Just Leave Us Alone: The Arab League and Human Rights

Legitimation, regime survival, and shifting alliances in the Arab League: Explaining sanction politics during the Arab Spring

“…Although the League does have formal sanctioning power, it has not developed any type of formal regional measures to protect democracy and human rights. The Arab League vowed to promote democratic governance in its Tunis summit in 2004, where it adopted a purely declaratory human rights declaration ( van Hüllen, 2015). The RO also has a poor record of promoting and protecting democratic elections in member states.…”

Children’s access to beneficial information in Arab states: Implementation of Article 17 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Egypt, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates

“…But the omission contradicts the Committee’s own pronouncements on the importance of children’s access to information for their physical and mental health and their ability to make themselves heard. Such an omission vis-a-vis the intersection of rights relating to media and rights for children adds to existing evidence that Arab states have been able to ‘deflect or mitigate’ the normative power of the global human rights regime (Van Hüllen, 2015). Neglect of Article 17 in the Arab world and beyond demonstrates the importance of holding on to human rights as a critical dimension of children’s access to digital media.…”

“…3 A dearth of Arab contributions can be attributed not only to tight constraints on Arab civil society and media but also to a particular dynamic whereby Arab national and regional institutions have been able to pay lip service to obligations that come with membership of international bodies promoting media freedom and development, without being forced to apply them in practice (Sakr, 2016: 187–188). Van Hüllen (2015: 133) suggests that Arab states’ relatively swift adoption of the CRC was part of their selective response to global initiatives on human rights. Far from signalling a departure from authoritarianism, the supposed transfer of global governance norms to Arab states was designed to ‘deflect or mitigate the “normative power” of the global human rights regime’, allowing international actors to ‘legitimize their cooperation with authoritarian regimes’ without exerting pressure for formal commitments to be translated into behavioural change (Van Hüllen, 2015: 139).…”

“…Van Hüllen (2015: 133) suggests that Arab states’ relatively swift adoption of the CRC was part of their selective response to global initiatives on human rights. Far from signalling a departure from authoritarianism, the supposed transfer of global governance norms to Arab states was designed to ‘deflect or mitigate the “normative power” of the global human rights regime’, allowing international actors to ‘legitimize their cooperation with authoritarian regimes’ without exerting pressure for formal commitments to be translated into behavioural change (Van Hüllen, 2015: 139).…”