Cindy Holder
Cindy Holder is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Associate Dean of Academic Advising for Humanities, Science and Social Sciences at the University of Victoria. Her research focuses on ethical and theoretical issues in international law, including cultural rights, the human rights of groups, and transitional justice. Dr. Holder’s articles have appeared in journals such as Human Rights Quarterly, Human Rights Review, Alternatives, Public Affairs Quarterly and Criminal Law and Philosophy. Her 2013 co-edited volume Human Rights: The Hard Questions is currently available through Cambridge University Press.
Phone: 1 (250) 721-7516
Address: Philosophy Dept
University of Victoria
PO Box 3045
Victoria, BC, Canada V8W 3P4
Phone: 1 (250) 721-7516
Address: Philosophy Dept
University of Victoria
PO Box 3045
Victoria, BC, Canada V8W 3P4
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allow us to prevent massive suffering and need in one part of the world, we will produce equal or greater suffering elsewhere by faciliating imperial projects and
destabilizing relations between competitors. One way to defuse this worry is to frame interventions across borders as principle-based exceptions to a general rule of state sovereignty. If we protecting and promoting individual human rights is the primary goal of the international system, and both state sovereignty and peace and security are important to us primarily as vehicles for achieving this, then (it is argued) standards of international human rights may be used to identify, and limit, cases in which the presumption of sovereignty may legitimately be set aside. However, the relationship between sovereignty and humanitarian crises is more complex than this picture allows. Theorizing about humanitarian crises inevitably includes recommendations about states. All actual states are rife with injustice,
both in their internal structures and in the relationships these structures establish with those outside a state’s borders. This fact must be reflected in reasoning about humanitarian responses.
of self-determination and argues that this view of self-determination
is correct. Self-determination is a human right and this human right is the
same right that underpins the rights of states. Treating an interest of peoples
like self-determination as a constitutive element of human dignity
raises practical worries about the stability of the international system,
and philosophical worries about potential conflicts between individuals
and peoples. But it also casts state sovereignty itself in a different light.
This new light has interesting consequences both for international law
and for philosophical debates about minorities within minorities. In particular,
it allows one to think about questions about internal minorities
as ultimately questions about legitimacy and representation.
allow us to prevent massive suffering and need in one part of the world, we will produce equal or greater suffering elsewhere by faciliating imperial projects and
destabilizing relations between competitors. One way to defuse this worry is to frame interventions across borders as principle-based exceptions to a general rule of state sovereignty. If we protecting and promoting individual human rights is the primary goal of the international system, and both state sovereignty and peace and security are important to us primarily as vehicles for achieving this, then (it is argued) standards of international human rights may be used to identify, and limit, cases in which the presumption of sovereignty may legitimately be set aside. However, the relationship between sovereignty and humanitarian crises is more complex than this picture allows. Theorizing about humanitarian crises inevitably includes recommendations about states. All actual states are rife with injustice,
both in their internal structures and in the relationships these structures establish with those outside a state’s borders. This fact must be reflected in reasoning about humanitarian responses.
of self-determination and argues that this view of self-determination
is correct. Self-determination is a human right and this human right is the
same right that underpins the rights of states. Treating an interest of peoples
like self-determination as a constitutive element of human dignity
raises practical worries about the stability of the international system,
and philosophical worries about potential conflicts between individuals
and peoples. But it also casts state sovereignty itself in a different light.
This new light has interesting consequences both for international law
and for philosophical debates about minorities within minorities. In particular,
it allows one to think about questions about internal minorities
as ultimately questions about legitimacy and representation.