TOWARD A BASIC UNDERSTANDING OF HUMAN RIGHTS LAW

Eric A. Posner, The Twilight of Human Rights Law (Inalienable Rights Series) (Oxford & New York: Oxford U. Press, 2014) ("With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that the human rights treaties were not so much an act of idealism as an act of hubris, with more than a passing resemblance to the civilizing efforts undertaken by governments and missionary groups in the nineteenth century, which did little good for native populations while entangling European powers in the affairs of countries they did not understand. A more humble approach is overdue." Id. at 148. "The Nazis' rejection of liberal democratic rights for German citizens was tied to their aggressive posture toward foreign countries, above all the rejection of the Treaty of Versailles--which meant the repudiation of reparations, the elimination of restrictions on the size of the army, and the recovery of German lands taken at the end of World war I. Hitler believed tat all German-speaking populations should be united in a single state, and that German should colonize lands in eastern Europe and enslave their inhabitants. The Nazi Party employed paramilitaries, espoused military values, and attempted to unify Germans by demonizing foreign (as well as domestic) enemies. Thus, the Nazi government's military aggression against foreign countries starting in 1939 seemed to follow logically from its abrogation of civil and political rights starting in 1933. One interpretation of all this is that if Germany had somehow been forced to respect the rights of its own citizens, the Nazis would never have gained power and turned Germany against its neighbors." Id. at 124. Posner goes on to note that the causal connections are "obscure." Still, it provided food for thought, particularly in light of America's own internal debate about the civil and political rights of Muslims (both immigrants and native-born), immigrants generally, African-Americans and other peoples of color in its increasingly militarized police state. If we don't or can't respect the civil and political rights of our own citizens, what standing do we have in the world to cast the first stone at others?).