Human Rights For Some

Human rights for some: Universal human rights, sexual minorities, and the exclusionary
impulse
Author(s): Bonny Ibhawoh
Source: International Journal, Vol. 69, No. 4 (December 2014), pp. 612-622
Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd. on behalf of the Canadian International Council
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DOI: 10.1177/0020702014544885
sexual minorities, and ijx.sagepub.com
DSAGE
the exclusionary impulse
Bonny Ibhawoh
McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada
Abstract
This article explores historical and present-day exclusionary impulses within the huma
rights movement It juxtaposes the widely celebrated expansion of universal human
rights in the second half of the twentieth century with ideological and institutional
counter-movements that have sought to restrict the scope of human rights. Usin
the exclusionary experience suffered by LGBT people as sexual minorities, the paper
argues that we must pay attention to the exclusionary impulses that continually thr
ten to undermine the full realization of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights'
vision of human rights protection for all, and not just for some.
Keywords
Human rights, universality, exclusionary impulses, LGBT rights
Introduction
When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted by the
United Nations' General Assembly on 10 December 1948, one of its chief arch
tects, the US' First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, hailed it as a "Magna Carta for al
mankind."1 Another architect of the declaration, the French jurist René Cassin
described it as a "milestone in the struggle for human rights... a beacon of hop
for humanity."2 Indeed, the UDHR marked the culmination of a post-Second
World War rights-centred reformist movement to broaden the scope of individual
1. Quoted in Randall Williams and Ben Beard, This Day in Civil Rights History (Montgomery, AL
New South Books, 2009), 309.
2. René Cassin, La pensée et l'action (Paris: F. Lalou, 1972), 118.
Corresponding author:
Bonny Ibhawoh, Department of History/Centre for Peace Studies, McMaster University, 1280 Main Stree
West, Hamilton, ON L8S 4L8, Canada.
Email: ibhawoh@mcmaster.ca
Ibhawoh 613
rights and st
united the wo
consensus th
rewritten. T
means of som
of the United
in the dignit
women and o
a global comm
fundamental
the excuse of
violations w
UDHR is that
it is the respo
rights.
Sixty-six years after its adoption, the UDHR continues to be celebrated as the
defining document that ushered in the twentieth-century human rights revolution.
It remains the founding document of universal human rights and, although not a
legally binding document, it has provided the basis for subsequent international
human rights law. It has been useful in formally setting standards, establishing
norms, and shaping legally binding conventions covering the protection of the
rights of the world's most vulnerable populations. The UDHR is now published
in more than 360 languages and is the most translated document in the world.
It has inspired the constitutions of many states, and although its promise of uni
versal rights protection remains unfulfilled in many parts of the world, it has
become, in the words of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, "a yardstick by
which we measure respect for what we know, or should know, as right and
wrong.
Even as we celebrate the UDHR and the rights revolution it set in motion, it is
important to remember that there was nothing inevitable about its emergence, even
amidst the ruins of the Second World War. The vision of a rights-based postwar
order may have been widely shared by world leaders, but coming up with a document
that the nations of the world could agree on was a difficult and complicated task. As
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour notes, "In a
post-war world scarred by the Holocaust, divided by colonialism and wracked by
inequality, a charter setting out the first global and solemn commitment to the
inherent dignity and equality of all human beings, regardless of colour, creed or
origin, was a bold and daring undertaking, one that was not certain to succeed."5
3. Preamble, Charter of the United Nations (1945), https://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/,

(accessed 4 April 2014).
4. Ban Ki-moon, in Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Dignity and Justice for All of Us
(New York: United Nations Department of Public Information, 2007), iv.
5. Louise Arbour, in Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Dignity and Justice for All of Us
(New York: United Nations Department of Public Information, 2007), v.
614 International Journal 69(4)
Apart from the well-documented cultur

ments that threatened to scuttle its emerg
entire postwar human rights movement
between the progressive impulse to grad
more people across the world and the coun
rights and limit its enforcement.
Notwithstanding the promise of univer
ability that underpins the International Bi
movement has been one of progressiv
impulses. The universality of human rig
fronts by proponents of varying degrees o
the legal universality of human rights
enforcement. Although international hu
of human rights and affirm the fundamen
these rights are not fully enjoyed by ever
human rights remain largely rhetorical
simply contemporary challenges. The hu
one historically. The history of human r
between movements for the expansion of
populations on the one hand, and resi
Movements for more inclusiveness in ri
with counter-movements that seek to rest
universal applicability.
This article thus explores historical an
within the human rights movement. It
sion of universal human rights in the se
ideological and institutional counter-mo
scope of human rights. If the UDHR's v
rights is to be realized, scholars, policym
not only to triumphant proclamations
rights discourse but also to the many c
movement. In other words, while celebr
I aim to push for an alternative lens wh
and universalist rhetoric to uncover th
basic of human rights are still being d
suffered by lesbian, gay, bisexual, tran
as sexual minorities, I argue that we m
impulses that continually threaten to
UDHR's vision for human rights prot
Only through thoughtful reflection on
to push back against progressive inclus
discourse of universal human rights fro
sality, and refocus on those margina
national human rights norms.
Ibhawoh 615
Historical
The great stri
to egregious h
perception an
such discrimin
tions of raci
toward right
sionary and
enjoyment of
Early rights
American De
of Man, repr
articulated no
The English
English nobili
including the
thought expa
human thoug
Europe and s
Enlightenme
stressed the p
arch, religious
contemporary
Building on
American rev
zens' rights.
a radical ideo
Revolution. T
the old order
governance a
Declaration o
premisedon t
contemporary
lute power of
broader civil r
There were, o
rights movem
exclusion bas
English Magna
citizens, was
6. Micheline Ish
(Berkeley: Unive
It protected the rights of the English baron

John but had little to say about the rights
or abroad. So, while the Magna Carta insu
monarchy, it left the common class unprot
feudal potentates.
Enlightenment liberal rights tradition cen
sion as on particularistic entitlements fo
white men, to the exclusion of the rest o
thinking, Enlightenment liberal philosoph
Thomas Paine, and Jean-Jacques Roussea
servative and exclusionary ideas of their
rights to be universal in the eighteenth
much less all-inclusive in mind."7 They co
soned, or foreigners to be unworthy of f
They also excluded those without property,
cases, religious minorities.
Neither the American Revolution, whi
equality of all men, nor the French revolut
egalitarianism seriously shook the foundatio
exclusion in these societies. The American
powerful claim that "all men are created
Creator with certain unalienable rights,"
in the US. Slaves continued to be sold and
were not constructed as members of a univ
James Madison, one of the founders of th
of persons and property, "divested of two-
three-fifths of a person.8 The French Decla
Citizen asserted that "men are born free
claim to freedom and equality excluded m
persistent exclusionary impulse when th
Gouges, an advocate of women's rights, t
issued her "Declaration of the Rights of
Despite these limitations, the promise of
laid important groundwork for modern
American and French revolutions did not
their time, but they "opened up a pre
debate."9 In the same way, abolitionists w
by both Enlightenment conceptions of
pushed their governments to make the s
diplomacy and treaty-making. The resul
7. Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights: A History

8. The Federalist Papers, No. 54, http://avalon.la
June 2014).
9. Hunt, Inventing Human Rights, 20.
Ibhawoh 617
nineteenth ce
ties prohibitin
against huma
kind), helped
law. These d
enslaved and s
Universal
The adoption
national reco
enable univers
humanity. Un
not contingen
inalienable. T
inferiority,
"Magna Carta
ation would b
But although
ing in its univ
between inclu
political incl
social inclusio
rities; and the
national hum
people, for e
demands for
of the Europ
moral legitim
mination. Anti-colonial activists in Asia and Africa demanded that the ideals of
freedom and self-determination advanced as the basis of Allied military campaigns
against Nazism in Europe and Japanese imperialism in Asia also be extended to
them. In India, nationalists led by Mahatma Gandhi took advantage of the
increased international emphasis on the right to self-determination espoused in
the United Nations Charter to bolster their demands for independence from
British colonial rule.
Amidst the push for universal human rights at the United Nations in the 1940s
and 1950s were counter-movements to exclude certain rights of colonized people
from protection under emerging international human rights norms. The inclusion
of the right to self-determination within the human rights framework was particu
larly contested. Certain nations wanted it excluded from the emerging framework
10. Jenny Martinez, The Slave Trade and the Origins of International Human Rights Law (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2012), 149.
of universal human rights. At the Unit

the inclusion of self-determination in inte
to their national sovereignty and resisted
empires or extending the rights of self
principle of sovereignty and the concep
mentally opposed to each other, one having
other, the rights of individuals.
Questions over the inclusivity of the
colonized people arose while the declara
inescapable irony that a declaration p
mankind" was being drawn up at a tim
was still under colonial domination. For
Africa, one of the countries that oppos
implications for its policy of racial segrega
the declaration went beyond generally a
participate in government was not univers
ality but also by qualifications of franch
Opposition did not come only from So
unanimously adopted by 48 states in fav
abstained because it did not accept the p
the assumptions of gender equality, and th
The USSR and five other Soviet bloc stat
broad civil and political rights mandated
that voted in favour of the declaration
initially abstained in committee votes o
the General Assembly." Conscious of its
preferred keeping the human rights pro
binding, while European states wanted to r
The American Bar Association launched
ation, claiming that it was part of a schem
tic jurisdiction, the free enterprise syst
American Anthropological Association c
and overly ambitious.13
The exclusion of the voices and perspec
of drawing up the UDHR remains one of
universality. Nonetheless, the declaration
process because it reinforced the right o
promises made to achieve consensus on
11. William A. Schabas, "Canada and the adoption

McGill Law Journal 43 (1998): 403.
12. Paul Gordon Lauren, The Evolution of Intern
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 216.
13. American Anthropological Association, "State
American Anthropologist 49 (1947): 539-543.
Ibhawoh 619
grounding a
human righ
UDHR procla
of governmen
his or her c
inclusion of
national hum
Granting of
reaffirmed t
the equal rig
peoples have
eignty, and t
The inclusio
framework
internationa
progressive
gence of spe
people such
abilities, and
of human ri
rights system
disadvantage
ferentiated
Formal and
human right
because of t
politically an
is due to the
extend hum
temporary e
limitations i
The persi
Bringing sex
norms has b
human righ
affect the r
ognition of
ment for sa
human righ
recognition
military ser
laws regard
against LGBT people is perhaps the mos

people are targets of organized abuse fr
groups, neo-Nazis, extreme nationalists,
nity violence.
Although extant human rights laws ca
address some of the forms of discrimi
experience, international human rights l
Until recently, there were few internation
explicitly addressed human rights violati
very recently, even human rights organiza
from their advocacy agendas. LGBT righ
activism of major human rights organi
and Human Rights Watch during the he
activism in the 1970s and 1980s.
As with other minority rights, the central issue with LGBT rights protection is
the internationally recognized right to non-discrimination. The main obstacles to
the inclusion of LGBT rights are typically religious, socio-cultural, and institu
tional. These exclusionary barriers exist in every region of the world. In Latin
America, for example, rampant discrimination and violence on the basis of
sexual orientation have been attributed partly to a prevalent machismo culture.
LGBT people are regularly murdered, imprisoned, tortured, raped, and harassed,
while local law enforcement and courts reinforce or ignore discriminatory prac
tices. Studies suggest the problem is so severe that hundreds of LGBT people seek
asylum outside their home countries to escape brutality and discrimination. These
well-documented trends are also evident in Africa and the Middle East where
homosexuality is punished with long-term imprisonment and even the death pen
alty. Even in Western democracies, such as the US and Canada, where progressive
human rights legislation exists, LGBT people face discrimination and violations of
their basic human rights. Discrimination against sexual minorities also extends
beyond national borders as many countries deny entry to homosexuals on the
grounds that they are threats to public health and morals.
To be sure, there have been modest but important developments in the direction
of including LGBT rights more firmly in the international human rights frame
work. In 2011, the United Nations passed its first resolution recognizing LGBT
rights and followed up with a report documenting violations of the rights of LGBT
people, including hate crimes, criminalization of homosexuality, and discrimin
ation. The resolution expressed "grave concern at acts of violence and discrimin
ation, in all regions of the world, committed against individuals because of their
sexual orientation and gender identity."14 A subsequent report prepared by the UN
Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) outlined a
14. United Nations, Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights,
"Discriminatory laws and practices and acts of violence against individuals based on their
sexual orientation and gender identity," A/HRC/19/41, 17 November 2011.
Ibhawoh 621
pattern of hu
governments
sexual orient
people within
homosexualit
sexual relatio
The "United
step in the in
work. It mark
and the inter
inalienable ri
However, as w
extension of u
stiff exclusion
protection fr
movement for inclusion faces at both domestic and international levels is demon
strated by the tense and difficult negotiations required to pass the Gay Rights
Protection Resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council. The reso
lution, which was put forward by South Africa, passed only narrowly with 23 votes
in favour and 19 against. One opposing diplomat condemned the resolution as "an
attempt to replace the natural rights of a human being with an unnatural right."16
The strong opposition to the inclusion of LGBT rights protection in the UN
human rights corpus is a reminder of the historic tensions between inclusionary
and exclusionary impulses in international human rights.
Conclusion
The history of the universal human rights movement has been a struggle for p
gressive inclusion. The project for inclusion has involved working to ensure th
support systems for the universal protection of human rights and fundamen
freedoms are available to all members of the human community and not just
some. However, the project for inclusion is continually challenged by exclusiona
impulses driven by politics, religion, culture, and institutional practices. Th
impulses have diverse roots. While the move to expand human rights can be
linked to progressive movements all over the world, today's threats to inclusiv
are animated by neo-conservative political and cultural ideological movement
International human rights standards have certainly helped to overcome som
discrimination and exclusion. But in spite of the promise of the UDHR, the reality
today is that many people across the world remain excluded from the most ba
15. Bonny Ibhawoh, "Inclusion and exclusion," in Mark Gibney and Anja Mihrand, eds., The SAG
Handbook of Human Rights (New York: Sage, 2014), 336-337.
16. Saralyn Salisbury, "African Opposition to the UN Resolution on Sexual Orientation & Gende
Identity," Human Rights Brief, 10 November 2011, http://hrbrief.org/2011/1 l/african-oppositio
to-the-un-resolution-on-sexual-orientation-gender-identity/ (accessed 25 June 2014).
protection. The persistence of such excl

universality of human rights and reflect
rights revolution. As we celebrate the m
rights movement, it remains pertinent to
sionary impulses that stand in the way o
order.
Acknowledgement
The author is grateful to Dr. Paul Ugoh for
paper.
Funding
This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada's Insight Grant (43-2012-1125).
Author Biography
Bonny Ibhawoh is an associate professor of history and global human rights at
McMaster University, Canada. He is the author of Imperialism and Human Rights
(SUNY Press) and Imperial Justice (Oxford University Press).

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Human rights for some: Universal human rights, sexual minorities, and the exclusionary

Human rights for some: ©©The

Universal human rights, sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav

sexual minorities, and ijx.sagepub.com

3. Preamble, Charter of the United Nations (1945), https://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/,

Apart from the well-documented cultur

It protected the rights of the English baron

7. Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights: A History

of universal human rights. At the Unit

11. William A. Schabas, "Canada and the adoption

against LGBT people is perhaps the mos

protection. The persistence of such excl

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