Assessing National Human Rights Performance: A Theoretical Framework

Comparative quantitative assessment of human rights is hampered by the length of the list of internationally recognized rights. Not only is the list so long that it is hard to imagine gathering adequate data without an army of researchers (the International Human Rights Covenants contain more than thirty substantive articles, encompassing at least twice as many separate rights), but the results of such a comprehensive effort would almost certainly be overwhelming and bewildering in their complexity. In this article we try to narrow the list of rights concerning which it is necessary to gather data by establishing a theoretical framework for assessing a state’s human rights performance. We identify a relatively small set of ten essential rights that separately are intrinsically essential and together provide good proxies for almost all other rights. An assessment of national performance on these ten rights, we argue, will approximate a comprehensive assessment of a country’s overall human rights record

Human Dignity, Human Rights, and Political Regimes

It is often argued that internationally recognized human rights are common to all cultural traditions and adaptable to a great variety of social structures and political regimes. Such arguments confuse human rights with human dignity. All societies possess conceptions of human dignity, but the conception of human dignity underlying international human rights standards requires a particular type of “liberal” regime. This conclusion is reached through a comparison of the social structures of ideal type liberal, minimal, traditional, communist, corporatist and developmental regimes and their impact on autonomy, equality, privacy, social conflict, and the definition of societal membership

Human Rights and the War on Terror Second Edition: Introduction

“9/11 changed everything.” Not really. In fact, there has been far more continuity than change over the past six years in both international and domestic politics. Nonetheless, human rights often have been harmed—although not by terrorism but by “the war on terror.

Human Rights

Human rights are, literally, the rights we have simply because we are human. They are equal rights: one either is or is not a human being, and thus has exactly the same human rights as every other human being. They are inalienable rights: one cannot stop being a human being, and therefore cannot lose one\u27s human rights, no matter how horribly one behaves nor how barbarously one is treated. Human rights are also universal rights, held by every human being, everywhere. This chapter offers a conceptual analysis of human rights, a brief account of their historical evolution, and an introduction to some leading theoretical controversies. This paper may be freely circulated in electronic or hard copy provided it is not modified in any way, the rights of the author not infringed, and the paper is not quoted or cited without express permission of the author. The editors cannot guarantee a stable URL for any paper posted here, nor will they be responsible for notifying others if the URL is changed or the paper is taken off the site. Electronic copies of this paper may not be posted on any other website without express permission of the author

In The Valley Where The Blue Grass Grows : A Home Ballad

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/4900/thumbnail.jp

Libertad de conciencia/religión y libertad de expresión: discurso ofensivo hacia la religión y el Derecho Internacional de los Derechos Humanos

Religiously offensive speech is an issue of considerable controversy, both internationally and in many religiously diverse countries. I address the topic in this paper from the perspective of international human rights norms. I show that the rights to freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and nondiscrimination do not provide protections against insensitive, insulting, or even blasphemous speech. To prohibit speech because it is disrespectful to one or more religions in effect imposes the particular religious views of some on others, thus denying not only freedom of expression but also freedom of belief or religion, and thus the basic equality, autonomy, and dignity of those whose speech is restricted.En el espectro internacional, el discurso ofensivo hacia la religión es un tema sumamente controversial en muchos países con diversidad religiosa. Examino el tema en este artículo desde la perspectiva de las normas del Derecho Internacional de los Derechos Humanos. Muestro que los derechos a la libertad de expresión, libertad de conciencia y religión, y la no discriminación no proveen protecciones contra un discurso insensible, insultante o hasta blasfemo. El prohibir un discurso porque muestre una falta de respeto hacia una o más religiones efectivamente impone en algunos las creencias religiosas de otros, negando así nosolo la libertad de expresión sino también la libertad de convicciones o credo, y por tanto la igualdad, autonomía, y dignidad básicas de aquellos cuyo discurso se ha restringido

Exploring Universal Rights: A Symposium

A review of: Which Rights Should Be Universal? by William J. Talbott. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005. 232pp