Lesson 2 Flashcards
Concepts
ICCPR
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
ICESCR
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Constructivist Norm Theory
How norms evolves and ideas and norms shape state behavior and international relations, emphasizing that norms are socially constructed through interactions between actors.
Individual norms
Lantis and Wunderlich
Basic building blocks of constructivist theory and represent shared expectations about appropriate behavior.
**Definition: **Specific rules prescribing behavior, shaping identities, and expectations.
Examples:
Soverignity
Three-Dimensional Model of Norms
Lantis and Wunderlich
- Individual norms
- Norm Connections and Collision
- Meta-Governance Norms
Lantis and Wunderlich
Norm Clusters
Similarly aligned and conceptually interlinked norms addressing a common issue area.
Example Soveringity art. 2(1) and 2(7).
Meta-governance norm
Which are overarching principles that shape the international order
Examples:
Sovereignty:
Sovereignty is a meta-norm that establishes the basis for statehood and the principle of non-intervention.
Norm Contestation
The debate over the meaning, application and interpretation or legitimacy of norms.
U.S. challenging international norms against torture by justifying practices at Guantanamo Bay as “enhance interrogation.”
Norm Collisions
Lantis and Wunderlich
These happen when two or more norms have conflicting expectations about appropriate behavior.
Case: Guantanamo bay
Norm: National Security vs. human rights norms ICCPR, right to fair trial.
“Unlawful combatants” vs. PoW.
War on terror.
Norm resilience
The practices at Guantánamo Bay challenged several well-established international norms:
Prohibition of Torture: Enshrined in the Convention Against Torture (CAT) and Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.
Right to Fair Trial and Due Process: Guaranteed under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
Critical Security Studies
A field of study that challenges traditional understandings of security, expanding the concept beyond state-centric military concerns to include a wider range of issues and actors, like environmental threats, economic inequality, and social injustices.
Traditional Security Studies
Nick Vaughan-Williams
An approach to security that primarily focuses on the military security of states, often emphasizing the role of power politics and interstate conflict. It is frequently contrasted with critical security studies.
Guantanamobay, state-centric.
Securitization
The process by which an issue or phenomenon is framed as an existential threat, requiring extraordinary measures to address it. This often involves elevating the issue to a matter of national security, justifying the use of exceptional policies or actions.
Feminist Security Studies
Nick Vaughan-Williams
Key Principles: Examines how gender roles, norms, and power dynamics shape security issues and experiences.
Assumptions: Security is not gender-neutral; traditional security concepts often reflect and reinforce patriarchal structures.
Critiques of Traditional Security: Challenges the state-centric focus, arguing that personal and societal security are equally important.
Realism/Neorealism
- Focuses on international security and political economy.
- Views human rights as a part of domestic politics.
- Sees the international system as anarchic - no higher authority above states.
Institutionalism
A school of thought in international relations that acknowledges the anarchic nature of the international system but argues that cooperation between states is still possible.
Focuses on how international institutions can help states overcome collective action problems and achieve common goals.
Tends to neglect human rights issues due to the perception that they are primarily domestic matters and do not involve significant cross-border externalities.
Constructivism
- Emphasizes the role of ideas, norms, and identities in shaping international politics.
- Views human rights as a prime example of how norms can influence state behavior, even when it may conflict with their material interests.
- Focuses on the process of norm socialization, how states internalize international norms and change their behavior accordingly
Liberalism
- Focuses on the role of domestic politics and state-society relations in shaping international politics.
- Views democratic institutions and the protection of human rights as key factors in promoting peace and cooperation between states.
- Explores how domestic political factors influence states’ decisions to join and comply with international human rights regimes.
Logic of Consequentialism
Focuses on outcomes, justifying actions if they achieve the greatest good or prevent harm.
Guantanamo, bypassing legal norms was seen as essential for national security.
Norm Life Cycle
A three-stage model used in constructivist theory to describe how international norms emerge, spread, and become internalized by states:
Norm Emergence: Driven by “norm entrepreneurs” who advocate for new norms and try to persuade others to adopt them.
Norm Cascade: When a critical mass of states accepts a norm, leading to a rapid increase in its adoption by others.
Norm Internalization: When norms become widely accepted and taken for granted, shaping states’ behavior without significant opposition or debate.
Constructuvist teory, by Finnemore and Sikkink
Sage Handbook Human Rights
Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink
Reactive Contestation
To avoid compliance. Not implement norm.
The U.S. used reactive contestation at Guantánamo Bay by reinterpreting norms like the prohibition. Torture memos from 2002, redefining the constituted torture.
Contested compliance
When actors comply with norms while simultaneously challenging or expressing disagreement with them
Modes of contestation
- Arbitration
- Contention
- Deliberation
- Justification
Deliberation, contestation
Dominant Setting: International organizations and regimes having the discussions.
Features:
Inclusive and participatory.
Often non-binding but influential.
Involves diplomatic discourse, working groups, or committees.
Example
Discussions in the United Nations General Assembly on global challenges like climate change or peacekeeping.
Contention, contestation
Dominant Setting: Societal protests or grassroots movements.
Definition: Contestation through acts of resistance, public demonstrations, or campaigns to challenge norms or policies. This mode highlights the role of societal actors in pressing for change.
Example:
Mass protests against international trade agreements perceived as unjust.
Justification
Rational and evidence-based.
Often focuses on reshaping narratives or interpretations.
Involves academics, researchers, or think tanks.
Contestedness
A meta-organizing principle of global governance, reflecting the expectation that norms are subject to ongoing debate and renegotiation
Meso level of Global governance
The intermediary level between macro (fundamental norms) and micro (standards and regulations), where organizing principles emerge through stakeholder interaction to bridge the legitimacy gap.
Macro-Level Norms: Fundamental Principles
Broad norms like the prohibition of torture
A theory of contestation,
Antje Wiener
Types of norms
Type 1: Fundamental Norms (principles, values)
●Universal quality and wide moral/ethical reach.
● Examples: human rights, rule of law, democracy, sovereignty. UN Charter.
Type 2: Organizing Principles
● Emerge from policy and political practice at the meso level.
● Medium moral reach and contestation.
Collective defense is the central organizing principle of NATO, encapsulated in its famous Article 5.
Type 3: Standards and Regulations
● Specific directives for implementation at the micro level.
● Low moral reach and contestation.
● Examples: Emmission standards.
The Importance of Contestedness
Antje Wiener
The sources emphasize that contestedness is inherent to inter-national relations because:
Diversity: Actors bring different backgrounds and normative understandings to the global stage, making clashes over norms likely.
Legitimacy: Regular contestation of norms is necessary to ensure their legitimacy and responsiveness to diverse stakeholder interests
The U.S.’s contestation demonstrates how powerful states can challenge norms based on their strategic interests, prompting debates about norm consistency and applicability.
Additional protocols
Protocals that later added to exisiting treaties, a way of contributes to updated treaties.
States must ratify the optional protocol before applicable.
Examples: ICCPR optional protocol 2. States can decide whether or not they want to ratify. New states are though subject to ICCPR-P2.
Strategic studies
Strategic Studies is predominantly concerned with how actors apply force during peace and conflict
Critical Security studies, Nick Vaughan-Williams
Security studies
Potentially everything that could be relevant to the safety of a given thing.
Static security
Nick Vaughan-Williams
Static security relies on fixed measures to maintain control and prevent breaches.
Focuses
1. physical infrastructure,
2. procedural rules, and
3. passive controls to deter or prevent threats.
Nick Vaughan-Williams
Critical Security Studies
Nick Vaughan-Williams
Security is what we make it - Booth 1997.
Emancipation
Freeing people from physical and human constraints.
Critique: Vauge defined. Parochalism.
HR Treaty bodies
State party preiodically report progress to the commitee.
HR treaty bodies Monitors of the HR treaties
Independent experts are part of the comittee.
Other multilateral HR treaties includes HR obligations but has no monitoring mechanisms.
No treaty bodies:
Genocide Convention
Review process of the treaty bodies
- State submit report every 4
- States know well in advance when they will be reviewed and when public review will take place
If state doesn’t follow the review process, the traty body has no legal jurisdiction upon the state. Impacts merely if even reputition.
Government’s role in the review process
Timely and informative reports
Officials from the ministries of the state are usually invokved
UN HR Office provides guidance and there are substantive guidelines on how to prepare a report.
Individual complaints
States who have
1) ratified the treaty and
2) Agreed to be bound by complaints process (optional protocol) can recieve individual complaints.
The HRC is mentioned as a body that receives individual complaints under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The HRC reviews these complaints and issues non-binding views on whether a state has violated the ICCPR.
Art. 41 of the ICCPR.
Principle of universality
Universality means that human beings are endowed with equal human rights simply by virtue of being human, wherever they live and whoever they are, regardless of their status or any particular characteristics.
Tripartite typology of obligations
State duties:
Respect himan rights
Protect human rights
Fulfill the right measures to fulfullment of HR. (education).
Contested and connected norms (Norm clusters)
Norms that says the same or are challenging the norms.
Right to fair trial principles
ICCPR art. 14
Prohobition of torture principles
UDHR art. 5
CAT art 1. defintion
CAT art. 2 Prevention
ICCPR art. 7
ICCPR 4(2)
No derogation from articles 6, 7, 8 , 11, 15, 16 and 18
