Charles Fourier
- He is known as the Father of Utopian Socialism
- He is highly problematic because he was highly anti-Semitic. He is complex because he was an advocate for women’s rights
- He identified poverty, not inequality as the major problem of the world.
People should work at what interests them, and a more difficult and undesirable world should be paid more. - He believed there should be a minimum wage and it should be enough for people to live comfortably. Idea of basic minimum due everyone. Society should guarantee minimum level of comfort
- All jobs should be open to both women and men.
- Society should be organized into “phalanxes.” Communal living
- He was critical of his own position, he thought commerce was a useless profession. He was a traveling salesman.
- Work should be meaningful
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
- “Father of Anarchism”
- Labor activist
- Contemporary of Marx, friend who became enemy. He influenced Marx and then Marx became critical of Proudhon for being too timid.
- Fueled split between anarchist and Marxist wings of International Working Men’s Association
- He was a printer and so he got to know a lot of authors from all the text that he was printing out and he eventually came up with his own ideas
- “Property is robbery!” Owning land and passing it down from generation to generation is problematic because what this means is that some people are born without land and that is problematic because not all start on the same level. Generational inheritance is immoral
- Gaps between rich and poor should be minimized (though not entirely eliminated)
- Suspicion of centralized power and the state
- Social revolution can be achieved through peaceful means
August Bebel
- Founder of the German Social Democratic Party
- Babel brings in issues of gender and race equality.
- Better known as orator and organizer than writer
- More pragmatic program than Marxist e.g. promoting equality for women.
- The exploitation of women is rooted in economics. If you want to fight gender inequality you have to fight it on economic terms. He makes similar arguments about race
- Gender and race are used to divide the working class.
- Economic justice can be achieved through democratic electoral means.
- Denounced war – including Franco-Prussian War, war to crush Boxer Rebellion in China, and genocide of Herero and Nama in Namibia – as capitalist tool and distraction.
International Labor Organization
- Protects second-generation labor rights.
- Treaty of Versailles creates International Labor Organization (ILO) as part of the League of Nations
- Why is it important to have international legal recognition and protections of labor laws: Because if one country has labor laws and another doesn’t then a company will just move to the country that doesn’t have labor laws.
- It was the 1st international human rights regime.
Economic and Social Council
ICESC Enforcement mechanism: Reporting to Economic and Social Council(Articles 16-22)
It deals with economic, social, cultural, and health matters as well as human rights and fundamental freedoms. It also coordinates the work of the UN and the specialized agencies.
Progressive Realization
Article 2: “Each State Party to the present Covenant undertakes to take steps, individually and through international assistance and cooperation, especially economic and technical, to the maximum of its available resources, with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of the rights recognized in the present Covenant by all appropriate means, including particularly the adoption of legislative measures.”
The concept of “progressive realization” describes a central aspect of States’ obligations in connection with economic, social, and cultural rights under the international human rights treaties.
Progressive realization recognizes that achieving ESC rights requires governments to spend, and that not all governments are able to mobilize the requisite resources to immediately comply.
Interdependent Rights
Rights depend on one another for their enjoyment. For example, making progress in civil and political rights makes it easier to exercise economic, social, and cultural rights. you need 1st gen. rights to advocate for 2nd gen. rights.
Interrelated Rights
Rights that share similar legal backgrounds.
Indivisibility of rights
Dividing the rights undermines their power
Structural Violence
- Uvin’s 1st book was about the implication of development groups in the Rwandan genocide. Aid groups supported “structural violence.”
- A form of violence wherein social structures or social institutions harm people by preventing them from meeting their basic needs.
- Slavery is an example of structural violence, since an economic and legal institution (of owning other people) diminished the ability of enslaved people to fulfill their potential
Rhetorical Incorporation
Uvin says that good development or humanitarian work requires legal and social guarantees.
Political Conditionality
Political Conditionality – Idea that “donors should threaten to cut off development assistance to recipients that consistently violate human rights” (56).
Advantages: Stops providing support for abusive regimes. Creates pressure for change
Disadvantages: Punitive. May hurt those most vulnerable. Seems neo-colonial
Positive Support
Positive Support – “Rather than trying to force countries to respect human rights, the aim here is to create the conditions for the achievement of specific human rights outcomes” (83).
Advantages: More positive and cooperative than punitive. Creates incentives for improvement
Disadvantages: Works best where regimes are committed to improvement, so leaves out the worst human rights offenders. Still involves outsiders determining standards
A rights-based approach to development
Rights-Based Approach – “Development and rights become different but inseparable aspects of the same process, as if different strands of the same fabric” (122). “Human rights, when deeply integrated with the practice of development, can be a very powerful addition and correction” (128).
Advantages: This would transform development practice and strengthen first- and second-generation rights. Empowers people, and respects local knowledge.
Disadvantages: Harder to implement, demands more extensive changes. Forces agencies and foreign governments to cede power and control to those being served.
Feronia
- A palm oil company in DR Congo. This company has 3 plantations in Congo, employing over 10,000 workers.
- The CDC Group(Bank) from the UK is a shareholder of Feronia.
- Through a lack of proper oversight by
the European banks that finance the company, this company and its subsidiary PHC have committed abuses and environmental harm that infringed upon health and labor rights. - The company dumps untreated waste into the river and near the homes of workers which does not comply with Congolese laws or the International Human Rights standards
ESAP
- An Environmental, Social, and Action Plan (ESAP) was prepared based on the social and environmental assessments. The ESAP’s objective is “to ensure that over time Feronia reaches compliance with international standards and law,” specifically Congolese law.
- Human Rights Watch considers that an ESAP should be prepared on the basis of environmental, social, and human rights due diligence so that the banks may
fulfill their duty to protect rights. To effectively prevent
abuses, an ESAP should set minimal social and environmental standards for the company’s operations with a clear timeframe for these standards to be met.
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People
It establishes a universal framework of minimum standards for the survival, dignity and well-being of the indigenous peoples of the world and it elaborates on existing human rights standards and fundamental freedoms as they apply to the specific situation of indigenous peoples.
It provides advice through studies and research
Article 1: Indigenous peoples have the right to the full enjoyment, as a collective or as individuals, of all human rights and fundamental freedoms as recognized in the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and international human rights law.
Group Rights in the African Charter
Primarily individual first and second-generation rights but also Includes claims for groups defined more broadly
Article 19 - All peoples shall be equal; they shall enjoy the same respect and shall have the same rights. Nothing shall justify the domination of a people by another.
Article 20 - 1. All peoples shall have the right to existence. They shall have the unquestionable and inalienable right to self-determination. They shall freely determine their political status and shall pursue their economic and social development according to the policy they have freely chosen.
UNWGIP
to review developments pertaining to the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples
International connections (e.g., UNWGIP, IWGIA) have been important in the rise of indigenous rights claims in Africa.
Tanzanian claimant groups were the first from the African continent to send representatives to Geneva to attend a session of the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations (UNWGIP).
IWGIA
International connections (e.g., UNWGIP, IWGIA) have been important in the rise of indigenous rights claims in Africa
The International Working Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) – arguably the oldest and most active international non-indigenous organization advocating for indigenous rights – has been very instrumental in facilitating, to use its own words, “indigenous self-organization” on the African content.
First Wave Feminism
- Voting Rights for white women.
- Seneca Falls Conference in 1848
- US 19th Amendment 1920
- UK Right to vote 1928
CEDAW
- What generation rights is CEDAW?
First Generation: Article 1 - For the purposes of the present Convention, the term “discrimination against women” shall mean any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field. - What generation rights is CEDAW?
Second Generation: Section III – Articles 10-14 – Fight discrimination in education, healthcare, employment - The Convention also devotes major attention to a most vital concern of women, namely their reproductive rights.
- Enforcement: Primary enforcement is self-enforcement. Creates Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women
Beijing Platform
-The resolution adopted to promote a set of principles concerning the equality of men and women.
Twelve Critical Areas of Concern:
1. The persistent and increasing burden of poverty on women.
2. Unequal access to and inadequate educational opportunities.
3. Inequalities in health status, and unequal access to and inadequate health-care services.
4. Violence against women.
5. Effects of armed or other kinds of conflict on women
6. Inequality in women’s access to and participation in the definition of economic structures and policies and the production process itself.
7. Inequality between men and women in the sharing of power and decision-making at all levels.
8. Insufficient mechanisms at all levels to promote the advancement of women.
9. Lack of awareness of and commitment to internationally and nationally recognized women’s human rights.
10. Insufficient mobilization of mass media to promote women’s positive contribution to society.
11. Lack of adequate recognition and support for women’s contribution to managing natural resources and safeguarding the environment.
12. The girl-child.
Sexuality and women’s rights in Africa
- Same sex attraction has been understood and constructed in diverse ways.
- Many societies tolerated same sex relationships, while many others condemned.
- “Gay” and “lesbian” are modern terms used to describe a particular understanding and construction of same sex sexuality.
- Globalization has led to the spread of gay and lesbian identification.
Recent developments:
- Ambani characterizes the situation as “escalating marginalization,” but there are also some positive developments.
- 1995 – GLAZ participation in Zimbabwe Book Fair becomes target for anti-gay rhetoric
- 1996 – South African constitution includes gay and lesbian rights
- 2001 – Namibian president targets gays
- 2006 – South Africa legalizes gay marriage
- 2009 – Anti-gay crackdown in Senegal
- 2012 – Anti-LGB laws suspended in Malawi
- 2014 – Nigeria adopts strengthened anti-gay law
- 2014 – Uganda adopts anti-gay law, but struck down by high court
- 2015 – Mozambique de-criminalizes homosexuality
- 2019 – Botswana court ends criminalization of homosexuality
South African Case:
1966 – Immorality Act bans homosexuality as part of apartheid era divide-and-rule policies
1994 – constitution is first in world to guarantee gay rights
1996 – final constitution continues protections
1998 – courts eliminate all remnant laws against gay conduct
2001 – court cases expand benefits for gay couples
2006 – under order from Constitutional Court, parliament legalizes gay marriage
Despite all of these legal advances, public prejudice remains strong against both gays and lesbians
Ugandan Case:
Beginning 1998, worldwide Anglican communion fights over homosexuality include African countries
Under the Ugandan penal code, a wife is guilty of criminal adultery if she engages in sexual intercourse with any other man except her husband. A husband, on the other hand, will only be guilty of the same offense if he has sex with a married woman.
The woman’s consent becomes irrelevant in marital relationships. Thus rape is “legal” between husbands and wives. In other words, marital rape is an exception in many African legal systems, including Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
Women (and men) who resist heterosexuality and subvert dominant culture are subjected to strict punitive laws and discriminatory social discourses.
The significance of sexuality is basically lost on women’s rights groups in Uganda because “gender activism” has largely been ripped of its political element. Time and again, Ugandan NGOs have openly declared that they are “nonpolitical.”
2023 – Anti-gay bill adopted
