Human Rights and the Negotiation of American Power

Human Rights and the Negotiation of American Power PDF Author: Glenn Mitoma
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 081220803X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237

Get Book Here

Book Description
The American attitude toward human rights is deemed inconsistent, even hypocritical: while the United States is characterized (or self-characterized) as a global leader in promoting human rights, the nation has consistently restrained broader interpretations of human rights and held international enforcement mechanisms at arm's length. Human Rights and the Negotiation of American Power examines the causes, consequences, and tensions of America's growth as the leading world power after World War II alongside the flowering of the human rights movement. Through careful archival research, Glenn Mitoma reveals how the U.S. government, key civil society groups, Cold War politics, and specific individuals contributed to America's emergence as an ambivalent yet central player in establishing an international rights ethic. Mitoma focuses on the work of three American civil society organizations: the Commission to Study the Organization of Peace, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the American Bar Association—and their influence on U.S. human rights policy from the late 1930s through the 1950s. He demonstrates that the burgeoning transnational language of human rights provided two prominent United Nations diplomats and charter members of the Commission on Human Rights—Charles Malik and Carlos Romulo—with fresh and essential opportunities for influencing the position of the United States, most particularly with respect to developing nations. Looking at the critical contributions made by these two men, Mitoma uncovers the unique causes, tensions, and consequences of American exceptionalism.

Human Rights and the Negotiation of American Power

Human Rights and the Negotiation of American Power PDF Author: Glenn Mitoma
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 081220803X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237

Get Book Here

Book Description
The American attitude toward human rights is deemed inconsistent, even hypocritical: while the United States is characterized (or self-characterized) as a global leader in promoting human rights, the nation has consistently restrained broader interpretations of human rights and held international enforcement mechanisms at arm's length. Human Rights and the Negotiation of American Power examines the causes, consequences, and tensions of America's growth as the leading world power after World War II alongside the flowering of the human rights movement. Through careful archival research, Glenn Mitoma reveals how the U.S. government, key civil society groups, Cold War politics, and specific individuals contributed to America's emergence as an ambivalent yet central player in establishing an international rights ethic. Mitoma focuses on the work of three American civil society organizations: the Commission to Study the Organization of Peace, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the American Bar Association—and their influence on U.S. human rights policy from the late 1930s through the 1950s. He demonstrates that the burgeoning transnational language of human rights provided two prominent United Nations diplomats and charter members of the Commission on Human Rights—Charles Malik and Carlos Romulo—with fresh and essential opportunities for influencing the position of the United States, most particularly with respect to developing nations. Looking at the critical contributions made by these two men, Mitoma uncovers the unique causes, tensions, and consequences of American exceptionalism.

Human Rights at Risk

Human Rights at Risk PDF Author: Salvador Santino F. Regilme
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 197882842X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 215

Get Book Here

Book Description
Human Rights at Risk brings together social scientists, legal scholars, and humanities scholars to analyze the policy challenges of human rights protection in the twenty-first century. The book focuses on international institutions, thematic blind spots in policy-making, and the role of the United States as a global and domestic actor in human rights protection.

The Inter-American System of Human Rights

The Inter-American System of Human Rights PDF Author: David John Harris
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN: 9780198265528
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 588

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book, which can be used as a text for teaching purposes, gives a fascinating, and authoritative treatment both the rights protected by the Inter-American system and of the way in which its institutions work. An important part of the book is a thorough, article by article account of the guarantee in the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man and in the American Convention on Human Rights of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights in the light of the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and of the Commission's many country reports on the human rights situation in particular states. There are also chapters on the rights of indigenous peoples, amnesty laws and states of emergencies. The evolution and current methods of work of the Commission and the Court are set out at length and their achievements are critically assessed. The role of non-governmental organisations is also examined in this context. The book will be invaluable to all those interested in the protection of human rights in the Americas and international human rights law generally.

Henry Kissinger and American Power

Henry Kissinger and American Power PDF Author: Thomas A. Schwartz
Publisher: Hill and Wang
ISBN: 0809095440
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Get Book Here

Book Description
“[Henry Kissinger and American Power] effectively separates the man from the myths.” —The Christian Science Monitor (Best Books of the Month) The definitive biography of Henry Kissinger—at least for those who neither revere nor revile him. Over the past six decades, Henry Kissinger has been one of America’s most lavishly praised—and most reviled—public figures. He was hailed as a “miracle worker” for his peacemaking in the Middle East, pursuit of détente with the Soviet Union, negotiation of an end to the Vietnam War, and secret plan to open the United States to China. He was assailed from both the left and the right for his complicity in the pointless sacrifice of American and Vietnamese lives, indifference to human rights, and reliance on deception and intrigue. Was he a brilliant master strategist—the “20th century’s greatest 19th-century statesman” (Robert Kaplan, The Atlantic)—or a cold-blooded monster who eroded America’s moral standing for the sake of self-promotion? In this masterfully researched biography, the renowned diplomatic historian Thomas A. Schwartz offers an authoritative and evenhanded answer to this question. While other biographers have engaged in hagiography or demonology, Schwartz takes a measured view of his subject. He recognizes Kissinger’s important successes and insights into the foreign policy issues of his time, but also acknowledges his failures, his penchant for backbiting, and his reliance on ingratiating and fawning praise of the president as a source of his own power. Throughout, Schwartz stresses Kissinger’s artful invention of himself as a celebrity diplomat and his domination of the medium of television news. He also notes Kissinger’s sensitivity to domestic and partisan politics, complicating—and undermining—the image of the far-seeing statesman who stood above the squabbles of popular strife. Rounded and textured, and rich with new insights into key dilemmas of American policy, Henry Kissinger and American Power is an essential guide to a man whose legacy is as complex as the last sixty years of U.S. history itself.

American Exceptionalism and Human Rights

American Exceptionalism and Human Rights PDF Author: Michael Ignatieff
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400826888
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 360

Get Book Here

Book Description
With the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, the most controversial question in world politics fast became whether the United States stands within the order of international law or outside it. Does America still play by the rules it helped create? American Exceptionalism and Human Rights addresses this question as it applies to U.S. behavior in relation to international human rights. With essays by eleven leading experts in such fields as international relations and international law, it seeks to show and explain how America's approach to human rights differs from that of most other Western nations. In his introduction, Michael Ignatieff identifies three main types of exceptionalism: exemptionalism (supporting treaties as long as Americans are exempt from them); double standards (criticizing "others for not heeding the findings of international human rights bodies, but ignoring what these bodies say of the United States); and legal isolationism (the tendency of American judges to ignore other jurisdictions). The contributors use Ignatieff's essay as a jumping-off point to discuss specific types of exceptionalism--America's approach to capital punishment and to free speech, for example--or to explore the social, cultural, and institutional roots of exceptionalism. These essays--most of which appear in print here for the first time, and all of which have been revised or updated since being presented in a year-long lecture series on American exceptionalism at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government--are by Stanley Hoffmann, Paul Kahn, Harold Koh, Frank Michelman, Andrew Moravcsik, John Ruggie, Frederick Schauer, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Carol Steiker, and Cass Sunstein.

Religious Freedom and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Religious Freedom and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights PDF Author: Linde Lindkvist
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107159415
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 189

Get Book Here

Book Description
Freedom of thought and conscience -- The right to change religion or belief -- In community with others -- Conclusion.

A NEW DEAL FOR THE WORLD

A NEW DEAL FOR THE WORLD PDF Author: Elizabeth Borgwardt
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674281918
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 479

Get Book Here

Book Description
In a work of sweeping scope and luminous detail, Elizabeth Borgwardt describes how a cadre of World War II American planners inaugurated the ideas and institutions that underlie our modern international human rights regime. Borgwardt finds the key in the 1941 Atlantic Charter and its Anglo-American vision of "war and peace aims." In attempting to globalize what U.S. planners heralded as domestic New Deal ideas about security, the ideology of the Atlantic Charter--buttressed by FDR’s "Four Freedoms" and the legacies of World War I--redefined human rights and America’s vision for the world. Three sets of international negotiations brought the Atlantic Charter blueprint to life--Bretton Woods, the United Nations, and the Nuremberg trials. These new institutions set up mechanisms to stabilize the international economy, promote collective security, and implement new thinking about international justice. The design of these institutions served as a concrete articulation of U.S. national interests, even as they emphasized the importance of working with allies to achieve common goals. The American architects of these charters were attempting to redefine the idea of security in the international sphere. To varying degrees, these institutions and the debates surrounding them set the foundations for the world we know today. By analyzing the interaction of ideas, individuals, and institutions that transformed American foreign policy--and Americans’ view of themselves--Borgwardt illuminates the broader history of modern human rights, trade and the global economy, collective security, and international law. This book captures a lost vision of the American role in the world.

Taming American Power: The Global Response to U. S. Primacy

Taming American Power: The Global Response to U. S. Primacy PDF Author: Stephen M. Walt
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393292711
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 378

Get Book Here

Book Description
Finalist for the 2006 Gelber Prize: "A brilliant contribution to the American foreign policy debate."—Anatol Lieven, New York Times Book Review At a time when America's dominance abroad was being tested like never before, Taming American Power provided for the first time a "rigorous critique of current U.S. strategy" (Washington Post Book World) from the vantage point of its fiercest opponents. Stephen M. Walt examines America's place as the world's singular superpower and the strategies that rival states have devised to counter it. Hailed as a "landmark book" by Foreign Affairs, Taming American Power makes the case that this ever-increasing tide of opposition not only could threaten America's ability to achieve its foreign policy goals today but also may undermine its dominant position in years to come.

The Last Utopia

The Last Utopia PDF Author: Samuel Moyn
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674256522
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346

Get Book Here

Book Description
Human rights offer a vision of international justice that today’s idealistic millions hold dear. Yet the very concept on which the movement is based became familiar only a few decades ago when it profoundly reshaped our hopes for an improved humanity. In this pioneering book, Samuel Moyn elevates that extraordinary transformation to center stage and asks what it reveals about the ideal’s troubled present and uncertain future. For some, human rights stretch back to the dawn of Western civilization, the age of the American and French Revolutions, or the post–World War II moment when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was framed. Revisiting these episodes in a dramatic tour of humanity’s moral history, The Last Utopia shows that it was in the decade after 1968 that human rights began to make sense to broad communities of people as the proper cause of justice. Across eastern and western Europe, as well as throughout the United States and Latin America, human rights crystallized in a few short years as social activism and political rhetoric moved it from the hallways of the United Nations to the global forefront. It was on the ruins of earlier political utopias, Moyn argues, that human rights achieved contemporary prominence. The morality of individual rights substituted for the soiled political dreams of revolutionary communism and nationalism as international law became an alternative to popular struggle and bloody violence. But as the ideal of human rights enters into rival political agendas, it requires more vigilance and scrutiny than when it became the watchword of our hopes.

The American Convention on Human Rights

The American Convention on Human Rights PDF Author: Thomas M. Antkowiak
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190675519
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 433

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book offers a thorough, critical, and accessible analysis of the American Convention on Human Rights which is the main human rights treaty of the Americas. The authors closely review the jurisprudence and the binding judgments of the two institutions charged with interpreting the Convention: The Inter-American Court of Human Rights and The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.They focus on the rights most developed by the Court and Commission, namely the rights to equality, life, humane treatment, personal liberty, property, due process and judicial protection, as well as the freedom of expression and reparations. They examine the case law with a victim-centered lens while identifying key jurisprudential developments, discussing critical areas that lack consistency and rigor, and proposing alternative conceptual approaches. Each chapter contains an Introduction to compare the Convention right's formulation with equivalent rights in other major international and regional treaties; a background section to consider the right's negotiation history; a Scope of Protection section to analyze the right's provisions (paragraph-by-paragraph or topic-by-topic); and lastly, a Limitations section, if applicable, to study any limitations to the right. In addition, the book's Introduction presents an up-to-date overview of the dynamic Inter-American Human Rights System, discussing the System's legal instruments, major institutions, significant impact, key developments, and current challenges.