International Human Rights Lectures - Midterm

What are human rights?

Rights understood to belong to people because they are human, rather than because a government chooses to grant them.

Why are human rights difficult to define?

Violations can be easier to recognize than the rights themselves. Defining a right requires asking what the right is, where it comes from, who possesses it, and who has obligations to protect it.

Why are human rights considered an evolving concept?

The understanding of human rights changes over time as ideas about dignity, equality, and human needs develop. The agenda has expanded from civil and political rights to economic, social, cultural, women's, LGBTQ+, and other rights.

What is the central tension between having a human right and exercising it?

A right may be understood as inherent to humanity, but its practical protection often depends on legal and political institutions.

What are Jack Donnelly's two approaches to human rights?

The Needs Approach asks what humans require; the Nature Approach asks what humans need to live with dignity and realize their human potential.

What is the Needs Approach?

The idea that human needs generate corresponding rights: humans need food, water, shelter, healthcare, etc., so rights protect access to those necessities.

What is the main problem with the Needs Approach?

There is no simple scientific formula determining which needs should become human rights, and ideas about what is necessary for a dignified life can vary across cultures and societies.

What is the Nature Approach?

A philosophical approach that focuses on human dignity, freedom, capabilities, potential, and flourishing rather than merely biological survival.

What is the difference between the Needs Approach and the Nature Approach?

Needs asks what humans require to live; Nature asks what conditions allow humans to live with dignity and realize their potential.

What is Amartya Sen's contribution to human rights theory?

Sen focuses on capabilities—what people are actually able to do and be—rather than simply the resources or formal rights they possess.

How are human rights connected to human dignity?

Human rights are not only about keeping people alive; they help create conditions in which people can exercise meaningful freedom and develop their human potential.

What is the political origin of rights?

Rights developed partly through struggles by individuals and groups to limit government power and protect themselves from state authority.

What did John Locke argue about government?

Legitimate government derives from the consent of the governed and should therefore have limits on its power.

What are the four major historical documents associated with the Western development of rights?

Magna Carta (1215); English Bill of Rights (1689); French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789); U.S. Constitution (1787) and Bill of Rights (1791).

What is the problem with calling these historical rights documents "universal"?

Their language often claimed universal rights while excluding or marginalizing women, non-white populations, and people outside particular political communities.

What is the difference between universal language and universal application?

A document can claim rights belong to humanity while those rights are not actually available to everyone.

How can historical rights documents be understood in two different ways?

They can be seen as instruments of liberation that inspired later rights movements and as products of exclusion reflecting inequalities of their societies.

What is Marx's distinction between political emancipation and human emancipation?

Political emancipation means formal legal and political equality; human emancipation requires addressing the deeper social and economic conditions that prevent genuine freedom.

What did Marx criticize about liberal rights?

Formal political rights can exist alongside severe economic inequality, private property, class divisions, and social inequality.

What is the difference between formal equality and substantive equality?

Formal equality means people have equal legal or political rights. Substantive equality means people have the actual social and material conditions necessary to meaningfully exercise those rights.

What are first-generation rights?

Civil and political rights, traditionally understood as requiring the state primarily to refrain from interference. Examples include speech, assembly, due process, and freedom from torture.

What are second-generation rights?

Economic, social, and cultural rights, traditionally understood as requiring affirmative state action or resources. Examples include food, housing, healthcare, and education.

What are negative and positive rights?

Negative rights require others, especially the state, not to interfere or harm. Positive rights require action, provision, protection, or assistance.

Why is the negative/positive distinction imperfect?

Civil and political rights also require institutions and resources, while socioeconomic rights can sometimes require government restraint. Both types can generate positive and negative duties.

How did the Cold War affect human rights discourse?

The U.S. emphasized civil and political rights, while the USSR emphasized economic and social rights. Both used human rights arguments as part of ideological competition.

What is the politicization of human rights?

The use of human rights claims strategically by states to criticize or challenge political rivals.

Why was World War II important to modern international human rights?

Nazi atrocities demonstrated the consequences of allowing states to treat severe abuses as purely domestic matters and helped drive the development of international human rights law.

What were the Nuremberg Trials?

The 1945–1946 trials that prosecuted Nazi officials for international crimes following World War II.

What were the four categories of crimes prosecuted at Nuremberg?

Conspiracy to wage aggressive war, crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

Why are crimes against humanity especially important?

They helped establish that extreme abuses committed within a state's own territory could be subject to international accountability, challenging absolute state sovereignty.

What is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)?

The 1948 UN declaration establishing a broad international vision of human dignity and rights, including civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights.

What does the UDHR describe itself as?

A "common standard of achievement" for all peoples and nations.

What is the difference between the ICCPR and ICESCR?

ICCPR covers civil and political rights and generally requires immediate respect and protection. ICESCR covers economic, social, and cultural rights and generally involves progressive realization using available resources.

What is progressive realization?

The principle that states must take steps toward the full realization of economic, social, and cultural rights over time, using available resources.

What is the central enforcement problem in international human rights law?

There is no world government with universal enforcement authority. International human rights law therefore depends heavily on states, institutions, cooperation, and political will.

What is the sovereignty paradox?

International human rights law attempts to constrain sovereign states, but the international system itself remains largely organized around sovereign states.

What are Henry Shue's security and subsistence rights?

Security rights protect people from physical harm and insecurity. Subsistence rights protect the minimum material conditions needed for a reasonably healthy and active life.

What are Shue's three duties associated with basic rights?

Avoid deprivation → Protect → Aid.

What is the duty to avoid deprivation?

The obligation not to directly deprive someone of their basic rights or necessities.

What is the duty to protect?

The obligation to protect people from others who would deprive them of their rights.

What is the duty to aid?

The obligation to assist people who have been deprived of basic rights or cannot secure them for themselves.

How does Shue challenge the negative/positive rights distinction?

He argues that all basic rights can generate both negative and positive duties. Even "negative" rights require institutions and resources for effective protection.

What is Sen's capability approach?

An approach that evaluates people's real opportunities to do and be things they value, rather than focusing only on resources, income, or formal legal rights.

What is the difference between capability and functioning?

Capability is the real opportunity to do or be something. Functioning is the achieved state of doing or being.

What is the difference between formal and substantive freedom?

Formal freedom means you legally have permission to do something. Substantive freedom means you actually have the conditions and resources necessary to do it.

What does Sen mean by "development as freedom"?

Development should be understood as expanding people's capabilities and substantive freedoms, allowing them to live healthy, educated, socially engaged, and meaningful lives.

What is the difference between Shue and Sen?

Shue focuses on the duties required by basic rights, especially security and subsistence. Sen focuses on people's capabilities, functionings, and substantive freedom.

What is Rawls's veil of ignorance?

A hypothetical situation in which people design social institutions without knowing what position they will occupy, such as whether they will be rich, poor, privileged, or disadvantaged.

What is the overall argument of Week 4?

Formal rights are insufficient if people lack the basic security, subsistence, and capabilities necessary to meaningfully exercise those rights.

What is the International Bill of Human Rights?

The UDHR, ICCPR, ICESCR, and the First Optional Protocol to the ICCPR.

Why is the International Bill of Human Rights important?

It provides a central legal and normative framework for evaluating human rights conditions.

What is a treaty?

A formal international agreement that creates legal obligations for states that accept it.

Do treaties automatically bind every state?

No. Treaty obligations generally bind states that have accepted the treaty.

What is customary international law?

International law that develops from widespread and consistent state practice accepted as legally required.

What is the difference between treaty law and customary international law?

Treaties generally bind states that accept them; customary international law can apply more broadly.

What is the Genocide Convention?

A treaty addressing the prevention and punishment of genocide.

What is the Refugee Convention?

The 1951 treaty establishing international protections for refugees.

What is the 1967 Refugee Protocol?

An instrument that expanded and updated the international refugee protection framework.

What is CERD?

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

What is CEDAW?

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

What is CAT?

The Convention Against Torture, which protects people from torture and related cruel treatment.

What is the CRC?

The Convention on the Rights of the Child.

What is the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR?

A protocol aimed at abolishing the death penalty.

What are UN non-treaty instruments?

Nonbinding or differently binding UN standards addressing specific human rights issues that can guide monitoring.

Why are non-treaty instruments important?

They provide standards for issues such as prisoners, law enforcement, juvenile justice, minorities, disappearances, and human rights defenders.

What are the Geneva Conventions?

Four treaties forming the core of international humanitarian law and protecting people affected by armed conflict.

What does the First Geneva Convention protect?

Wounded and sick members of armed forces on land.

What does the Second Geneva Convention protect?

Wounded, sick, and shipwrecked members of armed forces at sea.

What does the Third Geneva Convention protect?

Prisoners of war.

What does the Fourth Geneva Convention protect?

Civilians during wartime.

What is Additional Protocol I?

A protocol concerning victims of international armed conflicts.

What is Additional Protocol II?

A protocol concerning victims of non-international armed conflicts.

What is International Humanitarian Law (IHL)?

The body of international law that regulates conduct during armed conflict and protects people affected by war.

What is the difference between human rights law and IHL?

Human rights law generally protects rights in all circumstances; IHL specifically regulates armed conflict.

When does IHL apply?

During international and non-international armed conflicts.

What was the Battle of Solferino?

A 1859 battle whose horrific aftermath helped inspire modern humanitarian law.

Who was Henry Dunant?

A humanitarian who witnessed the suffering at Solferino and advocated for international protections for wounded soldiers.

Why is Henry Dunant important?

His efforts helped inspire humanitarian relief organizations and eventually the Geneva Conventions.

What is an international armed conflict?

An armed conflict involving states, such as an interstate war or foreign occupation.

What is a non-international armed conflict?

An organized armed conflict occurring within a state, such as certain civil wars.

What framework applies to international armed conflicts?

Human rights law plus the Geneva Conventions and applicable Additional Protocol I.

What framework applies to non-international armed conflicts?

Human rights law plus Common Article 3 and applicable Additional Protocol II.

What is Common Article 3?

A provision shared by the four Geneva Conventions establishing minimum protections during non-international armed conflicts.

What is a state of emergency?

A formally recognized public emergency that may allow certain rights to be limited under international law.

What is derogation?

The temporary suspension or limitation of certain treaty rights during a qualifying emergency.

Does a state of emergency eliminate human rights protections?

No. Human rights continue to apply, although certain rights may be limited under strict conditions.

What is the monitoring framework during normal circumstances?

Human rights law.

What is the monitoring framework during an armed conflict?

Human rights law continues to apply alongside applicable international humanitarian law.

What are the five stages of human rights monitoring?

Contact building → Monitoring → Fact finding → Documentation → Acting.

What is contact building?

Developing a network of people who can provide information, verification, assistance, and protection.

Why is contact building important?

It helps monitors gather information, verify reports, obtain different perspectives, and improve safety.

Why should monitors use multiple sources?

To cross-check information, identify inconsistencies, and reduce reliance on biased or incomplete accounts.

What is monitoring?

Long-term observation and analysis of a human rights situation.

What is the purpose of monitoring?

To build a systematic record, identify abuses, detect warning signs, and identify broader patterns.

What is fact finding?

The focused investigation and verification of a particular allegation or incident.

What is the difference between monitoring and fact finding?

Monitoring is broad and long-term; fact finding focuses on determining what happened in a specific case.

What are examples of fact-finding methods?

Field missions, trial observation, demonstration observation, election observation, and surveys.

Why should fact finders interview different actors?

Different sources can confirm or contradict facts, provide context, reveal missing information, and help establish responsibility.

What is material evidence?

Physical, medical, documentary, governmental, or visual evidence supporting an investigation.

What is documentation?

The systematic recording, organization, analysis, and storage of information about human rights violations.