Donnelly Jack - The Social Construction of International PDF

1
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
www.relacionesinternacionales.info |
RRelaciones Internacionales, nm. 17, junio de 2011
GERI UAM
RESUMEN:
Este captulo, revisado y actualizado
a comienzos de 2011, analiza el
modo en que los derechos humanos
se han construido e integrado en la
agenda poltica internacional desde
mediados del siglo XX. Este anlisis
busca contextualizar algunos de los
debates suscitados en el mbito de los
derechos humanos recientemente. Lo
hace partiendo de la comprensin de la
funcin de los derechos humanos como
instrumentos para la defensa de la
dignidad humana frente a las prcticas
de los agentes que la amenazan. En este
sentido es posible, a da de hoy y de cara
al futuro, argumentar su plena validez
basndose en su propia condicin de
construccin social, cuya naturaleza
es contingente, y est vinculada a las
formas en que se entiende la propia
dignidad humana, y el papel del estado
como principal garante y fuente de
amenazas para los derechos humanos
individuales.
PALABRAS CLAVE:
Derechos humanos; estado;
soberana; dignidad humana; normas
internacionales.
ABSTRACT:
This chapter, revised and updated in
early 2011, examines how human
rights have been built and integrated
into the international policy agenda
since the mid-twentieth century. This
analysis seeks to contextualize some
of the recent discussions in the area of
human rights. It proposes that one may
understand the role of human rights as
an instrument for defending human
dignity against the practices and agents
that threaten it. In this sense it is pos-
sible, now and in the future, to claim
the complete validity of human rights
based purely on their status as a so-
cial construct, whose nature is contin-
gent, and is linked to the ways in which
human dignity is understood, and the
states role as the main guarantor and
source of threat to individual human
rights.
KEYWORDS:
Human rights; state; sovereignty;
human dignity; international norms.
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF INTERNATIONAL
HUMAN RIGHTS
JACK DONNELLY*
* Jack DONNELLY is professor of International Relations Theory and Human Rights at the Josef Korbel
School of International Studies in the University of Denver. He has published several books and many
articles on Theory of International Relations, International Politics and Human Rights.
This fragment is an updated 2011 revision of The Social Construction of International Human Rights,
published in DUNNE, Tim and WHEELER, Nicholas J., Human Rights in Global Politics, Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, 1999.Translated and published with de Cambridge University Press authorization.
We sincerely thank Mr. Jack Donnelly for this update.

2
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
| www.relacionesinternacionales.info
Relaciones Internacionales, nm. 17, junio de 2011
GERI UAM
Human rights has been an established subject of international relations for less
than seventy years. With minor exceptions -most notably, nineteenth century
efforts to end the slave trade and twentieth century work on eradicating slavery
and protecting the rights of workers and ethnic minorities- human rights simply
were not a subject of international relations before World War II. Even genocidal
massacres, such as Russian pogroms against the Jews or the Turkish slaughter
of Armenians, were met by little more than anguished statements of disapproval.
Less egregious violations typically were not even considered a ft subject for diplo-
matic conversation.
This practice refected a statist logic arising from the interaction of a realist
notion of the national interest and a rigid legal positivist conception of sovereignty.
To the realist, human rights are largely irrelevant to the national interest defned
in terms of power. To the legal positivist, they present an archetypical example
of actions solely within the domestic jurisdiction -and thus the sovereign preroga-
tive- of states. Although this logic has suffered considerable erosion, it continues
to shape dominant international human rights practices and provides a baseline for
assessing change.
1. The global human rights regime
1
Despite the cautions and complaints of realists, states continue to pursue moral
objectives in international relations. The result has been the development of a
global human rights regime
2
that today signifcantly shapes the behavior of states
and other international actors.
1.1. From Hitler to the Universal Declaration
World War II, beyond protecting material national interests and the statist ordering
principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, had signifcant moral overtones,
especially on the American side. Beyond self-interested propaganda, there was a
genuine belief that the war, particularly against Hitlers Germany, was a struggle
not only against material danger but also against a moral evil that arose from the
1
My principal focus will be on multilateral instruments and institutions open to all states, with
secondary attention to bilateral state policies and transnational actors. The best book-length intro-
duction to this material is: FORSYTHE, David P., Human Rights in International Relations, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 2006 (Second edition). See also: DONNELLY, Jack, International Human
Rights, Westview Press, Boulder, 2006 (Third edition). And STEINER, Henry J., ALSTON, Philip, and
GOODMAN, Ryan (editors), International Human Rights in Context: Law, Politics, Morals. Texts and
Materials. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008 (Third edition).
R
egional human rights regimes -which are especially important in Europe- will not be discussed. For
information on these institutions, see: FORSYTHE, David P., Human Rights in International Relations,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006 (Second edition), chapter 4; and, at much greater
length: SHELTON, Dinah, Regional Protection of Human Rights. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008.
2
An international regime is conventionally defned as a set of principles, norms, rules, and
decision-making procedures that states and other international actors accept as authoritative
within an issue area.

3
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
systematic violation of human rights. For example, Franklin Roosevelts January
1942 Four Freedoms speech explicitly linked the war effort to protecting free-
doms of speech and of worship and freedoms from want and from fear. By June
1943, planners in the US State Department had drafted a charter for a postwar
international organization that included an International Bill of Human Rights.
Human rights, however, remained a decidedly secondary concern in the wartime
actions of the Allies. For example, the rail lines that kept the Nazi death camps
functioning never were a major target of allied bombing. Only as victory was being
achieved did human rights become a central concern.
Traditional international practice, however, lacked even the language with which to
condemn the horrors of the Holocaust. Realist diplomacy could fnd no material
national interest that was threatened. In fact, while German realists might have
decried the diversion of strategic resources to the death camps, Allied realists
could, with theoretical consistency, only see it as politically fortunate. Traditional
international law was as much at a loss: massacring ones own citizens simply was
not an established international offense. The German government may have been
legally liable for their treatment of citizens in occupied territories, but in gassing
German nationals it was simply exercising its sovereign rights.
The Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal, despite the taint of ex post facto victors jus-
tice, dramatically introduced the subject of gross violations of human rights into
the mainstream of international relations. The charge of crimes against humanity
held German soldiers and offcials liable for offenses against individual citizens, not
states, and individuals who often were nationals, not foreigners.
Of even greater long-run importance was the United Nations Charter. The exclu-
sion of human rights from pre-war international relations is perhaps best illustrated
by the fact that even the notoriously idealist Covenant of the League of Nations
does not mention human rights. In sharp contrast, the Preamble and Article 1 of
the UN Charter include promotion of respect for human rights and fundamental
freedoms among the principal purposes of the Organization.
The United Nations moved rapidly and vigorously to formulate international human
rights norms. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime
of Genocide, a direct response to the Holocaust, was adopted by the UN General
Assembly on December 9, 1948. The following day the Assembly adopted the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
3
. This was a decisive step in codifying the
3
MORSINK, Johannes, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting, and
Intent, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1999, is the standard account of the develop-

4
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
emerging view that the way in which states treat their own citizens is not only a
legitimate international concern but subject to international standards.
The initial momentum of the immediate postwar years, however, was not
sustained. Work on a covenant to give greater legal force and specifcity to the
rights enumerated in the Universal Declaration became bogged down, and was
largely abandoned by 1954. Most states were satisfed with an international hu-
man rights regime that included little more than a strong statement of norms. For
apparently genuine moral reasons, they were no longer willing to leave human
rights entirely beyond international purview. But they were unwilling to allow
multilateral monitoring of national human rights practices, let alone international
implementation or enforcement. For example, at its frst session, in early 1947,
the UN Commission on Human Rights resolved that it had no power to take any
action in regard to any complaints concerning human rights
4
.

1.2. The International Human Rights Covenants
The early sixties witnessed a new wave of UN human rights activity, led by the
newly independent states of Africa and Asia
5
. The International Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which addressed a topic of
special concern to the Afro-Asian bloc, was adopted by the General Assembly in
December 1965. Work also began anew on a comprehensive international human
rights treaty. In December 1966, the International Covenant on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
were opened for signature and ratifcation. Along with the Universal Declaration
they provided -and still provide- an authoritative statement of internationally rec-
ognized human rights. Table 1 summarizes the rights they recognize
6
.
ment and substance of the Universal Declaration. On the development of international human rights
more broadly, see: LAUREN, Paul Gordon, The Evolution of International Human Rights: Visions Seen,
University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2011 (Third edition).
4
UN Document E/259 (1947), paragraph 22.
5
BURKE, Roland, Decolonization and Human Rights, University of Pennsylvania Press,
Philadelphia, 2010, provides an excellent discussion of the place of decolonization in the development
of the global human rights regime.
6
These and many other international human rights treaties are readily accessible on the ex- These and many other international human rights treaties are readily accessible on the ex-
cellent website of the High-Commissioner for Human Rights http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/
index.htm.

5
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
Table 1. Internationally Recognized Human Rights

The following rights either are enumerated in both the Universal Declaration and at least
one of the International Human Rights Covenants or have a full article in of these three
instruments.
The source of each right is indicated in parentheses, by document and article number.
D: Universal Declaration of Human Rights
E: International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights
C: International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
Right D E C
Equality of rights without discrimination. D1, D2 E2, E3 C2, C3
Life. D3 - C6
Liberty and security of person. D3 - C9
Protection against slavery. D4 - C8
Protection against torture and cruel and inhuman
punishment.
D5 - C7
Recognition as a person before the law. D6 - C16
Equal protection of the law. D7 - C14, C26
Access to legal remedies for rights violations. D8 - C2
Protection against arbitrary arrest or detention. D9 - C9
Hearing before an independent and impartial
judiciary.
D10 - C14
Presumption of innocence. D11 - C14
Protection against ex post facto laws. D11 - C15
Protection of privacy, family, and home. D12 - C17
Freedom of movement and residence. D13 - C12
Seek asylum from persecution. - -
Nationality. D15 - -
Marry and found a family. D16 E10 C23
Own property. D17 - -
Freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. D18 - C18
Freedom of opinion, expression, and the press. D19 - C19
Freedom of assembly and association. D20 - C21, C22
Political participation. - C25
Social security. D22 E9 -
Work, under favorable conditions. D23 E6, E7 -
Free trade unions. E8 C22
Rest and leisure. D24 E7 -
Food, clothing, and housing. D25 E11 -
Health care and social services. D25 E12 -
Special protections for children. D25 E10 C24
Education. E13, E14 -
Participation in cultural life. D27 E15 -
A social and international order needed to realize
rights.
D28 - -

6
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
The following rights either are enumerated in both the Universal Declaration and at least
one of the International Human Rights Covenants or have a full article in of these three
instruments.
The source of each right is indicated in parentheses, by document and article number.
D: Universal Declaration of Human Rights
E: International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights
C: International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
Right D E C
Self-determination. E1 C1
Protection against debtors prison. - C11
Protection against arbitrary expulsion of aliens. - C13 -
Protection against advocacy of racial or religious
hatred.
- C20 -
Protection of minority culture. - C27 -
Further progress, however, was slow and erratic. The 1968 -Teheran-
World Conference on Human Rights, held to mark the twentieth anniversary of the
Universal Declaration, was followed not by a new spurt of activity but by a decade-
long lull. Part of this can be attributed, ironically, to the successful completion of
the Covenants. While their comprehensiveness took much of the urgency out of
additional normative work, it was to be nearly ten years before they received the
necessary 35 ratifcations to enter into force. The result was a frustrating delay
in shifting from a near exclusive emphasis on standard setting to an emphasis on
international implementation.
The letdown of the early seventies, however, also owes much to the persis-
tence of a statist, sovereignty-respecting logic. This is most clear in the "imple-
mentation" machinery of the Covenants and the Racial Discrimination Convention:
periodic reports by states to a committee of independent experts. These super-
visory committees were not authorized to fnd violations of the treaty, call for
changes in state practice, or seek remedy for victims
7
.
Human rights norms had become fully internationalized. Implementation
and enforcement, however, remained almost completely national. States accepted
an obligation to implement internationally recognized human rights. But they re-
stricted international supervision of these obligations to nonintrusive international
monitoring. The Covenants reaffrmed and helped to deepen the view that human
rights were a ft subject for international discussion -but not coercive international
action-.
7

ALSTON, Philip y CRAWFORD, James (editors), The Future of UN Human Rights Treaty Monitoring.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000, is the standard account of multilateral treaty monitor-
ing.

7
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
This assessment is perhaps a bit too harsh. Work on self-determination and
apartheid intensifed. In 1967, ECOSOC resolution 1235 authorized the Commission
on Human Rights to discuss human rights publicly. In 1970, Resolution 1503 gave
the Commission the authority to conduct confdential investigations of communica-
tions "which appear to reveal a consistent pattern of gross and reliably attested
violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms. But even if these new
monitoring powers had been used in an aggressive, nonpartisan fashion which
they rarely were- they represented only incremental procedural developments.
Only persuasive verbal action against human rights violators was authorized.
1.3. The Carter revival
The third wave of intensive international human rights activity came in the
mid-seventies, triggered by four major events. Revulsion against the overthrow
of the Allende government in Chile in September 1973 and the ensuing violent
repression led to the creation of a UN working group on Chile. This was the frst
time that the practices of a gross human rights violator had been subjected to in-
tensive, detailed investigation by the UN
8
. In 1975, the Helsinki Final Act formally
introduced human rights onto the agenda of East-West relations. In 1976, the
Covenants fnally entered into force, providing a new, relatively nonpartisan moni-
toring forum in the Human Rights Committee created under the Civil and Political
Covenant. And in 1977, Jimmy Carter became President of the United States.
Carters embrace of human rights as a priority for American foreign policy at least
partly disentangled international human rights from the East-West politics of the
Cold War and the North-South struggles over a new international economic order.
This gave new momentum and legitimacy to the work of human rights advocates
throughout the world.
In the Commission on Human Rights in particular, space opened for the
emergence of a revitalized western bloc, led by countries such as Canada and the
Netherlands. Important new treaties were formulated, including the Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979), the
Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment (1984), and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). Building
on the precedent of Chile, special representative and rapporteurs were appointed
to study human rights situations in a growing and increasingly diverse range of
countries, including Bolivia, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, and Afghanistan.
The Commission on Human Rights also began to consider human rights
violations on a global or thematic basis. Rather than examine abuses in indi-
vidual countries, particular types of violations were addressed globally, wherever
8
The Chile case was precedent setting because it dealt entirely with internal human rights
practices, without any signifcant connection to race or self-determination -as was central to UN
action on, for example, apartheid in South Africa or human rights practices in the Israeli-occupied
Palestinian territories-.

8
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
they occurred. Most prominent was the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary
Disappearances, created in 1980 to help families and friends determine the where-
abouts of disappeared persons, which handled over 19,000 cases in its frst decade
of work
9
. A Special Rapporteur on summary or arbitrary executions was appointed
in 1982, followed in 1985 by a Special Rapporteur on torture.
No less important during the Carter era was the introduction of human rights
into the mainstream of bilateral foreign policy. During the height of the Cold War,
human rights were largely restricted to multilateral international arenas. The lan-
guage of human rights was most striking for its absence in bilateral relations, even
when dealing with central human rights issues. For example, the United States
regularly used the language of freedom and democracy, not human rights, and
the Soviets typically spoke of particular abuses, such as racism, colonialism, and
unemployment, rather than human rights in general.
In 1973, the US Congress began to link foreign aid to the human rights
performance of recipients. Tentative efforts in this direction were taken about the
same time in the aid policies of the Nordic countries. But human rights really en-
tered the mainstream of foreign policy with Carters prominent public human rights
diplomacy.
This new bilateral emphasis on human rights occasionally was formally codi-
fed, as in the Dutch White Paper of 1979. More often, there was a less formal, yet
surprisingly rapid and clear, change. By the mid-eighties, debate in most Western
countries focused less on whether human rights should be an active concern of
foreign policy than on which rights should be pursued where. Even the Reagan
Administration, which in 1981 explicitly announced its intention to replace Carters
emphasis on human rights with an emphasis on international terrorism, increas-
ingly came to justify its policies in human rights terms.
The mid-seventies also saw a major upsurge in international human rights
activity by nongovernmental organizations (NGO), symbolized by the award of the
Nobel Peace prize to Amnesty International in 1977. These groups, in addition to
their advocacy for victims of human rights abuses, have been important actors
in changing bilateral and multilateral international human rights policies. For ex-
ample, international campaigns against torture by Amnesty in the seventies and
eighties played an important role in the drafting of the 1984 Convention Against
Torture. At the national level, the Dutch section of Amnesty was involved in draft-
9
GUEST, Iain, Behind the Disappearances: Argentinas Dirty War Against Human Rights and
the United Nations, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1990, provides a thorough but highly
readable account of the international politics of disappearances that captures well the favor of interna-
tional human rights politics in this era.

9
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
ing the governments human rights White Paper. In the United States, several
human rights NGO were important players in the struggles over Central American
policy in the eighties.
1.4. The post-Cold War era
The next and so far last spurt of growth in the global human rights re-
gime occurred with the end of the Cold War, which altered both national and in-
ternational contexts in ways that facilitated both improved national human rights
performance and more aggressive international promotion. With anti-communism
largely removed from American and other Western foreign policy agendas, Cold
War allies found it much harder to justify their human rights violations -to both
domestic and international audiences-. The United States was much less willing to
turn a blind eye. And national actors seized on this new context to press for im-
proved human rights practices in country after country in all regions of the world.
These national changes varied from region to region and country to country, but by
the mid-nineties the overall global human rights record had improved noticeably.
Changes in the global human rights regime both refected and helped to
deepen these changes. Within the United Nations system, existing procedures
were used somewhat more aggressively and a High-Com mission er for Human
Rights was created in 1993 and by the end of the decade had emerged as a major
international advocate. In bilateral foreign policy, human rights became increas-
ingly entrenched as a nonpartisan concern of an ever-growing number of states
10
.
And human rights NGO increased in both number and infuence in most regions of
the world
11
.
The biggest progressive changes, however, concerned humanitarian inter-
vention against genocide and individual international criminal liability for a limited
range of severe and systematic violations. A series of high profle interventions in
Liberia, Sierra Leone, Bosnia, Kosovo, and East Timor plus the reaction against
the tragic failure to act aggressively in Rwanda created a legal right to armed in-
tervention against genocide and a general pattern of supporting political practice
12
.
10
For broader overviews of human rights in foreign policy, see: FORSYTHE, David P. (editor),
Human Rights and Comparative Foreign Policy, United Nations University Press, Tokyo, 2000; LIANG-
FENTON, Debra, (editor), Implementing U. S. Human Rights Policy: Agendas, Policies, and Practices,
United States Institute of Peace Press, Washington, D. C.,2004; and BRYSK, Alison, Global Good
Samaritans: Human Rights as Foreign Policy, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009.
11
BAEHR, Peter R., Non-Governmental Human Rights Organizations in International Relations,
Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2009, provides an up-to-date overview of the place of NGOs in the in-
ternational politics of human rights.
12
HOLZGREF,J. L. and KEOHANE, Robert O. (editors), Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical,
Legal, and Political Dilemmas. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003, provides a good over-
view. SCHNABEL, Albrecht, and THAKUR, Ramesh (editors) Kosovo and the Challenge of Humanitarian
Intervention: Selective Indignation, Collective Action, and International Citizenship, United Nations

10
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
-During the Cold War, humanitarian intervention was legally prohibited and the
only prominent instances involved politically motivated interventions by neighbors,
such as India in East Pakistan -Bangladesh- and Vietnam in Cambodia-. Ad hoc
tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda began to establish mechanisms
of international legal accountability for the most egregious violations, laying the
ground for the 1998 Rome Statute and the creation of an International Criminal
Court in 2002.
By some accounts, especially in the United States, the 2001 terrorist attacks
on the U.S. changed everything and ushered in a new era. Such an assessment,
whatever its accuracy in the case of American national and foreign policy, simply
does not ft what has occurred in the past decade in the global human rights re-
gime
13
.
The norms of the global human rights regime have continued to be elabo-
rated and extended, with major new treaties on disappearances (2006) and per-
sons with disabilities (2007) and an historic declaration on the rights of indigenous
peoples (2007). And American efforts to justify torture and extrajudicial detention
have been almost universally rejected. The multilateral institutional machinery has
been modestly strengthened, with the replacement in 2006 of the Commission on
Human Rights -which had become dysfunctionally politicized- by a new UN Human
Rights Council
14
. The existing mechanisms of thematic and country rapporteurs
and experts continue to provide a considerable degree of focused international
scrutiny and the budget of the High Commissioner has increased steadily and sub-
stantially since 9/11
15
.
Transnational human rights advocacy continues undiminished. If anything,
it has increased in reach and effectiveness. Likewise, human rights remains an
important issue in bilateral foreign policy despite striking but largely isolated in-
stances of war of terror- justifed support for repressive regimes, perhaps most
notably U.S. support for Pakistan.
Most importantly, the broad pattern of national practice shows no post-9/11
University Press, Tokyo, 2000, is a superb and comprehsive collection of essays on the decisive Kosovo
intervention.
13

For a recent sampling of relatively moderate views on the issue of continuity and change since 9/11
see: GOODHART, Michael and MIHR, Anja (editors), Human Rights in the 21st Century: Continuity and
Change since 9/11, Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills, Basingstoke, 2011.
14
Comprehensive information on activities of the Council is available at www2.ohchr.org/eng-
lish/bodies/hrcouncil.
15

See http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/chr/special/index.htm.

11
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
reversal. This is true both globally and regionally, and for most -but not all- rights
16
.
Although the progress of the nineties has not been sustained, it is hard to attribute
that to the war on terror; the late nineties already saw much less progress than the
early nineties. There are roughly as many countries with improved human rights
performance since 9/11 as countries that have seen their record deteriorate.
In other words, the post-Cold War era as a whole has seen a substantial in-
crease in the range and effectiveness of international and very clear improvements
in the average level of national practice, not only globally but in every region -ex-
cept Western Europe, where the high level of Cold War era performance has been
sustained-. Looking back to the early days of the global human rights regime in
the mid-forties the progress has been impressive. And there is no reason not to
expect further, largely incremental but nonetheless signifcant, progress in both the
global regime and national practice -as suggested, perhaps, but the Arab Spring
of 2011-.
2. Right, wrong, and international human rights
This global human rights regime rests on a distinctive moral and political vision.
Internationally recognized human rights represent a distinctive strategy for re-
sponding to a relatively narrow yet very important set of rights and wrongs. Were
my inclinations more postmodern, I might describe this endeavor as an analysis
of the discourse of human rights, or even a deconstruction of international human
rights.
2.1. Right, rectitude, and entitlement
To understand the particular character of human rights we must start with the fact
that right in English has two principal moral and political senses: rectitude and
entitlement
17
.
The sense of rectitude is most general. In this sense we speak of the right
thing to do and say of something that it is right -or wrong-. The focus is on the
righteousness of the required action, and the duty-bearer's obligation to do "what
is right."
Entitlement is a narrower sense of "right." Rather than speaking of some-
16

For extensive statistical support for this claim, see: DONNELLY, Jack, International Human Rights Since
9/11: More Continuity than Change, in GOODHART, Michael and MIHR, Anja (editors), Human Rights
in the 21st Century: Continuity and Change since 9/11, Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills, Basingstoke,
2011.
17
For more extended discussions of some of the conceptual issues raised in the following para- For more extended discussions of some of the conceptual issues raised in the following para-
graphs, see: DONNELLY, Jack, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice, Cornell University Press,
Ithaca, 2003 (Second edition), chapter 1.

12
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
thing being right, we typically talk of someone having a right. When one has a
right, she is specially entitled to something, and therefore armed with claims that
have a special force. The focus is on the relationship between right-holder and
duty-bearer.
If Anne has a right to x with respect to Bob, it is not simply desirable, good,
or even merely right that Anne enjoy x. She is entitled to it. Should Bob fail to
discharge his obligations, besides acting improperly and harming Anne, he violates
her rights. This makes him subject to remedial claims and sanctions that she
largely controls.
Anne is not merely a benefciary of Bobs obligation. She may assert her
right to x, in order to try to assure that Bob discharges his obligation. If he fails
to do so, she may press further claims against Bob -or excuse him-, largely at her
own discretion. She is actively in charge of the relationship, as suggested by the
language of "exercising" rights. Rights empower, in addition to beneftting, those
who hold them.
Rights, in the sense of entitlement, are a special subclass of right. Rights
thus are related only to a subset of human wrongs. Human rights the rights one
has simply because one is a human being are a subset of rights. They thus deal
with an even narrower range of human wrongs.
We do not have rights let alone human rights to all things that are good.
We do not even have human rights to all important good things. Many notable
rights -in the sense of rectitude- and wrongs for example, charity, compassion,
and the support of loving family and friends simply are not matters of "human
rights" -entitlement-. Parents or partners that abuse the trust of children and
partners wreak havoc with millions of lives every day. But not only do we not have
human rights to compassionate, supportive, and loving parents and partners, to
recognize such rights would radically transform these relationships -in a way that
I think most people would fnd destructive-.
The emphasis on human rights in contemporary international relations thus
implies selecting certain types of rights and wrongs for special emphasis, and
thereby indirectly de-emphasizing or devaluing others. It also means selecting
a particular mechanism rights, entitlement for advancing those rights -in the
sense of rectitude- and remedying those wrongs.
Human rights are not just abstract values, but a set of particular social prac-
tices to realize those values. Underlying values and aspirations, or the substan-

13
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
tive object of any particular human right, should not be confused with that right
itself, let alone with the broader idea or practice of human rights. Even where "the
same" values are pursued, their grounds and the means to realize them may differ
dramatically.
For example, protection against arbitrary execution is internationally recog-
nized today as a human right. But the fact that people are not executed arbitrarily
may refect nothing more than a government's lack of desire or capacity. Even if
people are actively protected against arbitrary execution, that protection may have
nothing to do with a right -title- not to be executed. For example, a divine injunc-
tion to rulers need not endow subjects with any rights. And even if one has a right
not to be arbitrarily executed, that right need not be a human right. It might, for
example, rest entirely on custom or statute.
Such distinctions are not mere scholastic niceties. When subjects lack a
right -title-, they are protected differently. There is an important difference be-
tween denying something to someone that it would be right for her to enjoy in
a just world, and denying her something she is entitled -has a right- to enjoy.
Violations of rights are a particular kind of injustice, with a distinctive force and
remedial logic. Furthermore, whether the right is merely a legal right, contingently
granted by the state, or a human right will dramatically alter the relationship be-
tween states and subjects, and the character of the injury suffered.
2.2. The historical particularity of human rights
Human rights are typically understood, following the manifest, literal sense of the
term, as the rights that one has simply because one is human. They are universal
rights: every human being has them. They are equal rights: one either is a hu-
man being -and thus has these rights equally- or not. And they are inalienable
rights: one cannot stop being a human being, and thus cannot stop having these
rights.
As I have argued in more detail elsewhere
18
, human rights, thus understood,
rest on and seek to realize a particular conception of human nature, dignity, well-
being, or fourishing. Human beings are seen as equal and autonomous individuals
rather than bearers of ascriptively defned social roles. Individuals are also mem-
bers of families and communities, workers, church-goers, citizens, and occupants
of numerous other social roles. A human rights conception, howoever, insists that
essential to their dignity, and to a life worthy of a human being, is the simple fact
that they are human beings. This gives them an irreducible worth that entitles
them to equal concern and respect from the state and the opportunity to make
fundamental choices about what constitutes the good life -for them-, who they as-
18
bidem, chapters 2-5.

14
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
sociate with, and how.
Although treaties and international declarations rarely point to their phil-
osophical foundations, leading international human rights instruments do re-
fect something very much like this understanding. For example, the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights begins by recognizing "the inherent dignity and
the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family and the
International Human Rights Covenants explicitly claim that the rights they recog-
nize derive from the inherent dignity of the human person. Perhaps the clearest
statement, however, comes in the second preamulatory paragraph of the Vienna
Declaration and Programme of Action adopted in June 1993 at the Second World
Conference on Human Rights.
Recognizing and affrming that all human rights derive from
the dignity and worth inherent in the human person, and that the
human person is the central subject of human rights and fundamen-
tal freedoms, and consequently should be the prinicipal benefciary
and should participate actively in the realization of these rights and
freedoms.
Such a conception of human dignity, well-being, or fourishing is, in a broad
cross-cultural and historical perspective, extremely unusual
19
. Many cultures and
societies across time and space have shared values such as equity, fairness, com-
passion, and respect for ones fellows. Very few, however, have sought to realize
these values through equal and inalienable universal rights.
In most pre-modern societies, both western and non-western, persons
were seen not as equal and autonomous individuals endowed with natural and
inalienable rights but as differentiated occupants of traditional social roles defned
by characteristics such as birth, sex, age, and occupation. For example, ancient
Greeks distinguished between Hellenes and barbarians -non-Greeks-, who were
seen as congenitally inferior. The Romans recognized rights based on birth, citi-
zenship, and achievement, not mere humanity. And Christians, despite a religious
emphasis on the equality of all believers, often treated Jews, infdels, and heretics
as less than fully human. The idea that shared humanity provided all individuals
with basic social and political rights simply cannot be found in the mainstream of
classical or medieval Western political theory, let alone practice.
In pre-modern Western political thought, rulers were seen to have obliga-
19
See: bid, chapter 5. For ease of exposition, and to further emphasize the contingency of hu-
man rights ideas, the examples used below will be almost entirely western.

15
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
tions to rule wisely and for the common good. These duties, however, arose from
divine commandment, natural law, tradition, or contingent political arrangements.
They did not rest on the rights of all human beings to be ruled justly. In a well-or-
dered society, the people were to be benefciaries of the political obligations of the
rulers. But they had no -natural or human- rights that could be exercised against
unjust rulers. The reigning idea was natural right -in the sense of rectitude- not
natural rights -entitlements-.
Human rights equal and inalienable rights, held by all human beings sim-
ply because they are human, and exercisable against the state and society are a
distinctive, historically unusual set of social values and practices. The universality
of human rights is a moral claim about the proper way to organize social and politi-
cal relations in the contemporary world, not an historical or anthropological fact.
Human rights are an eminently contestable basis for ordering social and political
life. They are, however, as we saw above, the predominant model of social and
political organization endorsed by contemporary international society.
2.3. A (very) brief history of human rights
The idea of natural or human rights permanently entered the mainstream of politi-
cal theory and practice in seventeenth century Europe, in response to the social
disruptions and transformations of modernity. Political and economic centralization
and the growing penetration of the market created -relatively- autonomous indi-
viduals and families in place of members of traditional local communities occupying
ascriptive roles. These new modern individuals and families were left -relatively-
alone to face both the growing coercive powers of ever more intrusive states and
the new indignities of free market capitalism. These same forces also supported
the political rise of the middle classes, who found in natural rights a powerful argu-
ment against aristocratic privilege.
The substance of the human rights advanced by these newly emergent so-
cial actors was no less historically contingent. Consider, for example, John Locke's
Second Treatise of Government (1688), which presented the frst fully developed
natural rights theory fundamentally consistent with later human rights ideas.
Locke's list of natural rights to life, liberty, and estates strikes most late-twentieth-
century readers as far too narrow. Furthermore, despite the apparent universalism
of the language of natural rights, Locke develops a theory for the protection of the
rights of propertied European males. Women, along with "savages," servants, and
wage laborers of either sex, were not recognized as right holders.
The history of human rights struggles in the following three centuries can
be seen as leading to a gradual expansion of recognized subjects of human rights,
toward the ideal of full and equal inclusion of all members of the species. Gender,
race, property, and religion have been formally eliminated as legitimate grounds

16
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
for denying the enjoyment of natural or human rights in almost all realms of public
life in almost all Western countries -and most other countries as well-. In effect,
racist, bourgeois, Christian patriarchs found the same natural rights arguments
they had used against aristocratic privilege turned against them in a struggle to
incorporate new social groups into the realm of equal citizens entitled to participate
in public and private life as autonomous subjects and agents.
Property restrictions on the enjoyment of natural rights were often defended
by arguing that those without property lacked the leisure required to develop their
rational capacities suffciently to be full participants in political society. The rise of
mass literacy seriously undercut such arguments. Mass electoral politics, in which
participation was conceived more as authorizing and reviewing the actions of oth-
ers than as direct political decision making, also reduced the plausibility of such
arguments. The common claim that the unpropertied lacked a suffcient "stake"
in society to be allowed full political participation fell to changing conceptions of
political membership, beginning with the American and French revolutions, the rise
of popular armies, and growing nationalist sentiments. Legal discrimination based
on an alleged lack of independence of the unpropertied gave way to social and eco-
nomic changes associated with industrialization, particularly the increasingly im-
personal relations between workers and employers and the general depersonaliza-
tion of relations in urban setting. And the implicit assumption of the coincidence of
wealth and virtue was eroded by general processes of social levelling and mobility.
Women and non-whites were until well into the twentieth century widely
seen in the West as irreparably defcient in their rational or moral capabilities, and
thus incapable of exercising human rights. But these racial and gender distinctions
were at least in principle subject to principled and empirical counter-arguments.
Movements against slavery, for women's suffrage, and against discrimination based
on race and sex had by the mid-twentieth century substantially transformed domi-
nant Western political ideas and practices. A similar process led to the elimination
of formal disabilities against Jews, some Christian sects, pagans, and atheists,
which were the norm in eighteenth century Europe. The logic was essentially the
same: although different, adherents of different, even despised, religions were
nonetheless fully human and thus entitled to the same rights as other human be-
ings.

With an expanded range of subjects recognized to hold natural rights, the
substance of those rights underwent parallel revisions. For example, the political
left argued that existing private property rights were incompatible with true liberty,
equality, and security for working men -and later, women-. Through intense and
often violent political struggles, this led to the rise of social insurance schemes,
regulations on working conditions, and an extended range of recognized economic,
social, and cultural rights, culminating in the welfare state societies of late twenti-

17
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
eth century Europe.
Our experience with modern states and markets has produced further
changes in human rights ideas and practices. As the coercive capacity and pen-
etration of the state grew, protecting space for autonomous public and private ac-
tion became a growing priority. New legal rights have thus been recognized and
a greater emphasis has been placed on an expanded understanding of such rights
as freedom of religion, expression, association, and assembly. As modern markets
have transformed families and communities, new mechanisms for assuring sub-
sistence and social welfare have been developed. Major changes in economic and
social rights have also come from our growing understanding of the destructive
unintended consequences of private property rights and a growing appreciation of
alternative, rights-based means for realizing economic security and participation in
a world of industrial capitalism.
The International Human Rights Covenants can be seen as completing and
codifying this expansion of the subjects of human rights by extending them glob-
ally. They also codify an evolved shared understanding of the principal systematic
public threats to human dignity in the contemporary world and the practices nec-
essary to counter them. To oversimplify only slightly, they set out as a hegemonic
political model something very much like the liberal democratic welfare state of
Western Europe, in which all adult nationals are incorporated as full legal and po-
litical equals able to claim, by rights, an extensive array of social welfare services,
social and economic opportunities, and civil and political liberties
20
.
Contemporary liberals may be tempted to see in this history a gradual un-
folding of the inherent logic of natural rights. With the beneft of hindsight, it may
even be illuminating to talk of a purifcation of practice to more closely approximate
the underlying moral ideal of fully equal and autonomous human beings regulating
their public lives through the mechanism of equal and inalienable natural rights.
But we must be wary of Whiggish self-satisfaction and comfortable teleological
views of moral progress.
There is nothing natural, let alone inevitable, about ordering social and po-
litical life around the idea of human rights. Furthermore, the particular list of rights
that we take as authoritative today refects a contingent response to historically
specifc conditions. For example, Article 11 of the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights states that no one shall be imprisoned merely on the ground of
inability to fulfll a contractual obligation, a clear response to the -historically very
unusual- practice of debtor prisons. Contemporary conceptions of human rights
20
See: bid, chapters 2-3.

18
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
refect a long process of social and political struggle that might easily have turned
out differently. And our list of authoritatively recognized human rights may change
in response to changes in our understanding of human dignity, the emergence of
new threats, and social learning concerning the institutions, practices, and values
necessary to realize that dignity.
The historical contingency of international human rights norms, however,
does not make them any less authoritative. Neither arbitrary -although certain
conventional- nor capable of being changed merely through acts of the will, they
are deeply rooted social constructions that shape our lives. The vision of human
dignity they refect and seek to implement is predominant in contemporary inter-
national society and accepted by almost all states as authoritative whatever their
deviations from these norms in practice-. Human rights have become a central,
perhaps even defning, element of the social and political reality of the late twen-
tieth century world.
3. States and international human rights
If human rights are held universally that is, equally and by all one might
imagine that they hold universally against all other individuals and groups. Such
a conception is inherently plausible. It is in many ways morally attractive. But it
is not the contemporary international understanding. Internationally recognized
human rights, although held equally by all human beings, are held with respect to,
and exercised against, the sovereign territorial state.
The Covenants and other international human rights treaties establish rights
for all individuals. The obligations they create, however, are only for states. And
states have international human rights obligations only to their own nationals -and
foreign nationals in their territory or otherwise subject to their jurisdiction or con-
trol-. Contemporary international -and regional- human rights regimes are super-
visory mechanisms that monitor relations between states and citizens. They are
not alternatives to a fundamentally statist conception of human rights. Even in
the strong European regional human rights regime, the European Court of Human
Rights regulates relations between states and their nationals or residents.
The centrality of states in the contemporary construction of international
human rights is also clear in the substance of recognized rights. Some, most nota-
bly rights of political participation, are typically restricted to citizens. Other rights
apply only to residents. For example, states have international human rights obli-
gations to provide education and social insurance only to residents. The remaining
internationally recognized human rights, such as freedom of speech and protection
against torture, apply to foreign nationals only while they are subject to the juris-

19
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
diction of the state.
Foreign states simply have no internationally recognized human rights ob-
ligation to protect foreign nationals abroad from, for example, torture. They are
not even at liberty to use more than persuasive means on behalf of torture vic-
tims. Current norms of state sovereignty still prohibit states from acting coercively
abroad to remedy torture and most other violations of human rights.
This focus on state-citizen relations is also embedded in our ordinary lan-
guage. A person beaten by the police has her human rights violated. But it is
an ordinary crime, not a human rights violation, to receive an otherwise identical
beating at the hands of a thief or an irascible neighbor. Internationally, we distin-
guish human rights violations from war crimes. Even when comparable suffering
is inficted on innocent civilians, we draw a sharp categorical distinction based on
whether the perpetrator is -an agent of- one's own or a foreign government.
Although neither necessary nor inevitable, this state-centric conception of
human rights has deep historical roots. The idea of human rights frst appears in,
and remains deeply enmeshed with, liberal social contract theory, the only major
tradition of social and political theory that begins with individuals endowed with
equal and inalienable rights. And the contractarian notion of the state as an instru-
ment for the protection, implementation, and effective realization of natural rights
is strikingly similar to the conception of the state in international human rights in-
struments. Both share the view that the legitimacy of the state is to be measured
largely by its performance in implementing human rights.
The restriction of international human rights obligations to nationals, resi-
dents, and visitors also refects the central role of the sovereign state in modern
politics. Since at least the sixteenth century, -dynastic, and later territorial or na-
tion- states have struggled, with considerable success, to consolidate their internal
authority over competing local powers. Simultaneously, sovereign states in the
early modern era struggled, with even greater success, to free themselves from
imperial and papal authority. And their late modern successors have jealously,
zealously, and largely successfully fought attempts to reinstitute supranational au-
thority.
With power and authority thus doubly concentrated, the modern state has
emerged as both the principal threat to the enjoyment of human rights and the es-
sential institution for their effective implementation and enforcement. Both sides
of this relationship between the state and human rights require emphasis.

20
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
The immense power and reach of the modern state makes controlling it
central to the realization of any plausible conception of human dignity. The human
rights strategy of control has had two principal dimensions. Negatively, it prohib-
its a wide range of state interferences in the personal, social, and political lives of
citizens, acting both individually and collectively. But beyond carving out zones
of state exclusion, human rights place the people above and in positive control of
their government. Political authority is vested in a free citizenry endowed with ex-
tensive rights of political participation -rights to vote, freedom of association, free
speech, etc-.
The state, however, precisely because of its political dominance in the con-
temporary world, is the central institution available for effectively implementing
internationally recognized human rights. "Failed states" such as Somalia suggests
that one of the few things as frightening in the contemporary world as an effciently
repressive state is no state at all. Human rights are thus not only concerned with
preventing state-based wrongs. They also require the state to provide certain
goods, services, opportunities, and protections.
Although obvious for most economic and social rights, the essential positive
role of the state is no less central to many civil and political rights. For example,
the effective implementation of rights to nondiscrimination often requires exten-
sive positive actions to realize the underlying value of equality. Even procedural
rights such as due process entail considerable positive endeavors with respect to
police, courts, and administrative procedures. And rights that guarantee political
participation are not merely instrumentally valuable in controlling the state, but
good in themselves. The state is thus required not merely to refrain from certain
harmful actions, but to create a political environment that fosters the development
of active, engaged, autonomous citizens.
Other strategies have been tried or proposed for controlling the destruc-
tive capacities of the state and harnessing its constructive powers for realizing
important human values and goods. For example, the virtue or wisdom of leaders,
party members, or clerics, the expertise of technocrats, and the special skills and
social position of the military have seemed to many to be attractive alternatives to
human rights as bases of political order and legitimacy. But the human rights ap-
proach has proved more effective than any alternative yet tried or at least that
is how I read the remarkably consistent collapse of dictatorships of the left and
right alike over the last dozen years in Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe,
Africa, and Asia.
These alternative strategies treat people largely as objects rather than as
agents. They rest on an inegalitarian and paternalistic view of the average person

21
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
as someone to be provided for, a passive recipient of benefts, rather than a cre-
ative agent with a right to shape his or her life. Thus even if we overlook their na-
ively benign view of power and the state, they grossly undervalue both autonomy
and participation. By contrast, a human rights conception rests on a distinctive
linkage of equality and autonomy, summarized in the notion of -individual and
collective- self-determination, that has extremely deep contemporary resonance.
Nonetheless, it would be a limiting and potentially dangerous delusion to
see current human rights ideas and practices as fxed, let alone the fnal and per-
fect unfolding of a comprehensive, timeless vision of human rights and wrongs.
We must remain open to alternative strategies and practices for realizing human
dignity. One way to think about the subject of this volume is as an inquiry into the
adequacy of singling out this particular class of human rights and wrongs in inter-
national relations. In what space remains to me, I will speculate on changes likely
over the next couple decades, again with special attention to the central role of the
state in the contemporary international human rights regime.
4. The decline of the state?
Having sketched how we got to where we are now, I want to conclude with some
speculation about the future. The most likely path, it seems to me, is continued
incremental changes, on a more or less punctuated basis, as over the past several
decades. It is worth, however, considering the possibility of more radical changes.
In this section I consider the possibility of the decline of the state. The next section
considers changing conceptions of human dignity.
Article 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads Everyone is
entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set
forth in this Declaration can be fully realized. Very little attention has been given
to changes in the international order that would foster realization of internationally
recognized human rights. The centrality of the state as the bearer of duties correla-
tive to internationally recognized human rights refects not only its dominant place
as an agent for delivering goods, services, opportunities, and protections but also
its continuing role as the focal point of visions of political loyalty and community.
Neither, in my view, is likely to change signifcantly over the next few decades.
4.1. Changing conceptions of political community
As noted above, the idea that the obligations of human rights are universal is
inherently plausible and has considerable moral appeal. But without the develop-
ment of a sense of cosmopolitan, or at least regional, moral community, state-
centric conceptions of human rights obligations are likely to persist. And I see little
evidence of such normative change.

22
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
Even some of the examples of progressive change cited above have their
dark side when considered from the perspective of changing conceptions of com-
munity. In Rwanda, Somalia, and the former Yugoslavia, relatively cosmopolitan
international responses were necessitated by the politicization of narrow ethnic
loyalties. More generally, the post-Cold War era has seen a major resurgence in
nationalism. This at least partially counterbalances greater willingness to respond
to certain kinds of suffering by foreigners.
Ethnic cleansing represents a vision of the nation state in which peoples
not territory defne the central locus of political loyalty, obligation, and organiza-
tion. Religious fundamentalism suggests replacing current territorial conceptions
of community with an ecclesiastical rather than a global conception. Traditional
community values, in their current Asian and North American incarnations alike,
appeal to a community defned by a previous historical experience. At least some
prominent competitors to secular territorial states are hardly attractive from a hu-
man rights perspective.
We must also note that few states are regularly willing to accept signifcant
costs to pursue international human rights objectives. Consider, for example, the
United States, which in recent years has been unwilling to impose economic sanc-
tions on China for human rights violations, but made apparently credible threats to
impose sanctions over CD pirating. A focus on narrowly defned national interests
remains, and is likely to remain, predominant even as we witness the rise in sa-
lience of more cosmopolitan values.
We are witnessing a subtle, although important, transformation of the char-
acter of the state and its rights and responsibilities, rather than its demise or re-
placement by other actors in the feld of human rights. Only in rare instances are
states, separately or collectively, willing to intervene with force in response to even
egregious human rights violations. But many states are no longer willing to stand
by idly, even silently, in the face of systematic human rights violations and brutal-
ity. There thus are substantially greater political costs to human rights violations
today than two or three decades ago.
Consider, for example, the surprisingly strong international reaction against
Russian behavior in Chechnya, which is almost universally recognized as part of
their territory. International interest in and pressure on Burma, which is not sig-
nifcantly more repressive than ten or twenty years ago, is far greater today than
in the past. And even China has been forced to change its tune, arguing for its
practices as culturally appropriate implementations of international human rights
standards, where during the Cold War era it rejected the very language of human
rights, and even punished its domestic use.

23
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
In the contemporary world we are taking more seriously the idea that states
can be held morally and politically liable at the international level for how they treat
their own citizens on their own territory. But sovereign states remain the central
mechanism by which contemporary international society seeks to implement inter-
nationally recognized human rights, as is underscored by the very modest incre-
mental growth in the scope and powers of multilateral human rights institutions in
recent years.
Verbal and persuasive policies have become both legitimate and common in
contemporary international society. Coercive international implementation of hu-
man rights norms, however, remains illegitimate in most circumstances. The ma-
jor treaties authorize multilateral implementation action that is, as we have seen,
almost entirely verbal. Human rights NGOs, by their very nature, can engage only
in persuasive political action. Coercive bilateral intervention on behalf of interna-
tionally recognized human rights remains impermissible. And few states are willing
to take more than symbolic foreign policy actions in the face of most human rights
violations short of genocide.
All of this, in my view, points to the persisting centrality of feelings of na-
tional political loyalty and the continuing weakness of perceptions of cosmoplitan
political solidarity. And even where, as in Western Europe, some real sense of
suprantional political community does seem to be emerging, states remain the
central element in the mix of actors with human rights obligations. We must not
confuse the increasing constraints under which states discharge their international
human rights obligations with a serious challenge to the state as the principal pro-
tector of internationally recognized human rights.
4.2. Global economic interdependence
If states are to be displaced as the central duty bearers of internationally recognized
human rights, other social actors must emerge to perform that role. International
organizations are unlikely challengers, precisely because these organizations are
the creations of states, which continue to manage them. Rather than look for direct
threats from above, I would suggest looking instead to the more insidious erosions
rooted in economic interdependence. Over the next few decades, however, the
human rights implications appear to me to be more troubling than encouraging.
The globalization of production is weakening state-centric schemes for im-
plementing economic, social, and cultural rights, most dramatically in the wealthier
countries of the northern hemisphere. It does not, however, seem to be creat-
ing viable alternative mechanisms. Semi-permanent unemployment, attributable
in part to the development of increasingly global mechanisms of production and

24
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
exchange, has already led to a modest shrinking of the welfare state in many
countries in Western Europe. And in the United States, the loss of manufacturing
jobs, a dramatic decline in the real value of the minimum wage, and the explosive
growth of health care costs has made the coverage of the Western worlds most
inadequate welfare state even more incomplete and inequitable.
One might argue that the new international division of labor has simulta-
neously increased the enjoyment of many economic, social, and cultural rights in
the newly industrializing countries. But we must be careful not to confuse growth
with economic and social rights, especially in countries where the economic growth
has been less dramatic and sustained. Human rights are about assuring minimum
distributions of goods, services, opportunities, and protections to all, something
that is by no means assured by economic growth -for example, an increase in the
aggregate sum of goods and services available within a society-. Furthermore, we
must not forget those countries, especially in Africa, that remain largely untouched
by the new international division of labor.
Markets simply cannot do the job alone. The shortcomings of socialist com-
mand economies proved to be immense. But these failed experiments were efforts
to overcome the undeniable inequities in market systems of distribution. And the
real success stories of "free markets" over the long run actually show the virtues of
substantial redistributive interventions by liberal democratic and social democratic
welfare states. Yet it is precisely such states that have been weakened by the
globalization of production. And economic interdependence does not seem to be
spawning a plausible alternative provider of internationally recognized economic,
social, and cultural rights.
There is no logical reason that corporations, for example, could not be con-
sidered direct duty-bearers of obligations correlative to human rights. In some
countries, such as Japan, Korea, and Singapore, the state has supported, encour-
aged, and even mandated employment and labor practices that result in delivering
through private frms many social welfare services that in the West are provided
directly by the state. If the globalization of production continues apace, it is not
implausible to imagine an attempt to extend such a strategy to the international
level. But whatever the shortcomings of states in providing for economic and so-
cial rights, they pale before those of Multinational Companies, which are shadowy,
often distant, private entities over which individual citizens lack even the limited
control provided by electoral participation.
We seem to be squeezed between persisting national loyalties and declining
national capabilities. And to the extent that political loyalties in the age of the wel-
fare state have come to rest on the ability of the state to deliver rising standards

25
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
of living and high levels of performance in implementing economic, social, and
cultural rights, a very likely outcome is a rise in political alienation, polarization,
and disorder at all levels of politics which brings us back to the discussion of the
preceding subsection-. A weakening of state loyalties may contribute to the devel-
opment of stronger cosmopolitan sensibilities. But a no less plausible alternative,
especially in the medium run, is the rise of nativist and nationalist sentiments that
seek to blame others for our setbacks and for disturbing changes in general.
The shortcomings of state-centric systems of delivering internationally rec-
ognized human rights are manifest to those of us who have lived through them.
But not all changes would seem to be progressive. States at least have devised
relatively effective mechanisms to harness national economic actors and redistrib-
ute resources. Without the development of parallel mechanisms at the interna-
tional level, the human rights implications of growing economic interdependence
are not at all promising.
5. New conceptions of human dignity?
Perhaps the most profound transformations in currently dominant conceptions of
human rights would arise from basic changes in underlying understandings of hu-
man nature, dignity, well-being, or fourishing. I will argue, however, that the ideal
of equal and autonomous individuals pursuing, within certain limits, their own con-
ceptions of the good life, remains deeply entrenched as a regulative political ideal
in contemporary international society. Controversy rages, and will continue, over
the precise implications of these core values, but the basic contours of the contem-
porary construction of human rights seems frmly rooted and likely to persist for
many decades.
As I noted above, a central achievement of the human rights movement
has been to discredit moral or political doctrines based on fundamental inequalities
between human beings. Social orders based on fxed status hierarchies have been
largely replaced in theory at least, and in most countries to a considerable degree
in practice as well by orders based on the fundamental equality of all citizens.
Although many liberal advocates of human rights have emphasized individual lib-
erties, it is the radical political egalitarianism of human rights that have had their
most profound implications, both nationally and internationally.
One of the most troubling changes of the post-Cold War world has been the
resurgence of claims of group superiority. Genocidal violence in Bosnia, Croatia,
and Rwanda are just the most prominent examples of a resurgence of politicized
arguments of ethnic purity and superiority. Politically active religious fundamental-
ism not only imposes a narrow vision of the good life but also draws fundamental
distinctions between citizens on the basis of their religion. The resurgence of na-
tivist political movements and racist politics in North America and Europe raises

26
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
similar concerns. And most of these movements are associated with a social vision
committed to the subordination of women.
But the strong international reactions against contemporary manifestations
of ethnic privilege, xenophobic nationalism, and politicized religious fundamental-
ism in Rwanda and Burundi, the former Yugoslavia, Sudan, Algeria, Israel, and
the former Soviet Union suggest that such arguments have little appeal beyond
those who see themselves as specially chosen. Unlike the status hierarchies of
past eras, today it is rare for either those who are to be subordinated or those
who look on from the outside to acquiesce in attempts to assert such claims of
superiority. This, I would suggest, indicates the continuing, and even deepening,
commitment to the basic moral equality of all human beings that provides the core
of the vision of human dignity underlying internationally recognized human rights.
Arguments of irreducible qualitative differences between groups of human
beings would also seem to be incompatible with the kind of -relatively- open, inclu-
sive, and tolerant international society to which we have been moving over the past
century. Although cosmopolitan conceptions of world order have not penetrated
very deeply, one of the great achievements of the spread of -originally-Western-
international society has been the entrenchment of doctrines of the equality of
states and the self-determination of peoples. These doctrines rest on an at least
grudging recognition that the differences between us and others do not justify their
formal subordination. Taking them seriously radically reshaped the map of the
world during the era of decolonization. And it has subtly but signifcantly altered
the character of international politics in our era.
This may refect only a weak and negative notion of equality. It is, however,
real and, I would argue, of immense importance. And the deepening penetration
of international human rights into post-Cold War international politics suggests
that we are at least beginning to take seriously the irreducible equality of individu-
als, even if it remains in practice subordinated to the equality of states.
The core human rights commitment to individual equality leads "naturally"
to an emphasis on individual autonomy. If one is equal to others, they have no
right to force you to comply with their ideas of what is right and proper or, more
precisely, they may not force on your ideas of right that treat you as less than an
equal moral agent-. In fact, it is diffcult to separate the "natural" moral equality
of individuals from the autonomy of these equal persons.
Without implying license to act simply as one chooses, this suggests funda-
mental limits on what society may legitimately require or prohibit from its mem-

27
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
bers. The nature of those limits, of course, are appropriately central matters of
moral and political confict. The values of the Universal Declaration and Covenants,
however, seem to continue to shape the range of arguments that receive consider-
able international endorsement.
Consider, for example, questions of sexual decency, a hot button issue in
recent "Asian values" critiques of the West and international human rights stan-
dards
21
. In most Western countries, freedom of speech is seen to permit the graph-
ic depiction of virtually any sex act -so long as it does not involve and is not shown
to children-. Some Asian countries prohibit and even severely punish those who
produce or distribute such material. This dispute, however, is over the limits of
autonomy, or the range of a particular right, rather than a fundamental rejection of
human rights or the idea of personal autonomy.
Furthermore, this controversy rages internally within many countries at
least as strongly. Every country criminalizes some forms of pornography, and
virtually every country permits some depictions of sexual behavior that another
country and not just Taliban Afghanistan has within living memory banned as
pornographic. Wherever one draws the line, it leaves intact both the basic inter-
nationally recognized human right to freedom of speech and the underlying value
of personal autonomy.
Arguments about the allegedly excessive individualism of human rights have
a similarly narrow scope. The basic moral equality of all human beings, once ac-
cepted, logically requires that each person be specially recognized as an individual.
Some degree of individualism is inescapable when our moral and political starting
point is the equality of each and every human being.
This, of course, leaves open the question of the relative weights to be as-
signed to the individual and the groups of which she is a member. For example,
should traditional notions of "family values" and gender roles be emphasized in
the interest of children and society or should families be conceived in more indi-
vidualistic and egalitarian terms? What is the proper balance between rewarding
individual economic initiative and redistributive taxation in the interest of social
harmony and support for disadvantaged individuals and groups? At what point
should the words or behaviors of deviant or dissident individuals be forced to give
way the interests or desires of society?
Questions such as these are vital issues of political controversy in virtually
21
For a balanced assessment of such arguments, see: LANGLOIS, Anthony J., The Politics of
Justice and Human Rights, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001.

28
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
all societies. Exactly where the lines are drawn differ considerably although I
would suggest that the differences are less than most authoritarian governments
would have us believe-. But the only answers that today receive widespread inter-
national endorsement in fairly stark contrast to just twenty years ago are those
that leave a considerable space for the equal and autonomous individual.
Much the same is true of arguments over the use of -human- rights to
protect individual equality and autonomy. Whatever the theoretical attractions of
technocratic management, or some other system of rule by the enlightened, all
our previous political experience suggests that the best mechanism is empower-
ing these equal and autonomous individuals with human rights. Once again, this
leaves us considerable space for political controversy. But for our purposes here,
it is the bounded nature of that space that requires emphasis.
The common complaint that Westerners in general, and Americans in par-
ticular, have gone "rights crazy" merits serious consideration. We must guard
against what might be called the imperialism of rights, the view that all important
human goods should be recognized as and implemented through the mechanism of
-human- rights. As noted above, many important wrongs and harms do not now,
and I would argue should not come to be seen to, involve violations of -human-
rights. But the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the normative core of the
current international human rights regime, would seem largely immune from such
arguments.
Few governments today repudiate rights to life, liberty, security of the per-
son, equality before the law, a fair trial, political participation, social security, work,
rest, leisure, education, and an adequate standard of living; to freedom of thought,
conscience, religion, opinion, expression, assembly, association, and movement;
and to protections against discrimination, slavery, and torture. And when they do,
as in, for example, Iran's persecution of Bahai's as apostates, these states receive
little international support and considerable international criticism. There simply
is not much international appeal today, as opposed to thirty years ago, to argu-
ments that the list of internationally recognized human rights is either too long or
systematically misguided.
This is not to deny that intense controversy continues to rage over the im-
plications of the rather general rights specifed in the Universal Declaration. For
example, few countries in the world understand freedom of the press as broadly,
and few developed countries construe the right to social security as narrowly, as
the United States. But these are relatively modest variations in implementing
internationally recognized human rights. And the general formulations of the prin-
cipal international instruments set authoritative limits on the range of permissible

29
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
variation.

There are few political issues more important than establishing the exact
extent of the political space allowed to autonomous individuals in the exercise of
their rights. Dominant understandings have changed over time, and will continue
to change. My reading of current international political controversies over human
rights, however, suggests that they continue to take place largely within a space
delimited by a basic moral commitment to the idea that all human beings, simply
because they are human, have the equal and inalienable individual rights recog-
nized in the Universal Declaration and Covenants.
There is much of moral importance in international relations that falls out-
side the domain of human rights. Questions of international distributive justice,
whether understood in cosmopolitan or statist terms, come most prominently to
mind. Nonetheless, the increasing prominence of human rights in international
relations over the past three-quarters of a century, and the past three decades
in particular, has given at least some questions of right and wrong an unprec-
edented place on international agendas. For all the shortcomings of this particular
construction of right and wrong in international relations, I fnd the rise and per-
sistence of human rights as a regulative international political ideal an unusually
promising sign for the future.
Bibliography
ALSTON, Philip and CRAWFORD, James (editors), The Future of UN Human Rights Treaty
Monitoring. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000.
BAEHR, Peter R., Non-Governmental Human Rights Organizations in International Relations,
Plagrave Macmillan, New York, 2009.
BRYSK, Alison, Global Good Samaritans: Human Rights as Foreign Policy, Oxford University
Press, Oxford, 2009.
BURKE, Roland, Decolonization and Human Rights, University of Pennsylvania Press,
Philadelphia, 2010.
DONNELLY, Jack, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice, Cornell University Press,
Ithaca, 2003 (Second edition).
DONNELLY, Jack, International Human Rights, Westview Press, Boulder, 2006 (Third edi-
tion).
DONNELLY, Jack, International Human Rights Since 9/11: More Continuity than Change, in
GOODHART, Michael and MIHR, Anja (editors), Human Rights in the 21st Century:
Continuity and Change since 9/11, Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills, Basingstoke,
2011.
FORSYTHE, David P., Human Rights in International Relations, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 2006 (Second edition).
FORSYTHE, David P. (editor), Human Rights and Comparative Foreign Policy, United Nations
University Press, Tokyo, 2000.
GOODHART, Michael and MIHR, Anja (editors), Human Rights in the 21st Century: Continuity
and Change since 9/11, Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills, Basingstoke, 2011.
GUEST, Iain, Behind the Disappearances: Argentinas Dirty War Against Human Rights and
the United Nations, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1990.
HOLZGREF,J. L. and KEOHANE, Robert O. (editors), Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical,
Legal, and Political Dilemmas. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003.
LANGLOIS, Anthony J., The Politics of Justice and Human Rights, Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, 2001.

30
F
r
a
g
m
e
n
o
s
GERI UAM
LAUREN, Paul Gordon, The Evolution of International Human Rights: Visions Seen, University
of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2011 (Third edition).
LIANG-FENTON, Debra, (editor), Implementing U. S. Human Rights Policy: Agendas,
Policies, and Practices, United States Institute of Peace Press, Washington, D. C.,
2004.
MORSINK, Johannes, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting, and
Intent, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1999.
SCHNABEL, Albrecht, and THAKUR, Ramesh (editors) Kosovo and the Challenge of
Humanitarian Intervention: Selective Indignation, Collective Action, and
International Citizenship, United Nations University Press, Tokyo, 2000.
SHELTON, Dinah, Regional Protection of Human Rights. Oxford University Press, Oxford,
2008.
STEINER, Henry J., ALSTON, Philip, and GOODMAN, Ryan (editors), International Human
Rights in Context: Law, Politics, Morals. Texts and Materials. Oxford University
Press, Oxford, 2008 (Third edition).
Revista acadmica cuatrimestral de publicacin electrnica
Grupo de Estudios de Relaciones Internacionales (GERI)
Universidad Autnoma de Madrid, Espaa
www.relacionesinternacionales.info
ISSN 1699 - 3950
R e l a c i o n e s
I n t e r n a c i o n a l e s

Donnelly Jack - The Social Construction of International PDF

Cargado por

Copyright:

Formatos disponibles

Donnelly Jack - The Social Construction of International PDF

Cargado por

Información del documento

Título original

Derechos de autor

Formatos disponibles

Compartir este documento

Compartir o incrustar documentos

Opciones para compartir

¿Le pareció útil este documento?

¿Este contenido es inapropiado?

Copyright:

Formatos disponibles

Donnelly Jack - The Social Construction of International PDF

Cargado por

Copyright:

Formatos disponibles

1

También podría gustarte