Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-f46jp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-12T22:01:36.417Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - ‘Framing the project’ of international human rights law: reflections on the dysfunctional ‘family’ of the Universal Declaration

from Part I - All kinds of everyone

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2012

By
Anna Grear
Edited by
Conor Gearty  and
Costas Douzinas
Conor Gearty
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
Costas Douzinas
Affiliation:
Birkbeck College, University of London
Get access

Summary

‘Frames are principles of selection, emphasis and presentation composed of little tacit theories about what exists, what happens, and what matters.’

‘To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text.’

The task of ‘framing the project’ of international human rights law is daunting to say the least. First, there is the sheer enormity and complexity of the international human rights law ‘project’: adequately mapping the subject and its key related issues is impossible in a whole book, let alone a short chapter. Secondly, it is daunting because of the sense of epistemic responsibility involved. Every framing inevitably involves selection – if not pre-selection – through the conscious (and/or unconscious) placing of focus upon features or factors considered to be significant and/or valuable. As Gitlin puts it, framing is a way of choosing, underlining and presenting ‘what exists, what happens and what matters’. In this sense, the founding document (or as Entman might put it, the inaugural ‘communicating text’) of international human rights law (the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UDHR) functions as a particularly potent form of framing, for it selects aspects of perceived reality, making them not just salient but symbolically central to the entire philosophical, moral, juridical order designated by the term ‘international human rights law’.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Human Rights Law , pp. 17 - 35
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baxi, U., The Future of Human Rights (Oxford University Press 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baxi, U.Human Rights in a Post-Human World: Critical Essays (Oxford University Press 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beveridge, F. and Mullally, S., International Human Rights and Body Politics’, in Bridgeman, J. and Millns, S. (eds.), Law and Body Politics: Regulating the Female Body (Aldershot: Dartmouth 1995) 240–72Google Scholar
Donnelly, J., Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press 2003)Google Scholar
Douzinas, C., The End of Human Rights (Oxford: Hart 2000)Google Scholar
Douzinas, C.Human Rights and Empire: The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism (Abingdon: Routledge–Cavendish 2007)Google Scholar
Evans, T., Human Rights Fifty Years On (Manchester University Press 1998)Google Scholar
Gearty, C., Can Human Rights Survive? (Cambridge University Press 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grear, A., Redirecting Human Rights: Facing the Challenge of Corporate Legal Humanity (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harding, C., Kohl, U. and Salmon, N., Human Rights in the Market Place: The Exploitation of Rights Protection by Economic Actors (Aldershot: Ashgate 2008)Google Scholar
Holmes, H. B., ‘A Feminist Analysis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights’, in Gould, C. C. (ed.), Beyond Domination: New Perspectives on Women and Philosophy (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allanheld 1984) 250–64Google Scholar
Hunt, L., The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief Documentary History (New York: Bedford/St Martin’s Press 1996Google Scholar
Hunt, L.Inventing Human Rights: A History (New York: W. W. Norton 2007)Google Scholar
Ishay, M., The History of Human Rights: From Ancient Times to the Globalization Era, 2nd edn (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press 2008)Google Scholar
Morsink, J., ‘Women’s Rights in the Universal Declaration’ (1991) 13 Human Rights Quarterly229–56 ‘World War Two and the Declaration’ (1993) 15 Human Rights Quarterly 357–405CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Otto, D., ‘Violence against Women: Something Other Than a Human Rights Violation?’ (1993) 1 Australian Feminist Law Journal159–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Otto, D., ‘Disconcerting “Masculinities”: Reinventing the Gendered Subject(s) of International Human Rights Law’, in Buss, D. and Manji, A. (eds.), International Law: Modern Feminist Approaches (Oxford: Hart 2005) 105–29Google Scholar
Steiner, H. J., Alston, P. and Goodman, R., International Human Rights in Context: Law, Politics, Morals (Oxford University Press 2007)Google Scholar
Turner, B., Vulnerability and Human Rights (Pennsylvania State University Press 2006).Google Scholar
Gitlin, T., The Whole World Is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left (Berkeley, CA and London: University of California Press 1980) 6Google Scholar
Entman, R. M., ‘Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm’ (1993) 43 (4) Journal of Communication51–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joseph, and McBeth, point out in their editorial introduction to the Research Handbook on International Human Rights Law (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Sousa Santos, B., Towards a New Legal Common Sense: Law, Globalization and Emancipation (London: Butterworths 2000) 260Google Scholar
Buergenthal, T., ‘The Normative and Institutional Evolution of International Human Rights’ (1997) 19 (4) Human Rights Quarterly703–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robertson, G., Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice (London: The New Press 2006) 35Google Scholar
Donnelly, J., Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003) 22Google Scholar
Turner, B., ‘Human Vulnerabilities: On Individual and Social Rights’, (date of last access 13 July 2011)
Baxi, U., The Future of Human Rights (Oxford University Press 2006) 46Google Scholar
League of Arab States, Arab Charter on Human Rights, 22 May 2004, reprinted in (2005) 12 International Human Rights Reports 893 (entered into force 15 March 2008)
Amin Al-Midani, M. and Cabanettes, M. (trans.) and Akram, S. M., ‘The Arab Charter on Human Rights 2004’ (2006) 24 (2) Boston University International Law Journal147–64.Google Scholar
Engle, K., ‘Culture and Human Rights: The Asian Values Debate in Context’ (2000) 32 (2) Journal of International Law and Politics291–333Google Scholar
Samuels, H., ‘Hong Kong on Women, Asian Values and the Law’ (1999) 21 (3) Human Rights Quarterly707–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langlois, A. J., The Politics of Justice and Human Rights: South East Asia and Universalist Theory (Cambridge University Press 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dalacoura, K., Islam, Liberalism and Human Rights, 3rd edn (London: I. B. Tauris 2007)Google Scholar
Ignatieff, M., ‘The Attack on Human Rights’ (2001) 80 Foreign Affairs102–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arslan, Z., ‘Taking Rights Less Seriously: Postmodernism and Human Rights’ (1999) 5 Res Publica195–215CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matua, M., ‘Savages, Victims and Saviours: The Metaphor of Human Rights’ (2001) 42 (1) Harvard International Law Journal201–46Google Scholar
Morsink, J., The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting and Intent (University of Pennsylvania Press 2002) 21Google Scholar
Cohen, J., ‘Minimalism About Human Rights: The Most We Can Hope For?’ (2004) 12 (2) The Journal of Political Philosophy190–213CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kung, H. and Moltmann, J., The Ethics of World Religions and Human Rights (London and Philadelphia, PA: SCM Press, 1990)Google Scholar
Donnelly, J., ‘Human Dignity and Human Rights’ (2009)
Donnelly, J., ‘Human Rights and Human Dignity: An Analytic Critique of Non-Western Conceptions of Human Rights’ (1982) 76 (2) The American Political Science Review303–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donnelly, J., ‘Cultural Relativism and Universal Human Rights’ (1984) 6 (4) Human Rights Quarterly400–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodhart, M., ‘Neither Relative Nor Universal: A Response to Donnelly’ (2008) 30 (1) Human Rights Quarterly183–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beetham, D., ‘What Future for Economic and Social Rights?’ (1995) 43 (1) Political Studies41–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gill, S., ‘Globalisation, Market Civilization and Disciplinary Neoliberalism’ (1995) 24 Millennium Journal of International Studies399–423;CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grear, A., Redirecting Human Rights: Facing the Challenge of Corporate Legal Humanity (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2010).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marx, K., ‘On the Jewish Question’, in Selected Essays by Karl Marx (Stenning, H. J., trans.) (London and New York: Leonard Parsons 1926)Google Scholar
(2010) 1 (2) The Journal of Human Rights and the Environment131–256CrossRef
Douzinas, C., Human Rights and Empire: The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism (Abingdon: Routledge–Cavendish 2007)Google Scholar
Ely-Yamin, A., ‘Empowering Visions: Towards a Dialectical Pedagogy of Human Rights’ (1993) 15 (4) Human Rights Quarterly640–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douzinas, C., The End of Human Rights (Oxford: Hart 2000) 253–61Google Scholar
Morsink, J., ‘World War Two and the Declaration’ (1993) 15 Human Rights Quarterly357–405CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hitler, A., Mein Kampf (Manheim, R., trans.) (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin 1971) 150Google Scholar
Otto, D., ‘Disconcerting “Masculinities”: Reinventing the Gendered Subject(s) of International Human Rights Law’, in Buss, D. and Manji, A. (eds.), International Law: Modern Feminist Approaches (Oxford: Hart 2005) 105–29Google Scholar
Morsink, J., ‘Women’s Rights in the Universal Declaration’ (1991) 13 Human Rights Quarterly229–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beveridge, F. and Mullally, S., ‘International Human Rights and Body Politics’, in Bridgeman, J. and Millns, S. (eds.), Law and Body Politics: Regulating the Female Body (Aldershot: Dartmouth 1995) 240–72Google Scholar
Marks, S. P., ‘From the “Single Confused Page” to the “Decalogue for Six Billion Persons”: The Roots of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the French Revolution’ (1998) 20 Human Rights Quarterly459–514CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunt, L., The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief Documentary History (New York: Bedford/St Martin’s Press 1996)Google Scholar
Nibert, D., Animal Rights, Human Rights: Entanglements of Oppression and Liberation (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield 2002) 4Google Scholar
Horwitz, M., ‘Comment: The Historical Contingency of the Role of History’ (1981) 90 Yale Law Journal1057–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stammers, N., ‘Social Movements and the Social Construction of Human Rights’ (1999) 21 Human Rights Quarterly980–1008CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arendt, H., The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt 1971) 299Google Scholar
Pearce, F. and Tombs, S., Toxic Capitalism: Corporate Crime and the Chemical Industry (Aldershot: Dartmouth 1998)Google Scholar
Westra, L., Ecoviolence and the Law (Ardsley, NY: Transnational Publishers 2004);Google Scholar
Westra, L., Environmental Justice and the Rights of Ecological Refugees (London: Earthscan 2009);Google Scholar
Westra, L. and Lawson, B. E. (eds.), Faces of Environmental Racism: Confronting Issues of Global Justice (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield 2001)
Rancière, J., ‘Who is the Subject of the Rights of Man?’ (2004) 103 South Atlantic Quarterly297–310 at 302CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×