Development with a Human Face

Abstract: This paper combines a series of five essays on “the reality” of Universal Human Rights. It provides a background for and the reasoning behind the evolution and practicality of human rights on a global basis. It also identifies those human rights documents that the United States has failed to adopt in full. In terms of universality, the author has found that in a world of some 7.5 billion people, the governments of countries with a combined population of about 6.6 billion, roughly 88 percent of the total, have opted out of or failed to sign or ratify at least some provisions of the various treaties, covenants and protocols that make up the International Bill of Human Rights.

2018

Since 1948, seven decades have passed. Even though this is said to be the “fastest time” in the history of time, these seven decades are probably too short a period to enable us to draw a line under and truly and thoroughly re-examine the heritage of the most ambitious charter in the history of human rights. Too little time has passed to understand how to realize the promise of the Universal Declaration: that world peace is necessary for each member of the human community to have the right to life. Finally, it is possible that such a request can never move further than a promise, and the decades which are behind us can perhaps do nothing other than confirm that this promise stands firstly as a warning, rather than as any kind of model for use.

Chicago Journal of International Law: Vol. 20: No. 2, Article 15. , 2020

This Article explores global human rights obligations, which form the least elucidated and the most unfulfilled type of extraterritorial obligations. Global obligations represent a key legal tool for empowering the most vulnerable individuals and social groups, promoting social justice, and reducing extreme poverty and inequality worldwide. Despite their importance, global obligations have not yet received adequate legal recognition, regulation, and realization. The Article outlines the main contours of the conception of global obligations. While defending a human rights-based cosmopolitan concept of justice, it addresses issues surrounding the nature, status, content, scope, and hierarchy of moral duties towards non-compatriots and shows under which conditions and to what extent these duties should be recognized as human rights obligations of multiple actors. The Article aims to demonstrate that global obligations are morally justified human rights obligations that bind all members of the international community and require their legal regulation and implementation. It suggests a new classification of global obligations and stresses their significance for the enjoyment of guarantees of relational and distributive justice, as well as for promoting a shift from a state-centered to human-centered global order. It also seeks to uncover the interrelation between philosophical discourse, normative legal order, and legal practice. The Article explains how contemporary theories of global justice can contribute to the justification, conceptualization, allocation, and implementation of global obligations. It translates philosophical ideas into the language of law and incorporates empirical findings in relation to global obligations. At the same time, it examines whether human rights theory and practice regarding global obligations are capable of, and essential to, solving widely debated issues of global justice.

Journal of Human Rights, 2015

Indian Journal of International Law, Vol. 63, nos. 3-4, 2023

This paper provides an in-depth analysis of the human rights provisions of the UN Charter and the historic Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The drafting history of UDHR reveals many compromises and agreements among participating States representing different socio-political, legal, cultural and philosophical backgrounds. The salient features of human rights have been essayed, besides evaluating criticisms and praises of the Declaration. It also briefly discusses the significance of two International Covenants on Human Rights. The UDHR and the Covenants together with their Optional Protocols are known as the "International Bill of Human Rights", the first in human history. The UDHR is a baseline or cornerstone of all international human rights documents, as it inspired their adoption. It discusses the contribution of founding mothers of the UN Charter and the UDHR, a fact which was neglected by previous research. It analyzes the issues of its authorship, its significance and impact on national and international law and politics. It argues that now the UDHR has become customary international law, as it has been invoked by national and international courts. The State practice during the last 75 years reveals that the UDHR, though a non-binding instrument, has acquired moral, legal, and political status. It also argues that it is doubtful whether human rights have become universal, but their violations have certainly become global. Issues of racial discrimination or apartheid, genocide, slavery, torture, disappearances, child soldiers and terrorism-counterterrorism are briefly discussed.

Citizenship Studies, 2006

2020

Brit. YB Int'l L., 1948