Presentation
The ninth issue of the Sur Journal is dedicated to the commemoration of the sixty years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The articles on this subject were chosen in collaboration with the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR). Two main issues were addressed in the selected articles: the indivisibility and the universality of human rights. These two issues were initially raised sixty years ago by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the pillars of international human rights law. In this ninth issue of the Journal, they are revisited under an especially critical light.
The issue of indivisibility is analyzed by both Eitan Felner and Fernanda Doz Costa. Felner adopts a pragmatic perspective: how can economic and social rights not only be recognized as human rights, but also be effectively implemented? The author proposes a methodological framework to assess whether or not a State has violated human rights obligations related to this set of rights. He also reveals some of the challenges in identifying violations of economic and social rights. Doz Costa approaches the issue from a conceptual perspective, discussing the possible connections between human rights and poverty.
Anthony Romero, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), in an interview with Conectas Human Rights, sheds light on how important the human rights movement is for the protection of individuals in the currently most powerful country in the world, a country that has "seen a remarkable loss of human rights"in the last eight years. In Romero's words: "[t]he existence of a global human rights movement is actually, for this very reason, vitally important. Even if one government of one country sets back human rights, there is a movement of leaders and human rights NGOs that can keep the pressure on and keep pushing for advances in human rights."
Katherine Short 's paper analyzes to which extent the Human Rights Council has been successful in overcoming the over-politicized approach adopted by the former UN Commission on Human Rights. Short highlights, however, that the Council's effectiveness has been partially "undermined by both its failure to implement mechanisms to prevent its own membership to include acknowledged human rights violators and its continuing inability to harness US support."
This issue of the Sur Journal also includes an analysis of the UN human rights system from an internal perspective: the perspective of Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, former UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar (2001-2008), former UN Independent Expert for the Study on Violence against Children (2003-2006), and former UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Burundi (1995-1999). Pinheiro is currently member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
This issue of the Sur Journal also includes three thought provoking articles by Barbora Bukovská, Jeremy Sarkin and Rebecca Saunders. Bukovská defends an idealistic view of human rights organizations, a view that is not content with mere normative achievements in the field. According to the author, as human rights should always result in concrete protection for victims of violations, Bukovská highlights the need to bridge the gap that frequently exists between international human rights organizations and the actual victims of violations.
Sarkin examines the historical development of African prisons from colonial to modern times, raising two issues: first, he understands that African prisons current conditions are in great part a legacy of colonialism; second, he argues that overcrowding and violence are a widespread problem in prisons all over the world.
Finally, Saunders criticizes the system of transitional justice established in South Africa after Apartheid. In her own words, her article addresses "what is gained and lost when expressions of human suffering are translated into a standardized language of human rights."The author also questions the priority given to national over individual forms of healing.
These three articles invite discussion. We therefore invite readers to respond either with another article or with a three-to-five-page essay. Articles and essays will be subjected to the Journal's selection process, and hopefully will encourage further discussion on these key issues.
We would like to thank the following professors and partners for their contribution to the selection of the articles for this issue: Andre Degenszajn, Andrea Pochak, Fabián Sanchez, Flavia Piovesan, Habib Nassar, Inês Lafer, Juan Amaya Castro, Kwame Karikari, Lucia Nader, Magdalena Sepúlveda, Mustapha Al-Sayyed, Olga Espinosa, and Richard Pierre Claude. We would also like to inform that Profesor Upendra Baxi (Warwick University) has accepted our invitation to join the Sur Journal Editorial Board .
Finally, we would like to announce that the next edition of the Sur Journal will be a special issue on "People on the Move: Migrants and Refugees", to be published in collaboration with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) . The journal will also carry articles on other human rights topics.
The editors.
Publication Dates
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Publication in this collection
17 Aug 2009 -
Date of issue
Dec 2008
