Political Science Commons^™

Much Truth About Truth Commissions, Marten Zwanenburg

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Unspeakable Truths: Confronting State Terror and Atrocity by Priscilla B. Hayner. New York: Routledge, 2002. 344pp.

The Global And The Local: Reconciling Universal Human Rights And Cultural Diversity, Amy Eckert

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Human Rights and Global Diversity edited by Simon Caney and Peter Jones. Portland, OR: Frank Cass & Co., 2001. 173 pp.

and

Cultural Pluralism and Dilemmas of Justice by Monique Deveaux. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000. 205 pp.

Defending The Universality And Timelessness Of The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights: A View From The ‘Developing’ World, Shaista Shameem

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Human Rights: Concepts, Contests, Contingencies edited by Austin Sarat and Thomas R. Kearns. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001. 144pp.

Between God And Democracy, Andrew Fagan

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Understanding Human Rights Principles edited by Jeffrey Jowell and Jonathan Cooper. Portland, OR: Hart Publishers, 2001 201pp.

and

The Idea of Human Rights: Four Inquiries, by Michael J. Perry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. 162pp.

Horror Unmasked: Truth Or Fiction?, Lars Buur, Eric Harper

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

A Country Unmasked: Inside South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission by Alex Boraine. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 448pp.

Opening The Dichotomy Of Universalism And Relativism, Chih-Yu Shih

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Negotiating Culture and Human Rights edited by Linda S. Bell, Andrew J. Nathan and Ilan Peleg. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. 428 pp.

and

East Meets West: Human Rights and Democracy in East Asia by Daniel A. Bell. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. 369 pp.

Kosovo And Beyond: Is Humanitarian Intervention Transforming International Society?, Roberto Belloni

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society by Nicholas J. Wheeler. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 352pp.

and

The Kosovo Tragedy: The Human Rights Dimensions edited by Ken Booth. Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2001. 386pp.

Reshaping The Present And Constructing The Future Through Remembering The Past, Mercedes Barros

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

When History is a Nightmare: Lives and Memories of Ethnic Cleansing in Bosnia Herzegovina by Stevan Weine. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1999. 259 pp.

and

The Politics of Memory: Truth, Healing and Social Justice by Ifi Amadiume and Abdullahi An-Na’im. New York: Zed Books, 2000. 207 pp.

Loosening The Bounds Of Human Rights: Global Justice And The Theory Of Justice, Christina Jones-Pauly

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Bounds of Justice by Onora O’Neill. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. 219pp.

Universality By Consensus: The Evolution Of Universality In The Drafting Of The Udhr, Amy Eckert

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Drafting, Origins & Intent by Johannes Morsink. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press (Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights), 2000. 400pp.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) has helped to define human rights standards and bring them to the forefront of global concern. Yet the UDHR continues to suffer from charges of cultural imperialism. While many scholars have answered these charges with philosophical justification for universal human rights, Johannes Morsink takes another approach to the question of cultural relativism in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting & Intent.

Shaping Asylum: The Power Of Language, Teresa Tellechea

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of Arguing about Asylum: The Complexity of Refugee Debates in Europe by Niklaus Steiner. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. 186pp.

It is June 1992. War has broken out in the Balkans. When we leave Madrid by car for the frontlines in Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bosnians and Croats are defending themselves against Serbians. Our license plates begin with SA, the abbreviation for Salamanca, Spain, which is taken to mean Sarajevo, which is currently under siege. On the road to Mostar we are greeted as heroes having been able to escape from SArajevo, though we are two free-lance photographers from …

Universal Human Rights And Cultural Diversity, Hilde Hey

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of Human Rights: New Perspectives, New Realities, edited by Adamantia Pollis and Peter Schwab. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000. 259pp.

The debate as to whether human rights should be considered universal or culturally relative has come a long way. In 1947, when the Commission on Human Rights considered proposals for formulating a declaration on basic human rights, the American Anthropological Association submitted a statement expressing concern about the universality of the proposed declaration. The association’s main argument was that ideas about rights and wrongs and good and evil that exist in one society are incompatible with the ideas …

The Deconstruction Of Refugees And The Reconstruction Of History, Peter W. Van Arsdale

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of States and Strangers: Refugees and Displacements of Statecraft, by Nevzat Soguk. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press (Borderlines Series, No. 11) 1999. 328 pp.

I would characterize Nevzat Soguk as either a neo-liberal operating in the guise of a postmodern deconstructionist, or a post-modern deconstructionist operating in the guise of a neoliberal. This is not a trivial distinction, nor an attempt to play semantic games, but my attempt to classify a brilliant theorist (known for his work in political science) whose book has a great deal of merit—but whose writing at times seems aimed more at discursive analysis …

Human Rights From Paper To Practice: How Far Have We Come?, Gerald Robert Pace

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change, edited by Thomas Risse, Steve C. Ropp, and Kathryn Sikkink. New York: Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Studies in International Relations, 66) 1999. 308pp.

The adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is now some fifty years behind us. Perhaps now is the time to focus less on which aspects of the political and private realms should fall under the domain of human rights, and more on the effect of the human rights discourse on the harmonization of state behavior. We presently live in a world …

Democratization And Human Rights: Affinity Or Tension?, Sharon Healey

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of Democratization and the Protection of Human Rights: Challenges and Contradictions, edited by Patricia J. Campbell and Kathleen Mahoney- Norris. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1998. 140pp.

Historically, studies on democracy and human rights have considered the two as unrelated issues, and where treated as related, many scholars have assumed a positive relationship between democracy, human rights and development. The contributors to Democratization and the Protection of Human Rights, Challenges and Contradictions examine and critique some of the popular conceptions about the relationship between democracy and human rights.

China’S Cautious Participation In The Un Human Rights Regime, Greg Moore

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of China, the United Nations, and Human Rights: The Limits of Compliance, by Ann Kent. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999. 328pp.

When most Western students of human rights and/or international relations think of China, unfortunately they are most likely to think not of the greatness and longevity of Chinese civilization, the goodness of Chinese cuisine, or the grandesse of the Chinese landscape. Rather, they are most likely to think of the Tian’anmen Square incident of 1989 and China’s human rights problems. Considering both the interest and the emotion generated in the West over the issue of human …

Swallowing Injustice To Build Community: Latin America After The Era Of State Terror, Tom J. Farer

Human Rights & Human Welfare

From the mid-1960's to the late 1980's (even later in certain countries), militarized governments in most of Latin America enforced their view of a desirable public order by terrorizing great numbers of citizens who happened to have different views and also their friends and relations and persons who, whatever their views or lack thereof, objected to terror as a means of governing.

This paper may be freely circulated, either electronically or on paper, on condition that it not be modified in any way and that the rights of the author are in no way infringed. You may provide a link …