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15 - Connecting Human Rights, Human Development, and Human Security

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2009

Mary Robinson
Affiliation:
Professor of Constitutional Law, Trinity College, Dublin
Richard Ashby Wilson
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
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Summary

The subject matter of this edited volume on “Human Rights in the ‘War on Terror’” could not be more significant for the human rights community. Sufficient time has passed since the terrible attacks of September 11, 2001, for us to answer in more depth Michael Ignatieff's question as to “whether the era of human rights has come and gone?”

I first answered that question in June 2002, as U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, when I delivered the Fifth Commonwealth Lecture in London, as follows:

Not gone, is my response, but we are challenged in new ways to respond to profound concerns over human security in our world today. My own sense is that there is an enormous responsibility to uphold rigorously international human rights standards, recognizing that they, too, are the object of terrorist attacks. At the same time, I believe there must be more commitment to the implementation of those standards in practice through strong support for human rights capacity building at national level.

As Arthur Chaskalson, Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, puts it, “We have to be vigilant from the very beginning; if you concede the first step, every next step will lead to the further erosion of the rule of law and disregard of human dignity.”

The failure of the U.S. Congress and the media, among others, to be vigilant in the aftermath of 9/11 led to a rapid erosion of civil liberties and the misuse of immigration laws, as was well documented in the report Assessing the New Normal (2003) by Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (now Human Rights First).

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2005

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References

Commission on Human Security (CHS). (2003). Human Security Now. New York. Available at: http://www.humansecurity-chs.org/finalreport/index.html
International Commission of Jurists (ICJ). (2004, August 28). The Berlin Declaration: The ICJ Declaration on Upholding Human Rights and the Rule of Law in Combating Terrorism. Available at: http://icj.org/IMG/pdf/Berlin_Declaration.pdf
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS). (2001, December). The Responsibility to Protect. Ottawa, ON, Canada: International Development Research Centre. Available at: http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/iciss-ciise/pdf/Commission-Report.pdf
Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (LCHR). (2003). Assessing the New Normal: Liberty and Security for the Post-September 11 United States. New York. Available at: http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/pubs/descriptions/Assessing/Assessingth eNewNormal.pdf
Rehn, E., & Sirleaf, E. J. (2002). Women, War, Peace: The Independent Experts' Assessments on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Women and Women's Role in Peace-Building (Vol. 1). New York: United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). Available at: http://www.unifem.org/index.php?f_page_pid=149Google Scholar
Sen, A. K. (1999). Development as Freedom. New York: KnopfGoogle Scholar
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). (2004). Human Development Report 2004: Cultural Liberty in Today's Diverse World. New York: Hoechstetter Printing Co. Available at: http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2004/pdf/hdr04_complete.pdf
Vidal, Gore. (2002). Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Be So Hated. New York: Thunder's Mouth PressGoogle Scholar

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