Since the mid-1990s, the international norms for global development have been redefined under non-governmental organizations’ critical e-mobilizations, powered by new media. International governmental organizations have been forced to make policy adjustments or concessions, resulting in new IGOs-NGOs policy regimes for consultative consensus building and for protecting people’s economic, social, and cultural rights for enhancing social quality. This paper examines the emerging cosmopolitanism in the information age, focusing on NGOs’ advocacy networks, to understand the new media-enhanced participatory regime for global governance. (...) It also illustrates a new form of social participation, as promoted by social quality theory, in the age of e-globalization and the information society. The paper has five parts. After outlining the globalization project threatening ESC rights, the second section examines critical engagements of NGOs and IGOs for human rights promotion. Parts three and four discuss, respectively, the struggles for ESC rights in shaping new ethics and norms for global development, and the variations of new social media mobilization. The paper ends with critical remarks on the project for larger freedom and human rights for all. (shrink)

The issue of human rights has always been a matter shared by politicians, lawyers, philosophers and sociologists. Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights scholars and human rights activists have discussed whether the Declaration has become a symbol of human rights universality. Two decades later Muslim states have started discussions if human rights are indeed universal. They argued that human rights is a product of western imperialism and therefore the Arab states are not bound by the human (...) rights catalogue proposed by the West. In 2008, the Arab Charter on Human Rights drafted within the framework of the League of Arab States came into force. This fact was welcomed by the international community, non-governmental organizations, and High Commissioner for Human Rights. The Arab Charter on Human Rights was seen as a possibility for the Arab States to confirm the commitment to the universality of human rights. However, the adopted text was disappointing and once again raised the doubt that Arab States are not truly committed to universal human rights. This article analyses the quest for the universality of human rights. (shrink)

We argue that the post-9/11 environment has amounted to a substantive change in the longstanding United States relationship with the international human rights regime. We identify three distinct phases of that relationship, noting that in the most recent phase, since 9/11, the US has moved from passive support of the international human rights regime to a direct attack of that regime. Realist and liberal regime theories suggest that the human rights regime is relatively weak, and is unlikely to withstand such (...) an attack. We find that the regime has not only continued to persist, but has flourished even as US support has faltered. The human rights regime is surprisingly strong. We argue it is the ideological nature of the regime that explains its resilience, which suggests that constructivist theory is necessary to fully understand the human rights regime. (shrink)