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New Agoras and Old Institutions: The Case of Human Rights

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Abstract

Existing human rights doctrine and enforcement structures often fail to protect human welfare. The new agora project (Jenlink and Banathy 2002) offers a structure to democratically re-build human rights. To examine the role of new agoras in re-crafting old institutions, I begin by identifying the context of human rights: globalization, diverse identities, and democracy. After analyzing the impact of diversity on democratic structures, I introduce human rights as conceived by Banathy’s (2000) Third Generation. With this in mind, I am prepared to examine the challenges and opportunities for shaping a new operationalization of human rights using the new agora structure.

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Notes

  1. It is common to refer to human rights doctrine by generation. When referring to the generations of human rights, I will not capitalize the words. When the generations refer to generations of Homo sapiens sapiens, the terms will be capitalized (e.g. Third Generation).

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  1. Department of Sociology and Criminology, Stonehill College, 320 Washington Street, #D74, Easton, MA, 02357, USA

    Keri E. Iyall Smith

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Correspondence to Keri E. Iyall Smith.

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Iyall Smith, K.E. New Agoras and Old Institutions: The Case of Human Rights. Syst Pract Act Res 20, 387–399 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11213-007-9074-4

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