HUMAN RIGHTS

HUMAN RIGHTS

Rights held to be justifiably belonging to any person
1. human individuality is the most fundamental moral unit of analysis
2. human individuals are morally equal
In the past HR not a legitimate international concern
1. Post-WW2 and awareness of the holocaust
UN declaration on Human Rights - 10th December 1948
1. "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security... no one shall be subjected to torture or cruel inhumane or degrading treatment of punishment"
Historical Perspective
1. Edmund Burke
  1. HR make sense only within a national tradition
2. Jeremy Bentham
  1. rights must have a legal framework to be protected
3. Feminists
  1. women's rights are violated by men
4. Marxists
  1. bourgeosis, individualistic, if there were no threats (from capitalism) there would be no need for HR
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen 1789
1. "The main aim of all political association is the conservation of the natural and undeniable rights of man"
Magna Carta 1215
1. freedom from imprisonment and dispossession of property and from prosecution
Basis for Justification
1. Common humanity - subsistence, security, respect
2. Shared threats to humanity - oppression and insecurity
3. Obligation - not to harm others and assist those in need
widely accepted principle and norms but weak mechanisms of international implementation producing a system of national implementation of international human rights regime

Resource summary

	Created by Annie May Jackson almost 9 years ago