Law discussion paper 5 pages minim

Please note: the order and chapters are based on the course readings posted on CULearn

Chapter II -- Conceptualizing Equality and Conceptualizing Rights

2. Miriam Smith, “Social Movements and Human Rights:

Gender, Sexuality and the Charter in English-Speaking

Canada in Taking liberties: a history of human rights in

Canada, David Goutor and Stephen Heathorn (eds) (Don

Mills, Ont: Oxford University Press, 2013) 213-229.

3. Ratna Kapur, “Human Rights in the 21st Century: Take

A Walk on the Dark Side” (2006) 28 Sydney Law Review 665- 687

And re-read the first article in Chapter II -

1. Martha Minow, "Sources of Difference", in Making All

the Difference: Inclusion, Exclusion and American Law

(N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990) 49-78

QUESTIONS

Miriam Smith, “Social Movements and Human Rights:Gender, Sexuality and the Charter in English-Speaking Canada

1.Smith asks a series of question sin the first paragraph of her chapter. What answers does she provide over the course of her chapter? Are these useful/important questions… and answers???

2.What is historical institutionalism? Is this a helpful tool for analysis? In what ways? What are its limitations?

3. Smith argues that the relationship is interactive. How has the women’s movement social mobilization shaped political institutions and public policy? What institutions? What policies? How has the policy and legal framing of human rights influenced the women’s movement?

4. How has the relationship between political institutions, social movements and policy legacies played out in the LGBT movement?

Ratna Kapur -- “Human Rights in the 21st Century: Take a Walk on the Dark Side”

1. What are the empirical and theoretical flaws that Kapur exposes in the narrative of human rights progress? Can you think of additional flaws? Can you think of any responses to the flaws that she identifies?

2. What is the reactionary critique of human rights that has emerged? How might this critique be framed in relation to domestic rather than international human rights? Are there domestic examples comparable to the examples of Iraq and Afghanistan that Kapur discusses?

3. Why is history so key to understanding contemporary human rights? What is the argument that Kapur is making and what are its human rights implications?

4. Can you think of domestic examples of the liberal project of assimilation? Of human rights responses rooted in essentialism and/or paternalism? Examples of Canadian incarceration, internment and/or elimination of the “other”?

5. Kapur argues it is important to confront the dark side of human rights. Why is it important? Do you agree?

6. What are the ways Kapur suggests we might move forward with thoughtful reflection on both the critique and the potential of human rights? Can you think of additional ways forward?