samedi 28 février 2009

Human rights as a social contract

Human rights refer to the "basic rights and freedom to which all humans are entitled"Examples of rights and freedoms include civil and political rights, right to life in liberty, freedom of expression, and equality before the law, the right of be a member of a cultural group, the right to food, to work or to receive an education.
''All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood''

To explain how and why human rights become part of social expectations, some theories trend to designate the influence from part of some philosophers. Hume for example says that the human rights point to a moral behaviour which is a human social product developed by a process of biological and social evolution. Philosophers like Hobbes, Locke or Rousseau remark that we need a social contract to live with a minimum of security and to own economic advantages but we have to be subordinate to some rules from a legitimate authority to made respect the law.Socrates and his philosophic heirs, Plato and Aristotil also posited that a natural justice or natural rights exist (dikaion physikon, δικαιον φυσικον, Latin ius naturale).
The development of this tradition of natural justice into one of natural law is usually attributed to the Stoics ( a kind of philosofy wich defend that we have to control our desires and accept the rules of nature and the destiny)

In the XIX th century Thomas Hobbes founded a social contract theory of legal positivism on what all men could agree upon: what they want or look for (happiness) was subjected to contention, but if the most important fear of men is a violent death at the hands of another, a natural law was how a rational human could assure them to survive and prosper. In Hobbes' s opinion, the only way which could prevail or persuade them was to submit men to the commands of the sovereign. In this lay the foundations of the theory of a social contract between the governed and the governor.John Locke incorporated natural law into many of his theories and philosophy.
Locke didn't agree with Hobbes' prescription around, saying that if the ruler went against natural law and failed to protect "life, liberty, and prosperty," people could justifiably overthrow the existing state and create a new one. Locke defend that all human have rights and possesions, the first possession of every men is of course his body, and all men inhere in his work and have the possibility to take advantage of the payoff.
The French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau suggested the existence of a hypothetical social contract where a group of free individuals agree for the sake of the common good to form institutions to govern themselves. This repeated the earlier postulation by Tomas Hobbes that there is a contract between the government and the governed - and led to John Locke's theory that a failure of the government to secure rights is a failure which justifies the removal of the government. But Rousseau believed and trust in the kindness of men wich Hobbes and Locke desapoint it.

violation:
Depending of the different kinds of cultures, some didn't and still don't agree for the acceptance of some human rights rulls, wich in fact, give place to some international conflicts.For example female genital mutilation occurs in different cultures in Africa, Asia and South America. The most surprising is that it is not mandated by any religion, but has become a tradition in many cultures. It is considered a violation of women's and girl's rights by much of the international community, and it's outlawed in some countries.

Human rights violations occur when any state or non-state breaches any part of the UDHR treaty or other international human rights or humanitarian law. In regard to human rights violations of United Nations laws is the only tribunal that may determine UN human rights violations.
Human rights abuses are controlled by United Nations committees, national institutions and governments and by many independent NGO, such as Amnesty International, World Organisation Against Torture, International Freedom of Expression Exchange...These organisations collect documentation of doubtful human rights abuses and apply pressure to enforce human rights laws.
Only a very few countries don't commit significant human rights violations like the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Costa Rica. They are the only countries that did not (in their opinion) violate at least some human rights significantly.

Which are the rights missing?
Even if it's not so evident, there are some missing rights such as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Trans gender rights. Some issues like same-sex marriage, gay adoption and protection from discrimination are considered to be human rights. There are some organisations which fight for them but it's very difficult to find and accord because this questions is used to be considerate as ambiguous.

At least, for me the most important and basic human rights are those which defend the equality between men and women, the freedom expression, the education, cause I remember that my grand-mother couldn't go to school in her childhood, because she was living in a war conflict, and she really want to own it just for being able to read and write but she couldn't because she had to work.

1 commentaire:

KST TEACHERS a dit…

That's a great article about the human rights that you have summarized from the Wikipedia, but you should write in "italics" the sentences which are not yours !!!!