Rights Beyond Borders: The Global Community and the Struggle over Human Rights in China

by Rosemary Foot

Overview

Over the five decades since the establishment of the UN Charter and Universal Declaration of Human Rights, human rights issues have become a dominant feature of the international system, embracing new actors, eroding the traditional Westphalian concept of sovereignty, and leading to an acceptance that the treatment of individuals and groups within domestic societies is legitimately a focus of global attention. This book examines the affect that this normative evolution has had on the individual, state, institutional and advocacy network behaviour. Having described this normative environment it assesses its impact on key actors' relationships with China, especially in the period since the Tiananmen bloodshed in June 1989. It also examines China's responses?international and internal?to being the focus of global attention in this issue area. The book's theoretical concerns are to uncover the conditions under which international human rights norms influence behaviour, including domestic changes within states, and about the operation of norms in the global system.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191522956
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	09/21/2000
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	691 KB

About the Author

Rosemary Foot is Professor of International Relations and John Swire Senior Research Fellow at St. Antony's College, Oxford University.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
PART I: THE SETTING
2. The Evolution of the Global Human Rights Regime
3. The Global Consequences of Chinas Economic Reforms
PART II: THE PROCESS
4. The Generating of Attention, 1976-1989
5. Tiananmen and its Aftermath, June 1989 to November 1991
6. The Shift to Multilateral Venues, 1992 to 1995
7. From Public Exposure to Private Dialogue, 1996 to 1998
8. Betting on the Long Term, 1998-1999
9. Conclusion - Rights Beyond Borders?

What People are Saying About This

Merle Goldman

Rosemary Foot has made the most penetrating analysis of the efforts of the international community and China's own human rights advocates to push China, kicking and screaming, into the global human rights regime. She vividly describes the public and private pressures and the symbolic and material sanctions that have led China to a gradual acceptance of universal human rights norms, though not yet to their implementation. For those interested in the international as well as in the Chinese struggle for human rights, this book must be read.
—(Merle Goldman, Boston University and author of Sowing the Seeds of Democracy in China)

Andrew J. Nathan

Foot shows that the enmeshment of China in global human rights politics marks a major change in the international system. What is often seen as a culturally peculiar clash of Chinese and American values has broader significance, both because China is a major power and because the human rights issue informs the policies of other Western states besides the U.S. Foot asks how it is that norms not backed by real enforcement mechanisms nonetheless have the power to change at least the external behavior of a state like China, and even to some extent its internal behavior. Her answers are informed, insightful, and balanced. The book makes a major contribution both to the literature on Chinese foreign policy and to the new theoretical literature on the role of norms in international relations.
—(Andrew J. Nathan, Columbia University)

Editorial Reviews

"Foot shows that the enmeshment of China in global human rights politics marks a major change in the international system. What is often seen as a culturally peculiar clash of Chinese and American values has broader significance, both because China is a major power and because the human rights issue informs the policies of other Western states besides the U.S. Foot asks how it is that norms not backed by real enforcement mechanisms nonetheless have the power to change at least the external behavior of a state like China, and even to some extent its internal behavior. Her answers are informed, insightful, and balanced. The book makes a major contribution both to the literature on Chinese foreign policy and to the new theoretical literature on the role of norms in international relations."—Andrew J. Nathan, Columbia University

"Rosemary Foot has made the most penetrating analysis of the efforts of the international community and China's own human rights advocates to push China, kicking and screaming, into the global human rights regime. She vividly describes the public and private pressures and the symbolic and material sanctions that have led China to a gradual acceptance of universal human rights norms, though not yet to their implementation. For those interested in the international as well as in the Chinese struggle for human rights, this book must be read."—Merle Goldman, Boston University and author of Sowing the Seeds of Democracy in China

From the Publisher