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Human Rights
Human Rights Day 2011, commemorated last Saturday, was the 63rd Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The motto for Human Rights Day 2011 is ‘Celebrate Human Rights’. The theme pays tribute to all defenders of basic human rights, while inviting all of us to get involved in the global human rights movement.
As U. N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon noted, “The extraordinary vision and determination of the drafters produced a document that for the first time set out universal human rights for all people in an individual context.” The Declaration has been translated into more than 360 languages. It holds the Guinness World Record for the most translated document in the world. But for all of that it still needs to be better explicated.
“Too often, Governments lack the political will to implement international norms they have willingly accepted,” Ban observed. “This anniversary year is an occasion to build up that will. It is a chance to ensure that these rights are a living reality — that they are known, understood and enjoyed by everyone, everywhere. It is often those who most need their human rights protected, who also need to be informed that the Declaration exists — and that it exists for them. Let us make the Universal Declaration of Human Rights an integral part of everyone’s life,” Ban concluded.
The Declaration bluntly asserts that all individuals are entitled to certain basic rights under any circumstances. These include certain civil liberties and political rights, the most fundamental of which is the right to life and physical safety. Human rights are the articulation of the need for justice, tolerance, mutual respect, and human dignity in all of our activity. Speaking of rights allow us to express the idea that all individuals are part of the scope of morality and justice.
To protect human rights is to ensure that people receive some degree of decent, humane treatment. To violate the most basic human rights, on the other hand, is to deny individuals their fundamental moral entitlements. It is, in a sense, to treat them as if they are less than human and undeserving of respect and dignity.
Examples are acts typically deemed “crimes against humanity,” including genocide, torture, slavery, rape, enforced sterilization or medical experimentation, and deliberate starvation. Because these policies are sometimes implemented by governments, limiting the unrestrained power of the state is an important part of international law. Underlying laws that prohibit the various “crimes against humanity” is the principle of non-discrimination and the notion that certain basic rights apply universally.
For a long time, the international community has failed to address the problem of sexual violence during armed conflict. However, sexual assaults, which often involve sexual mutilation, sexual humiliation, and forced pregnancy, are quite common. Such crimes are motivated in part by the long-held view that women are the ‘spoils’ of war to which soldiers are entitled. Trafficking in women is a form of sexual slavery in which women are transported across national borders and marketed for prostitution.
Rather than simply killing off whole populations, government forces may carry out programs of torture. Torture can be either physical or psychological, and aims at the “humiliation or annihilation of the dignity of the person.” Torture is used in some cases as a way to carry out interrogations and extract confessions or information. Today, it is increasingly used as a means of suppressing political and ideological dissent, or for punishing political opponents who do not share the ideology of the ruling group.
Various lesser forms of political oppression are often enacted as well. Individuals who pose a threat to those in power or do not share their political views may be arbitrarily imprisoned, and either never brought to trial or subject to grossly unfair trial procedures.
Mass groups of people may be denied the right to vote or excluded from all forms of political participation. Political oppression may also take the form of discrimination. When this occurs, basic rights may be denied on the basis of religion, ethnicity, race, or gender.
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