Notes: International Relations- 3 | Political Science & International Relations: Mains Optional - UPSC PDF Download

 Page 1


• Theorists of liberal schools look to international organisations and regimes to curtail 
the threat of terrorism. The acceptance of non-state actor requiring global collective 
action is something that theorists of interdependence and institutionalist models 
would like to point out. They also support heart and mind strategy over military 
repression. 
• At the same time, liberals face the dilemma how to counter fundamentalist ideologies 
without infringement of liberal values themselves. If they accommodate 
fundamentalists, it will create protest movement. If they do not accommodate, it will 
counter their own values (Clash of Civilisations). 
• The Realist school in the form of realpolitik has no such moral conundrums. They argue 
for an all-out action against terrorism determined by the pursuit of national self-
interest. Issues of civil liberties and infringement of rights is thrown out of the window.  
• In between the two, one can apply Just War theory as a measure against terrorism. In 
Just and Unjust Wars, Walzer developed a just war theory based on the ‘legalist 
paradigm’, which draws parallels between the rights and responsibilities of the 
individual and those of political communities (states). 
• This implies that states may defend themselves against aggression, possibly through 
pre- emptive attack (just wars), but that aggression in pursuit of self- interest is ruled 
out (unjust wars). Walzer also acknowledged that a ‘supreme emergency’ (stemming 
from an imminent and overriding threat to a nation) may require that ‘the rules are set 
aside’ and defended humanitarian intervention. 
• Commentators such as Elshtain argued that the ‘war on terror’, of which the Afghan 
War was a crucial part, was just in that it was fought against the genocidal threat of 
‘apocalyptic terrorism’, a form of warfare that posed a potential threat to all Americans 
and Jews and made no distinction between combatants and non- combatants. 
• However, this strategy for combating terrorism is sometimes linked to the so-called 
problem of dirty hands. Walzer, for example, drew attention to the ‘ticking bomb 
scenario’, in which a politician orders the torture of a terrorist suspect to extract 
information about the location of a bomb, thus saving the lives of hundreds of people.  
• Wars fought under the banner of the ‘war on terror’, are cross-cultural wars, if not 
civilizational struggles so deeming a cause to be legitimate or illegitimate becomes very 
complex. 
• In this scenario, the critical and constructivist schools offer insights. Critical scholars 
like Chomsky distinguish between wholesale and retail terrorism e.g. Chomsky accused 
Page 2


• Theorists of liberal schools look to international organisations and regimes to curtail 
the threat of terrorism. The acceptance of non-state actor requiring global collective 
action is something that theorists of interdependence and institutionalist models 
would like to point out. They also support heart and mind strategy over military 
repression. 
• At the same time, liberals face the dilemma how to counter fundamentalist ideologies 
without infringement of liberal values themselves. If they accommodate 
fundamentalists, it will create protest movement. If they do not accommodate, it will 
counter their own values (Clash of Civilisations). 
• The Realist school in the form of realpolitik has no such moral conundrums. They argue 
for an all-out action against terrorism determined by the pursuit of national self-
interest. Issues of civil liberties and infringement of rights is thrown out of the window.  
• In between the two, one can apply Just War theory as a measure against terrorism. In 
Just and Unjust Wars, Walzer developed a just war theory based on the ‘legalist 
paradigm’, which draws parallels between the rights and responsibilities of the 
individual and those of political communities (states). 
• This implies that states may defend themselves against aggression, possibly through 
pre- emptive attack (just wars), but that aggression in pursuit of self- interest is ruled 
out (unjust wars). Walzer also acknowledged that a ‘supreme emergency’ (stemming 
from an imminent and overriding threat to a nation) may require that ‘the rules are set 
aside’ and defended humanitarian intervention. 
• Commentators such as Elshtain argued that the ‘war on terror’, of which the Afghan 
War was a crucial part, was just in that it was fought against the genocidal threat of 
‘apocalyptic terrorism’, a form of warfare that posed a potential threat to all Americans 
and Jews and made no distinction between combatants and non- combatants. 
• However, this strategy for combating terrorism is sometimes linked to the so-called 
problem of dirty hands. Walzer, for example, drew attention to the ‘ticking bomb 
scenario’, in which a politician orders the torture of a terrorist suspect to extract 
information about the location of a bomb, thus saving the lives of hundreds of people.  
• Wars fought under the banner of the ‘war on terror’, are cross-cultural wars, if not 
civilizational struggles so deeming a cause to be legitimate or illegitimate becomes very 
complex. 
• In this scenario, the critical and constructivist schools offer insights. Critical scholars 
like Chomsky distinguish between wholesale and retail terrorism e.g. Chomsky accused 
USA for wholesale terrorism and non-state actors as retail terrorism. 
• Similarly, social constructivists argue for a need to reject the stereotype. When we keep 
on branding certain groups as terrorists, we are overlooking many other actors who 
are also terrorists. Branding some as terrorists allow others to legitimize their 
terrorism. 
• Former secretary general of UN Kofi Annan suggested the strategy of five Ds to counter 
terrorism: 
1. Dissuade the terrorist groups to resort to terrorism. 
2. Deny means to carry attacks. 
3. Deter states from supporting such groups. 
4. Develop capacity of the states to prevent terrorism. 
5. Defend human rights. 
• According to him, terrorism and human rights are not conflicting rather mutually 
reinforcing. Any strategy to fight terrorism has to be grounded in 1. Rule of law 2. 
Victim centric 3. Reduce the appeal of terrorists. 4. Civil society participation against 
propaganda war. 5. Deal with the root causes like poverty. 6. Cooperation among the 
nations. 7. Condemn terrorism in all forms, whomsoever, whatsoever, wherever. 8. 
Implement international conventions. 9. Global solidarity will weaken the temptation 
to use terrorist tactics. 
• International politics has traditionally been thought of in terms of collective groups, 
especially states and through the prism of National Interest especially by schools like 
Realism. 
• As a result, power of the States rather than rights and morality surrounding individuals 
was often ignored. There were however, ideas about the intrinsic worth and dignity of 
individual human beings. 
• The most important of these were the theories of natural rights propounded by 
scholars like Hugo Grotius, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. These later came to be 
embodied in political documents like US Declaration of Independence and the French 
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizens. 
• In the 19th and 20th century such ideas of humanitarianism acquired an international 
dimension such as abolishing of slave trade by Brussels Convention (1890), outlawing 
of slavery by the 1926 Slavery Convention, regulation of the conduct of war, through 
the Hague Conventions (1907) and the Geneva Conventions (1926) etc. However, the 
most important development in this context came with the setting up of the UN in the 
Page 3


• Theorists of liberal schools look to international organisations and regimes to curtail 
the threat of terrorism. The acceptance of non-state actor requiring global collective 
action is something that theorists of interdependence and institutionalist models 
would like to point out. They also support heart and mind strategy over military 
repression. 
• At the same time, liberals face the dilemma how to counter fundamentalist ideologies 
without infringement of liberal values themselves. If they accommodate 
fundamentalists, it will create protest movement. If they do not accommodate, it will 
counter their own values (Clash of Civilisations). 
• The Realist school in the form of realpolitik has no such moral conundrums. They argue 
for an all-out action against terrorism determined by the pursuit of national self-
interest. Issues of civil liberties and infringement of rights is thrown out of the window.  
• In between the two, one can apply Just War theory as a measure against terrorism. In 
Just and Unjust Wars, Walzer developed a just war theory based on the ‘legalist 
paradigm’, which draws parallels between the rights and responsibilities of the 
individual and those of political communities (states). 
• This implies that states may defend themselves against aggression, possibly through 
pre- emptive attack (just wars), but that aggression in pursuit of self- interest is ruled 
out (unjust wars). Walzer also acknowledged that a ‘supreme emergency’ (stemming 
from an imminent and overriding threat to a nation) may require that ‘the rules are set 
aside’ and defended humanitarian intervention. 
• Commentators such as Elshtain argued that the ‘war on terror’, of which the Afghan 
War was a crucial part, was just in that it was fought against the genocidal threat of 
‘apocalyptic terrorism’, a form of warfare that posed a potential threat to all Americans 
and Jews and made no distinction between combatants and non- combatants. 
• However, this strategy for combating terrorism is sometimes linked to the so-called 
problem of dirty hands. Walzer, for example, drew attention to the ‘ticking bomb 
scenario’, in which a politician orders the torture of a terrorist suspect to extract 
information about the location of a bomb, thus saving the lives of hundreds of people.  
• Wars fought under the banner of the ‘war on terror’, are cross-cultural wars, if not 
civilizational struggles so deeming a cause to be legitimate or illegitimate becomes very 
complex. 
• In this scenario, the critical and constructivist schools offer insights. Critical scholars 
like Chomsky distinguish between wholesale and retail terrorism e.g. Chomsky accused 
USA for wholesale terrorism and non-state actors as retail terrorism. 
• Similarly, social constructivists argue for a need to reject the stereotype. When we keep 
on branding certain groups as terrorists, we are overlooking many other actors who 
are also terrorists. Branding some as terrorists allow others to legitimize their 
terrorism. 
• Former secretary general of UN Kofi Annan suggested the strategy of five Ds to counter 
terrorism: 
1. Dissuade the terrorist groups to resort to terrorism. 
2. Deny means to carry attacks. 
3. Deter states from supporting such groups. 
4. Develop capacity of the states to prevent terrorism. 
5. Defend human rights. 
• According to him, terrorism and human rights are not conflicting rather mutually 
reinforcing. Any strategy to fight terrorism has to be grounded in 1. Rule of law 2. 
Victim centric 3. Reduce the appeal of terrorists. 4. Civil society participation against 
propaganda war. 5. Deal with the root causes like poverty. 6. Cooperation among the 
nations. 7. Condemn terrorism in all forms, whomsoever, whatsoever, wherever. 8. 
Implement international conventions. 9. Global solidarity will weaken the temptation 
to use terrorist tactics. 
• International politics has traditionally been thought of in terms of collective groups, 
especially states and through the prism of National Interest especially by schools like 
Realism. 
• As a result, power of the States rather than rights and morality surrounding individuals 
was often ignored. There were however, ideas about the intrinsic worth and dignity of 
individual human beings. 
• The most important of these were the theories of natural rights propounded by 
scholars like Hugo Grotius, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. These later came to be 
embodied in political documents like US Declaration of Independence and the French 
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizens. 
• In the 19th and 20th century such ideas of humanitarianism acquired an international 
dimension such as abolishing of slave trade by Brussels Convention (1890), outlawing 
of slavery by the 1926 Slavery Convention, regulation of the conduct of war, through 
the Hague Conventions (1907) and the Geneva Conventions (1926) etc. However, the 
most important development in this context came with the setting up of the UN in the 
aftermath of WW II. 
• The UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), 
later supplemented by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the 
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (both in 1966) which 
established the modern human rights agenda. 
• Vasak and three ‘generations’ of human rights: 
      
• Realists have tended to view a concern with human rights as, at best, a ‘soft’ issue in 
international affairs, by contrast with ‘hard’, or ‘core’, concerns such as the pursuit of 
security and prosperity. 
• Realist objections to the culture of human rights have at least three bases: 
1. In the first place, they take issue with the essentially optimistic model of human 
nature that underpins human rights, which emphasizes dignity, respect and 
rationality. 
2. Second, realists are primarily concerned about collective behaviour, and especially 
the capacity of the state to ensure order and stability for their citizens. The national 
interest should therefore take precedence over any individually-based conception 
of morality. 
3. Third, being based on positivism, realism is keen to uphold its scientific credentials. 
This implies a concern with what is, rather than with what should be. 
• The modern doctrine of human rights is very largely a product of liberal political 
Page 4


• Theorists of liberal schools look to international organisations and regimes to curtail 
the threat of terrorism. The acceptance of non-state actor requiring global collective 
action is something that theorists of interdependence and institutionalist models 
would like to point out. They also support heart and mind strategy over military 
repression. 
• At the same time, liberals face the dilemma how to counter fundamentalist ideologies 
without infringement of liberal values themselves. If they accommodate 
fundamentalists, it will create protest movement. If they do not accommodate, it will 
counter their own values (Clash of Civilisations). 
• The Realist school in the form of realpolitik has no such moral conundrums. They argue 
for an all-out action against terrorism determined by the pursuit of national self-
interest. Issues of civil liberties and infringement of rights is thrown out of the window.  
• In between the two, one can apply Just War theory as a measure against terrorism. In 
Just and Unjust Wars, Walzer developed a just war theory based on the ‘legalist 
paradigm’, which draws parallels between the rights and responsibilities of the 
individual and those of political communities (states). 
• This implies that states may defend themselves against aggression, possibly through 
pre- emptive attack (just wars), but that aggression in pursuit of self- interest is ruled 
out (unjust wars). Walzer also acknowledged that a ‘supreme emergency’ (stemming 
from an imminent and overriding threat to a nation) may require that ‘the rules are set 
aside’ and defended humanitarian intervention. 
• Commentators such as Elshtain argued that the ‘war on terror’, of which the Afghan 
War was a crucial part, was just in that it was fought against the genocidal threat of 
‘apocalyptic terrorism’, a form of warfare that posed a potential threat to all Americans 
and Jews and made no distinction between combatants and non- combatants. 
• However, this strategy for combating terrorism is sometimes linked to the so-called 
problem of dirty hands. Walzer, for example, drew attention to the ‘ticking bomb 
scenario’, in which a politician orders the torture of a terrorist suspect to extract 
information about the location of a bomb, thus saving the lives of hundreds of people.  
• Wars fought under the banner of the ‘war on terror’, are cross-cultural wars, if not 
civilizational struggles so deeming a cause to be legitimate or illegitimate becomes very 
complex. 
• In this scenario, the critical and constructivist schools offer insights. Critical scholars 
like Chomsky distinguish between wholesale and retail terrorism e.g. Chomsky accused 
USA for wholesale terrorism and non-state actors as retail terrorism. 
• Similarly, social constructivists argue for a need to reject the stereotype. When we keep 
on branding certain groups as terrorists, we are overlooking many other actors who 
are also terrorists. Branding some as terrorists allow others to legitimize their 
terrorism. 
• Former secretary general of UN Kofi Annan suggested the strategy of five Ds to counter 
terrorism: 
1. Dissuade the terrorist groups to resort to terrorism. 
2. Deny means to carry attacks. 
3. Deter states from supporting such groups. 
4. Develop capacity of the states to prevent terrorism. 
5. Defend human rights. 
• According to him, terrorism and human rights are not conflicting rather mutually 
reinforcing. Any strategy to fight terrorism has to be grounded in 1. Rule of law 2. 
Victim centric 3. Reduce the appeal of terrorists. 4. Civil society participation against 
propaganda war. 5. Deal with the root causes like poverty. 6. Cooperation among the 
nations. 7. Condemn terrorism in all forms, whomsoever, whatsoever, wherever. 8. 
Implement international conventions. 9. Global solidarity will weaken the temptation 
to use terrorist tactics. 
• International politics has traditionally been thought of in terms of collective groups, 
especially states and through the prism of National Interest especially by schools like 
Realism. 
• As a result, power of the States rather than rights and morality surrounding individuals 
was often ignored. There were however, ideas about the intrinsic worth and dignity of 
individual human beings. 
• The most important of these were the theories of natural rights propounded by 
scholars like Hugo Grotius, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. These later came to be 
embodied in political documents like US Declaration of Independence and the French 
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizens. 
• In the 19th and 20th century such ideas of humanitarianism acquired an international 
dimension such as abolishing of slave trade by Brussels Convention (1890), outlawing 
of slavery by the 1926 Slavery Convention, regulation of the conduct of war, through 
the Hague Conventions (1907) and the Geneva Conventions (1926) etc. However, the 
most important development in this context came with the setting up of the UN in the 
aftermath of WW II. 
• The UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), 
later supplemented by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the 
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (both in 1966) which 
established the modern human rights agenda. 
• Vasak and three ‘generations’ of human rights: 
      
• Realists have tended to view a concern with human rights as, at best, a ‘soft’ issue in 
international affairs, by contrast with ‘hard’, or ‘core’, concerns such as the pursuit of 
security and prosperity. 
• Realist objections to the culture of human rights have at least three bases: 
1. In the first place, they take issue with the essentially optimistic model of human 
nature that underpins human rights, which emphasizes dignity, respect and 
rationality. 
2. Second, realists are primarily concerned about collective behaviour, and especially 
the capacity of the state to ensure order and stability for their citizens. The national 
interest should therefore take precedence over any individually-based conception 
of morality. 
3. Third, being based on positivism, realism is keen to uphold its scientific credentials. 
This implies a concern with what is, rather than with what should be. 
• The modern doctrine of human rights is very largely a product of liberal political 
philosophy. On a political level, liberals have long used the notion of natural or human 
rights to establish the basis of legitimacy. 
• The Liberals argued that states should be bound, prefer- ably legally, to uphold human 
rights in their dealings with their domestic population as well as with other states which 
is embodied in the 1948 UN Declaration. 
• Critical approaches to human rights have either tended to revise or recast the 
traditional, liberal view of human rights, or they have been openly hostile to the idea 
itself. 
• The global justice movement has used economic and social rights as the basis of calls 
for a radical redistribution of power and resources, both within countries and between 
them. Human rights have thus been turned into a doctrine of global social justice, 
grounded in moral cosmopolitanism (Pogge). 
• Feminists have demonstrated a growing interest in the cause of human rights. In 
particular, they have sought to transform the concept and practice of human rights to 
take better account of women’s lives, highlighting the issues of ‘women’s human rights’ 
(Friedman). This marks a recognition by feminist activists of the power of the 
international human rights framework, and especially its capacity to place women’s 
issues on mainstream agendas. 
• At the same time, however, feminists have taken a critical view of rights that men have 
designed to protect their entitlement to private commerce, free speech and cultural 
integrity, which have been used to legitimize practices such as child marriages, the 
trafficking of women and child pornography. 
• Postcolonial theorists have argued that circumstances vary so widely from society to 
society, and from culture to culture, as to require differing moral values and, at least, 
differing conceptions of human rights. 
• Secondly, and more radically, postcolonial theorists have portrayed universal values in 
general, and human rights in particular, as a form of cultural imperialism. Such thinking 
was evident in Edward Said’s Orientalism. 
• The Bangkok Declaration of 1993, adopted by Asian ministers in the run-up to the 
Vienna World Conference on Human Rights, attempted a delicate balancing act by 
recognizing both the distinctiveness of Asian cultures and the interdependence and 
indivisibility of human rights. 
• Islamic reservations about human rights have been evident since Saudi Arabia refused 
to adopt the UN Declaration in 1948, on the grounds that it violated important Islamic 
principles, notably its rejection of apostasy (the abandonment or renunciation of one’s 
religion). The basis of the Islamic critique of human rights, as outlined by the Cairo 
Page 5


• Theorists of liberal schools look to international organisations and regimes to curtail 
the threat of terrorism. The acceptance of non-state actor requiring global collective 
action is something that theorists of interdependence and institutionalist models 
would like to point out. They also support heart and mind strategy over military 
repression. 
• At the same time, liberals face the dilemma how to counter fundamentalist ideologies 
without infringement of liberal values themselves. If they accommodate 
fundamentalists, it will create protest movement. If they do not accommodate, it will 
counter their own values (Clash of Civilisations). 
• The Realist school in the form of realpolitik has no such moral conundrums. They argue 
for an all-out action against terrorism determined by the pursuit of national self-
interest. Issues of civil liberties and infringement of rights is thrown out of the window.  
• In between the two, one can apply Just War theory as a measure against terrorism. In 
Just and Unjust Wars, Walzer developed a just war theory based on the ‘legalist 
paradigm’, which draws parallels between the rights and responsibilities of the 
individual and those of political communities (states). 
• This implies that states may defend themselves against aggression, possibly through 
pre- emptive attack (just wars), but that aggression in pursuit of self- interest is ruled 
out (unjust wars). Walzer also acknowledged that a ‘supreme emergency’ (stemming 
from an imminent and overriding threat to a nation) may require that ‘the rules are set 
aside’ and defended humanitarian intervention. 
• Commentators such as Elshtain argued that the ‘war on terror’, of which the Afghan 
War was a crucial part, was just in that it was fought against the genocidal threat of 
‘apocalyptic terrorism’, a form of warfare that posed a potential threat to all Americans 
and Jews and made no distinction between combatants and non- combatants. 
• However, this strategy for combating terrorism is sometimes linked to the so-called 
problem of dirty hands. Walzer, for example, drew attention to the ‘ticking bomb 
scenario’, in which a politician orders the torture of a terrorist suspect to extract 
information about the location of a bomb, thus saving the lives of hundreds of people.  
• Wars fought under the banner of the ‘war on terror’, are cross-cultural wars, if not 
civilizational struggles so deeming a cause to be legitimate or illegitimate becomes very 
complex. 
• In this scenario, the critical and constructivist schools offer insights. Critical scholars 
like Chomsky distinguish between wholesale and retail terrorism e.g. Chomsky accused 
USA for wholesale terrorism and non-state actors as retail terrorism. 
• Similarly, social constructivists argue for a need to reject the stereotype. When we keep 
on branding certain groups as terrorists, we are overlooking many other actors who 
are also terrorists. Branding some as terrorists allow others to legitimize their 
terrorism. 
• Former secretary general of UN Kofi Annan suggested the strategy of five Ds to counter 
terrorism: 
1. Dissuade the terrorist groups to resort to terrorism. 
2. Deny means to carry attacks. 
3. Deter states from supporting such groups. 
4. Develop capacity of the states to prevent terrorism. 
5. Defend human rights. 
• According to him, terrorism and human rights are not conflicting rather mutually 
reinforcing. Any strategy to fight terrorism has to be grounded in 1. Rule of law 2. 
Victim centric 3. Reduce the appeal of terrorists. 4. Civil society participation against 
propaganda war. 5. Deal with the root causes like poverty. 6. Cooperation among the 
nations. 7. Condemn terrorism in all forms, whomsoever, whatsoever, wherever. 8. 
Implement international conventions. 9. Global solidarity will weaken the temptation 
to use terrorist tactics. 
• International politics has traditionally been thought of in terms of collective groups, 
especially states and through the prism of National Interest especially by schools like 
Realism. 
• As a result, power of the States rather than rights and morality surrounding individuals 
was often ignored. There were however, ideas about the intrinsic worth and dignity of 
individual human beings. 
• The most important of these were the theories of natural rights propounded by 
scholars like Hugo Grotius, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. These later came to be 
embodied in political documents like US Declaration of Independence and the French 
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizens. 
• In the 19th and 20th century such ideas of humanitarianism acquired an international 
dimension such as abolishing of slave trade by Brussels Convention (1890), outlawing 
of slavery by the 1926 Slavery Convention, regulation of the conduct of war, through 
the Hague Conventions (1907) and the Geneva Conventions (1926) etc. However, the 
most important development in this context came with the setting up of the UN in the 
aftermath of WW II. 
• The UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), 
later supplemented by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the 
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (both in 1966) which 
established the modern human rights agenda. 
• Vasak and three ‘generations’ of human rights: 
      
• Realists have tended to view a concern with human rights as, at best, a ‘soft’ issue in 
international affairs, by contrast with ‘hard’, or ‘core’, concerns such as the pursuit of 
security and prosperity. 
• Realist objections to the culture of human rights have at least three bases: 
1. In the first place, they take issue with the essentially optimistic model of human 
nature that underpins human rights, which emphasizes dignity, respect and 
rationality. 
2. Second, realists are primarily concerned about collective behaviour, and especially 
the capacity of the state to ensure order and stability for their citizens. The national 
interest should therefore take precedence over any individually-based conception 
of morality. 
3. Third, being based on positivism, realism is keen to uphold its scientific credentials. 
This implies a concern with what is, rather than with what should be. 
• The modern doctrine of human rights is very largely a product of liberal political 
philosophy. On a political level, liberals have long used the notion of natural or human 
rights to establish the basis of legitimacy. 
• The Liberals argued that states should be bound, prefer- ably legally, to uphold human 
rights in their dealings with their domestic population as well as with other states which 
is embodied in the 1948 UN Declaration. 
• Critical approaches to human rights have either tended to revise or recast the 
traditional, liberal view of human rights, or they have been openly hostile to the idea 
itself. 
• The global justice movement has used economic and social rights as the basis of calls 
for a radical redistribution of power and resources, both within countries and between 
them. Human rights have thus been turned into a doctrine of global social justice, 
grounded in moral cosmopolitanism (Pogge). 
• Feminists have demonstrated a growing interest in the cause of human rights. In 
particular, they have sought to transform the concept and practice of human rights to 
take better account of women’s lives, highlighting the issues of ‘women’s human rights’ 
(Friedman). This marks a recognition by feminist activists of the power of the 
international human rights framework, and especially its capacity to place women’s 
issues on mainstream agendas. 
• At the same time, however, feminists have taken a critical view of rights that men have 
designed to protect their entitlement to private commerce, free speech and cultural 
integrity, which have been used to legitimize practices such as child marriages, the 
trafficking of women and child pornography. 
• Postcolonial theorists have argued that circumstances vary so widely from society to 
society, and from culture to culture, as to require differing moral values and, at least, 
differing conceptions of human rights. 
• Secondly, and more radically, postcolonial theorists have portrayed universal values in 
general, and human rights in particular, as a form of cultural imperialism. Such thinking 
was evident in Edward Said’s Orientalism. 
• The Bangkok Declaration of 1993, adopted by Asian ministers in the run-up to the 
Vienna World Conference on Human Rights, attempted a delicate balancing act by 
recognizing both the distinctiveness of Asian cultures and the interdependence and 
indivisibility of human rights. 
• Islamic reservations about human rights have been evident since Saudi Arabia refused 
to adopt the UN Declaration in 1948, on the grounds that it violated important Islamic 
principles, notably its rejection of apostasy (the abandonment or renunciation of one’s 
religion). The basis of the Islamic critique of human rights, as outlined by the Cairo 
Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (1990), is that rights, and all moral principles, 
derive from divine, rather than human, authority. 
• From this perspective, the doctrine of universal human rights is merely a cultural 
expression of the political and economic domination that the West has customarily 
exerted over the Middle East in particular, and the Muslim world in general. 
• The International Criminal Court (ICC) is a permanent institution with global 
jurisdiction. In 1998, delegates from 160 countries, 33 international organizations and 
a coalition of NGOs met in Rome to draft the Statute of the ICC. 
• The Rome Statute established the ICC as a ticourt of last resortti, exercising jurisdiction 
only when national courts are unwilling or unable to investigate or prosecute. It also 
provided the most detailed and ambitious attempt to codify the crimes that can be 
categorized as crimes against humanity. 
• This highlights crimes including murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, 
torture, rape or sexual slavery, racial and other forms of persecution, and the crime of 
apartheid. Although genocide is clearly a crime against humanity in a general sense, it 
is treated as a separate category of crime, indeed as the ticrime of crimesti, by the 
Genocide Convention and in the Rome Statute. 
• The ICC, which came into being in 2002, has broad-ranging powers to prosecute acts 
of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and, potentially, aggression. It is 
located in The Hague, Netherlands and is an independent international organization 
and not part of the UN system. 
• Human security mechanisms such as the ICC and War Crimes Tribunals have been 
involved in the indictment and prosecution of some high-profile war criminals in the 
former Yugoslavia, Liberia, and Congo, including the former President of Yugoslavia, 
Slobodan Milosevic, former Liberian President Charles Taylor, and the former President 
of Ivory Coast Laurent Gbagbo and his wife. 
• The International Criminal Court (ICC), does NOT have powers of judicial enforcement. 
However, the symbolic value of ending of formal international legal impunity should 
not be underestimated as liberal institutionalists will argue. The ICC reduces impunity 
not only by punishing perpetrators, but also by allowing victims to participate in the 
judicial proceedings and to apply for reparations. 
• Issues with ICC: 
• Under the tiSingapore compromiseti, the Rome conference allowed the Security 
Council to delay a prosecution for twelve months by passing of a resolution.