Contenu du sommaire : Les droits de l'homme et le nouvel occidentalisme

Bernard Hours, From health to human rights : the come back of the occident Looking at the fast development of non governemental organizations involved in emergency medicine, this paper first analyses sanitary actions in the context of the colonial period, then it tries to provide an explanation about the transfert observed from health to politics, ideologies, and human rights concepts and campaigns, which seems to be involved in the actual view of the activities of emergency doctors all around the world.

Aswini K. Ray, The Indian experience of the fight for "human rights" This article examines the problems posed by the very concept of human rights and its practical implementation in the Indian context. The contradictions and gaps which result from the integration of this concept into a very different cultural and economic context from that in which it originated are carefully examined here. The Indian example is particularly revealing as regards the fundamental relations which these contradictions have on the intellectual level with the colonial heritage and the structures of State and society. "Revivalism" is analysed from this point of view. Although focused on the Indian situation, this article nevertheless has a distinct general bearing on third world countries as a whole.

Sami Naïr, Human rights and social demands (the case of Maghreb). Interview by René Gallissot René Gallissot's interview with Sami Naïr concerns the significance of struggles for human rights in Third World countries, and in particular in the Maghreb. Although both authors note the limits of the concept of human rights in these societies, Sami Naïr lays heavier stress on the necessity, for the social forces which uphold such demands, of moving towards a mobilisation for democracy, and in more radical fashion, of linking the demands for the guaranteed civil rights of persons with the social demands of the most disfavored layers of the population. Naïr then goes on to speak of the specific characteristics of this struggle for democracy, stressing the structural weakness of the ruling classes ; the significance, in this context, of political absolutism and absolutist forms of the state ; and finally, the existence of marginalised social layers in growing numbers. These aspects imply considerable difficulties regarding processes of mobilisation ; the author attempts to reflect on the ways of surmounting these obstacles.

Alain Chenal, Human and political rights in the Arabo-Muslim region Today, the debate on human rights and democratic liberties is taking shape in the Arab and Muslim world. Political failures and the economic and social crises have led to a rediscovery of the democratic value which are an essential condition for development. The rise of the Islamic movement has led to the consideration of an explanation. The question is to understand why a traditional and minority tendency has recently had such wide popular support. Manipulation is not a sufficient explanation of this fact. Repression as a response is neither acceptable nor appropriate. The only possible confrontation with this movement is within the sphere of political liberties : it is a challenge to democracy.

Solange Barberousse and René Gallissot, Beyond the Western ideology of human rights : the right to life, the right to equality Despite the misappropriations and travesties evident in the campaigns for human rights in the Third World, the real action continues to afford the illusion of an easy conscience. Is there really such a difference between Europe and the Third World ? Given the conditions of inequality between societies and the precarity of material existence, is the difference not the result of the more acute character of the contradictions between the new national State which defends its legitimacy as the representative of the People, and the minorities, populations and individuals included within its social constraints, the cultural norms of the community, the forbidding of freedom of expression and of action ? The question common to both is for individuals to become subjects who desire, speak and act. One can examine history to restore to human rights their universality and their overall meaning ; one can examine the foundations of the Utopia of human rights ; the practical imperative remains of human rights being used for social and political emancipation and, in the first instance, for saving lives and life.

Pierre Lantz, What exactly do we mean by human rights ? Human rights today cannot be reduced to the restricted formulation in which they are the equivalent of natural law : in the 18th century, the concept already implied the implementation of political and social rights ; liberty and equality were inseparable. Thus the main contradictions between private rights and those of the citizen, between the guarantee of property and the belonging of the citizen to the State justify several interpretations of human rights ; in the ultimate resort, they refer to the multiple aspects of Man himself, an individual interacting with other men, the object of law, a social being. Beyond their formulation at a given point in Western history, human rights pose the question of a truly human society which cannot be limited to its legal aspects.

Michèle Riot-Sarcey, Universality of rights, liberty in question in XIXth century France Universal suffrage, liberty for the people... these familiar expressions are closely linked to the revolutionary spirit of the XIXth century. Political history has shown the increase in liberty for men which is completed under the IIIrd Republic. However, at the same time, women are not considered to be the people and are excluded from the so-called universal suffrage. The history of their dependence is closely linked to the progress of their liberty as citizens.

Eléni Varikas, Natural law, female nature and the equality of the sexes The ideology of natural law has been both a crucial starting point and a dangerous argument in the historical struggle for gender equality. On the one hand, the notion of "innate" rights suggested the existence of a common humanity out of which stemmed the same rights for all ; but on the other hand, this notion could be used to legitimate a conception of rights depending on "innate" qualities or capacities of each social group. This latter use of natural law, would drive feminists to substitute their universalistic claims for a new theory of natural law, in which maternal right was designated as the right par excellence in accordance to Nature. This theory was based on the superiority of "female nature" and "maternal values" as opposed to male values which were considered as the main source of the right of might. Although this theory encouraged the formation of a collective gender identity, it imposed severe limits on feminist thought. Its naturalist vision of "difference" obscured the social character of gender inequalities and of the relations between the sexes.

Louise Marcil-Lacoste, The dilemmas of equality The problem of the relationships between equality and liberty * remains undecidable because of crucial dilemmas characterizing the relationships between two sorts of equality. Analyzing four rules by which the relationships between equality in general and equality in specific contexts are determined (completeness, common ground, despite all differences, negating inequalities), the study shows that an antithetical semantics opposing what is general and what is specific has been shaped in the logic of contemporary theories of equality to the point of falsifying the general presupposition of applicability. In turn, those dilemmas explain that the relationship between equality and liberty remain undecidable because of the superposition of two universalisation rules operating according to inverse specific functions.

Léo Matarasso, Human rights and the rights of Peoples Historical overview of two complementary concepts which, in the author's opinion, are often erroneously presented as being antithetical.

Batyah Sierpinski, Human Rights and Peoples' Rights : from priority to solidarity The analysis of the links between human rights and peoples' rights in doctrinal terms provokes a controversy which implicitly implies the priority of the one over the other. The persistence of this argument conceals the study of the situation of these rights in the international legal order. Human rights and peoples' rights ensure to States the stability of this legal order but they are also the origin of upheavals.

Bicentenary issues : Michel Vovelle interviewed by Michel Trebitsch The preparation of the Bicentenary has once again thrown open the quarrels of interpretation of the French Revolution, with the question of the Rights of Man and the universality which the men of 1789 intended to give them assuming a central position in the discussion. Apart from the scientific issues, the Bicentenary is also an ideological and political issue. Has the left-wing tradition nothing to say in the face of the offensive of the "new Royalists" who reject the Revolution in its totality ? Through the various governmental and university bodies, are we tending towards a "co-habitation" Bicentenary ? Michel Vovelle, the president of the C.N.R.S. commission in charge of the preparation of the Bicentenary, here replies to our questions.

Nicole Questiaux, Human rights : methods and morals Speech delivered to the Assembly of the United Nations on the occasion of the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Philippe Lucas, The rights to life. Biology, ethics and law The progress of biological and medical science, the expectations which they legitimate, in so far as they legitimate them, give rise to rights, a mixture of rights (the right to a child and the rights of the child, the right to dispose of one's body which is, however, not appropriable, etc.) which are not regulated by Law. While the moral authorities, the spiritual and professional communities, and the Sate are seeking a legitimacy which would enable them to speak of ethics, a new and immanent form of secularity is developing : that of the accomplices and the confederates, rather than that of citizens.

Bertrand Main, The action of the League for Human Rights : one of the century's campaigns Brief history and outline of the action at the present time of the oldest of the organizations for the defence of human rights (the League was founded in 1898 at the time of the Dreyfus Affair) : the League's concern for justice has led it from moral protests to political action, from legal action to social struggles, from the defence of the existing legislation to the campaign for a new law, while at the same time defending the rights of workers in firms and those of colonised peoples ; this concern has now led the League to propose new forms of citizenship (in particular voting rights for immigrants in local elections).