Human Rights, Democratization, and Global Justice

Human Rights, Democratization, and Global Justice

Week 1: Introduction to Human Rights

• The Trolley Problem is used to explain what is just
• Measuring human rights and democracy:
  • The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Democracy Index

Week 3: International Law and Humanitarian Aid

• The Hague laws of war (1907) and Geneva Convention and Protocols (1949 and 1977) outlaw crimes against humanity
• Treaties act as the law in international law, signed and ratified by states
• The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969) outlines the rules for creating treaties
• Derogations allow states to avoid taking responsibility
• Customary international law applies to accepted state practices
• The Human Rights Council promotes universal respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms
• Secondary treaty bodies monitor compliance, but are not coercive

Week 5: Human Rights Debates

• Foundations of human rights:
  • Response to absolute monarchy and emergent capitalism
  • Positivization: national legal systems
  • Trend towards universality of rights
  • Controlling state power via human rights
  • Respect, protect, fulfill
• Generations of human rights:
  • Civil and political rights (first generation)
  • Economic and social rights (second generation)
  • Group rights (third generation)
• Conflicts of human rights:
  • Conflict of human rights and values
  • Conflict of human rights and politics
  • Conflict of two human rights
  • Relativism vs. universalism
• Human rights and war:
  • Human rights do not apply during war
  • Humanitarian intervention: using force to stop crimes against humanity
• Animal rights:
  • Peter Singer's animal liberation

Week 6: Independence of the Judiciary

• Establishment of courts and judicial review
• Judicial review: evaluating legislation for clashes between laws
• Courts make final decisions and are an important check on state power
• States are willing to have independent judicial review to prevent autocratic situations

Week 8: Global Justice

• Justice: getting what one is due
• Principles of justice: needs, interests, equality, compensation, and rights
• Global justice was triggered by:
  • Incompleteness of domestic level theories
  • Empirical considerations: globalization, poverty, power, and economic inequalities

Week 12: International Criminal Justice

• International criminal tribunals:

  • Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals
  • Yugoslavia and Rwanda tribunals
  • Sierra Leone tribunal

• Jurisdiction of the court:

  • Ratione materiae: crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression
  • Ratione personae: permanent and applies to natural persons over 18 years old
  • Ratione loci: territorial and personal jurisdiction
  • Ratione temporis: temporal jurisdiction covers crimes since July 1, 2002

• Trigger mechanism: initiation of an investigation

• Principle of complementarity: state responsibility for investigation and prosecution### Assessment of Aggression

• Assessment is necessary to determine if an act of aggression has taken place

• Any act that meets the criteria of paragraph 1 is considered an act of aggression

Understandings

Understanding No. 6

• To determine if an act of aggression has been committed, consideration of all circumstances of each particular case is required, including gravity of acts and consequences

Understanding No. 7 (Manifest Violation)

• Character, gravity, and scale of an act must be sufficient to justify a manifest determination
• No single component can satisfy the manifest standard on its own
• Understandings were created to make it more difficult for the court to find a manifest violation

Gray Areas

• Situations that cannot be classified as solely black or white in international law
• Examples of gray areas:
  • Unilateral human intervention
  • Intervention in a civil war on request of one party
  • Protection or rescue of nationals abroad
  • Anticipatory self-defense
  • Terrorism (operations abroad)
  • Reprisals (extensive reaction to a minor border issue)

Use of Force and Criminal Liability

Legal Use of Force

• Use of force in accordance with international law (e.g., self-defense or intervention under UN Security Council resolution) is legal and cannot amount to a crime of aggression

Gray Area Use of Force

• Each case must be assessed individually to determine if use of force is illegal or not
• Criteria will need to be developed to distinguish between gray area cases that are legal and those that breach international law

Illegal Use of Force

• Use of force that breaches international law but does not amount to a manifest violation of the UN Charter
• Use of force that breaches international law and amounts to a manifest violation of the UN Charter

Manifest Violation and Travaux Préparatoires

• No additional information provided