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 United Nations Charter and Universal Declaration of Human Rights, issues of human rights have become a dominant feature of our global community. An acceptance has grown of the treatment of individuals and groups within domestic societies as a legitimate focus of global attention. Played out dramatically in the US media, China has received a huge amount of this global attention, with many democracies sustaining a human rights element in their policies towards China.

This book examines the affect that this normative evolution has had on the behavior of individuals, states, institutions, and advocacy networks, and assesses its impact on the relations between key international players and China. Focusing on the period since the Tiananmen bloodshed in June 1989, Rosemary Foot examines China's international and internal responses to the global attention paid to their human rights record. Foot expertly uncovers the conditions under which international human rights norms influence behavior, and determines how norms operate in the global system.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198297758
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/18/2001
Pages:	308
Product dimensions:	9.21(w) x 6.14(h) x 0.75(d)

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. IntroductionPART I: THE SETTING2. The Evolution of the Global Human Rights Regime3. The Global Consequences of Chinas Economic ReformsPART II: THE PROCESS4. The Generating of Attention, 1976-19895. Tiananmen and its Aftermath, June 1989 to November 19916. The Shift to Multilateral Venues, 1992 to 19957. From Public Exposure to Private Dialogue, 1996 to 19988. Betting on the Long Term, 1998-19999. 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