Besson-IVR 2011 by Geraldina 1
Besson1 Handout
Besson2 Notes
IVR Frankfurt 2011
International Human Rights and Equality
Prof. Dr. Samantha Besson, University of Fribourg / Switzerland
Date MON 15 Aug 2011
Time 9.30 h – 10.15 h
Location HZ 1/2
International Human Rights and Equality
Prof. Dr. Samantha Besson, University of Fribourg / Switzerland
Date MON 15 Aug 2011
Time 9.30 h – 10.15 h
Location HZ 1/2
Abstract:
Recently, a few authors have tried to link international human rights to equality and equal status in particular, and hence to fill a gap that was left open not only by human rights theorists but also by equality specialists. Neglect for that connection is attributable both to the lack of interest for international law and politics beyond domestic boundaries that has long plagued theories of egalitarianism, but also to the resilience of foundationalist and especially monist approaches to the justification of human rights. Even though the egalitarian dimension of international human rights has now been uncovered, more work is needed on what that normative ideal means in this context. My argument unravels in four steps. A first section presents what conception and kind of equality I have in mind. In the second section, I explain how human rights are related to equality and how human rights theory can explain that connection together with their universal justification. The third section explains what the implications are for international human rights and especially international human rights law.
In a fourth section, I draw some of the implications of the egalitarian dimension of human rights to explain the relationship between international anti-discrimination rights and equality, on the one hand, and between international human rights law and equality more generally, on the other. The tensions between ideal and non-ideal political theory, on the one hand, and between international and domestic equality, on the other, that often obscure the connections between those different themes will be unpacked and made the most of in the course of the argument.
About the author:
Samantha Besson is Professor of Public International Law and European Law at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) and Co-Director of the European Law Institute of the Universities of Bern, Fribourg and Neuchâtel (Switzerland). She holds a degree in Swiss and European Law (University of Fribourg and Vienna), a Magister Juris in European and Comparative Law (University of Oxford), a PhD in Law (University of Fribourg) and a Habilitation in Legal Theory and Swiss, Comparative, European and International Constitutional Law (University of Bern). Her publications and research interests lie in European and international law and legal and political philosophy, and in particular in human rights law and theory. Besides publications in French, she is the author of the monograph The Morality of Conflict: Reasonable Disagreement and Law (Hart Publishing: Oxford, 2005). She coedited the collections of essays Deliberative Democracy and its Discontents (Ashgate: Aldershot, 2006) with José Luis Martí, Legal Republicanism: National and International Perspectives (Oxford University Press: Oxford 2009) with José Luis Martí and The Philosophy of International Law (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2010) with John Tasioulas. In 2009, she started working on a monograph on the legal theory of human rights which she plans to complete while on research leave at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin during the academic year 2011-2012.
Recently, a few authors have tried to link international human rights to equality and equal status in particular, and hence to fill a gap that was left open not only by human rights theorists but also by equality specialists. Neglect for that connection is attributable both to the lack of interest for international law and politics beyond domestic boundaries that has long plagued theories of egalitarianism, but also to the resilience of foundationalist and especially monist approaches to the justification of human rights. Even though the egalitarian dimension of international human rights has now been uncovered, more work is needed on what that normative ideal means in this context. My argument unravels in four steps. A first section presents what conception and kind of equality I have in mind. In the second section, I explain how human rights are related to equality and how human rights theory can explain that connection together with their universal justification. The third section explains what the implications are for international human rights and especially international human rights law.
In a fourth section, I draw some of the implications of the egalitarian dimension of human rights to explain the relationship between international anti-discrimination rights and equality, on the one hand, and between international human rights law and equality more generally, on the other. The tensions between ideal and non-ideal political theory, on the one hand, and between international and domestic equality, on the other, that often obscure the connections between those different themes will be unpacked and made the most of in the course of the argument.
About the author:
Samantha Besson is Professor of Public International Law and European Law at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) and Co-Director of the European Law Institute of the Universities of Bern, Fribourg and Neuchâtel (Switzerland). She holds a degree in Swiss and European Law (University of Fribourg and Vienna), a Magister Juris in European and Comparative Law (University of Oxford), a PhD in Law (University of Fribourg) and a Habilitation in Legal Theory and Swiss, Comparative, European and International Constitutional Law (University of Bern). Her publications and research interests lie in European and international law and legal and political philosophy, and in particular in human rights law and theory. Besides publications in French, she is the author of the monograph The Morality of Conflict: Reasonable Disagreement and Law (Hart Publishing: Oxford, 2005). She coedited the collections of essays Deliberative Democracy and its Discontents (Ashgate: Aldershot, 2006) with José Luis Martí, Legal Republicanism: National and International Perspectives (Oxford University Press: Oxford 2009) with José Luis Martí and The Philosophy of International Law (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2010) with John Tasioulas. In 2009, she started working on a monograph on the legal theory of human rights which she plans to complete while on research leave at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin during the academic year 2011-2012.
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