Legal and International Foundations: The Global Human Rights Regime

1. Dr. David GalbreathLecturer in International RelationsOffice hours: Open DoorF36 EWBd.galbreath@abdn.ac.ukResearch areas: minority rights, societal security, European organizations, post-Soviet security

2. Legal and International Foundations: The Global Human Rights Regime Human Rights PI4553

3. Questions • Does the international system have a moral responsibility to intervene in cases of human rights abuses? • How have international organizations attempted to protect human rights? • Can we de-politicize human rights protection? • Are international organizations effective at protecting human rights?

4. International Organisations and Human Rights Sudan, Darfur Region: • Circumstances- • recent drought, dwindling resources • historic ethnic competition between the Masalit/Fur and Arabs • 1999 clashes which saw Arabs killed

5. International Organisations and Human Rights Rwanda/Burundi (1994/1996-) • Circumstances- • Historic tensions between Tutsi 14% and Hutu 85% (Rwanda) • Assassination of presidents in crash • Radical army exiled in Uganda

6. International Organisations and Human Rights Kosovo (1999-) • Circumstances- • 10 years of conflict in former Yugoslavia • Serbian ultra-nationalist in power • ‘ethnically cleansing’ Kosovo by Yugoslav troops

7. International Organisations and Human Rights East Timor (1975-1999?) • Circumstances- • 1975 Indonesian invasion after Portugal leave • Super Power politics • Ethnic violence on eve of independence

8. International Human Rights How has human rights been internationalised in the past? • Eighteenth Century • Nineteenth Century • Twentieth Century • Twenty-First Century

9. International Human Rights • Can we have universal norms for human rights? • Group rights vs. individual rights • Western vs. Eastern ideas of rights • British vs. Scandinavian ideas of rights

10. International Organizations • What roles for international organizations? • Norm makers? • Norm keepers? • Norm socialisers? • Where do politics and interests come into the frame? • Can we talk about norms without considering interests?

11. International Organizations • What types of IOs have an impact on human rights? • UN? • EU? • NATO? • World Bank?

12. International Organizations • Can we talk about an international human rights regime? • What is a regime? • Regime: Krasner (1982, 185) has defined regimes as ‘principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures around which actor expectations converge in a given issue-area.’

13. International Organizations • Can we talk about an international human rights regime? • Regime: Hasenclever, Mayer and Rittberger argue that we can best see how regimes work by looking at the different analytical approaches that concentrate on interests, power, and knowledge.

14. International Organizations • Can we talk about an international human rights regime? • Regime: Hasenclever, Mayer and Rittberger argue that we can best see how regimes work by looking at the different analytical approaches that concentrate on interests, power, and knowledge.

15. International Regimes • Interest-Based Theories: Stein 1982 • regimes are created when ‘…individualistic self-interested calculation leads [states] to prefer joint decision making because independent self-interested behaviour can result in undesirable or suboptimal outcomes.’

16. International Regimes • Interest-Based Theories: Stein 1982 • ‘the existence and non-existence of regimes to deal with the given issues, indeed the very need to distinguish them by issue, can be attributed to the existence of different constellations of interests in different contexts.’

17. International Regimes • Power approaches: Krasner 1982 • Power determines who can participate. • Power dictates rules and procedures. • And finally, power changes the bargaining leverage of states. • Regimes are ‘often essential mediators between the distribution of power and concomitant interests, on the one hand, and outcomes in the issue-area, on the other’ (Hasenclever, Mayer and Rittberger)

18. International Regimes • Knowledge-based approach: Sebenius, 1992 • Sebenius (1992, 325) argues that an epistemic community is a “special kind of de facto natural coalition of ‘believers’ whose main interest lies not in the material sphere, but instead in fostering the adoption of the community’s policy project.”

19. International Regimes • Knowledge-based approach: three basic assumptions • First, constructivists argue that interests are defined by the knowledge of the actors. • Second, complicated issues require expert knowledge. • Third, a knowledge-based approach argues that states must come to an agreement on shared interests and thus shared knowledge in the construction of the regime.

20. International Human Rights Regime • The impact of the Second World War • Nuremburg Trials • The impact of the Cold War • American political culture • Stress on the individual • The impact of regional integration • Integration, democracy, security

21. International Human Rights Regime • If an international human rights regime exists, how do we know? • Interests • Whose interests manifested where? • Power • Does it come down to power asymmetries? • Knowledge • Norm transfer as learning?

22. Human Rights in Focus • Europe and Human Rights • Council of Europe - ECHR • European Union - ECJ • Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe – ODIHR • The role of enlargement • Is Europe different?

23. Human Rights in Focus • United Nations • ICJ • Ad-Hoc Tribunals • Security Council? • Other UN institutions (UNICEF, UNHCR) • Cold War legacies? • Universalising Human Rights?

24. International Organizations and Human Rights • The problem with humanitarian intervention: the restrictionist argument • The need for humanitarian intervention: the interventionist argument • Whose interests, whose power, and whose knowledge?

25. Conclusion • Does the international system have a moral responsibility to intervene in cases of human rights abuses? • How have international organizations attempted to protect human rights? • Is there an international human rights regime? • Can we de-politicize human rights protection? • Are international organizations effective at protecting human rights?