The Spirit of Laws is Not Universal: Alternatives to the Enforcement Paradigm for Human Rights

Drawing on the contested legacy of Montesquieu in 'The Spirit of the Laws', this essay questions the efficacy of state-centric legality in the enforcement of human rights, and proposes an alternative approach of cultural transformation and political mobilization. The author begins by exploring whether Montesquieu’s thought may have inspired European powers to seek to impose his model of the nation-state and its positive laws through global colonial projects. Second, the author discusses the structural inadequacy of the current treaty-based state-centric enforcement paradigm while highlighting the viability of a universally realistic alternative of cultural transformation and political mobilization for the implementation of consensus-based human rights norms. Third, the author explores his proposed people-centered alternative to the state-centric enforcement model for human rights. This paradigm shift is necessary because the current legalistic approach has totally failed in providing any protection of human rights for the vast majority of humanity around the world

Human rights education in Japan: An historical account, characteristics and suggestions for a better-balanced approach

Although human rights are often expressed as universal tenets, the concept was conceived in a particular socio-political and historical context. Conceptualisations and practice of human rights vary across societies, and face numerous challenges. After providing an historical account of the conceptualisation of human rights in Japanese society, this paper examines human rights education in Japan, focusing on implementation of the United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education. Whilst the Decade’s Action Plan advocates a comprehensive approach, Japanese human rights education focuses far less attention on imparting knowledge and developing learners’ attitudes, placing strong emphasis on aspects of responsibility and harmonious human relations understood in the historical context of Japanese moral education. Pedagogical proposals are made to promote a comprehensive approach, including focus on the role of empowering learners, enabling them to protect themselves by invoking human rights

Human rights education in Japan: An historical account, characteristics and suggestions for a better-balanced approach

Although human rights are often expressed as universal tenets, the concept was conceived in a particular socio-political and historical context. Conceptualisations and practice of human rights vary across societies, and face numerous challenges. After providing an historical account of the conceptualisation of human rights in Japanese society, this paper examines human rights education in Japan, focusing on implementation of the United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education. Whilst the Decade’s Action Plan advocates a comprehensive approach, Japanese human rights education focuses far less attention on imparting knowledge and developing learners’ attitudes, placing strong emphasis on aspects of responsibility and harmonious human relations understood in the historical context of Japanese moral education. Pedagogical proposals are made to promote a comprehensive approach, including focus on the role of empowering learners, enabling them to protect themselves by invoking human rights

How 'universal' is the United Nations' Universal Periodic Review process? An examination of the discussions held on polygamy

In 2006, United Nations Human Rights Council was tasked to establish a new human rights monitoring mechanism: Universal Periodic Review process. The primary aim of this process is to promote and protect the universality of all human rights issues and concerns via a dialogical peer review process. The aim of this investigation isto ask the following question: has this claim of promoting and protecting the universality of the human rights been met, or challenged, during state reviews in the UPR process? The issue of polygamy has been selected as the focus for this investigation to be used, primarily, as a tool to undertake an in-depth analysis of the discussions held during state reviews in the review process. In addition, this paper will employ scholarly debates between universalism and cultural relativism, as well as the sophisticated and nuanced approaches that fall in between the polarised opposites, to analyse the discussions held on human rights during state reviews. Ultimately, the findings and discussion of this investigation will provide a unique and valuable insight to the work and operation of the UPR process, so far

Islamic Politics and Secular Politics: Can They Co-Exist?

Professor Abdullahi An-Na'im's new book, "Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari'a," attempts to set out a theoretical framework for the incorporation of the Shari'a (Islamic law) into the public life of secular democratic states. He also provides detailed case studies of the relationship of contemporary secular states to Islam (India, Turkey and Indonesia) as examples of how Muslim commitments to following the Shari'a can be potentially recognized in secular legal systems without subverting basic commitments of the secular state. Professor Na'im also makes explicit Islamic normative arguments in favor of the secular state and against what he calls a religious state in which religious and political authority are fused. In this review essay, I provide an overview of Na'im's theoretical account of the state and the role of Islam within that state, and his understanding of the Shari'a and why it is compatible with the demands of a secular state (or potentially so). I conclude with a critique of the Islamic reasons he offers in defense of the project of a secular state as being grounded in controversial theological claims that have the potential to undermine the possibility of enlisting the support of orthodox Muslims for the project of a secular state. Instead, I suggest a more sensitive reading of the Islamic theological and legal tradition for precedents that would support the project of a secular state. I argue that using the resources of Islamic theological and legal tradition in support of the idea of a secular state is more likely to win traditionalist Muslim support for a secular state than Islamic arguments that rely on controversial theological propositions that are not necessarily required for at least certain kinds of secular states, e.g. a politically liberal state of the sort An-Naim calls for