Human Rights Without Democracy? : : Reconciling Freedom with Equality / / Gret Haller.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Berghahn Books Complete eBook-Package 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Haller, Gret,
• Place / Publishing House: New York; , Oxford : : Berghahn Books, , [2012]; ©2012
• Year of Publication: 2012
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (180 p.)

Do Human Rights truly serve the people? Should citizens themselves decide democratically of what those rights consist? Or is it a decision for experts and the courts? Gret Haller argues that Human Rights must be established democratically. Drawing on the works of political philosophers from John Locke to Immanuel Kant, she explains why, from a philosophical point of view, liberty and equality need not be mutually exclusive. She outlines the history of the concept of Human Rights, shedding light on the historical development of factual rights, and compares how Human Rights are understood in the United States in contrast to Great Britain and Continental Europe, uncovering vast differences. The end of the Cold War presented a challenge to reexamine equality as being constitutive of freedom, yet the West has not seized this opportunity and instead allows so-called experts to define Human Rights based on individual cases. Ultimately, the highest courts revise political decisions and thereby discourage participation in the democratic shaping of political will.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- PREFACE -- Part I THE NOTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS PRIOR TO 1789 -- Chapter 1 THE PREHISTORY AND THE CONTEXT OF HUMAN RIGHTS -- Chapter 2 FIRST CONCEPTS OF HUMAN RIGHTS -- Chapter 3 HUMAN RIGHTS, MORALS, AND LAW -- Part II HUMAN RIGHTS FROM 1789 TO 1989 -- Chapter 4 FROM HUMAN RIGHTS TO POSITIVE LAW -- Chapter 5 HUMAN RIGHTS, THE STATE, AND DEMOCRACY -- Chapter 6 POLITICS AND LAW -- Part III THE CRISIS IN HUMAN RIGHTS SINCE 1989 -- Chapter 7 THE COLD WAR -- Chapter 8 MORALIZING HUMAN RIGHTS -- Chapter 9 NATURAL RIGHT AND IMPOSED CONCEPTS OF MAN -- Part IV OUTLOOK -- Chapter 10 PERSPECTIVES FOR DEMOCRATIC LEGITIMACY -- Chapter 11 UNIVERSALITY AND REGIONALIZATION -- Chapter 12 REPERCUSSIONS FROM THE COLD WAR -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX