Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In my paper I give an account for my own position as a theologian as far as contemporary human rights and human rights law is concerned. In the account for my understanding of human rights, I will, to a large extent, fall back on late modern writings in theology, philosophy and law. It will primarily be a conceptual analysis which is offered. The topic is approach as a study of language, moral and legal (and religious).
Apart from this, the analysis in the paper will include a self assessment of the own role as a researcher of theological ethics crossing so-called traditional disciplinary borders. As much of the research carried out on human rights is representative of the legal disciplines, how can – and how have – a theologian ethicist entered that predominantly legal discourse? Where does theology come in? What can be gained from the additional perspective on law, man and life? Or is it maybe even the case that human rights can be viewed as a life view to a certain extent – making it the “natural” research object for theology?

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The exuberant establishment of national human rights institutions (NHRIs) during the past fifteen years sees NHRIs as increasingly important and engaged actors in the international human rights system. NHRIs are frequently upheld as a key component of successful national-level implementation of human rights conventions. Representatives of NHRIs are increasingly engaged as actors in their own right at international human rights convention negotiations, in some instances adopting common positions and forming their own lobbying bloc to assert, among other things, the role that NHRIs should play in national-level monitoring and implementation. Notwithstanding the heightened expectations for NHRIs in boosting national-level implementation of human rights norms, there is surprisingly little in the literature examining these new actors and whether and how they might effectively take on the role as a major force in human rights treaty implementation. This paper examines the role of NHRIs in recent international human rights treaty negotiations and analyzes the prospects for their effective engagement in national level implementation of human rights norms. In so doing, the paper presents a case study of three NHRIs engaged in implementing international human rights standards concerning vulnerable groups.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The right to development is defined by a human right as per the Declaration on the Right to Development (1986). Concomitant with the declaration of development as a specific right has been the rights based approach to development. This is a conceptual framework for the process of human development based on international human rights standards and directed to promoting and protecting human rights. Education is a cornerstone of the rights based approach to development. In this paper we examine the role of education as a specific human right, its importance in human development, and its integral role in promoting human capabilities and freedoms. As a starting point, we use Amartya Sen’s view that human rights share a common motivation with human development and capabilities. The human capability approach can inform and lead the discussion on the educational content, standards, and context that are necessary to promote development. Some of the issues we cover include the importance of public education in the human capability approach, the challenge of enforcing the right to education, the recognition of education as essential in the exercise of all human rights, and the mutual support between education and the human capability approach to development.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights emerged after the Second World War as the first truly global proclamation of human rights. This paper discusses the UDHR as a rhetorical text and examines the constitutive rhetoric that established the agency of the United Nations and the readers of the document. Understanding the origins of the document is needed to correct deceptive invocations of human rights used to justify illegal actions like torture and war.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Across cultures, women's human rights have been not just violated but also unrecognized because the dominant local meaning of what it means to be a human differs with gender. Women's human rights activists and scholars have dealt with intra-cultural and cross-cultural variety in the development and use of the concept of human rights to promote the rights and development of women. They have used the examples of women's human rights violations to demonstrate the inseparability of political, civil, social, economic, and cultural rights, and they have challenged the dominant nondiscrimination human rights paradigm. I assess the effectiveness of their approaches for dealing with the problems of women's human rights recognition and violations. I offer an account of the implicit theory of women's human rights activism. Their theory is strategically effective and philosophically coherent and an appropriate alternative to foundationalist approaches to universal human rights without undermining the critical capacity of universal human rights as anti-foundationalist approaches tend to do. Informed by interdisciplinary inquiry, respectful of differences across cultures, and respectful of diversity within cultures, this activist-authored cross-cultural human rights theory supports the critical function of the concept of universal human rights and does so in a way that reminds us to be suspicious of those who might use the language of human rights to curtail the realization of some humans' rights.