Deck 31: Human Rights

Question 1

The three core assumptions associated with human rights in the dominant liberal internationalist perspective are that they are progressive, contingent, and that there exists a universal, common subject on which human rights are conferred.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

Together, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights compose the legal apparatus of international human rights, and are understood to be indivisible, interdependent, and universal.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

What are 'special procedures'?

A) The rules that dictate how cases can be brought before the International Criminal Court.
B) A mechanism in the formal human rights apparatus that ensures member states are held accountable for human rights violations or derelictions through more country-specific and thematic procedures.
C) A regional mechanism that ensures member states are held accountable for human rights violations or derelictions.
D) None of the options given are correct.

Answer 3

B

Question 4

According to this chapter, the claimants in the 'burqa ban' case argued that their rights had been violated under various articles of the…

A) International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
B) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
C) European Convention on Human Rights
D) Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women

Question 5

Sexual minorities in Uganda have challenged the portrayal of ill-treatment of the LGBT community as a feature of 'less civilized' and traditional cultures mainly in the non-West by declaring that homophobia is a Western import, transmitted into the non-West by the West through the colonial encounter.

Question 6

NGOs play an important role in both human rights advocacy and accountability, but their efforts are sometimes constrained by funding, donor-driven agendas, and by North/South and East/West divides that tend to obscure the importance of centering community-based and regional-level players.

Question 7

Which of the following critiques has been made about South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was established to deal the 'gross violations of human rights' that included the 'killing, abduction, torture or severe ill-treatment' of persons under apartheid?

A) It used very narrow definitions of the 'victim', 'severe ill-treatment', and political motivations.
B) It did not address the effects of laws passed by the apartheid government, or the general policies adopted by the government, even if they were morally reprehensible.
C) It focused only on politically motivated violations of bodily integrity rights (but not subsistence rights) of individuals (not groups).
D) All of the options given are correct.

Question 8

Which term refers to the casting of the 'Other' as completely outside of or undeserving of human rights?

A) Assimilation.
B) Essentializing the difference.
C) Incarcerating difference.
D) None of the options given are correct.

Question 9

In what year did the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights enter into force?

A) 1945
B) 1948
C) 1976
D) 1989

Question 10

Those who argue that states should be free to choose whether or not to let in irregular migrants contend that every state has both the right to restrict the entry of people into its own country and the obligation to prioritize its own citizens' needs.

Question 11

The persecution of the Rohingyas in Myanmar, based on the logic that they are infiltrators, threats to the dominant ethnic order, and outsiders to the dominant 'Burmese' ethos and culture, is an example of the contingency and historical particularity of human rights claims in actual practice.

Question 12

To what does the 'dark side' of human rights refer?

A) The confusion over what, exactly, constitutes 'human rights'.
B) Those human rights which do not reflect liberal principles.
C) The costs of human rights interventions.
D) None of the options given are correct.

Question 13

Which approach to International Relations argues that human rights are informed by legacies of colonialism and its responses to the 'other' or native subject?

A) Liberal institutionalism.
B) Feminism.
C) Postcolonialism.
D) All of the options given are correct.

Question 14

In what ways do gender and racial stereotypes continue to pervade the interventions of women's human rights groups and NGOs in the developing world?

A) They assume that women from the developing world are more victimized than their First World counterparts.
B) They assume that women from the developing world are more often subjected to ill-treatment by a primitive culture than their First World counterparts.
C) They deny the 'other' woman her agency, decision-making abilities, or subjectivity.
D) All of the options given are correct.

Question 15

According to this chapter, it is not possible to engage in human rights advocacy without doing material harm or reproducing stereotypes and the historical legacies that have produced the stereotypes.