Tom Hadden

Human rightsThe pendulum theory of individual, communal and minority rights

(2000). Human rightsThe pendulum theory of individual, communal and minority rights. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy: Vol. 3, Human Rights and Global Diversity, pp. 77-90.

Battling for Human Rights

The achievement of the objectives of international security, peacekeeping operations and peace enforcement, like the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan after the initial invasions, and of unilateral security operations, like those in Chechnya, Lebanon and Gaza, is often threatened by high levels of civilian casualties and physical destruction. Much of this is legitimized under the laws of armed conflict, notably the principles of legitimate military objectives and collateral damage, but would be contrary to human rights standards. This article argues that the claim that the laws of armed conflict and human rights are complementary is misleading and that international and national security, peacekeeping and peace-enforcement operations designed to protect and promote human rights should in principle be conducted under human rights standards. It explains how this could be achieved for international operations conducted under the auspices of United Nations Security Council Resolutions and/or status-of-forces agreements.

The United Nations Working Group on Minorities

Minority protection has always been the poor relation in the human rights family. Rights for minorities were excluded from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and were recognised in the European Convention on Human Rights only as a prohibited ground for discrimination. Some limited rights were included in Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Then, in the 1990s, a new set of more positive provisions were developed in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities and the European Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities. But most of these are heavily qualified and not subject to formal adjudication. The United Nations Working Group on Minorities established to monitor the Declaration is one of the weakest of the thematic mechanisms in that it is not authorised to make direct recommendations to any particular State. It was not until 2005 that the Independent Expert on Minorities was established with a mandate more or less on par with other special rapporteurs. Now, even these monitoring mechanisms are under threat in the fundamental review of United Nations mechanisms initiated by the Human Rights Council in 2006. So what is to be done to maintain or perhaps even improve the way in which minority rights are to be protected? This is not the place for a detailed explanation of this relatively low priority for the human rights of minorities. But there are a few general features that may assist in identifying the most productive and practical way forward. The main problem is not the simplistic view that human rights can only be granted to or

Policing for Shared Societies: An Institutional Approach to Reform

In many societies policing is a problematic and frequently contested issue. The police are typically viewed as the protectors of the status quo, both of the established government and of the propertied and privileged classes. They are rarely popular with opponents of the government or with poorer and less privileged communities. They are also typically a closed, self-protective and self-perpetuating institution with high degrees of self-esteem and strong internal cultures. As a result, they are often prone to use high levels of violence in carrying out their operations and to be open to multiple forms of corruption. And since they are the primary body responsible for law enforcement, they are difficult to hold to account. Prosecutions of police officers are notoriously difficult to pursue to conviction and internal disciplinary procedures are often viewed as ineffective.

Options for Northern Ireland

Is Northern Ireland an integral part of the United Kingdom? Can it be effectively governed by the same democratic system as the rest of the United Kingdom? The answer to both these questions is ‘probably not’. Northern Ireland is not an integral part of the United Kingdom in that successive British governments have declared themselves to be willing to cede it to the Irish Republic if a majority of the people in Northern Ireland so wish, and in that the Labour Party and many others have committed themselves to the active pursuit of the reunification of Ireland. Attempts to govern Northern Ireland by the same democratic system as the rest of the United Kingdom have patently failed, and there is a large measure of consensus that some other form of democracy will have to be established before effective powers can be devolved back from London to Belfast. In the meantime, pending the achievement either of Irish unification or of some other democratic system of government, Northern Ireland is governed by a more or less colonial system of ‘direct rule’, and the civil strife and terrorism which has been going on there since 1969 seems likely to continue indefinitely.