International Law and Human Rights: Diverging and Converging Histories

Jean H. Quataert

doi:10.1515/1940-0004.1180

Article

International Law and Human Rights: Diverging and Converging Histories

Jean H. Quataert

Published/Copyright: December 8, 2012

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From the journal New Global Studies Volume 6 Issue 3

Abstract

This article explores ways to think about the historical intersections of international law and human rights visions and principles in a global context. It catalogues an intertwining of new historiographies, notably the recent convergence of research interests of historians and international lawyers that draws attention to non-linear analyses; the role of social movements in understanding developments in the law; and the importance of historical contexts for interpretation. It sketches one promising analytical framework to assess the dynamic interconnections of international law and human rights from the mid-nineteenth century through the formal creation of the human rights system under U.N. auspices between 1945 and 1949. It concludes with a case study of gender tensions in more recent human rights global politics to provide historically-specific examples of the new possibilities of bringing historical interpretations to the study of international law and human rights.

KEYWORDS : international law; human rights; feminist theory; gender; international relations; Ottoman Empire; entanglement; United Nations; Commission on the Status of Women; postcolonial legal theory; Third World Approaches to International Law (IWAIL); Geneva Conventions; international humanitarian law; International Committee of the Red Cross; religious conservatism; global history; Islamic law; transnational feminism; the global women's human rights movements

This article is based on an opening keynote address which I gave at the “Law and Human Rights in Global History” Conference at the University of Michigan, March 30, 2012. I want to thank the organizers of the conference, Professors Raymond Grew and Robert Donia, for giving me this opportunity to think about law and rights in historical contexts. I also thank Professor Aziza Ahmed, who I met at the conference, for reading this paper through her critical feminist international law perspective and offering very useful comments. The final interpretation of course is my own.

Published Online: 2012-12-08

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https://doi.org/10.1515/1940-0004.1180

Keywords for this article

international law; human rights; feminist theory; gender; international relations; Ottoman Empire; entanglement; United Nations; Commission on the Status of Women; postcolonial legal theory; Third World Approaches to International Law (IWAIL); Geneva Conventions; international humanitarian law; International Committee of the Red Cross; religious conservatism; global history; Islamic law; transnational feminism; the global women's human rights movements