Term Paper on "What Is to Be Done?"

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NThe Effectiveness of Human Rights

As humanity experienced progress, it became absolutely necessarily for society to function in agreement with certain basic laws in order to avoid that chaos. For centuries the general public has expressed its desire for a clear set of human rights, starting from the premise that every human being should be allowed to enjoy a series of liberties.

While the bill of human rights appears to be beneficial in its essence, it is actually detrimental for individual cultures, as some traditions are not in accordance with international human rights. Numerous scholars consider that human rights can be easily violated by those that want to do so, with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights being but a worthless document for the perpetrators.

In the opinion of Michael Ignatieff, the concept of human rights had reached a peak right after the Holocaust, when the whole world was horrified to witness the degree of hatred instigated by people against their fellow humans. As matters advanced, it seemed that human rights movement activists would passionately support their principles, lessening the possibilities for human rights to ever be violated again in the civilized world. Terror struck again in the last decade of the twentieth century, along with the massacres in Bosnia and in Rwanda. People realized that human rights could not control the behavior of radicals, since they proved determined to do anything in order to achieve their goals.

Influential countries normally get actively involved in the fight against those that violate human rights. Surprising however, certain world powers do not hesitate to abuse h

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uman rights themselves, in some circumstances. The so-called fight against terrorism is perfectly reasonable, al long as those that engage in it have control of the state of affairs, so as to affect third parties as little as they possible. Even under these circumstances, the fight against terrorism did not come without victims of human rights abuse, with suspects of terrorism that sometimes proved to be innocent, being subjected to inhumane treatments.

The U.S. authorities are reported to have displayed an abusive behavior toward suspected terrorists. Regardless of the crime which one commits, it is still one's right to have a fair trial and to be treated accordingly throughout their detention.

Consequent to the 9/11 events, the U.S. has started to change its policies regarding terrorists and human rights. U.S. citizens basically felt that it was their job to provide national and international security. "The U.S.A. Patriot Act, the detention of immigrants without charges, together with the designation of the Guantanamo detainees as "non-combatants, " rather than "prisoners of war" under the Geneva Conventions, have raised doubts about the capacity of the U.S. To promote human and civil rights while fighting terrorism" (Weiss T.G. & Crahan M.E. & Goering J., 2004, p. 4). The international community considers that the U.S.'s main role as the remaining superpower is to preserve peace and to make sure that human rights are not abused. Surprisingly however, the U.S. appears to be more interested in the war against terrorism and in the Iraq situation than in the rest of the world.

The U.S. agenda regarding its foreign policy has changed compared to the time when it got involved in the fight against terrorism. Authorities in the U.S. feel that the protection of national security is more important than the measures enforced by international human rights (Weiss T.G. & Crahan M.E. & Goering J., p. 4). By ignoring human rights in their efforts to combat terrorism, the U.S. only succeeds in destabilizing its position as a major international player.

It is difficult for international human rights to be preserved while certain powers continue to put their interests before those of the international public. The Bush administration has clearly expressed its position on the subject of terrorism. The prisoners at Guantanamo were denied several human rights because U.S. authorities considered that (even though the 1949 Geneva Convention stated that captives should be considered prisoners of war until their status is determined by an independent court of justice) Taliban fighters were not worthy of enjoying the POW status (Weiss T.G. & Crahan M.E. & Goering J., p. 84).

Ignatieff believes that despite the level of civilization humanity achieves, human rights are still impossible to impose. The pictures from the Abu Ghraib American prison surfaced in 2003, revealing the tortures to which the American Military Police subjected detainees. The Abu Ghraib incidents are an outrage and it is almost impossible to believe that military people coming from one of the most civilized countries on the planet are capable of performing such horrible acts.

The American conditions in Abu Ghraib included "beating, electric shocks, sleep deprivation, hooding, forced standing, and kneeling" (Ramcharan B., 2005, p. 621). Most Iraqi detainees suffered physical and psychological abuse during their stay at the Abu Ghraib prison, while others have even perished because of the stress that they were undergoing. The human rights community is powerless when it comes to stopping influential countries from making decisions.

Human rights enthusiasts mainly fail in their struggle to impose a general bill in all countries because they are not concentrating on the intervening factors present in every culture. All people are likely to favor a law that general and obviously benefits all of them, regardless of their backgrounds. However, when people come across a law which comes against their principles, they are expected to find this document objectionable and reject it.

The Universal Human Rights Norm fails providing all individuals across the world with the security that they need. The problem with the norm is that it cannot be applied to everyone, as people's opinion concerning it is diverse. Not everyone can be fond of a series of complex laws which, at some point, address them directly and come in disagreement with convictions that they hold important.

People's opinions vary when concerning the rights and in spite of that, the Western world wishes to impose its standpoint over other nations. Most people in the west are reluctant to pay attention to the individual needs in other countries, unwilling to accept that, in a certain country, laws can only work properly when they are in harmony with its history and the traditions that the respective country has.

Ignatieff's approach in dealing with human rights may seem to be exaggerated at certain times, and it is very likely that the Canadian writer has little fans among human rights movements. He believes that world powers, which are constantly encouraging human rights, are nothing more than hypocrites, as most of them would not hesitate to violate human rights if it would mean that this would ensure their own well-being. (Ignatieff M., 2003, p. 26)

Liberty can be understood differently by different people, thus being lesser possibilities for the general public to consider that all of the demands in international human rights norms are reasonable. In their basic forms, pain and humiliation are considered by everyone to be disturbing. While the general public is likely to agree that some abuses are intolerable, they will certainly think different of others.

International human rights norms cannot be applied to everyone, since it lobbies for virtually any positive situation of human life to be available to all humans. The norm's complicated character is the very thing that prevents it from being favored by the international public. In order for it to attain worldwide fame, it has to stick to the basic form of human rights, to promote concepts which can be practical in every culture.

It is expected that people will argue in defining the concept of good, but it is almost undeniable that they will agree on defining the concept of torture and on how immoral acts against humanity are wrong. Even then, however, people will in all probability have different opinions,… READ MORE

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Quoted Instructions for "What Is to Be Done?" Assignment:

“

A lot of it has to do with Own idea. Please do not just put in chunks of source and put facts.

In arguing for your position, think of the arguments that might be made against it, and respond to them. In defending your position, offer what you believe are the most principled arguments you can make.

In thinking of objections to your argument, think of the best possible objections that someone on the other side might be able to come up with, i. e., give yourself a hard time. If you can respond to the other side at its strongest rather than at its wea***** point, that can only help to strengthen your own opinion and make it that much more persuasive.

Michael Ignatieff begins his Tanner Lectures on *****"Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry*****" eloquently:

In If This Is a Man, Primo Levi describes being interviewed by Dr. Pannwitz, chief of the chemical department at Auschwitz.1 Securing a place in the department was a matter of life or death: if Levi could convince Pannwitz that he was a competent chemist, he might be spared the gas chamber. As Levi stood on one side of the doctor*****'s desk, in his concentration camp uniform, Dr. Pannwitz stared up at him.

Levi later remembered: That look was not one between two men; and if I had known how completely to explain the nature of that look, which came as if across the glass window of an aquarium between two beings who live in different worlds, I would also have explained the essence of the great insanity of the third German [reich].*****"

Here was a scientist, trained in the traditions of European rational inquiry, turning a meeting between two human beings into an encounter between different species. Progress may be a contested concept, but we make progress to the degree that we act upon the moral intuition that Dr. Pannwitz was wrong: our species is one and each of the individuals who compose it is entitled to equal moral consideration.

Human rights is the language that systematically embodies this intuition, and to the degree that this intuition gains infuence over the conduct of individuals and states, we can say that we are making moral progress. Richard Rorty*****'s definition of progress applies here: *****"an increase in our ability to see more and more differences among people as morally irrelevant.*****" We think of the global diffusion of this idea as progress for two reasons: because if we live by it, we treat more human beings as we would wish to be treated ourselves and in so doing help to reduce the amount of unmerited cruelty and suffering in the world.

Our grounds for believing that the spread of human rights represents moral progress, in other words, are pragmatic and historical. We know from historical experience that when human beings have defensible rights-when their agency as individuals is protected and enhanced-they are less likely to be abused and oppressed. On these grounds, we count the diffusion of human rights instruments as progress even if there remains an unconscionable gap between the instruments and the actual practices of states charged to comply with them.

1. Human Rights in the Twenty-First Century

But today, at this moment in human history, are we succeeding or failing in our efforts to cultivate and guarantee the protection of international human rights? In *****"Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry,*****" Michael Ignatieff suggests that a case might be made for both,. Depending on where you look or what you choose to emphasize, human rights promotion and protection may appear to be succeeding and failing simultaneously. Indeed, Ignatieff sees the international human rights movement at a *****"cross-roads*****" and in a temporary mid-life crisis, and he offers a number of suggestions about how best to reinvigorate the movement. See Igantieff*****'s Tanner Lectures: *****"Human Rights: Politics and Idolatry*****" in their entirety.

2. A *****"Minimalist*****" Approach to Human Rights

Ignatieff*****'s concerns are several, but can be easily identified and highlighted. He is concerned about the proliferation of human rights*****' claims. Too many rights make it difficult to gain international consensus. So, too, he believes, the purpose of human rights should not be any particular conception of the good life or even of social justice, but simply protection from cruelty and degradation. He advocates a *****"minimalist*****" approach and recommends that a human rights regime to be effective at all ought to seek the protection only of negative freedoms. As he says, *****"human rights can command universal assent only as a decidedly *****'thin*****' theory of what is right, a definition of the minimum conditions for any kind of life at all.*****"

He notes that *****"people from different cultures may continue to disagree about what is good, but nevertheless agree about what is insufferably, unarguably wrong.*****" But, as others have noted, there is *****"slippage*****" within even this fairly straightforward position. Given Ignatieff*****'s view, you might think *****"torture*****" would be one of those things that everybody would agree was *****"insufferably, unarguably wrong,*****" completely *****"out of bounds,*****" *****"off the table,*****" as it were, but if the documents released after the Abu Ghraib Prison Abuse Scandal any indication, there is less than universal assent even here.

So, too, although a minimalist approach to human rights advocacy may have much to recommend it, such an approach is out of line with the North/South world divide. Thus, Gara LaMarche can write in *****"The American Propsect*****":

If minimalism is meant to strengthen the credibility of Western rights advocates, it is likely to have no such effect in much of the world, particularly in many countries where the challenge to universalism is greatest. That is because Ignatieff*****'s minimalist approach leaves little room for the social and economic rights also embodied in international covenants and in many national constitutions. No one who works on human-rights issues in the developing world can fail to be aware that virtually all frontline human-rights advocates there -- not to mention many in Europe and the United States -- do not accept such a hierarchy of rights. Though economic rights -- such as the right to basic subsistence -- are still largely aspirational, that doesn*****'t mean they are not deeply important to human-rights advocates (and their critics) in much of the world. In much of Africa and Asia, it is the perceived selectivity of many Western human-rights advocates, not their broader concerns, that undermines their credibility.

3. The *****"Relativist*****" Challenge to Human Rights Universalism

Ignatieff is made anxious, too, by too much talk of the universality of human rights, exposing proponents to *****"serious intellectual attack*****" that, in turn, has raised questions about *****"whether human rights deserves the authority it has acquired: whether its claims to universality can be justified or whether it is just another cunning exercise in Western moral imperialism.*****"

Ignatieff identifies *****"three distinct sources of the cultural challenge to the universality of human rights,*****" one from Islam, one from East Asia and one from within the West itself.

As Ignatieff writes:

The challenge from Islam has been there at the beginning. When the Universal Declaration was being drafted in 1947, the Saudi Arabian delegation raised particular objection to Article 16, relating to freedom of religion. On the question of marriage, the Saudi delegate to the committee examining the draft of the universal Declaration made an argument that has resonated ever since through Islamic encounters with Western human rights:

The authors of the draft declaration had, for the most part, taken into consideration only the standards recognized by western civilization and had ignored more ancient civilizations which were past the experimental stage, and the institutions of which, for example, marriage, had proved their wisdom through the centuries. It was not for the Committee to proclaim the superiority of one civilization over all the others or to establish uniform standards for all countries of the world.

This was simultaneously a defense of the Islamic faith and a defense of patriarchal authority. The Saudi delegate in effect argued that the exchange and control of women is the very raison d*****'etre of traditional cultures, and that the restriction of female choice in marriage is central to the maintenance of patriarchal property relations.

Ignatieff goes on to say that despite *****"recurrent attempts to reconcile Islamic and Western traditions . . . these attempts at syncretic fusion between Islam and the West have never been entirely successful: agreement by the parties actually trades away what is vital to each side. The resulting consensus is bland and unconvincing.*****"

This prompts Ignatieff, however, to resist the Islamic challenge and to defend those Western human rights standards that rest upon negative freedoms. He condemns the *****"Western reaction to the Islamic challenge*****" that he calls *****"equally ill-conceived,*****" a form of *****"cultural relativism*****" that he argues *****"concedes too much.*****"

4. Making the Case

Drawing on the reading make a case for or against a minimalist approach to human rights and a defense of human rights as primarily aimed at protecting human agency as opposed to full conception of human dignity as conceived by others such as Henry Shue in BASIC RIGHTSand James Nickel in MAKING SENSE OF HUMAN RIGHTS, to name but two.

The strongest advocate from the reading for a two-pronged approach to human rights, to a defense of subsistence rights alongside rights of liberty is the argument put forward by Henry Shue in his book on BASIC RIGHTS As he argues, *****"the same reasoning that justifies treating security and liberty as basic rights also supports treating subsistence as a basic right.*****" As he goes on to say, *****"The parallel is especially important . . . because the defenders of liberty usually neglect subsistence and the defenders of subsistence often neglect liberty.*****" What is your view? Are you drawn to the *****"minimalist*****" solution? If so, why? If not, why not?

5. Negative and Positive Rights

And what about Shue*****'s view and his placing certain basic *****"positive*****" rights on the same footing as *****"negative*****" rights? Are you sympathetic to his approach? If so, why? If not, why not?

6. The *****"Minimalist*****" Response to the *****"Relativist*****" Challenge

And finally what do you think about Ignatieff*****'s response to the *****"relativist*****" challenge to human rights? Are you convinced? If so, why? If not, why not? Much of the reading in both Global Ethics and Global Justice as well as in Henry Shue*****'s Basic Rights and James Nickel*****'s Making Sense of Human Rights challenge the relativist view of human rights and would, more than likely, take issue, too, with Ignatieff*****'s minimalist response to the relativist challenge. What*****'s your view? What do you think?

GOOD LUCK!

Human Rights Documents and Treaties

African Charter on Human and People*****'s Rights (African Union 1981)

American Convention on Human Rights (OAS 1969)

American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man (OAS 1948)

Charter of the United Nations (1945)

Convention on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (UN 1979)

European Convention for Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1950)

European Social Charter

Genocide Convention (UN 1948)

Protocol of San Salvador (OAS 1988)

Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (UN 1998)

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN 1948)

Human Rights Organizations

African Union

Amnesty International

Doctors without Borders

Human Rights Watch

International Commission of Jurists

International Red Cross

Organization of American States

United Nations

Human Rights Websites

University of Minnesota Human Rights Library

Derechos Human Rights

Human Rights Watch

Amnesty International

Philosophical Considerations

James Nickel, *****"Human Rights.*****"

Leif Wenar, *****"Rights.*****"

Kenneth Campbell, *****"Legal Rights.*****"

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, *****"Consequentialism.*****"

Larry *****, Michael Moore, *****"Deontological Ethics.*****"

Robert Johnsonr, *****"Kant*****'s Moral Philosophy.*****"

Fred D*****'Agostino, *****"Contemporary Approaches to the Social Contract.*****"

Articles from Global Ethics and Justice

Charles R. Beitz, *****"Justice and International Relations*****"

Joseph H. Carens, *****"Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders*****"

***** Miller, *****"The Ethical Significance of Nationality*****"

Robert E. Goodin, *****"What Is So Special about Our Fellow Countrymen?*****"

Thomas Pogge, *****"Cosmopolitanism and Sovereignty*****"

Jeremy Waldron, *****"Special Ties and Natural Duties*****"

Charles R. Beitz, *****"Cosmopolitan Ideals and National Sentiment*****"

Stephen M. Gardiner, *****"The Real Tragedy of the Commons*****"

Thomas Pogge, *****"An Egalitarian Law of Peoples*****"

United Nations Agreements on Human Rights

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

Optional Protocol to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights

Convention Against Torture

Convention Against Genocide

The Geneva Conventions

Convention on the Rights of the Child

Convention on Eliminiation of Discrimination Against Women

Charter of the United Nations

Torture

Michael Levin, *****"The Case for Torture*****"

Seumas Miller, *****"Torture,*****" Stanford Encyclopedia

Henry Shue, *****"Torture,*****" Philosophy & Public Affairs

Torture at Abu Ghraib

THE ABU GHRAIB PHOTOGRAPHS

Photographs of abuse by American soldiers, taken at the Iraqi prison.

TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB by SEYMOUR M. HERSH

American soldiers brutalized Iraqis. How far up does the responsibility go.

CHAIN OF COMMAND by SEYMOUR M. HERSH

How the Department of Defense mishandled the disaster at Abu Ghraib..

THE GRAY ZONE by SEYMOUR M. HERSH

How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib.

HEARTS AND MINDS by ***** REMNICK

The real failures at Abu Ghraib.

UNCONVENTIONAL WAR by HENDRICK HERTZBERG

The consequences of bending the rules of engagement

WHAT HAVE WE DONE? by SUSAN SONTAG

Photographs, Memory and Abu Ghraib.

THE COMING WARS by SEYMOUR M. HERSH

What the Pentagon can now do in secret.

OUTSOURCING TORTURE by ***** MAYER

The secret history of America*****'s *****"extraordinary rendition*****" program.

MICHAEL RATNER

Internationalal Human Rights Lawyer.

CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS

The Center is a non-profit organization dedicated

to protecting and advancing the rights guaranteed by

the U.S. Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights..

THE ROAD TO ABU GHRAIB

Human Rights Watch Report.

HUMAN RIGHTS AND ASIAN VALUES by AMARTYA SEN

Are human rights uniquely Western and an obstacle to economic development?

THE SINGER SOULTION TO WORLD POVERTY & OTHER LINKS

Singer, *****"Famine, Affluence & Morality*****" - PDF File

*****"THE SINGER SOLUTION TO WORLD POVERTY*****"

Garrett Hardin, *****"Life Boat Ethics The Case Against Helping the Poor*****"

*****"Shallow Pond and Envelope STUDY GUIDEE

PETER SINGER*****'S WEB SITE

Onora Nell, *****"Lifeboat Earth*****" - PDF File

Hugh LaFollette and Larry May, *****"Suffer the Little Children*****" in World Hunger and Morality

ed. William Aiken and Hugh LaFollette Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1996

Psychology Today

September 1974, pp.38-43, 124-126.

William Aiken, *****"The *****'Carrying Capacity*****' Equivocation: Reply to Hardin,*****"

Social Theory and Practice, v.6(1), Spring 1980, pp.1-11.

A Visual Display from Paris *****"Six Billion Human Beings

Amartya Sen, *****"Population: Delusion and Reality,*****"September 22, 1994

from his lecture before the United Nations on April 18, 1994

Amartya Sen, *****"Hunger: Old Torments and New Blunders,*****" The Little Magazine,Volume 2. *****

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