DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS

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DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS
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• HUMAN DIGNITY
• How should human rights be conceived?
• POLITICAL AUTONOMY AND SOVEREIGNTY
• What is the tension between human rights and
  democracy?
• GLOBAL JUSTICE
• Which kind of world order do we need?

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1. HUMAN DIGNITY
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UNIVERSALLY VALID CLAIMS

• Human rights gt claims of individuals asserted to
  states, confederations, transnational
  institutions and companies who are based on human
  dignity.
• All human beings are entitled to make these
  claims.
• These claims are universally valid, i.e.
  independent of cultural differences and
  historical developments.
• These are claims of individuals and not claims of
  groups.
• Human rights require a specific global order.

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ASPECTS OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN HUMAN HISTORY

• The universalization of human rights.
• In the nation state connected with citizenship.
• Human rights have become more and more an aspect
  of international right, the law of peoples and
  NGOs.
• The transformation of human rights into human
  rights.
• The tension between legality and morality as a
  trigger for the development of the political
  struggle about human rights.

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BEYOND THE LEX NATURAE

• Human rights as moral claims that should be
  transformed into legal rights.
• Lex naturae (natural right) gt all human beings
  are by nature equal.
• The idea of natural right became an important
  element of contract theories (Hobbes and Locke).
• This idea is criticized because of its
  essentialism.

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HUMAN DIGNITY

• The Preamble of the Universal Declaration of
  Human Rights starts with the idea that the
  recognition of the inherent dignity of all
  members of the human family is the foundation of
  freedom, justice and peace in the world.
• Individuals have the moral duty to respect each
  other equally.
• This implies a struggle for equal freedom.

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THREE PHASES IN THE CONCEPTUALISATION OF HUMAN
DIGNITY

• 1. Roman Empire gt (Lat. dignitas) the status of
  politicians and members of the aristocracy who
  had a specific role in public life.
• 2. Middle Ages gt the status of human beings who
  are all equal in the eyes of God.
• 3. Modernity gt autonomy is the ground for human
  dignity.

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FOURS KINDS OF HUMAN RIGHTS

• Civil rights.
• Political rights.
• Economic and social rights.
• Cultural rights.

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CULTURAL RIGHTS

• Rights of individuals to the means of personal
  development and of access to the universal
  culture of science (art. 13, 14 and 16 form the
  international Covenant on Economic, Social and
  Cultural Rights).
• Rights of groups to practise and reproduce their
  own distinctive culture (art. 27 from the
  International Covenant on Civil and Political
  Rights).

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THE IDEAL AND THE REAL

• The debates about human rights are often related
  to the tension between facts and values, is and
  ought, description and prescription.
• In order to understand this tension, it is
  fruitful to analyse the relations between law,
  politics and morality.
• Human rights can be seen as moral norms and
  judicial norms.

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2. POLITICAL AUTONOMY AND SOVEREIGNTY
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TWO FORMS OF POLITICS

• 1. Normal politics gt the use of the
  constitutive political rules.
• 2. Constitutional politics gt the transformation
  of the constitutive political rules.

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POST-WESTPHALIAN CHANGES IN SOVEREIGNTY

• The disaggregation of citizenship rights through
  the extension of cosmopolitan norms gt human
  rights.
• The sovereignty-based model of international law
  appears to be ceding not to global justice, but
  to a world order dominated by some actors who are
  not accountable for what they decide.
• Hegemon gt an actor that is able to dominate the
  global political system.

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THE RELATION BETWEEN TWO CORE VALUES

• Questions can only a democratic government
  respect the full range of our human rights?
• Does one not have a right to an effective say in
  decisions that importantly affect one?
• Article 21 Everyone has the right to take part
  in the government of his country, directly or
  through freely chosen representatives The will
  of the people shall be the bass of the authority
  of government this will shall be expressed in
  periodic and genuine elections which shall be by
  universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by
  secret vote or by equivalent free voting
  procedures.

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THE TENSTION BETWEEN HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY

• Democracy is based upon state sovereignty gt
  citizenship rights who are exclusive.
• Human rights are inclusive.
• Liberalism the priority of human rights gt
  tyranny of the majority.

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IMPORTANT ISSUES CONCERNING HUMAN RIGHTS AND
DEMOCRACY

• Sovereignty and self-determination.
• Peace.
• The relation between men and women.

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SOVEREIGNTY AND SELF-DETERMINATION

• Sovereignty a state has legitimate authority
  over its members if it has the consent of all
  members.
• A social contract where all citizens consent to
  the authority of a monarch or assembly makes an
  end to the state of nature, i.e. a world without
  a common source of authoritative power where
  individuals compete against each other.
• Global justice is impossible, because there is no
  world body that can judge whether a state acts
  rightly or wrongly.
• Self-determination gt a right to self-government,
  entailing either the creation of a sphere of
  autonomy within an existing policy or secession
  from it.

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FAILED STATES

• Failed state a state that has collapsed and
  cannot provide for its citizens basic needs.
• Demographic pressures in which the population
  outstrips resources like food.
• Refugees and internally displaced persons who
  have grievances against the government.
• Vengeance-seeking groups with grievances based on
  the belief that they are unfairly treated.
• Chronic and sustained flight from the country by
  highly trained and educated citizens.
• Uneven economic and social development.
• The rule of law and human rights are applied
  unevenly.

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PEACE ENFORCEMENT

• Iraqs 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
• Superpowers agreed to invoke peace enforcement
  for the first time since the Korean War.
• UN faces a very serious challenge gt violence and
  human suffering in the developing world.
• Humanitarian intervention gt intervention by
  states or by an international organisation into
  the domestic politics of another state to protect
  people from human rights abuses or other threats
  to their survival.

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SECOND-GENERATION PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS

• No clear line separates foes, which are not just
  states, but rebel groups, warlords, and ethnic
  communities engaged in unconventional warfare.
• Peacekeepers find it difficult to be impartial
  they may identify aggressors and lay blame.
• Frequently, parties do not consent to a UN
  presence because they have something to gain from
  conflict or view the UN as their adversary.
• Missions have broad mandates to solve conflicts
  by rebuilding governing institutions, ensuring
  respect for human rights, and delivering
  humanitarian aid.

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THE RELATION BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN

• How to correct the problem of a male-dominated
  world?
• Violations of the rights of women female genital
  mutilation, polygamy, forced marriages, etc.
• Susan Moller Okin in Is multiculturalism Bad for
  Women? gt we should only respect group rights
  insofar as they do not violate individual rights.

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GENDER EMPOWERMENT

• Indicator of opportunities for women, i.e. the
  female share of parliamentary representation
  proportions of legislators, senior officials,
  managers, professionals and technical employees
  who are women and the ratio of female to male
  earnings.
• The relative degree of gender equality for the
  people living there.

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MAPPING GENDER EMPOWERMENT
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3. GLOBAL JUSTICE
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DO WE LIVE IN AN INJUST WORLD?

• The answer seems to be yes.
• Around 40 percent of mankind lives below the
  World Banks 2 dollar per day poverty line.
• Each day 30.000 children die of hunger, disease
  and other consequences of poverty.
• The worlds five hundred wealthiest people have
  the same income as the worlds poorest 416
  million.
• The answer could be no.
• A question of responsibility gt who is responsible
  for what?

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JUSTICE

• Justice (Gr. dikaiosyne Lat iusticia) gt the
  normative assessment of individual and collective
  actions.
• Justice as a virtue and a specific political
  order.
• Forms of justice
• 1. Distributive justice.
• 2. Retributive justice.
• 3. Intergenerational justice.
• 4. Environmental justice.

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MORAL JUDGMENT

• Global justice gt the moral assessment of the
  worldwide impact that the actions of some actors
  and the institutional rules have on the quality
  of life of people.
• Debates about global justice concern
• 1. The goals that actors and institutions ought
  to achieve.
• 2. The actions and rules that would help to
  realize these goals.
• 3. The responsibilities of actors to realize
  their goals.

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THE INSTITUTIONALIST APPROACH

• Thomas Pogge.
• World Poverty and Human Rights (2002).
• Our world is not governed by anarchy nor a
  world-state, but a world order that is based on
  rules supported by states and its citizens.

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TOWARDS A NEW GLOBAL INSTITUTIONAL ORDER

• The current world order contributes to severe
  poverty.
• Severe poverty is a human rights violation.
• Wealthy states have a negative duty to refrain
  from contributing to harm and rectifying the
  damage caused.
• Moral universalism gt certain moral principles
  should be held equally by all persons.
• Global justice demands structural changes in the
  global institutional order in order to alleviate
  the continuation of severe power.

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ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RIGHTS

• The debates about global justice are most often
  related to economic and social rights.
• Thomas Pogge argues that the fulfilment of human
  rights requires an institutional approach to
  global justice.

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ARTICLE 25

• Everyone has the right to a standard of living
  adequate for the health and well-being of himself
  and of his family, including, food, clothing,
  housing and medical care and necessary social
  services, and the right to security in the event
  of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood,
  old age or other lack of livelihood in
  circumstances beyond his control.

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POVERTY

• Out of 6.2 billion human beings 799 million are
  mal nourished, more than 880 million lack access
  to basic health services and 1 billion are
  without adequate shelter.
• Some 50.000 human death per day are due to
  poverty-related causes and therefore avoidable.
• Poverty does not only refer to economic
  inequality, but also to life expectance, level of
  education, health, etc.
• There is an increasing gap between the poor and
  the rich in the world.

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ABSOLUTE POVERTY
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HUMAN POVERTY
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ARTICLE 28

• Everyone is entitled to a social and
  international order in which the rights and
  freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be
  fully realized.

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SHOULD WE BRIDGE THE GAP BETWEEN THEORY AND
PRAXIS?

• No, because human rights are nonsense!
• Yes, because we have a moral duty to fulfil human
  rights promises!

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COMMUNICATIVE POWER

• Beyond the opposition of realists and
  constructivists, i.e. the real and the ideal.
• Consciousness about the performativity of
  normative discourses.
• Human rights and democracy as guiding principles.

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HUMAN RIGHTS AND LIBERTY

• Liberty is a core value of democracy.
• Human rights refer to two forms of liberty
• 1. NEGATIVE LIBERTY gt freedom from.
• 2. POSITIVE LIBERTY gt freedom to.

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GLOBAL EMPOWERMENT

• The emergence of Global Justice Movement.
• Although close to anti-globalization, it presents
  itself as alter-globalization.
• Main goals
• 1. Global justice.
• 2. Democracy.

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A NETWORK OF NETWORKS

• The the emergence of the global civil society is
  the context of the Global Justice Movement.
• The creation of a network of network is the
  strategy of empowerment.
• Example ATTAC.