Human Rights and the New Europe: Experience and Experiment
| Author | Hugo Storey |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1995.tb01704.x |
| Published date | 01 March 1995 |
| Date | 01 March 1995 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Political
Studies
(1995),
XLIII,
131-151
Human
Rights
and
the New Europe:
Experience
and
Experiment
HUGO
STOREY
We live in the Age of Human Rights. Yet neither political theory nor political
science has ever been at ease with the concept of human rights. They have made
some forays into the subject, mostly but not always critical.’ For its part the
human rights movement has carried on untroubled by unease from these
quarters. The international law of human rights, in particular, continues to
develop at a phenomenal pace. Far from exercising a restraining influence,
events such as those in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda seem simply to
intensify efforts to construct more and more international treaties or other
types of international instruments, increasing more and more the multiplicity
of international legal ties that bind. What is remarkable is not simply the sheer
volume and array
of
‘treaties’, ‘conventions’, ‘charters’, ‘declarations’ etc.
which now exist,* but the growing effectiveness of their implementation
machineries, at least in terms of the recognition by more states than ever before
of the validity of such agreements and their ability to give rise to legal
consequences both at the level of international law and within their own
internal legal
system^.^
Aware that there remains much room for improvement,
the recent ‘Vienna Declaration’ of the World Conference on Human Rights
(1993) has proposed further reforms of human rights ‘control machinerie~’.~
Not only has there been fast growth but the enterprise continues to be
conducted in grandiose style, as if oblivious to the strong philosophical
objections this incites. The texts
of
this Conference ring unashamedly with a
Jeffersonian tone. Again and again they reiterate that human rights are
‘universal’, ‘inalienable’, ‘indivisible’, etc. Even the ‘Declaration of Bangkok’
’
D. Raphael (ed.),
Political Theory and the Rights
of
Man
(London, Macmillan, 1977);
E. Kamenka and Tay (eds),
Human Rights
(London, Edward Arnold, 1978); J. Pennock and
J. Chapman (eds),
Human Rights,
Nomos
XXIII
(New York, New York University Press, 1981).
For further useful background see R. J. Vincent,
Human Rights and International Relations
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 7-36 and the contribution by
S.
Mendus,
‘Human rights in political theory’ in this volume.
J.-B. Marie, ‘International instruments relating
to
human rights: classification and status of
ratifications as
of
1
Jan. 1994,
Human Rights Law Journal (HRLJ),
15
(1994), pp. 5467, lists over
70 instruments; M. Bersmo, ‘The establishment
of
the international tribunal on war crimes’,
HRLJ,
14 (1993), p. 371;
HRLJ,
14 (1993), p.211;
HRLJ,
15 (1994), p.38.
E. A. Alkema
et al.,
‘The domestic implementation of the European Convention on Human
Rights in Eastern and Western
Europe,
European Human Rights Year Book (EHRYB),
2 (1992);
Developing Human Rights Jurisprudence: the Domestic Application
of
International Human Rights
Norms,
Judicial Colloquium in Bangalore, 24-6 Feb. 1988 (London, Commonwealth Secretariat).
4United Nations World Conference
on
Human Rights, Vienna
14-25
June 1993: Vienna
Declaration and Programme of Action,
HRLJ,
14 (1993), p. 352; see also the contribution by Kevin
Boyle, ‘Stock-taking on human rights: The World Conference on Human Rights’ in this volume.
0
Political Studies Association
1995.
Published
by
Blackwell Publishers,
108
Cowley Road, Oxford
OX4 IJF,
UK
and
238
Main
Street, Cambridge, MA
02142,
USA.
132
Human
Rights
and
the
News
Europe
laid before the Conference by nations from the Asia region, finds no difficulty
in asserting the ‘universality, objectivity and non-selectivity’ of all human
rights and in expressing a conviction that ‘economic and social progress
facilitates the growing trend towards democracy and the promotion and
protection
of
human rights’. If such terms often carry special connotations and
sub-messages (e.g. ‘non-selectivity’) they do stand nevertheless
as
attributable
statements freely made by participant
state^.^
This special issue of
Political
Srudies
is one of a number of signs of
a
fresh
wave of interest
in
human rights. one other being the recent Oxford Amnesty
Lectures in 1993, which include a lengthy article by John Rawk6 Whether it
proves more sustained remains to be seen. But there is at least one good reason
why
it
should be.
As
part
of
the growing global interdependence, modern states
now transfer more key economic and political decisions to supranational levels,
thus creating an identifiable ‘international public domain’. Inasmuch as
political theory and political science reflect the ‘world of political practice’, that
‘world’ and this ‘domain’ now overlap more than ever before.
Another reason is the increasing number of highly influential decisions now
being made by international human rights judicial (or quasi-judicial) bodies
about matters that fall squarely within the sphere of political studies, such
as
the meaning and scope of major political concepts like ‘democracy’ and the
existence
or
non-existence of changes in political, social and moral values.
Often, however, such decisions are made without much sign
of
any depth of
analysis
or
systematic analysis
of
relevant data.’ Certainly there would seem to
be fruitful scope for students of politics to bring to bear their special
competences on these materials. Indeed, when one studies the preparatory
works
(rravaux
prkppnratoirrs)
of the major modern human rights treaties and
the various case laws of the modern judicial
or
quasi-judicial bodies set up
to
supervise them,
it
is hard not to think that
if
a Rousseau
or
Hume were alive
today he
-
or
as likely nowadays a she
-
would be found working there.
Given how much of modern human rights law has been developed within the
field of public international law.
it
would be easy to assume that giving it
greater attention entails focussing primarily on the global
(UN)
machineries:
That would be a mistake. Globalization of political and economic systems is
advancing. But it is still limited, not least by the fact that modern international
law has largely been built around the premise of the territorial integrity of the
sovereign nation state. But
regionnlization
has been far more marked, with very
significant political and economic transactions now conducted at a regional
level. This is increasingly true not just in Europe and the Americas, but even in
regions such as Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific rim where
geopolitical boundaries may sometimes be less established.’
If
one takes
‘Declaration of Bangkok‘.
HRLJ.
14
(1993). p. 370.
J.
Rawls. ‘The law of peoples’ in
S.
Shute and
G.
Hurley (eds),
On Human
Rights:
the Oxford
.4mnesrc Lectures
(New York, Basic. 1993). reprinted
Critical Inquiry.
20 (Autumn,
1993),
3668.
’See e.g. analysis
of
democracy and human rights by Inter-American Court of Human Rights in
Advisory Opinion OC- 13/93 of
16
July: ‘Certain attributes of the Inter-American Court HR, para.
31‘.
HRLJ,
14
(1993) p.252. On ‘social welfare’ see judgment of the European Court of Human
Rights in
Schuler-G‘raggen
11.
Suitzerland
Series
A
No.
263.
Human
Rights
Case
Dixesz,
4
(May-
June, 1993), pp. 107-1
10
(Sweet and Maxwell and The British Institute
of
Human
Rights,
1993).
For
useful analysis of the main economic institutions at the European level see
D.
McGoldrick,
‘A
new international economic order for Europe’,
Yearbook
of
European Law
12
(1992). 431-64;
for
a recent initiative in Asia and the Pacific rim see the Bogor Declaration:
APEC
Informal Leaders’
(’
Pohtirdl
Studies Association,
1995
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