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National Human Rights Commissions and Asian Human Rights Norms
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 November 2012
Abstract
Ever since the beginning of the “Asian Values” debate in the early 1990s, there have been efforts on the part of many societal actors to establish distinctively Asian human rights norms that integrate local customary values and international human rights norms. This article presents the claim that National Human Rights Commissions in Asia are well placed to play an important role in this effort to develop localized human rights norms because of their close links with local civil actors, along with their independence from government control, pluralistic make-up, and ability to address complex rights issues in detail. The article also presents a study of how the National Human Rights Commission of Korea has used its powers to prioritize and promote a particularly Korean version of the human rights of the elderly.
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Footnotes
Member of the New York State Bar. Associate Professor, Graduate School of International and Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, Korea. I wish to thank the 2012 Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Research Fund for its support.
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133. The National Human Rights Commission Act prohibits discriminatory treatment on nineteen specified grounds, including age. Art. 2(4) of the National Human Rights Commission Act, Law No. 6481, 24 May 2001, as amended as Law No. 8435, 17 May 2007.
134. See National Human Rights Commission of Korea, 2009 Report of Guardian of the Rights of the Elderly (Seoul: NHRCK, 2010); National Human Rights Commission of Korea, 2010 Report of Guardian of the Rights of the Elderly (Seoul: NHRCK, 2011).
135. National Human Rights Commission of Korea, Human Rights Counseling Casebook 09-10 (Seoul: NHRCK, 2010) at 82.
136. Ibid.
137. Ibid.
138. Ibid.
139. OH Young-jin, “Young Judge Held in Contempt for Talking Rudely to Elderly Man” Korea Times (4 February 2010), online: 〈http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/04/117_60308.html〉.
140. Ibid.
141. National Human Rights Commission of Korea, supra note 135 at 83.
142. Constitution of the Republic of Korea, supra note 124 at art. 10.
143. National Human Rights Commission of Korea, 2009 Report of Guardian of the Rights of the Elderly, supra note 134 at 24 (quoting Kim Dong Ho).
144. Ibid., at 90 (quoting Chun Maeng Sul).
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