Human Rights in the 21st Century - Essay Example

HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE 21ST CENTURY

It is important for all people to live with freedom, dignity, justice, equality, and peace. These standards are referred to as human rights (Hafner-Burton 2013, p. 1). Human rights are guaranteed to all beings without distinction of any kind, for instance, colour, race, language, sex, social or national origin, birth, or any other status. Therefore, human rights refer to a set of moral principles that should be followed by all, therefore, universal; they belong to all people, in all corners of the world (Lower 2013, para 2). However, this has not been observed in many cases as there have been various cases of abuse of human rights, even by authorities mandated to enforce them. Moreover, human rights should be inalienable, in that, they cannot be taken away except in pre-determined special circumstances (Lower 2013, para 2). The ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ statement in Article 1, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”, explains the above (United Nations 2016, para 9). Human rights are also indivisible. All human rights are characteristic to the dignity of every human being regardless of whether the right relates to economic, civil, social, political, or cultural issues. As a result, all human rights have equal status, and cannot be ranked in a hierarchical order. In addition, human rights are interdependent and interrelated, equal and non-discriminatory (Gewirth 1998, p.235). This paper will discuss the development of human rights during the 20th century and the universalism of human rights.

Development of human rights

The 20th century witnessed dramatic advancements in the development of human rights at the international level (CLG 2016, para 1). Though several factors contributed to the development, the events that stood out include The Nuremberg trials, the formation of international criminal court and the fall of communism (CLG 2016, para 1).

The Nuremberg war crimes were, maybe, a crisis in the history and development of human rights in the 20th century. In the times of Nazi atrocities of the World War 2, people started seeing that international justice was insufficient when based only on the concept of war crimes (CLG 2016, para 2). The Nuremberg trials started a transition from the idea of viewing the wars as war crimes and people started viewing them as crimes against humanity. Therefore, something had to be done regarding the crimes. This resulted in establishment of an international criminal code and International Criminal Court that was to guard the rights. Therefore, for international human rights to be protected, it had to depend on something greater than the political interest of various states.

After this period, politics between states started to give way to justice in the domain of human rights. Human rights became an aspect of political communication in the last half of the 20th century. This led to the development of international human rights law. It also led to the rise of new forms of human rights activism that led to the formation of various civil societies, which have continued to enforce human rights. Western countries focused more on civil and political rights while communist and socialist countries focused more on social and economic rights (Hafner-Burton 2013, p.70).

Even prior to the fall of communism, human rights language had begun to develop international human rights with more focus. The fall of communism, at the end of 1980’s, brought the Cold War to an end and opened up the likelihood of a global human rights regime (Stacy 2009, p.119). The fall of communism also opened up social and ethnic hatred in the Balkans. Due to the breaking of the post-Nazi commitment; ‘never again’, the international community responded. The International Criminal Tribunal was created by the UN Security Council (for the former Yugoslavia). The International Criminal Tribunal was charged with investigating and then prosecuting crimes against humanity in the Balkans (Stacy 2009, p.60). This tribunal achieved great results, for instance, the tribunal, for the first time in history indicted and prosecuted a sitting head of state. The tribunal also successfully prosecuted rape as a crime against humanity. The Foca rape case that came out of the war in the Balkans was the first to be classified as a crime against humanity and individuals prosecuted. This was a huge step in defining the International Humanitarian law. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was a temporary tribunal, and therefore, not enough to push a worldwide human rights regime forward. This need led to the emergence of the International Criminal Court that opened its offices in Hague in early 21st Century, in 2002, and started operations on July 1, 2002.

Other notable events that facilitated the development of human rights include the formation of League of Nations that resulted from the Paris Peace Conference after the First World War, 1920. It was the first global organizational that aimed at maintaining world peace and promoting the rights included in the UDHR. It also aimed at preventing future wars via disarmament, international cooperation, and open diplomacy. Though not so successful, it laid a basis for after-organizations. The strength of the European refugee crisis propelled human rights in the middle of post-war global politics. After the Holocaust, Second World War, and the Cold War, there were displacements of innocent civilians. This made a huge impact on the global protection and enforcement of innocent civilians. Moreover, human rights organizations such as the Amnesty International, 1961, have helped enforce and protect civilians against torture, supporting women’s rights, and use of child soldiers (Hafner-Burton 2013, p.89).

Universalism of human rights

The concept that human rights are universal emerged in the 20th century with the UN Declaration of human rights. This came out of the belief that basic principles and values underlying human rights are of a universal nature (Lower 2013, para 3). There have been various debates from governments and scholars that human rights should not be universal, and that cultural diversity is what should influence what qualifies to be human rights, especially in non-western states. This explains why some actions are acceptable in some communities, and unacceptable in others. However, some scholars have argued that human rights are ‘pre-political’ and therefore, unaffected and unchanged by political and cultural variations (Lower 2013, para 3).

Protection of human rights

Human rights have been very much abused, to an extent that some argue whether they do still exist. There has been discrimination on the bases of race, religion, sex, gender, colour, and much more (Gewirth 1998, p.239). Therefore, the universalism of human rights has not been able to protect humans fully. This has been evident in the excessive use of power to conduct extrajudicial killings in many regions of the world including Iran, South Africa, and Brazil (Posner 2014, para 1). The recent xenophobia killings in South Africa underpin that human rights, though deemed universal, have not been able to protect all. In the current Islamic world, women are discriminated against, yet we have universal rights. This is because of their culture that cannot readily accommodate what is provided by human rights that women, as well as men, should enjoy various levels of freedom; and that women are equal to men. This cultural subordination of women has been a key issue in the rejection of universal human rights (Posner 2014, p.3). This propagates violence against them, denial of inheritance, and other universal rights. This shows that some of the rights that can be readily incorporated in the western culture cannot be readily incorporated into the Muslim culture and other cultures as well. With all these violations of rights, international organizations that watch against violation of human rights rarely come to the rescue of the violated human rights. With this in mind, human rights should not be universal (Posner 2014, p.1).

Existence of human rights

Cultural relativism is a real challenge to the universalism of human rights. Though some human rights exist in some communities, they are as useless as they were not in existence. As discussed above, different regions of the world have different cultures, and it is wrong to consider norms as universal, therefore, human rights associated with the different norms cannot be universal (Lower 2013, para 3). In this context, human rights- believed to be developed from western culture- can be inappropriate when applied and existing in other cultures. The rights employ Western philosophy placing more weight on the individual and not the community. Therefore, the rights may be successful in some countries, and not others. In this context, human rights are too costly for many Third World countries, such as African states. This is because human rights precede economic development. Critics of the universalism of human rights advocate for authoritative standards of rights. These have been effective in the economic rising of Asian ‘Tiger’ economies where economic success is attributed to authoritative rule (Lower 2013, para 4). Moreover, UNICEF reported that there were 25 Palestinian children killed in the last three months of 2015 during the anti-Israel attacks (Uras 2016, para 1). The excessive use of force in the killing of Palestinian children by Israeli forces was against the law. Moreover, more than 1300 Palestinian children were injured (Uras 2016, para 2).

This shows that for human rights to be existing universally, they should be compatible with cultural differences of various people in different regions of the world. Since cultures are different, human rights approaches should be fixed. Both, the cultures and the rights, should accommodate each other.

All in all, this paper has discussed human rights, their development in the 21st century, and their universalism. Though very crucial in ensuring that people live in peace, these rights are not always useful and applicable. The Nuremberg war crimes and trials, the formation of the international criminal court, the fall of communism and Paris Peace Conference were notable events in the development of human rights in the 20th century. To ensure that rights are not abused, government embassies, non-governmental organizations, and United Nations agencies should monitor human rights abuses. Civil societies should also push for more human rights awareness globally.