Human Rights Without Discrimination

Vernon Van Dyke

American Political Science Review, 1973, vol. 67, issue 4, 1267-1274

Abstract: This paper focuses on the requirement of the U. N. Charter that members shall promote human rights “without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion.” It asks: (1) whether “without distinction” means “without any differentiation” or “without discrimination”; (2) whether the naming of race, sex, language, and religion means that “distinction” on other bases remains permissible, or whether what is ruled out is discrimination of any kind that affects human rights; and (3) whether the search for equality has not been internationalized, at least in principle, and what the implications of the internationalization may be. The inquiry can be classified as legal/philosophical. The third question leads to an analysis of the “without distinction” clause of the Charter in terms of the principle of equality. Claims to nondiscrimination are negative claims to equality, and they have as their counterpart claims to affirmative action on behalf of equality—often for groups. The problem is that affirmative action promoting equality for groups entails differentiations among individuals that may be discriminatory. To resolve the dilemma, the test of reasonableness is endorsed—and the search for standards for judging it goes on—at both the domestic and international levels.

Date: 1973
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:67:y:1973:i:04:p:1267-1274_14

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in American Political Science Review from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing (csjnls@cambridge.org).