Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Donnelly: internationally recognized human rights to be restricted to individual rights with only a few rare
exceptions
- group based suffering exists – individual rights approaches usually capable of accomodating the legitimate
interest of oppressed groups; group rights rarely capable of providing an effective remedy
How do individual rights protect group rights:
*nondiscrimination – protecting members of disadvantaged groups against discrimination based on group
membership; three approaches
- toleration – not imposing special legal burdens or disibilities based on a group membership
- equal protection – active efforts to ensure that members of all groups enjoy equal rights; sometimes
includes affirimative action and “reverse discrimination (positive discrimination); problem: allows a neutral
and even negative evaluation of diversity
- multiculturalism – promotes positive value of diversity, includes policies that recognized, celebrate,
preserve or foster group differences
Problem, depends on the state’s willingness, it may decide to commit itself to a promotion and protection of
one or more nations, religions and cultures, with a bare minimum provided for the others
*freedom of association and participation – allows for individuals to act to realize their vision; it models
group membership as voluntary – problematic because there are cases where identity is externally imposed
or determined by biology (skin color, sex)
challenging imposed identities and denying naturalness of difference
group rights
defines group rights as rights held by a corporate entity – state, corporation, family, trade union, NGO, not
reduciable to their membership
one group human right explicitly recognized – right of peoples to self-determination (recognizes it as a
legacy of the necessity of decolonization); suggests decolonization as only a first step toward introduction of
internationally recognized human rights (it takes more effort)
other strong candidates:
- indigeneous rights
- right to cultural heritage
Donnely skeptical of the concept of group human rights, as opposed to group rights
7 questions:
1) How do we identify the groups that ought to hold human rights? - not all the groups could use them
(would lead to proliferation out of control); minorities could have them, but how can we legitimately exclude
other groups; most likely criterion a long history of systematic suffering, but then would include women,
minorities, indigeneous groups, homosexuals, disabled, seniors, children, poor
2) if we manage to identify group as a potential holder of human rights what rights should it have? - claims
should be evaluated on case-by-case basis
3) who exercises group rights? - problem of large, heterogeneous and dispersed groups; are they really group
rights or collective exercises of individual rights
4) how to handle conflicts of rights? - clashing rights of groups and individuals
5) are the group rights necessary? - is it related to inadequate implementation of individual rights?
6) why should group rights work if individual have failed? - if states don’t respect individual why would they
respect group; would difference (us-them) lead to even worse treatment?
7) are group rights the best way to protect interests of a group? -
Self-identification remain important (even in the West – family, nation, gender), for some groups more than
others
“Only individual autonomy gives rise, and value, to identities that must be respected by others.”
conflict of identities, change: “there should be no active state support for a thretened or declining group, no
group should be entitled to such support, simply being a group”
“there is a real loss when a community dies out, but if its members freely choose another way of life we must
be prepared to accept that loss. If a group’s survival requires the systematic denial of the internationally
recognized
human rights of its members, it is unlikely to deserve even our toleration, let
alone our respect or support
Kymlicka
“a liberal democracy’s most basic commitment is to the freedom and equality of its individual citizens”.
“Indeed, liberal democracy emerged in part as a reaction against the way that feudalism defined individuals'
political rights and economic opportunities by their group membership.”
group rights seem to go against the liberal beliefs in freedom and equality – represent collectivist or
communitarian views
collective rights include variety of rights (rights of trade unions and corporations, rights of all citizens to
clean air)
often confusion – collective rights seen as in conflict with individual rights
- claim against the larger society – protecting the group from the impact of external decisions (e.g. economic
and political decision of the larger society) - “external protections”; involve inter-group relations; risk of
unfairness between groups – one group may be marginalized or segregated in the name of preserving another
group’s distincitveness (e.g. Apartheid in South Africa – minority group demanding special protection from
the larger society); however – it does not have to create such injustice; some groups can be put on a more
equal footing, reducing the vulnerability of the smaller group