Human Rights and International Relations

Question 1

What is the history of Human Rights?

Answer 1

- The history of human rights dates
  back to Persian king Cyrus the Great
  in 6th Century BC who freed
  Babylonian slaves, instituted freedom
  of religion and racial equality
- Modern human rights evolved due to
  efforts across the three levels of
  analysis:
    - Individuals like Henry Dupont and
      Ralph Lemkin and organisations
      like Amnesty International
    - States signing international
      treaties
    - Shifting systemic norms of
      warfare and political, economic
      and social responsibilities and
      international organisations like
      the international court of
      justice, UN High Commission for
      Human Rights

Question 2

How are human rights defined?

Answer 2

- Universal Declaration of Human
  Rights, Article 1:
    - All humans beings are born free
      and equal in dignity and rights
- Negative rights require state
  inaction (don’t torture)
- Positive rights require state action
  (provide public education)

Question 3

What international agreements shaped the human rights regime?

Answer 3

• The Geneva Coventions
• The Hague Conventions
• Both Geneva and Hague conventions
  initially focused on rights during
  wartime
• The Genocide Convention
• The Universal Declaration of Human
  Rights

Question 4

What were the Geneva conventions?

Answer 4

- A series of conventions covering over
  almost a century (1864, 1906, 1929,
  1949)
- Swiss national Henry Dunant visited
  the wounded after the Battle of
  Solferino in 1859 and was shocked by
  their treatment
- Two outmodes of Dunant’s advocacy:
    - Creation of International Red
      Cross in Geneva (1863)
    - The First Geneva Convention (1864)
        - Focused on establishing the
          rights of wartime military
          and civilian prisoners and
          citizens in war zones

Question 5

What were the Hague conventions?

Answer 5

- 1899 - Three treaties and three
  declarations
    - Treatment of prisoners of war, no
      killing of enemy combatants that
      surrender etc.
- 1907 - Thirteen treaties mostly
  focused on naval warfare
- Both Geneva and Hague conventions
  initially focused on rights during
  wartime

Question 6

What was the Genocide Convention?

Answer 6

- Passed by UN General Assembly in 1948
  and entered into force in 1951
- Largely a result of efforts of lawyer
  Raphael Lemkin
- Currently 166 countries have ratified
  it
- Genocide definition: “Any of the
  following acts committed with intent
  to destroy, in whole or in part, a
  national, ethnical, racial or
  religious group, as such: …
- First time it was enforced was in
  1998 Rwanda International Criminal
  Tribunal when a Rwandan mayor was
  convicted of nine counts of genocide
  and is serving life in prison
- The first state found guilty was
  Serbia
    - The ICJ ruled in 2007 that Serbia
      failed to prevent crimes
      committed during the Bosnian war
      in 1995

Question 7

What was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

Answer 7

- Declared by the 18 member Commission
  on Human Rights over two years
- Adopted by the UN General Assembly on
  10 December 1948
    - 48 votes in favour
    - 8 abstentions (USSR, Eastern
      European acolytes, South Africa
      and Saudi Arabia)
- 30 Articles in length
- Added to it were the International
  Covenant on Economic, Social and
  Cultural Rights, and International
  Covenant on Civil and Political
  Rights both adopted in 1966
- They entered into force in 1976 after
  being ratified by enough states

Question 8

What types of human rights are there and what of the enforcement mechanisms of them?

Answer 8

• Physical integrity rights
• Economic rights
• Political, social and cultural rights
• Enforcement mechanisms for economic,
  social and cultural rights are less
  advanced than for civil and political
  rights

Question 9

Give examples of physical integrity rights issues

Answer 9

• Extrajudicial killing
• Disappearance
• Torture
• Political imprisonment

Question 10

What are economic rights?

Answer 10

- Focused on guaranteeing worker’s
  rights and citizens’ economic rights
  (e.g. a job, food) as well as a
  particular focus on women’s economic
  rights
- Economic rights are a focus for some
  countries (often developing) and not
  others (often developed)
- The most important IO focused on
  economic rights, the International
  Labour Organisation, was created in
  1910
- The 1994 NAFTA was the first treaty
  to explicitly include labour rights
  provisions
- 75% of world governments have
  preferential trade agreements with
  human rights provisions

Question 11

What are political, social and cultural rights?

Answer 11

• Freedom of speech
• Relgision
• Movement
• Assembly
• Association
• Rights of political participation
  (right to vote, run for political
  office, hold elected and government
  positions, right to join parties)
• Women social rights (equal
  inheritance, enter into marriage on
  basis of equality, travel abroad,
  initiate a divorce)
• Rights for these and economic rights
  spelled out in the International
  Covenant on Economic, Social and
  Cultural Rights

Question 12

What major IO’s have been created for Human Rights issues?

Answer 12

• UN High Commission on Human Rights
  
  • Existed from ’46 to ’06 and
    replaced by the UN Human Rights
    Council
• European Court of Human Rights
  
  • Created in 1950 as mandated by
    the European Convention on Human
    Rights
  • 47 member states

Question 13

What major NGO’s have been created for human rights issues?

Answer 13

• Amnesty International (1961)

- Human Rights Watch (1978)

Question 14

What is the realist approach to human rights?

Answer 14

- It is hard to see why individual
  rights should be relevant in an
  anarchic system with state
  sovereignty and a focus on national
  power and security
- An argument could be made that states
  have agreed to human rights treaties
  and internalised human rights norms
  through domestic laws as a form of
  logrolling - powerful states like the
  US pushed human rights norms in part
  as a means of counteracting the USSR
  during the Cold War

Question 15

What is the liberal approach to human rights?

Answer 15

- Individuals and groups of
  transnational individual actors
  (NGO’s) have proven crucial to
  encouraging human rights and
  pressuring states to improve human
  rights observance
- Businesses have incorporated human
  rights into their codes of conduct in
  parts as a means of catering to
  customer tastes
- States international behaviours are
  increasingly multilateral and
  non-security issues are increasingly
  relevant as conflict declines

Question 16

What are the other theoretical perspectives to human rights?

Answer 16

- “Normative theorists feel vindicated
  in their claim that it is as critical
  to study how agents should behave as
  how they do behave if we are to make
  sense of a fast-changing world”
- The growing importance of human tight
  norms reflect the importance of
  transnational advocacy networks in
  changing international norms
- Feminists critique the human rights
  regime for being gendered and
  systematically ignoring or
  disadvantaging non-male rights and
  perspectives