>
> On Mon, 14 Apr 2003, Max B. Sawicky wrote:
>
>> I am off the human rights bandwagon.
>
> Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, Max. There are good human
> rights and bad human rights.
<Snipped to save bandwith>
Contributors: Jean Baudrillard, Charlotte Bunch, Antonio Cassese, Noam Chomsky, Robert Dahl, Peter Dews, Terry Eagleton, Jon Elster, Anthony Giddens, Jürgen Habermas, Paul Jalbert, Emmanuel Lévinas, Jean-François Lyotard, Aleksandar Molnar, Christopher Norris, John Rawls, Aaron Rhodes, Richard Rorty, Rajesh Sampath, Marijana Santrac, Obrad Savic, Charles Taylor
<URL: http://www.versobooks.com/books/ab/b- titles/belgrade_human_rights.shtml > The Belgrade Circle was established as an intellectual forum to promote the establishment of a free, open, democratic and rational civil society around the world. This volume sets out to describe the political and philosophical underpinnings to the idea of human rights by bringing together a collection of original essays from a group of highly distinguished theorists. While accepting the advantages of a legalist model in globalizing the issue of human rights, it also recognizes that Western insistence on universality of the concept can function as a diplomatic cover for post-colonial intervention. It insists that the campaign for human rights must take into account the varied social and economic environments in different nation states that affect the ways in which they can be implemented. Above all it insists that the best way of promoting a universal concept of human rights is by demonstrating international solidarity with those many individuals and groups whose basic rights are jeopardized or denied.
This volume sets out to describe the political and philosophical underpinnnings of the idea of human rights by bringing together a collection of original essays by a group of highly distinguished theorists. Recognizing that Western insistance on the universality of the concept of human rights can also function as diplomatic cover for post-colonial interventions, it insists that the campaign for human rights must take into account the varied social and economic environments in different nation states that affect the ways such demands can be implemented. This campaign is most effective when demonstrating international solidarity with those whose basic rights are jeopardized or denied.
"The Politics of Human Rights marks the transition from moral principle to political reality by bringing together in one place an unrivalled selection of essays by leading Western thinkers – some published before, some specially commissioned. It has the additional merit of being edited by a group of dissident intellectuals in the former Yugoslavia, for whom a repressive government and NATO's military interventions have made the politics of human rights of pressing importance." – Times Literary Supplement
Michael Pugliese
"Without knowing that we knew nothing, we went on talking without listening to each other. Sometimes we flattered and praised each other, understanding that we would be flattered and praised in return. Other times we abused and shouted at each other, as if we were in a madhouse." -Tolstoy