Human Rights Law and International Community - Essay Example

? “Human rights are rights which a person enjoys by virtue of being human, without any supplementary condition being required This is one of the most straight forward definitions of the terminology called Human Rights. The International Human Rights law was established and developed by the United Nations as a means of protecting the rights of every human being alive. Human rights are the birth rights of every human regardless of sex, age, Nationality, Religion, political positions/viewpoints, ethnicity, race or colour. Even though a few people have argued that the internalization of human rights laws are strategies of western states used in subjugating and imposing their beliefs on others, the United Nations is actually a global organization that has every nation on earth as a member. The United Nations through its charter on human rights seeks to protect the laws that guards and binds the protection and freedom of every human with dignity and individual respect for all, being the hallmark of such laws. We are individuals who live and operate by certain national or international legal order, whether we are Americans, Nigerians, Chinese or British, we possess, to varying degrees which depends on the State within which we exist, rights. These rights, such as the right to existence, and the freedom of speech, right to marriage, freedom from arbitrary detention or the right to free expression oneself, are almost always incorporated into the national Constitutions and legislative Acts of nations. The to which these rights are respected and the preferences of certain these rights over others, largely depends on the nature of the national legal system within which we evolve and develop and operate, thus, regardless of the fact that we live in a democratic, a monarchical or on the other extreme; a repressive and authoritarian State, human rights should always be respected. But many events over the past decades of human existence, has proved that such rights that ought to be respected in most cases, are not. Certain individuals or group of individuals have had their freedom trampled upon by stronger forces within the nucleus of the same or an external society. Many laws meant to discriminate against certain people from certain regional or ethnic locations have being propounded and executed by ruthless states as a means of silencing oppositions. For instance the Grand Holocaust in Germany, carried out by the ruthless Nazi, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, the Iraqi Genocides against the Kurds, the genocide in Bosnia Herzegovina and the Cambodian Genocides, are all acts that openly violated human rights of individuals and peoples of a particular nationality/ethnicity. Other inhuman actions like the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela of South Africa, the Apartheid, Slavery in Africa, the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, the exploitation of sovereign states by the USA and its Western allied, the house arrest of ASSK of Burma etc. are all examples that portray how nations and peoples (stronger elements in society) can trample upon the human rights of weaker elements in society. Some of this atrocities and infringement on the rights of others were carried out internally within a state, while others were carried out by external states or individuals against the people of another society. The big question here is what can individuals do if their rights provided under their national laws are not respected, or if national laws do not safeguard their fundamental human rights at all. Is there an international forum where individuals can turn to and file a complaint against that State? Or against another state? Depending upon the situation at hand? Beginning from the year 1945, the United Nations became active in formulating and implementing policies that will ensure the protection of human rights of every human being all over the world. They have set up many instruments for protecting Human Rights after 1945. Article 1 of 1948 UN Charter states that2 “ all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights in the sight of the law” This theory is largely incumbent in the law of universal human rights principles and is meant to be dealt with and treated as such in every situation and to any Nation on earth without any form of nepotism or discrimination. This law propounded by the United Nations, is the bedrock of justice, equality and individual human protection under the law But contrary to the law of universalism, some Nations and diplomatic writers support the cultural relativism creed of human rights laws. This law is a complete opposite of the law of universalism. The Cultural relativism law insinuates that there are few factors that determine the extent to which international human laws are applied. In their minds eyes, these factors also makes it impossible for international human laws to be universal. The factors are: Different social, economical and world political systems Cultural differences The principle of state equality Thus, the propagandist of the cultural relativism concept of international human rights laws, state that the concept of Human rights laws as prescribed by the UN is a product of Western bias. The terminology of culture simply refers to National, ethnical, religious identity or traditions and customs. Infact, the individual realizes his personality through culture.3 Humans judge certain conducts/actions based on certain morals or expected standards, but the reality is that what we refer to as morals are deeply embedded in culture. In other words, what is wrong and unacceptable in one culture, could be right and acceptable in the other. So the supporters of the culture relativism theory object to the universality of human rights laws as they believe that it is a form of western imposition of values on other sovereignties. Universalism of human rights laws is obviously very crucial to humans and the international community as a whole. If we were to consider cultural differences when instituting such laws, a lot of people will commit great crimes against humanity and walk away under the pretext of culture. Feminist for instance, argue that the involvement of culture in human rights laws, is only a pretext employed by controlling and dominating elements in society to oppress women. A cited example is the Sharia law, which states that “men have qawama (guardianship) over women” many religious Muslims believe this, but unfortunately, feminist in this generation think it is masculine oppression against women. Also, The universalism of human rights laws makes it possible for the same measure of judgement and or punishment to be dealt to people who commit the same manner of crime i.e rape, murder, genocide, war crimes, political thuggery, Terrorism, racial discrimination, slavery, child trafficking, gender discrimination, international breach of contract by nations in certain economic and or political agreement etc. Therefore, what is perceived as morally right or wrong in various cultures will not count but certain straight forward rules and regulations/punishments will be stipulated against offenders. One of the major benefit of the Universalism of Human rights laws is that it protects individuals and states who cannot help themselves against stronger elements in the Society. But our primary concern here is to what extent does the universalism of human rights laws in actuality abide by its foundational principles? Research has discovered that there is a lot of bias in the treatment of human rights laws. These laws are in most cases, very unfair and un- equally meted out. “Delayed justice is injustice”4 This has being the stance of many western Nations in times of executing human rights laws. For instance justice was delayed as Cambodia was occupied by Vietnam 5 and even during the Cambodian genocide; The UN led by the USA remained aloof. As a matter of fact, they were playing politics over the matter. A few years ago in the6 “Serbian politicians and media on Friday vehemently criticise the United Nations war crimes tribunal over the sentencing it handed to officials from Slobodan Milosevic's regime for a campaign of terror they commanded against Kosovo Albanians a decade ago. The court cleared the former Serbian president Milan Milutinovic, but sentenced the ex-Yugoslav deputy premier Nikola Sainovic and four army and police generals to between 15 and 22 years in prison” they call it another rape of the Hague on Serbians. The Hague is where the international court of justice is situated and this is a major instrument of the United Nations. Only recently, the world witnessed how the USA devastated Iraq and Afghanistan in silence. The UN as a matter of fact, pretending as though women and children were not victims of that bloody manslaughter. The big question here, is what happened to the Universality of human rights laws? Are those laws no longer applicable in the middle east? Or is the USA bigger than the international community so much so that they cannot be brought to book for certain crimes against humanity? Or does the UN operate via a certain regional bias? The answers or non answers to these questions, make it very difficult to ascertain to what extent are these laws fairly meted out with the same footing and emphasis. Terrorism is a major concern in the world of today, yet a few terrorist have being identified and have not being brought to book yet. Some of the identifiable terrorist, are leaders of Government and they are first and fore mostly, oppressing and terrorising the peoples that they lead. That these leaders are still in positions of power is alarmingly disturbing. A few of these leaders are in the Middle East while others are in Europe and certain parts of Africa. The universality and equality of human rights laws should not exempt certain personalities but should be measured out in all fairness and equality. The nature of International law is simple. It is the international co-operation and co-existence of States and it is based on the principle of reciprocity. These laws could be further broken down into primary and secondary norms. The primary norms stipulates what states should and must not do, while the secondary norms determines/stipulates the legal consequences to be accorded to states who violates such primary laws. The United Nations becomes the international body responsible for administering and seeing to the proper and fair application of all primary and secondary international laws. These is what makes the discuss and issue of fairness, equality and administering universal and indivisible laws with the same emphasis and on the same footing to every nation and or individual on earth very important. The various sources of international laws could be International conventions, general or particular International customs, general principles of law recognised by civilised nations, Judicial decisions and teachings of most qualified publicists of various nations as subsidiary means for the determination of rules of law. The subjects of international laws are: States, Individuals and International organisations, while the main fundamental principles of international law are: rules emanate from free will of States (The Lotus Case), prohibition of interference in domestic affairs treatment of nationals was regarded as falling within exclusive jurisdiction of States, in theory, no State is superior the other, nor can it act as a world policeman and the freedom to choose political, social and economic system: this means there is no right to democracy Therefore with all the above principles in view, we can clearly see that of a truth, human rights laws are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated but in reality the international community is not treating human rights globally in a fair and equal manner, on the same footing, and with the same emphasis because there is a lot of bias by stronger elements in the United Nations over other weaker voices. This makes the entire aims and agenda of the international human rights laws an exercise in futility. BIBLIOGRAPHY Ghandi S, Blackstones, vienna declaration and programme of action in human rights documents, ,(7th ed, 470, (1993) Smith R, textbook on international human rights,(4th ed.(oup 2009) Steiner H, Alston P, Goodman R, international human rights in context: law, politics, morals,(3rd ed (oup:2008) Read More

 

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