IMMIGRANT (AND REFUGEE) RIGHTS AS HUMAN RIGHTS

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IMMIGRANT (AND REFUGEE) RIGHTS AS HUMAN RIGHTS
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One way to look at the problem

• Even though the Bill of Rights does not grant
  foreigners a right of entry into the United
  States, it does prohibit discrimination based on
  race and national origin against citizens and
  noncitizens alike.
• We recognize that our country, like all
  sovereign nations, has the right to control its
  borders. But we also believe that the government
  should treat all people according to
  constitutional standards of fairness.
• American Civil Liberties Union of Florida
• http//www.aclufl.org/take_action/download_resourc
  es/info_papers/20.cfm

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Another way to look at the problem

• Arpaio and the county attorney () have settled
  on a novel interpretation of a state law against
  smuggling. The laws target is, of course,
  smugglers, known as coyotes but Arpaio and Thomas
  charged undocumented immigrants, the coyotes
  cargo, as co-conspirators in their own
  smuggling. This is a class 4 felony, which make
  the suspects ineligible for bond ().
• Finnegan, William, Sheriff Joe p. 9

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Yet another way to look at it

• We become aware of a right to have rights (and
  that mean to live in a framework where one is
  judged by ones actions and opinions) and a right
  to belong to some kind of organized community,
  only when millions of people emerge who had lost
  and could not regain these rights because of the
  new global political situation.
• Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism,
  1968, p. 177

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A few immigrant rights organizations

• National Network for Immigrant and Refugees
  Rights
• http//www.nnirr.org/
• American Civil Liberties Union
• http//www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/detention
• Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los
  Angeles
• http//www.chirla.org/
• Amnesty International USA
• http//www.amnestyusa.org/immigration-detention/pa
  ge.do?id1641031
• National Coalition for Immigrant Womens Rights
  (NCIWR)
• http//nciwr.wordpress.com/membership-documents/

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Globalization, the State, and Human RightsJ.
Donnelly, International Human Rights, p. 197-210

• What is globalization?
• Globalizing spread of ideas of practices of
  electoral democracy and individual Human Rights
• Globalizing spread of transnational logic of
  capital accumulation
• Localization (as a reaction to globalization that
  becomes part of it) local and regional autonomy

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• Transnational human rights advocacy
• Spread of human rights ideas
• But there is a darker side
• - Transnational criminal enterprises
• - Mercenaries
• Private security services
• gt Globalization threatens bad and good
  states

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The Welfare State, Globalization and Human Rights

• The state envisioned by contemporary
  International Human Rights Norms
• Liberal state legitimate because it protects the
  human rights of its citizens
• Democratic state committed to universal
  political participation, recognizing the power of
  the people within the limits of Human Rights
  of all
• Welfare state economic and social obligations to
  all citizens

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• The Welfare state is under assault from economic
  globalization
• Globalization shifted the balance of power
  towards businesses and away from workers and
  states.
• Without a welfare state there is no necessary
  connection between market and growth, development
  and the enjoyment of social and economic rights

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Welfare state and enjoyment of social and
economic rights

• Welfare state guaranteed all individuals certain
  economic and social goods, services and
  opportunities irrespective of the market value of
  their labor.
• note everyone or all does not mean each and
  every individual but the average individual, an
  abstract entity
• Markets are justified by utilitarian political
  theory (argument of collective good and aggregate
  benefit, not individual rights)
• Only when market are embedded in a welfare state
  does a market-based economy merit our respect

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Market democracy and American Foreign Policy

• Market democracy a powerful convergence of
  market, human rights ideas and political power.
• Democracy is a good thing but its not the same
  good thing as human rights.
• Democracy can be substantive democracy (of the
  people for the people) or procedural democracy
  (of the people by the people)
• A procedural democracy government may still
  systematically violate Human Rights

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Democracy and Human Rights

• Democracy answers the question who should rule,
  Human Rights address how government should
  rule.
• 3 levels of political progress toward respect for
  internationally recognized Human Rights
• a- Liberalization Decrease in Human rights
  violations opening political space for
  previously excluded group (South Korea, China,
  Poland in the 1980s)
• b- Democratization establishing electoral
  democracy
• c- Rights protective regime Liberal democracy
  (deepening of democracy