Book Review: Human rights in development: global perspectives and local issues
| Published date | 01 June 2000 |
| Date | 01 June 2000 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/092405190001800215 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
Documentation
Human rights in development: global perspectives and local issues /ed. by Hugo Stokke
and Arne Tostensen. - The Hague: Kluwer, 1999. - ix, 266 p. - (Yearbook on human
rights in development ; 1998)
ISBN: 90-411-1297-9
The eleventh in the series
of
yearbooks on Human Rights in Developing Countries marks
adeparture from previous editions. The Yearbook will now bear the title
of
Human Rights
in Development, to reflect the fact that it will explore the role
of
human rights as an
integral part
of
the development process. The scope
of
the Yearbook has widened to
include human rights topics and issues in the more developed parts
of
the world as well
as in the developing countries covered hitherto. The
new
Yearbook aims at more
international and comparative studies on the one hand and more focused local issues on
the other.
Two
themes cut across the series
of
articles contained in the current edition:
human rights promotion, and local conflict. The articles on the first theme discuss the
following subjects: the establishment
of
national human rights institutions as instruments
of
promotion; development interventions in terms
of
their impact on local populations,
drawing on
UN
and World Bank experience; using aid in human rights promotion,
exemplified by Dutch aid to Guatemala; the policies
of
the EU and ASEAN in seeking to
improve the human rights situation in Burma; the work
of
the
lLO
in standard-setting and
implementation in the field
of
child labour. The other theme, local conflict, is addressed
in two articles, one looking at local communities in Latin America caught between local
customs and ideologically charged civil wars and the other investigating the tensions
between centralised rule and local autonomy in Kenya, recently erupting into ethnic
violence.
Human rights in global politics /ed. by Tim Dunne and Nicholas J. Wheeler. -
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. - xi, 337 p.
ISBN: 0 521 64643 X
There is a stark contradiction between the theory
of
universal human rights and the
everyday practice
of
human wrongs. This publication investigates whether human rights
abuses are a result
of
the failure
of
governments to live up to a universal human rights
standard, or whether the search for moral universals is a fundamentally flawed enterprise
which distracts us from the task
of
developing rights in the context
of
particular ethical
communities. In the first part
of
the book chapters by Ken Booth, Jack Donnelly, Chris
Brown, Bhikhu Parekh and Mary Midgley explore the philosophical basis
of
claims to
universal human rights. In the second part, Richard Falk, Mary Kaldor, Martin Shaw, Gil
Loescher, Georgina Ashworth and Andrew Hurrell reflect on the role
of
the media, global
civil society, States, migration, non-governmental organisations, capitalism, and schools
and universities in developing a global human rights culture.
Human rights standards and the responsibility
of
transnational corporations /ed. by
Michael K. Addo. - The Hague: Kluwer, 1999. - xxv, 384 p.
ISBN: 90-411-1246-4
What is the nature and scope
of
corporate responsibility with regard to human rights?
Should companies themselves be responsible for human rights violations involving
themselves or their subsidiaries? What principles should guidebusiness in countries known
to violate human rights? Is self-regulation sufficient, or are corporations best regulated by
national or international codes, and on what should these codes be based? These are some
of
the many questions which this collection
of
essays seeks to address as it assesses the
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