Dear Learned Colleague,

Will international human rights be around in fifty years? Or will nations find it defunct, like the Warsaw Pact, whose purpose came and went? That may depend on what happens in the next few years.

This month at Definitions we take a look at the way social movements may be accelerating the demise of the rights system by using it in a parasitic way to press boutique agenda. Even so, this month's author, Stefano Gennarini, J.D., remains optimistic. He offers recommendations for restoring legitimacy and efficacy of the UN rights system so that it may help those most in need of it.

All the very best,

Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D.
Editor

The recent formation of the U.S. Commission on Unalienable Rights is a positive sign in the United States. It shows that there is an increasing awareness that the UN human rights system has gone badly awry. Indeed, something has gone awfully wrong in international human rights discourse.

The Human Rights Committee, the oldest and most respected of the UN human rights treaty bodies, published a legal commentary this year that says women have a right to obtain an abortion based on the right to life in international law. The UN special rapporteur on the sale of children published a report last year that says commercial surrogacy can be done in ways that does not constitute the sale of children. UN officials routinely say that international law does not define the family and that every country can define the family for themselves. These are just a few of the recent distortions of the understanding of human rights within multilateral institutions.  Read More >>>