Human rights as necessary to democracy
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A limited protection of civil and political rights is necessary for a democracy to function.
The relationship between democracy and human rights has been extensively discussed by political theorists. Part of the issue is that both "democracy" and "human rights" are contested concepts whose exact definition and scope is subject to ongoing dispute. [1] Views include human rights as an integral part of democracy, human rights requiring democracy, and mutual support between both concepts.
Most scholars argue that human rights emerged from the citizenship rights held by individuals by virtue of being citizens in a polity, which were eventually universalized as human rights, held by all humans. Over time, people used the language of rights to articulate and secure a wider-ranging range of concerns. [2] Todd Landman writes, "there is much overlap between democracy and human rights, as both are grounded in shared principles of accountability, individual integrity, fair and equal representation, inclusion and participation and non-violent solutions to conflict". [3]
Protocol 1, Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights guarantees the right to vote in free and fair elections. [4] However, not all writers accept that democracy is a human right. [5]
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A limited protection of civil and political rights is necessary for a democracy to function.
Some writers[ who? ] view human rights and democracy as separate things that may not go together. Although they support human rights for everyone, they may not agree that democracy is necessarily an ideal political system for the entire world. [6]
A tension potentially exists between human rights and democracy. In a democracy, the policies that are popular are not necessarily those which protect human rights, particularly those of non-citizens. [7]
Early modern philosophy The early modern era of philosophy was a progressive movement of Western thought, exploring through theories and discourse such topics as mind and matter, is a period in the history of philosophy that overlaps with the beginning of the period known as modern philosophy. It succeeded in the medieval era of philosophy. Early modern philosophy is usually thought to have occurred between the 16th and 18th centuries, though some philosophers and historians may put this period slightly earlier. During this time, influential philosophers included Descartes, Locke, Hume, and Kant, all of whom contributed to the current understanding of philosophy.
Labor rights or workers' rights are both legal rights and human rights relating to labor relations between workers and employers. These rights are codified in national and international labor and employment law. In general, these rights influence working conditions in the relations of employment. One of the most prominent is the right to freedom of association, otherwise known as the right to organize. Workers organized in trade unions exercise the right to collective bargaining to improve working conditions.
The situation of human rights in East Asia varies between the region's countries, which differ in history and political orientation, as well as between contexts within each country. Issues such as refugees fleeing East Timor, the Cambodian killing fields and freedom of speech in Singapore are just a few of the well-known human rights conflicts that have arisen in East Asian countries. The subject of human rights in East Asia is still highly topical at the present time.
Joe Oloka-Onyango is a Ugandan lawyer and academic. He is a Professor of Law at Makerere University School of Law where he has also formerly been Dean and Director of the Human Rights and Peace Centre (HURIPEC). He is married to Prof Sylvia Tamale, also a lawyer, academic and activist. They have two sons; Kwame Sobukwe Ayepa and Samora Okech Sanga.
George J. Annas is the William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor and Director of the Center for Health Law, Ethics & Human Rights at the Boston University School of Public Health, School of Medicine, and School of Law.
Janet Afary is an author, feminist activist and researcher of history, religious studies and women studies. She is a professor and the Mellichamp Chair in Global Religion and Modernity at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).
Human Rights Quarterly (HRQ) is a quarterly academic journal founded by Richard Pierre Claude in 1982 covering human rights. The journal is intended for scholars and policymakers and follows recent developments from both governments and non-governmental organizations. It includes research in policy analysis, book reviews, and philosophical essays. The journal is published by the Johns Hopkins University Press and the editor-in-chief is Bert B. Lockwood, Jr..
Decree 1775 was signed into Brazilian law by President Fernando Henrique Cardoso on January 8, 1996. The decree changed the steps FUNAI was required to follow to demarcate indigenous lands, effectively making the process more complicated and allowing for more interference from commercial interests. Individuals or companies were allowed from the beginning of the demarcation process until 90 days after FUNAI issued their report to submit an appeal showing that the contested lands do not meet the qualifications of indigenous lands as stated in the constitution. The decree also placed the final decision in the hands of the Minister of Justice, which left the fate of indigenous lands vulnerable to various political ideologies. The government claimed that allowing people to contest indigenous lands during the demarcation process would prevent any future challenges of completed lands on the basis of unconstitutionality. The decree was widely contested as a violation of indigenous rights, earning the nickname of the "Genocide Decree," due to the power it gave to commercial interests to exploit Indian lands. By April 1996, FUNAI had received over 500 appeals for over 40 indigenous territories that were in the process of being demarcated. FUNAI followed procedure and submitted its official opinion to the Ministry of Justice, rejecting the appeals that were brought against the indigenous lands. Justice Nelson Jobim sided with FUNAI on all except eight territories, ordering further investigation.
Sylvia Rosila Tamale is a Ugandan academic, and human rights activist in Uganda. She was the first woman dean in the law faculty at Makerere University, Uganda.
Rights-based approach to development is promoted by many development agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to achieve a positive transformation of power relations among the various development actors. This practice blurs the distinction between human rights and economic development. There are two stakeholder groups in rights-based development—the rights holders and the duty bearers. Rights-based approaches aim at strengthening the capacity of duty bearers and empower the rights holders.
Anocracy, or semi-democracy, is a form of government that is loosely defined as part democracy and part dictatorship, or as a "regime that mixes democratic with autocratic features". Another definition classifies anocracy as "a regime that permits some means of participation through opposition group behavior but that has incomplete development of mechanisms to redress grievances." The term "semi-democratic" is reserved for stable regimes that combine democratic and authoritarian elements. Scholars distinguish anocracies from autocracies and democracies in their capability to maintain authority, political dynamics, and policy agendas. Similarly, the regimes have democratic institutions that allow for nominal amounts of competition. Such regimes are particularly susceptible to outbreaks of armed conflict and unexpected or adverse changes in leadership.
A hybrid regime is a type of political system often created as a result of an incomplete democratic transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one. Hybrid regimes are categorized as having a combination of autocratic features with democratic ones and can simultaneously hold political repressions and regular elections. Hybrid regimes are commonly found in developing countries with abundant natural resources such as petro-states. Although these regimes experience civil unrest, they may be relatively stable and tenacious for decades at a time. There has been a rise in hybrid regimes since the end of the Cold War.
Ecofeminism is a branch of feminism and political ecology. Ecofeminist thinkers draw on the concept of gender to analyse the relationships between humans and the natural world. The term was coined by the French writer Françoise d'Eaubonne in her book Le Féminisme ou la Mort (1974). Ecofeminist theory asserts a feminist perspective of Green politics that calls for an egalitarian, collaborative society in which there is no one dominant group. Today, there are several branches of ecofeminism, with varying approaches and analyses, including liberal ecofeminism, spiritual/cultural ecofeminism, and social/socialist ecofeminism. Interpretations of ecofeminism and how it might be applied to social thought include ecofeminist art, social justice and political philosophy, religion, contemporary feminism, and poetry.
Post-Marxism is a perspective in critical social theory which radically reinterprets Marxism, countering its association with economism, historical determinism, anti-humanism, and class reductionism, whilst remaining committed to the construction of socialism. Most notably, Post-Marxists are anti-essentialist, rejecting the primacy of class struggle, and instead focus on building radical democracy. Post-Marxism can be considered a synthesis of post-structuralist frameworks and neo-Marxist analysis, in response to the decline of the New Left after the protests of 1968. In a more broader sense, post-Marxism can refer to Marxists or Marxian-adjacent theories which break with the old worker's movements and socialist states entirely, in a similar sense to post-Leftism, and accept that the era of mass revolution premised on the Fordist worker is potentially over.
Mary Louise Dudziak, is an American legal theorist, civil rights historian, educator, and a leading foreign policy and international relations expert. She is the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law at Emory University.
Michael Goodhart is a political scientist and Professor of Political Science and of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. He was Director of Pitt's Global Studies Center from 2017 to 2021.
Audrey Macklin is a Canadian scholar of immigration law and the Rebecca Cook Chair in Human Rights Law at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. She is also the director of the University of Toronto's Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies.
Mark A. Drumbl is a scholar of international law and Class of 1975 Alumni Professor at Washington and Lee University School of Law.
John Wall is an American educator and theoretical ethicist who teaches at Rutgers University Camden. He is Director of the Childism Institute and Co-Director of the Children's Voting Colloquium.
Ralph Wilde is an academic and expert in public international law. He is a faculty member at University College London (UCL). His 2008 book International Territorial Administration: How Trusteeship and The Civilizing Mission Never Went Away — examining international territorial administration in consideration of Third World approaches to international law and postcolonial theory — was published by Oxford University Press.