PS - I’ll start adding some additional links here:
Rights are, in a general sense, matters that
one is entitled to. Human rights are those which humans are entitled
simply as a result of being human. Animal rights are similar, but pertain to
the broader category of animal life - and, more recently, some parts of
the environment (e.g., rivers) have been given “legal personhood”, which
is a sort of acknowledgment of inherent rights that that part f the
environment has as a result of existing . . . but that may also be connected
to the impact that degradation of that part of the environment has on other
forms of life whose rights have been more clearly accepted.
One day the rights of all sentient forms of
life may be acknowledged by humans, but we are not there yet.
Even in the field of human rights, there has
been considerable evolution, including argument, discussion and reflection on why
humans / animals / sentient life / etc have those rights (I’ve even started
examining the starting point of human rights at the time in history when humans
first came into existence [which gets into the overlap of animal rights and a
few other issues] - see https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2019/02/humans-humanity-and-human-rights-update.html)
- and what those rights actually are. In my opinion, the history of human
rights has been most clearly described in Geoffrey Robertson’s “Crimes
Against Humanity”, and outlining of what what those rights is described
best, in my opinion (IMO), in that book, the online MOOC Chile course “Introduction
to Human Rights”, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s
“Four Freedoms” speech
, the United Nations’ “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (UDHR), and
a few other places.
Roosevelt’s four
freedoms were:
- freedom of speech;
- freedom of worship;
- freedom from want
; and
- freedom from fear.
On the UDHR, there
are some important points that not enough people know about. From Geoffrey
Robertson’s “Crimes Against Humanity”, and Mary Ann Glendon’s “A
World Made New”:
- the United Nation’s Commission on Human Rights,
chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt
, supported by Canadian law professor John Humphrey
, and with outstanding contributions from China’s PC Cheng
and Lebanon’s Charles Malik
, and France’s René Cassin
, had the task of developing the UDHR;
- the appalling crimes committed by nazi Germany
and imperial Japan (see World War (part)
Two) were major influences on the Commission’s thinking:
o
“except in cases prescribed by law” was removed
from Article 3 because the nazis did many murders in accordance with their
perverted laws;
o
parent’s right to choose the education of their
children was a reaction to the brainwashing of the nazis;
o
the emphasis on individual rights in response to
totalitarianism unfortunately also resulted in minority rights not being
protected (also not helped by Australia’s assimilationist thinking);
o
legal protections were partly because of nazi
show trials, but others also had a history of show trials;
- the USSR opposed enforceability and eventually
got the USA on side so enforceability was removed, giving us “just” a
declaration instead (the “twin covenants”, however, make the rights listed
in the UDHR enforceable - and Australia suggested an international human rights
court). The USSR and its puppets also blocked mention of democracy, but
were - together with Central and South American nations and Sweden and
Norway - an influence in getting tights to work, education, and basic
subsistence included;
- India’s Hansa Mehta
was responsible for “human family” being used in the preamble instead of “man”;
- anthropologists warned the Commission, who
wanted to avoid cultural imperialism, of the dangers of ethnocentrism, and UNESCO
had a group of philosophers perform a cultural survey in 1947 that supported
the universality of these rights - it was not thought of as Western or
Eurocentric at the time, but as obvious;
- some matters were omitted that would have been
possibly beneficial - such as a commentary on economic rights that was based on
an ILO definition, and the prevention of statelessness;
- the UDHR was adopted by 48 nations on 10th
December, 1948, with eight nations abstaining - the USSR and 5 of its puppet
states, South Africa (which wanted to keep its apartheid laws), and Saudi
Arabia (which wanted to punish people who change religion);
- the 56 nations of the General Assembly included
14 Asian, 4 African, and 20 Central or South American nations.
The UDHR lists the
following human rights (which I’ve rearranged and abbreviated a little):
- all humans are equal in dignity and rights, and
are entitled to rights without discrimination;
- everyone has the right to life, liberty and
security;
- slavery and the slave trade is banned in all its
forms;
- no one shall be subjected to torture or to
cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;
- everyone has the right to equal treatment before
the law (“everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person
before the law”) and associated rights;
- everyone has the right to privacy and to the
protection of law in that and honour and reputation (and to protection of
property);
- everyone has the right to freedom of movement,
and to seek asylum;
- everyone has the right to marry and found a
family;
- everyone has the right to freedom of thought
& religion, to freedom of opinion and expression, of association or not, and
to cultural & intellectual rights;
- everyone has the right to take part in the
governance of their nation;
- everyone has the right to social services, fair work,
and an adequate standard of living;
- right to education.
The are other international treaties which
add details or expand on these rights - for instance, the rights of children,
and specifics around countering sexism and racism.
There is also a vexed, IMO, bit of nonsense from
some people (mostly on the right) about responsibilities, which I
consider a reaction against having to be decent - for instance, what
responsibility does one have to fulfill in order to not be tortured or enslaved?
Nevertheless, in some places mention of responsibility is necessary in order to
get laws protecting human rights - and, in some aspects I can see the point:
for instance, one should be prepared to serve on a jury as part of receiving
the rights to fair treatment before the law.
Also vexed but clearly not nonsense, is the
issue of enforcing rights. There has been a gradual development and exposition
of human rights and their enforcement, which has been countered by lack of
political will, covert and overt opposition from despots and those who do not
wish to cede power, and double standards (e.g., the USA’s insistence on
capital punishment and refusal to be subject to the International Criminal
Court while expecting other nations to be subject, and the unresolved
[sometimes even unacknowledged history of colonial nations).
Currently, the
realisation of rights could be considered to include:
o promoting
awareness of human rights;
o promoting
changes in values and organisations that favour inclusion and diversity over
discrimination - e.g., requiring companies to have suitable policies, public
reporting on measures, etc;
o quotas
- which is often described as “controversial”, but that description is almost
exclusively used by people not in the group being discriminated against, and
quotas are capable of achieving the desired result;
- accountability for breaches:
o national
laws (e.g., Australia’s “Genocide Convention Act 1949”
, my home state’s anti-discrimination acts and charter
) and courts;
o regional
courts, such as the Inter-American Court on Human Rights
;
o larger
range international bodies, such as the International Criminal Court
; and
o universal
obligations, such as the Genocide Convention, which requires all nations
everywhere to use their facilities to prosecute offenders.
There is an excellent tabulation on
international treaties / instruments and which clauses cover specific rights at
https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/commission-general/chart-related-rights-and-articles-human-rights-instruments-human-rights.
Prevention, rather than cure, is always, in
my opinion, better, but some people are so intransigent, rigid, and determined
to be elitist that court actions is sometimes necessary.
For more on this see:
- https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/human-rights, https://ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Pages/WhatareHumanRights.aspx, https://www.amnesty.org.au/how-it-works/what-are-human-rights/, https://www.britannica.com/topic/human-rights, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights-human/, https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/human+rights;
- https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights, https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/universal-declaration-of-human-rights/, and https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights&oldid=1059230127;
and
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights, https://www.britannica.com/topic/United-Nations, and https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=United_Nations&oldid=1058211371;
- http://lemkinhouse.org/about-us/life-of-raphael-lemkin/, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/coining-a-word-and-championing-a-cause-the-story-of-raphael-lemkin, http://genocidewatch.net/2013/03/14/raphael-lemkin-defines-genocide-2/, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael_Lemkin;
and
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml, https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/learn-about-genocide-and-other-mass-atrocities/what-is-genocide, http://genocidewatch.net/2013/03/14/raphael-lemkin-defines-genocide-2/, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide;
and
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide-convention.shtml, https://legal.un.org/avl/ha/cppcg/cppcg.html, https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CrimeOfGenocide.aspx, https://www.history.com/topics/holocaust/what-is-genocide, https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide-convention.shtml, and https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C1949A00027;
- Books and courses:
o
“Crimes Against Humanity”, by Geoffrey
Robertson ,
pub. Penguin Group, 2012 (4th Ed., first pub. [1st
Ed.] Allen Lane 1999), ISBN 978-0-14-190080-3, on Amazon at https://smile.amazon.com/Crimes-Against-Humanity-Struggle-Justice-ebook/dp/B002XHNNT8/ref=sr_1_1;
o
“A Problem from Hell”, by Samantha Power
, pub. Pub. Harper, 2010, ISBN 978-0007172993, on Amazon at https://smile.amazon.com/Problem-Hell-America-Age-Genocide-ebook/dp/B003RRY3UG/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0;
o
“Bad People and How to be Rid of Them”,
by Geoffrey Robertson, pub. Vintage, 2021, ISBN 978-1-76-014561-3, on Amazon at
https://smile.amazon.com/Bad-People-Them-Human-Rights-ebook/dp/B08QZFWQQY/ref=sr_1_1;
o
“The Responsibility to Protect”, by
Gareth Evans ,
pub. Brookings Institute Press, 2009, 978-0-81-572504-6, on Amazon at https://smile.amazon.com/Responsibility-Protect-Ending-Atrocity-Crimes-ebook-dp-B00B0XZ07O/dp/B00B0XZ07O/ref=mt_other;
o
“A World Made New”, by Mary Ann Glendon,
pub. Random House, 2002, ISBN 978-0-67-946310-8, on Amazon at https://smile.amazon.com/World-Made-New-Roosevelt-Declaration-ebook/dp/B000FC1L2Y/ref=sr_1_1;
o
MOOC Chile “Introduction to Human Rights”
- https://mooc.udp.cl/introduction-to-human-rights/;
Copyright © Kayleen White 2016-2024 NO AI
I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence
(AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or
other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to
reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise replicate any part of
this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product. Otherwise,
fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike basis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
Links to others works and excerpts from others works are NOT covered by the hereinbefore, and remain subject to the conditions of the original source.