Philosophy

Abstract: In this brief article, I claim that the Contribution Principle invoked by Christian Barry as a key principle for determining who owes what to the global destitute is mistaken as a definitive principle and unjustified as a provisional principle for dealing with global poverty. This principle assumes that merely causing, or contributing to the cause of, a state of affairs may be sufficient to have a special responsibility to bear the costs that this state of affairs entails. I argue that an agent will only have such a special responsibility if he or she has caused a state of affairs (for example, acute destitution) by violating a duty not to do so. Therefore, the Contribution Principle is mistaken. Finally, I tackle two possible responses to my argument. The first claims that states have a duty not to undertake actions that may cause, or contribute to the cause of, acute deprivations. The second claims that although the Contribution Principle may be mistaken as a definitive principle for dealing with global destitution, it is nonetheless correct as a provisional principle.

Over the past few years, two main approaches have been suggested for analyzing human rights: the natural rights model and the political approach. This essay argues that neither of these accounts offers an accurate understanding of contemporary human rights and introduces an alternative model to think about them that combines elements of both views: the two-tier model. The first layer of the model reconstructs the concept of human rights as a moral category. This moral category articulates conditions that any agent wielding sovereign political authority must fulfill in order to treat human beings with the respect and concern they deserve, and postulates five abstract rights that may lead to alternative lists of concrete human rights in different social and historical settings. In contrast, the second layer of the two-tier model aims to illuminate the practice of international human rights. Although, upon this view, international human rights are grounded on the notion depicted by the first layer of the model, they constitute a historical practice that cannot be completely reduced to any prior idea. As a result of this, current human rights practice may include elements that were not already present in the concept of human rights. Thus, human rights turn out to be at the same time natural and political, conceptual and historical, moral and positive, domestic and global.

In this article I consider Thomas Pogge’s thesis that affluent countries are violating the human rights of the global poor by contributing support to the current global institutional order. My claim is that affluent countries are not violating the human rights of the global poor in the ways suggested by Pogge. I start by defining a set of conditions that ought to obtain in order to say that a human rights violation has taken place. Then I consider two possible interpretations of Pogge’s thesis and argue that none of them fulfills the conditions required to speak of a human rights violation. On my view, as long as domestic states have the capacity to fulfill the human rights of their own people, poverty constitutes a domestic human rights violation even if the international institutional order somehow contributes to creating this state of affairs. Finally, I examine what transnational duties human rights entail and claim that affluent countries must contribute to the creation of an international order providing domestic states accurate background conditions for the promotion of human rights at the domestic level.

La visión imperante en el derecho in- ternacional actual concibe los derechos humanos como normas relativas al trato que los Estados brindan a su propia población. Esta posición, que se conoce como la “perspectiva estatista” sobre los derechos humanos, es actualmente resistida por varios autores. En este artículo intentaré de- fender la perspectiva estatista contra una serie de críticas recientemente formuladas por Cristina La- font en Isegoría y en otras importantes revistas especializadas. En particular, trataré de probar que, contrariamente a lo que Lafont argumenta, esta perspectiva captura adecuadamente la razón de ser de la práctica contemporánea de los derechos humanos y dispone de recursos para resguardar los intereses de los seres humanos de las nuevas amenazas surgidas en un mundo globalizado.

In her article “Human Rights and the Legitimacy of Global Governance Institutions” published in this volume of RLPF, Cris- tina Lafont argues that in order to impose human rights obliga- tions to global governance institutions, the state-centric conception of human rights that pervades current international politics must be replaced by an alternative, pluralist account. In this response I claim that, when properly interpreted, the state-centric conception is not only perfectly compatible with imposing on global governance institutions the kind of obligations Lafont has in mind, but may also lead us to a better understanding of the nature of these responsibi- lities in a globalized world.

En este artículo me propongo establecer un criterio de igualdad adecuado para una democracia deliberativa. A tales efectos, comenzaré analizando la propuesta de Rawls y las críticas que Sen le dirige. Luego presentaré el principio de autonomía de Guariglia y expondré sus dificultades. Finalmente, utilizando la idea de “capacidad deliberativa” de Bohman, presentaré mi propio criterio de igualdad. De acuerdo con este principio, el estado debe garantizar a todo ciudadano un umbral mínimo de ca- pacidades intelectuales y materiales que le permita incorporarse al debate público; sin embargo, una vez alcanzado este umbral, los ciudadanos mismos deben decidir qué concepción de la justicia económica y social es la más apropiada para su sociedad.

En este artículo discuto dos tesis que Thomas Pogge deriva de su concepción institucional de los derechos humanos: la tesis de la culpa y la tesis de la violación global. La tesis de la culpa asevera que los ciudadanos que contribuyen a sostener un régimen institucional que viola derechos humanos sin realizar compensaciones en beneficio de las víctimas, se convierten ellos mismos en violadores de derechos humanos. Por su parte, la tesis de la violación global asevera que al imponer regu- laciones injustas que tienden a generar pobreza extrema, el régimen internacional actual viola los derechos humanos de los pobres del mundo. Mi intención será probar que ambas tesis son insostenibles ya que se basan en presupuestos errados en materia de responsabilidad. Esto no nos conducirá, sin embargo, a abandonar la concepción institucional de los derechos humanos. Por el contrario, una vez depurada de sus problemas, se trata de una concepción que puede ayudarnos a pensar adecuadamente sobre la responsabilidad por los derechos humanos en un mundo globalizado.

For decades, philosophers tended to understand human rights as claims protecting key human features that individuals would have against any other agent, even in an imaginary state of nature. This account is known as the natural rights approach to human rights. However, in the last decade, this view has been challenged by a group of theorists proposing an alternative political approach to human rights. According to these authors, the function of human rights is to constrain the behavior of sovereign nation-states towards their own residents. In this essay, I argue that, although human rights are not reducible to natural rights, they can be perfectly grounded on a natural right to independence. This view will accommodate the main features of current human rights practice, and will help us make sense of the very idea embodied by contemporary human rights practice.

For decades, philosophers tended to understand human rights as claims protecting key human features that individuals would have against any other agent, even in an imaginary state of nature. This account is known as the natural rights approach to human rights. However, in the last decade, this view has been challenged by a group of theorists proposing an alternative political approach to human rights. According to these authors, the function of human rights is to constrain the behavior of sovereign nation-states towards their own residents. In this essay, I argue that, although human rights are not reducible to natural rights, they can be perfectly grounded on a natural right to independence. This view will accommodate the main features of current human rights practice, and will help us make sense of the very idea embodied by contemporary human rights practice.

For decades, philosophers tended to think about human rights as natural rights that we enjoy just in virtue of our common humanity. However, in recent years, this view has been persistently challenged by a group of authors defending an alternative “practice-dependent” approach. According to them, contemporary human rights constitute a sui-generis practice which is completely foreign to the natural rights tradition. Contrary to this claim, this article argues that natural rights discourse is an integral part of current human rights doctrine and that it may help us understand and justify the functions, content and normative reach of human rights norms. More concretely, my thesis is that although human rights are not reducible to natural rights, they may nevertheless derive from natural rights which are prior to them.

Abstract According to the orthodox or humanist conception of human rights, individuals have a moral duty to promote the universal realization of human rights. However, advocates of this account express the implications of this duty in extremely vague terms. What does it mean when we say that we must promote human rights satisfaction? Does it mean that we must devote a considerable amount of our time and resources to this task? Does it mean, instead, that we must make occasional donations to charities working to advance human rights realization? In this essay, I argue that this
duty can only be constructed as imperfect. This means that it confers agent-relative discretion on us to decide when, how, and to what extent to advance the human rights of others. It also means that it is neither correlative with rights nor enforceable. As I will explain, the main reason for this is that any attempt to construct it as a perfect duty
would infringe the dignity of the potential duty bearers and thereby undermine the very values that human rights practice aspires to serve. Finally, I will conclude by providing some guidelines for those who wish to comply with their imperfect duties to improve the situation of those whose human rights are in peril.

For decades, philosophers tended to think about human rights as natural rights. However, in the past decade, this view has been persistently challenged by a group of authors defending a “practice-dependent” approach. According to them, contemporary human rights constitute a sui-generis practice which is completely foreign to the natural rights tradition. Contrary to this claim, this article argues that natural rights discourse is an integral part of current human rights doctrine and may, therefor, make a valuable contribution to their justification and correct understanding. Finally, it addresses three significant objections against the very idea of natural rights.

According to the orthodox or humanist conception of human rights, individuals have a moral duty to promote the universal realization of human rights. However, advocates of this account express the implications of this duty in extremely vague terms. What does it mean when we say that we must promote human rights satisfaction? Does it mean that we must devote a considerable amount of our time and resources to this task? Does it mean, instead, that we must make occasional donations to charities working to advance human rights realization? In this essay, I argue that this duty can only be constructed as imperfect. This means that it confers agent-relative discretion on us to decide when, how, and to what extent to advance the human rights of others. It also means that it is neither correlative with rights nor enforceable. As I will explain, the main reason for this is that any attempt to construct it as a perfect duty would infringe the dignity of the potential duty bearers and thereby undermine the very values that human rights practice aspires to serve. Finally, I will conclude by providing some guidelines for those who wish to comply with their imperfect duties to improve the situation of those whose human rights are in peril.

This essay proposes an original account of international obligations for human rights and their priority: the avoidance account. This view holds that the present states system is legitimate morally acceptable only if the international community undertakes all feasible measures to avert the risks its coercive enforcement creates for the enjoyment of human rights. Under present conditions this implies discharging four international human rights obligations which are constructed as duties of justice, rather than as humanitarian duties or duties of beneficence. After discussing two cosmopolitan arguments that support the tenet that the international order must maximize human rights satisfaction to the extent possible, the essay proceeds to develop the avoidance account, expound its main implications, and contrast it with alternatives in the literature to show its benefits.