Online research in philosophy

Environmental rights are diagonal if they are held by individuals or groups against the governments of states other than their own. The potential importance of such rights is obvious: governments' actions often affect the environment beyond their jurisdiction, and those who live in and rely upon the environment affected would like to be able to exercise rights against the governments causing them harm. Although international law has not adopted a comprehensive, uniform approach to such rights, human rights law and international environmental law have begun to develop some possible bases for diagonal environmental rights. Human rights law operates primarily along a vertical axis, setting out individuals' rights against their governments and the corresponding duties owed by the governments, but it may also be diagonal, giving rise to duties on the part of states that extend beyond their own territory. The scope and extent of diagonal human rights are often controversial, and environmental rights face additional difficulties, because the environmental protection required by human rights is clarifying only gradually, on a case-by-case basis. To the extent that human rights require such protection when aligned vertically, it would be logical to conclude that they require the same degree of protection whenever they may be aligned diagonally. Human rights law provides few precedents to support that conclusion, however. Compared to human rights law, international environmental law (IEL) provides a clearer and more specific set of duties with respect to environmental protection. Moreover, most IEL is extraterritorial, in that it requires states to regulate actions within their control that could harm the environment beyond their territory. The problem with grounding diagonal environmental rights in IEL is that, in contrast to human rights law, most IEL operates along a horizontal axis: its duties are owed by states to other states, not to private actors. If the challenge for human rights law is to extend rights from the vertical axis to the diagonal, the challenge for IEL is to derive diagonal rights from horizontal ones.

International trade law, human rights law and development studies share the common objective of promoting higher standards of living in the poorer countries of the world. Human rights and development scholars have been critical of the law of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), as implementing a development strategy which dominates and constrains the development strategy options of developing countries but which perceives development only in a narrow, economic sense. In this paper, the different theoretical underpinnings of international trade law and international human rights law are described and compared and their differing conceptions of development are examined from the perspective of the broader development discourse. The package of rights and obligations of developing countries under WTO law (the ‘WTO-Minus strategy’) is also described and examples of significant constraints placed by this package on the development strategy options open to developing countries regarding trade in goods are examined from the perspectives of the broader development discourse and international human rights norms. The capacity of the WTO to incorporate new and multidisciplinary knowledge about development is considered.

The other contributions address philosophical problems arising in specific domains of international law, such as human rights law, international economic law, ...

A theory of customary international law -- Case studies -- A theory of international agreements -- Human rights -- International trade -- A theory of international rhetoric -- International law and moral obligation -- Liberal democracy and cosmopolitan duty.

This is a brief summary of human rights conditions in former East Germany. The author examines how Marxist thinking during the Cold War shaped the DDR's human rights regime, how human rights fit into the DDR's constitutional framework, and the realities of human rights abuses in the DDR. Human rights practices are described with reference to the principles of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The author concludes with the assertion that human rights must not be trumped by ends-based agendas, even those that purport to eventually offer a better future. Rather, the continuous respect of human rights should prove an end unto itself, a stance proven by the heavy migrations of East Germans across the border into the West.This paper was first presented at a seminar in human rights law at Indiana University School of Law - Bloomington.

Introduction -- Saint Thomas : putting nature into natural law -- Maritain and the love for the natural law -- The new natural law and evolutionary natural law -- International human rights, natural law, and Locke -- Conclusion : evil and the limits of the natural law.

This Article examines the Islamic Community case by setting it within its historical and jurisprudential context and discussing the implications of the Human Rights Chamber's decision for the protection of human rights in Bosnia and beyond. Part I describes the structure and functions of the Chamber. Part II considers the applicant, the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the rich Muslim heritage of the city of Banja Luka. Part III explains the proceedings before the Chamber and the body's decision in Islamic Community. Part IV analyzes the difficulties faced by the Chamber and the international community in enforcing the decision. The Article concludes by exploring the implications of Islamic Community and the Chamber's jurisprudence for the protection of human rights in Bosnia and transitional justice efforts elsewhere in the world.

Is international human rights law being challenged by national law? Are common standards and principles set out in international human rights instruments being denied by national legal systems and less likely respected within national jurisdictions? Have the individuals’ civil liberties and fundamental rights been deprived and arbitrarily violated in the name of the protection of ‘public interests’ and national security? International human rights law allows suspending of and derogating from some human rights in times of public emergency which are clearly stated by national laws. State parties to international human rights conventions sometimes, however, use their rights to suspension of and derogation from their binding obligations in order to breach the individuals’ civil liberties and fundamental rights. This paper’s overall aim is to touch upon the protection of the individual’s civil liberties and fundamental rights in international law in the age of terrorism. Given recent developments of laws on anti-terrorism in the US and the UK, the paper raises a concern of the infringements and denials of international and regional human rights law within national legal systems in the name of the so-called ‘the war on terror’ and ‘national security’.

The best philosophical account of human rights regards them as protections of the values we attach to human agency. The international law of human rights is embodied in a large number of declarations, conventions, covenants, charters, and judicial decisions. There are many discrepancies between the lists of human rights that emerge from these two authoritative sources. This lecture explores the significance of these discrepancies.

This report, prepared for the Committee on International Human Rights Law and Practice of the International Law Association, examines the impact of international human rights law on general international law in the following areas: the structure of international obligations, the formation of customary international law, treaty law, the relationship between international law and domestic law, immunity, diplomatic protection, the right to consular notification and state responsibility. It concludes that the response by the International Court of Justice and the International Law Commission (the principal guardians of general international law) to the challenge to make international law less 'statist' and more receptive to the needs of a wider range of actors has been rather mixed.