Human Rights And International Relations

“Ideas about human rights have evolved over many centuries. But they achieved strong international support following the Holocaust and World War II. To protect future generations from a repeat of these horrors, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948 and invited states to sign and ratify it”

It was “solemnly” proclaimed that “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights [UNDHR] states a common understanding of the peoples of the world concerning the inalienable and inviolable rights of all members of the human family and constitutes an obligation for the members of the international community” . The UNDHR gave value to the term ‘human rights’, stressing the value of human dignity. However, the article also recognises the need for social order, Article 29 acknowledges that limits to these rights must be determined by law and can only be for the purposes of securing recognition and respect of others and to meet “the just requirements of morality, public order, and the general welfare in a democratic society”. Any restriction on these rights has to be justified as proportionate to the aims pursued by the restriction, for example, a police officer is justified in wielding a firearm against an individual deemed to be putting other lives in

Geber, Henry. "The Society for Human Rights—1925." The Society for Human Rights—1925. Web. 28 May 2016.

laws in compliance with the cosmopolitan norms of human rights. In the example of counter-terrorism measures in the United States and United Kingdom, courts have repeatedly judged legislation intended to allow arbitrary detention unlawful. In any case, governments remain unwilling to respect well-established international human rights norms (Nash 2009, 99). As elected representatives, politicians are often unwilling to risk appearing soft on those who are perceived to threaten the state’s safety. This broad trend in contemporary politics shows that even in democratic societies there are contexts in which human rights are simply not popular (Nash 2009, 99). As one can note, it is thus impossible to separate the world into “good democratic states” that protect human rights and “bad authoritarian states” that are the biggest violators (Posner 2014, 121).

human rights.21 While opponents of international law argue that it is all “mere window dressing.”22 According to Hathaway, States ratify treaties symbolically to show other States that they accept the principles of human rights but they rarely change their practices because of their obligations in the treaty.23 Based on a study of the ICCPR, Linda Keith argued that, “it may be overly optimistic to expect that being a party to this international covenant will produce an observable direct impact”. 24These findings raise the question as to whether human rights law regime is at all effective in protecting individual human rights. Whether the lack of adherence to human rights obligations indicates

This article is relevant in the context of increasing global concern over human rights. More recent debates in international relations discuss the importance of the individual over that of states and sovereignty, especially in a society in which national and global boundaries are being transcended and constantly undermined. Multiple levels

Human rights are universal, inherent, inalienable and equal. These are entitlements held simply by virtue of being born as a human being, they are natural in the sense that their source is natural law and human nature (Donnelly 1982). It has developed throughout history due to oppressed people across the world pushing for change. In global politics the role of individual states or governments are crucial in upholding human rights through laws and legislations. However, due to economic and political factors, such as a lack of money or tension between governing bodies, some states do not have the power or resources to uphold human rights. This is where the media, the people, NGOs, and individuals, such as celebrities who have a powerful standing & audience, help in upholding and protecting the rights of people.

Donnelly concerns shows that the argument shows what I take to be the main strength of the article. It is a thoroughly logically diverse question that have been taken together and by doing so provides clearer and more specific understandings of constantly disputed points. Distinguishing what he calls intangible, useful, legal global, overlapping agreement and anthropological. Donnelly describes that the question of whether human rights are diverse and is well understood as a related set of inquiries into how they might be common. These divergent questions have different answers that he tends to defends as conceptual, functional, legal international, and overlapping consensus universality whereas holding that study of people, society and cultural universality are politically weak.

The concept of human rights has become ambiguous, with very little agreement regarding its meaning and application internationally. The concept of human rights could be deemed as what Gallie termed as “an essentially contested concept.” This argues that when it comes to certain concepts there is just simply no one clearly definable general use that is widely agreed on. There are a variety of elements and words that can be used to describe the concepts of human

Donnelly is deliberate in his mission to elaborate on how foreign policy is often adopted for various reasons, and he begins with the identity issues that pushed the United States to embrace policies to guard against violation of these rights. The question about the policy mainly lies in the issues that should be encompassed in the policy as well as how to pursue the policy and the extent to which it covers. The readings reveal that for an extensive period many nations failed to formulate foreign policies as they did not see any need but with time each nation came up with a policy for specific benefits. Political agendas were also a justification for some nations to embrace the making of these human rights-based policies, however, for some nations, it was a matter of self-image, for instance, South Africa (Donnelly P.200). Sanctions and diplomacy are listed as the means by which many nations embrace to enforce their foreign policies. Donnelly mentions that there exist restraints to the enforcement of the policies when they are local to a nation.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the field of ethics can be defined as “the science of morals; the department of study concerned with the principles of human duty”. In international relations, it can be said that international ethics addresses the nature of duties across national boundaries, the way members of each community ought to treat ‘outsiders’ and ‘strangers’, and whether it is right to make such a distinction (Shapcott, p. 199). A range of difficult ethical problems, often seen as distinct from those in domestic political theory, arises with international political theory. However, two central questions which can be derived from this subject are whether outsiders should be treated with the same set of ethical duties as insiders, and, if so, how it can be done in a world where international anarchy and moral pluralism are the norm. For the sake of the argument, only the first question will be considered extensively in this essay.

After the prosecution of Nazis in the Nuremburg trials on the basis of “crimes against humanity” and genocide, the abuse of human rights has become a more salient issue in international society (Buchanan 136). However, when situations of human rights

does not exist, we cannot simply “think” human rights into effect, active steps must be taken to ensure the protection and safety of worldwide human rights.

Human rights are universal rights that we are entitled to. It is a freedom that is guaranteed based on the principle of respect for an individual. As mentioned in the preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, human rights are a “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all member of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world” (Kent, page 80). When asked what our rights are, we tend to get different answers and meanings. Some people recite the rights that they know; but let’s face it, not everyone knows all of the rights that they truly have. The rights we have consist of many things such as the right of having an adequate food supply. The right to

The English School of International Relations, often referred to as the ‘international society’ approach to International Relations or the Groatian School is a theory which is mainly characterized by its efforts to place itself outside of the polarization seen in the debates between liberals and realists as well as by its commitment to the study of what an important contributor to the English School of IR, Hedley Bull called ‘the anarchical society’. Just as this term implies the English School of IR acknowledges that a structural characteristic of international relations is the anarchy, however, it also acknowledges that autonomous states create a society that adopts concepts of justice and order in its judgment and its rhetoric. Therefore, this approach focuses on the balance of power, international law and the spread of cosmopolitan principles. (pg.78)