Abstract This essay elaborates in a historical perspective on some controversies concerning the human rights conception. The reason why I take a historical perspective as my analytic standpoint lies in the essence of the human rights conception which is recognized as a human-made thing, rather than a natural phenomenon. In other words, the human rights conception is a kind of interpretation, knowledge and narrative. In this essay, I will firstly examine the main changes of philosophical and social conditions influencing the development and evolution of human rights conceptions. After a brief introduction of human rights conception, the following work of this essay is premised on the questions of what might be broadly termed ¡§universalism vs. relativism¡¨, ¡§individual rights vs. collective rights¡¨ and ¡§sovereignty vs. human rights¡¨. Accordingly, it is concerned with focusing scholarly attention on the place of diverse values and cultures in contemporary international society. Besides, I will take ¡§Asian value¡¨ as an object to embody those controversies mentioned above. Briefly speaking, there are four premises on which the ¡§Asian value¡¨ is founded, namely ¡§priority of the socio-economic rights over the politico-civil rights¡¨, ¡§priority of the cultural particularity over the universality of human rights¡¨, ¡§priority of individual rights over collective rights¡¨, and ¡§priority of sovereignty over human rights¡¨. Finally, I will examine the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer. It is argued that the notion of the ¡§fusion of horizons¡¨, which Gadamer derives from the linguistic and nature and historicity of human existence, provides fruitful responses to those competing opinions outlined above. I suggest that an application of Gadamer¡¦s inspiring ideas opens the way to a more convergent and inclusive human rights conception.

Claims asserting that abortion harms the mental, physical and emotional health of women have recently gained influence among the judicial and legislative branches of government as well as the general public. While there is a growing body of literature on the place of such women-protective arguments in the contemporary abortion debate, comparatively little has been written on the origins of such claims. This paper traces the role of women-protective claims within the anti-abortion movement from the early nineteenth century to the present, using a variety of primary source material, including medical and scientific texts, legal documents, and lay and popular publications. Special attention is given to the role of physicians in the abortion debate and, accordingly, primary source materials authored by physicians are used extensively. By following these women-protective arguments, this paper shows that while women-protective claims emerged as early as the nineteenth century as part of the first American movement to criminalize abortion, a distinct women-protective strategy was created by anti-abortion activists during the 1980s in an attempt to re-criminalize abortion by both increasing popular resistance to abortion and to posing a legal challenge to Roe v. Wade. In addition, this paper demonstrates that the modern women-protective strategy relied on a depiction of women as helpless victims who needed the government to save them from making their own decisions and restore them to their natural role as mothers.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Queensland, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Notre Dame, 2004. / Thesis directed by Guillermo O'Donnell for the Department of Political Science. "April 2004." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 405-414).

Thesis(LLD)--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.P.S.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 101-105).

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The process of globalization is the subject of heated debate over its impacts on human and state security. In this dissertation, I address its influences on one area of human security - the protection of personal integrity rights. Two questions motivate this project. First, does the globalization process affect the decision-making process of leaders such that there is an alteration in the likelihood that their populations will fall victim to violent forms of state repression? Second, how can the globalization phenomenon best be systematically examined in order to gain a better, generalizable understanding of its complex dynamics and effects on state and human security?I contend that globalization must be disaggregated into its distinct aspects, at different levels of analysis, in order to uncover the complex and even contradictory impacts that it is having throughout the international political economy. I utilize data on 156 lesser developed countries over the period of 1973-2000 to assess the effects of several sub-facets of globalization at both the levels of individual state and systemic integration upon personal integrity rights, as measured by the Political Terror Scale. In terms of levels of state integration, the increasing scope of interdependence between state and non-state actors magnifies the external pressures that leaders must consider when deciding whether or not to employ repressive measures to quell domestic threats. At the system level, globalization may be viewed as an ordering principle, which is expanding a set of rules that alters the propensity of states to engage in violent forms of coercion.The findings in this dissertation indicate that globalization is expanding, with respect to lesser developed countries. Moreover, it significantly influences the likelihood that individuals within these states will fall victim to state repression. However, the complexity and contradictory nature of these effects substantiates my claim that one must disaggregate the concept into its distinct parts. In this manner, this dissertation provides a significant contribution to extending our knowledge of the determinants of state repression as well as the effects of the globalization process. Additionally, it provides a model from which additional influences of globalization may be studied.

Contemporary ad hoc United Nations Commissions of Inquiry (UN COIs) operate during or in the aftermath of many of the world’s worst conflicts. Over the years they have met with mixed success, and a good deal of criticism, yet are thought to provide a vital and unique benefit. Today, that benefit is seen either as the promotion of accountability for criminal wrongdoing, where quasi-criminal inquiries investigate whether war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide has taken place; or, it is seen as laying the foundation for transitional justice reforms, whereby UN COIs map the social, political, legal and even economic landscape and provide “holistic” transitional justice recommendations. Yet despite these lofty goals and the perceived importance of UN COIs, there is very little research on UN COIs. That which does exist tends not to question their purposes or seriously interrogate their procedures; instead, it focuses on incremental measures to improve UN COIs’ processes and legal analyses. This dissertation seeks to provide the basis of a theoretical, principled approach to the creation and work of UN COIs, a normative platform upon which human rights monitoring methods can expand and a continuity of investigatory practice can develop. By treating UN COIs as legal bodies with legal obligations, this dissertation draws on Fuller’s conception of legality and the theory of “interactional law-making” to question the very purposes for which UN COIs are seen to exist and the procedures by which they operate. It finds that neither the holistic transitional justice purpose nor the quasi- criminal purpose is legally or practically tenable. Instead, UN COIs should operate as post-conflict bodies, and delve deeply into a relatively narrow aspect of a systemic problem. A commitment to legality and interactional law-making can also offer a curative to the most salient criticisms of UN COI procedures by improving the credibility, reliability, and impartiality – the legitimacy – of their operations and how they are created.