Moral Imperialism : A Critical Anthology

by Hernandez-Truyol, Berta Esperanza

• ISBN13: 9780814736142
• ISBN10: 0814736149
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-11-01
• Publisher: New York University Press

Summary

Too much of the literature in human rights has been limited to a consideration of the detail of specific civil and political rights. This book breaks this pattern by introducing political, economic, social, and theoretical issues in a single volume. Moral Imperialism is an interesting and informative collection and should become part of any syllabus on the international protection of human rights.--Law and Politics Book ReviewIn the controversy over female genital mutilation, Congress was quick to condemn practices throughout Africa and the Middle East and to take action criminalizing the practice domestically. Yet at the same time, it bluntly dismissed Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch when they pointed out human rights violations closer to home in the form of the disproportionately high rate of the imposition of capital punishment on black men, and the disempowerment of poor women under new draconian welfare rules. The irony of the United States' international condemnation of types of activities in which it engages within its own borders is not lost on Third World critics.Moral Imperialism sets out to bring an international human rights framework to the analysis of current international and domestic legal, political, and cultural crises. It explores the United States' moral supremacy during a time of clear domestic shortcomings and asks whether insisting that other nations adhere to norms that derive from dominant U.S. culture and history may harm societies--both within and outside of the U.S.--with radically different cultures and histories.Contributors include Beverly Greene, Kevin Johnson, M. Patricia Fernandez Kelly, Holly Maguigan, Boaventura De Sousa Santos, Saskia Sassen, and Eric Yamamoto.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	1	(18)
Berta Esperanza Hernandez-Truyol
Christy Gleason
I Civil and Political Rights
Imperial Humanitarianism: History of an Arrested Dialectic	19	(20)
Gil Gott
Toward a Multicultural Conception of Human Rights	39	(22)
Boaventura de Sousa Santos
Orientalism Revisited in Asylum and Refugee Claims	61	(17)
Susan Musarrat Akram
Homophobia/ Heterosexism in African Americans: Internalized Racism and African and American Lesbians and Bisexual Women	78	(19)
Beverly A. Greene
Children and Right to a Fair Trial: Exploring the Relationship between First- and Second-Generation Human Rights	97	(19)
Johanna Niemi-Kiesilainen
Domestic and International Adoptions: Heroes? Villains? Or Loving Parents? The Race and Nationality Precepts as Explanations for International Adoptions	116	(19)
Sharon Elizabeth Rush
II Social, Cultural, and Economic Rights
Economic Globalization and the Redrawing of Citizenship	135	(16)
Saskia Sassen
The Recognition of the Individual: A Human Rights Perspective for International Commerce	151	(15)
Claire Moore Dickerson
Rerouting the Race to the Bottom? Transnational Corporations, Labor Practice Codes of Conduct, and Workers' Right to Organize---The Case of Nike, Inc.	166	(17)
Tim Connor
Both Work and Violence: Prostitution and Human Rights	183	(29)
Berta Esperanza Hernandez-Truyol
Jane E. Larson
Policing the Boundaries of Truth in Narratives	212	(17)
Elizabeth Fakazis
Imperial Knowledge: Science, Education, and Equity	229	(12)
Kathryn Scantlebury
Elizabeth McKinley
Joce Jesson
U.S. Policy on ``Female Genital Mutilation'': Threat of Economic Pressure Internationally, Enactment of Criminal Sanctions at Home	241	(14)
Holly Maguigan
III Collective and Group Rights
Bridging False Divides: Toward a Transnational Politics of Gender	255	(14)
R. W. Perry
L. Amede Obiora
Membership Denied: An Outsider's Story of Subordination and Subjugation under U.S. Colonialism	269	(16)
Ediberto Roman
The Moral High Ground? The Relevance of International Law to Remedying Racial Discrimination in U.S. Immigration Laws	285	(15)
Kevin R. Johnson
Indigenous Peoples' Human Rights in U.S. Courts	300	(20)
Eric K. Yamamoto
Carrie Ann Y. Shirota
Jayna Kanani Kim
Climate Change, Opinions, and Imagination: Toward a New Ethic of Curiosity	320	(17)
Mary Loring Lyndon
Immigration, Poverty, and Transnationalism: The Changing Terms of Citizenship in a Global Economy	337	(16)
M. Patricia Fernandez-Kelly
Human Rights, Globalization, and Culture: Centering Personhood in International Narrative	353	(18)
Berta Esperanza Hernandez-Truyol
About the Contributors	371	(6)
Index	377