Twilight of Human Rights Law Eric Posner
World Affairs Council. Northern California. November 6, Thursday.Eric Posner Kirkland and Ellis Distinguished Service Professor of Law, University of Chicago
"Over the years, countries have ratified countless international treaties meant to promote and protect human rights. Yet human rights violations continue with alarming regularity around the world, from human trafficking in SE Asia to violence against protestors in So Africa and Brazil to child labor in Bolivia and the US(!) . Legal scholar and law professor, Eric Posner, University of Chicago, arguess that the world's failure to address human rights violations arises from two main problems: vaguely defined human rights and the difficulty of enforcement. He suggest seeking concrete measures of success, like poverty reduction, in order to truly address the issue. Posner discusses recent human rights related controversies and the major developments in international human rights law."
Listening to him, Posner cites China as being pragmatic and the USA needing to be moreso. Not good news, after having served with human rights lawyers in Kosovo and the Republic of Georgia.
An essay, "Against Human Rights" under READINGS, by Posner appears in Harpers magazine October 2014. pp 13-16. The last paragraph reads:
"With hindsight, we can see that the human rights treaties were not so much an act of idealism as an act of hubris, with more than a passing resemblance to the civilizing efforts undertaken by governments and missionary groups in the nineteenth century, which did little good for native populations while entangling European power in the affairs of countries they did not understand. A more humble approach is long overdue."
My own experience in Georgia and Kosovo, with very young attorneys who were those defending political prisoners or those imprisoned because of their beliefs, was that they understood their society, and perhaps being young were courageous and idealistic enough to stand up to it... and they succeeded in each case, hardly ever winning a case. So I am not sure that I agree with Posner, in a total sense...those who are young are the hope of the future in these countries...they have not yet been corrupted by the systems in place. I felt it a great privilege to work with them to employ the language they had learned in Austria, in Australia, in America, to defend those wrongly accused.
"Over the years, countries have ratified countless international treaties meant to promote and protect human rights. Yet human rights violations continue with alarming regularity around the world, from human trafficking in SE Asia to violence against protestors in So Africa and Brazil to child labor in Bolivia and the US(!) . Legal scholar and law professor, Eric Posner, University of Chicago, arguess that the world's failure to address human rights violations arises from two main problems: vaguely defined human rights and the difficulty of enforcement. He suggest seeking concrete measures of success, like poverty reduction, in order to truly address the issue. Posner discusses recent human rights related controversies and the major developments in international human rights law."
Listening to him, Posner cites China as being pragmatic and the USA needing to be moreso. Not good news, after having served with human rights lawyers in Kosovo and the Republic of Georgia.
An essay, "Against Human Rights" under READINGS, by Posner appears in Harpers magazine October 2014. pp 13-16. The last paragraph reads:
"With hindsight, we can see that the human rights treaties were not so much an act of idealism as an act of hubris, with more than a passing resemblance to the civilizing efforts undertaken by governments and missionary groups in the nineteenth century, which did little good for native populations while entangling European power in the affairs of countries they did not understand. A more humble approach is long overdue."
My own experience in Georgia and Kosovo, with very young attorneys who were those defending political prisoners or those imprisoned because of their beliefs, was that they understood their society, and perhaps being young were courageous and idealistic enough to stand up to it... and they succeeded in each case, hardly ever winning a case. So I am not sure that I agree with Posner, in a total sense...those who are young are the hope of the future in these countries...they have not yet been corrupted by the systems in place. I felt it a great privilege to work with them to employ the language they had learned in Austria, in Australia, in America, to defend those wrongly accused.
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