Are Human Rights Enough? Exploring Ways to Reimagining Human Rights Law

ABSTRACT

The international human rights system faces criticisms regarding a range of issues, including ambiguity in its standards, weakness in its enforcement mechanisms and the resultant lack of impact on the ground, and the notion of universality being incompatible with cultural particularities. This article analyses some of these scholarly criticisms and argues that they should be seen as a wake-up call. It discusses and explores feasible ways of reimagining the existing human rights frameworks. Reimagining here does not mean reformulating existing frameworks; it means revisiting the assumptions on which the current system is based. The article does not agree that the idea and ideals of human rights are on their last legs, as some critics seem to suggest. It argues, instead, that the language of human rights is still highly relevant, as seen in its increasing use by both intellectuals and practitioners, including human rights defenders and civil society organisations. The focus of discourse should, therefore, shift from criticism to lesson-learning and exploring new ways to make human rights relevant to all. The article largely builds on secondary resources, and the criticisms discussed are limited to scholarly criticisms.

KEYWORDS:

• Human rights law
• scholarly critiques
• reimagining human rights

Acknowledgement

An initial version of this article was submitted to the University of Melbourne as part of a University assignment to fulfil the requirements for the degree of Masters of Laws in February 2020.

Notes

1 Jessica Whyte, ‘Human Rights after October’ (2017) (Spring) Overland, 228 <https://overland.org.au/previous-issues/issue-228/essay-jessica-whyte/> accessed 11 August 2021.

2 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted 10 December 1948) UNGA Res 217A (III).

3 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976) 999 UNTS 171.

4 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 3 January 1976) 993 UNTS 3.

5 Jack Donnelly, ‘Cultural Relativism and Universal Human Rights’ (1984) 6(4) Human Rights Quarterly 400, 414.

6 Philip Alston, ‘International Human Rights Institutions and Procedures’ in Donald K. Anton and Dinah L. Shelton, Environmental Protection and Human Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2011) 282.

7 Valentina Carraro, ‘Promoting Compliance with Human Rights: The Performance of the United Nations’ Universal Periodic Review and Treaty Bodies’ (2019) 63(4) International Studies Quarterly 1079, 1080.

8 Chris Brown, ‘Universal Human Rights: A Critique’ (1997) 1(2) The International Journal of Human Rights 41, 41.

9 Hurst Hannum, ‘Reinvigorating Human Rights for the Twenty-First Century’ (2016) 16(3) Human Rights Law Review 409, 409.

10 Gráinne de Búrca, ‘Human Rights Experimentalism’ (2017) 111(2) American Journal of International Law 277, 278.

11 Ibid.

12 Philip Alston and Ryan Goodman, International Human Rights – The Successor to International Human Rights in Context: Law Politics and Morals (Oxford University Press, 2013) 531.

13 Yash Ghai, ‘Universalism and Relativism: Human Rights as a Framework for Negotiating Interethnic Claims’ in William Twining (ed) Human Rights. Southern Voices (Cambridge University Press, 2009) 111.

14 Alston and Goodman (n 13).

15 Elizabeth M. Zechenter, ‘In the Name of Culture: Cultural Relativism and Abuse of the Individual’ (1997) 53(3) Journal of Anthropological Research 319, 323.

16 Makau Mutua, ‘Is the Age of Human Rights Over?’ in Sophia A. McClennen and Alexandra Schultheis Moore (eds), Routledge Companion to Literature and Human Rights (Routledge, 2016) 451, 452.

17 Ibid., 452.

18 Makau Mutua, Human Rights Standards: Hegemony, Law and Politics (State University of New York Press, 2016) 179.

19 Ibid.

20 Abdullahi A. An-Na’im, ‘Toward a Cross-Cultural Approach to Defining International Standards of Human Rights: The Meaning of Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment’ in Abdullahi A. An-Na’im (ed) Human Rights in Cross Cultural Perspectives: A Quest for Consensus (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992) 19.

21 Ibid., 35.

22 Hamdia M. Ahmed et al., ‘Knowledge and Perspectives of Female Genital Cutting among the Local Religious Leaders in Erbil Governorate, Iraqi Kurdistan Region’ (2018) 15(44) Reproductive Health https://reproductive-health-journal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12978-018-0459-x#citeas accessed 12 February 2022.

23 Fuambai Ahmadu, ‘Rites and Wrongs: An Insider/Outsider Reflects on Power and Excision’ in Bettina Shell-Duncan and Ylva Hernlund (eds) Female “Circumcision” in Africa: Culture, Controversy and Change (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001) 284.

24 Ibid., 306.

25 Ibid., 297.

26 WHO, ‘Female Genital Mutilation’ <https://www.who.int/health-topics/female-genital-mutilation#tab=tab_1> accessed 14 September 2021.

27 Antony Anghie, ‘The Evolution of International Law: Colonial and Postcolonial Realities’ (2006) 27(5) Third World Quarterly 739, 749.

28 Ibid.

29 Antony Anghie, ‘Whose Utopia? Human Rights, Development, and the Third World’ (2013) 22(1) Qui Parle: Critical Humanities and Social Sciences, 63, 74.

30 Anghie (n 28) 752.

31 Balakrishnan Rajagopal, ‘Counter-hegemonic International Law: Rethinking Human Rights and Development as a Third World Strategy’ (2006) 27(5) Third World Quarterly 767, 768.

32 Ibid.

33 B.S. Chimni, ‘Third World Approaches to International Law: A Manifesto’ (2006) 8(1) International Community Law Review 3, 11.

34 Stephen Hopgood, ‘Human Rights on the Road to Nowhere’ in Stephen Hopgood, Jack Snyder and Leslie Vinjamuri (eds) Human Rights Futures (Cambridge University Press, 2017) 287.

35 Stephen Hopgood, The Endtimes of Human Rights (Cornell University Press, 2013) 142.

36 Ibid., 2.

37 Ibid., 142.

38 Ibid., 1–2.

39 Eric Posner, ‘The Case against Human Rights’ The Guardian (4 December 2014) <https://www.theguardian.com/news/2014/dec/04/-sp-case-against-human-rights> accessed September 21 2021.

40 Ibid.

41 Mutua (n 17) 455–456.

42 Samuel Moyn, Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World (Harvard University Press, 2018) 174–175.

43 Frederick Cooper, ‘Samuel Moyn: Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World’ (2019) 124(3) The American Historical Review 1016, 1018.

44 Ioannis Kampourakis, ‘Book Review: Samuel Moyn Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World’ (2020) 83(1) Modern Law Review 229, 231.

45 Gráinne de Búrca, ‘Shaming Human Rights’ (16 August 2018) NYU School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No 18–47 <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3233063> accessed 21 August 2021.

46 Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, ‘Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World by Samuel Moyn (Review)’ (2019) 41(2) Human Rights Quarterly 515, 516.

47 Beth A. Simmons and Anton Strezhnev, ‘Human Rights and Human Welfare: Looking for a “Dark Side” to International Human Rights Law’ in Stephen Hopgood, Jack Snyder and Leslie Vinjamuri (eds) Human Rights Futures (Cambridge University Press, 2017) 60.

48 Ibid.

49 Human Rights Watch, ‘Afghanistan status’ <https://www.hrw.org/asia/afghanistan>, accessed 9 September 2021.

50 Human Rights Watch, ‘World Report 2021: Events of 2020’ (Human Rights Watch, 2021) 749 <https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/media_2021/01/2021_hrw_world_report.pdf> accessed 20 September 2021.

51 Human Rights Watch, ‘The Latest on the Crisis in Ethiopia's Tigray Region’ (30 July 2021) <https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/07/30/latest-crisis-ethiopias-tigray-region> accessed 9 September 2021.

52 The Economist, Tigray is Edging Closer to Famine, April 22 2021 <https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/04/22/tigray-is-edging-closer-to-famine> accessed 4 September 2021.

53 Kathryn Sikkink, Evidence for Hope: Making Human Rights Work in the 21st Century (Princeton University Press, 2017) 14.

54 Ibid., 179.

55 Malcolm Langford, ‘Critiques of Human Rights’ (2018) 14 Annual Review of Law and Social Science 69, 83.

56 World Bank Group, ‘Poverty and Shared Prosperity: Reversals of Fortune’ (The World Bank, 2021) 7 <https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/34496/9781464816024.pdf> accessed 3 August 2021.

57 Morten Kjaerum, ‘The Post Crisis Human Rights Agenda’ in Morten Kjaerum, Martha F. Davis and Amanda Lyons (eds.) Covid-19 and Human Rights (Routledge, 2021), 294.

58 Lisa Forman and Jillian Clare Kohler, ‘Global Health and Human Rights in the time of COVID-19: Response, Restrictions and Legitimacy’ (2020) 19(5) Journal of Human Rights 547, 553.

59 Alison Brysk, ‘The Future of Human Rights’ (2017) 10(1) Global e-journal, <https://globalejournal.org/global-e/january-2017/future-human-rights> accessed 15 September 2021.

60 Hannum (n 10) 409.

61 Ignacio Saiz, ‘Economic Inequality and Human Rights: Towards a More Nuanced Assessment’ (Centre for Economic and Social Rights, 26 April 2018).

62 Ibid.

63 de Búrca (n 11) 279.

64 Ibid., 281.

65 Ibid., 282.

66 Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (adopted 18 December 1979, entered into force 3 September 1981) 1249 UNTS 13 (CEDAW)/

67 Convention on the Rights of the Child (adopted 20 November 1989, entered into force 2 September 1990) 1577 UNTS 3 (CRC).

68 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (adopted 24 January 2007, entered into force 3 May 2008) 2515 UNTS 3 (CRPD).

69 de Búrca (n 11) 308.

70 Ibid., 309.

71 Ibid., 309–314.

72 Sally Engle Merry, Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice (The University of Chicago Press, 2006) 219.

73 Sally Engle Merry, ‘Transnational Human Rights and Local Activism: Mapping the Middle’ (2006) 108(1) American Anthropologist 38, 38.

74 Ibid.

75 Ibid., 48.

76 César Rodriguéz-Garavito, ‘The Future of Human Rights: From Gatekeeping to Symbiosis’ (2014) 20 Sur: International Journal on Human Rights 499, 502.

77 Ibid., 505.

78 César Rodriguéz-Garavito, ‘Towards a Human Rights Ecosystem’ in Doutje Lettinga and Lars van Troost (eds), Debating the Endtimes of Human Rights: Activism and Institutions in a Neo-Westphalian World (Amnesty International, 2014) 44.

79 Rodriguéz-Garavito (n 77) 507.

80 Ibid.

81 José Luis Morín, ‘Global and Regional Human Rigths Commissions’, In Mangai Natarajan (ed) International and Transnational Crime and Justice (Cambridge University Press, 2019) 433.

82 Ibid., 673.

83 Christof Heyns and Magnus Killander, ‘Universality and the Growth of Regional Systems’ In Dinah Shelton (ed), The Oxford Handbook of International Human Rights Law (Oxford University Press, 2013) 697.

84 Karen Ann Grepin et al., ‘Evidence of the Effectiveness of Travel-Related Measures during the Early Phase of the COVID 19 Pandemic: A Rapid Systematic Review’ (2021) 6(3) BMJ Global Health 1,2; Kristina Murphy et al., ‘Why People Comply with COVID 19 Social Distancing Restrictions: Self Interest or Duty’ (2020) 53(4) Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology 477.

85 Stephen Hopgood, Jack Snyder and Leslie Vinjamuri, ‘Introduction: Human Rights Past, Present and Future’ in Stephen Hopgood, Jack Snyder and Leslie Vinjamuri (eds) Human Rights Futures (Cambridge University Press, 2017) 1.

86 Philip Alston, ‘The Populist Challenge to Human Rigths’ (2017) 9(1) Journal of Human Rights Practice 1, 2.

87 Michael Ignatieff, ‘The Attack on Human Rights’ (2001) 80(6) Foreign Affairs 102, 102.

88 Claudia Ituarte-Lima, ‘Is COVID-19 Frustrating or Facilitating Sustainability Transformations?: An Assessment from a Human Rights Law Perspective’ in Morten Kjaerum, Martha F. Davis and Amanda Lyons (eds) Covid-19 and Human Rights, (Routledge, 2021), 286.