The Local Relevance of Human Rights

The Local Relevance of Human Rights PDF Author: Koen De Feyter
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781107009561
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
Do human rights offer real protection when disadvantaged groups invoke them at the local level in an attempt to improve their living conditions? If so, how can we make sure that the experiences of those invoking human rights at the local level have an impact on the further development of human rights (at national and other levels) so that the local relevance of human rights increases? Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) on 10 December 1948, numerous international documents have reaffirmed human rights as global norms. This book examines what factors determine whether appeals to human rights that emanate from the local level are successful, and whether the UDHR adequately responds to threats as currently defined by relevant groups or whether a revision of some of the ideas included in the UDHR is needed in order to increase its contemporary relevance.

The Local Relevance of Human Rights

The Local Relevance of Human Rights PDF Author: Koen De Feyter
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781107009561
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 408

Get Book Here

Book Description
Do human rights offer real protection when disadvantaged groups invoke them at the local level in an attempt to improve their living conditions? If so, how can we make sure that the experiences of those invoking human rights at the local level have an impact on the further development of human rights (at national and other levels) so that the local relevance of human rights increases? Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) on 10 December 1948, numerous international documents have reaffirmed human rights as global norms. This book examines what factors determine whether appeals to human rights that emanate from the local level are successful, and whether the UDHR adequately responds to threats as currently defined by relevant groups or whether a revision of some of the ideas included in the UDHR is needed in order to increase its contemporary relevance.

The Local Relevance of Human Rights

The Local Relevance of Human Rights PDF Author: Koen De Feyter
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139501550
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 407

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Book Description
Do human rights offer real protection when disadvantaged groups invoke them at the local level in an attempt to improve their living conditions? If so, how can we make sure that the experiences of those invoking human rights at the local level have an impact on the further development of human rights (at national and other levels) so that the local relevance of human rights increases? Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) on 10 December 1948, numerous international documents have reaffirmed human rights as global norms. This book examines what factors determine whether appeals to human rights that emanate from the local level are successful, and whether the UDHR adequately responds to threats as currently defined by relevant groups or whether a revision of some of the ideas included in the UDHR is needed in order to increase its contemporary relevance.

The Local Relevance of Human Rights

The Local Relevance of Human Rights PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781139139526
Category : Globalization
Languages : en
Pages : 381

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Book Description
"Do human rights offer real protection when disadvantaged groups invoke them at the local level in an attempt to improve their living conditions? If so, how can we make sure that the experiences of those invoking human rights at the local level have an impact on the further development of human rights (at national and other levels) so that the local relevance of human rights increases? Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) on 10 December 1948, numerous international documents have reaffirmed human rights as global norms. This book examines what factors determine whether appeals to human rights that emanate from the local level are successful, and whether the UDHR adequately responds to threats as currently defined by relevant groups or whether a revision of some of the ideas included in the UDHR is needed in order to increase its contemporary relevance"--

Lawyers Beyond Borders

Lawyers Beyond Borders PDF Author: Maria Armoudian
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472038850
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
Despite international conventions and human rights declarations, millions of people have suffered and continue to suffer torture, slavery, or violent deaths, with no remedy or recourse. They have fallen, in essence, “below the law,” outside of law’s protection. Often violated by their own governments, sometimes with support from transnational corporations, or nations benefiting from human rights violations, how can these victims find justice? Lawyers Beyond Borders reveals the inner workings of the advances and retreats in the quest for redress and restoration of human rights for those whom international legal-political systems have failed. The process of justice begins in the US, with a handful of human rights lawyers steeped in the American tradition of advancing civil rights through civil litigation. As the civil rights movement gained traction and an ample supply of lawyers, this small cadre turned their attention toward advancing international human rights, via the US legal system. They sought to build another piece of the rights revolution, this time for survivors of egregious human rights violations in faraway lands. These cases were among the most unlikely to be slated for victory: The abuses occurred abroad; the victims are aliens, usually with few, if any, resources; the perpetrators are politically powerful, resourced, and well connected, often members of governments, militaries, or multinational corporations. The legal and political systems’ structures are mostly stacked against these survivors, many who bear the scars of trauma and terror. Lawyers Beyond Borders is about agency. It is about how, in the face of powerful interests and seemingly insurmountable obstacles—political, psychological, economic, geographical, and physical—a small group of lawyers and survivors navigated a terrain of daunting barriers to begin building, case-by-case, new pathways to justice for those who otherwise would have none.

The Practice of Human Rights

The Practice of Human Rights PDF Author: Mark Goodale
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521683784
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
Human rights are now the dominant approach to social justice globally. But how do human rights work? What do they do? Drawing on anthropological studies of human rights work from around the world, this book examines human rights in practice. It shows how groups and organizations mobilize human rights language in a variety of local settings, often differently from those imagined by human rights law itself. The case studies reveal the contradictions and ambiguities of human rights approaches to various forms of violence. They show that this openness is not a failure of universal human rights as a coherent legal or ethical framework but an essential element in the development of living and organic ideas of human rights in context. Studying human rights in practice means examining the channels of communication and institutional structures that mediate between global ideas and local situations. Suitable for use on inter-disciplinary courses globally.

Human Rights Matters

Human Rights Matters PDF Author: Julie Mertus
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
Examines the effectiveness of national human rights institutions in promoting and protecting human rights through a series of comparative case studies.

Human Rights Transformation in Practice

Human Rights Transformation in Practice PDF Author: Tine Destrooper
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812250575
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Human rights are increasingly described as being in crisis. But are human rights really on the verge of disappearing? Human Rights Transformation in Practice argues that it is certainly the case that human rights organizations in many parts of the world are under threat, but that the ideals of justice, fairness, and equality inherent in human rights remain appealing globally—and that recognizing the continuing importance and strength of human rights requires looking for them in different places. These places are not simply the Human Rights Council or regular meetings of monitoring committees but also the offices of small NGOs and the streets of poor cities. In Human Rights Transformation in Practice, editors Tine Destrooper and Sally Engle Merry collect various approaches to the questions of how human rights travel and how they are transformed, offering a corrective to those perspectives locating human rights only in formal institutions and laws. Contributors to the volume empirically examine several hypotheses about the factors that impact the vernacularization and localization of human rights: how human rights ideals become formalized in local legal systems, sometimes become customary norms, and, at other times, fail to take hold. Case studies explore the ways in which local struggles may inspire the further development of human rights norms at the transnational level. Through these analyses, the essays in Human Rights Transformation in Practice consider how the vernacularization and localization processes may be shaped by different causes of human rights violations, the perceived nature of violations, and the existence of networks and formal avenues for information-sharing. Contributors: Sara L. M. Davis, Ellen Desmet, Tine Destrooper, Mark Goodale, Ken MacLean, Samuel Martínez, Sally Engle Merry, Charmain Mohamed, Vasuki Nesiah, Arne Vandenbogaerde, Wouter Vandenhole, Johannes M. Waldmüller.

Bait and Switch

Bait and Switch PDF Author: Julie Mertus
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135934738
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
Although our era is marked by human rights rhetoric, human wrongs continue to be committed with impunity, and the idea of human rights is becoming impoverished.

Local Autonomy as a Human Right

Local Autonomy as a Human Right PDF Author: Joshua B. Forrest
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 153815451X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 589

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Book Description
Local Autonomy as a Human Right contends that local communities struggle to preserve their territorial autonomy over time despite changes to the broader political and geographic contexts within which they are embedded. Forrest argues that this both reflects and is evidence of a worldwide embrace of local control as a key political and social value, indeed, of such importance that it should be embraced and codified as a human right. This study weaves together evidence grounded in a variety of disciplines - history, geography, comparative politics, sociology, public policy, anthropology, international jurisprudence, rural studies, urban studies -- to make clear that a presumed, inherent moral right to local self-determination has been manifested in many different historical and social contexts. This book constructs a compelling argument favoring a human right to local autonomy. It identifies practical factors that help to account for the relative success of communities that are able to assert local control over time. Here, particular attention is paid to whether localities are able to generate policy and organizational capacity. Forrest suggests that a focus on local policy and organizational capacity can help to explain why some communities attempting to assert greater local control are more successful than others. Local Autonomy as a Human Right contributes to scholarly debates regarding the varied impacts of globalization, with the place-based perspective and moral emphasis on territorial-centered rights put forth herein offering a necessary counter-narrative to the often-presumed predominance of global forces.

Rights After Wrongs

Rights After Wrongs PDF Author: Shannon Morreira
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804799091
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
The international legal framework of human rights presents itself as universal. But rights do not exist as a mere framework; they are enacted, practiced, and debated in local contexts. Rights After Wrongs ethnographically explores the chasm between the ideals and the practice of human rights. Specifically, it shows where the sweeping colonial logics of Western law meets the lived experiences, accumulated histories, and humanitarian debts present in post-colonial Zimbabwe. Through a comprehensive survey of human rights scholarship, Shannon Morreira explores the ways in which the global framework of human rights is locally interpreted, constituted, and contested in Harare, Zimbabwe, and Musina and Cape Town, South Africa. Presenting the stories of those who lived through the violent struggles of the past decades, Morreira shows how supposedly universal ideals become localized in the context of post-colonial Southern Africa. Rights After Wrongs uncovers the disconnect between the ways human rights appear on paper and the ways in which it is possible for people to use and understand them in everyday life.