HUMAN RIGHTS
Year:2019 | Volume:14 | Issue:1 (27)|Papers Count:12

The increasing global interdependencies associated with the flow of goods and services and the corresponding direct/indirect reliance of individual economies on each other has made unilateral economic countermeasures an attractive and powerful policy-imposing instrument. It is, at the same time, a potentially devastating solution for the populations of the targeted country. The phenomenon is made worse by the increase in the scope of economic sanctions together with their broad extraterritorial implementation. This raises questions about their intersection with human rights and the limits to which embargos should extend in order to punish the wrongful deeds of a target country. The protection of human rights as a customary norm of international law is beginning to create a major debate on the effects of implementing economic countermeasures. The negative consequences of such countermeasures should be seen as a matter of concern for the international community as reflected in Article 50 (b) of the “ Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts” which insists on the protection of fundamental human rights as an obligation for the states when taking countermeasures. The traditional inter-state focus of counter-measures as a way of responding to illicit acts should increasingly take into account their impact on actual populations.

Globalization with the increasing interaction and human relationships has caused the concept of peace means the absence of the threat of war and establishment Relax in life relationships and social interactions of humans with Jus Cogens Rules of human rights in the globalization of human rights as the first and foremost, aim of the international system for to form of Culture of peace in format of peace studies come to fruition. According to this, recognition and awareness of amount ability effectiveness globalization of human rights in forming to culture of peace direction draw to perspective achieve to peace in international relations and background for presentation Plans and suggestions for settlement Crises disruptive pace in international relations, question that must be answered. The authors believe, globalization with bring up human rights thought as core main culture human rights globalization is caused peace studies positive in format of generations of human rights And negative peace studies in format of form of the principle of humanitarian intervention and the principle of the responsibility of support in a two-way interactive with overlap institutionalize culture of peace in international relations is caused.

After the Iranian revolution in 1979, the legislator has given a special attention to enactment and enforcement of religious corporal punishments, while human rights institutions have criticized the enforcement of such punishments, especially stoning, and considered them incompatible with international human rights system. Additionally, many citizens have some questions about such punishments. In this article, it is shown that from religious perspectives, and in accordance with almost all religious readings, enforcement of these penalties, especially stoning, is impractical and the legislator should reconsider the laws within the framework of Islamic law.

The European Union (EU) is one of the influential actors in the field of international relations that have managed to gain a more active role in international issues by formulating common foreign and security policy (CFSP) in Maastricht Treaty (1992), in the era after the Cold War. Considering its serious weaknesses regarding security and defense issues, the Union has endeavoured to exploit its normative power to gain more influence in particular thematic fields, and undoubtedly, specific geographical regions. Human rights and efforts for the promotion of democracy in different countries are two important tools in EU's hands that help it advance its desired policies. Also, the Union has always been one of main commercial allies of Islamic Republic of Iran in the last four decades. However, several issues and changes have caused tensions in Tehran-Brussels relations at several time intervals. Terrorism, human rights, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), and the disputes between Arab countries and Israel, are the four thematic fields of discord between Tehran and Brussels. In this study, our aim is to make an endeavour to answer this question: what has been the position of human rights issue in the relations between EU and Iran.

The concept of the public domain is one of the concepts derived from the modern epistemic system, which is closely linked to the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens, including freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, the right to engage citizens in the field of public affairs, and the right to organize, from the point of view of social science experts. The departure and the base for the realization of the people's religion are considered. Studies carried out in the spirit of expert thought, Jü rgen Habermas, suggest that the acceptance of the relativity of facts and the ability to critique and change all the propositions are related to the social life, forms the essence of the theory of the public domain and the general discussion. Without any intention to rate the epistemic universe, the approach of writing suggests that the school system and the ideological nature of the political system, which are based on the various principles of the constitution, makes it impossible to fully reconcile the general sphere.

Within the New World Order, there is one instance that is deemed responsible for the globalization in human rights, one court whose judgments are reportedly increasingly quoted by national courts all over the world and accepted by them: the European Court of Human Rights has been hailed as a ‘ sort of world court of human rights’ . At the level of general expressions and abstract language, human rights may, perhaps, be universal. But as soon as they turn into actual claims of rights, made in particular contexts to defend or criticize particular distributive choices, they become an effect of politics. There is no authoritative catalogue of rights that would be politically innocent: in an agnostic world, rights cannot be but legislative constructions, constantly referring back to alternative notions of the political good. In every social conflict, the claims of opposing sides may be portrayed as rights claims my right of freedom against your right to security. The boundaries of freedom and security are drawn in accordance with cultural and political presumptions about the values that a good society prefers. And the process whereby an aspect of reality comes to be characterized in terms of rights is not dictated by any essential nature of the matter, either. It is a matter of political preference: only certain visions of the good life merit being accorded the level of protection that the classification as a ‘ right’ entails. Moreover, the rights-language is imprecise and indeterminate in ways that defer back to policy concerns. Even a core right like the right to life has no meaning independent of the way it is interpreted by the relevant authorities. And, like all legal rules, human rights cover cases we did not wish to cover and leave uncovered cases that we think should have been covered Accordingly, rights must always be supplemented with exceptions. The scope or the criteria for the application of the exception are never clearly defined, however. Within the European Convention on Human Rights, the relationship between rights and the power to derogate from them is conditioned by what is deemed ‘ necessary in a democratic society’ — a contextual and politically loaded criterion, surely. Rights, then, are a product of a political society. Given the ethos of international law (‘ law against politics’ ), to say that human rights are the effect of politics, is nothing short of a scandal. But, let me emphasize from the start that I do not consider the banal administration of rights language a perversion or a scandal — quite the contrary. What I wish to assert is that the idea of human rights may bring emancipation precisely because it is the stuff of politics. This is what I shall do in my paper: using the case law of the European Court of Human Rights as my example, I shall look at the various ways to come to terms with bureaucratization and the possibilities of reserving the idea of human rights as a source of powerful critique of existing social institutions and practices. I also want to reflect on the consequences that the bureaucratization of human rights has on the current project for the New World Order, on the liberalism of certainties.

In my paper, I take as a specific example of the relationship between religion and human rights in the work of Jü rgen Habermas, asking if there is any possible relationship between religion and the foundations of human rights. I argue that if we mean by human rights what has been taken from Jü rgen Habermas’ s recent work, then there can be little or no relationship between religion and human rights. Either religion can contribute little or nothing to the discussion of rights in multicultural societies, or another formulation for the origin of human rights must be found.

Human rights are universal, and therefore seem to be independent of ‘ identity’ and ‘ difference’ . In the Western philosophical and religious traditions they originated in the Stoic idea of the moral unity of mankind and the Christian belief in one, unique, universal God, the creator of the Universe and its human inhabitants. According to this view, all human beings had certain fundamental obligations to God, and this entailed obligations to all human beings. Although Christians believe Christianity to be the one true religion, the Christian theory of human rights holds that all human beings have obligations to respect the rights of all other human beings, irrespective of their religious beliefs or cultural identity. The modern conception of human rights, as embodied in UN texts, is a secularised version of this idea: all human beings have all human rights (including the rights to freedom of religion and to participate in the culture of their community) irrespective of their cultural identity. In recent years, however, this conception of human rights has been challenged on the ground that it fails to take account of the moral importance of ‘ identity’ and ‘ difference’ , and consequently constitutes an ideological disguise for the domination of a particular, Western form of moral and political discourse. This challenge has arisen in at least four contexts: 1) the relations between the West and non-Western cultures; 2) minority rights; 3) the rights of indigenous peoples; 4) the rights of women. I shall argue that the concept of human rights can be reconciled with the legitimate claims of ‘ difference’ , but that this requires some rethinking of the concept. In this way, the challenge of ‘ difference’ enriches without undermining the concept of human rights. Nevertheless, there are ‘ grey areas’ , in which the best way to reconcile universality and difference cannot be determined by theoretical speculation. An irresolvable area of philosophical ‘ difference’ cannot be avoided. This should not, however, be considered a serious problem for the idea of human rights.

Several international human rights documents purport to affirm women’ s rights. But can women’ s rights really be human rights? The problem is not whether women can possess human rights. Women are human beings and therefore can have all the human rights that men can have. But if there are any special women’ s rights, then presumably these are rights they possess as women, not as human beings, while human rights are rights one possesses as a human being, not in some other capacity such as a citizen, a creditor or a woman. Hence, women’ s rights would seem not to be human rights. (1) Perhaps women’ s rights are human rights possessed equally by men and women but of special importance to women. Thus, the right to freedom from discrimination is a right of all human beings, but might be declared to be a woman’ s right because women are more often subjected to discrimination than men. But this explanation does not fit a woman’ s right to special protection from harmful work during pregnancy. (2) Perhaps women’ s rights are conditional human rights like the human right to social security if one becomes incapable of earning a living. But this cannot explain a woman’ s right to paid maternity leaves. At this point one might conclude that special women’ s rights, important as they may be, are not human rights. However, I shall propose another explanation. (3) Women’ s rights are derived human rights. For example, the basic human right to vote implies the more specific women’ s right to vote on equal terms with men. And a necessary condition for women to effectively enjoy the basic human right to work is their right not to be dismissed on the grounds of pregnancy. Although rights like these are special rights of women only, they are still rights they possess as human beings because they are derived from universal basic human rights.

«The finding of similarity or difference is the key step in the legal process» (Edward H. Levi). This central importance of identity for law applies not only to things and actions, but also to persons. Identity seems to be central to law, probably because legal regulation presupposes coherent actors and their permanence, that is their stability in time and space as well as the constancy of the objects and categories they deal with. Personal identity essentially means the hope or the claim that a human being stays “ the same” , in spite of spatial motion and change due to time. Now, from the point of view of the natural sciences, no phenomena stay identical. Therefore, identity is always socially constructed. Human rights contribute in different ways to this construction of the modern self, individual and subject, if not citizen. First, they participate in the general constitution of the single human being by defining, presupposing and isolating her from other members of the species, by giving her legal recognition and a legal status. Rights can indeed be seen as the formalization of mutual recognition (Hegel, Mead & Axel Honneth). This first contribution is hardly distinguished from other legal mechanisms, mainly civil rights and especially the possibility to contract, but also from social and political aspects associated with the existence of the individual self. Second, human rights construct the individual in a specific, if not technical way. They attribute prerogatives to single members of the species, hardly ever to groups. Significantly, the French Dé claration des droits de l’ homme et du citoyen of August 26, 1789, mentions the human being in the singular, unlike the English term human rights. Usually only individuals can claim and use them; human rights for the benefit of groups are problematic, because they easily collide with individual rights. For instance, the right of free movement within a determined – usually national – territory or the freedom to work and to choose one’ s employment are by essence individual; groups cannot, as such, pretend to these rights, as this would imply imposing their choices on their members. Third, human rights contribute to the autonomy of the individual, by not mentioning the debtors of human rights’ beneficiaries nor any duties. By creating – or allowing to create – a prerogative, other legal provisions explicitly or implicitly also institute a duty and a debtor. Human rights, however, do not contain any indication as to who is obliged by them and what s/he is supposed to do. Thus nourishing the mirage of being beneficial for everyone, they sustain the illusion of human beings independent from each other. That is the idea of individual autonomy in its etymological sense: auto = self, nomos = rule or law, meaning that the single human being creates her own law and governs herself. Human rights can therefore be analyzed as the most prominent expression and guaranty of « possessive individualism » (Crawford B. Macpherson). They are simultaneously cause and effect of ongoing secular individualization and globalization. As these two related processes are indeed continuing, one may look into the future wondering to which extent the combination of human rights and personal identity may expand toward a “ world legal subject” .

The European Union sees gender equality as a necessity towards an inclusive democracy and aims at promoting the participation and representation of both men and women within the economy, in decision-making and in social, cultural and civil life. Though the existing legalbase states that the promotion of equal rights between men and women is important, it does not restrict or specify situations, hence leaving it open for interpretation (Gender Mainstreaming, Article 2 of the EC treaty). By not specifying the areas in which the gender equality should be promoted, the Union works on its implementation in the areas where they think is important, and they are as follows: a) developing strategies to encourage gender mainstreaming in all policies which have an impact on the place of women in the economy, b) measuring and implementing gender balance in political decision making and improving gender balance in economic and social decision making, c) improving gender balance in the Commission, d) promoting equal access to full employment and social rights for all, and so on. The objective of this gender mainstreaming and the gender equality proposal has been fully economical, that is to develop strategies to encourage gender mainstreaming in all policies which have an impact on the place of women in the economy. Hence the policies within the European Union disregards women and women’ s identity but sees women as a unit connected to the market economy. The European Union’ s agenda excludes most of women’ s lives in particular, the complexity of the connections between family work, welfare and the labor market. Hence by limiting the rights of women to the labor market – that is the economic environment— it leaves the questions of sexual abuse, violence, against women, access to health care and abortion, and many other essential issues, connected to women’ s identity, out. Here, I aim to first look at what the European Union is and is not in terms of gender and gender equality, what it has done so far for promoting women’ s human rights. Since strengthening civic participation on the local level as well as international level is an important step for fostering women’ s full participation as well as for a full-fledged democracy and since non-governmental institutions have become essential sources of information on urban conditions, and trends and effective interlocutors for ‘ vulnerable’ , ‘ voiceless’ people, excluded, populations later in my paper I will turn my focus to the women’ s agencies and explain how women’ s groups use their identity and difference as a tool for lobbying in order to create policy change in return that embraces men and women as equals. In other words, here I will try to explain whether the EU as a supranational institution somehow sensitive to women’ s issues can be used as a tool by women’ s groups in their lobbying strategies and pointing out their differences and making these differences acknowledged. In order to understand what lobbying is and how women’ s agencies use their difference, and unacknowledged identities as a tool to empower women, strengthen their abilities to create change both at the national and supranational context first an EU-NGO European women’ s lobby and a member state, Greece, has been selected as the case study.

A perennial objection to liberal political regimes is their purported role in the loss of minority cultural traditions and the resulting homogenization and impoverishment of public cult A perennial objection to liberal political regimes is their purported role in the loss of minority cultural traditions and the resulting homogenization and impoverishment of public culture. Critics argue that liberalism does not, contrary to its stated commitments, foster a plurality of cultural and moral identities because it reinforces and systematically benefits the conception of the person it assumes as fundamental, that is, a characterization of persons as isolated, atomistic, and self-interested individuals. A legal regime of rights is the chief mechanism by which this conception of the person is institutionalized. Although leading political liberals, including John Rawls, have shown that political liberalism does not in fact rely upon metaphysical claims of this sort, the criticism remains that when it comes to a plurality of cultural and moral identities, liberalism is in practice, if not in theory, profoundly illiberal. I respond to this criticism and argue that properly understood and established, political liberalism is fully compatible with a diverse range of cultural, religious, and moral identities. My argument depends on two claims. First, political liberalism is primarily concerned with the establishment of just background conditions, which includes such things as economic equality of opportunity, procedural fairness, and the protection of basic human rights. I argue that these just background conditions are compatible with a wide range of cultural institutions and traditions because they are far less determinate of actual legal and social institutions than most theorists (including most liberals) realize. Second, a key feature of achieving just background conditions is the public regulation of capital and other fundamental economic institutions. This in turn permits the regulation of A perennial objection to liberal political regimes is their purported role in the loss of minority cultural traditions and the resulting homogenization and impoverishment of public culture. Critics argue that liberalism does not, contrary to its stated commitments, foster a plurality of cultural and moral identities because it reinforces and systematically benefits the conception of the person it assumes as fundamental, that is, a characterization of persons as isolated, atomistic, and self-interested individuals. A legal regime of rights is the chief mechanism by which this conception of the person is institutionalized. Although leading political liberals, including John Rawls, have shown that political liberalism does not in fact rely upon metaphysical claims of this sort, the criticism remains that when it comes to a plurality of cultural and moral identities, liberalism is in practice, if not in theory, profoundly illiberal. I respond to this criticism and argue that properly understood and established, political liberalism is fully compatible with a diverse range of cultural, religious, and moral identities. My argument depends on two claims. First, political liberalism is primarily concerned with the establishment of just background conditions, which includes such things as economic equality of opportunity, procedural fairness, and the protection of basic human rights. I argue that these just background conditions are compatible with a wide range of cultural institutions and traditions because they are far less determinate of actual legal and social institutions than most theorists (including most liberals) realize. Second, a key feature of achieving just background conditions is the public regulation of capital and other fundamental economic institutions. This in turn permits the regulation of commerce, including by extension, legal authority over media and advertising. It is precisely this unregulated, uncontrolled growth of global media that in fact threatens traditional cultures and identities. Indeed, far from supporting the emergence of a homogenizing global media culture, political liberalism is, I argue, the only plausible political theory with adequate conceptual resources to counter the hegemony of global media and the nihilistic consumerism that so often accompanies it. As a practical matter, I show that in a just society, adherents of reasonable doctrines (i. e., philosophical and religious beliefs and traditions that do not insist upon using the mechanism of the state for their exclusive advantage) will agree and affirm that the state has protected and preserved the background conditions necessary for the possibility of practicing reasonable doctrines. To illustrate this, I consider several examples of minority religious traditions which I argue are compatible with a political liberal society. In the concluding portion of the paper, I briefly compare my position with Will Kymlicka’ s work on minority groups rights and suggest that political liberalism has adequate resources to address the concerns he raises. ure. Critics argue that liberalism does not, contrary to its stated commitments, foster a plurality of cultural and moral identities because it reinforces and systematically benefits the conception of the person it assumes as fundamental, that is, a characterization of persons as isolated, atomistic, and self-interested individuals. A legal regime of rights is the chief mechanism by which this conception of the person is institutionalized. Although leading political liberals, including John Rawls, have shown that political liberalism does not in fact rely upon metaphysical claims of this sort, the criticism remains that when it comes to a plurality of cultural and moral identities, liberalism is in practice, if not in theory, profoundly illiberal. I respond to this criticism and argue that properly understood and established, political liberalism is fully compatible with a diverse range of cultural, religious, and moral identities.