Why Human Rights Should Matter to Conservatives

In a speech given to the University of London's Constitution Unit and Judicial Institute on 3 December 2014, the Rt Hon Dominic Grieve QC MP challenged Conservatives to think carefully about the party's proposal to break the link between British courts and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Grieve recalled why the United Kingdom signed the Convention in the first place and, although recognising that the Court's approach has been on occasion properly criticised and may present difficulties, argued that the reforms embodied in the Brighton Declaration 2012 are bearing fruit. He provided a critical exposition of the Conservative paper ‘Protecting Human Rights in the UK: the Conservatives’ Proposals for changing Britain's Human Rights Laws’ (October 2014) and concluded that Conservatives should want to remain within the jurisdiction of the ECHR to maintain and ensure the Court's effectiveness and continued viability.     

Why Human Rights Matter for Our Future: The Views of Three Young People

This article consists of statements by three young people with a passion for human rights. Two of the young people, Jude Smith (aged thirteen) and Khalil Richard (aged twenty) are members of the Sheffield Youth Cabinet. The third young person, Natasha Siguake (aged twenty), is a Young Advisor for Sheffield Futures. The three contributors talk about the human rights that are most important to them and why human rights are important for the future.     

Humanity, Suffering and Victimhood: A Defence of Human Rights Pragmatism

This article explores and defends the pragmatist approach to human rights exemplified by Michael Ignatieff, which seeks to justify them in terms of their practical ability to reduce suffering and abuse. It then presents Alain Badiou's radical critique of this kind of 'ethic of human rights', which claims that it presupposes a negative conception of the human as a victim and leads to a highly conservative politics. However, Badiou's arguments are largely rejected, since they distort the conception of humanity that underlies this ethic, and misrepresent its actual understanding of the role of human rights in politics.     

Governance, Management, and Performance: They Matter

Books reviewed in this article:
Carolyn J. Heinrich and Laurence E. Lynn, Jr., eds., Governance and Performance: New Perspectives
Patricia W. Ingraham, Philip G. Joyce, and Amy Kneedler Donahue, Government Performance: Why Management Matters
Janet M. Kelly and William C. Rivenbark, Performance Budgeting for State and Local Government     

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.     

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.     

Ministerial Turnover and Why Reshuffles Matter for Parliament

Reshuffles are a relatively common occurrence in British politics. We expect to see them whenever a new Prime Minister enters Downing Street, after elections and following ministerial resignations. Recent research from the Institute for Government warns that the regular churn of ministers has negative consequences for policy making and for parliamentary accountability. This article summarises their latest research and what this tells us about the potential implications of Boris Johnson’s February 2020 reshuffle on government and Parliament.     

Advancing Human Rights Policy: Does Grassroots Mobilization and Community Dispute Resolution Matter? Insights from Chiapas,Mexico

This research examines the impact of grassroots organizing at the community level in Chiapas, Mexico, to address problems associated with human rights advocacy and implementation. Traditionally, the nation‐state has had the primary responsibility to address issues pertaining to human rights violations and the enforcement of international human rights principles and treaties. Local political struggles and acts of resistance by disenfranchised groups in Mexico offer insight to understand the impact of indigenous and other social movements in furthering human rights. Indigenous populations in the state of Chiapas use local community dispute resolution to contest the inadequacy of the state in responding to the problems that give rise to poverty, lack of human dignity, educational access, racial and ethnic discrimination, lack of political participation in government and the right to equality in economic, social, and political sectors. Drawing from research based on participant observations in Chiapas, Mexico, there is some evidence to suggest that since the 1994 EZLN (Zapatista National Liberation Army) uprising several micro‐level political and social movements have contested the power of the state through symbolic and pragmatic organizing efforts. These groups include, but are not limited to, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), women's groups, and indigenous groups. After the Zapatista uprising, these groups were instrumental in making claims against the state through numerous activities: protests to end the war, the development of NGOs to observe human rights violations, civilian‐based Zapatista support groups (base de apoyo), peace camps, and open dialogue with the EZLN. I argue that collective mobilization in local communities serves both symbolic and pragmatic efforts in helping disenfranchised groups empower themselves to address economic, social, and political inequality. Local‐level activism has fueled a sense of self‐empowerment to change state institutional responses and to involve sectors of civil society domestically and internationally to initiate a proper resolution of issues that are fundamentally related to human rights.     

Social Rights,Civil Rights,and Health Reform in Canada

This article challenges the conventional wisdom that health programs have been largely insulated from welfare state retrenchment. Health care entitlements have in fact been transformed and diminished, albeit in more subtle ways. Employing rhetorical discursive constructions about the nature of social rights, and capitalizing on passive policy drift, reformists have succeeded in altering the right to health care away from a set of collective obligations and toward the competing claims of individuals. As a result, public health insurance programs are abandoning universalistic principles in favor of a narrower conception of rights that is consistent with and supportive of increased privatization of health care financing. Discursive constructions aimed at persuading target audiences to change their ideas aid and abet systemic and institutional factors, making policy changes seem both necessary and inevitable. Using the case of Canada, I contend that such changes are a form of retrenchment.