "cases of interest to the states, " the more thebloc seems to fray and the less coherent the Court's direction.     

The Globalization of Rights: From Citizenship to Human Rights

Globalization is shifting the balance away from membership-based citizenship towards universal human rights, thus we ask: how are new human rights generated? We argue that the movement for human rights follows on the heels of the much older and richer tradition of citizenship, as can be seen from the fact that many of the new claims put forward by human rights activists seek to define traditional citizenship rights as universal human rights. Most recently, we witness attempts by NGOs and CSOs to bring health, rights-based development, and identity rights under the umbrella of human rights. We examine the changing but continuous relationship of these two rights traditions, the gains made by human rights activists and the global solidarity and national enforcement capacity needed to underwrite their further progress.     

The Conservative Case for Human Rights

This article explores how conservative values and Conservative Party politicians helped to shape the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) 1948 and the European Convention on Human rights (ECHR) 1950. It provides an overview of the history of conservatism in the UK with a focus on the way that Conservative Party administrations promoted the protection of human rights, including social and economic rights. The author argues that the Conservative Party should continue to play a key role in protecting human rights legislation rather than regarding human rights as a ‘foreign’ imposition from Europe.     

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.     

The Honor of Human Rights: Environmental Rights and the Duty of Intergenerational Promise

The idea of human rights either as a moral system or as a set of legal practices does not sit well with the concept of honor. This is true for both ontological reasons and because of some reprehensible misuses of the term in constructs such as “honor killings.” Yet the absence of honor as an argument for human rights comes with a high cost in the defense of human rights generally. As Hobbes made clear in his early theory, rights—and dignity—are grounded in the human capacity to make promises and in the necessity of honoring them. In his view then, honor is an essential feature of human rights and one closely linked to the human capacity for dignity. In this article, I explore how environmental human rights place a renewed emphasis on honor as a requirement for the protection of the rights of future generations. In the process, I explore the general relationship between honor, dignity, and human rights.     

人权的逻辑规定与现实规定——基于马克思人的生存方式理论的视角

马克思把人的存在理解为生存活动.人的生存活动是人依靠自然生产自己的一种生活.作为自然性与社会性相统一的人的生存活动,就是人的生活方式或生存方式,它构成了马克思人权认知的前提.从人的“生活决定意识”这一唯物史观的基本原则出发,首先,马克思指认人权是一种逻辑规定,是人的生存活动发展到资本主义商品经济阶段的产物,表现为自由、平等、财产与安全等;其次,马克思指认人权又是一种现实规定,人权在资本主义雇佣劳动这一特定的生存方式中体现为资本自由、平等地剥夺劳动的特权.     

权利冲突中的少数主义原则

权利冲突问题一直以来都是法学研究的一个热点,同时也是一个难点,而多数人权利与少数人权利的冲突问题,则可以说是难点中的难点:因为处理不好它有可能导致民主制度的颠覆或多数人的暴政等问题.考虑到法学首先是一种实践性学科,因而对这个在实践中经常遇见的问题进行理论上的分析并提出解决之道就是法学的当有之责--而"少数主义原则"正是对这一问题的可能答案.     

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.     

Human Rights or Citizen's Privileges: The Great Bill of Rights Swindle

New Labour arguably left Britain more comfortable in its diversity and better protected by anti‐discrimination law. Equal treatment for gay people advanced significantly and the Human Rights Act provides a modern Bill of Rights for everyone in the Kingdom. Curiously however, parallel laws dishonoured these values in thought, word and deed. Home affairs hyperactivity left ours a less friendly country in which to seek asylum, dissent or even be young. The Coalition bound itself together with ‘civil liberties’ and quickly reversed some excesses of the previous decade. Last year's ‘Arab Spring saw it promote human rights abroad. However the Government appears bitterly divided by them at home. Is the debate about a more ‘British’ Bill of Rights, political genius, pragmatic fudge or a dangerous swindle capable of depriving us all of vital protection against abuse of power?”