institutionalization of human rights

One of the major issues attracting the attention of scholars studying global norm regimes, especially the human rights regime, is their impact on domestic settings. Borrowing from organizational studies, some of these scholars have used the term decoupling to conceptualize the widespread phenomenon of states that sign conventions but do not implement these conventions’ norms. In this article, we introduce the concept of differentiated decoupling, arguing that the implementation of human rights norms needs to be rethought and reoperationalized.

World culture in the post-war era of rapid globalization is increasingly organized, rationalized, and ubiquitous. The core of world culture - rationalized science, technology, organization, professionalization, etc. - has been thoroughly institutionalized. For all kinds of actors, global principles and procedures for the production of identity, action, and progress have expanded. Ontologically, individualism has been rising rapidly while collective identities have also strengthened in some respects.

Human rights entered the language and practice of humanitarian aid in the mid-1990s, and since then they have worked in parallel, complemented or competed with traditional frameworks ordering humanitarianism, including humanitarian principles, refugee law, and inter-agency standards. This article positions the study of rights within a sociology of praxis. It starts from a premise that interpretation and realisation of international norms depends on actors’ social negotiation.

National human rights institutions, defined as domestic but globally legitimated agencies charged with promoting and protecting human rights, have emerged worldwide. This article examines the effect of these organizations on two kinds of human rights outcomes: physical integrity rights and civil and political rights. We analyze cross-national longitudinal data using regression models that account for the endogeneity of organizational formation.

The emergent European social project draws on a re-alignment between these strands: work, social investment, and active participation. In this article, I consider the implications of this project for immigrant populations in Europe in particular and for the conceptions of citizenship and human rights in general.

This paper addresses the recognition in cosmopolitan debate of a possible disjuncture between the normative ideal of cosmopolitanism and its realization in practice. Taking as its focus the potential conflict between human rights commitments and national concern about immigration control, it reflects on a series of legal challenges to UK government attempts to withdraw support from asylum seekers who do not claim on entry into the country.

This paper has two main objectives. One is to consider the central place of human rights in today's global order and the other is to articulate a theoretical framework that will make sociological sense out of current human rights discourse and practice. Human rights emerged from, but need to be distinguished from, societal rights, and they are to be viewed as social claims upon social power arrangements.