Anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod analyzes the rise of a pervasive literary trope in the West—that of the abused Muslim girl.
The Daily Beast – Women in the World – October 22, 2013
This book seeks answers to the questions that presented themselves to me with such force after 9/11 when popular concern about Muslim women’s rights took off. As an anthropologist who had spent decades living in communities in the Middle East, I was uncomfortable with disjunction between the lives and experiences of Muslim women I had known and the popular media representations I encountered in the Western public sphere, the politically motivated justifications for military intervention on behalf of Muslim women that became common sense, and even the well-meaning humanitarian and rights work intended to relieve global women’s suffering. What worldly effects were these concerns having on different women? And how might we take responsibility for distant women’s circumstances and possibilities in what is clearly an interconnected global world, instead of viewing them as victims of alien cultures? This book is about the ethics and politics of the global circulation of discourses on Muslim women’s rights.
Primed for Moral Crusades
To understand why the new common sense about going to war for women’s rights seems so right despite the flaws I have laid out—whether its reliance on the myth of a homogeneous place called IslamLand or its selective and moralizing imperative to save others far away—we need to look sideways. Two other popular ways of talking about violations of women’s rights that have emerged in the past few decades lend support to the kinds of representations of women’s suffering that writers like these present. On one side is a political and moral enterprise with tremendous legitimacy in our era: international human rights. Women’s rights language and the institutional apparatus that has developed in tandem have been associated with human rights since the 1990s: feminists began to campaign with the slogan “women’s rights are human rights.” Their successes have led some in legal studies to detect the emergence of governance feminism (GF), the domination by radical feminists of legal, bureaucratic, and political institutions around the world. At the center of this set of institutions is a claim to universal values.
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Sunday, November 24, 2013
Sunday, November 17, 2013
A Classic on Human Rights Literature: Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights By Carol C. Gould
Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights
By Carol C. Gould
Cambridge University Press - 2004
Carol Gould addresses the fundamental issue of democratizing
globalization, or finding ways to open transnational institutions and
communities to democratic participation by those widely affected by
their decisions. Gould develops a framework for expanding participation
in cross-border decisions, arguing for a broader understanding of human
rights. In addition, she introduces a new role for the ideas of care
and solidarity at a distance. Her accessible text will be a major new
contribution to political philosophy.
Introduction: between the personal and the global
Part I. Theoretical Considerations:
1. Hard questions in democratic theory: when justice and democracy conflict
2. Two concepts of universality and the problem of cultural relativism
Part II. Democracy and Rights, Personalized and Pluralized:
3. Embodied politics
4. Racism and democracy
5. Cultural identity, group rights, and social ontology
6. Conceptualizing women's human rights
Part III. Globalizing Democracy in a Human Rights Framework:
7. Evaluating the claims for a global democracy
8. Are democracy and human rights compatible in the context of globalization?
9. The global democratic deficit and economic human rights
Part IV. Current Applications:
10. Democratic management and the stakeholder idea
11. Democratic networks: technological and political
12. Terrorism, empathy, and democracy
By Carol C. Gould
Cambridge University Press - 2004
Carol Gould addresses the fundamental issue of democratizing
globalization, or finding ways to open transnational institutions and
communities to democratic participation by those widely affected by
their decisions. Gould develops a framework for expanding participation
in cross-border decisions, arguing for a broader understanding of human
rights. In addition, she introduces a new role for the ideas of care
and solidarity at a distance. Her accessible text will be a major new
contribution to political philosophy. Introduction: between the personal and the global
Part I. Theoretical Considerations:
1. Hard questions in democratic theory: when justice and democracy conflict
2. Two concepts of universality and the problem of cultural relativism
Part II. Democracy and Rights, Personalized and Pluralized:
3. Embodied politics
4. Racism and democracy
5. Cultural identity, group rights, and social ontology
6. Conceptualizing women's human rights
Part III. Globalizing Democracy in a Human Rights Framework:
7. Evaluating the claims for a global democracy
8. Are democracy and human rights compatible in the context of globalization?
9. The global democratic deficit and economic human rights
Part IV. Current Applications:
10. Democratic management and the stakeholder idea
11. Democratic networks: technological and political
12. Terrorism, empathy, and democracy
U.S. National Human Rights Institution: A Bad Idea
By Steven Groves
The Heritage Foundation - November 15, 2013
For several years elements of the international human rights
community have advocated that the United States should establish a
National Human Rights Institution (NHRI) to promote and monitor
implementation of international human rights treaties, norms, and
standards in the United States. However, creating a NHRI is a bad idea.
Human rights activists would use a NHRI to advocate for recognition of supra-constitutional human rights norms that the U.S. has chosen not to recognize and find no support under the law. The NHRI’s central mission would be to promote economic, social, and cultural (ESC) “rights” that lack constitutional or legal foundation and have been rejected for decades by the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress. The NHRI would serve as a platform to harass U.S. business and industry with subpoenas, investigations, and show hearings for allegedly violating such “human rights” as the “right to a healthy environment” and the “right to water.”
To read more...
The Heritage Foundation - November 15, 2013
Abstract
Human rights activists have called for creation of a U.S.
National Human Rights Institution (NHRI) to promote and monitor
implementation of international human rights treaties, norms, and
standards in the United States. Yet any violation of human rights as
such rights are understood in the U.S. legal system is already
justiciable in U.S. courts. Instead, activists would use a U.S. NHRI to
promote economic, social, and cultural “rights” that lack constitutional
or legal foundation and have been rejected for decades by the U.S.
Supreme Court. Congress should reject any attempt to create a U.S. NHRI
or expand the mandate of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to include
the enforcement of human rights.
Human rights activists would use a NHRI to advocate for recognition of supra-constitutional human rights norms that the U.S. has chosen not to recognize and find no support under the law. The NHRI’s central mission would be to promote economic, social, and cultural (ESC) “rights” that lack constitutional or legal foundation and have been rejected for decades by the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress. The NHRI would serve as a platform to harass U.S. business and industry with subpoenas, investigations, and show hearings for allegedly violating such “human rights” as the “right to a healthy environment” and the “right to water.”
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Digital Citizen is a monthly review of news, policy, and research on human rights and technology in the Arab World.
Morocco
Over the past few years, Morocco has made strides
increasing Internet access for its citizens and scaling back online
censorship. The Feb20 movement—Morocco’s answer to the Arab
Spring—operated for the most part freely online. More recently,
Moroccans enraged by the King’s pardon of a convicted pedophile mounted an unprecedented online campaign—dubbed #DanielGate—ultimately resulted in rescinding the pardon.
But recent events in the country threaten that progress. On
September 17, Ali Anouzla—the co-founder and Arabic-language editor of a
popular online publication, Lakome—was arrested
after publishing an article that mentioned a YouTube video attributed
to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Titled “Morocco: Kingdom of
Corruption and Despotism,” the video was critical of Moroccan King
Mohammed VI. Reporters Without Borders
quoted the local public prosecutor as saying that Anouzla was arrested
“as a result of the dissemination of an AQIM video inciting others to
commit terrorism acts.” In fact, Anouzla’s article did not endorse the
video in anyway, and only linked to an article in Spanish paper El Pais
which contained a link to the original video. After being held for a
little over a week, Anouzla was charged
on September 25 with “material assistance” to a terrorist group,
“defending terrorism,” and “inciting the execution of terrorist acts.”
How Technology Is Helping Us Better Protect Human Rights
By Samir Goswami
The Huffington Post - 11/11/2013
For social justice activists, the speed with which news now crosses the globe creates a tremendous opportunity to respond to human rights issues as they emerge. We can now find out about and alert the world to abuses almost as they happen, and people can act immediately to support human rights defenders and others on the front lines of crises.
However, the sheer number of people who struggle for the most basic human rights can be overwhelming. Although it is easy to get dismayed, we must stay heartened that we can make a difference in an individual's life even from thousands of miles away.
It is vital that activists who are concerned about abuses outside of their own country continue to fight not just for human rights issues -- but for the individuals behind those issues. The issues that concern us -- whether violence against women, crackdowns on freedom of expression or assembly, corporate accountability or LGBTI rights -- are brought to our attention because of the individuals on the ground who are courageously, and with much risk, advocating for change in their community. Individuals such as Mansour Ossanlu, who was imprisoned and tortured for organizing workers in Iran, Norma Cruz, who is struggling against gender-based violence in Guatemala, and Jenni Williams, who has been arrested more than 50 times for fighting for social and political rights in Zimbabwe.
To read more...
The Huffington Post - 11/11/2013
For social justice activists, the speed with which news now crosses the globe creates a tremendous opportunity to respond to human rights issues as they emerge. We can now find out about and alert the world to abuses almost as they happen, and people can act immediately to support human rights defenders and others on the front lines of crises.
However, the sheer number of people who struggle for the most basic human rights can be overwhelming. Although it is easy to get dismayed, we must stay heartened that we can make a difference in an individual's life even from thousands of miles away.
It is vital that activists who are concerned about abuses outside of their own country continue to fight not just for human rights issues -- but for the individuals behind those issues. The issues that concern us -- whether violence against women, crackdowns on freedom of expression or assembly, corporate accountability or LGBTI rights -- are brought to our attention because of the individuals on the ground who are courageously, and with much risk, advocating for change in their community. Individuals such as Mansour Ossanlu, who was imprisoned and tortured for organizing workers in Iran, Norma Cruz, who is struggling against gender-based violence in Guatemala, and Jenni Williams, who has been arrested more than 50 times for fighting for social and political rights in Zimbabwe.
To read more...
HRP hosts symposium on civilian harm caused by armed conflict
Kenneth Rutherford was working as a humanitarian aid worker in Somalia in 1993. He was driving with a colleague through a rural area near the city of Mogadishu on a clear, blue day when his vehicle hit a landmine. The explosion tore through the vehicle.
Rutherford looked to his colleague to his right, who was black, and saw that he had been turned white because he was covered in dust from the explosion. Rutherford's legs were so badly damaged that both would later have to be amputated below the knee.
"I was on my deathbed on the rocky, hard, Somali ground," Rutherford recounted for a Harvard Law School audience last week. "Blood was running down both of the backs of my legs, blood was coming out of my mouth and onto my shirt."
But he did not despair.
"I can still smell and taste my own blood, standing before you right now. But in my heart, I remember like yesterday, I was blazing with the munificent power of gratitude for everything that life has given me," Rutherford said. "I never miss an opportunity to praise God for being above ground."
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The demise of international criminal law
By Mark Osiel
Humanity - 11/16/13
We theorists of international law like to pose venturesome, vitalizing questions, sweeping in scope: What would an ideal system of international criminal law look like, for instance, relieved of today’s geostrategic constraints? How might we lend some conceptual coherence to such a program, flesh out its normative details? What kind of world would be required for such a program to become possible, even intelligible? How should we imagine the workings of such a hypothetical world?
If we allow ourselves to descend beneath the clouds for a moment, we may also ask: Precisely how far from that ideal world do we currently reside? How might we realistically begin to construct its preconditions, through what process, by which concrete steps? We might further approach the process social-scientifically, identifying the forces which would set it in motion, hypothesizing the coalition-composition that could advance it and, when unavoidable, devise its prudent tactical retreat. Among the available accounts of global change and theories of institutional design, which of these might give us a better lever on the process, help nudge it along? These are laudable questions, especially the later, more “reality-based,” reflecting at least a bow toward “non-ideal theory,” in that philosopher’s condescending term of art.
To read more...
Humanity - 11/16/13
We theorists of international law like to pose venturesome, vitalizing questions, sweeping in scope: What would an ideal system of international criminal law look like, for instance, relieved of today’s geostrategic constraints? How might we lend some conceptual coherence to such a program, flesh out its normative details? What kind of world would be required for such a program to become possible, even intelligible? How should we imagine the workings of such a hypothetical world?
If we allow ourselves to descend beneath the clouds for a moment, we may also ask: Precisely how far from that ideal world do we currently reside? How might we realistically begin to construct its preconditions, through what process, by which concrete steps? We might further approach the process social-scientifically, identifying the forces which would set it in motion, hypothesizing the coalition-composition that could advance it and, when unavoidable, devise its prudent tactical retreat. Among the available accounts of global change and theories of institutional design, which of these might give us a better lever on the process, help nudge it along? These are laudable questions, especially the later, more “reality-based,” reflecting at least a bow toward “non-ideal theory,” in that philosopher’s condescending term of art.
To read more...
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