Human Rights and State Sovereignty

Question 1

What is the realist perspective of human rights?

Answer 1

The nation-state will determine the extent of human rights

Question 2

What is the liberal perspective of human rights?

Answer 2

Human rights are universal and derive from our shared humanity, rather than the nation state

Question 3

State sovereignty

Answer 3

• Cosmopolitian values interferes with the principle of external sovereignty - the belief that states are independent and autonomous.
• Therefore, the claims of International Law, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are merely soft laws (determines internal affairs).

Question 4

Examples of state sovereingty

Answer 4

• UK not allowing prisoners to vote and Blair imprisoning ‘terrorists’ without trial in 2001-2005.
• Saudi Arabia (2015) sentenced blogger, Raif Badawi, to 1000 lashes and 10 years for insulting Islam - the state equates atheism to terrorism while converting to another religion is a capital offence.

Question 5

Cultural traditions

Answer 5

Some nation-states have claimed that the concept of human rights is too Euro-centric and Western - not taking into account culture (dubbing it American Imperialism).

Question 6

Examples of cultural traditions

Answer 6

• 1993 Bangkok Declaration of Asian governments rejects the West’s focus on individual rights and instead focuses on communal rights (supports the death penalty).
• Gay rights are self-evident in the West but criminalised in large areas of the developing world (more socially conservative) - illegal in 72 countries, primarily in Africa/Asia, which is punishable by death in 10.
• In Muslim states, HR standards are determined by the higher law of Islam (theocracy) - Saudi Arabia’s legal system is based on the literalist Wahhabi interpretation of the Qu’ran that contrasts with the UDHR’s Enlightement principles.

Question 7

Accountability of the state

Answer 7

All states must be held accountable (treated the same) but it’s undermined as the more powerful states typically ignore IL.

Question 8

Examples of accountability of the state

Answer 8

• China executes more people per year than the rest of the world combined - discriminates against Mongolians, Tibetans, Uighurs and tightly controls religion. Imprisoned the 2011 Nobel Prize Winner Liu Xiaobo for 11 years for subversion despite calls for his release internationally.
• USA has continually resisted calls from the UN to close Guantanamo Bay Prison which uses waterboarding and moving suspects to states like Pakistan where they can be more discretely tortured.
• Since 2003, the UN has annually condemned North Korea’s HR record - passing a vote of 123-16 (51 abstentions) in 2011 that urged the govt to ‘end its “systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights”. However, N.K rejected this, saying it was politically motivated and based upon untrue fabrications.