Magister Commercii - Mcom (Political Studies) / While they have emerged as global ideals based on the recognition of liberty, dignity and universal rights to 'all individuals' within the global community, human rights have faced numerous criticism and scepticism from the Global South. This research paper argues that such scepticism has had negative impact on the drive for the protection and promotion of human rights and International Human Rights Law in global politics. Given such huge challenges, this research paper points out that, unless the global human rights discourse undergoes significant reform and shift, its Western-centric domination will result into more harm than good in the international community's agenda for human rights protection and promotion. Postcolonial Africa has been at the forefront of the debate on the power-political use of the notion. As such, it has been argued that human rights discourse has influenced relations and policies between the West and the Third World, especially Africa. In this relationship, human rights have been viewed as a strategic tool for powerful states in global politics, to use in their quest to legitimise the case for political change. Furthermore, human rights have also been employed by governments seeking to justify their interference in the domestic affairs of other states, especially the West in the case of postcolonial Africa. It has therefore emerged that the human rights rhetoric/ discourse has been understood by postcolonial Africa as serving to establish a powerful perspective relating to the present and past collective experiences of injustice, exclusion and domination within global politics. Here, the global human rights regimes and Africa seem to be at a crossroads regarding the role of human rights in international politics.

The main concern of this thesis is to problematize the so-called mutually beneficial relationship between free market mechanism and common good through the debates around Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Despite the social problems deepened by the free market, capitalist discourse attempts to justify itself by adopting some ethical concerns. However, it should be recognized that these attempts including CSR constitute market-based ethics. Trying to move beyond the existing critical literature on CSR, this thesis approaches to the concept of CSR from a Marxist perspective. I attempt to do it with the help of Marxist concept of commodity combined with Guy Debord&rsquo / s notion of spectacle. I argue that CSR can be considered as a spectacle, because it has at least two characteristics of the spectacle: confronting the working class with each other and commodifying the humanitarian values. This thesis also includes a close reading of the discourse about CSR in order to show that how these two characteristics of the spectacle are embedded in the global language of CSR and how they are manifested through the institutions of capitalism. In this context, I will focus on four institutions that have major contributions to the existing CSR discourse worldwide: UN Global Compact and OECD Guidelines for Multinational Corporations, the most comprehensive international guidelines for CSR, and Nike and Walmart, two monopolies that have been under intense public scrutiny for their unethical practices and have produced the most intense discourse about their corporate responsibility practices.

Submitted by JOSIANE SANTOS DE OLIVEIRA (josianeso) on 2019-02-12T11:08:43Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Gabriela Mezzanotti_.pdf: 2789396 bytes, checksum: 4748e067cb6d5e80e958fcb04964148a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2019-02-12T11:08:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Gabriela Mezzanotti_.pdf: 2789396 bytes, checksum: 4748e067cb6d5e80e958fcb04964148a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-08-31 / Nenhuma / A pesquisa analisa o discurso humanitário no pós-Guerra Fria a partir de dois pressupostos teóricos fundamentais: a Teoria Crítica das Relações Internacionais de Robert Cox e a Teoria Crítica de Análise do Discurso de Norman Fairclough. A análise crítica proposta tem por objeto três documentos de padronização da ação humanitária internacional adotados pelo Comitê Internacional da Cruz Vermelha, Sphere Project e HAP (Humanitarian Accountability Partnership). Objetivando identificar nos documentos de padronização da Assistência Humanitária Internacional a representação textual de um discurso humanitário contemporâneo, a partir das premissas das teorias indicadas, a pesquisa procura também identificar a estrutura discursiva dos documentos e seu caráter hegemônico e politizado. Concebendo o discurso dialeticamente, como ação social que resulta e ao mesmo tempo molda a ordem do discurso, conclui-se que há uma tendência na comunidade internacional em geral de conceber discurso contido nos referidos documentos e na ação humanitária por eles regulamentada como moralmente inquestionáveis, rejeitando a hipótese de se questionar ideias, instituições e condições materiais envolvidas nesses documentos e na prática humanitária, de modo a indagar acerca da possibilidade de haver um projeto hegemônico na estrutura histórica específica que se forma a partir das interações recíprocas desses elementos. Esse projeto hegemônico se esconde atrás dos princípios da neutralidade, imparcialidade e independência veiculados no discurso humanitário dos documentos analisados. A relação de poder que se manifesta na ordem desse discurso está velada no próprio discurso e por isso mesmo legitimada pela relação de poder que nele se contém. Do ponto de vista das Relações Internacionais, a análise crítica do discurso humanitário no pós-Guerra Fria permite desvendar as premissas não declaradas nesse discurso, de modo a identificar a ideologia nele impregnada e o projeto de poder nele amparado. / The research analyzes humanitarian discourse in post-Cold War era through two fundamental theoretical assumptions: the Critical Theory of International Relations by Robert Cox and the Theory of Critical Discourse Analysis by Norman Fairclough. The critical analysis proposed aims three documents of international humanitarian action standardization, adopted by the International Committee of the Red Cross, Sphere Project and HAP (Humanitarian Accountability Partnership). Aiming to identify in the documents of international humanitarian action standardization the textual representation of a contemporary humanitarian discourse, taking the assumptions of the theories already mentioned, the research also aims to identify the discursive structure of the documents and their hegemonic and politicized feature. Conceiving discourse dialectically, as a social action that derives and at the same time molds the order of discourse, it reaches to the conclusion that there is a tendency in international community to conceive the discourse contemplated in such documents and in humanitarian action regulated by them as morally unquestionable, rejecting the hypothesis of questioning ideas, institutions and material conditions involved in these documents and in humanitarian practices, in order to make it possible to question the possibility of an hegemonic project in the specific historic structure that takes shape from the interaction of these elements. Such an hegemonic project hides itself behind the principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence stated in the humanitarian discourse of such documents. The relation between power that manifests in the order of discourse is hidden in the discourse itself and therefore legitimated by the power relation contemplated in it. Under the point of view of International Relations, the critical analysis of the humanitarian discourse in the post-Cold War era enables to unveil the undeclared assumptions of such discourse, so that it becomes possible to identify the ideology impregnated in it and the power project based on it.