Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-cjp7w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-17T00:25:22.070Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Foreword

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2021

Gerard McCann
Affiliation:
St Mary's University College, London
Félim Ó hAdhmaill
Affiliation:
University College Cork
Get access

Summary

What makes the human rights field so interesting is the constant battle between the general concepts and understandings, and their actual application in the lives of specific people on the ground. It is not difficult to set out certain general themes. We can state confidently that for decades now universal human rights and the international instruments which have been designed to promote and protect them, have been a source of hope for many in the world who have been denied freedom, equality and the basic means of survival. They have also provided a discourse and a set of tools for those seeking to end oppression. Ultimately, they show us a way to achieve global peace and solidarity.

Equally, the somewhat bolder ones among us can declare comfortably that as a general rule universal human rights are also a contested site, in terms of their articulation, interpretation and implementation. Universal human rights are not simply something handed down to us by the gods or nature; they are the creation of human agency, imagination, creativity, humanity and above all struggle. The universal human rights – civil, political, social, economic, cultural, environmental, developmental, individual and collective – which we know today, have had a long history in their making; one of protest, revolt, revolution and suffering. As the famous Irish poet, Seamus Heaney, so eloquently wrote:

History says, don't hope,

On this side of the grave.

But then, once in a lifetime

The longed-for tidal wave

Of Justice can rise up,

And hope and history rhyme

(from the play The Cure at Troy)

Seamus Heaney, 1990

An associate of my late colleague and comrade Professor Kader Asmal, who was Dean of Trinity College Law School, head of the Irish Anti-Apartheid movement and a great exponent of universal human rights, Heaney could have been thinking about the struggle against apartheid. He knew in his bones that it was in those moments of upheaval that the greatest advances had occurred in the development of human rights around the world. The campaigns for workers and female suffrage, the campaigns by labour unions for workers social and economic rights, the struggles for self-determination against colonialism and neo-colonialism, the campaigns to abolish slavery in all its forms, the civil rights movements, the campaign to end homosexual oppression, all have contributed to the development of recognisable and accepted concepts of universal human rights.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Bristol University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Foreword
  • Edited by Gerard McCann, St Mary's University College, London, Félim Ó hAdhmaill, University College Cork
  • Book: International Human Rights, Social Policy and Global Development
  • Online publication: 03 March 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.46692/9781447349228.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Foreword
  • Edited by Gerard McCann, St Mary's University College, London, Félim Ó hAdhmaill, University College Cork
  • Book: International Human Rights, Social Policy and Global Development
  • Online publication: 03 March 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.46692/9781447349228.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Foreword
  • Edited by Gerard McCann, St Mary's University College, London, Félim Ó hAdhmaill, University College Cork
  • Book: International Human Rights, Social Policy and Global Development
  • Online publication: 03 March 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.46692/9781447349228.001
Available formats
×