Beyond Exceptionalists and Opportunists: A Proposition for an Unbiasted Human Rights Diplomacy

In: The Whitehead journal of diplomacy and international relations, Band 10, Heft 1, S. 111-121

Abstract

The international system faces two antithetical transnational forces. On the one hand, there is globalization, and on the other a prevalent rise in nationalist and sovereign claims emerging as a backlash to the growing net of transnational relations. Subsequently and following the revolution in individualization since the Cold War, individuals now have more than one social affiliation, and their affiliative choices are taken increasingly autonomously. With their presence in processes of foreign affairs, public demands can no longer be overlooked. The present article discusses the governmental and NGO actors of fundamental freedom across the globe, international advocacy aimed at either reaching global agreements, or at pointing out violations, and public diplomacy as the gray area between human rights and diplomatic practice. The second part of the article has for subject the interplay between foreign policy and human rights, and the improvement of human rights mediation. O. van Zijl