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Example research essay topic: The Enormous Events Of Second World War Gave - 1,989 words

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The enormous events of the Second World War gave the start of the current 'era of human rights'. They ended the point that it was up to the individual state to identify how to treat its citizens. Human rights include rights relating to the security of the person, such as the right not to be deprived of life or liberty without due process of law, the right not to be subjected to cruel, degrading or inhuman treatment, and the right not to be treated as a slave or to be in servitude. Human rights also comprise some civil and political rights such as the right to freedom of speech, the right of association, the right to freedom of movement, and the right to participate in the governance of ones own country directly or through freely elected representatives. (Neuwahl, 1995).

The UN General Assembly accepted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) on 10 December 1948, since finding the emergency for domestic human rights protection. The Declaration became one of this century's most powerful documents. 'Human Rights' are fundamental privileges or immunities to which all people have a claim. They are not 'given' by governments since they are derived automatically from being human. Since governments cannot 'give' human rights, they should not try to take them away.

Human rights thinking - especially since 1945 - is based on the assumption that in essence all humans have a common core. Humans may be divided on gender lines, speak different languages, and have different skin colours. But fundamentally there are great similarities and these similarities are manifested partly in the rights, which all humans enjoy. (Bassiouni, 1995). The proposal for the UDHR came about as a response to World War II. First, Hitler had shown that a country, which violates human rights at home, might eventually violate human rights overseas, and so it was necessary to nip such threats in the bud. Also the Allied countries were embarrassed that none of them had complained officially between January 1933 (when Hitler came to power) and September 1939 (the onset of World War II) about the treatment of the Jews.

The Allies claimed that countries were not allowed to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries - and so this ban prohibited even making criticisms of other governments' internal policies. (Ratner, 1997). In June 1993, the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action were agreed upon. This was the result of the Second World Conference on Human Rights and can be said to represent the "world society's" concept of human rights at that time. The truth that health is today talked about in a human rights framework and that it is contained in so many human rights documents suggests that all of the individuality outlined above is relevant when talking about the right to health. It also implies that special importance or priority becomes attached to that particular goal and it indicates that health is a social good and not merely a medical, technical or economic problem.

The first aim facing UN members was to thrash out a charter of rights and set up a European court that would have the sovereignty to adjudicate in cases of alleged violation. Following earlier examples -- from the American Declaration of Independence to the then very recent United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights -- they crafted a binding international treaty covering a catalogue of rights. Behind it all was the European Court of Human Rights. (Alston, 1996). In lots of ways the Council of Europe, the Convention and the Court of Human Rights were a political tryout - if not a political gamble.

The new Court would have primacy over national law: a country found in breach of the Convention would be expected to change its laws or practice to bring them into line. No one had ever challenged the sovereignty of national governments before, and no one could be certain how it would work. So although states would have to sign and ratify the Convention, they were not obliged to recognize the Court's authority, or to allow their citizens access to the Court, straight away. Separate optional clauses were written into the treaty to cover this. Many countries accepted them straight away (such as Ireland, Belgium and the Scandinavian countries), some - such as France and Turkey - lagged behind. It was Harold Wilson's government in the 1960 s that agreed to give British people the right to come to the Court and recognized its authority. (Ratner, 1997).

The UN Charter was printed in the last stages of World War II. At the 1945 San Francisco Conference, which finalized the Charter, there was a proposal that the Charter contain an International Bill of Rights in the same way as the US Constitution has its own Bill of Rights. There was not enough time to act on this proposal. Instead, it was agreed that a Commission on Human Rights should be established and it should produce the International Bill of Rights as its first task. (Neuwahl, 1995).

There was the function of confidential citizens and non-governmental institutions. The British writer H. G. Wells called for a Great Debate on War Aims.

He argued that beating Hitler was not adequate and that the Allies must have positive and not just negative aims. He proposed that the outcome should be a re-assertion of the rights of individuals everywhere in the world. He argued that the historic moment had arrived for a re-definition of the rights and opportunities of the individual and a protection of the individual against the encroachments of centralized authority. (Rehof, 1997). The Daily Herald, which then had the largest circulation of all the British newspapers, undertook a public educational campaign which seems unbelievable by today's standards of the tabloid press - and even more so since a war was under way.

With H. G. Wells, the newspaper produced a version of the Rights of Man in the Twentieth Century. Wells introduced each group of clauses by an article. The newspaper arranged for leading thinkers in Britain to argue the clauses and for ordinary readers to have their say.

Newspapers were sold widely not only to the usual readership but also to, for example, universities and church guilds. These groups sent in their views. The drafting committee assembled the responses for consideration, which was to produce the consensus of British thinking about human rights. The results were much later submitted to the UN Commission on Human Rights. (Neuwahl, 1995). When viewed in the background of the development of the international protection of human rights, the post-war developments have been impressive. Human rights are part of the political vocabulary.

Political claims are expressed in terms of 'human rights'. Even if people are unfamiliar with the details of the UN's declarations and treaties, there is widespread interest in human rights and people are now more likely than ever before to oppose abuses of governmental power, which violate human rights. People are still treated badly - but they know their rights are being violated. People are not dying in ignorance. (Better, 1998). The UN is also creating a network of techniques to assist governments in protecting human rights. For example, UN officials have helped the new governments in Eastern Europe devise electoral reforms.

The UN's work is being copied at the regional level. The best example is the Council of Europe (which contains all of Western Europe's countries). The Council's work is particularly good on civil and political rights and the Council's human rights machinery has the power to coerce member governments to change their policies or risk expulsion from the Council. This happened when the Colonels took over in Greece in 1967 and began torturing their opponents. Greece left the Council just hours before it was going to be expelled. Greece later wanted to join the European Economic Community (which is separate from the Council).

But the EEC's membership would not accept Greece while an undemocratic government that was barred from membership of the Council of Europe ruled it. Greece could only join the EEC once democracy had returned and Greece was back in the Council. (Ratner, 1997). Governments nowadays rarely even bother to try to use the Article 2 (7) argument. For example, China tried to claim that its human rights policies are internal affairs but received no support - and lost the bid to hold the 2000 Olympics partly because of its well-publicized poor human rights record. Thanks to Cable News Network (CNN), the world was able to see the 1989 Tienanmen square massacre live and direct from Beijing. The world has come a long way from the refusal of the UK, France and the US to comment on Nazi Germany's 'internal affairs'. (Alston, 1996).

But does this development, ironically, also create its own set of problems? Will the UN's ambitions outrun its capacity actually to protect human rights? Will there be unrealistic expectations by human rights victims of what the international community can do to help them? Will CNN encourage the UN to take on too many tasks? If Article 2 (7) is eroded, what (if anything) is still meant from the phrase 'national sovereignty'? The world has surely come a long way from 1948.

In only fifty years, we are now pondering a set of questions that would have been unimaginable in December 1948. This week the Human Rights Act enters into force - enabling British judges to interpret the 50 -year-old European Convention on Human Rights for the first time. But we are one of the last to put it onto the statute book. (Neuwahl, 1995). It is November 2000, and in an alternative Europe, a sociologist is studying a long-forgotten concept -- human rights.

It is a concept very foreign to his society; where fair trials do not exist, where children are beaten in schools, immigrant families split up at borders and gags put on newspaper reports. A fantasy world but one that could well has evolved without the European Convention on Human Rights. Fifty years old in November, the Convention is a proven standard-bearer for human rights protection, giving anyone worldwide the chance to bring their grievances against any one of the 41 European countries that make up the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe, and have them judged in a court with internationally recognized authority. (Ratner, 1997). Human rights is no longer just a stylish political murmur word but a generally accepted standard. The modem protection mechanism began to evolve at the end of the Second World War, when the world woke up in a state of collective shock, clamoring for justice against the fascists who had ordered millions of people to their deaths. At Nuremberg the victors judged the vanquished for ill treatment and cruelty -- a cathartic exercise with the almost impossible task of punishing individuals for murder on a staggering scale.

The trials helped to crystallize the notion of universal justice and led to the acceptance of ideas being pioneered by leading lawyers such as Sir David Maxwell Fyfe (who was later to become British Lord Chancellor Lord Kilmuir). He saw the trials as establishing "a new concept of international responsibility" and thought it "possible and necessary to establish effective guarantees of human rights." (Better, 1998). Words: 1, 849. Bibliography: Bassiouni, M.

Chris. The Protection of Human Rights. A Compendium of United Nations Norms and Standards. Irvington, NY: Transnational Publishers, Inc. , 1995. Rehof, Lars Adam. Guide to the United Nations Convention.

Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1997. Neuwahl, Nanette, Allan Rosas ed. The European Union and Human Rights. Boston: Martinus Nijhoff, 1995. Better, Lady and Nicholas Grief. EU Law and Human Rights.

New York: Longman, 1998. Ratner, Steven R. and Jason S. Abrams. Accountability for Human Rights Atrocities in International Law: Beyond the Nuremberg Legacy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Alston, Philip. ed. The United Nations and Human Rights: A Critical Appraisal. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.


Free research essays on topics related to: york oxford university, second world war, world war ii, commission on human rights, h g wells

Research essay sample on The Enormous Events Of Second World War Gave

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