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Chapter 16 — The Battle on Behalf of Human Rights Study Chapter Summary This chapter raises the following crucial
question: What wise and effective policies can help in the continuing, and
difficult, battle to protect human rights around the globe? The focus here
is on the least
free--the powerless, the deprived, and the maltreated, who
are often the politically oppressed, such as racial or religious minorities and
women--because their status challenges our commitment to democratic,
constitutional, and humane values. One of the more difficult problems in
this area is that there is no universal agreement on the exact meaning of the
term human rights. Some scholars interpret human rights narrowly,
limiting them to civil and political rights. Others prefer to interpret human
rights more broadly to include economic (and even social and cultural) rights
understood as moral, political, and legal obligations that governments are
pledged to advance. While there has always been some concern
within most societies about human rights (or something akin to human rights),
in the twentieth century ethical consciousness was raised to a new level of
sensitivity because of the widespread, flagrant, and massive violations of
human rights epitomized by the Holocaust in Europe during World War II. This sad chapter in human history saw six
million Jews put to death by various means by Hitler’s Nazis and their
supporters. In addition, other minorities including the mentally ill,
homosexuals, and gypsies were also subject to mass murder. Unfortunately, the
Holocaust has not been history’s only case of mass murder. Earlier, primarily
in the 1930s, millions perished under the rule of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet
Union. During the mid-1970s, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia was
responsible for over a million deaths out of a total population of seven
million. A genocidal campaign was conducted in the central African country of
Rwanda in 1993 and 1994, and more than half a million people were murdered. In
the Balkan region of Europe during roughly the same time period, as many as
200,000 Bosnian Muslims perished in what was termed ethnic cleansing. Racism has been an ugly reality in the history of humankind
and continues to flourish to varying degrees throughout the world. The Charter
of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and various
international covenants prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race or
color, yet persistent and flagrant racism remains. Sexism--discrimination based on gender--affects the rights of one-half of the
human race on a massive scale around the globe. In 1967 the Declaration on the
Elimination of Discrimination against Women was passed by the United Nations.
Since then some progress has been made around the world on human rights for
women, but the record remains disappointing. What are some of the strategies for
wrestling with the problem of human rights? First, human rights can be
furthered by the efforts of powerful states. The principal problem here,
at the international level, has been the tendency for human rights to take a
backseat to national security concerns. For the United States this was a pattern
of policy characteristic of the cold war. The cold war ended over a decade ago,
but human rights may still be taking a backseat to national security. A second strategy to advance human rights
is through the efforts of the United Nations. In many respects the
United Nations has done a remarkable job of articulating common principles for
human rights worldwide. In general, the UN has convinced nations to endorse
those standards and invites compliance by member states to its various human
rights conventions. Problems arise, however, when the UN attempts to verify
human rights violations and, most particularly, when the organization attempts
to correct human rights violations. Member states often resist the use of
powerful sanctions against other states lest they, too, become the
targets of such sanctions. A third strategy involves the activities
of nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs)
in the field of human rights. Some
of these organizations--which have few or no ties or obligations to
governments--have done some remarkable work. Amnesty International, Human
Rights Watch, Freedom House, the International League for Human Rights, and the
International Commission of Jurists, to name few, have achieved some success.
But there are limits to their effectiveness, and some of the most powerful
authoritarian states and biggest human rights violators are countries that at
times seem immune to the efforts of the NGOs. A fourth strategy involves the efforts
of the least free themselves. Efforts on the part of the least free, such
as protests, rebellion, or perhaps revolution, are never easy. It takes
courage, personal sacrifice, and oftentimes the suffering of physical abuse to
effect change. If we accept the notion that politics is
or should be a civilizing process, then the student of politics and the
political scientist must give priority to helping the least free and to
opposing the worst evils--genocide, racism, torture, and sexism. Chapter Objectives After reading this chapter, you should...
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