Human Rights and the United Nations

Abigail B. Bakan is Professor in the Department of Social Justice Education, OISE, cross-appointed to the Department of Political Science, and affiliate with the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies, at the University of Toronto. Her research is in the area of anti-oppression politics, with a focus on intersections of gender, race, class, political economy, and citizenship. Her publications include Theorizing Anti-Racism: Linkages in Marxism and Critical Race Theories (co-edited with Enakshi Dua); and Israel, Palestine and the Politics of Race: Exploring Identity and Power in a Global Context (co-authored with Yasmeen Abu-Laban).Yasmeen Abu-Laban is Professor of Political Science and Canada Research Chair in the Politics of Citizenship and Human Rights at the University of Alberta. She is also a fellow at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. She is co-author (with Abigail B. Bakan) of Israel, Palestine and the Politics of Race: Exploring Identity and Power in a Global Context (2020).

“Indispensable for understanding the contributions and disappointments arising from the UN’s treatment of human rights. This carefully edited book depicts both the structural underpinnings of the UN double identity when it comes to human rights and its concrete experience with the realization of specific rights as analyzed by a gathering of talented experts.”Richard Falk, Professor of International Law emeritus, Princeton University“Both study and the operation of the United Nations have been too often stifled by legal and bureaucratic technocracy. This volume reinvigorates the topic by treating this unique institution in a properly political manner. Here, the UN and its related Human Rights apparatus are addressed as sites of contestation, contradiction, and struggle, where the stakes are high and the challenges daunting. The collection is moreover exemplary in examining the UN 'from below'. Sweeping aside the bureaucrats and diplomats, we listen here to the cries, demands, ideas, and dreams of Indigenous movements, feminisms of the Global South, stateless peoples, migrant workers, and others who toil to transform these institutions into tools of emancipation. A vital contribution.”Robert Nichols, Professor of History of Consciousness, University of California, Santa Cruz“This edited volume provides readers with a critical take on the work of the UN in the area of human rights from the standpoint of international relations and political science. Its added value is to examine the subject from more than just a state-centric point of view, introducing new perspectives to the debate over whether the Organization is fit for purpose today.”Ardi Imseis, Professor of International Law, Queen’s University“This edited volume offers a deeply critical examination of the foundational paradox embodied by the UN as a knowledge producer constructed by and for sovereign state actors, while seeking to uphold the promise of universal human rights. Through ten insightful chapters expertly framed by editors Abigail B. Bakan and Yasmeen Abu-Laban, the book highlights the enduring tensions of a UN caught between promise and practice. By addressing this profound paradox, each contribution compels the reader to face the inequities unravelling through and within the UN, while centering vulnerable non-state actors such as stateless populations, women, indigenous and racialized communities. A highly timely read for practitioners and students of human rights and the UN, as the latter enters its 8th decade amidst complex, intersectional, global crises.”W. R. Nadège Compaoré, Assistant Professor of International Relations, University of Toronto

• Introduction: Thinking About the Paradox and Promise of Human Rights and the United Nations Abigail B. Bakan and Yasmeen Abu-Laban Part 1: The United Nations as Knowledge Producer 1. Knowledge Production: Gender, Race, Indigenous Peoples and Politics and the UN Abigail B. Bakan and Yasmeen Abu-Laban 2. Towards Reproductive Justice in the Global Gender Equality Agenda: The UN and Canadas’s Compliance and Non-Compliance with Beijing and Beyond Nariya Khasanova 3. Human Rights for Human Remains: How International Frameworks Facilitate Transnational Knowledge Production Nicole Anderson Part 2: Stateless and Non-State Actors 4. Statelessness as a Window on the Paradox of the United Nations Yasmeen Abu-Laban and Abigail B. Bakan 5. The Paradox of Visibility and the ILO’s Decent Work for Domestic Workers Convention Annie Chau 6. The Paradox of Indigenous Peoples’ Participation at the UN: The Dance of Meaningful Change Against State Sovereignty and Territorial Integrity Sheryl Lightfoot and Utkarsh Khare Part 3: Global Challenges and Sovereign States 7. The UN’s Contradictory Impact and Failure to Protect Women in Humanitarian Settings: Racist Frames in Post-Earthquake Haiti Célia Romulus 8. Mandating Global Health to Foster Health Security: Spotlighting the Africa Health Strategy (2007-30) and the United Nations Christopher Isike 9. Will a Human Right to a Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment Address the Wrongs of Environmental Degradation? Karen Morrow 10. The UN Human Rights Paradox During the Interregnum: Yemen and Myanmar as Case Studies W. Andy Knight Afterword: Naming and Framing Paradox Yasmeen Abu-Laban and Abigail B. Bakan