The trend toward the “humanization” of international law reflects a greater emphasis on individuals rather than simply states as objects of concern. The advance of human rights law (HRL) has been an important impetus for this trend. Some observers suggest that humanization can be furthered even more by applying HRL rather than international humanitarian law (IHL) to hostilities between states and nonstate armed groups, unless a state explicitly declares that it is engaged in an armed conflict. This essay argues, however, that a court should not defer to a state's characterization of hostilities, but should base its analysis on whether hostilities meet the criteria for an armed conflict. Applying HRL to hostilities that effectively are an armed conflict but not acknowledged as such risks diluting the legitimacy and normative force of HRL. On the one hand, if a court applies conventional stringent HRL standards, this body of law may be seen as unrealistic and is likely to be ignored. On the other hand, a court that adapts HRL standards to armed conflict may need to take a consequentialist approach at odds with HRL's deontological foundations. Clearly differentiating between HRL and IHL may thus best promote the humanization of warfare.

The world's understanding of the action needed to advance human rights is deeply structured by the ‘respect, protect, and fulfill’ framework. But its potential is significantly undermined by a narrow conception of ‘respect’ for human rights. This paper systematically addresses these weaknesses and advances an original alternative. It first provides a historical account of the ‘do no harm’ conception of ‘respect’ in the political context of the late Cold War. It then analyzes this conception's empirical functioning today, using the example of unauthorized migration along the US–Mexico border. These points illustrate an overarching theoretical argument: the responsibility to respect human rights should be based on a responsibility not to dehumanize, rather than exclusively on a duty to do no harm. This involves the consideration of each person as a moral equal, the elevation of human rights practice as a basis for judgment inside of a moral agent's self, and the rejection of state-centrism as the basis for all political responsibility. This argument has implications traversing the theory and practice of human rights, including: the ability to translate and embed into practice the new meanings of ‘respect,’ ‘protect,’ and ‘fulfill’; and the need to re-consider the contemporary significance of 1980s liberalism.

Recent approaches in the care of older people have led to a greater emphasis on good practices to prevent elder abuse. The instruments assessing good practices are very limited, and those focused on elder abuse have rarely considered subtle forms, especially in institutional settings. The aim of this study was to develop and assess the content validity of a good practices scale for professionals working in nursing homes. An extensive literature review of the tools assessing professionals’ good–bad practices towards older people was conducted. A preliminary scale based on Kayser-Jones’ (1990) [Old, Alone and Neglected: Care of the Aged in Scotland and the United States. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press] types of abuse was developed, including four subscales: Personalization, Humanization, Absence of Infantilization, and Absence of Victimization. Content validity was analyzed through a panel of eight experts. Rovinelli and Hambleton’s index of item-objective congruence was used to analyze the items’ inclusiveness in the assigned subscale to establish their representativeness. Items’ relevance and clarity were analyzed using the paired comparison method. The final version of the scale included 56 items, with appropriate levels of item objective-congruence, relevance, and clarity. This instrument will allow professionals to detect and develop awareness and intervention programs that aim to promote good practices in nursing homes.

The pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes of Vatican II represents a significant shift for the church, not only ecclesiologically but also intellectually, with deep consequences for the culture of the church and especially for Catholic institutions of higher education. This change has clear implications for the core curriculum of a learning Catholic Church—and of every learning Catholic. In the “modern cosmopolitan culture” of the church of Vatican II, the liberal arts have a central place. The ability to make a judgment on “the signs of the times” requires a cultural awareness that is the opposite of utilitarianism. Care for the “common good” requires “core knowledge” because the world—as it is presented in Gaudium et Spes—is nontransparent, ambiguous, and ever changing. In this sense the pastoral constitution is an antipositivistic manifesto for humanization that needs to be rediscovered.

The article argues that, by bringing a number of changes of systemic proportions in the order of international law, the internationalization of national constitutional human rights law has led to the ‘constitutionalization’ of international law. To build that argument, the paper first critically assesses the constitutionalization narrative. To that end it explains the reasons for its agnostic stance vis-à-vis the constitutionalization narrative and highlights the fact that international law has always contained some general, “constitutional” features that are particular to its systemic physiognomy. The article then explains how human rights law, as a special branch of international law, expands beyond the so-called humanization of international law narrative, acting as an important ingredient in a number of other narratives such as the constitutionalization of international law and the ones that are comparable to it, like legal pluralism and fragmentation. As to the systemic changes the internationalization of human rights has brought to the order of public international law, the examples given are those of collective enforcement at the decentralized level for the protection of common interests/values, sui generis normative hierarchy beyond jus cogens and the idea of the responsibility of states to act in a protective manner linked with the principle of due diligence and the so-called positive effect that human rights develop.