An International System of Recognizable Human Rights: Conflicts of Ethics - Research Paper Example

 Introduction Human Rights are a concept that had developed slowly during the past several centuries but has reached an accelerated rate of definition during the last 50 years. Globalization and international organizations have brought the issue onto the world stage as people struggle to set standards and gain consensus. While nearly all nations and states can agree that people are entitled to human rights, there is widespread disagreement on what those rights entail and what those rights consist of. The current tendency is to see rights from the Western viewpoint, which advocates for an interdependent set of rights that must exist as a whole, or the Asian viewpoint that contends human rights are an artifact of history and culture and are not necessarily international or universal in their application. Yet, even among the Westernized nations there are disagreements as to which rights deserve to be considered basic, inalienable, genuine, or real. At the center of the debate is the challenge of reaching a definition of human rights that will provide an adequate level of protection for vulnerable people against oppression and exploitation, while respecting the cultural, religious, and social norms that may conflict across cultures. Human rights are an abstraction and an amorphous concept that is in a constant state of evolution and dependent upon the society, culture, and individual from where they are perceived. Relevance The topic of human rights and the perception of what they are is exceptionally relevant in the modern world of mass communications and a concentrated military power. It is important to safeguard the basic human rights of all people of the world, and to bring in a new generation with an evolved sense of human dignity. Respect for human rights begins in early education and a commitment to, and a general consensus on, the issue is necessary to resolve questions concerning the curricula. The US is in danger of falling behind the rest of the world in our approach to the education in regards to the globalized community and its impact on human rights issues. Fewer than half of the US high schools require any world studies such as history or geography, and unless mandated it is unlikely that they will teach about any human rights issues at all (Crocco 2007, p.260). Yet, the impact that the US will have on the rest of the world by way of our international relations and foreign policies will rest on the attitude and conception we have of human rights. It is not critical that we all agree on what a human right is or who is entitled to what right. However, it is important that we understand where we disagree and why we disagree. Only then can we develop a sense of respect for dignity, sovereignty, and self-determination. Definition The modern perception of human rights and their transgressions around the world have traditionally revolved around the belief that human rights may only be granted and enforced by nations and states. Generally speaking, Western concepts of human rights are often centered on political rights, and the political legitimacy of nations is usually gauged on this basis (Donnelly 1996). However, the United States Bill of Rights speaks to the freedoms granted to man by a power that has a higher moral authority than a government. These freedoms of religion, speech, and expression are today translated as rights that we enjoy as members of the human race. While we charge our government with protecting these rights against tyranny and usurpation by an oppressive government, the rights of liberty and freedom come from a deeply held religious belief. While they may be used to generate a common ground of international political negotiation, the fundamental human rights are moral at their core. These basic freedoms, or rights, have recently been expanded to include the freedom of the press, women's right, the right to due process, and children's rights that reflect the character of society's political, social, and economic status. However, basic core human rights are granted by morality, not governments, and as such basic human rights are a moral issue and not a legal or social norm. Within this context of human rights as a purely moral issue comes the fact that international organizations, nations, states, and governments may not have the legitimacy required to define or create human rights. These political groups are certainly charged with the protection of the peoples' rights and the enforcement of justice and equality, but they do not have sole ownership as the originator of the rights. The rights are often owned and created on an individual basis as the result of a sense of morality that a government may not always have. In addition, refugees, expatriates, and displaced persons may not be connected at all to any political group. For example, during World War II the Jewish people were left without a country or homeland. This placed them, for all practical purposes, outside the global community without a government to serve them. However, this did not strip them of their rights as human beings. If we assume the position that human rights are political or social in nature, then declarations of human rights by political groups or social communities do not extend to the people outside the group and "only the members of a political community can be the bearer of rights" (Menke 2007, p.745). A government or organizational declaration of rights can only enumerate the rights that they are willing to enforce, and not the total realm of rights that a human being is entitled to. Governments are restricted in their ability to define human rights, yet can still be held accountable for human rights that are not explicitly spelled out in declarations or documents. Human rights are necessarily an area where definition and semantics can create their own meaning in context with highly individualized situations. Rights are often presented as the respect for life, the safeguard of dignity, or the unwarranted intrusion into another's life. However, these concepts demand further definition that is generally carried out by a higher court on a case-by-case basis as appropriate. According to Chirwa (2004, pp.25-26), "although economic, cultural, and social rights are not justiciable under IECSCR, the European Convention and the American Convention, this has not prevented the respective enforcement bodies to hold states responsible for violations of what are typically economic, social and cultural rights by private actors". The conceptualization and the enforcement of any infringement of human rights may be accomplished based on the court's willingness to hear a case and render a decision. It does not need to be a legal right to hold the government responsible for adhering to the principles of the right. The government's sole function is to interpret and enforce human rights, and the rights are extended to anyone who can lay a claim to them, even if they are not a member of the political or social system. Conflicts and Challenges Facing Human Rights Working towards an international system of recognizable human rights has created conflicts of ethics, and has the potential for rendering the liberal human rights efforts as no more than a hypocritical and impotent agenda. Conflicts can arise when the mandated enforcement of a human right results in the taking of another person's individual rights. The spread of democracy is fraught with peril as liberal democracies anxiously seek opportunities to expand the idea of Western human rights in regions that are not yet equipped to manage them. According to Donnelly (2003, p.65), "No Western country seriously debates whether to implement economic and social rights. Discussion instead focuses on the means to achieve this unquestioned end, how massive the commitment of resources should be, and which particular rights should be recognized and given priority". This attitude calls into question the motivation of liberal states in their willingness to violate the sovereignty of a quasi-legitimate state. One of the ethical guidelines for taking an aggressive action against a sovereign state is that it must not violate more rights than it upholds. It can become questionable whether human rights, and their violations, are the reason for taking a military action, or if they are simply the justification that masks other motives. "There is a certain political economy to the strategic deployment of human-rights discourses by colonial and imperial states that have sights set on the profits of war" (Denike, 2008, p.97). The Iraq War and the War on Terror have been promoted as a human rights issue, but have brought with them the "exceptional measures of racial profiling, security arrest warrants, indefinite detentions, torture, deportation, and so on" (Denike, 2008, p.103). It is often confusing to the US public whether the US is protecting the rights of its own citizens or injecting them into the occupied country. This has eroded the confidence that the citizenry holds in regards to the government's commitment to the core human rights of life and liberty. Human rights are only of any value if the members of society are able to lay a claim to the rights, get them enforced, and realize any gain from their implementation. To accomplish this requires the voluntary participation of the nations, states, and individual actors involved. It is one thing to say that a human being is entitled to a minimum level of economic standards required for subsistence, and another thing to define and provide it. Economic justice is often acquired through charity and is at the mercy of the wealthier patrons who may or may not feel a duty to take responsibility for this right. A human right requires a willingness on the part of society to take responsibility to uphold and fulfill the right. An obligation of duty to fulfill a right may also come from a government agency that is charged with the enforcement of the right. As there has been an increasing awareness of human rights around the globe, and an expanding base of what are considered human rights, it has demanded that there be an international consensus on what constitutes a right. Without the general agreement, nations will be in the position of being forced to assume an obligation that they do not agree to and have no ability to fulfill. The freedom of religion may have different contextual meanings in the US and in China. While Chinese citizens wishing to invoke the right to religion look outside their own borders for sympathy and enforcement, it is usually passed to higher authorities such as international ruling bodies. The expansionist movement in regards to rights have resulted in women, workers, children, environmental groups, the poor, and minorities all attempting to realize the "value of using international human rights commitments to hold their governments accountable for shortcomings in local standards of health, education, and adequate housing" (Robinson 2005, p.5). In many cases the international organizations are incapable of enforcing the duty to fulfill a legal right on a constitutionally legitimate government or nation. The expansion of the concept of human rights to encompass issues that arise from the continued struggle for social justice has been a distraction from the global community's attempt to define a set of enforceable basic human rights. Many of these so-called rights refer to issues that are culture based and as such are subject to cultural relativism. While they may have legitimate grounds for legal enforcement, they are outside the umbrella of the essential, and universal, basic human rights. These rights are not the rights that the international courts should concern themselves with. "Human rights should be wider than, and independent of, civil rights: they should provide a basis for the recognition of the dignity of human beings who do not belong together to the same political community, but only, so to speak, to the essential community of mankind, and they should be protected when the national solidarity does no longer apply, or conflicts with one another, as in the case of war" (Balibar 2007, p.732). The body of core human rights has evolved slowly, and may be in various states of flux in some nations as compared to others. Only by accepting cultural relativism and understanding the evolutionary quality of human rights can they become realistic and concrete. Cross border enforcement of what are essentially context based rights leads to a disregard for sovereignty and potentially a violation of a nation's right to self-determination. Advanced liberal democracies may be philosophically driven to aggression based on their "requirement for non-liberal states to meet the human rights criteria by becoming liberal states – a goal that can only be achieved by a long-range process of socio-economic development of these societies under conditions of peace" (Demenchonok 2007, p.30). The liberal concept of a wide-ranging scope of interdependent rights places the pursuit of core individual human rights in jeopardy by being a distraction and may, in fact, contribute to a diminishment in global human rights. Human Rights in the Evolving Nation State Going beyond the scope of the core set of human rights that are morality based and venturing into the more expansive area of interdependent rights requires that the state or nation to have reached a level of maturity that will accommodate the more liberal concept of human rights. It requires a certain level of socio-economic well being as well as an education in regards to liberal concepts. These come from the slow evolution of society and human rights are claimed, or invoked, through the actions that society takes in that environment. Human rights cannot be externally applied and must be claimed from the government or individual actors by a social movement from within. According to Rodriguez (2004, p.396), "social action or social movements are instrumental in achieving important changes in a particular society whose members respond in an articulated and somewhat organized fashion to different forms of social injustice". However, the conditions must be acceptable to allow a social movement to occur. It requires a certain level of economic freedom, mobility, and the basic liberties of speech and free association. The liberal idea of human rights as an interdependent system that is universal can only be generated and sustained from within the given nation's society and people, and cannot be enforced from outside its geographical or cultural borders. Tyrannical and oppressive regimes that inhibit the advancement of ideas on justice would be more appropriate targets for change, rather than the morality of the nation's concept of rights (Rodriguez 2004, p.397). The concept of rights will have to evolve as a system within the culture and historical context that the change takes place in. In evaluating the global approach to the respect for human rights it is important to maintain the core system of individual human rights as a separate entity from the inflationary human rights that are pursued by evolutionary processes or special interests. This is not to imply that child labor problems or the oppression of women are of less importance or deserve less attention on the world stage, it simply means that these rights should be addressed on a different forum than the core human rights of dignity and life. Children's, women's, economic, and worker's rights are generally collective and are culturally contextualized. Attempting to seek a global redress for regional or local issues will dilute the international efforts and weaken the case to be made for basic human rights. There are currently approximately 200 nations and over 7,000 potential nationalisms that are culturally based (Felice 1996, p.103). Placing the duty for the fulfillment of these collective rights on the global community will, in effect, result in a "subversive role in relation to state sovereignty, that is, defining a normative framework of principles not only to judge state actions, but also to define an equitable future vision for humankind" (Felice 1996, p.103). This will impede the states' ability to address these issues, and the state is in the best position, both geographically and culturally, to find an evolving and lasting solution. Recognizing these inflationary, or collective, rights as a part of an interdependent system of human rights merely moves the obligation for enforcement from the states to the international organizations. Unfortunately, the UN and other international organizations may not be able to have the desired impact. According to Ramcharan (2005, p.76), "we are still living in a decentralized international community in which we depend largely on the cooperation of states for compliance". Only by giving the nations and states an opportunity to advance both socially and economically can they evolve a more liberal approach to civil, legal, collective, and an expanded version of human rights. Disagreements over the differences in the value placed on inflationary rights by other cultures cannot be negotiated, it must be evolved. Even in cultures as similar as the European Union and the US there are considerable disagreements. It has been argued that economic rights, and a right to the basics of food, shelter, health care, and education are at the foundation of all other rights and are equal in stature to the right to be free from slavery (Shue 1996, p.6). Without the basic standards of subsistence that provides at least a minimum of physical well being, the right to vote may have little importance. Hunger and disease are immediate concerns that can cause suffering that could be alleviated with basic economic rights. However, the US has generally considered economic rights as less genuine than other human rights and according to Shue (1996, p.7), "the Department of State cannot be said to be taking rights to the fulfillment of basic economic needs very seriously". There is a deep divide between Europe and the US in the degree of commitment they are willing to give to a social democratic welfare state. The Vienna Declaration of 1993 affirms its determination to "employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples" (Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action 1993). While the US is one of the most prosperous countries in the world, this declaration conflicts with the free market philosophies that are held by US political leadership, and reaffirmed by free US elections. The US's lukewarm reception to these economic guarantees as inalienable rights serves to maintain the focus on the more important, though less manageable, issues of life, dignity, and worth. The over zealous attitude towards economic advancement would, as Hannah Arendt (1948) wrote, "invariably lead to philosophically absurd and politically unrealistic claims such that as each man is born with the inalienable right to unemployment insurance and an old age pension" (as cited in Menke 2007, p.739). Once again, this does not imply that people do not have a right to the basic necessities of life or that is less important than voting. It simply contends that attaining economic rights is based on factors such as available resources, economic philosophy, cultural capital, and the situational context that are beyond the scope of international intervention and global consensus. The Universal Human Right Stripping away the myriad social rights, things that ought to be, protections that are well deserved, and the legal protections afforded women, children and workers, we are left with the critical question; what constitutes a universal human right? Placing the responsibility for the creation of rights outside the ruling governments of nations and states and understanding human rights as an evolving set of principles based on cultural relativism denies many of the rights that Westerners have come to accept as morality based. Political, social, cultural, economic, and religious rights all fall under the category of liberal protections, but are not at the core of universal human rights. The government is charged with protecting this litany of rights, which are more aptly labeled civil rights or legal protections. These rights, and their degree of importance, will vary from country to country and culture to culture, and may not exist at all in some cultures. Women's rights may be excessively weakened in some theocratic nations where religion has dominated a culture. Women's rights have only recently become a part of the public discourse in the United States, a country that has been governed by a male dominated Christian culture since its inception. The core set of universal human rights would need to be devoid of the language of race, ethnicity, gender, and age. They would only need to concern themselves with the universal principles of "dignity" and "worth" (Mertus 2003, p.85). The preamble of the United Nation's charter states that it is determined to "reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person" and "practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours" (Charter of the United Nations). It is important to note that the wording refers to the fundamental rights and relies on tolerance rather than insistence. The United Nations did not form around the agenda of promoting legal, social, cultural, economic, or political rights within the sovereign borders of the member states. The true intention of an international declaration of human rights is to prevent the most egregious forms of abuse from taking place around the globe. Genocide is an international crime that seeks to annihilate groups based on their religious, racial, ethnic, or nationality group. The extermination of the Jewish people and the Holocaust certainly meet the standard, but there are several recent actions that would also apply. Clearly this strips the individual of all right to life, dignity, and worth. Genocide has proliferated in the recent decades in places such as Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Nigeria, and the Congo. Liberal industrialized nations are generally slow and reluctant to act, except when there is an issue of self-interest for them. International bodies, such as the UN, have made progress in acting after the fact through the mechanism of peacekeeping missions, but have been generally ineffective at reducing or preventing the actions from taking place. Still, the idea that there is a civilized community that condemns the action elevates the priority of basic human rights. Minow (1998, p.48) argues that, "The Nuremberg trials inspired even their critics to develop conceptions of law that might begin to assure human dignity, even when nations failed to do so". Though it may be largely symbolic, the international consensus on the most flagrant violations of human rights has been helpful in drawing attention to and curtailing the violence. However, this cooperation will only extend to the most visible and overt human rights violations. Adding vacation pay, health insurance, and minimum wage to the growing laundry list of human rights only detracts attention from the real purpose of an international human rights convention, of which there is no shortage of need. Conclusion In conclusion, almost everyone agrees that individuals are entitled to a basic set of core human rights that cannot be infringed upon by nations, states, or individuals. However, there is widespread disagreement on what the list of rights should contain. While the US should be proactive at preventing the rape, murder, and genocide of nationalist groups in the Congo and elsewhere, it would be unreasonable for another nation to attempt to prevent the police brutality that occurs in our major cities. To be an effective set of universal human rights they need to be universally accepted. Acts of violence, denial of religious freedom, and political obstacles are often the result of culture and history that is not subject to the effects of international pressure. International bodies can be effective only if they act on the most serious transgressions, while advocating for peace, justice, and equality. There is general agreement that the human rights offered by liberal democracies are superior to the developing world, but they can only be realized by a progression of socio-economic evolution. Many of the rights that Westerners take for granted cannot be actualized under a dictatorial or oppressive regime. Rights imply freedom and freedom comes with a considerable amount of responsibility for both the nation and its citizens. Citizens must take the social action necessary to claim a right, and the nation needs to accept the duty of enforcing it. The best action to take in regards to human rights around the world is to foster an environment that promotes social and economic progress, and in doing so it will elevate the status of human rights as well as the opportunity to claim them. References Balibar, E 2007, '(De) constructing the human as human institution: a reflection on the coherence of Hannah Arendt's practical philosophy', Social Research, vol.74, no.3, pp.727-738. Charter of the United Nations 2009, United Nations, New York NY, viewed 6 January 2009, . Chirwa, D M 2004, 'The doctrine of state responsibility as a potential means of holding private actors accountable for human rights', Melbourne Journal of International Law. vol.5, no.1, pp.1-36. Crocco, M S 2007, 'Speaking truth to power: women's rights as human rights', The Social Studies, Nov/Dec, pp.257-269. Demenchonok, E 2007, 'From a state of war to perpetual peace', American Journal of Economics and Sociology, vol.66, no.1, pp.25-47. 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