Human Rights Enjoyment in Theory and Activism

Despite being a seemingly straightforward moral concept (that all humans have certain rights by virtue of their humanity), human rights is a contested concept in theory and practice. Theorists debate (among other things) the meaning of “rights,” the priority of rights, whether collective rights are universal, the foundations of rights, and whether there are universal human rights at all. These debates are of relatively greater interest to theorists; however, a given meaning of “human rights” implies a corresponding theory of change and through that can be an important guide to the practice of human rights activists and their funders. In practice, any organization can describe their work as “rights based.” This article clarifies the practices of human rights activists and their funders that are consistent with a theory of human rights as (1) universal, (2) interdependent across groups and categories of people, (3) indivisible across issue areas and claims, and (4) measured by the enjoyment of rights.     

Bridging the Gap: The Relationship between INGO Activism and Human Rights Indicators

This article explores the tension between the production of “naming and shaming” reports as tools of activism by international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) and the usage of these reports as cross-national indicators of human rights violations. Because INGOs are strategic actors, their reports are not a reflection of the “true” levels of abuse. Although existing scholarship has raised this issue in relation to bias in cross-national indicators, it has yet to explain the process by which NGOs produce reports. This article exploits subnational variation across domestic and international NGOs within India, showing how the divergence in their reports can be explained by these groups’ organizational structures, probability of success in their chosen issue areas, and target audiences. By explaining how human rights NGOs produce reports, this article concludes with suggestions to ensure that the biases prevalent in a single source of data do not drive the results of future scholarship.     

The Elite Politics of Media Advocacy in Human Rights

ABSTRACT

Advocacy nongovernmental organizations based in the North adopt digital tools to bypass repressive regimes, raise awareness amongst global publics, sustain grassroots activists in the South, and engage in political action. Social media was expected to offer innovative platforms for mobilizing participants to act on behalf of “distant others.” But the practices of some organizations signal that something else is at play. Rather than empower individuals, digital campaigns reify elite politics, using outsider strategies to support insider lobbying. Through communicative processes of mediatization, organizations pay homage to the existence of a movement, but only afford thin forms of participation. Using the framework of media advocacy to explore Human Rights Watch and the Enough! Project, we argue that social media becomes a top-down platform that exacerbates the elite design of organizations, enabling them to assert legitimacy for political actions, while disingenuously marketing themselves as democratic with bottom-up credibility.     

Implementing International Human Rights Law at Home: Domestic Politics and the European Court of Human Rights

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) boasts one of the strongest oversight systems in international human rights law, but implementing the ECtHR??s rulings is an inherently domestic and political process. This article begins to bridge the gap between the Court in Strasbourg and the domestic process of implementing the Court??s rulings by looking at the domestic institutions and politics that surround the execution of the ECtHR??s judgments. Using case studies from the UK and Russia, this article identifies two factors that are critical for the domestic implementation of the Court??s rulings: strong domestic, democratic institutions dedicated to implementing the ECtHR??s judgments and an overarching sense of responsibility to set a good example at home and abroad for respecting human rights and the rule of law. This article concludes with a discussion of the steps necessary to facilitate better implementation of the ECtHR??s rulings.     

Human Rights Politics and Injustice: Transitional Justice in Argentina and South Africa

Transitional justice is about the recovery of the rule of lawand justice after mass violence. In the recent history of Argentinaand South Africa, human rights politics have played an importantrole in the transition from repression to democracy as a discourseof resistance to state repression and as a framework and methodologyfor the successor state to manage demands for justice and promotereconciliation. Post-transition, they have provided a standardfor the accountability of state institutions and evaluationof the democratic government's performance. In this article,we explore the roles of victims, survivors and relatives inthe expansion of human rights politics. We argue that victimsrepresent their suffering as embodied injustice and make theirvictim identity the focus of efforts to recover a moral contractbetween state and citizens. The expansion of human rights politicsto include social and economic rights is an expression of thelimits of transitional justice in recovering full citizenshipin the context of the neo-liberal democratic project in Argentinaand South Africa.     

Human Rights Culture: Solidarity,Diversity and the Right to be Different

The concept of a human rights culture has been crucial to the incorporation of the European Convention of Human Rights into UK law. In this paper media and activist representations of human rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender human rights are considered as indicative of an emerging human rights culture, especially around the Civil Partnerships Act 2004. A typology of representations of rights is developed and discussed. It is concluded that insofar as there is an emerging human rights culture, it is one that is concerned above all with creating and maintaining civic relationships rather than with the assertion of individual liberty, and as inviting political compromise rather than a principled stance on universal 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.