Operative Clashes and Nexuses: ‘Resilient’ vs. ‘Conventional’ Human Rights

Operative Clashes and Nexuses:

‘Resilient’ vs. ‘Conventional’ Human Rights

African Union Summit 2016, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Human Rights with a focus on the Rights of Women

Political transition in Africa: Africa leadership Forum and Global Coalition for Africa Study – 1993

African Union Summit Public Lecture - CXL, MMXV

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD

Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies, College of Business and Economics, AAU

Abstract

      Almost three quarters of a century ago, the human community proclaimed a bold and revolutionary vision of the future. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 asserted that every person on the planet has certain fundamental rights that every society should aspire to their realization equally, cannot be doubted. Notwithstanding The Declaration, the perils of algorithmic power reveal that states who routinely abuse human rights will have to uphold them to remain legitimate to their digital citizenry where they theoretically draw their power from. The caveat is any system of concepts that claim to be universal must contain critical elements in its fabric that are indubitably common to all humans.

       Pundits have asked whether African laws that derive from colonial masters and notion of rights that stem from the Magna Carta and ‘democracies’ that treated blacks inhumanly as the Declaration came into force, do embrace the rights of all humans. Is it bound to be bigotry and obligated to fail because those societies whose conception of rights are not accommodated will take it as an imposition from other cultures? For instance, does the Declaration have African roots, if not; should Africa see it as as alien idea that is imposed from without? In addressing these questions, the article defines resilient rights as unique adaptive strategies of peoples that lead to self-empowered and sustainable livelihoods, which are critical for freedom from fear and freedom from want – one of the most basic human rights. It discusses the emergence of resilient rights inherent in community governance dynamics that have been relegated to the dignity of incipient archaism by vocal non-state human rights agencies and advocacy groups. Resilient rights ideology and agency relate to complexes of ideas, beliefs, goals and issues that can come into co-operative play or competitive contestation amidst the full range of significant participants and their activities for realising self-empowerment and hence self-contained rights.

Key words: resilient rights, human rights, international humanitarian law, 

See article here