The Local Relevance of Human Rights

by Koen De Feyter (Editor), Stephan Parmentier (Editor), Christiane Timmerman (Editor), George Ulrich (Editor)

Overview

Do human rights offer real protection when disadvantaged groups invoke them at the local level in an attempt to improve their living conditions? If so, how can we make sure that the experiences of those invoking human rights at the local level have an impact on the further development of human rights (at national and other levels) so that the local relevance of human rights increases? Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) on 10 December 1948, numerous international documents have reaffirmed human rights as global norms. This book examines what factors determine whether appeals to human rights that emanate from the local level are successful, and whether the UDHR adequately responds to threats as currently defined by relevant groups or whether a revision of some of the ideas included in the UDHR is needed in order to increase its contemporary relevance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781139140232
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	09/08/2011
Series:	European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	834 KB

About the Author

Koen De Feyter holds the Chair of International Law at the University of Antwerp. He is also spokesperson of the Law and Development Research Group at the University of Antwerp Legal School, the promoter-coordinator of the Flemish Centre for International Policy and a founding editor of the Human Rights and International Legal Discourse journal.
Stephan Parmentier teaches sociology of crime, law and human rights at the Faculty of Law of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, and coordinates the research line on political crimes, human rights and human security at the Leuven Institute of Criminology (LINC). He also currently serves as the Secretary General of the International Society for Criminology.
Christiane Timmerman is Director of the Centre for Migration and Intercultural Studies (CeMIS) at the University of Antwerp and Director of Academic Affairs at UCSIA.
George Ulrich is Rector of the Riga Graduate School of Law. He previously served as Secretary General of the European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation (EIUC).

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: reconsidering human rights from below Koen De Feyter and Stephan Parmentier; 2. Sites of rights resistance Koen De Feyter; 3. Freedom from want revisited from a local perspective: evolution and challenges ahead Felipe Gómez Isa; 4. Relevance of human rights in the 'glocal' space of politics: how to enlarge democratic practice beyond state boundaries and build up a peaceful world order? Antonio Papisca; 5. The local relevance of human rights: a methodological approach Gaby Oré Aguilar; 6. Ensuring compliance with decisions by international and regional human rights bodies: the case of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture Michelle Farrell; 7. Building rights-based health movements: lessons from the Peruvian experience Alicia Ely Yamin and J. Jaime Miranda; 8. Defining human rights when economic interests are high: the case of the Western Shoshone Julie Cavanaugh-Bill; 9. Struggling to localise human rights: the experience of indigenous peoples in Chile José Aylwin; 10. Enforcing environmental rights under Nigeria's 1999 constitution: the localisation of human rights in the Niger Delta region Rhuks Temitope Ako; 11. Conflict resolution through cultural rights and cultural wrongs: the Kosovo example María del Mar Bermúdez, Manuel Calzada Plá and Lydia Vicente Márquez; 12. Epilogue: widening the perspective on the local relevance of human rights George Ulrich.