Human RIghts: INTRO Flashcards
Human Rights
Human Rights Definition?
Human Rights- Human rights are one of the central ideas of the global political arena. Human Rights are rights afforded to all human beings universally on the basis of their common humanity. Rights can be negative, such as the right not to suffer from undue government interference in political, economic and social independence; and positive, such as the right to essential needs like food and health.
Human Rights
Human Rights Ellaboration?
- The horrors of WW2 precipitated the global political arena to undergo massive transformations in seeking legitimacy, and one aspect of this was the creation of standards for the behaviour of states.
- These standards were first and foremost expressed in the foundation of the UN and its charter, but have expanded with the ratification of an increasingly large body of international law.
- Rights are restricted as much by what is necessary to secure the comparable rights of others as by the right of any particular individual.
- Human rights violations are a growing foreign policy issues.
Human Rights
Evolving Nature of Rights
INTRO?
The concept of human rights is an evolving one.
Human Rights
Evolving Nature of Rights
1st Gen?
1st Generation Rights: Referred to the civil and political arena and was conceived more in negative terms of freedom from cruelty.
- Deal essentially with liberty and participation in political life;
- They serve negatively to protect the individual from excesses of the state;
- They were enshrined at the global level and given status in international law first by Articles 3 to 21 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and later in the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Examples: ‘No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, unhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.’
Human Rights
Evolving Nature of Rights
2nd Gen?
2nd Generation Rights: Referred to the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for dignity and free development.
- Are related to equality; They guarantee different members of the citizenry equal conditions and treatment;
- They are fundamentally economic, social and cultural in nature.
- They impose upon the government the duty to respect and promote and fulfil them.
- Covered by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and further embodied in Articles 22 to 27 of the Universal Declaration, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and
Cultural Rights. Examples: Right for everyone to be free from hunger, the right to education and the right to social security.
Human Rights
Evolving Nature of Rights
3rd Gen?
3rd Generation Rights: Are those rights that go beyond the mere civil and social, and build on the collective dimension.
• The term “third-generation human rights” remains largely unofficial;
• Houses an extremely broad spectrum of rights, including:
Group and collective rights
Right to self-determination
Right to economic and social development
Right to communicate and communication rights
- Because of the present-day tilting toward national sovereignty and the preponderance of would-be offender nations, these rights have been hard to enact in legally binding documents.
- Are expressed in many progressive documents of international law, including the 1972 Stockholm Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment and the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development.
Examples: ‘The right to a healthy and sustainable environment or the right to self-determination’.
Human Rights
The Four Characteristics of Human Rights
There are four basic characteristics to human Rights.
Assertions must:
1. Represent demands for shaping and sharing of power, wealth and other human goods
- Be fundamental as distinct from non-essential claims or goods
- Allow for the rights of others (most assertions are qualified by the limitation that rights are restricted as much as is necessary to secure the comparable rights of others).
- Be Universal in character possessed equally by all human beings.
Human Rights
Sovereignty and Intervention
Sovereignty and Intervention
However, the concept of sovereignty complicates the extent to which the international community can intervene to stop violations.
- Sovereignty endows states with the recognised right to rule and thus implies non-interference in the domestic affairs of the state.
- This complexity is magnified when the violation of human rights becomes extreme, such as when it involves war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
- In such instances there are growing calls and arguments for humanitarian intervention.
Human Rights
Challenges facing Human Rights
One of the greatest challenges facing the ethical issue of human rights is their enforcement. “Giving human rights teeth—a genuine capacity to do something other than make pious statements”
- While all members of the UN have signed the UN Charter, there is very little the organisations can do to uphold the rights detailed within the Charter when members violate them.
- Thus the global acceptance of human rights is unassured; only 132 states have signed the 1966 ICCPR and the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which together with the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights form the International Bill of Human Rights.
Human Rights
War Crimes?
Genocide?
Crimes Against Humanity?
Humanitarian Intervention?
War Crimes- Refer to violations of the laws and customs of war, such as abuse of prisoners of war.
Genocide- Defined by the Genocide Convention as acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.
Crimes against Humanity- Defined by the Nuremberg trials to include murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts against the civilian population during war time.
Humanitarian intervention- Refers to intervention into the domestic affairs of a state to protect people from human rights abuses, or other threats to their survival such as famine. Intervention can be carried out by states of inter-governmental organisations.
