United Nations and Human Rights: The Unfinished Business

By

Sylvester Odion Akhaine, PhD (London)

Department of Political Science, Lagos State University, Lagos

Nigeria

Published in The Constitution, Vol. 11, No. 1, March 2011, pp. 24-37.

United Nations and Human Rights: The Unfinished Business

This Article reflects on the United Nations and its goals in the contexts of its sixtieth

founding anniversary. It foregrounds the point that the 1948 Universal Declaration

of Human Rights (UDHR) remains the central element in the UN’s goal of promoting

peace and preventing the cause of war. Notheless, it argues that the global body faces

two major constraints. One, the continuing controversy over what constitutes rights

and its consequent bifurcation into two sets of rights that are either negative or

positive, namely, civil and political rights and social-economic and cultural rights.

And two, the post 9/11 indiscriminate war against terrorism which has spawned a

raft of anti-freedom legislations, especially in the West. Against this background, the

article concludes that the survival of the UN would depend on its capacity to

privilege the inalienability and indivisibility of the rights of man; and that if the

global body fails in its goals of promoting global peace; it is not the UN that has

failed per se but is member states.

Introduction

A few years ago, Conor Gearty, Rausing Director of the Centre for Human Rights,

London School of Economics and Political Science, expressed an unqualified

optimism about the flourish of human rights. He opined that possible ups and downs

that might attend the human rights debate (p. 24) should be seen as underscoring the

importance of human rights as well as a pointer to a destination desirable for

humanity. Optimism is nature to man, it is however wrong to build optimism on sheer

subjectivism outside objective realities. Post-Cold War realities do not give room for

this kind of optimism qua human rights; if anything, the gains of 1948 are being

rapidly rolled back. As Antonio Cassese has rightly observed, the advent of the

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948 inherently delegitimises the

states while privileging peoples and individual as the concrete subject of rights.1 To

be sure, this reality reduces in some degree the anarchic international system

characterised by the absence of a supranational complex to which states in the

international system are obliged.2 For a long while in scholarship, it provoked intense

philosophical debate on what are human rights and their origin. This debate raged in

academia and was also an issue in human rights diplomacy. This is still largely so

today. Robert Taylor resuscitates this debate in a recent work, The Idea of freedom in

Asia and Africa.3 In the summary of John Dunn, its reviewer, Asia and Africa have

had two different histories both in the long and short term. “For all the drastic

differences in power and wealth within each, those histories now give them very

different levels of cultural self-assurance. One, Africa, has never had, over a large

area, a shared conception of its own, of how it is good or bad for its inhabitants to be

constrained or left to their own devices, let alone of what makes this good or bad. The

other, Asia, still plainly very much retains several different such conceptions

unmistakeably of its own, stemming from great world religions which it founded and

launched on their career very long ago.”4

This type of arrogant and preposterous gaffe proliferates the academia. The point to

note is that in the relativist-universalist controversy, we lost sight of the essentiality

of UDHR as a somewhat consensual outcome. In what follows, I revisit that

controversy.

The Relativist-Universalist Controversy

Most scholarly works on human rights have always to some degree dealt with the issues

of relativism and universalism of human rights, which in my opinion, are essential

elements for appreciating human rights diplomacy. The universalist concept is rooted in

the liberal conception of human rights. Its claims are that the various instruments as

embodied in the international bill of rights as well as their philosophical underpinning are

Western in origin.5 As Welshman Ncube puts it, universalism views human rights as

“having originated, developed and refined in the First World and thereafter transplanted

(p. 25) to Africa as part of the First World’s civilization mission to Africa”.6 Its strong

advocate, Rhoda Howard, reinforces this view. In reference to African culture, she notes

that the latter particularistic claims are no longer valid to the extent that African societies

have undergone acculturation under Western culture of individualism and have become

susceptible to the universal application of human rights as body of claims against the

state.7 Her collaborator, Jack Donnelly, holds a similar position. In his review of non-

Western conceptions of human rights such as Asian, African and Islamic, he claims that

what inheres in them are not human rights but mere conceptions of human dignity. On the

basis of this, he concludes that human rights are a Western invention arising from its soil

of market economy and modern organisation of the state.8 Conversely, Evan Luard

emphasises universalism as the common heritage of mankind as opposed to its

particularistic twist. According to him, human rights are about the elementary rights of

people not to be killed, tortured, arbitrarily imprisoned and raped. He further stresses that

these rights are not recent discovery, being global recognised rights which date back to

antiquity.9 Indeed, wherever oppression exists, there is always a corresponding resistance.

In this sense, rights are not rooted in one culture and then exported to others.10 Rights are

spawned from the objective realities of social relations. Its moralism is rooted in the

specificity of the historical experience of mankind.

On the other hand, the cultural relativists see human rights as a common heritage of

mankind that is given particular content by diverse cultures. This conception does

recognise that the “articulation, formulation, enforcement, enjoyment and concretion of

the subject of human rights has to take into account the specific historical, political,

institutional and cultural context of each country.”11 As noted by Richard Wilson,

“…relativism grants precedence to immediate contexts and engenders sensitivity to

diversity.”12 Rein Mullerson who joins the relativist-universalist debate, tows a middle

line by acknowledging that today’s human rights standards are not immutable values of

the West in that the process by which both the West and other countries embrace it is

itself historical.13 R. J. Vincent acknowledges the points at issue in the relativist-

universalist debate as summarised above but offers a three-point practical solution to it,

namely, human rights as particular rights; human rights as core rights; and human rights

in the global cosmopolitan culture, i.e., cross-cultural validation of human rights. Lurking

behind these propositions is a consensual dilemma, and in the absence of a clear-cut

resolution, Vincent advises taking into account the degree of occurrence and convergence

of ‘human rights talk’ (end of p. 26) across cultures.14 As we shall see in a moment, that

consensual dilemma has been resolved a great deal but the controversy is by no means

over because of the politics of knowledge and hegemonic struggle over the control of

global narratives.

Amartya Sen has also engaged the notion of Western universalism with illuminating

insights. With new details from Asian historiography, especially the Indian subcontinent,

Sen proves the people’s engagement with human rights questions way back before it

became the vogue of Western enlightenment thinkers. Against the background of the

“hard sell of ‘Western Liberalism’”, he notes, for example, that Akbar, one of the Mogul

emperors, was preaching religious tolerance while the Inquisition was the order of the

day in Europe. He further flays the tendency to “extrapolate backwards from the present

values that the European enlightenment and other relatively recent developments have

made widespread.” As he sees it, they cannot really be “seen as part of the Western

heritage as it was experienced over the millennia.”15

Luard’s universalism, i.e., universalism as common heritage of humanity, comes back

with remarkable force from the painstaking research of Susan Waltz. She identifies and

dissects some of the basic myths over the articulation of the UDHR such as the role

played by the great powers by locating them in proper historical perspective. Her exposé

reflects on the role played by small states in the formulation of UDHR, which gives its

content a cultural plurality. For example, engendering and inclusive phrases such as “all

human beings,” was due to the insistence of Hansa Melita of India; the Syrian delegation

introduced the notion of social justice; the Saudi Arabia delegates brought in the idea of

zakat and social security rooted in the Islamic tradition, while the rights to food and

clothing were introduced (Art. 25) by Chinese and Philippine delegates.16 Thus, the often

exaggerated role of the post-World War II powers is deflated. From 1948 on, the role of

the US and Britain in human rights discourse and practice has not been edifying. David

Forsythe and Sally Morphet, in a recent work, have reviewed the two countries in this

regard. Forsythe reveals a lack-lustre and ambivalent performance of the US at bilateral

and multilateral levels on human rights, demonstrable in its late ratification of the

International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and paltry assistance to

democratisation processes elsewhere. He concludes that “the problem is the danger not of

moral crusade but of moral abnegation”.17 Morphet underlines a not-too-forceful British

approach to human rights against a background of an imperial hangover and ( end of p.

27) a historical complacency of having produced the 1215 Magna Carta and the 1689

English Bill of Rights.18

What I think the forgoing has done for us is to take us to the domain of universalism, not

universalism as particularism of the West; but that which sees human rights as a common

legacy of humanity, a position affirmed by the Vienna World Conference on Human

Rights in June 1993. The conference in its communiqué declares solemnly the

universality, indivisibility and interdependence of all human rights and underlines “the

significance of national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural and

religious backgrounds.”19

The Political Economy of Human Rights

What I have done in the previous section is to underline the fact that irrespective of either

particularistic or universalistic claims to human rights, they remain a common heritage of

humankind. This by no means removes the perpetual struggle by global hegemons to cast

this common heritage in their own image or rather to suit the interest of capital. These are

issues which I will annotate in this section. But notice must be taken of the significance

of human rights in the historical motion of man. Kenneth Baynes has already aptly

captured this. As he puts it, “Basic human or moral rights have played an important role

historically in emancipatory social and political movement, both as a resource for critique

and as goals to be pursued. The histories of labour movement, civil rights, feminism and

gay rights all attest, despite any ambivalence, to the efficacy of the language of rights.”20

In specific terms, the emancipation of the colonial peoples through claim of national self-

determination flows from the human rights complex.

The road to the actualisation of human rights as an indivisible whole in terms of the

absence of bifurcation between political and socio-economic rights has been caught in the

web of power politics by the post-World War 11 victors, especially the United States and

the Soviet Union while it lasted. Here we rely on the insightful work of Anatoly

Movchan. His review of the politics of the making of the international human rights

covenants and the consequent bifurcation into ICCPR and International Convention on

Economic and Socio-Cultural Rights (ICESCR) is significant. As revealed by him, the

drafting process of the covenants took 20 years, from 1947-1967, before adoption by the

UN General Assembly due to the disagreement of the post-war great powers over which

rights are to be privileged. Both the US and British opposed the inclusion of the

economic, social and cultural rights in the draft when (end of p. 28) it came up for

discussion in the human rights commission on the ground that the covenant was intended

for the application of the rights set forth in the UDHR. They indeed pushed a minimalist

agenda of rights centred on few civil and political rights while the USSR made a case for

the inclusion of social, economic and cultural rights the exclusion of which would render

civil and political rights meaningless and the “ideal of a free man” only rhetoric.

However, the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) adopted the draft without the

social, economic and cultural rights. The document was subjected to the General

Assembly opinion over its propriety. In its resolution 421(V) of 4 December 1950

advised that the draft be improved to contain the social, economic and cultural rights on

grounds of the interconnectedness of both categories of rights. The amendment was,

however, defeated by a tiny majority led by the US and Britain, and the General

Assembly then adopted resolution 543 (VI) on the two covenants, ICCPR and ICESCR

and which were subsequently adopted by it in 1966. They came into force by March

1967,21 but they bore the birthmark of the controversy, ICCPR being absolute and

juridical and ICESCR being merely programmatic. As I speak, the US is yet to ratify the

ICESCR.

This politicisation of rights by means of herarchisation represents for the UDHR regime

the first major historical constraint. Both Peter Schneider and Conor Gearty have

adverted to this ideologisation of human rights. As it were, the theatre of human rights

provided yet another platform for the political controversy between liberal democracy

and communism. The façade of liberal democracy hides economic exploitation or put in

the words of John Dunn, allows for the celebration of itself by the idea of freedom.22

Communism while it was in vogue in the name of advancing the interest of the

proletariats created slavery and fostered totalitarianism. To quote Gearty, “in the old

days, during the Cold War, the powerful had little serious use to make of the language of

human rights. To East and West alike, it was a tool in an ideological war: the Soviet

leadership excoriated the US for neglecting social and economic rights, while the

Americans shouted back the lack of free press in Moscow and the jailing of Dr.

Sakharov and other ‘prisoners of conscience’. There was simply no meeting point

between these two radically different visions of rights.”23 Such was the nature of

politicisation of human rights. But is this politicisation over with the end of the Cold

War? The next section attempts to provide an answer (end of p. 29).

Human Rights in the Age of Globalisation

Most scholars of the radical hue have already made the point that globalisation is not

new. It is for them a case of old wine in old bottles.24 Today, globalisation is essentially

being driven by the Internet Communication Technology (ICT), a fact which may have

informed Kofi Annan’s qualification of the ICT as a force for good. Globalisation in a

new century is essentially the anarchy of capital on a global scale under the

superintendence of the victors of the Cold War. Thomas Friedman captures this well with

his Golden Straightjacket metaphor which the electronic herds are enamoured, once a

country dons it on, it is rewarded by investment capital and the recalcitrant are denied

capital.25 To be sure, globalisation has both economic and political dimensions. The

former according to Manfred Steger, “is couched in objective terms that emphasize the

‘factuality’ of the market. Market principles are portrayed as pervading even the most

intimate dimensions of our social existence. And there is nothing consumers can do about

it. In other words, socially created relations are depicted as exterior, natural forces that

are more powerful than human will.”26 But you and I know that the natural forces have

human blood in their veins-- they are the capitalists. In our local environment here they

acquire national assets in the name of privatisation and in a bid to control everything,

they create new monopolies. Some say this is not capitalism. That is an issue for another

day but that is the economics of globalisation. Politically, it is anchored on democracy,

liberal democracy in a renewed liberal internationalism which seeks to expand the liberal

zone of peace. In the global south, this is a conversion project driven by the Western

crusaders, hardly mindful of local sensibilities unless when it reached some dead-ends as

in Afghanistan and Iraq. Impoverished governments in search of aids and debt

redemption are easily whipped into line of the transition paradigm. There is no marked

differential between economic and the political; they are dialectically unified. The

contradictions of globalisation affront directly the socio-economic and cultural rights

which are important elements of International Bill of Human Rights (IBHR).

As Mary Robinson remarked quite rightly a few years ago, it is doubtful if the UDHR

would have enjoyed the legitimacy that it has gained more than half a century without

recognition of the socio-economic and cultural rights. The fulfilment of these rights or

efforts towards that direction is a constitutive element of any step to construct an ethical

dimension to globalisation.27 Ironically, rather than build a global synergy in this

direction; global time and (end of p. 30) energy are being squandered in a wrong-headed

fight of terrorism. Tragic enough, the hallowed confines of the United Nations has served

as the platform for this dubiety which latent function is US militarization of the global

space. Sixty years after, this is the second major constraint to the universal common

standards for all mankind which the UDHR represents. The dynamics of this new

constraint are addressed in what follows.

Human Rights and the War against Terror

The end of the Cold War, in the main, paves way for the arrogance of imperialism under

the leadership of the new empire, i.e., the United States, which in search of new enemies

in a century it has dubbed its own, foresaw the clash of civilisations, thanks to Samuel

Huntington, that scholar who once justified praetorianism as solution to political

instability in developing societies. Huntington examines the conditions that could

provoke a major global conflict and concludes that it “will occur between nations and

groups of different civilisations. The fault lines between civilisations will be the battle

lines of the future.”28 Islam is identified as the new enemy of the West. This, in my own

opinion, is the ideological origin of the so-called war on terror. It is the West’s response

to the resistance to its globalising mission, described by Benjamin Barber as reactionary

nationalism in his “Jihad vs. McWorld,” published in The Atlantic Monthly of March

1992. Post-9/11, some countries comprising Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Cuba and North

Korea were categorised as the ‘axis of evil’. This labelling meant they are potential

targets of US military expedition. In the name of freedom, it went into Afghanistan in

pursuit of terrorists and committed genocides, often qualified as collateral damage. Iraq’s

several centuries of civilisation is under destruction on the pretext of a search for

weapons of mass destruction that never existed. A recent advert in CNN made the point:

War on Iraq: Dead Wrong! Resistance measures by those under attack and occupation by

these powerful forces have spawned a raft of undemocratic legislations which threaten

freedoms won by the people in their fight against despotism several centuries ago. Let us

take as examples, the US Patriot Act 2001 and Home land Security Act 2002 and the

Britain’s Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001(ATCSA) and its latest

engrossment, Terrorism Act 2006.

The Patriot Act which is an improvement over existing instruments on crimes in the

United States covers criminal investigations such as tracking and gathering of

information; foreign intelligence investigations; money laundering; alien terrorists and

victims, crimes, (end of p. 31) penalties and procedures. Some of its odious provisions

permits pen register and trap and traces orders for electronic communications such as

email and telephone conversations; treats voice mail like stored e-mail; permits roving

surveillance; expands the Posse Comitatus Act exceptions; authorises ‘sneak and peek’

search warrants; and allows the Attorney General to collect DNA samples from prisoners

convicted for any federal crime of violence or terrorism. Overall, the Patriot Act eases

government access to confidential information. The Homeland Security Act is a further

expansion of the Patriot Act. For example, it limits the information citizens can request

under the Freedom of Information Act; it gives more leverage for government

committees to confer in secret without the obligation of open meeting laws; new powers

to government officials to declare national heath emergencies, including quarantines and

forced vaccinations.29 These measures fall short of addressing the socio-economic and

political roots of social violence both locally and internationally; they mainly affront

individual privacy, freedom and autonomy, all essential elements of the liberal ideal; and

they deride the statue of liberty.

The British ATCSA allows the indefinite detention of foreign terror suspect without trial.

It is a version of Nigeria’s Decree 2 which allowed for the detention of person deemed as

threat to state security under military rule. Its latest engrossment described by Lord

Hoffman as dangerous as terrorism itself would allow government the extensive use of

control orders including electronic tagging; extended pre-charge detention; powers to

prescribe organisation; closing down of places of worship; power to strip people of

citizenship; commitment for ‘condoning, glorifying or justifying terrorism’ any where in

the world…etc. The far-reaching implication of all these measures for freedom cannot be

gainsaid. Just imagine being criminalised for beer parlour comments on world affairs or

rendered stateless for want of allegiance to state policy you detest. Tony Blair anti-terror

measures aspire to these, and fortunately for Britons they were moderated by the

parliament. The crucial point here really is that some of these proposed elaborations on

the anti-terrorism act violate the European Convention on Human Rights already

incorporated into the British laws in 1998. In the years of Irish Republican Army

bombings in Britain, the government employed politics and effective policing, it never

degenerated into anti-freedom legislations which is why I think for the British people the

new measures rubbish the achievements of 1215, 1689 and 1998. It is a return to

barbarism and heralds (end of p. 32) the beginning of the death of the liberal dream.

Conclusion

In the foregoing, I have tried to identify the major challenges to the ideals of 1945. In

sum, it is power politics by global hegemons and the attempt to impose on the rest of us a

new ideological monism. The United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHCR)

formed in 1946 to promote human rights globally has been a victim of this power

relation. Increasingly, over the last few decades, it has become the medium for the

demonization and absolution of countries depending on whether you are on the side of

internationalisation of capital or protective of your national sovereignty. Usually, weak

nations are the butt of condemnatory resolutions emanating from the yearly six-week

ritual of the UNHCR. Both the powerful and weak countries from what we see daily are

guilty of human rights violation; it is only the boudoir of the weak that must be exposed

to public glare. The April 2005 summit of the Human Rights Commission underlined

once more this ideological bifurcation. Some developing countries and the civil society

groups wanted the US condemned for its abuses in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo

Bay as well as the post-9/11 campaign of defamation of religions. Those who were

ranged against it were the powerful triad: US, Japan and all Europeans countries with the

exception of Russia. As the North Korea representative, Ri Tcheul put it: “instead of

condemning crimes against humanity, such as the illegal invasion of Iraq and the civilian

massacres there, the commission has been reduced to changing the social systems of

independent countries”.30 When the then UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan,

characterised the malaise afflicting the UN body as one of “declining credibility and

professionalism”, it was an affirmation of the politicisation of the Commission.31 It is

also partly a response to the US brazen criticism of UN and the sexual abuses of its

peacekeepers, especially in Congo DRC. But in such criticism, we often lose sight of the

fact that the Congo crisis was a creation of the same powers which carved it up as free

trade zone in the 19th century. However, as a consequence, Annan, before he left office,

recommended the replacement of UNHRC with a Human Rights Council whose

members are to be elected by the General Assembly instead of the Economic and Social

Council ostensibly on the criterion of upholding the highest human rights standard. This

is perhaps a tall order for President Jan Eliasson who currently heads the General

Assembly. Are those who perpetrated the crimes of Abu Ghraib, Fallujah and

Guantanamo Bay; those who refused to accede to the Rome Statute on International

Criminal Court (ICC) and (end of p. 33) over the years refused to ratify the CESCR the

ones who uphold the highest standards of rights? Or those who shot at point blank a

Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles Menezes in a London tube? As I said earlier, this is

certainly a Herculean task. I think, the survival of the UN and its post-war aspirations

will depend on its capacity to restore to its prime place, the inalienable and indivisibility

of the rights of man as engrossed in the international bill of rights. No less important is it

capacity to champion a new economic order to bridge the global primary uneven

development. I do not share the enthusiasm of the Secretary General on the realisation of

the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. Nothing from the 60th summit

indicates that, or in the words of some development organisations, there is no new

commitment to development. Is it the non-consensual and voluntary 0.7 per cent annual

aid commitment by some countries that is new? International responses impugn the good

effort of the Secretary-General: from millennium summit to Monterrey and the last

summit. Thus, MDGs as an aspirational end, is fine. To succeed in its sweeping reforms,

the UN will need to enlist the support of progressive humanity (end of p. 34).

Notes and References

1. Cassese, Antonio, Human Rights in a Changing World, Polity Press, New York, 1990, pp. 1-

7.

2. Morgenthau, Hans J., Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, New York,

Alfred A. Knopf, New York, pp. 499-503.

3. Taylor, Robert A., ed., The Idea of Freedom in Asia & Africa, Stanford University Press,

2002.

4. Dunn, John, “The Idea of Freedom in Asia and Africa,” Government and Opposition, Vol. 39,

No. 1, 2004, p. 120.

5. Donnelly, Jack, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice, Cornell University Press,

Ithaca and London, 1989, pp. 89-106.

6. Ncube, Welshman, “University and Cultural Relativity of Human Rights”, in Lalaine A.

Sadiwa, ed., Human Rights Theories and Practices, Human Rights Institute of South Africa,

1997, p. 8.

7. See her summary in Shivji, Issa, The Concept of Human Rights in Africa, Codesria, London,

1989, p. 11.

8. Donnelly, “Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice”, pp. 49-65.

9. Luard, Evan, “Human Rights and Foreign Policy”, International Affairs, Vol. 56, No. 4,

Autumn, 1980, p. 592.

10. Mandani, Mahmood, “The Social Basis of Constitutionalism in Africa”, Journal of Modern

African Studies, Vol. 28, No. 3, 1990, p. 359.

11. Ncube, “University and Cultural Relativity of Human Rights” p. 8.

12. Wilson, Richard A., “Human Rights Culture and Context: An Introduction”, in Richard A.

Wilson, Human Rights, Culture and Context: Anthropological Perspectives, Pluto Press,

London, 1997, p. 3.

13. Mullerson, Rein, Human Rights Diplomacy, Routledge, London, 1997, p. 75.

14. Vincent, R. J., Human Rights and International Relations, Cambridge University Press in

Association with the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1986, pp. 47-54 (end of p. 35).

15. Amartya, Sen, “Human Rights and Asian values: What Lee Kuan and Le Peng don’t

understand about Asia values,” The New Republic, Vol. 217, No. 2-2, July 14, 1997, available

at http://www.brainsnchips.org/hr/sen.htm.

16. Waltz, Susan, “Reclaiming and rebuilding the history of Universal Declaration of Human

Rights”, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 437-444.

17. Forsythe, David P., “US Foreign Policy and Human Rights: The Price of Principles after the

Cold War, in David P. Forsythe, ed., Human Rights and Comparative Foreign Policy, United

Nations University Press, 2000, p. 45.

18. Morphet, Sally, “British Foreign Policy and Human Rights: From low to high politics in

David P. Forsythe,” Ibid, pp. 87-114.

19. See Paragraph 5 of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, World Conference on

Human Rights, Vienna, 14 -15 June, 1993.

20. Baynes, Kenneth, “Rights as Critique and the Critique of Rights”, Political Theory, Vol. 28,

No. 4, August 2000.

21. Movchan, Anatoly, Human Rights and International Relations, Progress Publishers, Moscow,

1998, pp. 78-109.

22. Dunn, “The Idea of Freedom in Asia and Africa”, Government and Opposition Vol. 39, Vol.1,

2004, pp. 199-122.

23. Gearty, Human Rights in the Age of Globalisation: the Challenges of Growing up”, Speech

made at the Centre for Human Rights, LSE, 10 December, 2002; see also Peter Schneider,

“Social Rights and the Concepts of Human Rights”, in Peter G. Brown and Douglas

MacLean , eds., Human Rights and US Foreign Policy, Lexington Books, Lexington,

Massachusetts. 1979.

24. Shivji, Issa, “Law and Access to Justice”, The Constitution, Vol. 1, No. 1, September 2000, p.

9.

25. Cited in Steger, Manfred, Globalisation, Rowman and Littlefield Publisher, Inc. Lanham,

USA, 2002, p. 51.

26. Ibid, p. 6.

27. Roberson, “Mary, From Rhetoric to Reality: Making Human Rights Work”, Paper delivered

at the Centre for Human Rights, LSE, 23 October, 2002 (end of p. 36).

28. Huntington, Samuel, “The Clash of Civilisation,” Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993, electronic

download, http://sixtessurvivor.org/docs/huntington 1993

29. Chaddock, Gail Russel, “Security act to pervade daily lives”, The Christian Science Monitor,

November 21, 2002.

30. Goodenough, Patrick, “Voting by UN Rights Commission Reveals Divisions”, CNS

News.com, April 15, 2005.

31. Ibid.

(End of p. 37).

This paper published in The Constitution, Vol 11, No. 1, March 2011, pp. 24-37, was first delivered as

an invited lecture at the Occasion of the 60th Anniversary of the Founding of the United Nations

organised by the United Nations Information Centre, Lagos, Nigeria, October 24, 2005.