[governance] Inputs for synthesis paper

Mon Sep 8 15:41:58 EDT 2008

Thanks for that definition, it really helps me to understand things a bit
better as I was a bit confused by this debate.

So womens rights is a collective right? Indigenous land rights is a
collective right? 

If so, please count me among those who do believe in some collective rights.

But for the sake of this submission, we obviously need to reflect differing
opinions. Can't we find a simple way forward here? Isn't it as simple as a
statement such as "while differing opinions on individual and collective
rights exist" within the context of the general request, which is to make
rights a main theme for Cairo? (which doesn't seem to be disputed)

Ian Peter

Ian Peter and Associates Pty Ltd

PO Box 10670 Adelaide St  Brisbane 4000

Australia

Tel (+614) 1966 7772 or (+612) 6687 0773

www.ianpeter.com

  _____  

From: Sivasubramanian Muthusamy [mailto:isolatedn at gmail.com] 
Sent: 09 September 2008 04:35
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Tapani Tarvainen
Subject: Re: [governance] Inputs for synthesis paper

Hello Parminder and All,

All the heat is about the connotations of the term "collective rights". I
tried to understand the distinction between individual right and collective
right and this is what I found:
<http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/5357/ihr6a.html> 

Individual Rights apply to the generic individual without regard to his or
her identity.... These rights are determined with no knowledge of what our
actual economic standing, educational level, gender, or ethnic origin would
be. Most international and national formulations of human rights are drafted
in such a way as to apply to a generic individual. 

Collective rights, however, do not start with the individual but rather with
a specific group. Individuals are defined by their membership in that group,
which thus differentiates them from others in society. Some collectives are
formed by choice (religious affiliation in the United States, for example).
Others are predetermined (the traditional understanding of gender, for
example). Collective rights begin with the premise that the group has a
claim to make. Historically, we can see numerous examples of group treatment
(generally negative). In the Roman Empire, for example, Jews possessed the
status of a religio licita, and as such enjoyed specific rights as Jews--the
right not to work on the Sabbath, or to recognize the divinity of the
Emperor. Such rights were granted to the Jewish collective and thus to the
individual Jew of the Empire by virtue of being Jewish and thus distinct
from Greeks or Syrians or Celts in the Empire. The Ottoman Empire was
governed under the millet system, by which each group in the Empire was
defined via their religious community. Thus, people living in the same town
but belonging to different faiths had different rights and obligations on
account of their group membership. A vague notion of collective rights also
lay behind the concept of extra-territoriality, that people, by virtue of
their citizenship, in foreign lands should be governed, not by local law,
but by the laws of their originating state. ---- from a Lecture of Dr.
Nikolas K. Gvosdev, Editor of The National Interest and a Senior Fellow in
Strategic Studies at The Nixon Center.

Internet Governance Caucus can propose Collective Rights if we would like to
see different bandwidth plans for men and women, priority access for
"backward and "most backward" classes as invented in India,  publishing
space discrimination between different churches, and free DVD movies for
those who live in mountains.

Sivasubramanian Muthusamy.

India.

On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 10:41 PM, Tapani Tarvainen
<tapani.tarvainen at effi.org> wrote:

On Mon, Sep 08, 2008 at 10:02:20PM +0530, Parminder
(parminder at itforchange.net) wrote:

> 'Collective rights' is obviously an analytical category and not a right as
> such. So when I speak of collective rights I am clearly meaning specific
> rights like rights of indigenous people, linguistic rights, cultural
rights,
> minority rights, right to development etc.

> To say that one doesn't believe in collective rights one must be able to
say
> that one doesn't believe in the above rights.

It does not follow if one does not agree that those rights are collective.

I suspect one or maybe the key problem here is that the term indeed
carries different meanings, and people want to reject some of them.

In particular, probably few (?) people would oppose collective
rights as justification of individual rights - rights individuals
would have because of their membership in a group.
The opposition stems from the other meaning, where collective
rights would justify depriving individuals of their rights.

> In fact I am fine if one is ready to accept a long list of all these
rights,
> and not mention the terms negative, positive and collective rights. That
> merely would mean one thinks all these rights, along with those that may
be
> considered negative and positive rights are in the same category, and need
> not be differentiated. I could in fact be happier with such a position.

That might be a useful approach.

--
Tapani Tarvainen

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