Search Results

This chapter examines the human rights issues of forced migration and refugees. It recognizes refugees as the prima facie evidence of human rights abuses and vulnerability because people who are deprived of their homes and livelihood are forced to cross borders and seek safety overseas. Forced migration is a human rights concern as it raises serious political, economic, and security issues. Moreover, globalization created new opportunities and incentives for international migration and new diaspora networks. The chapter then covers the work of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as the UN's refugee agency. It covers the case study of forced displacement in Myanmar in line with the prolonged Burmese military regime that resulted in decades of political and minority group repression, conflict, poor governance, corruption, and underdevelopment.

This chapter discusses the correlation between human rights and imperialism. It cites how imperialism is central to the development of human rights ideology by referencing the collapse of the empire following World War II and the rise of the international human rights movement. The human rights language boosted the justification and legitimization of imperialism. The chapter also highlights the impact of imperialism on the rights and liberties of colonized people, which also led to the strategic social reforms, anti-colonial activism, and colonized people's struggles for independence in the human rights movement. The collapse of empires shaped the development of human rights, while decolonisation influenced international human rights.

This chapter looks into the development of sociological approaches to the study of human rights. It explains how sociology covered the ride of human rights through shared human vulnerability and collective sympathy, institutional threats, and assertion of powerful class interests, while anthropology deepened the understanding of socially constructed rights. Sociologists tend to view rights as inventions or products of human social interaction and power relations. The chapter then expounds on the concept of social constructionism in relation to power and social structure. It also explains that an ethnographic approach to human rights showcases how human rights function and their meaning to different social actors in varying social contexts.

This chapter analyses the politics of human rights from a performative perspective. It starts with identifying rights claiming as one of the most common ways to highlight and demand redress for injustice across the world. The practice and promise of human rights have a clear gap as human rights violations remain a global issue despite the years of political activism, international human rights standards, and human rights theories. Indeed, several scholars are sceptical about the power of human rights in bringing an end to injustice and inequality. The chapter then covers the ideology of performativity correlating to a theory of language, gender, and politics. It explains that rights claiming may employ non-traditional forms of political engagement and depend on the state to secure the desired change.

This chapter discusses the correlation between genocide and human rights. It examines Raphael Lemkin's concept of genocide which resulted in an international treaty on the punishment and prevention of genocide. The UN Genocide Convention became the law that embodied the landmark treaty on genocide. Additionally, the chapter explores the social scientific theories on why genocide occurs. Classic theories on genocide tend to highlight intergroup antipathy, authoritarianism, and hardship. The chapter also references the historical background and international responses to the genocides recorded in Rwanda and Darfur. It reflects on the possibilities and limits of the Genocide Convention as a human rights instrument.

This chapter highlights the distinction between human rights and humanitarianism. Humanitarian intervention refers to the use of diplomatic, economic, and/or military resources by states or international organizations to protect civilians who are endangered in another state. The chapter notes the impossibility of attaining impartiality and neutrality when commencing humanitarian work during a civil war. Modern intervention often confronts human rights violations by naming, shaming, and coercing those who harm civilians. The chapter then recognizes the obstacles to effective and timely intervention such as political will and large-scale violence against civilians. It covers the case of Kosovo that showed how the international community should utilize its leverage to persuade oppressive states to meet the legitimate demands of nonviolent groups in an effort to simultaneously promote human rights and humanitarianism.

This chapter explores the politics of human rights. As human rights function as an ethical standard in international law and political practice, the standard enabled the naming and shaming strategy that became the mainstay of international human rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The chapter covers why human rights as politics generate controversy by referencing the understandings of social constructs, paradox of institutionalization, and cultural relativism. Indeed, human rights are inherently political and controversial. The chapter then discusses the accommodation of inequality through neoliberal conceptions of human rights. It explains the two important contemporary debates about human rights: its effectiveness in combatting economic inequality and precarity, and the evidence of a global backlash against human rights.

This chapter tackles feminist approaches to human rights. It starts with how contemporary feminism criticized liberalism on the conception of formal legal equality in international human rights laws being derived from the goal of dismantling hierarchies. Contemporary views on women's rights revolve around the issues of globalization, democracy, culture, sexual orientation, and gender identity. The chapter then expounds on the evolution of the international women's human rights discourse and frameworks. It also discusses the establishment of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which addressed all forms of discrimination against women by the principle of structural indivisibility.

This chapter analyses the central human rights issues of LGBTIQ people by referencing sexual orientation and gender identity rights. It considers the power of human rights language and discourses with regard to addressing the discrimination, marginalization, and persecution of oppressed people. People are vulnerable to sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) rights violations as a result of the social and political processes which led to heteronormativity and homophobia. The chapter covers the features of SOGI human rights violations such as violence, being committed by states, and correlates these to human rights concerns. It also tackles the critiques on SOGI human rights activism from conservative and progressive perspectives.

This chapter focuses on the correlation between human rights and religion. It explains how the oversimplification of both systems' complexity resulted in the reductive classification of religion and human rights as oppositional systems. Significant ideas of human rights theories overlap with doctrinal claims in religious traditions, while human rights language occasionally features liturgical, public worship, devotional, and public structures of religious traditions. Trends such as treatment of women, toleration, and authoritative interpretation tend to raise arguments on the compatibility between some expressions of religion and international human rights norms. The chapter then covers the interdependence of human rights by referencing the Masterpiece Cakeshop case and the Sahin case.