Vol. 13 No. 4 (April 2003)

 

MORAL IMPERIALISM: A CRITICAL ANTHOLOGY, edited by Berta Esperanza Hernandez-Truyol.  New York and London: New York University Press, 2002.  400pp. $23.00 Paperback.  ISBN 0-8147-3614-9.

 

Reviewed by Susan C. Breau, School of Law, Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Email: s.breau@qub.ac.uk.

 

Michael Ignatieff described the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as part of "a wider re-ordering of the normative order of post-war international relations, designed to create fire walls against barbarism." He identified the development of international protection of human rights as a "juridical revolution." This collection of twenty articles is an important addition to the literature describing this on-going revolution. Throughout the collection, there is a recurring theme of the challenge to human rights in the face of globalization. The articles are divided into the artificial categories of civil and political rights, social, cultural and economic rights, and collective and group rights. The collection also examines human rights regimes through the lens of critical legal theory as well as the impact of gender issues on human rights. The diversity of material is quite exciting and provides the student of human rights a wider scope of material than is normally available on this topic. 

 

In the introduction to this book, the argument of U.S. moral domination during a time of clear domestic moral shortcomings is placed within the context of the international human rights solutions to domestic legal, political and cultural crises. As Hernandez-Truyol states in the introduction: “while the United States protests human rights violations vocally, it now conveniently turns a blind eye to some egregious infringements and commits some abuses itself—such as the visa denials and the military commissions—in the name of national security.” Many of the articles discuss the United States record on several human rights issues such as racial and gender equality and children’s and worker’s rights. However, one omission is a specific article on the situation of the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and the serious human rights violations that are taking place—in terms of both individual liberty and the right to a fair trial. As the introduction rightly points out, Camp X-Ray, imprisoning 150 citizens from more than twenty states violates not only international human rights provisions but also the laws of the Geneva Conventions, relating to prisoners of war. The introduction to this collection also discusses the United States objection to the International Criminal Court, but this also could have been developed as an article in this collection. Finally, there could have been a section on military interventionism on behalf of the victims of human rights abuse.

 

The important new dimension in this collection is the discussion of the impact of globalization on human rights. Human rights students are clamouring for this material. In this respect the academic community specializing in human rights has lagged behind political developments. Saskia Sassen's article, “Economic Globalization and the Redrawing of Citizenship,” introduces a theoretical framework for the globalization movement. She discusses economic citizenship where global firms and markets gain rights that allow them to make governments accountable to the operational logic of the global capital markets. To Sassen, this accountability is a “deeply troubling turn.” She juxtaposes these rights with the traditional economic rights to work, thereby enhancing the chances for economic survival. Another startling but probably correct contention is that international law will predominantly become international private, economic law. This will be troubling to most public international lawyers who have very little grounding in international economic law.

 

Another interesting article on this topic is by Claire Moore Dickerson who examines multinational enterprises (MNEs) as powerful participants in the international commercial dialogue. She argues that the dialogue shows indifference to violations of individual human rights. She calls this phenomenon “moral imperialism flowing from the powerful organisations’ worldwide imposition of their own Northern conceptual framework.” She adopts a theoretical model for the MNEs as a law and economics approach which only addresses first-generation rights clearly, second-generation rights in a clumsy fashion, and fails to emphasise third-generation rights at all. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is targeted for specific criticism because the organization fails to consider the impact of its policies on the people of developing countries. Her solution is that there must be true dialogue with the MNEs in the same fashion as the International Labour Organization listens to the impact of their policies on the workers and citizens in developing countries. This solution seems too optimistic given the entrenched and powerful nature of organisations such as the WTO and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

 

In his article, “Rerouting the Race to the Bottom,” Tim Conor provides a practical and realistic solution to some of the labor difficulties in MNEs – the introduction of labor practice codes. His discussion of the initial resistance of a corporation such as Nike to this possibility is an illustration of the effectiveness of such organisations as the Workers Rights Consortium. An important dimension of globalization is the exploitation of the work force in developing countries, and Conor highlights an important contribution civil society is making to solving this problem. The editor of the collection, Berta Esperanza Hernandez-Truyol, in her concluding article, “Human Rights, Globalization, and Culture,” discusses how globalization is blurring the public/private distinction and how the tools of human rights can effectively curb the negative consequences of globalization. She states that a “human rights lens on globalization moves personhood from the edges to the centre of a globalization project.” This solution of personhood seems unduly optimistic and is not developed in any depth in this article. However, the concept does enhance the debate with respect to globalization and its relationship to human rights.  

 

There are too many other articles for individual comment, but there are a few that make good contributions to the literature in the field. Niemi-Kiesilainen’s article on “Children and the Right to a Fair Trial” introduces a comparative dimension in children’s rights.  The author looks at the American DESHANEY decision and a grandmother’s case in Finland to contrast positive obligations under the two different regimes to the protection of human rights. This article is too brief in its analysis but does provide a stark contrast between the European social welfare state and American liberalism in the protection of children’s rights. Kiesilainen argues that American liberalism does not provide enough protection, whereas the social welfare state might be too protectionist to the detriment of the parent/child relationship. The article also introduces the international regime of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child and views the convention in a critical light.

 

In the second section, on Social, Cultural and Economic rights, there are two important articles that enhance the field of gender studies. “Both Work and Violence,” an article on prostitution and human rights by Hernandez-Truyol and Jane Larson, is one of the best developed articles in the collection, arguing both for the abolition of prostitution and for protection of the women who work in the field on the basis of rights of workers. With the ever increasing human traffic for prostitution, this article could not be more timely and important, and it would be an important addition to any syllabus on the human rights of women. Holly Maguigan's article on the U.S. Policy on "Female Genital Mutilation" could also be added to any reading list on women’s rights. This article is an important discussion on the efficacy of domestic responses to this signifcant violation of the rights of girls and women. There is a dearth of material on this critical subject. Both of these articles add to the growing literature on critical legal theory and feminism.

 

In the third section on group and minority rights, a fascinating article entitled “Membership Denied” describes the second-class status of the residents of Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Palau, American Samoa and the Marshall Islands. These citizens are not full members of the U.S. body politic and Roman describes their group’s status as “forgotten, underrepresented, and disenfranchised.” This article enhances the literature on self-determination. These peoples have never been granted independence or sovereign status and yet are part of the United States territorial domain. As a compliment to Roman’s piece, Yamamoto, Shirota, and Kim’s article on “Indigenous Peoples’ Human Rights in U.S. Courts” examines the treatment of native Hawaiians and their demands for self-governance and for restoration of ceded lands. The United States is naturally not unique in its poor treatment of indigenous peoples.

 

Many of the articles seem to be truncated due to the space limitations. It might have been wiser to reduce the number of contributors to allow for a more comprehensive exposition of their topics. Notwithstanding this comment, the diversity of contributions certainly illustrates to the student of human rights the wide variety of activities that are included in a study of this topic. Too much of the literature in human rights has been limited to a consideration of the detail of specific civil and political rights. This book breaks this pattern by introducing political, economic, social, and theoretical issues in a single volume. MORAL IMPERIALISM is an interesting and informative collection and should become part of any syllabus on the international protection of human rights.

 

REFERENCES:

Chandler, David (ed.).  2002. RETHINKING HUMAN RIGHTS. London: Palgrave MacMillan.

 

Freeman, Michael.  2002. HUMAN RIGHTS. Oxford: Polity.

 

Ignatieff, Michael.  2001. HUMAN RIGHTS AS POLITICS AND IDOLATRY. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

 

James, Susan and Palmer, Stephanie (eds.). 2002. VISIBLE WOMEN. Oxford: Hart Publishing.

 

CASE REFERENCES:

DESHANEY v. WINNEBAGO COUNTY, 489 US 189 (1989).

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Copyright 2003 by the author, Susan C. Breau.