China, the United Nations, and human rights : the limits of compliance / Ann Kent.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kent, A. E. (Ann E.)

Series:

Pennsylvania studies in human rights

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United Nations.

Human rights--China.

Human rights.

China.

United Nations--China.

Physical Description:

xiii, 328 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [1999]

Summary:

Nelson Mandela once said, "human rights have become the focal point of international relations." This has certainly become true in American relations with the People's Republic of China. Since the early 1980s, and particularly since 1989, by means of vigorous monitoring and the strict maintenance of standards, United Nations human rights organizations have encouraged China to move away from its insistence on the principle of noninterference, to take part in resolutions critical of human rights conditions in other nations, and to accept the applicability to itself of human rights norms and UN procedures. Even though China has continued to suppress political dissidents at home, and appears at times resolutely defiant of outside pressure to reform, Ann Kent argues that it has gradually begun to implement some international human rights standards.

The book explores China's evolving human rights policies and the PRC's interaction over time with UN human rights bodies. Kent documents China's compliance with the norms and rules of international treaties, and offers a case study of the effectiveness of the international human rights regime, that network of international consensual agreements concerning acceptable treatment of individuals at the hands of nation-states.

Contents:

1. The UN Human Rights Regime and China's Participation Before 1989 18

2. China, the UN Commission on Human Rights, and the UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights 49

3. China and Torture: Treaty Bodies and Special Rapporteurs 84

4. China and the UN Specialized Agencies: The International Labor Organization 117

5. Theory, Policy, and Diplomacy Before Vienna 146

6. The UN World Human Rights Conference at Vienna 170

7. After Vienna: China's Implementation of Human Rights 194.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [251]-314) and index.

ISBN:

0812234782

0812216814

OCLC:

40698492