Sociological contributions to the study of human rights - Essay Example

? Sociological contributions to the study of human rights Grade 11th December, Introduction: Human rights were introduced on the cultural and social agenda of nations and people in the 20th century largely influenced by the Nazi Holocaust. Sociology has in the past skirted questions of rights because of the tendency to equate the society as the object of their study, and focusing on the social relations and interdependencies of nation states across state borders. The sociological approach has enabled the advancement of people’s understanding and empirical knowledge of such matters like genocides more effectively than even the way they have elated with human rights (Sjoberg and Gills et al., 2001). Working from a sociological perspective enables insights to human rights practices and concept beyond those of positive law and normative philosophy. This is because sociological perspective takes into account aspects of power and politics, conflicts and social divisions, differences in interpretation and understanding of human rights, and in the condition of social actions needed to achieve and realize them (Nash, 2009b). This paper will look at the contributions of the sociological perspective on the study of human rights, in relation with the perspective taken by lawyers and philosophers who have, for a long time dominated the study of human rights (Howard, 1995). Humana rights has been made international through the Universal declaration of Human Rights in 1964, but the sociologists are determined to show that human rights cannot be universal to all human beings because people live in different social contexts and are bound by their cultural and social beliefs. The sociological perspective in this paper will illuminate the loopholes in the human rights which have been overlooked by other disciplines, and which hinder the understanding of human rights by every ordinary human being they protect. Human rights: Human rights are codified legally in a number of international treaties, declarations, conventions and protocols. Embedded in the human rights, there is the notion of fundamental respect for the dignity, autonomy and well-being of all individuals. The well being should be psychological, spiritual and physical. There are three agreements known as the international Bill of rights. Universal Declaration of Human rights was convened in 1946, call for universal human rights for every human being. Vienna Declaration of Human Rights in 1993 regards human rights as universal, indivisible, intenerated and interdependent (Woodiwiss, 2005). Universal entitlements are mechanisms for implementing values as nondiscrimination and an adequate standard of living. All the rights found in the universal declaration of human rights are individual rights not corporate entities with the exception of people’s self- determination. The sociology perspective examines the logic behind this restriction and looks at some common misconceptions regarding individual human rights (Donnelley, 2003). Human rights recognized internationally are treated as interdependent and indivisible whole, instead as a menu where one may select freely. Sociology explores this universal declaration dimension with specific attention to civil and political relations to cultural economic and social rights. Although the rights are universal and held equally by all individuals anywhere, states have almost exclusive responsibility of implementing these rights for their own nationals. The sociology explores the contribution of the state in respecting and violation of human rights (Woodiwiss, 2005). For example, Lal Jamilla, a Pakistan girl aged sixteen who was repeatedly raped in March 1999, was not fully protected by the universal human rights and the state. She was shot dead, after being handed over to her tribe by the police officers, on the order of the council. This was meant t overcome the shame brought on the tribe by Jamilla. The aspect of Universalism is questioned in this case, and whether another state could have handled the case in a similar approach. Agents of the state were accomplices in the killing of Jamilla who was a victim of an unjust custom. Human rights are seen as a concept which not only needs to be achieved and owned by human beings, but it also needs to be understood. Human rights are identified with human beings, and like identity, they need to be understood for them to be applicable. Sociologists have in the past ignored the study of human rights, which were being distorted by lawyers (Freeman, 2002). Human rights study was completely dominated by lawyers and political philosophers. Sociologists and Anthropologists have recently taken up the study of human rights in order to make contributions to the understanding of how human rights are developing. Sociological perspective: Sociological perspective has contributed considerably to the human rights study and understanding of the concept in various ways. For example, natural rights in classic theory developed by John Locke in the seventeenth century shows that each human being had particular rights, which are derived from their nature, and not from the government’s laws and the legitimacy of the government rests on its respect it accorded to these certain rights. Sociology through the study of the society, the social actors, the behavior of these social actors and social conflicts, has developed a new dimension all together on human rights (Freeman, 2002). The contemporary concept of human rights is based on the reformulation of this idea and refers basically to the relations of governments and their citizens. With the recent contribution of sociologists and anthropologists to human rights, (Woodwiss, 1998) there are signs that social science of human rights is in the process of waking up. Societies do have legitimate claims against individuals as is individuals having significant duties to the society, which corresponds to rights of the society. Human rights are not held or owned by atomistic individuals but, are embedded in a social context and contain crucial social dimensions (Donnelley, 2003). All individual rights establish social interactions and operate through social relationships. Group and individual rights differ and depend on who holds the rights, whether individual or corporate actors, not in their sociality. The gap between human rights normative concept and the social sciences has largely been filled by law. Law being factual and normative as is the degree of compliance with the law can be studied. Sociologists can study how law is made, interpreted and implemented. There is a variety of social behaviors involving human rights that can be studied by sociologists. According to Freeman (2002), the concept of human rights is political, and the normative principles of human rights are capable of motivating people to struggle for the entrenchment of human rights in law. This makes political sociology an essential social science for understanding the social action of human rights. The sociological perspective is that many individual rights are exercised characteristically, and, it is only through social interaction that it can be enjoyed (Donnelley, 2003). There are some rights like political participation, free and compulsory education and even social insurance have little significance and are incomprehensible in the absence of society. Freedom of association is definitely a right of collective action. Family rights, minority rights and workers rights are enjoyed by humans as members in a social groups, or individuals occupying social roles. The sociological perspective is that human rights are not universal to all human beings because they vary depending on the social actors, social interactions, social relations and the society itself. Interpretation and understanding of human rights, putting into consideration social diversity, is the only way which can make them applicable and relevant. A legal doctrine, according to Somers and Roberts (2008), can be compared to a rough draft of a social theory, consisting of concepts, rules, categories and procedures for managing the vast dominance of human behavior in a systematic and orderly way. Turner (1993) argues that sociology is capable of grounding the analysis of human rights in a human frailty concept. This is especially the body vulnerability and in the idea of social institutions precariousness, also in the theory of moral sympathy. Frailty is a universal condition in human beings, and it is surrounded by the precarious and risky nature of social institutions (Turner, 1993). Human vulnerability can be contained or protected by the institution of rights, which protect individual beings from the ontological certainty. A sociological perspective looks at human rights as social claims for institutionalized protection. With the support of the institution of rights, the moral community is created because of collective sympathy for the plight of other human beings (Turner, 1993). Sociology of citizenship functions as an option for sociology of rights. Sociologists have felt more comfortable intellectually with the citizenship idea because it does not seem like raising problem regarding universal ontology. (Somers and Roberts, 2008). Contributions to the study of human rights: Universalism versus historical and cultural particularity: From the sociological perspective, many contributions to the study of human rights have been made. First and foremost, sociology as a discipline studies social actors and social actions in a society and the social conflicts caused by social interactions among the social actors in a society. By understanding the society, sociologists have contributed significantly to the reduction of social conflict in conjunction with the human rights (Morris, 2006). Human rights are a concept and a social institution which is complex and need to be understood by the social actors. The concept of human rights is complex because it stretches beyond cases of extreme cruelty and injustice (Freeman, 2002). By implementing some rights, another one is violated, for example, there is freedom of religion in the universal declaration of human rights. This, in turn, allows people to follow religions which give some people more rights than the others. This brings in confusion as to how the implementation of some human rights gives room to the violation of others. In this sense, the sociological perspective tries to illuminate such loopholes in order to help people understand the human rights and that they are not easily applicable as they appear in print. Most religions require men to be superior to the women who should be submissive and subject to men. The sociological perspective helps understand that human rights are not compassable. It has been said that gross violation of human rights, for example, genocides and massacres are beyond scientific explanation and irrational. Sociologists come in to explain the gross actions through the study of state behavior, ethnic conflicts and bureaucracies. The academy of human rights has been dominated by lawyers who could not explain such behavior, but, with the intervention of social sciences, such behavior can be explained (Freeman 2002). Sociology seeks to address the gap between recognition for the need and right for protection, and its achievement in practice (Turner, 1993). Political science, through the influence of sociology, has shown ambivalence towards the concept and study of human rights. Sociology shares the influence of human rights on the society with political science, therefore, has less to say about human rights. Howard (1995) approaches sociology of human rights in a structural manner, and includes the concept of culture. The ancient Africa was being characterized generally by communalistic cultures. Human worth was recognized by reference to social cultures. The political sociology of law is significant in understanding human rights social action. The comparative study of social movements and social groups help to explain variations in the formation and implementation of human rights law. Certain approaches to sociology make advances on the dominant legalistic discourse of human rights by showing how problems of human rights are understood in the different cultural backgrounds and settings (Freeman, 2002). The sociological concept refers to a set of social practices and not only a body of authoritative law. This concept can be studied using the methods of social sciences. The set of social practices also encompasses the legal practices. Interpretive sociology takes the concept of individual and human rights to the day to day lives of the ordinary human beings, which it claims to defend, from the height of law and philosophy (Morris, 2006). Almost all human rights academic work was written by lawyers before the 1970, and most of it was published in law journals. Survey on the teaching of human rights in the Universities portrays the legal perspective as overwhelmingly dominant. The legal approach can in no way adequately analyze the political, sociological, ethical, anthropological and economical dimensions of human rights. Therefore, the contribution of social sciences can illuminate the social practice of human rights (Howard, 1995). This is because the social sciences have researched methods and substantive interests that are quite different from the ones of the legal studies. Law’s primary concern is with judgment as to whether human rights have been respected or violated. Social sciences, on the other hand, look at and test causal hypothesis empirically and thereby, can contribute to effective policy making. Other judgmental disciplines like law make judgmental assumptions about measures that can reduce or minimize the quantity of severity of human rights violations. Sociologists like Turner (1993) calls for people to understand the value of human rights as founded and developed on an appreciation of common humanity. Vulnerability of the human body according to Turner provides the required universal basis for human rights. Even if, human rights and citizenship are increasingly intertwined, (Somers and Roberts 2008), human rights are still less concrete and less tied to the nation- state. Human rights are less tied to legal facts of territoriality and membership than citizenship rights. Blau and Moncada (2005) argue that sociologists should embrace and encompass the moral project of human rights, and they ought to be as committed and dutiful to their realization as any other activists. This gives room for an inner insight of the human rights which provide for better research and analysis of behavior. In practice, the sociological perspective sees and think of human rights as socially constructed (Donnelly, 2003). Studying the social construction of human rights in a society enables people to understand how geographically and historically, specific meanings are formed, contested, and how authority is created to define human rights. This should define human rights in terms of what they are, should be, and whose obligations and rights are at stake in a certain context (Nash, 2009b). The nature of human nature, rationality and formal organizations: It has been argued that only civil rights can be treated as human rights even if social rights have been in the human right regime since 1948. Civil rights are viewed as negative rights, in that; they enable clear identification of certain obligations on the part of certain agents to stop behaving in particular ways in order to stop state repression (Donnelley, 2003). In such a situation, legal judgment is seen as enough to identify and rectify the violation of human rights. Economic, cultural and social rights are viewed as positive rights in contrast to civil rights. They are seen as requiring open- ended obligation from the state to provide resources and advantages that cannot be clearly specified or even easily put into practice, mostly where the state is lacking adequate capacity in terms of the tax base. The sociological perspective contrasts the distinction between the positive and negative rights as misleading. Both types of rights are social equally, even if without the basic means of subsistence and existence, freedoms of speech and mobilization are worth nothing (Blau and Moncada, 2005). Moral categories give the framework of the general functioning of cultural and social order. There has been the demand to separate the normative and the empirical in the sociological debates since the Second World War, and this has led to the articulation of a countervailing tradition (Sjoberg and Gill et al., 2001). This counter- perspective contends that sociologists must investigate the moral dimension. The moral inquiry has roots in the work of classical sociologist Emile Durkheim. Piritim Sorokin is another classical sociologist who supports moral order in sociological inquiry. If the moral order is not God- given or bio- psychological in nature, then it is sociological, and it is core. By studying the moral which is a social product, sociologists contribute extensively in the study of human rights by analyzing the behavior of people or states which commit gross violations of human rights. The impression is that a considerable body of human rights is based upon the bio-psychological conception of human nature as developed by the utilitarian. The autonomy of human agents has been questioned, and the nature of social self has been emphasized (Sjoberg and Gill et al., 2001). It seems rational to assume that social mind is universal, but there are failures in the attempt to take roles of the divergent others. Human reasoning, shaped by their social contexts and human nature determine the violation or respect of others and human rights in general. Social institutions like religion affect people’s rationality and are in turn affected by human nature. They determine social interactions and relations and in general affect the conformity of social norms and the human rights where applicable. Human rights traditionally suffer from bias on the individualistic level. Sociological perspective on violation rights place emphasis on individual responsibility, which is affected by human rationality. Organizations are not reduced to a simple combination of individual activities, but it is characterized by a system of rules that support a complex division of labor and a social hierarchy. The rules guide the action of the social human agents with respect to the larger organization and to one another. This determines the respect of human rights or the violation. Conclusion: Analysis of human rights which are theoretical in nature, yet confined in empirical circumstances, gives room for a sociological frame for making sense of the human rights discourse and activities. The myriad of efforts, more generally to institutionalize some rights of principles requires attention by sociologists, mostly students of social issues. This process is guaranteed success by no means. By expanding the sociological the sociological horizon to accommodate the set rights of principles, will engage sociologists with major moral matters in the global arena, and how they will be played out locally. In sociological judgment, addressing of the universal human rights matters, sociologists are called upon to remold and reform some of the basic concepts and perspectives by which they have been examining the social reality. This restructuring of the concepts will give a clear understanding of the social reality and human rights in the society. References Blau, J., and Moncado, A., (2009) ‘Sociological Theory and Human Rights’ in B. Turner (ed.) The Blackwell Companion to Social Theory (3rd edition), Oxford: Blackwell. Donnelly, J., (2003). 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