International Human Rights Network of Academies and Scholarly Societies Proceedings - Symposium and Seventh Biennial Meeting, London, May 18-20, 2005 (2006) / Chapter Skim
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Philosophical and Legal Aspects of Human Rights
Philosophical and Legal Aspects of Human Rights
Pages 19-38
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From page 19... ...
We may be able to, because we would thereby justify rights claims.
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From page 20... ...
Natural rights is simple nonsense; natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense - nonsense upon stilts." John Stewart Mill argued that rights were a derivative notion. Positive rights were important precisely because they contributed to utility and human happiness.
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From page 21... ...
For example, in the Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, we read that 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 or proclaimed in the present covenant by all appropriate means, including particularly the adoption of legislative measures. One might again think Bertrand Russell's thought.
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From page 22... ...
The search for truth needs structures and discipline and is undermined by casual disregard of accuracy or evidence or process that permits casual disregard." The needs of truth-seeking actually weren't justified, unconditional press freedom. A more contemporary way of going at it is to say press freedom is just a special case of freedom of expression -- Article 19 of the Universal Declaration and Article 10 of the European Convention.
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From page 23... ...
These forms of epistemic responsibility allow our readers to judge for themselves, but they are not arguments for unconditional press freedom. These four, or, if you dismiss the argument from authority, three arguments for press freedom are arguments for quite differing and carefully configured rights, which we can see only when we think what the counterpart obligations are.
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From page 24... ...
Michiatsyu Kaino, Science Council of Japan Yesterday we talked about rights and human development. In order to implement human rights, it must be necessary to have some common understanding about the human rights issue, which is a very Westernized idea.
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From page 25... ...
Then there is a question of where it should be prosecuted, and there lies a second layer of difficulty, because in some of the states in which the prosecution could most readily happen, it won't happen, and that goes for both states in which there is plundering of public monies and for states in which there is laundering of public monies.
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From page 26... ...
Of course, it cannot be denied that individual and collective security represents a basic human interest, and indeed a human right, and that it is an imperative duty of states to protect their populations against possible terrorist acts. Indeed, freedom from fear is a basic human right, as it was proclaimed by President Roosevelt in his famous statement on the Four Freedoms.
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From page 27... ...
If the European Court of Human Rights, after a very long procedure, concludes that a certain provision of the convention has been violated by the state, that conclusion may be important for the interpretation of that particular provision of the convention, and thus may prevent similar violations for the future, but it will offer redress to the victim of the violation only to a very limited extent after such a long period, mainly in the form of moral satisfaction and financial indemnification. Effective protection of human rights can be achieved only at the national level, with a subsidiary and reparatory role at the international level.
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From page 28... ...
It is my strong belief that a general attitude of tolerance does not clear the way for terrorist acts but takes away their main causes. Therefore, balancing human rights is much more effective than derogating from or limiting human rights.
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From page 29... ...
As the European Court of Human Rights has emphasized repeatedly, freedom of expression constitutes one of the essential foundations of a sound and resilient democracy. That holds good not only for the expression of ideas that are favorably received by the majority, but also for those that offend, shock, or disturb, provided that they are not expressed, for the main reason, to hurt personal feelings or to instigate concrete attacks on physical or moral integrity or national or personal security.
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From page 30... ...
Finally, Guideline XVI stresses that, in their fight against terrorism, states may never act in breach of peremptory norms of international law, nor in breach of international humanitarian law, where applicable. Again, these guidelines do not offer any additional guarantees compared with what has been laid down in the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but give expression to the firm belief that the committed terrorist acts, and the threat of new ones, have created the need for special vigilance but have not created a situation that justifies ignorance of these internationally recognized standards.
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From page 31... ...
In our media, there has been an analysis of the main causes, which are not so very different from the main causes at the international level. The main cause in the Netherlands is the lack of full integration of foreigners who came to the Netherlands and who have established their lives there, in combination with a lack of tolerance as to their own values and their own cultures, so people feel frustrated.
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From page 32... ...
Pieter van Dijk, when he elaborated on this specific freedom, not only related it to state intervention but also to private activity, that is, the importance of private persons engaged in supporting the freedom of science. This might be related to the first lecture by going to a discourse of duty, that is, to talk about the duty for private persons, as academics, to support this freedom or to make it a reality.
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From page 33... ...
Our careers diverged. I returned to Hopkins for research in biochemistry, and Tom Butler went to Texas Tech University, where he became the director of the infectious diseases research operations and continued his research on infectious diseases affecting people in developing countries.
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From page 34... ...
He returned home only to be arrested, taken to the local jail where he was held without bail for six days, and brought before a federal magistrate. He was charged with lying to the FBI and 14 additional charges, including charges that he had been smuggling bioterror weapons, that he was in noncompliance with the guidelines for shipping organisms, and even tax evasion.
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From page 35... ...
An appeal to the District Court has been placed by Jonathan Turley, which he feels is very strong, because the grouping of the theft charges and the original bioterrorism charges is apparently unprecedented and very good grounds to overturn the conviction. At the same time, the federal prosecutors decided to counter appeal, seeking to add years to his sentence.
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From page 36... ...
Harald Reuter, Council of Swiss Scientific Academies Peter, are there any other cases that you are aware of on a similar scale in the United States? People aren't aware of the implications of what they are doing with their scientific material.
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From page 37... ...
Therefore, this society, the Network, and others should be really careful, if you adopt the language of duties and obligations in this political era because of the misuse of these terms. I see the point made by the Danish professor of law about civil society and trying to grab hold of this language of duty and obligations.
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From page 38... ...
If loss of a receipt for a car rental results in a federal felony charge for tax evasion, then goodness knows where this can end. The punishment should meet the seriousness of the crime, and, in Butler's case, it clearly does not.
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