Global Responsibility for Human Rights

by Margot E. Salomon, Foreword by Stephen P. Marks

Overview

World poverty represents a failure of the international community to see half of the global population secure their basic socio-economic rights. Yet international law foresees cooperation as essential to the realization of these human rights. In an era of considerable interdependence and entrenched economic and political advantage, the particular features of contemporary world poverty give rise to pressing questions about the scope, evolution, and application of the international law of human rights, and the attribution of global responsibility.

This book considers the evolving nature of public international law and human rights with respect to international cooperation as a basis for addressing the role and responsibility of the international community in the creation of an environment conducive to a human-centered globalization. It offers a detailed examination of the historically controversial right to development and, through a careful consideration of its current significance and application, reflects the importance of the rationale of the right to development onto the critical challenge of poverty in the 21st century. Through doctrine and jurisprudence, this book charts recent changes in international law relevant to the ability of states to develop and to fulfill their human rights obligations, and the reality that they are constrained by the actions and structural arrangements of the powerful members of the international community.

This book explores developments in the system of international safeguards meant to correspond to the deprivation of economic, social, and cultural rights today. By analyzing the approach, contribution, and current limitations of the international law of human rights to the manifestations of world poverty, the reader is challenged to rethink human rights and, in particular, the framing of responsibilities that are essential to their protection.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199284429
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/10/2008
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 6.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Margot E Salomon, PhD (LSE), LLM (UCL, London), MA (Amsterdam), BA (Montreal) is a Lecturer in Law at the Centre for the Study of Human Rights and the Department of Law, London School of Economics and Political Science. She is a member of the Centre's Advisory Board, and convenes the LLM course on World Poverty and Human Rights. Margot holds a Visiting Lectureship at the UN University in Tokyo where she lectures annually on poverty and responsibility, and is a member of the Advisory Group to the UN High-Level Task Force on the Right to Development.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Stephen P. Marks
INTRODUCTION
1: INTERDEPENDENCE AND ITS IMPERATIVES
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Towards an International Community of States
1.2.1 Locating the international community
1.2.2 International law of cooperation as the law of the international community
1.2.3 Reconciling sovereignty and interdependence
1.2.4 The influence of interdependence on international law
1.2.5 The continued predominance of cooperative internationalism in the 21st century
1.3 Globalization in an Era of Human Rights
1.3.1 Economic globalization as a structural impediment to the exercise of human rights
1.3.2 Poverty as a human rights issue
1.4 The Structural Approach to the Realization of Human Rights
1.4.1 The right to development
1.4.2 The position of treaty-bodies
1.5 Conclusion

2: SOURCES AND CONTENT OF AN INTERNATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY TO COOPERATE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
2.1 Introduction
2.2 The Sources of Cooperation for Human Rights in International Law
2.3 Cooperation and Shared Responsibility in International Human Rights Instruments
2.3.1 International cooperation in human rights conventions and declarations
2.3.1.1 The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other human rights conventions
2.3.1.2 Declarations
2.3.1.3 The legal basis of international cooperation in the right to development
2.3.1.4 The normative force of the Declaration on the Right to Development
2.3.1.5 International cooperation and shared responsibility at world conferences
2.4 The Content of International Cooperation
2.4.1 The position of Northern states
2.4.2 'Maximum available resources'
2.4.3 The structural content of international cooperation
2.5 Conclusion

3: THE RIGHT TO DEVELOPMENT AND HUMAN-CENTERED GLOBALIZATION
3.1 Introduction
3.2 The 'Right-Holder' of the Right to Development
3.3 The Right to Development as a Particular Process of Development
3.3.1 The indivisibility and interdependence of all human rights and the conditioning of economic policy
3.3.2 Rights-based economic growth
3.3.3 Obligations of conduct at the international level
3.3.4 Principles of the right to development
3.3.4.1 Equality and non-discrimination
3.3.4.2 Participation
3.3.4.3 Accountability
3.4 The Current Incongruence of International Legal Regimes
3.5 Conclusion

4: A DOCTRINE OF BASIC UNIVERSAL RIGHTS AND SUPRA-POSITIVE OBLIGATIONS
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Beyond Legal Positivism
4.3 The Universal Principle to Respect and Observe Human Rights
4.4 What Constitutes Basic Rights Today?
4.5 Basic Rights and Community Obligations
4.6 Conclusion

5: ATTRIBUTING GLOBAL LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY
5.1 Introduction
5.2 The Due Diligence Requirement and the Global Standard of Care
5.3 A Typology for World Poverty: International Obligations to Remedy and to Prevent Human Rights Violations
5.4. Conclusion
6: CONCLUDING REMARKS: LATTER-DAY TYRANNY AND THE FUTURE OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Editorial Reviews

"This lucid, well-written, and scrupulously researched book moves forward the discourse on international obligations to eliminate the bane of worldwide poverty."
—Michael Stein, European Journal of International Law, Vol 20 No. 3, August 2009

"This admirably researched and well written book is one of the most significant legal contributions to current debates on poverty, human rights and global justice. It should command the attention of students, scholars and activists in the field of international law and beyond."
—Conway Blake, The Cambridge Law Journal Vol 67,3

"This wise, well researched and well presented book deals with a large number of difficult arenas of theory and practice of international law, human rights, and development. It addresses primarily some recent normative developments in international law, relations, and organisation. This work will be useful to diverse audiences: the cognoscenti may find pertinent the codification of normative materials and the acute interrogation of the nature and scope of international legal responsibility; this work may also provide a useful background for adjudicators, policy-makers, and indeed offers a cache of newly emergent concerns. I salute thus the narrative achievement of Margot Salomon as further guiding us to the dire need for rethinking our shared political responsibility."
—Upendra Baxi, Public Law, October 2009

"In Global Responsibility and Human Rights Salomon has given the international human rights community substantial food for thought. She takes on the whole world in one book, and challenges the traditional 'wisdom' as to how human rights obligations work. She also provides impressively researched and documented arguments for a shift in attention to enable the world community to combat world poverty through the application of the right to development and other aspects of current international law. The book is essential to academics, NGOs and policy makers alike. It should be the initiator of much debate and further deliberation on principles and practice in international human rights promotion"
—Sigrun I. Skogly, Lancaster University Law School, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 29.4

From the Publisher