Chapter 16: The Battle on Behalf of Human Rights

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...

• have an understanding of the basic concept of human rights.
• understand the nature of the Holocaustand be able to identify other examples of genocidal behavior.
• be able to define racism and know a bit of its history in the United States.
• be able to define sexism and the scope of the problem.
• be able to assess how effective the following approaches to confronting human rights violations have been: efforts of powerful states; activities of the United Nations; work of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); and actions by the least free themselves.
• be able to identify some of the multilateral mechanisms for dealing with human rights violation: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide; the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; the Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women; the UN Commission on Human Rights; and the Permanent International Criminal Court.

Suggested Readings

The following readings supplement those suggested in chapter 16 of the text:

Amnesty International. Amnesty International Report. Annual. New York: Amnesty International.

Berenbaum, Michael. The World Must Know: The History of the Holocaust as Told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. New York: Little, Brown, 1993.

Brown, Seyom. Human Rights in World Politics. New York: Longman, 2000.

Davies, Miranda. Women and Violence: Realities and Responses Worldwide. New York: St. Martin’s, 1994.

Frye, Alton. Toward an International Criminal Court? New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1999.

Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. New York: Random House, 1997.

Gurr, Theodore R. Peoples Versus States: Minorities at Risk in the New Century. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2000.

Kiernan, Ben. The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.

Walters, Gregory J. Human Rights in Theory and Practice: A Selected and Annotated Bibliography. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1995.

Annotated Links

The following links will help you explore the themes of chapter 16 on the Web.

Amnesty International

Amnesty International is one of the premier NGOs in the field of human rights. Of particular concern to Amnesty is the plight of “prisoners of conscience”--people arbitrarily incarcerated and sometimes tortured for the views they hold. Also of concern to Amnesty is the widespread use of the death penalty.

Freedom House

As its name suggests, this nongovernmental organization is dedicated to the advancement of freedom in the world. Its most noted publication, Freedom in the World: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties, assigns scores to countries based on the degree of freedom their citizens enjoy.

Human Rights Watch (HRW)

One of the more effective NGOs, the Human Rights Watch investigates and exposes human rights violations around the world. It also presses for the withdrawal of military and economic support from governments that egregiously violate the rights of their people.

International Criminal Justice Resource Center (ICJRC)

The ICJRC is a nonpolitical foundation established by American prosecutors to provide support for the prosecution of international war crimes and the rebuilding of domestic courts in war-torn countries abroad.

International Rescue Committee (IRC)

The IRC is a nonprofit, nonsectarian voluntary agency providing assistance to refugees around the world. For those who cannot resettle in their own countries, the agency assists their resettlement in alternative countries.

University of Minnesota Human Rights Library

This is one of the great source links for human rights information available on the Internet. The site contains over 10,000 documents, a human rights search engine, and links to over 3,400 additional human rights Web sites. First rate.

United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women

This UN organization advocates the improvement of the status of women of the world and the achievement of equality between women and men. It sponsors numerous conferences and produces major reports on the status of women.