Redefining Human Rights in the Struggle for Peace and Development

Human rights in peace and development are accepted throughout the Global South as established, normative, and beyond debate. Only in the powerful elite sectors of the Global North have these rights been resisted and refuted. The policies and interests of these global forces are antithetical to advancing human rights, ending global poverty, and respecting the sovereign integrity of States and governments throughout the Global South. The link between poverty, war, and environmental degradation has become evident over the last 60 years, further augmenting international consciousness of these issues as interconnected with the rest of the human rights corpus. This book examines the history of this struggle and outlines practical means to implement these rights through a global framework of constitutional protections. Within this emerging framework, it argues that States will be increasingly obligated to formulate policies and programs to achieve peace and development throughout the global society.1. The greatest undiagnosed problem in international law; 2. From disparity to centrality: how the human rights to peace and development can be secured; 3. Confronting structural injustice: strategies of localization, regionalism, and an emerging 'global constitutional order'; 4. The power of law vs. the law of power: how human rights can overcome inequality, poverty, and vested interests; 5. A world community that includes all human communities: indigenous communities and the global environment as sources for human rights claims; 6. Actualizing the human right to peace: paths for developing processes and creating conditions for peace; 7. Transformation through cooperation: implementing a human rights-based approach to human security, peace, and development.