#whereas Leo blurs that line

[turtleblogatlast]

Something I love to think about is every iteration of Leo’s relationship with Splinter and how Splinter’s interests always define how a Leo presents himself.

I used to abide by the idea that a Leo will simply emulate his Splinter directly, and to an extent I still believe that to be the case, but moreso I think Leos have a tendency to mold themselves into what they believe is their Splinter’s ideal son - someone who embodies all the traits Splinter has explicitly shown to admire or value in a person.

Most of the time, they try to be a dutiful and honorable boy abiding by the full extent of ninjitsu teachings. Then you have Rise Splinter, who very much still has undeniable prowess in the art of fighting and being a ninja, but when it comes to how he shows his interests to his boys…one thing reigns supreme.

Acting. Shows. One liners. Flamboyance in the name of gaining an audience’s attention.

He showcases Lou Jitsu movies on repeat for the boys, passing down the morals and words from those movies to them with no small amount of pride. All while fully expecting them to respect these teachings.

So, of course, Rise Leo picks up on this. He’s a Leo, after all, as much a daddy’s boy as any other variation of him, only he clocked his father’s interests to be different than most others. He picks up on the art of showmanship, of keeping things to himself so as to be a more exciting twist later, of treating the world as a set to act in.

He’s an actor, not just because Splinter himself was one, but because Splinter likes acting and showed one particular actor (unknowingly to the boys, it was himself) as the pinnacle of all his teachings. As someone to value and admire. And even more than that - Splinter focuses on the character the actor is portraying rather than just the man himself.

And I think this is all even more interesting when taking the turtle tot short into consideration, because very, very briefly, just as with many times else throughout the series, we see how easily Rise Leo aligns with his other selves, seeming to pick up the sword easier than his brothers do their own weapons - after quoting Lou Jitsu of course. After emulating his idol - the person who his father seems to admire so much.

Point being, it’s so interesting to see how Leos tend to mold themselves in one particular way throughout every variation - that being, what their father is shown to value most in people.

#rottmnt #rottmnt leo #tmnt leonardo #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt #this is mostly a rottmnt post but it aligns with others as well #idk I just think it’s so interesting #because at his core rise leo is the SAME as the other Leos #they’re all goofy they’re all natural leaders they’re all quiet wanderers they’re all daddy’s boys #but these inherent traits take second to what they believe is valued more #specifically what their splinter values more #and sometimes what is valued allows them to more commonly broadcast themselves as who they actually are #but other times their core personalities directly go against what they think they NEED to be #so they stifle it #and soon enough their emulated selves become so tangled into their real selves that it’s a struggle to tell who they are without it #god I love Leo #and this is not to say that the other bros don’t do a similar thing #they just tend to be much more separate about it in terms of what they admire and who they are #whereas Leo blurs that line #don’t mind me just once again overanalyzing a fictional turtle boy #edit: AND ANOTHER THING #but Splinters value placed on Lou Jitsu ALSO helps push Leo into being someone who does things on his own #sure he loves his brothers and they’re everything to him #but he pre invasion he often does things himself or just expects to handle things on his own #y’know #like Lou Jitsu who notoriously does NOT have a team #so this Leo doesn’t care about being a leader - because who he’s emulating isn’t one #he’s like ‘okay we’re just a group of Lou Jitsus’ #and there’s something so painfully childlike about this

[bettycanavosio]

you know i feel like vito and henry are both kinda getting tired of The Life but in different ways, like...vito's clearly been having thoughts of quitting for a long time but he doesn't feel like he has any other options so he just soldiers on. henry on the other hand will never be anything but a gangster and he knows it, but the whole "next thirty years breaking your ass" speech (especially given he mentions eddie–i think he's picturing luca) gives me the vibe that he's tired of being pushed around by other people and coming to the realization that twenty years of taking shit from clemente wasn't worth it. i think in leo's kitchen especially (i know that's an optional scene oops) with both "those aren't the people who pay me" (showing he no longer cares about the rules) and the fact he ends up sparing leo for vito's sake, he starts realizing what his actual priorities are and that he really doesn't give a shit about anything but himself and his two friends. so his solution is to start trying to make his own money, and when vito's dissatisfaction becomes obvious, henry thinks roping him into his plan will somehow make things better quite possibly because he doesn't realize why vito's tired of the life or thinks he'll get over it once he's got some cash in his pocket–like he misinterprets it as "all this hard work hasn't paid off how i expected" and not "i don't like who this lifestyle has turned me into/the cost hasn't been worth the material success" (especially given he expresses those doubts before the house fire or frankie cutting him off, and right after marty comes up...) god this is so long i'm sorry

never apologise i’d literally read a whole novel if you sent one. however i think i somehow managed to write a fuck ton about nothing in response oops

anyway i love this you’re so right. i do think the complete miscommunication between each other’s wants and perceptions of The Life is what ruins them and their friendship. i feel like henry has been forced so hard to have this mentality that money will solve everything that when he gradually breaks out of it, it’s so similar to trying to gasp for air not knowing you were ever underwater. he’s in this weird grey area between i want money and i want my friends whereas vito is in an area between i want my friends and i want to recognise myself again.

the terrible thing is that, whilst they have one desire in common, it’s the other desire that gnaws on the string that binds them. vito eventually just doesn’t seem to think anything can compensate for the loss of his family (both to death and estrangement), and so his friends become his strongest attachments. he thinks he can find himself in them. unfortunately, these same friends present the extrinsic want for money (e.g. c’mon, don’t be stupid, vito. twenty fucking grand in one afternoon) so he forces himself to think if it works so well for them it must work for me, but it doesn’t and he knows that, but he can’t be all let’s give up and do our own thing because that doesn’t feel like an option for him. it’s just easier to endure the life now. not to mention the selfish nature of leaving completely opposes vito’s altruism.

of course henry doesn’t give a fuck about being selfish (and after all those years, i don’t blame him). the only problem is that, like before, he blurs the lines between the things that actually make him happy. vito’s wants (friendship and self-discovery (?) for lack of a better term) are tied into each other, but money and friendship are things that are hard to bind. yet it’s the only thing henry knows. i honestly think henry could hand vito bags and bags of cash and he just wouldn’t understand why vito is still unsatisfied. henry’s very much i realised all i’ve ever wanted is my money and my friends, why isn’t this enough for you? why don’t our ends meet? while vito is like i don’t want your money. you don’t want your money. be honest.

but they don’t even get the time to have that full conversation after all the fragments we get that build to it, and henry doesn’t get the time to grow away from what holds him underwater because he fucking dies. just so much unfinished business.

anyway tl;dr have this quote about sisyphus

#i don’t know if this makes sense #also i’m sorry this took ages to write #a* #harry

[dent-de-leon]

Leo, is that Molly on the left and Lucien on the right in the book cover?! Do you think we're gonna get some inside on their thoughts in relation to each other? Like maybe Molly reacting to Caleb and Jester from inside Lucien's mind?

Yes!! It took me a second to see at first, but it’s easier to notice if you split the cover in half. The shading and red lighting kinda obscure it a little, which is very interesting, but you can see that Lucien’s horns are mostly bare (there’s just the little sun charm, whereas Molly’s horns are heavily adorned in all this fancy silver) and Molly’s got his tattoos and ornate coat, whereas Lucien’s half has only the scars and he’s wearing the heavy winter coat from Eiselcross.

Just the fact that Mollymauk is there on the cover at all--and he draws your eye more than Lucien--makes me think he’ll be more present in the narrative than they’ve let on? I mean, he and Lucien are each given half the cover. Even if we don’t really cover anything from Mollymauk’s time, we know this book will go into all of Lucien’s moments with the Mighty Nein in Eiselcross: 

“Author, Madeleine Roux, delves into the mind of one of Critical Role’s most infamous yet tragic figures, in this original novel that chronicles Lucien’s early life with the Tombtakers through his final dealings with the Mighty Nein.” 

So I think we’re going to see that shard of Molly gradually peeking through the longer Lucien travels with the Nein. And I’ve always wanted to see what exactly was going on in Lucien’s head when he was really confronted with the Mighty Nein and kept getting those flashes of fleeting memories--kept feeling Molly’s heart and soul lingering somewhere in the back of his mind, love and guilt and a torrent of emotions that were not his own eating away at him. 

We also know on some level Molly was absolutely present when Lucien took the body. He knew what was happening, but his soul was caged, unable to break free for so long. Matt actually describes through King's dreams what that felt like for him, and it sounds terrifying:

“Every now and then, your mind occasionally begins to recall memories through an occasional nightmare. Flashes of blurred memory, and time spent locked with another familiar, yet revolting place. The shell of loathing inescapable interior, looking out from your prison, pushing against your invisible binds. When your heart found the strength, giving all that you are to help those who gave you purpose in return.” 

I can't believe we're actually going to be seeing the other side of this?? How it felt for Lucien to know Mollymauk was locked away somewhere, another consciousness wrestling with his own--

Also, I kinda want to talk about the two different sides of the cover a bit, because I just think it’s so good. 

First off, I think one of the things that really catches my attention about the divide between these two is the horn charms. Whereas Molly’s moon charm is glowing with light, Lucien’s sun has gone dark. Molly’s features on the cover are so much clearer, because he’s standing in the light, whereas Lucien is shrouded in darkness. Lucien feels much more like Molly’s shadow here, and he’s almost lost in the overpowering, burning red of the Somnovum, which is very fitting.

Even Molly’s little symbol on the bottom of the book--the same one that was on his D20--deliberately shows the moon on Mollymauk’s half and the black sun on Lucien’s. I just love that it lines up like that. And of course there’s also the moons on the lining of Molly’s coat. 

Love that Mollymauk is the Mighty Nein character that was given the moon motif, because that’s just one of my favorite things thematically. Seeing it so clearly represented here also makes me a little hopeful that we’ll maybe see Molly’s relationship with the Moonweaver come up at some point. 👀 Also, I absolutely need this book to tell me if Lucien/Molly is Ruidus-born--

And it’s an interesting choice to give Lucien the sun charm at all, because it’s something from Molly’s portrait art, and presumably only the kind of thing you’d associate with him? I don’t see Molly keeping something from Lucien, or Lucien wearing jewelry that noticeable and flashy. 

But--it’s not a perfect match of Molly’s sun charm. Molly’s sun is gold and red, whereas Lucien’s is black. It...looks like the sun’s been eclipsed. So if Lucien’s associated with a solar eclipse--a moon blocking out the sun--and Molly is the moon, what’s that say about the two?? Even with Lucien in control, Molly is still breaking through? Lucien’s name is also Latin like the rest of the Somnovum, and it means Light. Which makes the allusion of Lucien to the sun feel all the more purposeful to me. I don’t know, I feel like there’s a story there. 

And the crown, that crown!!! It’s got the Eyes of Nine on it, that’s absolutely terrifying?? It looks like something wrought from the ruins of Cognouza, I absolutely love it. It’s the only thing that both Lucien and Molly share in the cover too, which is fascinating. Is it just to demonstrate that both Molly and Lucien’s lives were bound to the Eyes? An acknowledgement that they were both a potential vessel for the Nonagon? 

Or is this where we finally find out what it was that made every incarnation of Mollymauk feel like royalty? King said he chose his name because, “The very last feeling I felt was a...royal kingliness. Kingsley.” Is there something in both Molly and Lucien’s past beyond just the Eyes that made him feel that way? Did Molly/Lucien really have a crown and royal lineage once? I just!! Have so many questions--

#sorry that got long but #this cover is just so good #molly/lucien looks so hot-- #im so excited to see that little shard of molly!!! #head full. many molly/lucien thoughts

[arisefairsun]

As someone who's heard that Romeo + Juliet (dir. Baz Luhrmann) was the "most accurate to the screenplay, technically" but also that it wasn't as accurate as it could be, plus all the other pro/con arguments abt it that float around, I was hoping you could tell me why you dislike it? Thank you!

So, I decided to watch the movie again before answering your message (that’s mainly why I took so long to reply! I’m sorry) because the last time I watched it was like five years ago, and I actually loved it this time around? I’ve been fangirling the whole night.

I agree that Luhrmann did a fantastic job in ‘translating’ the society of Shakespeare’s Verona into the contemporary world. The misogyny, the cult of violence and masculinity—all these aspects were brilliantly shown by Luhrmann. Besides, the rhythm of the movie is marvelous. All the scenes are governed by this impulsive, erratic speed. It gives you no time to think; you get carried away by its rash haste. The crazy speed of the play is one of my favorite things because it’s like, a huge emotional rollercoaster.

Still, I’m uncomfortable with the way Luhrmann filmed Romeo and Juliet’s first conversation—Juliet literally has to step back to prevent Romeo’s mouth from touching hers right when he says, “have not saints lips and holy palmers too?”. It looks so self-assertive, it makes me cringe. They’re literally creating a sonnet together, it should be beautiful and not creepy. And then there’s this new scene where we see Romeo arrive at Juliet’s bedroom on their wedding night, which I think is nonsense. I talked about it here.

Another part that I found disappointing was the portrayal of Romeo’s despair when he receives the news of his banishment in the friar’s cell. He should be “on the ground, with his own tears made drunk”, “taking the measure of an unmade grave.” He is so desperate and anxious that he even attempts to kill himself just to destroy his Montague self. However, Leo is too serene. I can’t help comparing his acting with Leonard Whiting’s portrayal, who was cut out most of the lines in this scene but who managed to accurately show Romeo’s anxiety nonetheless. Another thing I’m not sure I like entirely is the “balcony” scene. In the original play, Juliet is locked inside her window and therefore they cannot touch, let alone make out in a pool. I find it very significant that they don’t even touch in the longest, probably deepest conversation they have, but I felt like Luhrmann over-sexualized the scene unnecessarily. And then, as usual, they didn’t make Tybalt come back after Mercutio’s death. It’s quite an important little detail—both the fact that Tybalt came back to Romeo and that Romeo only suggested revenge after Tybalt’s return. (Tybalt would never run away from a fight? He is too arrogant to do so.)

The death scene is most likely what I dislike the most, though. To begin with, I think the scenery, pretty though it is, isn’t really appropriate—it should be dark, scary, the way a “nest of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep” should be, only lightened by Juliet’s beauty and not by pretty candles all around (“Her beauty makes / This vault a feasting presence full of light”). The place should correspond to Juliet’s fears:

Shall I not, then, be stifled in the vault,To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?Or, if I live, is it not very like,The horrible conceit of death and night,Together with the terror of the place—As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,Where, for these many hundred years, the bonesOf all my buried ancestors are packed:Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,Lies festering in his shroud; where, as they say,At some hours in the night spirits resort—Alack, alack, is it not like that I,So early waking, what with loathsome smells,And shrieks like mandrakes’ torn out of the earth,That living mortals, hearing them, run mad.

It should be that terrifying. And, most importantly, it should specifically be Capulet’s crypt rather than some random church. Basically because by poisoning himself in the vault of his wife’s family, Romeo is destroying the patriarchal system (as well as reinforcing again his rejection of his own surname and the whole feud; he chooses to “set up” his “everlasting rest” in Capulet’s tomb rather than in that of Montague).

I find it very symbolic that they both die alone, surrounded by Tybalt’s and Paris’ corpses—the two men who thwarted their love the most—; I actually think it’s very significant to make them die separately. It reinforces the repressive isolation that they both experimented throughout the play. If you think about it, we not only witness the evolution of their love but also their evolution as individuals. We get to see how their relationship alters their social identities (i.e. Romeo’s willingness to love Tybalt, Juliet’s sexual liberty, etc.), and when their society rejects these new identities, they tragically decide to commit suicide. (More on this here.) I think they not only kill themselves for each other, but also for themselves, and this is something that’s highlighted by the fact that they die alone.

Besides, having Juliet wake before Romeo’s death kind of blurs the Liebestod trope—that is, death is not truly dividing them, but finally bringing them together. They kill themselves because they cannot be together in life, ergo Romeo promises he “will still stay with thee” because death will turn him into Juliet’s husband again. (There are actually lots of references to wedding rituals in this scene.) So when he says “thus with a kiss I die” (“die” meaning both to lose your life and to have an orgasm) he is not really saying farewell. He is kissing her right before dying to “seal with a righteous kiss / A dateless bargain to engrossing death”. However, in the Luhrmann version, Romeo dies thinking that death will separate him from Juliet, and so his last kiss is not a “dateless bargain” but a goodbye. (Overall his death lacks something if Juliet wakes in time. This awesome lesbian version also made Romeo die after Juliet’s awakening, but neither Luhrmann nor the lesbian production dared add new lines and he just stays speechless until he dies and I find it very weak? If Romeo saw Juliet live again, he would surely say something. If Shakespeare had wanted Juliet to wake before his death, he would have written it like that, but he didn’t. I feel like Luhrmann is changing the meaning of the scene just to increase the dramatic effects of it.)

I also think it’s highly important to make Friar Lawrence enter the scene between Romeo’s and Juliet’s deaths—he gives Juliet a very suitable option in terms of religion:

Come, I’ll dispose of theeAmong a sisterhood of holy nuns:Stay not to question, for the watch is coming.

Juliet is breaking the rules again by refusing to hide at a convent and spend the rest of her life devoting herself to God and mourning her dead husband. She prefers to commit suicide. But what’s even more irritating about Luhrmann’s version is that Juliet doesn’t say a word after Romeo’s death, which weakens the character a lot. Their conversation ends with Romeo’s “thus with a kiss I die”. It’s a pity, because her last words are really potent, especially considering that daggers were seen as a masculine form of suicide (whereas poison was often attributed to women. My kids love burning down gender roles): “O happy dagger! This is thy sheath: / There rust and let me die” (with another pun on “to have an orgasm”). By introducing Romeo’s dagger into herself she’s again claiming her right to be sexually active. This metaphor is weakened by making her use a gun instead (AND BY CUTTING OUT HER DEATH SPEECH LIKE!!! HOW DARE YOU!!!).

Another thing that I wish were included in the movie is Capulet and Montague’s reconciliation. I find it vital for the message that the play wants to transmit. After all the violence, the prejudice, the social oppression, Romeo and Juliet’s death puts an end to the war between both households (I say households and not families). The patriarchs admit the wrong they did, and it’s just so satisfying to hear them apologize. I think this is kind of the whole purpose of the play—I would dare say this last conversation is the reason the whole story was told in the first place. The prologue focuses on the households’ violence, and it actually mentions Romeo and Juliet to express that their death ceased the violence:

Two households, both alike in dignity,In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.From forth the fatal loins of these two foesA pair of star-crossed lovers take their life,Whose misadventured piteous overthrowsDoth with their death bury their parents’ strife.

However, in Luhrmann’s version, Capulet and Montague only stand side by side without saying a word while the Prince reprehends them, leaving up in the air whether or not they will take their children’s advice and replace hate with love.

But apart from that, I actually did enjoy it!

#answered #thoughts #Romeo + Juliet #Romeo and Juliet #Romeo and Juliet 1996 #Shakespeare #I'M GOING TO WATCH IT AGAIN TONIGHT #fuckingbiblicalmate

[universalessays-blog]

Civil Liberties Research Paper has been published on http://research.universalessays.com/sociology-research-paper/law-research-paper/civil-liberties-research-paper/

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Civil Liberties Research Paper

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Abstract

This research paper addresses the differences between civil liberties, civil rights, and human rights, approaching the subject from a multidisciplinary and global perspective. Among other aspects, the entry focuses on three fundamental tensions in this field: the tension between the philosophical origins of these concepts and their political and historical manifestations and influences; the tension between culture and universalism; and the ironic or ambivalent relationship between rights and state power. A concluding section discusses the special problem of terrorism and rights.

Outline

Introduction

Basic Historical Background

Basic Aspects of Civil Liberty and Human Rights

Definitions

Relationship to the State

Some Basic Issues

Civil Liberties in Practice

Human Rights in International Practice

The Continuing Dilemma of Rights and the State

The Special Problems Posed by International Terrorism

Bibliography

Introduction

Civil liberties and human rights are the basic freedoms and claims individuals possess as members of political orders or as members of the human race. Civil liberties are essentially ‘negative’ political rights that stand as shields against state actions and infringements, whereas human rights may include (depending upon the theorist or political posture) these claims as well as broader claims to such things as social and economic rights, cultural rights, and collective rights of peace and environmental health. This research paper discusses the political and intellectual history of civil liberties and human rights, their contemporary domestic and international political and legal contexts, and major debates surrounding their usage. Emphasis is placed on the aspirations behind these concepts, as well as on the tensions and conflicts that accompany their use.

‘Civil liberties’ and ‘human rights’ are closely related terms that embrace the basic freedoms and claims to which individuals are entitled, either as citizens of a particular state or by virtue of being human. The very ideas of civil liberty and human rights presuppose two intertwined convictions: that individuals or groups in civil society have moral status independent of the organized power of society (e.g., the state); and that this power must respect the rights that flow from this status. Though they arose as a response to political and normative claims in the West, at the beginning of the twenty-first century civil liberties and human rights are at least officially endorsed by virtually all countries and the community of international law. The content and scope of these concepts are contested on philosophical and political grounds. Accordingly, the concepts provide a good method of examining the ways in which important philosophical and legal concepts interact with political and historical forces.

Basic Historical Background

The idea of a moral status independent of the state is tied in multifarious ways to notions of higher (or natural) or universal law, democracy, individual conscience, and limited government. These notions have echoes in history as far back as ancient Athens and Rome, and in medieval Christian thought. The modern turn toward individual ‘rights’ (as opposed to natural ‘law’) was the product of a complex historical process that included Renaissance and humanist emphases on human achievement and creativity; the Protestant Reformation’s stress on individual religious conscience and religious pluralism; the Enlightenment’s belief in the power of reason and the individual; the growth of markets; and – most importantly – the rise of democracy (see Law and Democracy). The specifically liberal tradition of limited government and natural rights arose in the political and intellectual history of several European countries, notably England, Scotland, France, and the Netherlands, and in the United States, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Social contract theory in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries envisioned ‘social contracts’ between the government and the citizenry based on the consent of the governed and the protection of natural rights. Building on the theory of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke (1998) maintained in his influential Second Treatise on Government (a work defending the Glorious Revolution in England in 1688, and the 1689 English Bill of Rights) that government’s primary purpose is to protect the rights of individuals found in the state of nature, specifically rights to life, liberty, and property. The American Declaration of Independence (1776) and the French Declaration of Man and the Rights of Citizens (1789) carried these ideas further, declaring the primacy of civil and political liberties.

Basic Aspects of Civil Liberty and Human Rights

Definitions

Though the distinction between ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ rights (first articulated by philosopher Isaiah Berlin, 1969) is often blurred or overstated, civil ‘liberties’ are often considered negative rights in that they serve as shields that protect the liberty and rights of individuals and members of civil society from state oppression. They represent claims against state action. Classic civil liberties include freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and religion, due process and fairness in legal proceedings (especially criminal process), privacy, and freedom from illegitimate discrimination.

Civil liberties should be distinguished from civil rights. Civil ‘rights’ are often construed as more ‘positive’ rights, in that they entail the state bestowing a power to do something affirmative, or taking action to protect fundamental interests or claims against private (nongovernmental) actions. For example, the right to use privately owned public accommodations or facilities, or the right not to be discriminated against in private employment, can be construed as civil rights. More broadly defined positive rights may include such claims as the right to a job, to obtain adequate housing, and to share in more equal distribution of resources. More aggressive state action is needed to effectuate such rights.

Civil liberties and rights are generally claims tied to citizenship in particular legal orders. ‘Human rights’ are more universal in nature; they exist simply because one is a human being. These include the civil liberties discussed previously, as well as freedom from torture, slavery, and degrading treatment; freedom of the family; and basic self-determination. Debate swirls around whether such rights include basic economic, social, and cultural rights and needs, or broader collective goods.

Though human rights claims can be derived from specific domestic or international legal sources, their claims are distinctively moral. As political theorist Jack Donnelley (1989) remarks, “Human rights claims are essentially extralegal; their principal aim is to challenge or change existing institutions, practices or norms, especially legal institutions.” Accordingly, Donnelley emphasizes the ‘possession paradox’: Having a right is most important when “enjoyment of the object of the right is threatened or denied.” Thus, human rights claims typically arise when a particular claim is not afforded legal protection by a particular country, such as same-sex sexual expression at one time in some states in the United States, or religious conscience in China today.

The distinct concept of ‘human’ rights arose in the aftermath of World War II, with the widespread condemnation of the atrocities the Nazis committed against Jews and other minorities. After having declined in the wake of skepticism and new political movements in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (e.g., utilitarianism, emotivism, nationalism, and Marxism), notions associated with natural rights and natural law enjoyed a revival in the aftermath of the war, as democratic theorists regained respect for more objective moral principles that provide standards by which to evaluate the practices of states. Such theorists as Leo Strauss (1950) and Edward Purcell (1973) have written about a postwar ‘crisis’ in democratic theory along these lines. The term ‘human’ rights avoided the intellectual and political baggage associated with ‘natural’ law and rights, while at the same time pointing to universally held moral principles. In the unprecedented Nuremberg trials held after the war, Allied prosecutors convicted Nazi leaders of crimes against peace and humanity. Also, in the wake of World War II, the new United Nations (UN) made human rights an important part of its agenda, and Japan and West Germany, under the aegis of occupying forces, adopted constitutions that protect basic civil liberties and rights.

Relationship to the State

The concept of individual or natural rights is historically and pragmatically related – both positively and negatively – to the emergence of the modern nation-states from feudalism between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries. In 1648, the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the murderous Thirty Years’ War in Europe between Catholic and Protestant states, constituted the first formal international recognition of the nation-state’s autonomy from religious authority. It also established the first official tolerance of religious pluralism, a crucial move in the rise of civil liberty and human rights. Yet the Westphalian model of international law left no room for the international enforcement of individual rights, as its main objective was the recognition of the principle of territorial sovereignty (domestic jurisdiction) of strong states.

Nonetheless, the rise of strong nation-states made individual rights more important than they had been in the past, spawning new theories about the obligations of states to citizens. Indeed, another paradox (which also involves the endemic jurisprudential debate between legal positivism and forms of legal analysis based on natural law) concerns the relationship between rights claims and their enforcement or recognition. Though many theorists persuasively contend that rights claims exist independently of legal protection, rights claims (positive and negative) have to be recognized and enforced by those in power in order to be effective. The Nuremberg trials present a classic example of this fact. (Some have called the verdicts ‘victors justice’.) As James Madison wrote, following the logic of Hobbes and Locke, liberal freedom can exist only when the state is strong enough to protect its citizens, but also limited enough so as not to oppress them. Writing in the aftermath of World War II, Hannah Arendt (1951) chillingly portrayed how vulnerable stateless people are to abuse of their humanity. Legal theorist Stephen Holmes (1995) puts the matter succinctly: “Weak-state pluralism is a recipe not for liberalism, but for a proliferation of rival and coercive mafias, clans, gangs, and cults . Liberal government . is meant to solve the problem of anarchy and the problem of tyranny within a single and coherent system of rules” (pp. 270–271).

Some Basic Issues

Important questions have been raised about the content and intellectual foundation of human rights and civil liberties. What is the scope of rights? Are such rights derived from political or legal agreement, or are they postulates of theological or philosophical inquiry? Do we grasp them by intuition or reason? Which claims are fundamental, and which less fundamental, and how can we make this determination? Should the list of fundamental claims include only basic political and civil liberties, or should it also include social and economic rights? Are rights claims culturally determined or relative, as the American Anthropological Association officially declared in 1947, or are there general principles that make certain claims universal?

Some thinkers, such as Christian Bay (1982), maintain that human rights stem from human ‘needs,’ which include shelter, food, and livelihood; others emphasize human beings’ distinctive moral nature, stressing human dignity, self-respect, and citizenship. The debate concerns those who define human nature in largely materialistic or naturalistic terms, and those who define human nature in terms of such qualities as rationality, moral capacity, or spirituality.

Writers such as Henry Shue (1980) distinguish basic from less basic rights. A right is basic if its enjoyment is ‘essential to the enjoyment of all rights.’ These rights include physical security, economic security or subsistence, and liberty to participate in the economic and political life of the community. Still others, such as Donnelley, argue that this list is insufficient because a fully developed life requires more opportunities and attributes than these minimums. However, history shows that ‘negative’ civil liberties are necessary to protect us from the state, so these should always be on the short list of basic rights. If we decide to include more rights as basic, we must do so without sacrificing basic civil liberties. (This is the approach of philosopher John Rawls in his classic book A Theory of Justice (1971): no scheme of social justice may negate fundamental civil liberties.) And we must understand that the longer the list of basic rights, the greater the potential for conflict among rights and social policies designed to promote them.

Theorists such as French jurist Karel Vasak (1982) posit ‘generations’ of rights based on historical development. The first generation consists of political and civil liberties, while the second generation embraces egalitarian social and economic rights. The so-called third generation rights involve humanity as a whole, including cultural self-determination, environmental health, solidarity, and peace.

The founding movements and documents in the rise of liberal democracy accentuated civil and political liberties. Yet the rise of socialism, Marxism, and the working class in the nineteenth century spawned the advocacy of social and economic rights in addition to (or instead of ) civil and political rights. In the twenty-first century, such rights are found in the constitutions or fundamental laws of communist (and former communist) states and many developing or third world states. Though developed liberal states are mainly dedicated to political and civil rights, social and economic rights often comprise parts of their social and legislative policy. In recent decades, such internationalist groups as the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights and the Fair Labor Association contend that corporations’ use of factories in developing countries has made the protection of economic and social rights in those countries a primary concern.

Human rights covenants in the UN reflect these debates. In 1946, the Economic and Social Council of the UN established the Commission on Human Rights, which led to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, a foundational document that has achieved the status of customary international law. In 1966, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) were signed by most states, taking effect in 1976. The ICCPR protects such basic civil liberties as freedom from arbitrary punishment, forced servitude, and unfair criminal process; freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; personal liberty and security; freedom of the family; freedom to participate in fair elections; and equal suffrage. An Optional Protocol of the ICCPR commits ratifying states to allow a special committee of experts to examine claims by individuals against them.

The ICESCR covers such rights as the right to work under good conditions; the right to an adequate standard of living; and the right to social security, food, clothing, shelter, and basic health. The ICESCR is less stringent in its wording than the ICCPR. Signatories established no rank ordering of these rights, and enforcement is more a matter of exposure and persuasion than force.

Civil Liberties in Practice

The protection of civil liberties varies (in legal provisions and applications of these provisions) in different countries due to cultural and political factors. For instance, free speech doctrine and practice in the United States protect the advocacy of illegal action, including racist rhetoric that falls short of directly triggering a disturbance of the peace or inciting violence. In contrast, Canada, Israel, Germany, France, and many other countries prohibit speech that advocates racism (racist rhetoric), regardless of the likelihood of illegal action. In Germany and Austria it is illegal to belong to a Nazi party or to wear a Nazi uniform, while courts in the United States have expressly protected such actions.

Though virtually all countries have basic legal protections for criminal suspects, standards vary widely, especially when we look at practice rather than the letter of the law. In Russia, for example, where legal institutions are poorly developed, preventive detention and criminal procedure rights of criminal suspects are poorly enforced despite formal legal protections; France offers some protections but does not recognize the privilege against self-incrimination. In the area of religion, the United States maintains an exceptionally strict separation of church and state, while such democracies as Ireland, Italy, and Germany allow more accommodation between state and religion. In India, ‘personal laws’ linked to the major religions (Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and Parsi) are distinguished from normal civil law, thereby accommodating culturally based discrimination against women in such areas as marriage, divorce, and inheritance. Communist China has persecuted such religious groups as Christians and the Falun Gong because their views are allegedly contrary to state ideology. And such Muslim countries as Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan have severe laws against blasphemy (disparaging religion), a form of speech that the American First Amendment protects without qualification.

Social scientists and legal scholars cite several factors that influence the extent to which countries will support civil liberties and rights on a sustainable basis. Commitment to civil liberty has historically been accompanied by social pluralism, legal institutions based on rule of law, and the differentiation of the state from civil society. More specific explanations include such factors as the existence of a bill of rights and judicial independence, judicial leadership and control of case dockets, and a culture of rights consciousness that encourages citizens to think in terms of rights.

More recent explanations point to the presence of political and social movements that engender legal change (e.g., the civil rights movement in the United States; the freedom movement of South Africa led by Nelson Mandela). Charles Epp (1998) has pinpointed sustained pressure exerted by a ‘support structure for legal mobilization,’ which consists of rights-advocacy organizations and lawyers, and sufficient funding from private and (especially) public sources. Rights revolutions succeeded in the United States and Canada in recent decades because of the presence of these factors, while India’s rights movement was thwarted despite a favorable Supreme Court because such factors were absent.

Whether the ‘Arab Spring’ that erupted in Egypt and Tunisia in 2010 and spread to other Middle Eastern countries will result in greater freedoms and civil liberties in that region is an open question as of this writing. It will depend upon the strength of the factors considered herein.

Human Rights in International Practice

Until recently, the international system remained committed to the Westphalian model’s strong presumption in favor of the ‘domestic jurisdiction’ of states. But this situation slowly began to change with the growth of consciousness of human rights, the democratic ethic, and globalization. The most important events before the end of World War II and the Nuremberg trials include the abolition of slavery in the British empire in the 1830s and 1840s, culminating in the League of Nations’ Slavery Convention of 1926; the policy of ‘humanitarian invention’ by Western states to protect Christian citizens abroad in the nineteenth century; and several conventions and treaties protecting the rights of soldiers in war promulgated in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

In the wake of World War II and the humiliating failures of the League of Nations, the world community established the United Nations, which promulgated the UN Charter. Whereas the Westphalian model is premised on the freedom of states over their domestic jurisdictions, the UN Charter, or ‘new international law’ model, embraces the Kantian model of international relations and law, which emphasizes universal peace and human dignity. In reality, the models coexist in the contemporary world, posing sometimes vexing questions about where to draw the line between state sovereignty and international human rights norms. Such questions are not merely abstract problems, as supranational bodies face them on a regular basis. Yet the conferees who established the charter rejected a proposal to authorize intervention to protect rights, and a clause in the charter expressly prohibits intervention in ‘matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of states.’

In recent decades, many international treaties and forums have been established under the aegis of the UN or other regional and international organizations to promote recognition of human rights. States have signed treaties in conventions against torture, genocide, racial and gender discrimination, and treaties protecting refugees and children. Again, legal, social, and political movements have been indispensable to the promotion of human rights logic and practice, as the noted human rights activist Ayreh Neier chronicled in an authoritative book (2012). In addition to hundreds of regional and intergovernmental organizations (such as the Organization of American States, the Organization of African Unity, etc.), such nongovernmental organizations as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Committee of the Red Cross have played major roles in raising awareness, linking international organizations, and even bringing cases for enforcement in relevant jurisdictions (Keck and Sikkink, 1998).

States have drafted regional agreements to protect rights on all continents except Asia. In Europe, the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (based on the ICCPR) formed the European Court of Human Rights, which takes cases after they have been heard by the relevant domestic courts. Member states have agreed to accept all of the court’s rulings, leading, for example, to changes in Britain’s law of criminal procedure (most notably in the area of pretrial detention) and changes in several states’ laws concerning the rights of children born out of wedlock.

Not surprisingly, politics has affected the application of the ICCPR and ICESCR covenants. During the cold war era, Western countries championed the ICCPR, while communist countries supported the ICESCR. Third world countries have advocated rights of self-determination, cultural rights, and collective rights concerning resources (debates over law of the seas, etc.). Cultural relativism remains an issue. In 1993, Asian countries challenged claims about the universality of political and civil rights during the UN World Conference on Human Rights, arguing that such rights can be counterproductive, even dangerous, in the context of economic underdevelopment, fragmented nationalism, and fragile state institutions. Theorists such as Donnelley counter by pointing out that these arguments ignore the actual plights of persecuted minorities in these countries, thereby serving the interests of entrenched elites or tyrants. Similar concerns are raised about the status of women in many states, such as Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Enforcement of human rights at the international level has remained problematic because of the continued normative and prudential reluctance to intervene in the domestic jurisdiction of states. Hobbes and Locke would have predicted such a result in the absence of an international sovereign with sufficient power to enforce protections of rights. As a result, the main support for human rights has been in the form of moral persuasion (far from meaningless, if not always efficacious), exposure of violations through research and publication, and the deployment of such measures as economic sanctions. UN organizations have investigated several countries, including Chile, Rwanda, Somalia, Zaire, several Latin American countries, Iran, Iraq, and South Africa. Such investigations are no substitute for political will, however.

The Continuing Dilemma of Rights and the State

The decline of cold war politics in the UN Security Council enabled the UN to be somewhat more aggressive, sponsoring peacekeeping and actual interventions to protect human rights in Somalia, Iraq, and Bosnia in the early 1990s. Yet the efforts in Somalia and Iraq after 1991 proved short lived, and in 1994 the world stood by while massive genocide took place in Rwanda (Straus, 2006). In 1999, Cuba, China, and Sudan championed the norm of the territorial sovereignty of states in order to shield their abuses of human rights from international intervention, even though these states were at that time themselves members of the UN Human Rights Commission.

To be sure, Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic was defeated in his attempt to take over Kosovo in 1999, yet this victory was won by the military commitment and might of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization under the leadership of the United States and Britain; victory came only after Serbian forces had already carried out massive ethnic cleansing. After Kosovo, Czech president Vaclav Havel wrote in Kosovo and the End of the Nation-State that the nation-state would end in the next century, giving away to an international community governed ‘by universal or global respect for human rights, by universal civic equality and the rule of law, and by a global civil society.’ Writer Leon Wieseltier (1999) replied that no oppressed soul had ever been saved by the forces of ‘global civil society.’ Kosovo was delivered from Milosevic by the willful acts of allied nation-states. Though the nation-state is a source of evil, ‘it is also the nation-state from which we may demand rescue from such evils. The ethical content of a particular sovereignty is what finally matters.’

In 2011, a military intervention sponsored by the UN assisted the revolutionary movement of Libya in its fight against its tyrannical ruler, Muammar Gaddafi. This effort – led by the military power of the West, which regretted its failure to intervene in Rwanda 17 years earlier – succeeded in deposing Gaddafi; but the weakness of the new state in Libya has resulted in a chaotic situation as of this writing. The paradox of state power and rights perseveres.

The Special Problems Posed by International Terrorism

The emergence of violent Islamic extremism, epitomized by the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11 2001, has created special quandaries for human rights and civil liberties, and for the applicability of governing standards of international law and the laws of war (Cassese, 2001). Terrorist threats before 9/11 were typically addressed through traditional criminal law enforcement, which is based on punishment after the fact and comparatively rigorous protections of rights. Though many states previously provided for greater surveillance and investigatory power in cases involving national security threats before 9/11, the criminal law model served as the predominant model for states in the fight against terrorism before then. But the existential threats posed by twenty-first century terrorism caused nation-states to adopt more aggressive preventative measures that blur the line between war powers and the powers of criminal law enforcement, and that challenge accepted notions of the rules of war because of the contested legal status of terrorists. Such measures have included treating captured terrorists as enemy combatants (rather than as criminal suspects or as normal prisoners of war) who may, therefore, be tried in military tribunals rather than in civil courts; employing more aggressive interrogation techniques in order to obtain intelligence that can prevent a major attack; detaining suspects indefinitely despite the lack of definitive evidence that they are enemy combatants who have violated the rules of war; and expanding the powers of surveillance (Bobbitt, 2008; Hoffman, 2006). Because liberal democracies exist to protect the security and rights of citizens, the battle against contemporary terrorism poses a special problem regarding what scholar Amos Guiora (2005) calls the ‘balancing dilemma’ between security and rights.

The emergence of twenty-first century terrorism has exacerbated the ‘balancing dilemma’ because of terrorism’s distinctive qualities mentioned previously, and because of the previous growth of international law’s commitment to human rights, also discussed earlier in this research paper. (See, e.g., Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, arts. 4, 13, August 12, 1949, 6. U.S.T. 3316, 75 U.N.T. S. 135.) Different liberal democracies have responded to the threat of market state terrorism in their own ways, based on such factors as their own understandings of national interest and their own political and legal cultures. Nonetheless, we can discern predominant trends. States typically expanded their powers to promote security, yet modified such powers over time in response to judicial and political pressures, and as more security was attained, however, precariously. In one respect, this trend supports the tenets of ‘political realism’ in foreign affairs and international relations: states will protect their sovereign interests when they feel they must, including readjusting the balancing dilemma (Posner and Goldsmith, 2005; Morgenthau, 1963).

For example, in the United States, federal courts have upheld detention of terrorists, military tribunals, and new surveillance while also requiring due process protections that the government had not provided (Chesney and Goldsmith, 2008). And in response to public and judicial pressure, the US government abandoned the use of the ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ it had originally deployed. Israeli courts affirmed the Israeli government’s declaration that it was engaged in armed conflict with Palestinian terrorists in 2000, thereby allowing Israel to engage in proportionate violent attacks against them (State of Israel v. Marwaan Barghouti, 2002). The Israeli Supreme Court also upheld the state’s right to erect a 385-mile fence along the ‘Green Line,’ but ordered the state to minimize its effects (Beit Sourik Village Council v. The Government of Israel & the Commander of the IDF Forces in the West Bank, HCJ, 2056/04). Meanwhile, India redefined terrorism and expanded its powers of investigation and criminal process after 9/11, but courts constrained these powers in the face of public criticism (Guiora, 2005). As of this research paper, the balancing dilemma continues to be negotiated.

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