Terrorism and Human Rights: A Defence Lawyer's Perspective

ABSTRACT

The author of this article is one of the attorneys appointed to represent Zacarias Moussaoui in the United States. Mr. Moussaoui is the only person facing criminal charges for alleged involvement in the September 11 plot. The author describes the system of government in the United States with a specific emphasis on several terrorism cases pending in the United States. He seeks to assure the readers that the rule of law is paramount in the United States. Recent decisions of the Supreme Court—in the Hamdi and Guantanamo cases—that confirm the constitutional rights of even the most dedicated enemies of the United States, which decisions post-date this submission, only affirm the writer's theme.     

Database section - Dimensions of Contemporary Conflict and Human Rights Violations

Scholars have long recognized the importance of Karl Heinzen's Mord und Freiheit in the history of terrorist thought. Yet the translation most scholars have relied on—1881s Murder and Liberty—is incomplete. Our new translation reveals four elements omitted from the 1881 translation. First, Heinzen conceived of terrorism as a transnational phenomenon. Second, he provided a material justification for terrorist tactics. Third, Heinzen viewed terrorism as both a tool to impel human society to progress and as a “progressive” tool of violence. Finally, he argued in favor of the primary modern tactic of terrorism—the indiscriminate bombing of civilians.     

Terrorism and Human Rights: A Perspective from the United Nations

ABSTRACT

The chapter begins with a discussion of the draft definition of terrorism in the UN Ad Hoc Committee on Terrorism, a definition which covers both terrorist blackmail and intimidation of target audiences but does not address the terrorist goal of impressing potential and actual constituencies with their “propaganda by the deed”. It distinguishes then between a military response to terrorism, based on maximum force within the framework of the laws of war, and a law enforcement response, based on minimal use of force, within the framework of the rule of law. Subsequently twelve principles of the rule of law are outlined and their relationship to human rights is clarified. Next a discussion of specific human rights and how they relate to terrorism and countering terrorism follows. The activities of the Terrorism Prevention Branch of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime are discussed in the framework of the three-pronged UN Strategy against international terrorism. The chapter ends by stressed that upholding human rights and effective anti-terrorist measures are not exclusive. On the contrary: human rights and the rule of law are essential tools in the effort to combat terrorism.

By its very nature, terrorism is an assault on the fundamental principles of law, order, human rights, and peaceful settlement of disputes upon which the United Nations is established.

K. Annan, 4 October 2002

国际人权公约与人权保护——国内司法实施的分析

国际人权公约设定了国家对个人的义务。在国内层面上 ,缔约国应采取立法、司法等措施履行国际人权公约规定的义务。缔约国国内层面的实施是国际人权公约实施的基础和关键。国际人权公约能否在缔约国国内法院得到直接适用 ,是由各国国内法予以决定的。按照我国法律 ,国际人权公约基本上不能在国内法院得以直接适用。     

人权还是知识产权:美国对华政策的一个重要转折

克林顿政府初期处于对华政策的十字路口。冷战结束,美国全面调整对外政策,把经济放到对外战略的首位,知识产权问题凸现。而对华政策背离这一主旨,把人权作为首要目标,并与最惠国待遇问题挂钩。这种矛盾决定其必然改弦更张。以经贸为立足点的接触政策的确立,使知识产权问题再次回到中美关系的中心,美国经历了对华政策的一次重要转折。     

Religion as a Factor in Ethnic Conflict: Kashmir and Indian Foreign Policy

ABSTRACT

Ethnic conflicts with a strong religious component do not have merely domestic or foreign causes and consequences. As a result, internationalization of ethnic conflict has become an important subject of inquiry both in terms of pure research and policy-oriented studies. This article presents a case study of Indian-Pakistani relations over Kashmir, used to evaluate the role of religion and the explanatory power of the approach presented here. The aim of the study is to apply a foreign policy approach that simultaneously incorporates domestic and external factors in an analysis of how and in what ways religious elements of the Kashmir question affect India's foreign policy. The approach, an application of “systemism,” contributes to current developments in the realist school of international relations through its emphasis on the need to look at both international and state levels in combination. Earlier applications of realism, as both neotraditional and structural realism clearly demonstrate, tend to remain restricted to one level or the other. In this approach, a religious dynamic can have a domestic source yet be effectively examined in terms of international ramifications.     

西方非政府人权组织

西方非政府人权组织近年来在国际人权保护中成为一支不可忽视的重要力量,在它们的倡议下,一些世界人权公约的实施与监督机制得到了进一步完善,联合国人权委员会的工作也因它们的参与而得到加强。西方非政府人权组织的人权思想理论在一定程度上是西方社会市民人权道德价值观的反映,同时,它们在人权标准上与西方大国政府的人权政策具有内在的一致性。它们通过发布人权信息、游说等活动,“羞辱”那些被它们认为有侵犯人权现象的国家,在实施国际人权保护的同时,也违背了《联合国宪章》中的不干涉内政原则。可以说,西方非政府人权组织已成为西方人权政治文化的一个重要组织部分。 一、西方非政府人权组织概况     

Long Peace or Long War: A Conflict Resolution Perspective

Since the end of the 1980s, both the incidence and severity of violent conflicts and of domestic and international wars have declined globally. These declines are attributable to the convergence of many developments that help prevent, limit, and stop large-scale violence, and the author suggests that those developments persist. Consequently, he suggests that the recent U.S. engagement in wars and recent surges in terrorist attacks are limited spikes in violence that can be overcome. The author discusses how the current violent events may be in part a consequence of behaviors of the U.S. government and other governmental and nongovernmental organizations that are contrary to the major developments that contribute to global peace and cooperation. Governments and peoples acting in concert with those ongoing changes can help reduce the current mass violence.     

A Structural Analysis of International Conflict: From a Communication Perspective

The study describes the structure of international conflict with the tools of network analysis to enhance the understanding of multilateral conflict-communication relations and to predict the conflict structure with existing international relations theories (liberal and realist) plus global communication variables. Using data obtained from the Correlates of War Project (http://cow2.la.psu.edu/), the structure of international conflict is described for the period 1993–2001 for 145 nations. The results indicate that this network is very sparse; 42 nations had no conflict, and 36 only one bilateral disagreement. The network is centered about former Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), Russia, the United States, Iraq, and China. Most conflicts are regional. The paper also evaluates both the liberal, expanded liberal (with communication variables included), and realist (including Huntington's Clash of Civilizations Theory) perspectives as predictors of conflict. The results indicate that communication variables substantially enhance explanatory power of a predictive model, but the effects of the communication variables are inconsistent. A multiple regression model including history of colonialism and prior conflict, physical proximity and contiguity, whether or not a nation is a democracy, and the communication variables—international telecommunication, freight, and exports—accounted for 30.0% of the variance in the structure of international conflict and each variable was significantly related to conflict. The need for further research is discussed.     

亚洲区域性人权机制:理念与构建

本文从归属认同、利益依赖、救济便利等方面,对区域性人权机制与联合国人权机制进行了比较。文章认为,亚洲区域性人权机制缺乏实质性制度安排,其根源在于政治、经济、历史、文化差异的障碍,冷战的消极影响,跨区域组织的“离心力”,次区域组织的“越位”,统一性、综合性区域组织的缺位等因素的综合作用。文章还对亚洲人权合作制度性建设等问题提出了看法。     

对人权的系统诠释--《人权:概念与标准》一书评介

20世纪末 ,人权经常被冠之以人类的“共同遗产”或“共同语言”。在人权国际化的大潮下 ,联合国体系和地区组织通过的人权文书数目繁多 ,人权教育面临新挑战。联合国教科文组织近年来组织出版了一系列关于人权的书籍来满足不同需要 ,2 0 0 0年出版的《人权 :概念与标准 (ＨｕｍａｎＲｉｇｈｔｓ :ＣｏｎｃｅｐｔａｎｄＳｔａｎｄａｒｄｓ)》是该组织出版的一本力作。该书由联合国教科文组织和平、人权、民主和宽容部主任贾努兹·西蒙奈德思 (ＪａｎｕｓｚＳｙｍｏｎｉｄｅｓ)主编 ,作者来自美国、挪威、乌拉圭、俄罗斯、奥地利、土耳其、波…     

非洲人权事业的新进展

进入21世纪以来,非洲人权事业取得了一系列新进展,具体表现在:人权问题日渐受到非洲国家的重视;维护人权的风气正在逐步发扬;认真反思卢旺达大屠杀事件;积极处理达尔富尔人道主义危机;妇女参政的机会日益增加;建立了多个维护人权和发扬民主的组织机构等方面。但是非洲人权事业所面临的问题和困难还很多,其发展是长期而艰辛的,只能在困难中不断前进。     

The Elusive Ontology of Human Rights

What are human rights? After looking at the reasons why the ontology of human rights should not be reduced to the human rights legal infrastructure, and noting that the origin of human rights in “natural law” is no longer a widely persuasive answer, I shall consider a number of recently popular alternatives. My purpose in examining these is to argue that the “what” of human rights resides in philosophical claims about the value of the human person. The particular approaches considered all depend upon a “high anthropology”. I argue that contemporary accounts take this high anthropology from historical sources they no longer think viable, without giving an alternative account of why it should be held. Such an account is necessary, however, for human rights to be an authoritative political doctrine.