Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Human Rights Enjoyment in Theory and Activism

  • Published:
Human Rights Review Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Despite being a seemingly straightforward moral concept (that all humans have certain rights by virtue of their humanity), human rights is a contested concept in theory and practice. Theorists debate (among other things) the meaning of “rights,” the priority of rights, whether collective rights are universal, the foundations of rights, and whether there are universal human rights at all. These debates are of relatively greater interest to theorists; however, a given meaning of “human rights” implies a corresponding theory of change and through that can be an important guide to the practice of human rights activists and their funders. In practice, any organization can describe their work as “rights based.” This article clarifies the practices of human rights activists and their funders that are consistent with a theory of human rights as (1) universal, (2) interdependent across groups and categories of people, (3) indivisible across issue areas and claims, and (4) measured by the enjoyment of rights.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. One might argue that human rights advocacy is also a global industry. A critique of what one might call the human rights industrial complex is far outside the scope of this article, but not outside its sights.

  2. (Cohen 2004; Goodhart 2005; Rawls 1999; Taylor 1999; Walzer 1983).

  3. (Jovanović 2010; Holder 2005).

  4. (Goodman 1998).

  5. (Nagel 1979; Talbott 2005; Benhabib 2004: 133). Benhabib also says that reciprocity is foundational (2004: 130).

  6. (Ignatieff 2001). Cf. Gould who grounds norms in human agency and interaction (1988, 2004).

  7. (Donnelly 2003: 17, 28–37; Goodman 1998; Muzaffar 2002; Nino 1991). Note that Rorty argues that the universality of human dignity does not rest on their being any “distinctively human attribute” (1993: 116).

  8. (Rorty 1993).

  9. (Locke [1688] 1988).

  10. (Sobrino Sj 2001: 153).

  11. (Cohen 2004: 197). Compare this to Benhabib for whom membership is the right and personal autonomy the foundational principle (2004: chapter 4).

  12. (Bruton 1997; Yasuaki 1999).

  13. (Nussbaum 1997, 2000; Sen 1999, 2004). Carol Gould’s notion of effective positive freedom shares in a more generic sense, Nussbaum and Sen’s notion of what it means to live a fulfilling human life (2004).

  14. For a similar sense of urgency see Singer (2005; 1972).

  15. The argument might be applied specifically to the field of development, global health, or gender and political participation (Vargas 2006; Kerr 2006; Enslin and Tjiattas 2006; Croll 2006; Cornwall and Molyneux 2006; Bradshaw 2006; CorrÍa 2005; Chen 2005; Uvin 2004). For a way of measuring rights enjoyment for the purposes of statistical political science of human rights enjoyment see Ackerly and Jose Miguel Cruz (2010).

  16. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, G.A. Res. 2200A (XXI), U. N. GAOR, Supp. No. 16 at 52, U.N. Doc. A/6316 (1966a); International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, G.A. Res. 2200A (XXI), U.N. GAOR, Supp. No. 16, U.N. Doc. A/6316 (1966b); Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, G.A. Res. 39/46, U.N. GAOR, 39th Sess., Annex, Supp. No. 51 at 197, U.N. Doc. A/39/51 (1984); International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, G.A. Res., 20 December 2007b (adopted, but not entered into force).

  17. International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, G.A. res. 45/158 of 18 December 1990 (2003) (hereinafter CMW).

  18. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, G.A. Res. 34/180, U.N. GAOR, 34th Sess., Supp. No. 46, at 193, U.N. Doc. A/34/46 (1981) (hereinafter CEDAW).

  19. Convention on the Rights of the Child, G.A. Res. 44/25, U.N. GAOR, 44th Sess., Supp. No. 49, at 161, U.N. Doc. A/44/49 (1989) (hereinafter CRC).

  20. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 61st Sess., U.N. Doc. A/RES/61/295 (2007c).

  21. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, G.A. Res. 61/106 (2007a) (hereinafter CRPD).

  22. International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, G.A. Res. 2106 (XX), U.N. GAOR, Supp. No. 14, at 47, U.N. Doc. A/6014 (1966c) (hereinafter CERD).

  23. (Ackerly 2008; Stammers 2009; Donnelly 2003, 2007).

  24. See for example the work of the India-based National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) described by Christine Keating (2004).

  25. (Vargas 2006; Kerr 2006; Enslin and Tjiattas 2006; Croll 2006; Cornwall and Molyneux 2006; Bradshaw 2006; CorrÍa 2005; Chen 2005; Uvin 2004).

  26. (Petchesky 2003).

  27. (Confortini 2009).

  28. (Rorty 1993; MacKinnon 1993; MacKinnon 1985). Recently, these particular issues have gotten some media and United Nations attention. In the United States this attention generally continues to focus on the prurient harms experienced by non-Western women (Narayan 2010).

  29. Consider Kristof and WuDunn’s 2009 reflection on the lack of coverage of gender injustices by mainstream media.

  30. (cf. Nussbaum 1997; Nussbaum 2000; Beitz 2009; O’Neill 2000).

  31. As I will make clear, it is an empirical theory that is difficult to prove or falsify given the complexity of social change work.

  32. Whitney Graham, a program assistant at the Global Fund for Women, coined this term in a personal conversation with two women who work in women’s funds which are organizations that fundraise to support women’s rights activities and who support those activities through grants, capacity building, and networking with other movement actors.

  33. (Crenshaw 1989, 1991, 2000; Symington 2004)

  34. See for example the work of L’Association des Femmes Repatriées (Bujumbura, Burundi), Women in Action against Gender-based Violence (Bamenda, Cameroon), and The Coordinatdora Departamental de Comadronas Tradicionales de Quetzaltenango (Quetzaltenango, Guatemala).

  35. http://www.kuc.hk/mof/projects/bethunehouse/bethune_house.htm, last accessed September 11, 2010. I would like to thank Edwina Antonio for her time introducing me to me to the work of Bethune House.

  36. This claim is based on participant observation in three multi-day meetings of movement actors, including donors, two of which were devoted to evaluation and research. Those in attendance included Srilatha Batliwala representing the Association for Women’s Rights and Development and its work with members on their challenges of evaluation and other donors and consultants who had worked with large numbers of rights-based organizations. These took place in North America, Europe, and Africa in 2009 and 2010.

  37. See note 40 on the sources of information about rights-groups perceptions about evaluation priorities of donors.

  38. For more on evaluation of first and second order effects and grantmaking see Ackerly (2009).

  39. http://www.sewa.org/About_Us.asp, last accessed September 12, 2010.

  40. Note, additionally, that Kristof and WuDunn characterize SEWA as a microenterprise promotion organization. In fact, SEWA’s work is unionizing more than 100 trades in the informal sector including street vendors, home-based workers, manual laborers, and small producers (SEWA 2008 Annual Report).

  41. For some background on code of conduct and supply chain compliance see http://www.bsci-eu.org/index.php?id=2011.

References

  • Ackerly, Brooke A. 2000. Political Theory and Feminist Social Criticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ackerly, Brooke A. 2001. “Women’s Human Rights Activists as Cross-Cultural Theorists.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 3, 3: 311–346.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ackerly, Brooke A. 2008. Universal Human Rights in a World of Difference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ackerly, Brooke A. 2009. Feminist Theory, Global Gender Justice, and the Evaluation of Grant-Making. Philosophical Topics 37 (2).

  • Ackerly, Brooke, and Jose Miguel Cruz. 2010. “Hearing the Voice of the People: Human Rights as If People Mattered.” New Political Science (in press).

  • Adelman, Jacob. 2004. Hong Kong’s Filipino maids aid Indonesian newcomers: Seasoned workers impart local lows on wages, abuse. Chronicle Foreign Service.

  • Alfredson, Lisa S. 2009. Creating Human Rights: How Noncitizens Made Sex Persecution Matter to the World. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alkire, Sabina, and Maria Emma Santos. 2010. “Acute Multidimensional Poverty: A New Index for Developing Countries.” OPHI Working Paper No. 38, University of Oxford.

  • Beitz, Charles R. 2009. The idea of human rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benhabib, Seyla. 2004. The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents and Citizens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • Bradshaw, Sarah. 2006. “Is the Rights Focus the Right Focus? Nicaraguan Responses to the Rights Agenda.” Third World Quarterly 27, 7: 1329–1341.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bruton, Henry J. 1997. On the search for well-being. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bunch, Charlotte. 1995. “Transforming Human Rights from a Feminist Perspective.” In Women’s Rights, Human Rights: International Feminist Perspectives, ed. Julie Peters and Andrea Wolper. London: Routledge, 11–17.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chen, Martha. 2005. Progress of the World’s Women 2005: Women, Work, & Poverty. New York: United Nations Development Fund for Women.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, Joshua. 2004. Minimalism About Human Rights: The Most We Can Hope For? The Journal of Political Philosophy 12 (2):190-213.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Confortini, Catia Cecilia. 2009. Imaginative Identification: Feminist Critical Methodology in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (1945–1975). Dissertation, Political Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

  • Cornwall, Andrea, and Celestine Nyamu-Musembi. 2004. “Putting The”Rights-Based Approach“To Development into Perspective.” Third World Quarterly 25, 8: 1415–1437.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cornwall, Andrea, and Maxine Molyneux. 2006. “The Politics of Rights-Dilemmas for Feminist Praxis: An Introduction.” Third World Quarterly 27, 7: 1175–1191.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Corría, Sonia. 2005. “Holding Ground: The Challenges for Sexual and Reproductive Rights and Health: In Dialogue with Sonia Corría.” Development 48, 4: 11.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crenshaw, Kimberle. 1989. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex.” The University of Chicago Legal Forum. pp. 139–167.

  • Crenshaw, Kimberle. 1991. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review 43: 1241–1299.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crenshaw, Kimberle. 2000. “Gender-Related Aspects of Race Discrimination.” Paper presented at Expert Meeting on Gender-Related Aspects of Race Discrimination, Zagreb, Croatia, November 21–24.

  • Croll, Elisabeth J. 2006. “From the Girl Child to Girls’ Rights.” Third World Quarterly 27, 7: 1285–1297.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Donnelly, Jack. 2003. Universal human rights in theory and practice. 2nd ed. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Douzinas, Costas. 2007. Human Rights and Empire: The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism. London: Routledge-Cavendish.

    Google Scholar 

  • Enslin, Penny, and Mary Tjiattas. 2006. “Educating for a Just World without Gender.” Theory and Research in Education 4, 1: 41–68.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foxen, Patricia. 2000. “Cacophony of Voices: A K‘iche’ Mayan Narrative of Remembrance and Forgetting.” Transcultural Psychiatry 37, 3: 355–381.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Friedman, Elisabeth. 1995. “Women’s Human Rights: The Emergence of a Movement.” In Women’s Rights, Human Rights: International Feminist Perspectives, ed. Julie Peters and Andrea Wolper. London: Routledge, 18–35.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goodhart, Michael E. 2005. Democracy as human rights: freedom and equality in the age of globalization. New York, NY: Routledge.

  • Goodman, Lenn Evan. 1998. Judaism, human rights, and human values. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gould, Carol C. 1988. Rethinking democracy: freedom and social cooperation in politics, economy, and society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gould, Carol C. 2004. Globalizing democracy and human rights. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haugen, Gary, and Victor Boutros. 2010. And justice for all: enforcing human rights for the world's poor. Foreign Affairs 89 (3):51–62.

    Google Scholar 

  • Herbert, Bob. 2010. “Disaster in the Amazon.” New York Times CLIX, 55,062: A19.

  • Holder, Cindy. 2005. “Self-Determination as a Basic Human Right: The Draft UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.” In Minorities within Minorities: Equality, Rights and Diversity, ed. Avigail Eisenberg and Jeff Spinner-Halev. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 294–315.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Ignatieff, Michael. 2001. Human rights as politics and idolatry. In Human rights as politics and idolatry, edited by A. Gutmann. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jovanović, Miodrag A. 2010. “Are There Universal Collective Rights?” Human Rights Review 11, 1: 17–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keating, Christine. 2004. “Developmental Democracy and Its Inclusions: Globalization and the Transformation of Participation. (Imagining New Frameworks: Development, Gender, Globalization).” Signs 29, 2: 417(422).

    Google Scholar 

  • Kerr, Joanna. 2006. “Women’s Rights in Development.” Development 49, 1: 6.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kristof, Nicholas D., and Sheryl WuDunn. 2009. Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Locke, John. [1688] 1988. Two Treatises of Government. Edited by P. Laslett. Student ed, Cambridge texts in the history of political thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • Mackey, Eva. 2005. “Universal Rights in Conflict: ‘Backlash’ and ‘Benevolent Resistance’ to Indigenous Land Rights.” Anthropology Today 21, 2: 14.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • MacKinnon, Catharine A. 1985. “Pornograpy, Civil Rights, and Speech.” Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 20: 1–70.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacKinnon, Catharine A. 1993. “Crimes of War, Crimes of Peace.” In On Human Rights: The Oxford Amnesty Lectures, ed. Stephen Shute and S. L. Hurley. New York, NY: BasicBooks, 83–109.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mertus, Julie. 2009. The United Nations and Human Rights: A Guide for a New Era. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mouffe, Chantal. 2000. The Democratic Paradox. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Muzaffar, Chandra. 2002. Rights, religion, and reform: enhancing human dignity through spiritual and moral transformation. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nagel, Thomas. 1979. Mortal questions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Narayan, Uma. 2010. “Global Gender Inequality and the Empowerment of Women.” Perspectives on Politics 8, 01: 282–284.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nino, Carlos Santiago. 1991. The ethics of human rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nussbaum, Martha C. 1997. Human Rights Theory: Capabilities and Human Rights. Fordham Law Review 66:273-300.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nussbaum, Martha Craven. 2000. Women and human development: the capabilities approach, The John Robert Seeley lectures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • O'Neill, Onora. 2000. Bounds of Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parisi, Laura. 2010. “Reclaiming Spaces of Resistance: Women’s Human Rights and Global Restructuring.” In Gender and Global Restructuring: Sightings, Sites and Resistances, ed. Marianne H. Marchand and Anne Sisson Runyan. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Petchesky, Rosalind Pollack. 2003. Global Prescriptions: Gendering Health and Human Rights. New York: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pogge, Thomas. [2002] 2008. World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and Reforms, Second Edition. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

  • Power, Samantha. 2002. “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide. New York: Perennial.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rawls, John. 1999. The law of peoples with "The idea of public reason revisited". Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rorty, Richard. 1993. Human Rights, Rationality, and Sentimentality. In On human rights: The Oxford amnesty lectures, edited by S. S. a. S. Hurley. New York, NY: BasicBooks.

  • Rothschild, Cynthia, Scott Long, and Susana T. Fried, eds. 2005. Written Out: How Sexuality Is Used to Attack Women’s Organizing. New York: International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission & The Center for Women’s Global leadership.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sen, Amartya. 1999. Human Rights and Economic Achievements. In The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights, edited by J. R. Bauer and D. A. Bell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sen, Amartya. 2004. Elements of a Theory of Human Rights. Philosophy and Public Affairs 32 (4):315–356.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shue, Henry. [1980]1996 Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence, and U.S. Foreign Policy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

  • Singer, Peter. 1972. “Famine, Affluence, and Morality.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 1, 3: 229–243.

    Google Scholar 

  • Singer, Peter. 2005. “Poverty, Facts, and Political Philosophies: A Debate with Andrew Kuper.” In Global Responsibilities: Who Must Deliver on Human Rights?, ed. Andrew Kuper. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sobrino Sj, Jon. 2001. Human Rights and Oppressed Peoples: Historical-Theological Reflections. In Truth and Memory: the Church and Human Rights in El Salvadore and Guatemala, edited by M. Hayes and D. Tomb. Gloucester: Gracewing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stammers, Neil. 2009. Human Rights and Social Movements. New York, NY: Pluto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Symington, Alison. 2004. “Intersectionality: A Tool for Gender and Economic Justice.” Women’s Rights and Economic Change, 9.

  • Talbott, W. J. 2005. Which rights should be universal? NY: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, Charles. 1999. Conditions of an unforced consensus on human rights. In The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights, eds., edited by J. R. Bauer and D. Bell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • United Nations. 1966a. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, G.A. Res. 2200A (XXI), U. N. GAOR, Supp. No. 16 at 52, U.N. Doc. A/6316 (1966).

  • United Nations. 1966b. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, G.A. Res. 2200A (XXI), U.N. GAOR, Supp. No. 16, U.N. Doc. A/6316 (1966).

  • United Nations. 1966c. International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, G.A. Res. 2106 (XX), U.N. GAOR, Supp. No. 14, at 47, U.N. Doc. A/6014 (1966)

  • United Nations. 1984. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, G.A. Res. 39/46, U.N. GAOR, 39th Sess., Annex, Supp. No. 51 at 197, U.N. Doc. A/39/51 (1984)

  • United Nations. 1989. “Convention on the Rights of the Child.” In Annex GA Res. 44/25 Doc. A/Res/4425. Adopted November 20, 1989.

  • United Nations. 1995. “Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing Platform for Action.” In United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. Beijing, China.

  • United Nations. 2007a. “Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, G.A. Res. 61/106 (2007).”

  • United Nations. 2007b. International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, G.A. Res., 20 December 2007 (adopted, but not entered into force)

  • Uvin, Peter. 2004. Human Rights and Development. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press.

  • United Nations. 2007c. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 61st Sess., U.N. Doc. A/RES/61/295 (2007)

  • Vargas, Virginia. 2006. “Women’s Rights, Economic Justice and Citizenship: What Role for the United Nations?” Development 49, 1: 49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Waltz, Susan. 2001. “Universalizing Human Rights: The Role of Small States in the Construction of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” Human Rights Quarterly 23, 1: 44–72.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Waltz, Susan. 2001. 2002. “Reclaiming and Rebuilding the History of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” Third World Quarterly 23, 3: 437–448.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • World Bank. 2001. “Engendering Development: Through Gender Equality in Rights, Resources, and Voice.” In A World Bank Policy Research Report. Oxford University Pre8ss: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank.

  • Yasuaki, Onuma. 1999. Toward an intercivilizational approach to human rights. In The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights, edited by J. R. Bauer and D. A. Bell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walzer, Michael. 1983. Spheres of justice: a defense of pluralism and equality. New York: Basic Books.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, Vanderbilt University, P.O. Box 1817, Station B, Nashville, TN, 37235-1817, USA

    Brooke Ackerly

Authors
  1. Brooke Ackerly
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Brooke Ackerly.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Ackerly, B. Human Rights Enjoyment in Theory and Activism. Hum Rights Rev 12, 221–239 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-010-0175-6

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-010-0175-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation