International Law

The author argues the concept of human rights is a development of the older notion of natural rights and that the modern understanding of natural rights evolved in the context of the European struggle to legitimate its overseas empires. The French Revolution changed this by, in effect, linking human rights to the idea of citizenship. Human rights were thus tied not only to a specific ethical-legal code but also implicitly to a particular kind of political system, both of inescapably European origin.

In current political debates, the term “cosmopolitanism” is often used in quite vague ways, as part of sweeping generalizations that might not hold up to closer scrutiny. Imperfect Cosmopolis aims to clarify the meaning of the term by approaching it from a decidedly historical perspective—distinguishing, for example, between types of cosmopolitanism and the development of the concept through the centuries.

In Simón, the Argentine Supreme Court held that two amnesty laws, adopted in the late 1980s in order to shield authors of serious human rights violations committed during the so-called ‘Dirty War’ (1976–1983), were unconstitutional and void. Although the Argentine Congress had already repealed the two laws in 2003, uncertainty about the validity of this parliamentary decision had led to some controversy.

More than half a century after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights defined what a human being is and is entitled to, Catharine MacKinnon asks: Are women human yet? If women were regarded as human, would they be sold into sexual slavery worldwide; veiled, silenced, and imprisoned in homes; bred, and worked as menials for little or no pay; stoned for sex outside marriage or burned within it; mutilated genitally, impoverished economically, and mired in illiteracy--all as a matter of course and without effective recourse? 

The human rights regime adopts a legalist approach to limit the harm the powerful may inflict on the vulnerable The attacks of September 11, 2001 and the ensuing ‘war against terrorism’ test the limits of the legalist approach. Human rights constrain state responses to terrorism more directly than they govern the conduct of terrorists. As a result, the international human rights regime is disadvantaged rhetorically and politically.

Increasingly hard-line and restrictive asylum policies and practices of many governments call into question the scope of protections offered by the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. Has the focus on the 1951 Convention been to the detriment and subordination of other rights and standards of treatment owed to refugees and asylum-seekers under international human rights law? Which standard applies in the event that there is a clash or inconsistency between the two bodies of law?

Since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 the refugee regime has evolved with our modern state system, reflecting changes in international law, politics, economics and ideology. Responding to a history of religious and political persecutions, a comprehensive refugee regime finally emerged under the League of Nations after World War I. This regime underwent dramatic change during World War II to create a permanent framework to cope with the refugee problem through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.

Intangible cultural heritage (ICH), made up of all immaterial manifestations of culture, represents the variety of living heritage of humanity as well as the most important vehicle of cultural diversity.

The Universal Declaration on Human Rights was pivotal in popularizing the use of ‘dignity’ or ‘human dignity’ in human rights discourse. This article argues that the use of ‘dignity’, beyond a basic minimum core, does not provide a universalistic, principled basis for judicial decision-making in the human rights context, in the sense that there is little common understanding of what dignity requires substantively within or across jurisdictions.

Paper discussing issues such as: the Rios Montt Government’s counterinsurgency campaign, internal and external refugees as of November 1982, findings of Americas Watch March 1983, Mission to Chiapas, Mexico, direct testimony of Guatemalan refugees, the activities of civil patrols, the Parraxtut incident, the growing refugee populations and Guatemalan Army harassment and surveillance of refugees in Mexico.