Human Rights and the Universalisation of Interests: Towards a Social Constructionist Approach

Waters, Malcolm

doi:10.1177/0038038596030003011

Cited by 73 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…The social constructivist perspective of human rights demonstrates that political authorities institutionalise rights only when they perceive them to be in their own interests and when they do not threaten existing power structures (Waters 1996;Freeman 2002;and Miller 2010). Rights should therefore not be assumed to be automatically beneficial to the rights holders.…”

Section: Interest Convergencementioning

confidence: 99%

The social construction of Afro-descendant rights in Colombia

Ojulari¹

2016

Contemporary Challenges in Securing Human Rights

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Section: Interest Convergencementioning

confidence: 99%

The social construction of Afro-descendant rights in Colombia

Ojulari¹

2016

Contemporary Challenges in Securing Human Rights

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“…However, the exact role of this conflict in the development of human rights is not entirely clear. Some have suggested that the Cold War powers actively promoted human rights as a form of ideological warfare; on the one hand, the United States promoted civil and political rights to denounce state socialism; on the other hand, the Soviet Union promoted economic and social rights to denounce the inequalities of liberal capitalism (Waters, 1996). While the USA and the USSR may have used human rights rhetoric to justify their own ideological worldviews, it is not evident from my data that either party supplied much of a stimulus in this arena.…”

Section: Historical Development Of Human Rightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The institutional expansion of human rights, 1863–2003: A comprehensive dataset of international instruments

Elliott

2011

Journal of Peace Research

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This article summarizes the results of a recently completed, comprehensive coding of 779 human rights instruments from 1863 to 2003. As such, it offers an extensive portrayal of how, and to what degree, this powerful doctrine has been formally institutionalized over time. Following a brief overview of the data collection process, selected results from this study are presented that highlight how many human rights instruments have been drafted, what kind of violations have been most prominent, the number of rights that have been specified over time, and the ultimate aspirations that are linked to the realization of human rights. Next, potential applications of this dataset are discussed regarding both human rights and peace research scholarship. Specifically, the results shed new light on the historical development of human rights by highlighting key periods of instrument growth in the late 19th century, the interwar years, and the post-World War II period. In addition, the data can effectively augment recent quantitative studies that measure the effect of treaty ratification on internal state violence by helping to generate more extensive ratification information, develop better measures of state compliance, and construct new measures that assess how human rights principles get translated into national practice and potentially mitigate state violence over time.

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“…Although human rights are often perceived as universally accepted standards of inclusion, increasingly more sociologists recognize that it is necessary to understand how and in which contexts human rights cultures are created. Human rights are then perceived as originating, existing and being applied in specific contexts, which can be framed as social struggles (Keck & Sikkink, 1999;Madsen, 2011;Morris, 2006;Nash, 2009;Waters, 1996;Woodiwiss, 2005). This struggle forms a continuous (re)negotiation of norms and ideas about human rights through discursive framing by different interpretive communities (judicial, political, civil society); groups of actors which have different perspectives on the meaning of human rights (Madsen, 2011;Morris, 2006;Nash, 2009;Waters, 1996;Woodiwiss, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Discourses of Roma Anti-Discrimination in Reports on Human Rights Violations

Delcour

Hustinx

2015

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In an effort to understand the paradox between the expansion of inclusion projects for the Roma and their persisting exclusion, this article explores human rights practice in order to grasp the complexity of meanings of inclusion negotiated in this practice. In this way, we scrutinize whether there are limiting factors within the inclusionary discourse itself. Specifically, we analyze the discourse in transnational judicial, political and civil society actors' reports on violations of human rights against Roma. A strong shared tendency to frame the violations in terms of discrimination can be discerned in the reports, demonstrating a dominant concept in the human rights discourse for Roma. However, a framing analysis of the underlying assumptions of this concept shows that not all three actors offer the same solutions for obtaining non-discrimination, which can partly explain the limited impact of the ostensibly strong and inclusive antidiscrimination discourse. In contrast, the actors do share a negative attribution of responsibility to the nation states, but the effectiveness of this shared discursive claim can be questioned. This article illustrates how inclusion discourses are actually quite complex to grasp and so it substantiates the need for greater critical understanding of such discourses in further research.

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Human Rights and the Universalisation of Interests: Towards a Social Constructionist Approach

Cited by 73 publications

References 3 publications

The social construction of Afro-descendant rights in Colombia

The social construction of Afro-descendant rights in Colombia

The institutional expansion of human rights, 1863–2003: A comprehensive dataset of international instruments

Discourses of Roma Anti-Discrimination in Reports on Human Rights Violations

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