The Case of Capitalist Political Economies and the Role of International Human Rights

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CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

Is capitalism a hindrance to or a force for, the cross national observation of the human rights?

The answer for this question is ambiguous, possibly fitting in with the current cloud in discerning a path to post Cold War international politics. More than a decade separates us from the dramatic events that ended the Cold War. During this interregnum, the world has sought foreign policy orientation issues as compelling as the doctrines of the Cold War, with little success to a consensus. Democratization, free markets, globalization, the end of ideologies, and a return to civilization nationalists have been trotted out as possibilities, and all have points worth making about the condition of international politics. However, none of these thematic emphases to give itself an ideological coherence to foreign (and domestic) policy. It is quite possible that the diverse approach to the theory of international relations becomes more attractive for the millennium, with each orientation (and others not mentioned above) that contribute to a base of knowledge about where to place foreign revenue a politically and intellectual energy.

Human rights, the doctrine that the state should not violate the inherent dignity of its citizens, the steps in the theoretical gap left by the Cold War as a competitor, but more popular support than at any other time in its history. Nothing less than a former cold warrior Zbigniew Brzezinski believes that human rights have become the only political idea most magnetic of the contemporary (quoted in Sikkink, 1998, p. 519). While the roots of the doctrine of human rights extend to the way back to Kant, the real excitement erupted in 1948 with the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights United Nations (Donnelly, 1998a, p. 86). However, human rights have come and gone in their relative importance to political leaders, depending on the nature of the times and the ideological predilections of the leaders themselves. At the moment, with calls by the West for global democracy and free markets, human rights, acts as an important moral force for social change gradually from the days of the Cold War to support the friendly dictator in the name of anticommunism.

Research work on the determinants of violation of human rights has been uploaded to the wave of momentum generated by the pursuit of post-Cold War theory. The development of international law and standards that fit the rubric of human rights theory has consumed the time of many legal ...