Making Religion and Human Rights at the United Nations

Making Religion and Human Rights at the United Nations

Author: Helge Årsheim

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2018-07-23

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 3110476592

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This volume examines the different and sometimes contradictory approaches of four UN human rights committees to the concept of religion. Drawing on critical perspectives from religious studies, the book combines a genealogical assessment of the role of religion in international law with a detailed textual study of the reporting practice of the committees monitoring racial discrimination, civil and political rights, women's rights, and children's rights. Årsheim argues that the role of religion within the rights traditions monitored by the committees varies to the extent that their recommendations risk contradicting one another, thereby undermining their credibility and potential to bring about real change on the ground: Where some committees view religion singularly as a core individual right, others see religion partly as an inherent threat to the realization of other rights, but also as a potent social force to be reckoned with. In order to remedy this situation, Årsheim proposes the publication of a joint general comment by all the committees, spelling out their approach to the role of religion in the implementation of human rights.


Faith in Rights

Faith in Rights

Author: Amélie Barras

Publisher:

Published: 2024

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781503610590

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"Faith in Rights explores why and how Christian non-governmental organizations conduct human rights work at the United Nations. The book interrogates the idea that the secular and the religious are distinct categories, and more specifically that human rights, understood as secular, can be neatly distinguished from religion. It argues that Christianity is deeply entangled in the texture of the United Nations, and shapes the methods and areas of work of Christian NGOs. To be able to capture these entanglements, Amâelie Barras analyzes, through interviews, ethnography, and document and archive analysis, the everyday human rights work of Christian NGOs at the United Nations Human Rights Council. She documents how these NGOs are involved in a constant work of double translation: they translate their human rights work into a religious language to make it relevant to their on-the-ground membership, but they also reframe the concerns of their membership in human rights terms in order to make them audible to UN actors. Faith in Rights is a crucial new evaluation of how religion informs Christian non-governmental organizations' understandings of human rights and their methods of work, as well as how being engaged in human rights work influences these organizations own religious identity and practice"--


Religion and Human Rights

Religion and Human Rights

Author: John Witte

Publisher: OUP USA

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 412

ISBN-13: 0199733449

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This volume examines the relationship between religion and human rights in seven major religious traditions, as well as key legal concepts, contemporary issues, and relationships among religion, state, and society in the areas of human rights and religious freedom.


Faith-Based Organizations at the United Nations

Faith-Based Organizations at the United Nations

Author: Jeff Haynes

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-04-30

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 1137404515

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The book examines selected faith-based organisations (FBOs) and their attempts to seek to influence debate and decision-making at the United Nations (UN). Increasing attention on FBOs in this context has followed what is widely understood as a widespread, post-Cold War "religious resurgence." The bibliography is available digitally at the end of sample chapter, which can be downloaded on this page.


Free Speech, Religion and the United Nations

Free Speech, Religion and the United Nations

Author: Heini í Skorini

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-07-19

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 1000134695

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This book explores the political struggle to interpret and define the meaning, the scope and the implications of human rights norms in general and freedom of expression in particular. From the Rushdie affair and the Danish cartoon affair to the Charlie Hebdo massacre and draconian legislation against blasphemy worldwide, the tensions between free speech ideals and religious sensitivities have polarized global public opinion and the international community of states, triggering fierce political power struggles in the corridors of the UN. Inspired by theories of norm diffusion in International Relations, Skorini investigates how the struggle to define the limits of free speech vis-à-vis religion unfolds within the UN system. Revealing how human rights terminology is used and misused, the book also considers how the human rights vision paradoxically contains the potential to justify human rights violations in practice. The author explains how states exercise power within the field of international human rights politics and how non-democratic states strategically apply mainstream human rights language and secular human rights law in order to justify authoritarian religious censorship norms both nationally and internationally. This interdisciplinary book will appeal to scholars and students researching international human rights, religion and politics. The empirical chapters are also relevant for professionals and activists within the field of human rights.


Human Rights Law-making in the United Nations

Human Rights Law-making in the United Nations

Author: Theodor Meron

Publisher:

Published: 1986

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13:

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Examining in detail the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, this book studies and critiques the methods employed by the United Nations in adopting instruments to protect human rights. Pointing to many examples of unclear provisions and of overlap and conflict within a single instrument or between instruments, Meron concludes that the present system of law-making is inadequate and suggests some reforms both of the institutions and of the process itself.


Religious NGOs at the United Nations

Religious NGOs at the United Nations

Author: Claudia Baumgart-Ochse

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-06-27

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 1351111213

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Examining the involvement of religious NGOs (RNGOs) at the UN, this book explores whether they polarize political debates at the UN or facilitate agreement on policy issues. The number of RNGOs engaging with the United Nations (UN) has grown considerably in recent years: RNGOs maintain relations with various UN agencies, member-state missions, and other NGOs, and participate in UN conferences and events. This volume includes both a quantitative overview of RNGOs at the UN and qualitative analyses of specific policy issues such as international development, climate change, business and human rights, sexual and reproductive health and rights, international criminal justice, defamation of religions, and intercultural dialogue and cooperation. The contributions explore the factors that explain the RNGOs’ normative positions and actions and scrutinise the assumption that religions introduce non-negotiable principles into political debate and decision-making that inevitably lead to conflict and division. Presenting original research on RNGOs and issues of global public policy, this volume will be relevant to both researchers and policy-makers in the fields of religion and international relations, the United Nations, and non-state actors and global governance.


Women and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Women and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Author: Rebecca Adami

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-10-26

Total Pages: 162

ISBN-13: 0429795521

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Who were the non-Western women delegates who took part in the drafting of the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) from 1945-1948? Which member states did these women represent, and in what ways did they push for a more inclusive language than "the rights of Man" in the texts? This book provides a gendered historical narrative of human rights from the San Francisco Conference in 1945 to the final vote of the UDHR in the United Nations General Assembly in December 1948. It highlights the contributions by Latin American feminist delegates, and the prominent non-Western female representatives from new member states of the UN.