Assigned Readings

The Evolution of the Declaration of Rights

The readings put forth for discussion this past week clearly depict the linear historical progression of human rights development from the trivial affairs of medieval feudalism to preventative measures against human rights violations that modern technology has enabled.

I thought that the differentiation of the concepts of rights, freedoms, and law were important distinctions that should be made. Personally, I denote the aforementioned as following:

Rights:  the idealistic, innate properties every human being is entitled to, regardless of any distinction i.e., religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, etc.  While these are entrenched by birth, freedoms enacted by others, granted or external to law, may violate these premises.

Freedoms: based upon the premise that all human beings are free to do what they choose at will; humans are free agents that have the ability of enacting their desires, i.e. freedom of expression, association, choice of religion.

Law: the binding/restricting agent set forth by societal standards to prevent freedoms from impinging upon rights.  It also establishes the consequences for such violations.

While I found each historical document to contain interesting details pertaining to the evolution of human rights, a particular document spoke to me, and appealed specifically to the greater question of the course: “What is the purpose of human rights?”; this document being the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.    While genocide originates as far back as Sparta, it wasn’t until 1948 that the term was defined by the convention, specifically after the atrocities experienced in the Armenian genocide by the Turks in WWI, and more notably, the hallmark of genocide, the Holocaust in WWII.  Nullum crimen sine lege prevented any Nazi’s of being convicted of genocide against Jews in WWII; despite this horrific loophole of the legal system, one would expect with the instatement of such convention, any future acts of genocide would be prevented and furthermore penalized; however, no convictions were made, despite numerous acts of genocide (re: Guatemala, East Timor, Sudan and Darfur) until 1998 when the first conviction was made in regards to the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide.

In class, professor Beasley-Murray said in passing that this convention was the UN’s bread and butter; if it could not prevent mass murder of people, what can it do for human rights?  There is a marked 50 year period throughout which the UN not only failed to prevent genocide, but did nothing to the perpetrators of genocide.  Genocide is not a spontaneous action; it is the result of long-term social, economic, and racial contempt between parties.  This does not arise out of the blue; these are long-felt historical trends and the impending threat of mass murder is easily foreseeable in periods of radicalization.  Furthermore, while there are no concrete consequences for committing the act of genocide, it appears as though the efficacy of conviction by International Court Tribunals is extremely poor.  Take for example the fact that the ICTR overturned the genocide conviction of Protais Zigiranyirazo, the brother in law of Juvenal Habyarimana, the former president of Rwanda during the genocide on the basis of “lack of sufficient evidence.”  While the Convention is undoubtedly supported by all UN member states, its intrinsic worth is questionable at best; I often wonder if this convention is a mere idealistic formality brought forth by the UN to maintain the illusion of a stance against genocide, when in reality efforts of the UN miniscule in concrete situations.