Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-rwnhh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-22T08:32:19.227Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Claiming Rights across Borders: International Human Rights and Democratic Sovereignty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2009

SEYLA BENHABIB
SEYLA BENHABIB*
Affiliation:
Yale University
*
Seyla Benhabib is Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy, Yale University, P.O. Box 208301, New Haven, CT 06520-8301 ([email protected]).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The status of international law and transnational legal agreements with respect to the sovereignty claims of liberal democracies has become a highly contentious theoretical and political issue. Although recent European discussions focus on global constitutionalism, there is increasing reticence on the part of many that prospects of a world constitution are neither desirable nor salutary. This article more closely considers criticisms of these legal transformations by distinguishing the nationalist from democratic sovereigntiste positions, and both, from diagnoses that see the universalization of human rights norms either as the Trojan horse of a global empire or as neocolonialist intentions to assert imperial control over the world. These critics ignore “the jurisgenerativity of law.” Although democratic sovereigntistes are wrong in minimizing how human rights norms improve democratic self-rule; global constitutionalists are also wrong in minimizing the extent to which cosmopolitan norms require local contextualization, interpretation, and vernacularization by self-governing peoples.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 103 , Issue 4 , November 2009 , pp. 691 - 704
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Almihdar, Zainah. 2008. “Human Rights of Women and Children Under the Islamic Law of Personal Status and Its Application in Saudi Arabia.” Muslim World Journal of Human Rights 5 (1): 1–15. www.bepress.com/mwjhr/vol5/iss1/art1.Google Scholar
Archibugi, Daniele. 2008. The Global Commonwealth of Citizens: Toward Cosmopolitan Democracy. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Archibugi, Daniele, and Held, David, eds. 1995. Cosmopolitan Democracy: An Agenda for a New World Order. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Bass, Gary J. 2008. Freedom's Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Baynes, Kenneth. 2009. “Discourse Ethics and the Political Conception of Human Rights.” Ethics and Global Politics 2 (1): 1–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. 2002. The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. 2004. The Rights of Others: Aliens, Citizens and Residents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. 2006. Another Cosmopolitanism. The Berkeley Tanner Lectures, ed. Post, Robert. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. 2007a. “Another Universalism: On the Unity and Diversity of Human Rights.” Presidential Address. Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 81 (2): 7–32.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. 2007b. “Democratic Exclusions and Democratic Iterations: Dilemmas of ‘Just Membership’ and Prospects of Cosmopolitan Federalism: Reply to My Critics.” European Journal of Political Theory 6 (4): 445–63.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. 2007c. “Twilight of Sovereignty or the Emergence of Cosmopolitan Norms. Rethinking Citizenship in Volatile Times.” Citizenship Studies 11 (1): 19–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. 2008a. “Is There a Human Right to Democracy? Beyond Interventionism and Indifference.” The Lindley Lecture. University of Kansas.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. 2008b. “The Legitimacy of Human Rights.” Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 137 (3): 94–104.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. 2009. “Hannah Arendt and Ralph Lemkin: International Law in the Shadow of Totalitarianism.” Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory 16 (2): 331–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berman, Paul Schiff. 2007. “Global Legal Pluralism.” Southern California Law Review 80 (6): 1155–237.Google Scholar
Bolton, John. 2009. “The Coming War on Sovereignty.” Commentary March. www.commentarymagazine.com/the-coming-war-on-sovereignty. (March 25, 2009).Google Scholar
Brunkhorst, Hauke. 2002. “Globailizing Democracy Without a State: Weak Public, Strong Public, Global Constitutionalism.” Millenium: Journal of International Studies 31 (3): 675–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brunkhorst, Hauke. 2008. “Die Globale Rechtsrevolution. Von der Evolution der Verfassungsrevolution zur Revolution der Verfassungsevolution?” In Rechtstheorie in rechtspraktischer Absicht, eds. Christensen, Ralph and Pieroth, Bodo. Berlin: FS Mueller; 9–34.Google Scholar
Brunkhorst, Hauke. N.d. “There Will Be Blood. Konstitutionalisierung Ohne Demokratie?” In Demokratie in der Weltgesellschaft, Special issue, Soziale Welt, ed. H. Brunkhorst. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Bryde, Brun-Otto. 2003. “Konstitutionalisierung des Voelkerrechts und Internationalisierung des Verfasungsbegriffs.” Der Staat 1: 61–75.Google Scholar
Cohen, Jean L. 2008a. “A Global State of Emergency or the Further Constitutionalization of International Law: A Pluralist Approach.” Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory 15 (4): 456–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Jean L. 2008b. “Rethinking Human Rights, Democracy and Sovereignty in the Age of Globalization.” Political Theory 36 (4): 578–606.Google Scholar
Cohen, Joshua. 2004. “Minimalism About Human Rights: The Most We Can Hope for?” Journal of Political Philosophy 12 (2): 190–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Joshua. 2006. “Is There a Human Right to Democracy?” In The Egalitarian Conscience: Essays in Honor of G.A. Cohen, ed. Sypnowich, Christine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 226–48.Google Scholar
Cohen, Joshua, and Sabel, Charles F.. 2005. “Global Democracy.” New York University International Law and Politics 37 (4): 763–97.Google Scholar
Cohen, Joshua, and Sabel, Charles F.. 2006. “Extra Rempublicam Nulla Justitia?” Philosophy and Public Affairs 34 (2): 147–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cover, Robert. 1983. “Foreword: Nomos and Narrative.” The Supreme Court 1982 Term. Harvard Law Review 97 (1): 4–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Burca, Grainne. 2009. “The EU, European Court of Justice and the International Legal Order After Kadi.” Fordham Legal Studies Research Paper No. 1321313. Harvard International Law Journal 51 (1).Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. 1990. “The Force of Law: The ‘Mystical Foundation of Authority.’ Cardozo Law Review 11 (5/6): 920–1046 (bilingual text, trans. by Mary Quaintance).Google Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald. 1978. “Taking Rights Seriously.” In: Taking Rights Seriously. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Fassbender, Bardo. 1998. “The United Nations Charter as Constitution of the International Community.” Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 36 (3): 529–619.Google Scholar
Fassbender, Bardo. 2007. “‘We the Peoples of the United Nations’: Constituent Power and Constitutional Form in International Law.” In The Paradox of Constitutionalism: Constituent Power and Constitutional Form, eds. Loughlin, Martin and Walker, Neil. New York: Oxford University Press, 269–90.Google Scholar
Forst, Rainer. 1999. “The Basic Right to Justification: Toward a Constructivist Conception of Human Rights.” Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory 6 (1): 35–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forst, Rainer. N.d. “The Justification of Human Rights and the Basic Right to Justification: A Reflexive Approach.” Ethics. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1996. Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, trans.Regh, William. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 2001. “The Postnational Constellation and the Future of Democracy.” In The Postnational Constellation: Political Essays, ed. and trans. Pensky, Max. Cambridge: Polity; 58–112.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 2006a. The Divided West, trans. Cronin, Ciaran. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 2006b. Time of Transitions, trans. Cronin, Ciaran and Pensky, Max. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 2008. “The Constitutionalization of International Law and the Legitimacy Problems of a Constitution for a World Society.” In Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory 15 (4): 444–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardt, Michael, and Negri, Antonio. 2001. Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardt, Michael and Negri, Antonio. 2004. Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. New York: Penguin Press.Google Scholar
Hart, H. L. A. [1961] 1975. The Concept of Law. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Held, David. 1995. Democracy and the Global Order. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Robert. 2008. “Aid at the Point of a Gun.” NY Times, Op-Ed Section, May 14.Google Scholar
Keck, Margaret E., and Sikkink, Kathryn. 1998. Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kelsen, Hans. 1946. “The Preamble of the Charter—A Critical Analysis.” Journal of Politics 8 (2): 134–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelsen, Hans. [1928] 1960. Das Problem der Souveraenitaet und die Theorie des Voelkerrechts. Beitrag zu einer reinen Rechtslehre. Vienna: Scientia Allen.Google Scholar
Koh, Harold. 1997. “Why Do Nations Obey International Law?” Review Essay. The Yale Law Journal 106 (8): 2599–659.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koh, Harold. N.d. “The Supreme Court's Emerging Jurisprudence of Transnational Litigation.” In The Future of Transnational Litigation. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Koskenniemi, Martti. 2001. The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870–1960. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lauterpacht, Hersch. 1973. International Law and Human Rights. The Garland Library of War and Peace. New York: Garland.Google Scholar
Liptak, Adam. 2008. “U.S. Court, a Longtime Beacon, Is Now Guiding Fewer Nations.” NY Times, September 18, 2008, pp. A1, A 30.Google Scholar
Macklin, Audrey. 2009. “Particularized Citizenship: Encultured Women and the Public Sphere.” In Migrations and Mobilities. Citizenship, Borders and Gender, eds. Benhabib, Seyla and Resnik, Judith. New York: NYU Press: 276–304.Google Scholar
Mamdani, Mahmood. 2008. “The New Humanitarian Order.” The Nation September 29: 18.Google Scholar
Mamdani, Mahmood. 2009. Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl. 1978. “The Grundrisse.” In The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd ed., ed. Tucker, Robert C., New York: W.W. Norton: 238–44.Google Scholar
Mazower, Mark. 2004. “The Strange Triumph of Human Rights.” The Historical Journal 47 (2): 379–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merry, Sally Engle. 2006. Human Rights and Gender Violence. Translating International Law into Local Justice. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Moghadam, Valentine. 2009. “Global Feminism, Citizenship, and the State.” In Migrations and Mobilities: Citizenship, Borders, and Gender, eds. Benhabib, Seyla and Resnik, Judith. New York: NYU Press; 255–76.Google Scholar
Mydans, Seth. 2008. “Myanmar Faces Pressure to Allow Major Aid Effort.” NY Times, May 8.Google Scholar
Nagel, Thomas. 2005. “The Problem of Global Justice.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 33 (2): 113–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neuman, Gerald. 2003. “Human Rights and Constitutional Rights: Harmony and Dissonance.” Stanford Law Review 55 (5): 1863–901.Google Scholar
Niesen, Peter, and Herborth, Benjamin, eds. 2007. Anarchie der kommunikativen Freiheit. Jürgen Habermas und die Theorie der internationalen Politik. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha C. 1997. “Capabilities and Human Rights.” Fordham Law Review 66 (2): 273–300.Google Scholar
Pogge, Thomas. [2003] 2004. World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and Reforms. London: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Pogge, Thomas, ed. 2007. Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Posner, Eric A., and Sunstein, Cass R. 2006. “The Law of Other States.” Stanford Law Review 59 (1): 131–80.Google Scholar
Power, Samantha. 2002. A Problem from Hell: American Foreign Policy in the Age of Genocide. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Rabkin, Jeremy A. 2005. Law Without Nations: Why Constitutional Government Requires Sovereign States? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 1996. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 1999. The Law of Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Resnik, Judith. 2001. “Categorical Federalism: Jurisdiction, Gender, and the Globe.” Yale Law Journal 111 (2): 619–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Resnik, Judith. 2005. “Procedure as Contract: Competing and Complementary Rule Systems: Civil Procedure and ADR.” Notre Dame Law Review 80 (2): 593–668.Google Scholar
Resnik, Judith. 2006. “Law's Migration: American Exceptionalism, Silent Dialogues, and Federalism's Multiple Ports of Entry.” The Yale Law Journal 115 (7): 1564–670.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Resnik, Judith. 2008. “Law as Affiliation: “Foreign” Law, Democratic Federalism, and the Sovereigntism of the Nation-State.” International Journal of Constitutional Law 6 (1): 33–66.Google Scholar
Resnik, Judith, Civin, Joshua, and Frueh, Joseph. 2008. “Ratifying Kyoto at the Local Level: Sovereigntisme, Federalism, and Translocal Organizations of Government Actors (TPGAs).” Arizona Law Review 50 (3): 709–86.Google Scholar
Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sandel, Michael J. 1996. Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Scheppele, Kim Lane. 2006. “International State of Emergency: Challenges to Constitutionalism After September 11,” Yale Legal Theory Workshop.Google Scholar
Scheuerman, William E. 2008. “Global Governance without Global Government? Habermas on Postnational Democracy.” Political Theory 36 (1): 133–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmitt, Carl. [1950] 1997. Der Nomos der Erde im Voelkerrecht des jus publicum Europaeum. Berlin: Duncker and Humbolt.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya. 2004. “Elements of a Theory of Human Rights.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 32 (4): 315–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skinner, Quentin. [1998] 2008. Liberty Before Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Slaughter, Anne-Marie. 2004. A New World Order. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sweet, Alec Stone. 2009. “Constitutionalism, Legal Pluralism, and International Regimes.” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 16 (2): 621–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Teubner, Guenther. 1997. “Global Bukovina.” In Global Law Without a State, ed. Teubner, G.. Aldershot: Dartmouth.Google Scholar
Tully, James. 2008. “On Global Citizenship and Imperialism Today: Two Ways of Thinking About Global Citizenship.” Presented at the Political Theory Workshop, Yale University, New Haven, CT.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tushnet, Mark. 2006. “When Is Knowing Less Better Than Knowing More? Unpacking the Controversy Over the Supreme Court Reference to Non-U.S. Law.” Minnesota Law Review 90 (5): 1275–302.Google Scholar
Verdross, Alfred. 1926. Die Verfassung der Völkerrechtsgemeinschaft. Vienna, J. Springer.Google Scholar
von Bogdandy, Arnim. 2006. “Constitutionalism in International Law.” Harvard International Law Journal 47 (1): 223–42.Google Scholar
Waldron, Jeremy. 2005. “The Supreme Court, 2004 Term-Comment: Foreign Law and the Modern Jus Gentium.” Harvard Law Review 119 (1): 129–47.Google Scholar
Walzer, Michael. 1983. Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.