Verified Document

Modern Issues In Human Rights Essay

Human Rights One of the major issues for the United Nations is human rights, which are defined by the organization as "right inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion or any other status." These rights include "the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and many more" (UN.org, 2016).

A challenge with respect to human rights is that the nation-state is relied upon to safeguard or provide these rights to its citizens, and that this is far from the case. The head of Amnesty International discussed the need for people to stand up for their rights, and to hold accountable those regimes that do not respect these fundamental rights, pointing to the social media-driven events in 2011 such as the Arab Spring. One thing that the Arab Spring demonstrated, however, is how strong a pushback there can be from those people who are in power, with respect to maintaining their power and minimizing the rights of the people. There were a few countries that saw their rights situations improve in 2011, but there have also been many failures. The events in Syria, for example, began with an Arab Spring rebellion but then turned into something worse, a civil war and the rise of ISIS.

Certoma (no date) notes that globalization is another threat to human...

If the nation-state is responsible for ensuring basic human rights, and globalization reduces the power of the nation-state, then clearly this is a threat to the provision of human rights. Activists point to a wide variety of globalization issues. Trade agreements place legal authority in the hands of extrajudicial tribunals that operate outside national laws, for example. Worse, weak governments will naturally struggle to defend the rights of their citizens against strong multinationals.
Another challenge to human rights is that nations are not always endowed with the capacity to provide rights, in particular rights with respect to education, housing, food and other aspects. Certoma (no date) notes that the provision of these things can be a challenge for many states. Good governance is something that is a baseline requirement, for example, and not all nations possess this. If a body had enforcement power with respect to human rights -- and none do -- then that body would still only be able to hold a nation as an abstract entity to account -- the specific government officials who have failed to deliver might be beyond meaningful prosecution. Thus, governments still lack meaningful incentive to provide human rights. Who is to be held to account in a failed state, for example?

Further to the philosophical debate about human rights is the extent of the rights…

Sources used in this document:
Works Cited

"AI: World poised for human rights changes." World Geography and Culture Online. Facts On File, Inc. 13 May 2011. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.

Certoma, C. (no date) "Human rights." No source. In possession of the author.

"Report: Countries cracking down, restricting universal human rights ." World Geography and Culture Online. Facts On File, Inc. 28 Feb. 2014. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.

UN.org (2016). Human rights. [web]. Accessed April 27, 2016 from https://www.un.org/en/globalissues/humanrights/
Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Human Rights Campaign Strategies Strategic Issues Facing
Words: 857 Length: 2 Document Type: Essay

Human Rights Campaign Strategies Strategic Issues Facing the Human Rights Campaign The Human Rights Campaign's primary mission is to "advocate on behalf of LGBT Americans, mobile grassroots actions in diverse communities, invest strategically to elect fair-minded individuals to office and educate the public about LGBT issues" (Human Rights Campaign, 2014). It is an advocacy group that is taking on new civil rights issues in a modern era: bringing equality to the LGBT

Human Rights in Human Security
Words: 2863 Length: 8 Document Type: Research Paper

As a result, many citizens continue suffering by losing business opportunities due to insecurity. They develop ineffective policies, implement them, and when they fail, blame it on local authorities. Therefore, the crime rate continues to go higher and the government remains quiet about offering long-term solutions to such problems (Griffin 110-111). Solutions Long-term solutions or strategies are essential in helping an individual deal with their fears because they will have a

Human Rights the Challenges of
Words: 1986 Length: 6 Document Type: Essay

It is also unlikely that the UN will ever really have an aggressive standing army but will continue to be required to call upon others to be its arms in any given place. "Is it not true that the nation state and state sovereignty will be with us for some time? But in what form?" (Forsythe, 2006, 26) State sovereignty will be a universal application for many years to

Human Rights the Contemporaneous Society
Words: 2344 Length: 7 Document Type: Thesis

In other words, the power and the wealth could easily fall in the hand of the few privileged ones, and their rights would be better served, than those of the marginalized, powerless and poor population (Paribatra, 1999). 6. Conclusions and Recommendations The section on the analysis of the issues at hand commenced stating that the purpose of the briefing paper was a simple one: identifying the positive or negative nature of

Human Rights Violations in Nigeria:
Words: 6410 Length: 17 Document Type: Term Paper

Shell Oil in Nigeria Discussions on economic hardship, environmental devastation, and political corruption in Nigeria always seem to come back to the Dutch Shell Oil Company. The company is charged by activists and Wiwa as influencing the Nigerian government to act illegally and, if we believe the allegations, monstrously in violation of human rights in order to exploit the oil resources in the Niger River Delta area (Livesey 58; Saro-Wiwa 7).

Human Rights Interventions Throughout Human
Words: 1030 Length: 3 Document Type: Reaction Paper

E.B. White, remembered more today for Charlotte's Web than his moral philosophy, famously addressed this concept by saying, "When a man hangs from a tree it doesn't spell justice unless he helped write the law that hanged him." This is not meant to be an apology or explanation for the consistent violation of these "rights," however; Robert Jackson, Chief Prosecutor for the United States at the Nuremberg Trials for Nazi

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now