Decolonization and the Evolution of International Human Rights

Decolonization and the Evolution of International Human Rights PDF Author: Roland Burke
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812205324
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
In the decades following the triumphant proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the UN General Assembly was transformed by the arrival of newly independent states from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. This diverse constellation of states introduced new ideas, methods, and priorities to the human rights program. Their influence was magnified by the highly effective nature of Asian, Arab, and African diplomacy in the UN human rights bodies and the sheer numerical superiority of the so-called Afro-Asian bloc. Owing to the nature of General Assembly procedure, the Third World states dominated the human rights agenda, and enthusiastic support for universal human rights was replaced by decades of authoritarianism and an increasingly strident rejection of the ideas laid out in the Universal Declaration. In Decolonization and the Evolution of International Human Rights, Roland Burke explores the changing impact of decolonization on the UN human rights program. By recovering the contributions of those Asian, African, and Arab voices that joined the global rights debate, Burke demonstrates the central importance of Third World influence across the most pivotal battles in the United Nations, from those that secured the principle of universality, to the passage of the first binding human rights treaties, to the flawed but radical step of studying individual pleas for help. The very presence of so many independent voices from outside the West, and the often defensive nature of Western interventions, complicates the common presumption that the postwar human rights project was driven by Europe and the United States. Drawing on UN transcripts, archives, and the personal papers of key historical actors, this book challenges the notion that the international rights order was imposed on an unwilling and marginalized Third World. Far from being excluded, Asian, African, and Middle Eastern diplomats were powerful agents in both advancing and later obstructing the promotion of human rights.

Decolonization and the Evolution of International Human Rights

Decolonization and the Evolution of International Human Rights PDF Author: Roland Burke
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812205324
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Get Book

Book Description
In the decades following the triumphant proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the UN General Assembly was transformed by the arrival of newly independent states from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. This diverse constellation of states introduced new ideas, methods, and priorities to the human rights program. Their influence was magnified by the highly effective nature of Asian, Arab, and African diplomacy in the UN human rights bodies and the sheer numerical superiority of the so-called Afro-Asian bloc. Owing to the nature of General Assembly procedure, the Third World states dominated the human rights agenda, and enthusiastic support for universal human rights was replaced by decades of authoritarianism and an increasingly strident rejection of the ideas laid out in the Universal Declaration. In Decolonization and the Evolution of International Human Rights, Roland Burke explores the changing impact of decolonization on the UN human rights program. By recovering the contributions of those Asian, African, and Arab voices that joined the global rights debate, Burke demonstrates the central importance of Third World influence across the most pivotal battles in the United Nations, from those that secured the principle of universality, to the passage of the first binding human rights treaties, to the flawed but radical step of studying individual pleas for help. The very presence of so many independent voices from outside the West, and the often defensive nature of Western interventions, complicates the common presumption that the postwar human rights project was driven by Europe and the United States. Drawing on UN transcripts, archives, and the personal papers of key historical actors, this book challenges the notion that the international rights order was imposed on an unwilling and marginalized Third World. Far from being excluded, Asian, African, and Middle Eastern diplomats were powerful agents in both advancing and later obstructing the promotion of human rights.

Decolonization, Self-Determination, and the Rise of Global Human Rights Politics

Decolonization, Self-Determination, and the Rise of Global Human Rights Politics PDF Author: A. Dirk Moses
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108479359
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
Leading scholars demonstrate how colonial subjects, national liberation movements, and empires mobilized human rights language to contest self-determination during decolonization.

Decolonizing Human Rights

Decolonizing Human Rights PDF Author: Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108417132
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 157

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Book Description
This book advances practical protection of human rights, and challenge claims of western monopoly of human rights discourse.

The Making of International Human Rights

The Making of International Human Rights PDF Author: Steven L. B. Jensen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781316533703
Category : LAW
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
"On 14 June 1993, the Secretary-General of the United Nations Boutros Boutros-Ghali delivered the opening address to the World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna. The world had undergone massive political transformations in the preceding four years and the Vienna conference's purpose was to lay new foundations for international human rights protection in the post-Cold War era. Since 1945, the evolution of international human rights had been closely linked to the United Nations. The Cold War and North-South debates had for almost 50 years determined the uneasy existence of human rights at the United Nations"--

Human Rights, Development and Decolonization

Human Rights, Development and Decolonization PDF Author: D. Maul
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230358632
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 488

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Book Description
An innovative diplomatic and intellectual history of decolonization, post-colonial nation building and international human rights and development discourses, this study of the role of the ILO during 1940–70 opens up new perspectives on the significance of international organisations as actors in the history of the 20th century.

The Evolution of International Human Rights

The Evolution of International Human Rights PDF Author: Paul Gordon Lauren
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812209915
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 430

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Book Description
This widely acclaimed and highly regarded book, used extensively by students, scholars, policymakers, and activists, now appears in a new third edition. Focusing on the theme of visions seen by those who dreamed of what might be, Lauren explores the dramatic transformation of a world patterned by centuries of human rights abuses into a global community that now boldly proclaims that the way governments treat their own people is a matter of international concern—and sets the goal of human rights "for all peoples and all nations." He reveals the truly universal nature of this movement, places contemporary events within their broader historical contexts, and explains the relationship between individual cases and larger issues of human rights with insight. This new edition incorporates material from recently declassified documents and the most recent scholarship relating to the creation of the new Human Rights Council and its Universal Periodic Review, the International Criminal Court, the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), terrorism and torture, the impact of globalization and modern technology, and activists in NGOs devoted to human rights. It provides perceptive assessments of the process of change, the power of visions and visionaries, politics and political will, and the evolving meanings of sovereignty, security, and human rights themselves.

Human Rights in the Shadow of Colonial Violence

Human Rights in the Shadow of Colonial Violence PDF Author: Fabian Klose
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812244958
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
Based on previously inaccessible material from international archives, Human Rights in the Shadow of Colonial Violence examines the relationship between emerging human rights concepts after 1945 and repressive British and French actions against anticolonial movements in Africa.

The Last Utopia

The Last Utopia PDF Author: Samuel Moyn
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674256522
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
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.

International Human Rights, Decolonisation and Globalisation

International Human Rights, Decolonisation and Globalisation PDF Author: Shelley Wright
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134511949
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
Covering a diverse range of topics, case studies and theories, the author undertakes a critique of the principal assumptions on which the existing international human rights regime has been constructed. She argues that the decolonization of human rights, and the creation of a global community that is conducive to the well-being of all humans, will require a radical restructuring of our ways of thinking, researching and writing. In contributing to this restructuring she brings together feminist and indigenous approaches as well as postmodern and post-colonial scholarship, engaging directly with some of the prevailing orthodoxies, such as 'universality', 'the individual', 'self-determination', 'cultural relativism', 'globalization' and 'civil society'.

The Oxford Handbook of the Ends of Empire

The Oxford Handbook of the Ends of Empire PDF Author: Martin Thomas
Publisher: Oxford Handbooks
ISBN: 0198713193
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 801

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Book Description
This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online.