The Unjustified Actions Of Human Rights

Human rights are the right that any individual is entitled under their government, and it can be provided in divergent forms. Thus in Australia, there are no set of ‘Bill of Rights’, comparable to many other western countries that share similar legal values and standards. The American ‘Bill of Rights’ states that the government ensures the freedom of speech and religion, protection from torture and punishment, and the fair procedures of law . There has always been a great debate on whether Australian government should acquire a constitutional Bill of Rights. I believe that it is not necessary to obtain a Bill of Rights as it is not necessary for Australian legal system, and further, it can bring confusion, greater debate and litigations. There are other forms of human rights law introduced into Australian legal system which sets boundaries for the government to respect individual rights. Consequently, it proves the unnecessity for a Bill of Rights in Australia.

In the opinion piece, A sorry state? Written on 2nd of august 2007, Professor Janice Stevens opposes in an alarmed and critical tone that the treatment of David Hicks in Guantanamo Bay is a violation of human rights and that Australia’s response only shows that other citizens should be scared of themselves being held in such a state. In a sophisticated style the article addresses at an educated adult audience, or to those who are concerned about the treatment of their fellow citizens.

Every person has the right to undergo a judicial hearing to avoid illegal detention. However, if that person poses threat to the society and the state, there are instances that the said right is overseen where these types of people are quickly detained after capturing. The writ of Habeas Corpus gives the rights to the captured people to undergo judicial trial. But there is also an article in the U.S. Constitution that states that the writ of Habeas Corpus can only be lifted if the people being questioned in involved in a rebellion or pose a threat to the safety of the public. That is why the administration of the previous U.S. President Bush detained all of the people whom they tagged as terrorist and were captured in the war on Afghanistan in 2001. The question now is to what extend must be the actions of an individual in order to undergo proper trial hearing or to just be put in imprisonment without any hearings or trials done? The purpose of this paper is to review issues within Habeas Corpus and GITMO, discuss how policies changing over time affect the dynamic state of United States, and how these changes can make a big impact to the future law making and practice of the country that is why this issue must be evaluated and examined.

It is well known that the United States have been seen internationally as a key actor, for better or worse, when it comes to the field of universal human rights. At the same time, recent events have shown a disassociation between the words and actions of the nation. Despite the fact that these rights are supposed to be constitutionally-protected, the United States has been criticized for repeatedly violating them not only in the past but in recent memory: criminalization of poverty and homelessness, violation of the privacy of citizens all over the world, racism, police brutality, the prison-for-profit system, mistreatment or even torture of the prisoners. These are just some examples of the most common forms of human rights violations

Although we claim to have a Bill of Rights which protects everyone’s basic human rights, we treated the detainees like animals. Richard Matthews, a philosophy professor at Mount Allison University, says, “There is no facet of human identity that torture fails to assault.” Because we tortured the prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the Iraqi people felt that our soldiers were in their nation only to harm their own people. This incident set back our efforts to establish political stability in the region by undoing a great deal of work which cost American lives and billions of

Hatfield contends that torture is so fundamentally wrong that it requires no written prohibition. At the core of morality, it is simply not acceptable. However, there are many international doctrines of peace-keeping which outright prohibit torture such as the Universal Declaration of Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Geneva Convention and so on (pg. 132). He feels that as a lawyer, he is demoralized when other lawyers seek to revisit the legality of torture. However, the United States has submitted a document, the Bybee Memo, which enacted a law contrary to these accepted credos of behavior and these proponents of human dignity. “...what is clearly torture by any moral standard is not torture under American legal standards” (pg. 132). So how is it that one of the world’s largest democracies, can proclaim that “coercive interrogation” is not “torture”?

Torture, being defined by the 1984 Convention Against Torture is the “cruel, inhumane, or degrading infliction of severe pain or suffering, physical or mental, on a prisoner to obtain information or a confession, or to mete out a punishment for a suspected crime” (Beehner), is condemned and considered illegal by the United States of America and carries severe punishment for those that carry out the act. Yet the numerous amounts of maltreatment of the detainees held by the US during the War on Terror has led to humanitarian interference and, more notably, concern from the United Nations assembly. The most prominent facility in which these detainees are being held is the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, a site used for indefinite detention (mostly without trial), yet other secret prisons (operated by the CIA) are scattered about the world, which are also used for “enhanced” interrogation purposes.

Torture has been a long standing controversy which seems to been coming up more frequently nowadays among politicians and media alike. There has always been the key argument if a man’s life is justifiably bad enough to torture and hurt, to get necessary information from. Since the beginning of our foundation torture was made a marque laws requiring the government and states alike from using, “cruel and unusual punishments” on any American prisoners (“FindLaw”). However in 2006 slight adjustments to this law were put in effect to create opportunities for getting information out of foreign captives (“FindLaw”). These prisoners were taken from the standard US judicial review and instead put under the terms of habeas corpus. This allowed the US

Through Langbein’s discussion of the history of torture, it is evident that throughout history we have made grave mistakes but thought that in that moment they were correct. His essay shows that with time and growth, those choices once made may not have been the best possible choice at that time. This could be applied to the issues surrounding Guantanamo Bay and the torture of suspected terrorist detainees. Most Americans may not mind the idea of torturing someone who has killed so many citizens if it means saving many lives. While this utilitarian approach has its benefits, it is not a decision that should be made so hastily. The use of torture to gain information may have had its moments of effectiveness, but with the few who have been tortured for years and have yet to talk, it begs the question, is this really

In the U.S. system, federal courts use the summons of habeas corpus to determine if a state’s imprisonment of a detainee is lawful. With regards to the historical evolution of habeas corpus up to the current war on terror, the controversy between who has the right to habeas corpus and if the government has the right to hold an enemy combatant, without charging them with a specific crime, has progressed over the years. This essay will analyze the relevance of habeas corpus and evaluate different perspectives in regards to topics relating to habeas corpus.

The implementation of torture has resurfaced in the context of the “war on terror” during the Bush Administration. Surprisingly, a large portion of the American public stands as proponents of utilizing this cruel method to obtain information from detainees. Some firm believers insist that torture is justified in order to maintain the security of this nation. One of such believers is John Yoo, a

Human rights are universal and inalienable. It is so important that the rights of every individual on this planet are upheld that human rights abuses are the focus of 2015’s Amnesty International Student Conference. Today, we’re going to explore an abuse of human rights that occurred in a nation that prides itself on its freedom. Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp is a detainment facility located at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. After the debilitating attacks against the US on September 11th 2001, US congress passed the “Authorization for Use of Military Force” a bill that allowed then US President George W. Bush to use any essential, suitable force against the parties responsible for the attacks. Subsequent military action in Afghanistan led the US to

In order to answer this question of rights in captivity, leaders must assess the situation through the lens of an overarching value and a criterion, or means to achieve the value. Executive Order 10631 lays out the duties and responsibilities of US service members in captivity. According to Article III, it is the responsibility of the captured to “continue to resist by all means necessary” (Executive Order No. 10631, 1955). We thus accept this responsibility as the mission of the POW, and ultimately, the value under which we will assess this ethical dilemma.

The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights stands as the current gold standard for every individual’s rights. Focusing on culture, one may see that cultural rights are not clearly defined and are oftentimes in conflict with other types of rights. In this paper, I will first discuss the United Nations’ use of ‘cultural’ in its universal human rights in relation to the concept of cultural relativism. Then, using South African and American practices, such as virginity testing and discriminatory criminal justice system respectively, I will describe and analyze practices violate the UN’s universal human rights in addition to the practices’ use for the community or society as a whole. Lastly, I will compare the American Anthropological Association’s rights to culture to the UN’s universal human rights by analyzing the limitations of each.

Glendon, Mary Ann (2002). A world made new: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Random House. ISBN