IHR Midterm Readings

John Eby (Why Service Learning is Bad)

"The service-learning movement is fueled by an uneasy sense that the academy is becoming increasingly irrelevant to real issues of society and by the increasing popularity of volunteerism in society - short term volunteers cause harm to community (limits of service-learning and "service in a box") - the needs of the agency and the community often come last (1st needs of academic institution, students, course or instructor; also used to enhance reputations) - Service Learning has great potential but if done poorly can hurt community

Eric Posner (The Twilight of Human Rights Law)

- Brazil (police brutality & disappearances [de Souza] & extrajudicial killings) - violates HR as a matter of practice (rather than official policy - also mentions china and north korea a lot (esp with suppressing political dissent) - torture practiced frequently in 93 countries, occasionally in 65 (US included) and not at all in 34 countries - Freedom House counted 90 "free" countries out of 194 - history of human rights laws

Heller vs DC (US Supreme Court)

- DC requires residents to keep lawfully owned firearms unleaded and disassembled - Heller sued DC for violation of 2nd amendment (gun necessary for self-defense)

Clifford Bob (Global Right Wing and the Clash of World Politics)

- Gay Rights vs the Baptist-Burqa Network - Baptist Burqa Network = traditional family advocates - religious groups go well beyond missionary and relief work and onto legislation work - International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) - ILGA being discredited with NAMBLA's membership scandal

Jack Donnelly Ch 1 (Human Rights as an Issue in World Politics)

- IHR concern "obvious" only post WWII (Nuremberg first time officials held legally accountable to the international community for offenses against individual [national] citizens) - Incorporation of HR into the UN (1945) and Commission on Human Rights (1946) which adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and 1966 International Bill of Human Rights -UN is far less successful in actually implementing the standards - basically gives a summary of IHR doctrines/progression from 1940's-present

Mary Ann Glendon (A World Made New - Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

- Malik, Humphrey - Ms. Roosevelt & draft of the declaration - many amendments but no outright rejection of universal declaration of HR from member states - "dignity" chosen to emphasize that every human is worthy of respect - chang from china played mediation role (in addition to wanting to pass certain amendments?) - second chapter on the declaration of independence and goes over all the separate articles

Alette Smeulers (What Transforms Ordinary People into Gross Human Rights Violators?)

- actual perpetrators of horrific HR violations are ordinary people - transformation process that turns ordinary people into gross HR violators - preparation phase (inhumane treatment), initiation phase (gradual) and habituation phase (rationalize) - used example of Nazi doctors

Andrew Furco (Service-Learning: A Balanced Approach to Experiential Education)

- both those who provide service and those who receive it "learn" from the experience (works when both providers and recipients of service benefit) - students learn and develop through active participation in thoughtfully organized service experiences that meet actual community needs - Developing a definition, distinguishing among service programs, volunteerism, internships, community service, field education, service learning

Deborah Labelle (Bringing Human Rights Home to the World of Detention)

- bringing the concept and value of human rights home to the US (HR usually thought of abroad) - US has avoided accountability for these standards and the language and import of HR faded into disuse here at home - enhanced domestic laws that have allowed many to be marginalized and deprived - abuse taking place in American prisons. prisoner rights advocates decry the lack of recognition of HR violations - Prisoner's Rights Movement and how US courts have handled prisoners' rights - 1820's penitentiaries come into broad use with goal of rehabilitating, as crime increased empathy waned and punishment replaced reform (ceased to exist as legal persons after conviction). 1960's gave rise of prisoners' rights movement. 1971 riot at Attica called attention to treatment - Supreme Court rulings throughout 1970s&80s but then the next decade saw a retreated in Supreme Court intervention. - Michigan prison (Woman's prison)

Jack Donnelly Ch 5 (Global Multilateral Mechanisms)

- conventional distinction between "Charter-based bodies" and "treaty-based bodies" (those that draw their authority from UN charter and those that are rooted in other more specialized treaties - case study of global antiapartheid regime

Michel Foucault (Discipline and Punish The Birth of the Prison)

- description of Damiens being executed - eighty years later the rules 'for the House of young prisoners in Paris' - "Punishment, then, will tend to become the most hidden part of the penal process" (disappearance of torture as a public spectacle)

Julie Mertus (rejection of human rights framings: the case of LGBT Advocacy in the US)

- explores why many advocates concern with lesbian, gay and transgendered rights in the US have not chosen to from their struggles in human rights terms - human rights framings may be viewed as unduly restrictive and even detrimental when identity is the central organizing factor (however, also is effective way of claiming moral high ground)

Jack Donnelly Ch 3 (The Relative Universality of Human Rights)

- extensively addresses the universality of HR - held by every human being, everywhere in the world - universality of HR is a central theme in diplomatic, political, popular and academic discussions - relatively universal (as opposed to relative or universal) - 88% ratification rate of six core IHR treaties

Jane Mayer (The Dark Side: The inside story of how the war on terror turned into a war on american ideals)

- extraordinary rendition - devised as a means of extraditing criminal suspects from one foreign country to another outside of the recognized legal process - war on terror - Pakistan -> plane that mysteriously took a guy to Jordan? - Afghanistan turned over al-Libi - president encouraged agressive action

Jack Donnelly Ch 7 (Assessing Multilateral Mechanisms)

- historical evolution of IHR regimes and assess the strengths/weaknesses of the mechanisms - has 2pg chart

Paul Farmer (On Suffering and Structural Violence: A View from Below)

- how to define suffering - premature and painful illness, torture and rape constitute extreme suffering; also racism and sexism - focus of own research in Haiti (AIDS, "water refugee", Chouchou Louis and Acephie Joseph)

Abouharb and Cingranelli (Human Rights and Structural Adjustment)

- ideological assault against the state and promote a shift in power from the state to the market (1981) - structural adjustment agreements call upon recipient governments to liberalize and privatize economies in the context of strict budget discipline - role of state reshaped to serve market liberalization (governments have downsized, decentralized and privatized their functions) - relationship between adjustment and respect for human rights

Jack Donnelly Ch 4 (The Domestic Politics of Human Rights: Dirty Wars in the Southern Cone)

- looks at HR violations in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay in the 1970s and 80s - contemporary international human rights policies and practices were significantly shaped by efforts of governments, NGOs and regional/international organizations to deal with these violations - this chapter consists of national violations

Jack Goldsmith (Should International Human Rights Law Trump US Domestic Law?)

- many cases of citizens challenging US rulings that are in violation of the ICCRP - US courts typically reject claims under the ICCRP (president and senate attached conditions that preclude ICCRP from domestic law) - HR community has criticized the US' failure to make IHRs treaties a source of law in the domestic realm - goldsmith defends US against these criticisms (concentrate only on policy question whether or not US should apply the ICCPR in the domestic realm)

Malcolm X (The Ballot or the Bullet)

- muslim - political oppression [economic exploitation, social degradation] at the hands of the white man - either fight or vote -> 1964 threatens to be the most explosive year (white politicians) - doesn't consider self American - majority of democrats in house/senate (government conspiracy)

Jack Donnelly Ch 2 (Theories of Human Rights)

- philosophical theories of HR, the place of HR in international society, challenges the very idea of IHR rights policies (political realism) - all people have HR, but don't enjoy them equally - have human rights not to what we need for survival but to what we need for a life of dignity - HR generally understood today, given and unproblematic - interdependent and indivisible (authors destroy their own argument by right to own property economic argument) - link between HR and the state - statist model, cosmopolitan model and internationalist model - political realism (realpolitik - power politics - the primacy in all political life of power and security - universal moral principles cannot be applied to the actions of states) and cultural relativism

David Mason and Dale Krane (The Political Economy of Death Squads)

- rational choice model of novelette response to escalating level of death squad violence with a structural analysis of global and domestic conditions under which the escalation of state sanctioned terror can be expected - death squad and indiscriminate violence by state leads politically inert to turn to the rebels in search of protection (why would rational state leader pursue a policy of escalating repression if such measures are ultimately counterproductive) - revolution is a matter of accounting for those "underlying conditions" that render a society so volatile that one spark can ignite mass discontent into revolutionary conflagration - opposition leaders, rank and file supporters of the opposition, the politically uninvolved - El Salvador (severe land pressure catalyzed by a shift to export agriculture and the rapid growth of the rural population)

Jack Donnelly Ch 6 (Regional Human Rights Regimes)

- regional HR regimes run the gamut from a system of authoritative judicial enforcement in Europe to the absence of any formal regional mechanism in Asia and most of its subregions - European Regional Regime (Council of Europe/European Convention for the Protection of HR and Fundamental Freedoms) - Inter-American System (Organization of American States/American Convention on HR/Inter-American Commission on HR) (weak/ineffective compared to European counterpart) - African Regional Regime (African Charter on the Human and Peoples' Rights/African Commission) (many limitations and inadequacies) Arab World and Asia (regional HR machinery in Asia and the ME is almost nonexistent but starting to change) (Permanent Arab Commission on HR/Arab Charter of HR and Arab HR Committee) (No regional mechanisms in Asia of any sort - ASEAN) - Case study of Chile and Inter-American Commission

Michael P Zuckert (Natural Rights Republic - On The Declaration of Independence)

- treatment in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address - Beard's argument on the constitution (economic) - Declaration is not the proper beginning point for a study of the constitutional order (either before or after depending on argument) - this is just all about the Declaration (Thomas Jefferson) - security of his or her own rights; government has responsibility not to sacrifice some to the others; majority and minority tyranny are abhorrent

Sanford Levinson (the embarrassing second amendment)

- two thoughts: American Civil Liberties Union and the 'New Right' (latter is second amendment advocates) - campaigns for candidates can hinge on view of 2nd amendment - no one has ever described the constitution as a marvel of clarity, and the second amendment is perhaps one of the worst drafted of all its provisions - does not come close to resolving the questions posed by federal regulation of arms -"the people" as a body not individual?

Jack Donnelly Ch 14 (Globalization, the State, and Human Rights)

- what are the implications of globalization for human rights? - globalization is a web of interconnected processes that challenge the political, economic and cultural primacy of the state (creation of structures and processes that span the entire globe) - globalization is undermining the principal mechanism for implementing and enforcing human rights, especially economic and social rights

Benjamin Valentino (Final Solutions: the causes of mass killings and genocides)

- why do some conflicts result in the killing of massive numbers of unarmed citizens - mass killings are wide spread and go back far in history - minimum level of social support necessary to carry out mass killing has been uncomfortably easy to achieve (leaders have powerful methods to encourage participation) - five main sections: 1) define term Mass killing. 2) provide brief review of several of the most influential existing theories of mass killing. 3) public support for mass killing. 4) strategic perspective on mass killing. 5) conclusion discusses implications of the strategic approach for limiting or averting mass killings in the future - The Plural Society Theory and Social Cleavages, and Dehumanization - National Crises and Mass Killings (scapegoat theory)