Alison Brysk - Global Good Samaritans: Human Rights as Foreign Policy

Global Good Samaritans

Human Rights as Foreign Policy

Alison Brysk

2009

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brysk, Alison, 1960
Global good Samaritans : human rights as foreign policy / Alison Brysk.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-538157-3; 978-0-19-538158-0 (pbk.)
1. International relationsMoral and ethical aspects. 2. Human rights. I. Title.
JZ1306.B79 2009
172'.4dc22 2008029807

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper

The Kindness of Strangers

Over water, more than lust, we thirst
To tell our stories: I was beaten, I traveled, my mother
We are all the same.

I come bearing questionsstrange carried
Through tumbled cities, thickets of
Meaning/rice/soup/coffee.

The legend tucked, like a slip of prayer,
between my withered roots;
The dozen Just in every generation.

I trumpet a many-splendored legion
Samaritans slouching towards the line of scrimmage
On the muddy, bloody playing fields of hope.

Capetown, October 30, 2006

This project has been an experience as well as a study of many forms of generosity. Five years of research on five continents has renewed my faith in humanity, and taught me many important lessons far beyond the scholarly endeavor. Hundreds of strangers have shared with me their time, resources, work, wisdom, and comfortsand some strangers have become friends. I am profoundly grateful, and can only hope this contribution justifies in some small measure their efforts, despite its inevitable shortcomings (for which I bear sole responsibility).

Every phase of this research benefited from generous and timely financial support. In the summer of 2003, I traveled to Costa Rica with the support of the University of Californias Latin American Studies program, under a U.S. Department of Education grant. The following year, I participated in a UCI Study Abroad program at Lund University, and received supplementary funding for summer research from my universitys Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies. My 2005 multisited summer trip to Canada was underwritten by the Canadian Consulates Canadian Studies program. The research in Japan, the Netherlands, and South Africa was all completed during a 2006 sabbatical, generously funded by the Abe Foundation/SSRC Fellowship in Global Issues (which also provided support during my stay in Japan via CGP, the Center for Global Partnership). In 2007, I was honored to receive a Fulbright Fellowship at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (Waterloo), which enabled me to return to Canada to complete the research on that country as well as the chapter on intergovernmental networks.

I was also fortunate in receiving early and sustained academic feedback, which contributed immeasurably to the development of the project. The research on Costa Rica was presented at the 2004 Latin American Studies Association conference, whereas preliminary findings on Sweden and Costa Rica were discussed at the University of Ottawa in 2005. The Canada research was refined further in a 2006 presentation at the John F. Kennedy Institute at the Free University of Berlin, as well as the 2007 International Studies Association, and a 2007 roundtable at CIGI. South African colleagues at UNISA (National University of South Africa) helped to develop that portion at a presentation concluding my 2006 stay in that country. The Japan chapter was presented at an Abe Fellowship Retreat in January 2007, and ably commented upon by Hiroshi Fukurai. Later on, colleagues in each country provided detailed and constructive comments on chapter drafts from afar, especially Peter Baehr on the Netherlands, Rhoda Howard and Don Hubert on Canada, Paul Graham and Patrick Bond on South Africa, and Magnus Jerneck on Sweden.

Versions of two chapters have been previously published in revised form. A prior discussion of appeared as Global Good Samaritans?: Costa Ricas Human Rights Foreign Policy, in Global Governance 11, no. 3 (Summer 2005). My thanks to those journals for permitting revised use of this material.

During the design and academic development of the project, Gershon Shafir, Richard Falk, Jack Donnelly, Sanjeev Khagram, and Wayne Sandholtz offered extraordinary inspiration, analysis, and advice. To implement that vision, I was privileged to receive extensive and extremely able research assistance from graduate students who participated in preparing the introductory comparative data and the intergovernmental networks profiles (Brodie Ross, CIGI), refining the research on Costa Rica (Madeline Baer, UCI), completing the data on Sweden (Ted Svensson, University of Warwick), and updating the chapter on Sweden and overall references (Daniel Wehrenfennig, UCI). Upon completion, I have been blessed to find a home for the manuscript with Angela Chnapko of Oxford University Press, whose professionalism and editorial support are unparalleled.

Within each country I visited, my research was supported by a dense network of colleagues, contacts, institutional and residential hosts. Space and memory force me to compress the thanks that properly accrue to dozens of people in each site to a few key individuals who played extensive academic roles. Every one of the dozens of people I interviewed contributed valuable understanding, and a number of them went beyond the norm as they rearranged their schedules, invited me to their homes, drove me to my next appointment, or gave me their last supply of imported cold medicine. Beyond my official informants, I extend my gratitude to enablers like professor/innkeeper Randolph von Breyman in San Jos, Willie and Pieter of Ellensgatewho supplied my every need in Pretoria.

In Costa Rica, I received networking support and advice from the University of Costa Rica Political Science Department. This was followed by extremely helpful pre-, post-, and onsite research assistance from UCR Masters student Patricia Guevara. During my stay, professor/diplomat/party leader Luis Guillermo Sols very graciously oriented me and arranged critical connections for interviews.

In Sweden, colleagues at the University of Lund kindly referred me to interviews, sources, and literature. Professor Magnus Jerneck played an extraordinary role. Masters student Ted Svensson moved from logistics to translation to conducting independent interviews after my departure, with great aplomb.