Failing to Protect: The UN and the Politicisation of Human Rights
Author: Rosa Freedman
Publisher: Hurst Publisher
Print Length: 224 pages
Genre: Non-Fiction / International Relations, Political Science
Area: South Africa, Palestine / Israel
Topic: United Nations, Protection, Politics & Power, Human Rights, Fundamental Rights and Liberties, Global System, Local & Global, Governance, International Institutions, International Cooperation, International Humanitarian Law; Law, Jurisprudence, Legal Theory; Law Enforcement, Peace, Development, Security, Abuse, Colonialism & Post-Colonialism, Cultural Relativism, Migrants, Asylum & Asylum Seekers, Refugees & Forced Migration, Challenges & Opportunities
Explains why the respect in which the UN is held is not matched by admiration for its practical attempts to safeguard human rights.
Every year tens of millions of individuals suffer grave abuses of their human rights. These violations occur worldwide, in war-torn countries and in the wealthiest states. Despite many of the abuses being well-documented, little seems to be done to stop them from happening. The United Nations was established to safeguard world peace and security, development, and human rights yet it is undeniable that currently it is failing to protect the rights of a great many people – from the victims of ethnic cleansing, to migrants, those displaced by war and women who suffer horrendous abuse. This book looks at the reasons for that failure.
Using concrete examples intertwined with explanations of the law and politics of the UN, Rosa Freedman offers clear explanations of how and why the Organisation is unable, at best, or unwilling, at worst, to protect human rights. Written for a non-specialist audience, her book also seeks to explain why certain countries and political blocs manipulate and undermine the UN’s human rights machinery. Failing to Protect demonstrates the urgent need for radical reform of the machinery of human rights protection at the international level.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Author’s Note
Prologue
1. International Law: What Law?
2. The UN: A Brief Explanation
3. International Humanitarian Law, Criminal Law, Human
Rights Law
4. Universal Rights or Cultural Relativism?
5. UN Human Rights Machinery
6. Look! We Did Something: South Africa and Israel
7. Stop Shouting, Start Helping: Post-colonialism, Human
Rights and Development
8. Human Rights of Migrants: What Rights?
9. The ‘Great’ Powers
10. Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Hidden Abuses Across the
World
11. The ‘Good Guys’
12. It is Not All Doom and Gloom
13. Alternatives: A Radical Proposal
14. Alternatives: A Less Radical Alternative
15. Alternatives: Reform
Notes
Index
Rosa Freedman is Professor of Law Conflict and Global Development at the University of Reading. She researches on the United Nations, and has a number of interests within that area: human rights bodies, creation and implementation of international human rights law, human rights of vulnerable groups (with specific focus on women’s rights, SOGI rights, and freedom of religion/belief), accountability for human rights abuses committed by UN actors, preventing sexual exploitation and abuse in conflict and crisis zones, and the intersection between international law and international relations. Rosa has published extensively on the United Nations Human Rights Council and on the United Nations Special Procedures system, as well as on the Haiti Cholera Claims and on sexual exploitation and abuse committed by peacekeeping personnel and humanitarian actors. She fuses doctrinal and empirical research methods, and she deploys interdisciplinary lenses to inform and underpin her findings and analysis. Her work has been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, British Academy, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, and the Society of Legal Scholars.
Source: https://www.reading.ac.uk/law/our-staff/rosa-freedman
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