2015.8.5
Human Rights, Humanitarian Intervention and State Sovereignty
Fall 2015
Teacher responsible: Dr. Mei-chuan Wei
Graduate Institute of Development Studies, NCCU
0900-1200, Tuesday
Office Hours: 14.00-17.00 Tuesday
Office: 270705, 7th Floor, North Wing, General Building; Email: [email protected]
Course introduction:
The course is concerned with the theory and historical evolution of modern human
rights regimes, especially the international rights regimes after 1945, and with the
debates revolving international humanitarian intervention and (violation of) state
sovereignty. The course is divided into two parts: the first part focuses on the
introduction and discussion of theory and history of international human rights
regimes; the second part focuses on the discussion of theory and practice of
international humanitarian intervention. It discusses the emergence of a modern
“human rights” culture
as a product of the formation and expansion of the system
of nation-states and the concurrent rise of value-driven social mobilisation. It
juxtaposes these Western and imperial origins with competing non-Western systems
of thought and practices on rights and on human rights. The course proceeds to
discuss human rights in three prevailing modalities. First, it explores rights as
protection of the body and personhood and the modern, Western notion of
individualism entailed therein. Second, it inquires into rights as they affect groups (e.g.
refugees, ethnicities, “first nations,” transnational corporations). Such group rights
have been a persistent feature of human rights and humanitarian concerns. Third, the
course will explore the question of (national) sovereignty, the right to
self-determination, and its relationship to universal or global rights and will discuss in
this context, whether a global rights regime is feasible.
Aims and objectives:
We are particularly interested in how the idea of human rights has evolved, what it
means and what institutional arrangements it entails on the international level and in
different regions of the world. We are also interested in how different ideas of human
rights, exemplified by the debate named “When the East Meet the West,” affect the
international human rights regimes and the actions of international humanitarian
intervention after the end of WWII. We will also discuss how human rights have
interacted with the forces of development, modernisation and globalisation, of
nationalism and ethnic, religious and other political-cultural traditions. We shall
examine how and why, despite conflicts and uncertainties, human rights, like
democracy, have become increasingly influential in political processes, policy
formulations and ideological commitments. By focusing on the current political and
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socio-economic, and in some cases regime, transformations, we will learn how the
concept of human rights is continuously contested in some regions of the worlds,
ideologically as much as institutionally. At the end of the course, students are
expected to be familiar with the theory and history of contemporary international
human rights regimes, and competent in discussing at least two cases of international
humanitarian intervention with detailed theoretical, historical and empirical
knowledge. Students should also achieve a sophisticated awareness of the difficulties
with theorisation at the time when the idea of human rights has achieved global
dominance with ever fewer competitors for legitimacy and legitimation.
Course requirements/課程要求:
1. Students are required to submit one essay of 5000 words at the end of the semester
(hard copy required), deliver presentations, and participate in class discussion.
2. Final grades are calculated as follows: final essay accounts for 50% out of 100%
and class participation, including class presentation and discussion, accounts for
50% out of 100%.
* Note: Your participation would inevitably be affected by your attendance
although I do not check your attendance every class.
Course outline and readings/每週課程進度與閱讀書目:
Week 1 (16 Sep) Course introduction and overview
Week 2 (23 Sep) Human Rights: general discussion (I)
Are human rights founded in natural rights?
Readings:
1. Geoffrey Robertson. 2002. Crimes Against Humanity. (NY: The New Press)
Chapter 1, 'The Human Rights Story'. Pp. 1-48.
2. Margaret MacDonald. 1984. ‘Natural Rights.’ In J. Waldron, ed. Theories of
Rights. (Oxford: Oxford University Press) Pp. 21-40.
3. Alan Gewirth. 1978. Reason and Morality. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press)
pp.129-198.
4. Michael Freeman. 1994. 'The Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights.'
Human, Rights Quarterly 16, pp.491-514.
Week 3 (30 Sep) Human Rights: general discussion (II)
Do human rights have religious foundations?
Readings:
1. Jerome J. Shestack. 1998. ‘The Philosophic Foundations of Rights.’ Human
Rights Quarterly Nr. 20: 201-234.
2. Michael J. Perry. 1998. The Idea of Human Rights. Four Inquiries. Pp. 11-41.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
3. Jeremy Waldron. 1998. ‘When Justice Replaces Affection: The Need for Rights.’
Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. Vol. 11, Number 3. Pp. 625-647.
4. Alan Gewirth. 1992, ‘Human Dignity as the Basis for Rights.’ Michael J. Meyer
and W.A. Parent, eds. The Constitution of Right, Human Dignity and American
Values. Pp. 10-28. (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press)
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Week 4 (07 Oct ) Human Rights: general discussion (III)
Is the rights to security the essential rights?
Readings:
1. Thomas Hobbes. 1999. Leviathan. London: Penguin. Chs. 13-15, 21, 29. pp.
86-111, pp. 145-154, pp. 221-230.
2. Fernando Teson. 2005. ‘Liberal Security.’ In Richard A. Wilson, Ed., Human
Rights in the ‘War on Terror’. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) Pp.
57-77.
3. Thomas Cushman. 2005. ‘The Liberal Case for the War in Iraq.’ In Richard A.
Wilson, Ed., Human Rights in the ‘War on Terror’. (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press) Pp. 78-107.
4. Richard Wilson. 2005. ‘Introduction: Human Rights in the ‘War on Terror.’ In
Richard A. Wilson, Ed., Human Rights in the ‘War on Terror’. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press) Pp. 1-36.
Week 5 (14 Oct) Contested concept of human rights (I):
Are human rights a smokescreen for capitalist accumulation?
Readings: (suggested: 2 people to share the presentation of this week’s readings)
1. Karl Marx. 'Power as the Basis of Right' (pp.183-5) and 'On the Jewish Question'
(pp.39-63) in David McLellan. 1977. Karl Marx: Selected Writings. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press)
2. Thomas Haskell. 1985. ‘Capitalism and the Origins of the Humanitarian
Sensibility.’ American Historical Review. Vol. 90, No. 2, pp. 339-361.
3. Steven Lukes. 1991. ‘Can a Marxist Believe in Human Rights?’ Moral Conflict
and Politics. (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
4. Various Authors. ‘Is the spread of human rights since the end of the Cold War a
form of Western imperialism?’ Anthropology Newsletter. Sept. Issue. Vol 47, No.
6, 2006
Week 6 (21 Oct) Culture and human rights (I):
Are human rights culturally relative?
Readings:
1. A. Pollis and P. Schwab, 'Human Rights: a western construct with limited
applicability' in A. Pollis and P. Schwab, eds, Human Rights: Cultural and
Ideological Perspectives 1979. (New York: Praeger) Ch. 1, pp. xiii-18.
2. A. Pollis. 1996 ‘Cultural relativism revisited.’ Human Rights Quarterly
18:316-344.
3. Jack Donnelly. 2007. ‘The Relative Universality of Human Rights.’ Human
Rights Quarterly. Volume 29, Number 2, May 2007, pp. 281-306.
4. Rhoda Howard. 1993. 'Cultural Absolutism and the Nostalgia for Community.'
Human Rights Quarterly 15:315-338.
Week 7 (28 Oct) Culture and human rights (II):
Human rights, culture and tradition
Readings:
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1. Chris Brown, Universal Human Rights: A Critique, in Human Rights in Global
Politics, 103-127.
2. R. Panikkar, Is the Notion of Human Rights A Western Concept?, in Human
Rights: Critical Concepts in Political Science Vol. 1, edited by Richard Falk, Hilal
Elver and Lisa Hajjar (London: Routledge, 2008), 178-199.
3. Adamantia Pollis, Cultural Relativism Revisited: Through A State Prism, in
Human Rights: Critical Concepts in Political Science Vol. 1, 279-305.
4. Damien Kingsbury, Universalism and Exceptionalism in “Asia”, in Human Rights
in Asia: A Reassessment of the Asian Values Debate, edited by Leena Avonius and
Damien Kingsbury (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), 19-39.
Week 8 (04 Nov) Culture and human rights (III):
Are there collective human rights?
Readings:
1. Michael Freeman. 1995. ‘Are There Collective Human Rights?’ David Beetham,
ed, Politics and Human Rights. (Oxford: Blackwell)
2. Joseph Raz. 1986. ‘Liberty and Rights.” Joseph Raz The Morality of Freedom. Pp.
245-266. (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
3. Will Kymlicka. 1996. ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Intolerable: Minority Group
Rights.’Dissent. Summer, 1996. Pp. 22-30. (Reprinted in Patrick Hayden, ed. The
Philosophy of Human Rights. Pp. 445-461. St. Paul: Paragon House.)
4. R. Stavenhagen. 1996. ‘Indigenous Rights’ in E. Jelin and E. Herschberg, eds.,
Constructing Democracy. (Boulder: Westview Press) Chapter 8, pp.141-160.
Week 9 (11 Nov) Culture and human rights (II):
Is there a human rights to culture?
Readings:
1. Isaiah Berlin. 2000. The Roots of Romanticism London: Pimlico, Random House.
Chapter 1, 'In Search of a Definition', pp. 1-20: Chapter 2 'The First Attack on
Enlightenment' pp. 21-46.
2. J., M. Dembour Cowan and R. Wilson, eds., 2001. Culture and Rights.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) ‘Introduction’. Pp. 1-26.
3. Thomas Hylland Eriksen Chapter 6 'Between universalism and relativism'
pp.127-148. In Cowan, J., M. Dembour and R. Wilson, eds., 2001. Culture and
Rights. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
Week 10 (18 Nov) Human rights as law:
Is the legal basis an obstacle to their realisation?
Readings:
1. Saladin Meckled-Garcia and Basak Cali, eds., 2006. The Legalization of Human
Rights. (New York: Routledge) ‘Introduction.’ Pp. 1-8 and ‘Lost in Translation:
the human rights ideal and international human rights law.’ Pp. 11-31.
2. Michael Freeman. 2006. ‘Putting Law in its Place.’ in Saladin Meckled-Garcia
and Basak Cali, eds., The Legalization of Human Rights. Pp. 49-63. (New York:
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Routledge)
3. Richard Wilson. 2006. ‘Is the Legalization of Human Rights Really the Problem?
Genocide in the Guatemalan Historical Clarification Commission.’ in Saladin
Meckled-Garcia and Basak Cali, eds., The Legalization of Human Rights. Pp.
81-98. (New York: Routledge)
Week 11 (25 Nov) Human rights as social movement: Are human rights a social
movement, or a system of rules, laws and institutions?
Readings:
1. Henry J. Steiner and Philip Alston. 1996. International Human Rights in Context.
Law, Politics, Morals. Pp. 456-499. (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
2. Charles R. Epp. 1998. The Rights Revolution. Lawyers, Activists, and Supreme
Courts in Comparative Perspective. Pp. 1-10 and 44-70. (Chicago: The University
of Chicago Press)
3. William Korey. 1998. NGOs and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. "A
Curious Grapevine." Pp. 339-367. (New York: St. Martin's Press)
4. David Robert Evans and Ferenc Koszeg, eds. 2006. Human Rights in the
Democracy Movement Twenty Years Ago – Human Rights Today. Pp. 101-130.
(Budapest: Hungarian Helsinki Committee)
Week 12 (02 Dec)
International human rights
Readings: (suggested: 2 people to share the presentation of this week’s readings)
1. David P. Forsythe, Human Rights in International Relations, 2nd ed. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2006), Chapters 1-2.
2. Todd Landman, Political Science and Human Rights, in Interpreting Human
Rights: Social Science Perspectives, edited by Rhiannon Morgan and Bryan S.
Turner (London: Routledge, 2009), 23-43.
Week 13 (09 Dec) Post-WWII international human rights regimes.
Readings:
1. Thomas G. Weiss, David P. Forsythe, Roger A. Coate, & Kelly-Kate Pease, The
United Nations and Changing World Politics, 6th ed. (Boulder, C.O.: Westview
Press, 2010), Chapters 6-7.
2. Beth A. Simmons, Mobilizing for Human Rights: International Law in Domestic
Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), Chapter 2.
3. Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore, Rules for the World: International
Organizations in Global Politics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2004),
Chapter 5.
Week 14 (16 Dec) State sovereignty and human rights
Readings:
1. Tim Dunne and Nicholas J. Wheeler, Introduction: Human Rights and the Fifty
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Year’s Crisis, in Human Rights in Global Politics, edited by Tim Dunne and
Nicholas J. Wheeler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 1-28.
2. Christian Reus-Smit, Human rights and the Social Construction of Sovereignty,
Review of International Studies (2001), 27, 519-538.
3. Christian Reus-Smit, On Rights and Institutions, in Global Basic Rights, edited
by Charles R. Beitz & Robert E. Goodin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009),
25-48.
4. Andrew Hurrell, Another Turn of the Wheel? Basic Rights in International
Society, in Global Basic Rights, edited by Charles R. Beitz & Robert E. Goodin
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 49-70.
Week 15 (23 Dec) Humanitarian intervention (I)
Readings:
1. Bhikhu Parekh. 1997. ‘The Dilemmas of Humanitarian Intervention:
Introduction.’ International Political Science Review. Vol. 18, No. 1, Jan, 1997.
Pp. 5-7.
2. Nicholas J. Wheeler. 1997. ‘Agency, Humanitarianism and Intervention.’ 1997.
‘The Dilemmas of Humanitarian Intervention: Introduction.’ International
Political Science Review. Vol. 18, No. 1, Jan, 1997. Pp. 9-25.
3. Simon Caney. 1997. ‘Human Rights and the Rights of States: Terry Nardin on
Nonintervention.’ International Political Science Review. Vol. 18, No. 1, Jan,
1997. Pp. 27-37.
4. John Charvet. 1997. ‘The Idea of State Sovereignty and the Right of Humanitarian
Intervention.’ International Political Science Review. Vol. 18, No. 1, Jan, 1997.
Pp. 39-48.
Week 16 (30 Dec) Humanitarian intervention (II)
*Documentary: Rwanda
Readings:
1. Bhikhu Parekh. 1997. ‘Rethinking Humanitarian Intervention.’ International
Political Science Review. Vol. 18, No. 1, Jan, 1997. Pp. 49-69.
2. Jan Nederveen Pieterse. 1997. ‘Sociology of Humanitarian Intervention: Bosnia,
Rwanda and Somalia Compared.’ International Political Science Review. Vol. 18,
No. 1, Jan, 1997. Pp. 71-93.
3. Terry McNeill. 1997. ‘Humanitarian Intervention and Peacekeeping in the Former
Soviet Union and Easter Europe.’ International Political Science Review. Vol. 18,
No. 1, Jan, 1997. Pp. 95-113.
Week 17 (06 Jan)
International humanitarian organisations
Readings:
1. Janice Gross Stein, Humanitarian Organizations: Accountable—Why, to Whom,
for What, and How?, in Humanitarianism in Question: Politics, Power, Ethics,
124-142.
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2.
3.
4.
Peter Redfield, Sacrifice, Triage, and Global Humanitarianism, Humanitarianism
in Question: Politics, Power, Ethics, 196-214.
David P. Forsythe and Barbara Ann J. Rieffer-Flanagan, The International
Committee of the Red Cross: A Neutral Humanitarian Actor (London: Routledge,
2007), Chapters 3-4.
Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore, Rules for the World: International
Organizations in Global Politics, Chapter 4.
Week 18 (13 Jan) Trade, Development and Human Rights
Readings:
1. Emilie M. Hafner-Burton, Forced to Be Good: Why Trade Agreements Boost
Human Rights (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2009), Chapters 1, 6.
2. Mary Robinson, What Rights Can Add to Good Development Practice, in Human
Rights and Development: Towards Mutual Reinforcement, edited by Philip Alston
and Mary Robinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 25-41.
3. Christina Biebesheimer, The Impact of Human Rights Principles on Justice
Reform in the Inter-American Development Bank, in Human Rights and
Development: Towards Mutual Reinforcement, 269-296.
4. Jan Knippers Black, The Politics of Human Rights Protection (Lanham, M.D.:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), Chapter 13.
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