Human Rights and the Borders of Suffering: The Promotion of Human Rights in International Politics

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Manchester University Press, 2002 - Political Science - 232 pages
"This book, newly available in paperback, argues for greater openness in the ways we approach human rights and international rights promotion, and in so doing brings some new understanding to old debates. Starting with the realities of abuse rather than the liberal architecture of rights, it casts human rights as a language for probing the political dimensions of suffering. Seen in this context, the predominant Western models of rights generate a substantial but also problematic and not always emancipatory array of practices. These models are far from answering the questions about the nature of political community that are raised by the systemic infliction of suffering. Rather than a simple message from 'us' to 'them', then, rights promotion is a long and difficult conversation about the relationship between political organisations and suffering. Three case studies are explored - the Tiananmen Square massacre, East Timor's violent modern history and the circumstances of indigenous Australians. The purpose of these discussions is not to elaborate on a new theory of rights, but to work towards rights practices that are more responsive to the spectrum of injury that we inflict and endure. The book is a valuable and innovative contribution to rights debates for students of international politics, political theory, and conflict resolution, as well as for those engaged in the pursuit of human rights"--Publisher's description.
 

Contents

Opening up conceptions of rights
3
Human rights promotion and the foreign analogy
10
dominant approaches
19
The social contract
22
The international domain
37
The pursuit of grounds
55
Some theorists
62
The Asian Way debate
76
East Timor
128
The history
130
the human rights situation
143
Incorporation reversed Selfdetermination
150
30
153
The status of Indigenous Australians
162
10
166
37
180

Dialogue
82
CASE STUDIES89
89
Introduction to the case studies
90
China the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989
93
The story
95
The political context the state
102
The students
109
Responses
121
Conclusion
198
References 212
212
55
213
121
222
130
223
150
224
154
225
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About the author (2002)

Anne Brown is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Queensland where she is part of an interdisciplinary team working on emerging issues in conflict resolution

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