Download or read book Inherent Human Rights written by Johannes Morsink and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2012-02-28 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Confronting the evils of World War II and building on the legacy of the 1776 Declaration of Independence and the 1789 French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, a group of world citizens including Eleanor Roosevelt drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Adopted by the United Nations in 1948, the Universal Declaration has been translated into 300 languages and has become the basis for most other international human rights texts and norms. In spite of the global success of this document, however, a philosophical disconnect exists between what major theorists have said a human right is and the foundational text of the very movement they advocate. In Inherent Human Rights: Philosophical Roots of the Universal Declaration, philosopher and political theorist Johannes Morsink offers an alternative to contemporary assumptions. A major historian of the Universal Declaration, Morsink traces the philosophical roots of the Declaration back to the Enlightenment and to a shared revulsion at the horrors of the Holocaust. He defends the Declaration's perspective that all people have human rights simply by virtue of being born into the human family and that human beings have these rights regardless of any government or court action (or inaction). Like mathematical principles, human rights are truly universal, not the products of a particular culture, economic scheme, or political system. Our understanding of their existence can be blocked only by madness and false ideologies. Morsink argues that the drafters of the Declaration shared this metaphysical view of human rights. By denying the inherence of human rights and their metaphysical nature, and removing the concepts of the Declaration from their historical and philosophical context, contemporary constructivist scholars and pragmatic activists create an unnecessary and potentially dangerous political fog. The book carefully dissects various human rights models and ends with a defense of the Declaration's cosmopolitan vision against charges of unrealistic utopianism and Western ethnocentrism. Inherent Human Rights takes exception to the reigning view that the Golden Rule is the best defense of human rights. Instead, it calls for us to "follow the lead of the Declaration's drafters and liberate the idea of human rights from the realm of the political and the juridical, which is where contemporary theorists have imprisoned it."
Download or read book The Universal Declaration of Human Rights written by and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Natural Law and Human Rights written by Pierre Manent and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2020-02-28 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This first English translation of Pierre Manent’s profound and strikingly original book La loi naturelle et les droits de l’homme is a reflection on the central question of the Western political tradition. In six chapters, developed from the prestigious Étienne Gilson lectures at the Institut Catholique de Paris, and in a related appendix, Manent contemplates the steady displacement of the natural law by the modern conception of human rights. He aims to restore the grammar of moral and political action, and thus the possibility of an authentically political order that is fully compatible with liberty. Manent boldly confronts the prejudices and dogmas of those who have repudiated the classical and Christian notion of “liberty under law” and in the process shows how groundless many contemporary appeals to human rights turn out to be. Manent denies that we can generate obligations from a condition of what Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau call the “state of nature,” where human beings are absolutely free, with no obligations to others. In his view, our ever-more-imperial affirmation of human rights needs to be reintegrated into what he calls an “archic” understanding of human and political existence, where law and obligation are inherent in liberty and meaningful human action. Otherwise we are bound to act thoughtlessly and in an increasingly arbitrary or willful manner. Natural Law and Human Rights will engage students and scholars of politics, philosophy, and religion, and will captivate sophisticated readers who are interested in the question of how we might reconfigure our knowledge of, and talk with one another about, politics.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations written by Thomas G. Weiss and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-11-13 with total page 1025 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This major new handbook provides the definitive and comprehensive analysis of the UN and will be an essential point of reference for all those working on or in the organization.
Download or read book The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the 21st Century written by Gordon Brown and published by Open Book Publishers. This book was released on 2016-04-18 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Global Citizenship Commission was convened, under the leadership of former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the auspices of NYU’s Global Institute for Advanced Study, to re-examine the spirit and stirring words of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The result – this volume – offers a 21st-century commentary on the original document, furthering the work of human rights and illuminating the ideal of global citizenship. What does it mean for each of us to be members of a global community? Since 1948, the Declaration has stood as a beacon and a standard for a better world. Yet the work of making its ideals real is far from over. Hideous and systemic human rights abuses continue to be perpetrated at an alarming rate around the world. Too many people, particularly those in power, are hostile to human rights or indifferent to their claims. Meanwhile, our global interdependence deepens. Bringing together world leaders and thinkers in the fields of politics, ethics, and philosophy, the Commission set out to develop a common understanding of the meaning of global citizenship – one that arises from basic human rights and empowers every individual in the world. This landmark report affirms the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and seeks to renew the 1948 enterprise, and the very ideal of the human family, for our day and generation.
Download or read book The Concept of Human Dignity in Human Rights Discourse written by David Kretzmer and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-08-04 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The notion of human dignity plays a central role in human rights discourse. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognition of the inherent dignity and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. The international Covenants on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and on Civil and Political Rights state that all human rights derive from inherent dignity of the human person. Some modern constitutions include human dignity as a fundamental non-derogable right; others mention it as a right to be protected alongside other rights. It is not only lawyers concerned with human rights who have to contend with the concept of human dignity. The concept has been discussed by, inter alia, theologians, philosophers, and anthropologists. In this book leading scholars in constitutional and international law, human rights, theology, philosophy, history and classics, from various countries, discuss the concept of human dignity from differing perspectives. These perspectives help to elucidate the meaning of the concept in human rights discourse.
Download or read book The Inherent Rights of Indigenous Peoples in International Law written by Antonietta Di Blase and published by Roma TrE-Press. This book was released on 2020-02-24 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book highlights the cogency and urgency of the protection of indigenous peoples and discusses crucial aspects of the international legal theory and practice relating to their rights. These rights are not established by states; rather, they are inherent to indigenous peoples because of their human dignity, historical continuity, cultural distinctiveness, and connection to the lands where they have lived from time immemorial. In the past decades, a new awareness of the importance of indigenous rights has emerged at the international level. UN organs have adopted specific international law instruments that protect indigenous peoples. Nonetheless, concerns persist because of continued widespread breaches of such rights. Stemming from a number of seminars organised at the Law Department of the University of Roma Tre, the volume includes contributions by distinguished scholars and practitioners. It is divided into three parts. Part I introduces the main themes and challenges to be addressed, considering the debate on self-determination of indigenous peoples and the theoretical origins of ‘indigenous sovereignty’. Parts II and III explore the protection of indigenous peoples afforded under the international law rules on human rights and investments respectively. Not only do the contributors to this book critically assess the current international legal framework, but they also suggest ways and methods to utilize such legal instruments towards the protection, promotion and fulfi lment of indigenous peoples’ rights, to contribute to the maintenance of peace and the pursuit of justice in international relations. DOI: 10.13134/978-88-32136-92-0
Download or read book The Culturalization of Human Rights Law written by Federico Lenzerini and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: International human rights law was originally focused on universal individual rights. This book examines the developments which have seen it change to a multi-cultural approach, one more sensitive to the cultures of the people directly affected by them. It argues that this can provide benefits, but that aspects of universalism must be retained.
Download or read book On the Spirit of Rights written by Dan Edelstein and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-06 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the end of the eighteenth century, politicians in America and France were invoking the natural rights of man to wrest sovereignty away from kings and lay down universal basic entitlements. Exactly how and when did “rights” come to justify such measures? In On the Spirit of Rights, Dan Edelstein answers this question by examining the complex genealogy of the rights that regimes enshrined in the American and French Revolutions. With a lively attention to detail, he surveys a sprawling series of debates among rulers, jurists, philosophers, political reformers, writers, and others who were all engaged in laying the groundwork for our contemporary systems of constitutional governance. Every seemingly new claim about rights turns out to be a variation on a theme, as late medieval notions were subtly repeated and refined to yield the talk of “rights” we recognize today. From the Wars of Religion to the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, On the Spirit of Rights is a sweeping tour through centuries of European intellectual history and an essential guide to our ways of thinking about human rights today.
Download or read book Human Rights and Anthropology written by and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human rights by Clifford R. Barnett.
Download or read book The Idea of Human Rights written by Charles R. Beitz and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-07-28 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human rights have become one of the most important moral concepts in global political life over the last 60 years. Charles Beitz, one of the world's leading philosophers, offers a compelling new examination of the idea of a human right.
Download or read book Realizing the Right to Development written by United Nations. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is devoted to the 25th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development. It contains a collection of analytical studies of various aspects of the right to development, which include the rule of law and good governance, aid, trade, debt, technology transfer, intellectual property, access to medicines and climate change in the context of an enabling environment at the local, regional and international levels. It also explores the issues of poverty, women and indigenous peoples within the theme of social justice and equity. The book considers the strides that have been made over the years in measuring progress in implementing the right to development and possible ways forward to make the right to development a reality for all in an increasingly fragile, interdependent and ever-changing world.
Download or read book The Last Utopia written by Samuel Moyn and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-05 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human rights offer a vision of international justice that today’s idealistic millions hold dear. Yet the very concept on which the movement is based became familiar only a few decades ago when it profoundly reshaped our hopes for an improved humanity. In this pioneering book, Samuel Moyn elevates that extraordinary transformation to center stage and asks what it reveals about the ideal’s troubled present and uncertain future. For some, human rights stretch back to the dawn of Western civilization, the age of the American and French Revolutions, or the post–World War II moment when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was framed. Revisiting these episodes in a dramatic tour of humanity’s moral history, The Last Utopia shows that it was in the decade after 1968 that human rights began to make sense to broad communities of people as the proper cause of justice. Across eastern and western Europe, as well as throughout the United States and Latin America, human rights crystallized in a few short years as social activism and political rhetoric moved it from the hallways of the United Nations to the global forefront. It was on the ruins of earlier political utopias, Moyn argues, that human rights achieved contemporary prominence. The morality of individual rights substituted for the soiled political dreams of revolutionary communism and nationalism as international law became an alternative to popular struggle and bloody violence. But as the ideal of human rights enters into rival political agendas, it requires more vigilance and scrutiny than when it became the watchword of our hopes.
Download or read book The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child written by Ton Liefaard and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 964 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2014 the world’s most widely ratified human rights treaty, one specifically for children, reached the milestone of its twenty-fifth anniversary. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and in the time since then it has entered a new century, reshaping laws, policies, institutions and practices across the globe, along with fundamental conceptions of who children are, their rights and entitlements, and society’s duties and obligations to them. Yet despite its rapid entry into force worldwide, there are concerns that the Convention remains a high-level paper treaty without the traction on the ground needed to address ever-continuing violations of children’s rights. This book, based on papers from the conference ‘25 Years CRC’ held by the Department of Child Law at Leiden University, draws together a rich collection of research and insight by academics, practitioners, NGOs and other specialists to reflect on the lessons of the past 25 years, take stock of how international rights find their way into children’s lives at the local level, and explore the frontiers of children’s rights for the 25 years ahead.
Download or read book Inventing Human Rights A History written by Lynn Hunt and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2008-04-17 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A tour de force.”—Gordon S. Wood, New York Times Book Review How were human rights invented, and how does their tumultuous history influence their perception and our ability to protect them today? From Professor Lynn Hunt comes this extraordinary cultural and intellectual history, which traces the roots of human rights to the rejection of torture as a means for finding the truth. She demonstrates how ideas of human relationships portrayed in novels and art helped spread these new ideals and how human rights continue to be contested today.
Download or read book Water as a Human Right written by John Scanlon and published by IUCN. This book was released on 2004 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Formally acknowledging water as a human right could encourage the international community and governments to enhance their efforts to satisfy basic human needs and to meet the Millennium Development Goals. But critical questions arise in relation to a right to water. What would be the benefits and content of such a right? What mechanisms would be required for its effective implementation? Should the duty be placed on governments alone, or should the responsibility also be borne by private actors? Is another 'academic debate' on this subject warranted when action is really what is necessary? Without claiming to prescribe the answers, this publication clearly and carefully sets out the competing arguments and the challenges.
Download or read book Compasito written by Nancy Flowers and published by Council of Europe. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Living among other people, in their families and communities, children become aware from a very early age of questions related to justice, and they search for the meaning of the world. By fostering an understanding of human rights, shaping opinion and developing attitudes, human rights education strongly supports this natural interest and learning process. This is what human rights education is about and this is what ’Compasito manual on human rights education for children' is for.’Compasito' is a starting point for educators, teachers and trainers who are ready to deal with human rights education with children of 7-13 years. The book covers the key concepts of human rights and children's rights, and provides substantial theoretical background to 13 key human rights issues, such as democracy, citizenship, gender equality, environment, media, poverty, and violence.The 42 practical activities serve to engage and motivate children to recognise human rights issues in their own environment. They help children to develop critical thinking, responsibility and a sense of justice, and help them learn how to take action to contribute to the betterment of their school or community. The manual also gives practical tips on how it can be used in various formal and non-formal educational settings.
