By Andrew Mwenda
NEW VISION - 4th June 2015 -
The timing was surprising because there have hardly been incidents of human rights abuse in Rwanda for a while. Instead the hearing took place against the backdrop of widespread demonstrations in the US against police brutality meted out against African American males. Why would the US congress be bothered by human rights in Rwanda, a country 15,000 miles away, when many of its own citizens are being killed by a run-amok police while others are being sent to jail in droves? In the mid-late 1990s and early 2000s, the government of Rwanda used to be highhanded. It relied on the systematic use of force to consolidate power to a significant degree. This was a period when RPF’s political base was narrow and the government was also fighting a ferocious insurgency inside the country. Since the end of insurgency in 2001 and the rapid growth in the organisational reach of the RPF, the government has progressively moved away from force to economic performance and delivery of public goods and services to citizens to consolidate power. There are still cases of human rights abuse. But they are isolated and occasional, not systemic. Human rights groups have remained oblivious of this progress in large part because acknowledging it takes away their relevance.
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Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Washington’s “human rights” imperialism exposed
Joseph Kishore
WORLD SOCIALIST WEB - 2 April 2015
The Obama administration announced Tuesday that it is resuming arms shipments to the military dictatorship in Egypt, beginning with the transfer of 12 F-16 fighter jets, missiles and the components required to build 125 tanks. In a personal call to Egypt’s ruler, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Obama also pledged to resume the annual transfer of $1.3 billion in military aid. The White House made no effort to claim that Egypt had made “credible progress toward an inclusive, democratically elected civilian government”—the statutory condition for ending the suspension of military aid imposed in October 2013. Instead, it invoked an exemption passed by Congress late last year to override this requirement. Resuming military aid to Egypt, the second largest recipient of such assistance from the US, after Israel, is “in the interest of US national security,” a White House statement declared. Obama told al-Sisi it was necessary for Egypt and the US to “refine our military assistance relationship so that it is better positioned to address the shared challenges to US and Egyptian interests…”
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WORLD SOCIALIST WEB - 2 April 2015
The Obama administration announced Tuesday that it is resuming arms shipments to the military dictatorship in Egypt, beginning with the transfer of 12 F-16 fighter jets, missiles and the components required to build 125 tanks. In a personal call to Egypt’s ruler, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Obama also pledged to resume the annual transfer of $1.3 billion in military aid. The White House made no effort to claim that Egypt had made “credible progress toward an inclusive, democratically elected civilian government”—the statutory condition for ending the suspension of military aid imposed in October 2013. Instead, it invoked an exemption passed by Congress late last year to override this requirement. Resuming military aid to Egypt, the second largest recipient of such assistance from the US, after Israel, is “in the interest of US national security,” a White House statement declared. Obama told al-Sisi it was necessary for Egypt and the US to “refine our military assistance relationship so that it is better positioned to address the shared challenges to US and Egyptian interests…”
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Cultural Relativism and Cultural Imperialism in Human Rights Law
Guyora Binder
State University of New York (SUNY), Buffalo, SUNY Buffalo Law School
1999 Buffalo Human Rights Law Review, Vol. 5, pp. 211-221, 1999
Abstract:
The "Universalism-Cultural Relativism" debate proceeds on the assumption that international human rights law requires the identification of fundamental principles of justice that transcend culture, society, and politics. Thus, the debate presumes that to assert the cultural relativity of justice is to deny the legitimacy of international human rights law. This comment challenges this presumed linkage between international human rights law and universally valid criteria of justice. Human rights standards are obviously culturally relative, and human rights law is obviously a Western institution. But so are the kind of states that human rights law sets out to restrain. The nation-state ideal is rarely fulfilled in the post-colonial world; the weak state sector is often just one cultural structure among many rather than the center from which a national culture radiates. The imperialism critique of human rights law hinges upon an ideal of national self-determination that may be unrealistic for much of the developing world. International governance of these societies is probably inevitable whether or not we acknowledge it. Rather than asking whether human rights standards are authentic to the national cultures of the developing world, we should ask whether and how human rights law marginally contributes to building societies capable of self-determination at some future point.
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State University of New York (SUNY), Buffalo, SUNY Buffalo Law School
1999 Buffalo Human Rights Law Review, Vol. 5, pp. 211-221, 1999
Abstract:
The "Universalism-Cultural Relativism" debate proceeds on the assumption that international human rights law requires the identification of fundamental principles of justice that transcend culture, society, and politics. Thus, the debate presumes that to assert the cultural relativity of justice is to deny the legitimacy of international human rights law. This comment challenges this presumed linkage between international human rights law and universally valid criteria of justice. Human rights standards are obviously culturally relative, and human rights law is obviously a Western institution. But so are the kind of states that human rights law sets out to restrain. The nation-state ideal is rarely fulfilled in the post-colonial world; the weak state sector is often just one cultural structure among many rather than the center from which a national culture radiates. The imperialism critique of human rights law hinges upon an ideal of national self-determination that may be unrealistic for much of the developing world. International governance of these societies is probably inevitable whether or not we acknowledge it. Rather than asking whether human rights standards are authentic to the national cultures of the developing world, we should ask whether and how human rights law marginally contributes to building societies capable of self-determination at some future point.
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Western Human Rights in a Diverse World: Cultural Suppression or Relativism?
Clancy Wright
E-INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - Apr 25 2014
This content was written by a student and assessed as part of a university degree. E-IR publishes student essays & dissertations to allow our readers to broaden their understanding of what is possible when answering similar questions in their own studies.
The Western cultural construct of human rights provides inherent and inalienable rights to all, regardless of culture and tradition. Non-Western cultures do restrict the application of human rights, but only when these rights culturally and traditionally breach the rights of their members. These cultural traditions, such as Sharia law and female circumcision, challenge the cultural foundations of human rights by providing alternative means of understanding the individual and their role in the broader community. As such, cultural relativists who support each culture’s right to variation, even if it grossly abuses the rights of its members, are wrong to suggest human rights is a form of cultural imperialism. Human rights provide a means of enabling all of humanity with inalienable rights without regard to differences or cultural traditions, and as such international human rights law is almost universally supported by states.
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E-INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - Apr 25 2014
This content was written by a student and assessed as part of a university degree. E-IR publishes student essays & dissertations to allow our readers to broaden their understanding of what is possible when answering similar questions in their own studies.
The Western cultural construct of human rights provides inherent and inalienable rights to all, regardless of culture and tradition. Non-Western cultures do restrict the application of human rights, but only when these rights culturally and traditionally breach the rights of their members. These cultural traditions, such as Sharia law and female circumcision, challenge the cultural foundations of human rights by providing alternative means of understanding the individual and their role in the broader community. As such, cultural relativists who support each culture’s right to variation, even if it grossly abuses the rights of its members, are wrong to suggest human rights is a form of cultural imperialism. Human rights provide a means of enabling all of humanity with inalienable rights without regard to differences or cultural traditions, and as such international human rights law is almost universally supported by states.
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Human rights and humanitarian imperialism in Syria
A view from an African American human rights defender
Ajamu Baraka
Pambazuka - Sep 27, 2012
Syria is just the latest in a long line of international crimes perpetrated by Western powers. But what makes the crimes in Syria, as those in Libya, even more offensive, is the cynical use of human rights to advance the diabolical interests of Western imperialism. As the corporate media beat the drums of war with Syria, led this time by CNN and the New York Times with support from the rear coming from the confused white left/liberal likes of Democracy Now, a now familiar line is conjured up to rationalize intervention – humanitarian intervention as a basis to exercise the ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P). David Gergen, the ‘soft neocon’ advisor to both republican and democratic presidents, made the claim on CNN recently that human rights groups would love to see the US intervene in Syria. A claim that is probably accurate for the US-based white, middle-class human rights mainstream. But this position certainly does not represent the positions of the growing, but largely ignored, ‘new human rights movement’ of grassroots organizations of people of color, informed by an African American radical human rights tradition, [1] who are reclaiming and redefining human rights as an anti-oppression, anti-imperialist ‘people-centered’ movement. But before I touch on this new movement let me briefly explore how this new version of the white man’s burden emerged to become the main device for mobilizing public opinion in the US to support war in the guise of humanitarianism.
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Ajamu Baraka
Pambazuka - Sep 27, 2012
Syria is just the latest in a long line of international crimes perpetrated by Western powers. But what makes the crimes in Syria, as those in Libya, even more offensive, is the cynical use of human rights to advance the diabolical interests of Western imperialism. As the corporate media beat the drums of war with Syria, led this time by CNN and the New York Times with support from the rear coming from the confused white left/liberal likes of Democracy Now, a now familiar line is conjured up to rationalize intervention – humanitarian intervention as a basis to exercise the ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P). David Gergen, the ‘soft neocon’ advisor to both republican and democratic presidents, made the claim on CNN recently that human rights groups would love to see the US intervene in Syria. A claim that is probably accurate for the US-based white, middle-class human rights mainstream. But this position certainly does not represent the positions of the growing, but largely ignored, ‘new human rights movement’ of grassroots organizations of people of color, informed by an African American radical human rights tradition, [1] who are reclaiming and redefining human rights as an anti-oppression, anti-imperialist ‘people-centered’ movement. But before I touch on this new movement let me briefly explore how this new version of the white man’s burden emerged to become the main device for mobilizing public opinion in the US to support war in the guise of humanitarianism.
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Imperialism and Human Rights: Colonial Discourses of Rights and Liberties in African History Bonny Ibhawoh
SUNY series in Human Rights - 2008
The end of the Second World War marked the dawn of a new age of rights. Since the adoption of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) soon after the war in 1948, the subject of rights has become a theme of great popular and academic interest. Rights have become the dominant language for public good around the globe 1 as well as the language of choice for making and contesting entitlement claims. The language of rights has attained such importance that today it underlies almost every facet of public and private dis- course, from claims within the family unit to national and global political debates. Indeed, the past five decades have spawned a global “rights revolution”—a revolution of norms and values that has redefined our understanding of ethics and justice.
TABLE OF CONTENTS: 1. The Subject of Rights and the Rights of Subjects 2. Right, Liberties, and the Imperial World Order 3. Stronger than the Maxim Gun: Law, Rights, and Justice 4. Confronting State Trusteeship: Land Rights Discourses 5. Negotiating Inclusion: Social Rights Discourses 6. Citizens of the World’s Republic: Political and Civil Rights Discourses 7. The Paradox of Rights Talk
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The end of the Second World War marked the dawn of a new age of rights. Since the adoption of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) soon after the war in 1948, the subject of rights has become a theme of great popular and academic interest. Rights have become the dominant language for public good around the globe 1 as well as the language of choice for making and contesting entitlement claims. The language of rights has attained such importance that today it underlies almost every facet of public and private dis- course, from claims within the family unit to national and global political debates. Indeed, the past five decades have spawned a global “rights revolution”—a revolution of norms and values that has redefined our understanding of ethics and justice.TABLE OF CONTENTS: 1. The Subject of Rights and the Rights of Subjects 2. Right, Liberties, and the Imperial World Order 3. Stronger than the Maxim Gun: Law, Rights, and Justice 4. Confronting State Trusteeship: Land Rights Discourses 5. Negotiating Inclusion: Social Rights Discourses 6. Citizens of the World’s Republic: Political and Civil Rights Discourses 7. The Paradox of Rights Talk
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Intervention - imperialism or human rights? Ray Kiely
OPEN DEMOCRACY - 21 October 2014
The issue of intervention, and more specifically of altruistic, liberal intervention has regained its prominence in the post-Cold War era. Interventions—their forms and their justifications—have varied since the early 1990s, but they have usually involved some recourse to the argument that the human rights of individuals are more important than the sovereignty of states. Critics reject intervention irrespective of circumstances, on the grounds that state sovereignty is paramount, cosmopolitanism is instrumentalised by powerful actors in order to impose their will on weaker ones, and that the morality of intervention is undermined by double standards. Many liberal interventionists contend that such arguments might have applied in the Cold War, but they are far less applicable now. In the past, Western interventions were often carried out to protect authoritarian regimes on the grounds that this was unavoidable in the context of Cold War power politics, but now intervention is said to be less self-interested and targeted at undemocratic regimes with poor human rights records. Sometimes the argument is made that these interventions remain self-interested and ethical justifications are simply ideological covers for Western interests. However, too often what it is not made clear is what these interests are: for instance, the claim that the war in Iraq was really a war for oil is hardly convincing as the US easily meets its oil requirements irrespective of Iraqi oil, and in any case it is less dependent on Middle East oil than other nations. The argument that interventions are hypocritical because they involve double standards might be true but for interventionists it is beside the point, as it is impossible to intervene in all places at all times. Moreover, the exercise of double standards is a lesser evil than simply allowing dictatorial regimes to continue. In effect cases against intervention made by so-called anti-imperialists all too easily become apologies for dictatorships.
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The issue of intervention, and more specifically of altruistic, liberal intervention has regained its prominence in the post-Cold War era. Interventions—their forms and their justifications—have varied since the early 1990s, but they have usually involved some recourse to the argument that the human rights of individuals are more important than the sovereignty of states. Critics reject intervention irrespective of circumstances, on the grounds that state sovereignty is paramount, cosmopolitanism is instrumentalised by powerful actors in order to impose their will on weaker ones, and that the morality of intervention is undermined by double standards. Many liberal interventionists contend that such arguments might have applied in the Cold War, but they are far less applicable now. In the past, Western interventions were often carried out to protect authoritarian regimes on the grounds that this was unavoidable in the context of Cold War power politics, but now intervention is said to be less self-interested and targeted at undemocratic regimes with poor human rights records. Sometimes the argument is made that these interventions remain self-interested and ethical justifications are simply ideological covers for Western interests. However, too often what it is not made clear is what these interests are: for instance, the claim that the war in Iraq was really a war for oil is hardly convincing as the US easily meets its oil requirements irrespective of Iraqi oil, and in any case it is less dependent on Middle East oil than other nations. The argument that interventions are hypocritical because they involve double standards might be true but for interventionists it is beside the point, as it is impossible to intervene in all places at all times. Moreover, the exercise of double standards is a lesser evil than simply allowing dictatorial regimes to continue. In effect cases against intervention made by so-called anti-imperialists all too easily become apologies for dictatorships.
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Are Human Rights dominated by Imperialism?
December 12th, 2013 | by Bilawal Atwal
One of the key criticisms of human rights imperialism is how influential and key states are enforcing foreign-policy with nationalistic agendas under the banner of human rights. The diplomacy for human rights is merely discussion and has emerged as a key part of the vocabulary of modern foreign-policy interactions between international agents.[3] This is one of the key arguments that constitute and help enforce human rights imperialism; the reason for these states to so assiduously pursue human rights, is due to the term becoming mere international relations language between states to gain legitimacy across the realm of international relations and the mainstream. Human rights laws are dominated by national policy goals[4] and hence this anchors the hypocrisy that arises from this imperialism.
Another key argument to consider is the fact that there is no single state to impose just peace leading to an anarchic system of international relations. The lack of a single world government or an institutional body with true political might that can oversee and protect the relations between states, leads to this anarchy because state relations that aren’t truly or justifiably regulated. This means that states with a huge of expansive sphere of influence can interact in whatever way they need to in pursuing national interests, no matter how detrimental it could be to the livelihood of others. This sovereignty is argued to be affecting human rights. Realist thought towards the paradigm of human rights imperialism also consider that it’s an ethical objection. It’s an ethical objection to the assumption of a universal morality that human rights formed out.[5] The key, influential institutions and states are the ones who ultimately determine what would constitute to one’s human rights becoming infringed. These states not only determine the definition of human rights but can potentially enforce it as a ruse to pursue national interests.
Human Rights were formed from Liberalism. This school of thought arose from the general consensus from human rights advocates, that individuals obtaining rights should be respected. All individuals have equal and moral worth and human rights helps promote this. Unlike realist thought that considers human rights imperialism to be a significant factor in inhibiting the true access of human rights. The world view is that western states are enshrining the rights of citizens through various means; and ultimately is significant to the development of human rights and even abolishing slavery.[6] Liberal arguments claim the western world has been the catalyst for this human rights revolution, and also need to be present during the evolving dynamic of human rights practices. These states that dominate international relations are the ones who not only promote them efficiently but also have the practical means to ensuring the protection of each person’s human rights.
Liberal thought does give key arguments for the importance of human rights and why it is the western world that needs to pursue human rights. However it also fails to address the fundamental inconsistencies from the western world that have audaciously promoted human rights and the conceptual flaws that can allow these states to use the name of human rights, which exerts great normative legitimacy even from the mainstream, for their own national interests while at the same time paradoxically abusing the human rights of others.
[17] R. Crelinsten, Counterterrorism (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009), pp 76 – 77.
Most
people are aware of human rights and know the importance of maintaining
them. However people remain ignorant regarding the debates surrounding
the implementation of human rights for imperialism. Since the end of the
cold war, the realm of human rights has expanded towards a global issue
that has manifested into one of the key cornerstones of foreign-policy
between international actors. Imperialism is a policy of extending
control or authority over foreign entities as a means of acquisition
and/or maintenance of empires, either through direct territorial
conquest or through indirect methods of exerting control on the politics
and/or economy of other countries.[1] Human rights imperialism is
attempting to maintain or extend control or authority under the banner
of human rights. The terminology of human rights has given the concept
normative weight, from both the mainstream and throughout international
relations. The argument for this form of imperialism is that the states
that promote it, or have the greatest spheres of influences, can use
this normative weight to accomplish national interests under the banner
of human rights. It is a potential risk within the realm of human
rights.
It’s imperative to assess the conceptual framework associated with
human rights imperialism and the potential consequential risks arising
from enforcing this unjust practice of human rights. To grasp a better
understanding of the concept of Imperialism within Human Rights, I will
bring in Realism to this debate. Please note: while I am not a realist
they have some sound arguments regarding this debate. A student from the
Realist international relations school of thought would agree that
human rights imperialism is a serious risk in the promotion of
successful human rights and could even agree with the argument that the
heavyweights of the international arena merely use the name of human
rights to achieve ultimate national interest goals. Realists consider
interests to dominate political action; politics to be merely a struggle
for power to enforce these interests; and there being no right or
wrong, but only opinion backed by force.[2] Ultimately the realist world
becomes one where the key actors on the international stage break the
rules and only agreements are made if they are beneficial for their
national interests; it becomes one inhospitable for the practice of
human rights.One of the key criticisms of human rights imperialism is how influential and key states are enforcing foreign-policy with nationalistic agendas under the banner of human rights. The diplomacy for human rights is merely discussion and has emerged as a key part of the vocabulary of modern foreign-policy interactions between international agents.[3] This is one of the key arguments that constitute and help enforce human rights imperialism; the reason for these states to so assiduously pursue human rights, is due to the term becoming mere international relations language between states to gain legitimacy across the realm of international relations and the mainstream. Human rights laws are dominated by national policy goals[4] and hence this anchors the hypocrisy that arises from this imperialism.
Another key argument to consider is the fact that there is no single state to impose just peace leading to an anarchic system of international relations. The lack of a single world government or an institutional body with true political might that can oversee and protect the relations between states, leads to this anarchy because state relations that aren’t truly or justifiably regulated. This means that states with a huge of expansive sphere of influence can interact in whatever way they need to in pursuing national interests, no matter how detrimental it could be to the livelihood of others. This sovereignty is argued to be affecting human rights. Realist thought towards the paradigm of human rights imperialism also consider that it’s an ethical objection. It’s an ethical objection to the assumption of a universal morality that human rights formed out.[5] The key, influential institutions and states are the ones who ultimately determine what would constitute to one’s human rights becoming infringed. These states not only determine the definition of human rights but can potentially enforce it as a ruse to pursue national interests.
Human Rights were formed from Liberalism. This school of thought arose from the general consensus from human rights advocates, that individuals obtaining rights should be respected. All individuals have equal and moral worth and human rights helps promote this. Unlike realist thought that considers human rights imperialism to be a significant factor in inhibiting the true access of human rights. The world view is that western states are enshrining the rights of citizens through various means; and ultimately is significant to the development of human rights and even abolishing slavery.[6] Liberal arguments claim the western world has been the catalyst for this human rights revolution, and also need to be present during the evolving dynamic of human rights practices. These states that dominate international relations are the ones who not only promote them efficiently but also have the practical means to ensuring the protection of each person’s human rights.
Liberal thought does give key arguments for the importance of human rights and why it is the western world that needs to pursue human rights. However it also fails to address the fundamental inconsistencies from the western world that have audaciously promoted human rights and the conceptual flaws that can allow these states to use the name of human rights, which exerts great normative legitimacy even from the mainstream, for their own national interests while at the same time paradoxically abusing the human rights of others.
One of the key risks that could arise from the
implementation of human rights via the campaigns of influential states
is that these states define what would conclude a human rights abuse.
It’s also significant to consider how most major superpowers that have
ever existed have had this universal claim to know what’s right and
ultimately enforce their moral compass, no matter how distorted, onto
external states and communities. Carr (1946) found that the link between
national interests and universal morality is evident in the
justifications of colonial possessions by European imperial powers
within the 19th century.[7] This could also be determined from how the
US promotes democracy under sometimes frightening methods. This argument
of how these empires claim to hold moral superiority and right is one
that will be used to criticise the risks of human security imperialism.
Some of the most oppressive regimes would use propaganda to claim moral
superiority, but still enacted through tyrannical methods. This ties in
with the article title, as the assumed universal principle of morality
is still perception. A powerful institute or state could infringe on
one’s human rights while still upholding this notion of moral
superiority. The tyrannical possibilities from these empires and
powerful institutions, under the name of human rights, are potential.
Already the US, one of the biggest contributors towards the field of
human rights, has caused human rights violation under this morale
mediator label.
Another debate to consider is how economic forces and structures are
preventing the active and legitimate practice of human rights.[8] This
is the argument that the legal field of human rights is subordinated
through exploitive capitalism that aim to achieve their means of
productions over the standard of living for people.[9] These arguments
can be coherently compared with the potential risks of human rights
imperialism as it would be the most powerful institutions that also
place importance towards the economic outcomes of diplomacy over any
human right outcome. Yet, to achieve some of these economic outcomes
would require these powerful states to operate illegitimately; one which
can be expressed through human rights.
David Kennedy argues that while the human rights movement
has done a great deal of good, it was also part of the problem. They do
not consider the full range of potential down-sides or negative
consequences due to the normative foundations that arise from the debate
of human rights.[10] He echoes the arguments that powerful institutions
can use the language of human rights for legitimacy due to no concrete
definition of what infringes one’s human rights.[11] This can allow
states to mitigate the definition to give a context, or a policy, some
normative weight which ultimately anchors the importance of human
rights. It’s this normative weight that helps advocates exert this
profound notion of promoting human rights, without considering the
imperialism that could consequently spawn through this. But this should
not be ignored, as it could be detrimental and of a great cost, because
it could be costly not through the actions but lack of actions. Actual
human rights violations and those pursued by these states should be
compared to reveal the incoherencies or coherencies. This could
eventually lead to this imperial viewpoint towards implementing human
rights. Kennedy makes another contributing factor in considering these
risks; rights are socially constructed. The more powerful a right is
enacted or perceived to be then the more power and influence to the
society that had constructed them.[12]
The United States have been one of the key contributors
towards human rights since the twentieth century. However it is through
their human rights violations that they have committed, that anchor
these potential risks. This ties in both with the expansive policies the
US enforces, sometimes in the name of human rights, and the risks of
the private and external threats of human rights that can at the same
time ignite human rights imperialism.
This would be through transnational corporations that abuse
human rights, to achieve their ultimate economic goals, without having
to the legitimate aspects of this.[13] Private corporations are argued
to be disrupting human rights and are freely non-punished.[14] The
states that these private corporations fall under could use these
corporations to achieve national interest goals while also undermining
human rights. Is this the case with the US?
One of the biggest advocates for human rights in the US
violated these same rights they so assiduously promoted throughout the
international spectrum. The UN are claimed to be too reliant on
sovereign US, and this is anchored through the controversial military
action by the US using NATO to “save” Kosovo.[15] This was done in the
name of human rights, but also undermined the human rights of innocent
Serbians under an oppressive regime.[16] This controversial military
action argued by critics is reflected through the War on Terror campaign
that shifted the focus on human rights practices towards one of the
western states that advocated it. The methods practiced through this war
on terror campaign violated human rights of people not determined yet
to be criminals, only the potentiality. This is a frightening fact that
the biggest promoters in human rights, so easily violated it without a
one-hundred percent assurance. These violations were enacted through;
extraordinary renditions, coercive interrogations and illegitimate
humanitarian interventions.[17]
These illegal and unjust methods are extreme violations of
human rights and do expose the risk of human rights imperialism, as the
people or the US who enforced these drastic measures have not been
legally trialled or received adequate justice. The Abu Graib and
Guantanamo Bay atrocities also help develop this. The ethical failures
of the US in torturing inmates, in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Graib,
exacerbate human rights violations exerted from the US’ military
intelligence. These inmates are imprisoned for the ultimate goal of
preventing human rights by violating human rights, and thus this anchors
the risk of human rights imperialism through this subjective moral
hypocrisy.
The risks of human rights imperialism are detrimental to
the human rights of those who will consequently suffer. Human rights are
and have been crucial to the globalisation of morality in society.
Human rights is an important right, people don’t choose where they are
born. It’s not justice nor is it fair for someone who’s born in a
developing country to be in a worst position than someone who was born
in our country for example; it’s all dirt that we have perceived to have
borders. Human beings are all of equal worth, and human rights are
imperative to ensuring this.
The power and biased influence that these influential
institutional bodies spread can be ultimately strengthened by labelling
it under their human rights regime. These states are also the ones whose
definition of human rights is the one that will dominate, as these
states are the ones promoting it. In conclusion, human rights are in
risk of imperialism. There is no regulatory body that can exert
regulation of state interactions; as theses states could promote human
rights under false pretences to gain these overall nationalist goals.
Through how the US has been enforcing human rights, while at the same
time violating these human rights in attempting to protect human rights
provides evidence to conclude that it is a risk. A risk that will
continue to prevail until the practice of human rights is
institutionalised at the minimum, or regulated through an unbiased
international institution with political might and not under the
influence of any state.
[1] U. J. Heuer and G. Schirmer, Human Rights Imperialism, Monthly Review 49:10 (1998), p. VII.
[2] R. J. Vincent, Human Rights and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 121.
[4] S, Chesterman, Human Rights as subjectivitiy: Age of
Rights and the Politics of Culture, Millennium: Journal of International
Studies, Vol. 27 (1998), p. 98.
[5] C. Tomuschat, Human rights: between idealism and realism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 260.
[6] M, Goodhart, Human Rights: Politics and Practice (Oxford: OUP, 2009), p. 63.
[7] Goodhart (2009), p. 63.
[8] L. Kolakowski, Daedalus: Human Rights 112: 4 (1983), p. 83.
[9] Ibid, p. 84
[10] R. Dickinson, E. Katswell and C. Murray, Examining
critical perspectives on human rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2012), p. 20.
[11] Ibid, 23.
[12] Ibid, 28.
[13] A. Clapham, “Human Rights obligations of non-state
actors in conflict situations”, International Review of the Red Cross
88: 863 (2006), p. 492.
[14] Ibid, p. 514.
[15] D. Kostovicova, M. Martin and V. Bojicic-Dzelilovic,
‘The missing link in human security research: Dialogue and insecurity in
Kosovo’, Security Dialogue 43: 569 (2012), p. 570.
[16] Ibid.[17] R. Crelinsten, Counterterrorism (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009), pp 76 – 77.
The Last Utopia Human Rights in History - Samuel Moyn
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS - 2012
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.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Humanity before Human Rights 2. Death from Birth 3. Why Anticolonialism Wasn’t a Human Rights Movement 4. The Purity of This Struggle 5. International Law and Human Rights Epilogue: The Burden of Morality
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.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Humanity before Human Rights 2. Death from Birth 3. Why Anticolonialism Wasn’t a Human Rights Movement 4. The Purity of This Struggle 5. International Law and Human Rights Epilogue: The Burden of Morality
Imperialists for “Human Rights”
The language of “human rights” has become the language of Western aggression.
by Bécquer Seguín
JACOBIN - 12/19/14
Historical writing comes in different shapes and sizes. Seed-like microhistories — the kind Jill Lepore has popularized in recent years in the pages of the New Yorker — start small before blossoming out into the air of the present and digging their roots into the soil of age-old questions. Inflated global histories, by contrast, swiftly bounce like a beach ball from one event, country, or time period to another, covering in a handful of pages what other scholars might in a lifetime. Acute in its attention to epochal shifts, the style of legal historian Samuel Moyn’s 2012 book, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History, might best resemble a scalpel. His is a reconstructive history whose procedures include trimming down sweeping claims and excising carcinogenic histories absorbed in a singular moment (i.e. the French Revolution).
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by Bécquer Seguín
JACOBIN - 12/19/14
Historical writing comes in different shapes and sizes. Seed-like microhistories — the kind Jill Lepore has popularized in recent years in the pages of the New Yorker — start small before blossoming out into the air of the present and digging their roots into the soil of age-old questions. Inflated global histories, by contrast, swiftly bounce like a beach ball from one event, country, or time period to another, covering in a handful of pages what other scholars might in a lifetime. Acute in its attention to epochal shifts, the style of legal historian Samuel Moyn’s 2012 book, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History, might best resemble a scalpel. His is a reconstructive history whose procedures include trimming down sweeping claims and excising carcinogenic histories absorbed in a singular moment (i.e. the French Revolution).
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End human rights imperialism now - Stephen Kinzer
THE GUARDIAN - 31 DECEMBER 2010
Tthose of us who used to consider ourselves part of the human rights movement but have lost the faith, the most intriguing piece of news in 2010 was the appointment of an eminent foreign policy mandarin, James Hoge, as board chairman of Human Rights Watch.
Hoge has a huge task, and not simply because human rights violations around the world are so pervasive and egregious. Just as great a challenge is remaking the human rights movement itself. Founded by idealists who wanted to make the world a better place, it has in recent years become the vanguard of a new form of imperialism.
Want to depose the government of a poor country with resources? Want to bash Muslims? Want to build support for American military interventions around the world? Want to undermine governments that are raising their people up from poverty because they don't conform to the tastes of upper west side intellectuals? Use human rights as your excuse!
This has become the unspoken mantra of a movement that has lost its way.
Human Rights Watch is hardly the only offender. There are a host of others, ranging from Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders to the Carr Centre for Human Rights at Harvard and the pitifully misled "anti-genocide" movement. All promote an absolutist view of human rights permeated by modern western ideas that westerners mistakenly call "universal". In some cases, their work, far from saving lives, actually causes more death, more repression, more brutality and an absolute weakening of human rights.
READ MORE.....
Tthose of us who used to consider ourselves part of the human rights movement but have lost the faith, the most intriguing piece of news in 2010 was the appointment of an eminent foreign policy mandarin, James Hoge, as board chairman of Human Rights Watch.
Hoge has a huge task, and not simply because human rights violations around the world are so pervasive and egregious. Just as great a challenge is remaking the human rights movement itself. Founded by idealists who wanted to make the world a better place, it has in recent years become the vanguard of a new form of imperialism.
Want to depose the government of a poor country with resources? Want to bash Muslims? Want to build support for American military interventions around the world? Want to undermine governments that are raising their people up from poverty because they don't conform to the tastes of upper west side intellectuals? Use human rights as your excuse!
This has become the unspoken mantra of a movement that has lost its way.
Human Rights Watch is hardly the only offender. There are a host of others, ranging from Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders to the Carr Centre for Human Rights at Harvard and the pitifully misled "anti-genocide" movement. All promote an absolutist view of human rights permeated by modern western ideas that westerners mistakenly call "universal". In some cases, their work, far from saving lives, actually causes more death, more repression, more brutality and an absolute weakening of human rights.
READ MORE.....
Friday, March 18, 2016
The human rights record of the 'human rights defender'
CCTV.com - 03-13-2016
BEIJING, March 13 (Xinhua) -- The state-run China Central Television on Sunday aired a documentary that reveals the United States' double standards on human rights-related issues, whereby the U.S. pokes its nose into other countries' internal affairs while leaving many of its own problems unsolved. Based on extensive media reports both inside and outside the U.S., and interviews of many human rights experts from China, the U.S., France, Canada, Russia and Switzerland, the 45-minute TV program revealed the U.S. trampling on American people's human rights in all walks of life. In 2015, more than 560,000 people across the United States were homeless, 25 percent of whom were under age; the country's primary women's prison Lowell Correctional Institution, where 2,696 convicts are held, is rampant with corruption, torture of prisoners, and sexual abuse; women are subject to sexual harassment and sexual assaults of different forms, and career women subject to discrimination at work, the documentary showed, citing media reports. Of teenagers aged 15 and above who succumb to injuries in the States, one quarter die in shooting incidents; the Federal Bureau of Investigation forces Internet companies to provide clients' information without a court approval, according to the documentary. The United States has been using double standards on practically every human rights-related issue, which is showcased both by its invasion of citizens' privacy through online surveillance and civilian deaths caused by its drone attacks in Pakistan, Yemen and other countries, it showed. For a very long time, the United States has been quite condescending, with the belief that it has the best system and human rights record, and as a result, it tends to find fault with other countries, Ji Hong, researcher with the Institute of American Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in the program.
READ MORE AND WATCH THE DOCUMENTARY.....
BEIJING, March 13 (Xinhua) -- The state-run China Central Television on Sunday aired a documentary that reveals the United States' double standards on human rights-related issues, whereby the U.S. pokes its nose into other countries' internal affairs while leaving many of its own problems unsolved. Based on extensive media reports both inside and outside the U.S., and interviews of many human rights experts from China, the U.S., France, Canada, Russia and Switzerland, the 45-minute TV program revealed the U.S. trampling on American people's human rights in all walks of life. In 2015, more than 560,000 people across the United States were homeless, 25 percent of whom were under age; the country's primary women's prison Lowell Correctional Institution, where 2,696 convicts are held, is rampant with corruption, torture of prisoners, and sexual abuse; women are subject to sexual harassment and sexual assaults of different forms, and career women subject to discrimination at work, the documentary showed, citing media reports. Of teenagers aged 15 and above who succumb to injuries in the States, one quarter die in shooting incidents; the Federal Bureau of Investigation forces Internet companies to provide clients' information without a court approval, according to the documentary. The United States has been using double standards on practically every human rights-related issue, which is showcased both by its invasion of citizens' privacy through online surveillance and civilian deaths caused by its drone attacks in Pakistan, Yemen and other countries, it showed. For a very long time, the United States has been quite condescending, with the belief that it has the best system and human rights record, and as a result, it tends to find fault with other countries, Ji Hong, researcher with the Institute of American Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in the program.
READ MORE AND WATCH THE DOCUMENTARY.....
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Humanitarian Imperialism: Sow Chaos, Then Force People to Reap Consequences
SPUTNIK 28.02.2016
Jean Bricmont, the author of 'Humanitarian Imperialism', a study of how the idea of human rights has been used to justify Western imperialism, finds it troubling that the Western powers engaged in 'humanitarian interventions' abroad have the gall to tell their own populations to 'welcome the refugees' when things go awry.
Recently interviewed by independent journalist Maidhc O Cathail for CounterPunch Magazine, Bricmont explained that Europeans have every right to be angry about the influx of refugees from countries embroiled in war and unrest, but that it's worth recalling the roots of the present crisis.
"The same people who encouraged 'humanitarian' interventions and 'support' for armed insurrections abroad, that have led to perpetual wars, generating a constant flow of refugees, are now demanding that the population of our countries 'welcome the refugees'. They first generate chaos there, then they applaud chaos here. It cannot last forever," Bricmont noted.
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Jean Bricmont, the author of 'Humanitarian Imperialism', a study of how the idea of human rights has been used to justify Western imperialism, finds it troubling that the Western powers engaged in 'humanitarian interventions' abroad have the gall to tell their own populations to 'welcome the refugees' when things go awry.
Recently interviewed by independent journalist Maidhc O Cathail for CounterPunch Magazine, Bricmont explained that Europeans have every right to be angry about the influx of refugees from countries embroiled in war and unrest, but that it's worth recalling the roots of the present crisis.
"The same people who encouraged 'humanitarian' interventions and 'support' for armed insurrections abroad, that have led to perpetual wars, generating a constant flow of refugees, are now demanding that the population of our countries 'welcome the refugees'. They first generate chaos there, then they applaud chaos here. It cannot last forever," Bricmont noted.
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Thursday, January 28, 2016
The Power of the Human-Rights Movement
Aryeh Neier, President Emeritus of the Open Society Foundations and a founder of Human Rights Watch, is the author of The International Human Rights Movement: A History.
PROJECT SYNDICATE -JAN 27, 2016
NEW YORK – Most of those who devote themselves to safeguarding human rights worldwide would agree that this is a very bad time for our movement. The evidence is all around us. Today, the number of people who have been forcibly displaced by war and severe repression is higher than at any time since World War II. Yet resistance to the resettlement of refugees is rising sharply, owing largely to fears stirred by terrorist attacks in many countries. Indeed, now, in the name of enhancing security, many governments are violating fundamental human rights. Support Project Syndicate’s mission Project Syndicate needs your help to provide readers everywhere equal access to the ideas and debates shaping their lives. Learn more Governments in China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Israel, and Russia are taking – or seriously considering – steps that will hobble civil society by restricting the funding available to nongovernmental organizations. China has been cracking down on human-rights lawyers. In Eastern Europe, from Hungary to Poland, illiberal nationalism is on the rise. Even the mature democracies of Western Europe and the United States have seen a surge in public support for political figures espousing nationalist and xenophobic doctrines. Has the trend toward greater international protection of human rights, which began four decades ago, come to an end?
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PROJECT SYNDICATE -JAN 27, 2016
NEW YORK – Most of those who devote themselves to safeguarding human rights worldwide would agree that this is a very bad time for our movement. The evidence is all around us. Today, the number of people who have been forcibly displaced by war and severe repression is higher than at any time since World War II. Yet resistance to the resettlement of refugees is rising sharply, owing largely to fears stirred by terrorist attacks in many countries. Indeed, now, in the name of enhancing security, many governments are violating fundamental human rights. Support Project Syndicate’s mission Project Syndicate needs your help to provide readers everywhere equal access to the ideas and debates shaping their lives. Learn more Governments in China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Israel, and Russia are taking – or seriously considering – steps that will hobble civil society by restricting the funding available to nongovernmental organizations. China has been cracking down on human-rights lawyers. In Eastern Europe, from Hungary to Poland, illiberal nationalism is on the rise. Even the mature democracies of Western Europe and the United States have seen a surge in public support for political figures espousing nationalist and xenophobic doctrines. Has the trend toward greater international protection of human rights, which began four decades ago, come to an end?
READ MORE.....
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