Beitz defines human rights as a global discursive and political practice that 'consists of a set of norms for the regulation of the behavior of states' (8). He claims that 'The central idea of international human rights is that states are responsible for satisfying certain conditions in their treatment of their own people' (13). Beitz's practical conception of human rights puts the responsibility on states to satisfy certain basic condition for its people, and to 'protect against threats to personal security and liberty and to guarantee some recourse against the arbitrary use of state power' (29). However, he also claims that human rights are universal, 'Everyone has human rights,' (1).
I see a contradiction here, because Beitz's theory addresses states, however human rights are individual rights and should therefore address individuals. The theory claims that holding states responsible for upholding human rights will lead to universal human rights, however there are many stateless people. For example more than one million people in Myanmar's Rakhine district are stateless, it is estimated that over 700,000 Ivorians are also stateless and the occupants of Guantanamo Bay are stateless (to name a few). Under Beitz's practical conception of human rights, these people have no protection of their rights because their is no state to be held accountable for the fact that their rights are not being realized. If human rights are universal, surely they should extend to these stateless people, and I think this is an issue for Beitz.
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ReplyDeleteHi Kaamil,
ReplyDeleteYour post raises a really interesting point! I think that we may be able to draw a response through looking at Beitz' explanation of implementation strategies. Betiz' third category is assistance, which he explains should be used for "some societies [that] may be deficient in the capacities required to comply with human rights" (36). I think that a couple things are significant about this quote: 1) Beitz says "societies" instead of "states" implying that this implementation strategy may apply to your stateless examples and 2) human rights are presupposed even though the society knows it cannot meet the standards for human rights. I believe this suggests that groups of people could be represented in human rights documents even if they lack an official state.
Beitz continues to says that "it should be stressed that [assistance] also applies to the development of institutional capacity....for example, the courts and judiciary may be insufficiently developed, law enforcement may be unreliable, and capacities for public administration may be lacking" (36). Here it seems very possible that outside agents could assist a society that is technically stateless with establishing state institutions so long as that society had a shared desire for human rights. This action would also be consistent with Beitz' classification of human rights as "aspirational" (44).
On the other hand, to support your point, Beitz notes that "some human rights are only comprehensive against a background assumption that certain types of institutions either do or can be brought to exist- for example the rule of law, elections for public office, a public capacity for taxation and welfare provision, at least a rudimentary administrative state" (30). I think that Beitz still leaves room here for stateless people to have rights through the assistance method, but it would seem that there is a limit to the kinds of societies that could be assisted since these background institutions need to be foreseeable plausible.
Hey Kaamil! I also found it a huge problem that Beitz's theory addresses states rather than individuals. Nagel points out the same issue in Rawls' theory, and I think Beitz will run into many of the same moral issues.
ReplyDeleteWhile you astutely point out the problem of stateless people, I think another large problem will arise because the interests of the state often include interests that individuals do not. Beitz writes about this tension when discussing the origins of human rights, "the tension that has sometimes been noted in humans rights practice between the aim of protecting basic individual interests and protecting international peace and stability" (20)The direction of human rights practice is inevitably guided by the most powerful countries in the world, who's political and economic interests may benefit the elite of their country, but not the population as a whole.