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4 - The power of law versus the law of power: How human rights can overcome inequality, poverty, and vested interests

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2014

Terrence E. Paupp
Affiliation:
Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Washington DC
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Summary

Law, which contributes to grounding, organizing, prescribing, and coordinating the behavior of social actors, does not exist in a power vacuum. It is produced, sustained, and realized by power. Law is a reflection of power. On the one hand, it prescribes, controls, directs, and constructs power. Law cannot be dissociated from power. With a change of the agents of various types of power who have different perceptions and perspectives of the world and of history, law – which accompanies power – changes as well

(Yasuaki 2012, 150).

In a world where all states rely on the same global environment for their enrichment and thus for the satisfaction of their needs, rich countries effectively control the policies that drive the international economic order (largely through a select number of institutions), suggesting that what we have is a case of the wolf watching the sheep. Are we to be surprised that the policies that these institutions have long advanced, such as the opening of developing country markets (while protecting their own) and the privatization of public services, may not serve those developing countries well, while benefiting the developed countries, including through the enrichment of their private sectors?

(Salomon 2007a, 173).

Our interest in the sustainability of our planet and the survival of our species, it must be added, or of only our own societies or descendents, depends on our achieving ecological justice for future generations. Without explicitly accounting for the ecological interests of future generations, there is no guarantee that short-term solutions can or will safeguard the future

(Weston 2012, 256).
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

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