Human rights are always a matter of law, but they are increasingly a matter of politics. Much lip-service is paid nowadays to the notion of human rights. At the same time they are being violated all over the world. Peter Baehr presents a succinct introduction to the key theoretical and practical issues that will serve as a useful primer for students and researchers.
Autorentext
PETER R. BAEHR is Emeritus Professor of Human Rights, Utrecht University. He has served as staff director and later member of the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy. He serves in an advisory position on human rights to the Dutch Government. He is co-publisher of The United Nations at the End of the 1990.
Zusammenfassung
Human rights are internationally agreed values, standards, or rules regulating the conduct of states towards their own citizens as well as non-citizens. Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) a great number of international treaties and declarations have seen the light. Their implementation is deficient, however. Many states, especially in Asia, pay lip- service to the universal validity of human rights, but see their supervision as chiefly a domestic affair.In some parts of the world there are regional supervision mechanisms to which citizens can turn when domestic remedies have been exhausted. Non-governmental organizations provide reliable information about violations of human rights. International criminal tribunals, on the former Yugoslavia and on Rwanda, and truth- and-reconciliation commissions are recently established institutions which aim to implement international humanitarian and human rights law.As a political scientist, the author emphasizes the political features of human rights without ignoring, however, their legal aspects.
Inhalt
Preface to the Paperback Edition Preface Introduction Universalism Versus Cultural Relativism Gross and Systematic Violations Economic and Social Rights Collective Rights: The Right of Self-Determination The United Nations Organs Regional Mechanisms Foreign Policy How to Deal with past Violations Non-Governmental Organizations Concluding Observations Appendix: Universal Declaration of Human Rights Notes Bibliography Index