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leading to my alternative (policing) approach.
II. Major Approaches from within Human Rights
Theory and Practices
A plausible way to discuss international human rights
principles might proceed as follows. Enshrined within major United
Nations documents such as the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (1966) and the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) is a simple but
significant idea: everyone as member of the human family has
certain entitlements, freedoms, immunities, and protections which
should not be violated by their government or by others. In
addition, the resources, rights, and opportunities expressed by these
United Nations documents have come to form most of the content
of international human rights principles. Finally, member-states of
the United Nations generally show their commitments to these
principles by codifying their content into local (state) laws, whose
officers are responsible for enforcement.
Theorizing human rights in this way, we see there are two
central features: first, the idea of human rights; second, the
institutionalizations by local laws (and regional bodies, notably the
European Court of Human Rights)
15
of this idea. As will become
clear, these two dimensions are featured in major statements. Take,
for instance, Jack Donnelly’s
16
relative universalism thesis which is
into ethical claims and positive laws where the former “does not have any direct
bearing on the obvious
legal
status” of the latter (2004: 318, 320-328). In this
article, I turn to statements that combine both theory and practices. My focus
dovetails with empirical studies on one-to-one assistance, transnational advocacy,
and activism by Jaggar (2005); Merry (2006: chaps. 5-6); and Phillips (2005),
respectively.
15
In the European context, Montoya (2013) has examined the roles of
transnational, non-state actors.
16
Donnelly is considered to be “the leading theorist of human rights today”
(Goodhart, 2008: 183). I have examined Donnelly’s thesis, see On (2005).
