Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Law
Standard Setting In Human Rights: Critique And Prognosis, Makau Mutua
Standard Setting In Human Rights: Critique And Prognosis, Makau Mutua
Makau Mutua
This article interrogates the processes and politics of standard setting in human rights. It traces the history of the human rights project and critically explores how the norms of the human rights movement have been created. This article looks at how those norms are made, who makes them, and why. It focuses attention on the deficits of the international order, and how that order - which is defined by multiple asymmetries - determines the norms and the purposes they serve. It identifies areas for further norm development and concludes that norm-creating processes must be inclusive and participatory to garner legitimacy …
African Human Rights Organizations: Questions Of Context And Legitimacy, Makau Mutua
African Human Rights Organizations: Questions Of Context And Legitimacy, Makau Mutua
Makau Mutua
Published as Chapter 13 in Human Rights, the Rule of Law, and Development in Africa, Paul Tiyambe Zeleza & Philip J. McConnaughay, eds. The human rights movement is largely the product of the horrors of World War II. The development of its normative content and structure is the direct result of the abominations committed by the Third Reich during that war. Drawing on the Western liberal tradition, the human rights movement arose primarily to control and contain state action against the individual. It is ironic that it was the victors of the war, most of whom held colonies in Africa, …