Abstract
In this essay of analysis, I wish to consider the extent to which international law and the United Nations serve as both obstacle and instrument in the pursuit of a vision of a just world order that is sensitive to the realization of human rights comprehensively conceived to include economic, social and cultural rights as well as civil and political rights. This enumeration of human rights accepts the categorizations and boundaries set forth in the two covenants of human rights, binding international treaties that were negotiated in 1966 as a sequel to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It may seem obvious to the more ethically minded commentators on world politics that the most worthwhile undertaking of international law and the UN is to restrain the wrongful exercise of power by states, and this task is deserving of the utmost and invariable respect of governments and citizens. But the realities of international life and experience are sufficiently complicated, contradictory and confusing as to resist such formulaic enthusiasm.
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© 2011 Richard Falk
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Falk, R. (2011). Appropriating Normative Geopolitics: Civil Society International Law and the Future of the United Nations. In: Kostovicova, D., Glasius, M. (eds) Bottom-Up Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230357075_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230357075_12
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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