The international relations of human rights

Question 1

_Most political systems have an evangelical component, where they seek to spread geographically…

Answer 1

their values in order to assert their domestic legitimacy

Question 2

Democracies have a tendency to assert..

Answer 2

the values of human rights in its foreign policy.

Question 3

Western states have tended to adopt foreign policies that are a blend of..

Answer 3

realpolitik (power politics) and liberal values, often associated with human rights

Question 4

Human rights depends to a large extent on..

Answer 4

popular opinion ex; , the British government resisted the demands or Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire in the 1810s, because England and France depended on the Ottoman to block Russian imperial expansion. An emphasis on human rights and self-determination in British and French newspapers, led to a populist movement to compel the British government and facilitate Greek independence.

Question 5

Two major questions about international human rights is..

Answer 5

what causes them to be institutionalized, and what effect do they have on the behavior of states

Question 6

Human rights generally comes from..

Answer 6

an externalization of a state’s norms onto the international level, often by activists, lawyers, who do so for domestic political reasons, and do so in permissive times of peace. The effects of human rights on state behavior depends to a large extent on the internalization of the domestic norms.

Question 7

what is the double-standard paradox

Answer 7

why states publicly submit to human rights treaties, but leaders often subordinate human rights to other goals of the national interest.

Question 8

Realism explains..

Hobbes

Answer 8

1) there are instances where the requirement to obtain or maintain power, a state will not follow human rights rules
2) Human rights treaties are followed to the extent that they are enforceable, and international anarchy makes enforcing treaties between major powers difficult.
3) Major powers that have pushed universal moral claims, such as replacing barbarian rule, evangelical Christendom or Islam, Confucian tributary systems, bringing civilization to Africa in the 1880s, often do so for narrow self-interest.

Question 9

Liberalism explains two phenomenon:

Answer 9

(1). Institutionalized international human rights leads to policies to replace authoritarian governments, which are often seen as the greatest resistors to human rights.
For example, the end of the Cold War, through a demonstration effect, led to the replacement of a large number of authoritarian and communist states, with democracies, and it is this that led to the large growth in human rights institutionalization in the 1990s.
(2). Institutionalized international human rights leads to policies that seek stronger international institutions, which is often at odds with state sovereignty.
For example, the emergence of human rights in the 1970s, was the result of the international legalization of domestic human rights norms. The European Union has the European Court of Human Rights.

Question 10

what is the new norm that renders security a contested concept:

Answer 10

rather than solely being about traditional state security, it stretches the term to the application of state instruments to protect the individual citizen’s rights, as an alternate reference point

Question 11

what is Contested concept

Answer 11

is a term whose fundamental meaning is being publicly challenged or appropriated by competing groups. It usually involves a concept that has significant public value, like security.

Question 12

Constructivists explain that

Answer 12

1) When rights are a fundamental component of the creation of a state, or a super-state identity, the members of that collectivity will have an incentive to spread their universal claims abroad.
_For example, human rights compliance was a core requirement for membership in the European Union.
2) Human rights ideas spread to become institutionalized norms through norm cascades,
3) Human rights norms are spread as ideas by trans-national social movements, who harass and embarrass non-compliant targets.
_For example, the emergence of human rights in the 1970s, was the result of the emergence of non-governmental organizations (NGO), such as Amnesty International in 1961.

Question 13

what are the 5 step norm cascade

Answer 13

1. An act of human rights repression
   
   2. Human rights groups criticize the state responsible for the act of repression.
   3. International human rights groups help repressed groups to mobilize, and the repressing state is compelled to grant the mobilized groups some legitimacy.
   4. The repressing state is compelled by domestic and international pressure to enact human rights legislation.
   5. State institutions then implement human rights compliance automatically.

Question 14

_Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO), perform three international activities in human rights propagation:

Answer 14

(1) . Network of communication of right violations: Not being state actors, NGOs may often have reputations for credibility.
(2) . Monitoring of treaty compliance by states.
(3) . NGOs may identify and seek to humiliate non-compliant states

Question 15

what is responsibility to protect and where does it comes from

Answer 15

The massacres in Rwanda in 1993-1994 led to the international community to adopt a more interventionist role with regard to human rights violations. Sovereignty was redefined, from being a right to exclude foreign intervention, to a responsibility to protect (CISS 2001 Report) domestic populations, a violation of which could results in the obligation of foreign states to intervene. ex: NATO air campaign against Serbia in 1998-1999, in response to Serbian policy in Kosovo.