A Human Rights Approach to Membership and Belonging

Abstract

One fundamental task that all states must address is who are the members of the state. State membership dictates what rights an individual has vis-à-vis the state and what responsibilities an individual has to the state. The traditional approach to conceptualizing state membership is citizenship. States enact rules dictating who is eligible for citizenship, the process for obtaining citizenship, what rights attach to citizenship, and what responsibilities citizens have. Yet a gap often exists between people who have significant connections with the state through social, political, and economic engagement and people who are eligible for citizenship. This gap causes the citizenship approach to membership to be under-inclusive, and to deny important rights to state residents. International human rights provide an alternative approach to membership—one based on personhood. This approach to membership offers an opportunity to reshape national identity around a set of connections and engagement with the state that is broader than bloodlines and place of birth.

The citizen/non-citizen distinction is often viewed as a legitimate means of determining who is deserving or underserving of rights, protection, and opportunity. A human rights approach to membership challenges the distribution of power resulting from a citizenship approach to membership. As many chapters in this volume illustrate there is often an asymmetry between human rights rhetoric and human rights implementation. For example, schools committed to human rights education may provide instruction about key human rights, but the lessons about human rights violations focus on events abroad and there is silence about human rights violations at home. One strategy to minimize this asymmetry is to increase the legal literacy of teachers and students. Increased human rights literacy offers an opportunity to not only expand education about human rights, but education through human rights and for human rights. This tripartite approach to human rights education can enable teachers and students to expand their conceptions of membership and belonging in democratic societies.

Keywords: Civil Rights, Human Rights, Education, Policy, Politics, Research, International, Comparative