A link to the Institute for Global Education and Service Learning:
http://www.igesl.org/Institute_for_Global_Education_and_Service_Learning/Home.html

A link to the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse useful website for professors seeking to build and students wishing to join service-learning programs in the United States:
http://www.servicelearning.org/

A link to Transcend International: A Peace Development Environment Network:
http://www.transcend.org/

A link to the Transformative Studies Institute:
http://www.transformativestudies.org/about-2/

Critical Pedagogy on the Web:
http://mingo.info-science.uiowa.edu/~stevens/critped/index.htm

–Mark Frezzo

Concerning the ostensible “third generation” of human rights:
Doubtless, it was the least defined and most highly contested of the supposed “generations.” But there is no doubt that many scholars and activists took it seriously. A relevant quotation from Micheline Ishay’s The History of Human Rights: From Ancient Times to the Globalization Era (2008):

“Drawing on the battle cry of the French Revolution, Cassin identified the four pillars of the [UDHR] as ‘dignity, liberty, equality, and brotherhood. The twenty-seven articles of the declaration were divided among these four pillars…a first pillar, constructed out of the first two articles, stands for human dignity…a second pillar, composed of articles 3-19 of the declaration, invokes the first generation of civil liberties and other liberal rights that were fought for during the Enlightenment; a third pillar, consisting of articles 20-26, addresses the second generation of rights, those related to political, social, and economic equity and championed during the industrial revolution; the fourth, representing articles 27-28, focuses on the third generation of rights, those associated with communal and national solidarity, as advocated during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century and throughout the post-colonial era” (3-4).

According to Ishay, the idea of three generations was latent in the UDHR and extrapolated in the ICCPR, the ICESCR, and other documents. Ishay is aware of the inconsistencies built into these documents. As a political and social historian, Ishay is interested in illuminating the role of past struggles in bringing different forms of rights into widespread recognition. In effect, Ishay challenges both teleology (or the idea that rights magically and inevitably unfold over time) and the opposite idea that there has been little progress in human rights. In an effort to combat Eurocentrism, other scholars have emphasized the contributions of non-Western cultures to human rights. I am very receptive to this approach.

It is clear that the so-called “third generation” is often a hodge-podge that includes “aspirational rights” and “soft law.” For example, some authors have placed environmental rights in this category.

In any case, in proposing “rights bundles”—such as longevity, peace, and the full development of the person—I am deliberately moving beyond the three generations and cutting across the categories (civil and political, economic and social, group and cultural). In asserting that rights bundles can be invented, I presuppose (a) that rights are created by a process of claim-making by exploited or marginalized people (and the organizations they produce or support) and claim-recognition by authorities (especially government officials), (b) that the discourse on human rights is malleable and subject to competing interpretations, and (c) that what is “thinkable” in terms of human rights varies across historical time and geographic space. Other authors have proposed different rights bundles. It seems to me that the construction of rights bundles can be a useful exercise for human rights educators. I like the idea of encouraging students to propose and defend packages of rights. At the very least, this is a useful form of skills training.

In a similar vein, I would encourage students to think through the distinction between “negative” and “positive” rights, the distinction between individual” and “collective” rights, etc. These distinctions can form a useful basis for dialogue even if they do not withstand various tests for defensibility and utility.

There may be an ontological foundation of human rights. Bryan Turner and others have pointed to human vulnerability as a possible basis for universalism. But I did not see the need to address this issue in my article. Whether or not one finds an ontological grounding for human rights may have an influence on whether one believes in the possibility of universalism. For my part, I do believe in the possibility of a non-Eurocentric or global universalism that provides for cultural specificity. But that question leads one into global governance (and the institutions that would comprise it)—an area that falls well beyond the purview of my article.