The Journal of Human Rights

Human Rights in the Time of Armed Conflicts: A Theoretical Study

Ali Ardestani; Elahe Kamjo

Volume 13, Issue 1 , June 2018, , Pages 67-90

https://doi.org/10.22096/hr.2018.31582

Abstract

Due to the numerous armed conflicts between nations and governments based on, cultural and religious factors, the idea of peace and human rights have always been one of the main aspirations ... Read More

Constructing Citizenship through War in the Human Rights Era

Timothy William Waters

Volume 11, Issue 2 , January 2017, , Pages 85-100

https://doi.org/10.22096/hr.2016.29852

Abstract

War’s historical relationship to the creation of territorial nation-states is well known, but what empirical and normative role does war play in creating the citizen in a modern ... Read More War’s historical relationship to the creation of territorial nation-states is well known, but what empirical and normative role does war play in creating the citizen in a modern democracy? Although contemporary theories of citizenship and human rights do not readily acknowledge a legitimate, generative function for war – as evidenced by restrictions on aggression, annexation of occupied territory, expulsions, denationalization, or derogation of fundamental rights – an empirical assessment of state practice, including the interpretation of international legal obligations, suggests that war plays a powerfully transformative role in the construction of citizenship, and that international law and norms implicitly accept this. Dominant discourses on citizenship in the liberal and cosmopolitan traditions focus on the individual as the unit of analysis and normative concern, and on his rights against the state. At the same time, the choice of how to construct citizenship – to whom to grant it or from whom to withhold it, and what content to give citizenship – is closely linked to questions of security and identity: citizenship either presupposes or purports to create some measure of common identity among citizens, and implies obligations as well as rights. This chapter argues that, in assessing legal and moral positions, this role – if not necessarily approved – must be accounted for to achieve a fuller understanding of how peace, war and rights are related. Human rights may be conceptualized as universal, but their application and specific content are often mediated through the state, and therefore understanding how states retain the ability to define the contours of citizenship, including through the effects of war, is critical to an understanding of the actual scope of human rights as a legal enterprise and a lived experience. The article will examine the formal limits placed on war as an instrument that could affect citizenship; then it will examine the evidence for war’s continued effect (through means such as differentiation between citizens and alien residents, expulsion of aliens, assimilation of refugee flows, and border changes); then it will advance an argument about how the factual effects of war interact with legal doctrine (such as through selective definition and interpretation of wars, perfection of wartime changes in peace treaties, and novel demographic changes introduced by peace treaties). The article considers the concepts of participation, loyalty, and treason; the evidence and implications of wartime propaganda; the rules and practice governing transfer of populated territory between sovereigns; the incentives that the laws of war create for individuals’ identification with the state; and the accommodation in peace plans of demographic change wrought by war. Principal reference is made to changes in citizenship status following the wars of the former Yugoslavia, the Algerian decolonization, the postwar settlement of Europe, and to the debates about the contours of citizenship in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Human Rights and Armed Conflict: the European Experience

Steven Greer

Volume 06, Issue 1 , April 2011, , Pages 1-12

Abstract

No Abstract No Abstract Read More

Humanitarian Law in Islam

Ali Akbar Alikhani

Volume 04, Issue 1 , April 2009, , Pages 3-18

Abstract

As one of the most important branches of Law, International Humanitarian Rights tries to restrain an armed conflict as much as possible - in case, despite preventive action, it happens ... Read More

Protection of the Children in Armed Conflicts (Approaches of International Law and Islamic Law)

Seyed Mostafa Mirmohammadi

Volume 02, Issue 2 , October 2007, , Pages 55-80

Abstract

The inauspicious phenomenon of war violates and threatens all rights of the children including right to life, right to live in the family, right to health, right to progress and right ... Read More

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Main Subjects = Humanitarian Law

Human Rights in the Time of Armed Conflicts: A Theoretical Study

Abstract

Constructing Citizenship through War in the Human Rights Era

Abstract

Human Rights and Armed Conflict: the European Experience

Abstract

Humanitarian Law in Islam

Abstract

Protection of the Children in Armed Conflicts (Approaches of International Law and Islamic Law)

Abstract