Human Rights and the UN System

Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

10-14-2025

Source Publication

Okafor, Obiora Chinedu. "27: Human rights and the UN system". Research Handbook on Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2025. < https://doi.org/10.4337/9781789901528.00035>.

Keywords

TWAIL; United Nations; Human rights; Global South; Global power; Problems

Abstract

This chapter offers insights into the character of human rights praxis within the UN System and does so from a TWAIL perspective. It deals with some important and necessarily overlapping human rights topics and tensions. These include: a critical historiography of the origins and development of human rights; the role of the heaven/hell binary in UN human rights praxis; the place of the one-way traffic paradigm in that praxis; the strong influence of the trade-related market friendly human rights paradigm on UN rights work; the re-inscription of historic wrongs by that praxis; the impact of global power matrices within the UN human rights system; and the character of Global South human rights innovation at the UN. It is acknowledged that while UN rights praxis serves as an important resource for activists, this chapter largely focuses on the problematic and under-acknowledged ways in which this praxis deals with Global South peoples.

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