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5 - Undermining Old Rights with New Ones: You Can’t Always Get What You Want

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2019

Hurst Hannum
Affiliation:
Tufts University, Massachusetts
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Summary

One of the most common criticisms of human rights is that they have been expanded beyond recognition in ways that undermine their universal and fundamental nature. Unwarranted expansion or attempted expansion by the UN Human Rights Council and its appointed experts have included a focus on increasingly discrete categories of people (such as those in extreme poverty or suffering from albinism, peasants, sex workers), as well as on topics that deal as much with international relations as with individual human rights such as creation of a democratic and equitable international order, foreign debt, mercenaries, and disposal of hazardous waste. Large human rights NGOs, such as Human Rights and Amnesty International, include issues such as arms control, international financial institutions, abuse of women on Twitter, and humanitarian aid to victims in Syria within their ever growing list of problems that should be addressed as human rights violations. All of these are legitimate issues, but they detract from paying attention to the legal obligations of governments, sometimes deliberately, and they stray far from the fundamental and universal character of international human rights norms.
Type
Chapter
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Rescuing Human Rights
A Radically Moderate Approach
, pp. 57 - 79
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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