Human Rights



Human Rights

Thesis Statement

Universal human rights are the foundation for international peace.

Introduction

This paper considers two journal articles titled: 'Human Rights and Democracy: Expanding or Contracting' authored by Zehra F. Arat and the other one is 'Culture as an Activity and Human Right: An Important Advance for Indigenous Peoples and International Law': written by Cindy Holder.

Discussion

The international community has conspicuously failed to maintain the peace since the end of the Cold War. Hopes that the United Nations might play a much more pervasive and effective security role--bolstered by the success of peace enforcement against Iraq and the large peacekeeping operations in Namibia and Cambodia--were brought rapidly back to earth by apparent U.N. impotence to intervene quickly or usefully in Bosnia, Somalia, or Rwanda. (Holder, 2008, 7)More can certainly be done by the international community to prevent and resolve interstate conflict, but the currently bigger problem of intrastate conflict has been scarcely tackled at all, either conceptually or practically.

Moreover, it can also be said that there are a lot of differences that have been occurred in todays world. However a lot more are still needs to be change in the future like examines security and statecraft, international security, civil society and the global economy, religion, nationalism and conflicting identities and civil society. (Viotti and Kauppi, 2006, pp 128- 35)

Amnesty International

In an annual report, the group says people are still being tortured or ill-treated in at least 81 countries. In at least 54 states they face unfair trial and cannot speak freely in at least 77 nations, the group adds. It says world leaders should apologize for 60 years of human rights failures since the UN adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.The group also challenges them "to re-commit themselves to deliver concrete improvements". The report - which covers 150 countries - was published ahead of the 60th anniversary of the human rights declaration, which was adopted on 10 December 1948.

The report says the US must close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp for terror suspects and either prosecute the inmates under fair trials or free them.

It also urges Washington to ban all forms of torture and stop propping authoritarian regimes. It singles out the support of President George W Bush's administration for Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf when he imposed a state of emergency, clamped down on media and sacked judges. The report also says other leading nations must act to improve their human rights records:

China is urged to adhere to its human rights promises and allow free speech and end "re-education through labour"

Russia is encouraged to show greater tolerance for political dissent, and none for impunity on human rights abuses in Chechnya

The EU is being asked to investigate the complicity of its member states in "renditions" of terror suspects.

Furthermore, the report accused China, which is sought by other nations for its emerging economic and political clout, of transferring weapons to Sudan despite a UN arms embargo, and of arming Myanmar's military ...